Working in the electricity transmission and distribution industry makes me what I consider one of the luckiest people that I know. My son-in-law is a lineman for a large utility in one of Canada’s Maritime Provinces and my son is an electrician working in residential, commercial, and industrial sectors in and around Toronto. On rare occasions each of them grumbles about the job and I’m quick to remind them are working in one of the best industries on this planet.

With this in mind and as global populations struggle to get out from under the spectre of burning fossil fuels to create energy, there is no shortage of naysayers, doomsday prophets, fear mongers, NIMBYists, and others hard at work trying to debunk the fact that climate change and global warming are here. I don’t profess to have all of the answers concerning these phenomena but I’m certainly not in a vacuum, nor am I incapable of reading the results scientists and other experts are grinding out and understanding the ramifications of ‘what if?’

I recently came across a Facebook presentation that I found at once funny, shameful, frightening, and close to the truth. The piece airs with three serious looking people presenting themselves as executives working for the Australian Coal Mining Company extolling their 2014 Climate Policy Update. Each makes several comments to a seeming off-camera interviewer about how their firm is dealing with the effects of their daily activities, which include, amongst others, pumping tonnes of damaging carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Shot as head and shoulders against a plain background and sporting the most serious of demeanours the two men and one woman officiously explain, in no uncertain terms, how their company deals simply and effectively with two sides of a rancorous argument.

Tim Buckley: As a company, we have an absolute commitment to the principle of action on climate change. We’re very proud of our values.

Birgit Eichman: But as one of the major contributors to CO₂ emissions, and as we begin to contend with the real-world effects of climate change, we have to prepare ourselves for the next step in addressing our corporate responsibilities in this area.

Rob Dean: While the steps on the surface seem to be in opposition to our self-interest, the reality is, however, that they are actually in opposition to our self-interest.

Birgit Eichman: So we’ve recognized what we call ‘the gap.’

Rob Dean: ‘The gap’ is the problem of simultaneously holding two contradictory positions.

Tim Buckley: On one hand, to act on our responsibility to humanity, but on the other hand, to deliver on our commitment to superior value for our shareholders.

Rob Dean: We needed to take a leap of faith.

Birgit Eichman: An intuitive step outside of the limitations of science-based argument.

Tim Buckley: I am proud to announce the company’s new policy of ‘f**k you.’ ‘F**k you’ is more than a policy. It’s a philosophy where we are able to straddle the dichotomy between what we know is true and how we can benefit by ignoring that truth.

Rob Dean: ‘F**k you’ means we can be passionate about our values, but not act on them.

Birgit Eichman: ‘F**k you’ takes what would be our present-day financial burden away from us and transforms it into a chronic, economic, social, cultural, and political crisis for future generations.

Tim Buckley: The genius of this, however, is that we transferred it away from us.

Birgit Eichman: It ensures solid returns to our shareholders by killing their grandchildren.

Rob Dean: With this policy, we delay action and leverage the gap, and are able to maintain our role as a global leader in destroying the planet.

Tim Buckley: Ultimately, this is a reflection of the values of our shareholders. Every day Australians have chosen to invest $20 billion into the company, but we prefer to think of it as 20 billion ‘f**k yous’ to the Australians of tomorrow.

Rob Dean: There will come a day when my moral choices will no longer be beholden to the shareholders, and a wave of profound regret and a sorrow will engulf me as I realize with painful clarity the enormity of the damage I have perpetrated upon humanity. And even if I plea with whoever has succeeded my role in the company to stop putting CO₂ in the air for the sake of my daughter’s grandchildren, he or she can turn to me and simply respond with ‘f**k you.’ And that legacy really does make me very proud.¹

Yes, as you can imagine, this corporate ad is fake. It is three and one half minutes of the best, most poignant jabs at how many of the planet’s inhabitants are treating the giver of life that I’ve seen in a long while.

In an exactly the same, only different vein, I live in a region that is overrun with the NIMBY and BANANA crowd. They are fighting tooth-and-nail to prevent wind turbines from being built offshore in Lake Ontario claiming their view of the lake will be forever marred by these malicious monstrosities. I know their area well and I am at a dead loss as to how 60 metre towers, sitting two to three kilometres offshore, 500 metres apart would be the ruination of anyone’s view.

We are also fortunate in having an international airport, albeit small, sitting on our harbour front. It’s a gateway to one of the busiest and hottest metropolitan markets in North America. Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport (BBTCA) easily and conveniently services the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The three resident major airlines, each operating fleets of quiet Short Take-off and Landing (STOL) aircraft, serve much of the continent and generate billions of dollars for city coffers. As I write this, the main airport tenant, a very successful airline, is petitioning the city to extend the existing runway by 400 metres to accommodate new-gen commuter ‘whisper’ jets. Use of jets is currently forbidden at the aerodrome as earlier versions do not meet Toronto’s noise bylaw. The new ones do, with room to spare.

Again, the NIMBY crowd in the immediate area are on guard claiming the excess noise will totally ruin their way of life. I find it odd that the airport was an integral part of Toronto’s hub long before any housing was ever built in the area. Yet the arguments continue as if the knowledge of the airport was somehow foist unseen upon the grousers. I should let you know that in light of the potential increase in commerce, our infamous Mayor is fully in favour of seeing the BBTCA expansion go through.

Let’s look at noise in relative terms as an offense to the senses. One summer evening I was enjoying the peace and quiet of the lake whilst sitting on the beach reading my book. About 500 metres offshore a rather clapped out cabin cruiser about 10 metres in length was heading due west, parallel to the shore where I was. This was probably the loudest engine noise I have ever heard belting out of a vessel afloat. I know of what I speak as an owner of a fairly large twin-engine FB cruiser. This deafening drone was an affront to me, creeping along at a few knots, totally destroying my enjoyment. The beach in Toronto extends over four kilometres west from where I was and I heard that flaming contraption well beyond that point. I wonder how many NIMBYites lodged complaints with Toronto City Council about their evening being so noisily disrupted or their view of the lake ruined by this old boat. For your information, during that 40 minutes or so, at least six STOL airliners landed or took-off at BBTCA, that sits just beyond where I could still hear the bucket of noise. If one didn’t look up, one would have missed the quiet airliners as they went about the business of serving our fair city.

If global warming and the threat of calamitous results from climate change weren’t so real, would there be a need for well-done parodies to surface. Have we arrived at that point whereby the solution discovered by the Australian Coal Mining Company draws a crowd? Is there a chance the naysayers might win? I don’t want to think so but unless we learn to manage this demon I fear I should be preparing for the worst.
 

¹ The piece is on the Upworthy site presented by Adam Mordecai. I really must thank him for posting it.