Halifax Harbour
The news is, that if I wanted to, I could for the first time in a generation take a swim in the Halifax Harbour, assuming I had sufficient insulation to brave the 10 degree Celsius chill. The detritus, fecal and otherwise, that has flowed into the harbour in gargantuan proportions for decades, is now filtered and extracted from the Haligonian water dicharge and what remains is benign and cleaner than it has ever been. And in July, once the Dartmouth sewage facility comes on line, it will be cleaner yet. Wonderful news all, and about bloody time! In the twenty years I have lived in Halifax and watched with disgust the city discharge untreated waste into the waters that surround us, I have often wondered about our priorities. How is it that it took so long? And now that we have done it, we trumpet how much better it will be for tourism and that the visitors with fat wallets will not be offended. But I wonder, why is it without an immediate money benefit, we rarely do anything because it is just better, the right thing to do. It appears that only in the guise of good business are we motivated to clean up after ourselves and stop using the environment as a waste bucket. Don’t get me wrong, I am the first to applaud the efforts of the city to clean the stench and filth that gagged us all on the waterfront, but isn’t that the issue these days? Isn’t it “the can’t afford to clean up” mentality what is holding us back on what is turning out to be the major issue of the times, climate change. The “can’t afford to slow the economy, or lose jobs, or slow down industry” lobby is spewing its ecological invective into the general stream of understanding and gumming up the what should be obvious to even the most mired in the mud diplodicus. A clean harbour is a good thing to behold and goodness knows, my nose will appreciate the break, but what about the issue that is steamrolling its way along while we dither. If the harbour stayed filthy for another decade, we could hold our collective noses, but other than that be none the worse for wear. Maybe a few cruise ship occupants would wax eloquent about the funny brown fuzzy floaters in the water while wandering the foot of the hoi-paloi Spring Garden Road and a few sales would be missed.
However, if we do nothing about carbon emissions, which we appear to be well on our way to doing, we will close a window, a door of enormous opportunity and free fall our way to a dystopian future. Never mind the lost jobs, the slowing of industry, the cost. They will pale in the face of invasive species, new diseases, more devastating storms, higher water levels, erratic weather patterns, species extinction and the refugees from around the world. Clean up the harbour, and good for you, but don’t let that make you lose sight of a much larger and more dangerous challenge that sits before us all. Every time you start your lawnmower, car or jack up the air conditioner, think flush, harbour and waste without the stench and the obvious brown floaters. The time to stop flushing away our future is now.