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Our obsession with private automobiles is unsustainable

We're starting to think differently about urban design that is less car-centric (Credit: Kyle Gradinger/BCGP via Flickr)

By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola

Are we driving ourselves into oblivion? Or will new automobile technology save us from the environmental impact of the fossil-fuelled tanks we use to get around?

On the extreme end of the consequences of our auto-centric societies, we need only to look at the recent massive traffic jam in China that stretched for 100 kilometres and lasted almost two weeks. Apparently it's becoming a common occurrence in China, where use of the private automobile and truck transport are increasing.

On the brighter side, automobile technology has improved a lot over the past few years, partly in response to stricter fuel-emissions standards in countries including Canada and the U.S. But is it enough? We've had commercially available hybrid cars now for more than a decade, but they still use fossil fuels. Electric-car technology is picking up, but it doesn't resolve all of the issues, especially as the electricity still must come from somewhere, and in many places, that means coal-fired power plants. Car manufacturing is also energy-intensive.

To resolve some of these issues, an Alberta company has developed an electric car made out of hemp fibre. Beyond reductions in fossil-fuel use to power the car, the materials used to manufacture it are also more sustainable. Hemp grows easily outdoors…

Weak government policies, not our climate or geography, account for Canada's poor environmental performance

If Canada’s environmental policies were strengthened to the level in other developed countries such as Sweden and Norway, Canada’s environmental ranking would move from almost dead last to first place. Wolfgang Staudt

The research shows that if Canada's environmental policies were strengthened to the level in other developed countries such as Sweden and Norway, Canada's environmental ranking would move from almost dead last to first place.

That Canada has one of the poorest environmental performance records of any developed country is, sadly, no longer news. What is newsworthy is that it's not our cold climate or long geographic distances that lie behind Canada's poor environmental record, it's merely weak government policies.

It turns out that the federal government and others have been somewhat misguided in justifying Canada's poor environmental performance on the basis that, as Minister Prentice recently put it, "we are a northern country, spread out across vast distances".

A recently released study by Simon Fraser University and the David Suzuki Foundation confirms that Canada has the second worst environmental record of any developed OECD country, ranking 24th out of 25. Only the United States ranks lower. The top ranked countries are Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. (As an interesting aside, Sweden and Denmark simultaneously topped Canada in the World Economic Forum's Global Competiveness Index, finishing 4th and 5th to Canada's 9th place finish. This clearly belies the notion that effective environmental and economic policies are somehow incompatible.)

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Biomimicry: Nature's brilliance offers hope for sustainable future

By David Suzuki with Faisal Moola

Sometimes a new science emerges that not only offers hope for our continued survival as a species but that also makes obvious how little we have really learned in our relatively brief time on Earth.

In the past, it took centuries or even millennia to fully exploit a technological breakthrough, but modern technology, fuelled by cheap energy, exploded in the 20th century. Machinery driven by fossil fuels has amplified our muscle power to a point where we are altering the physical, chemical, and biological features of the planet on an unprecedented scale. Some scientists have even proposed calling this the Anthropocene epoch, a time when human beings have become a geological force.

We're starting to realize, though, that while our technologies are powerful our sense of control is often illusory; the application of brute power to bludgeon nature into apparent submission often has unexpected costs. Examples of the negative consequences of our great innovations are numerous: the pesticide DDT, splitting the atom, chlorofluorocarbons, phosphate fertilizers, and, of course, harnessing the energy of fossil fuels.

What can we learn?

To start, we must realize that we are a part of nature and that nature has a lot to teach us. I was reminded of this by a recent feature in Toronto's Now weekly newspaper about biomimicry. I've been fascinated by this subject ever since I came across the…