A polluted derision decision

Pollution is a near and immediate problem, just not quite visible yet.

Andrew Terefenko

Opinions Editor

“So long, and thanks for all the breaths.” Canadians, get used to adding this phrase to your daily diction in a decade, if this dastardly decision is not dismantled.

Environment Canada is pulling scientists away from monitoring the air pollution in various regions of Canada. They claim it is to assign them to “other priorities,” which are unnamed, but given that last year EC feared that as many as 700 jobs would be affected by budget cuts, those other priorities are likely more financially suitable for the organization. It’s a bad omen to consider any priorities higher than those of clean, breathable air.

This move did not come without criticism, of course, as many global environment research leaders strongly discouraged EC from going forward with this plan, but to no avail.

This move might very well knock Canada off it’s perch as a forerunner in environmental research, given our country’s diverse ecology and relatively low levels of smog, among major world capitals.

In addition to losing valuable smog-fighting manpower, EC has also shut down five of six total light ranging stations across Canada that have been integral to evaluating the damage done by airborne fossil fuel emissions. It is outrageous to think that facilities that exist solely the further the greater health of the Canadian populace are lying dormant across Canada, with easily operated equipment gathering dust at the cost of our successors’ livelihoods.

If you want a window into tomorrow’s Canada in this grey new world, look no further than the media’s smog staple, Beijing. Just under a year ago, Beijing air pollution was far above standard measurable levels, and citizens were urged to stay indoors, as even an hour outside would be a severe health risk. It is an example of a city that decided to fight air pollution only once it was a readily visible and immediate problem, and given that the city boasts an average of two days a week of blue skies, the fight was started a little too late.

This is the dilemma that I feel our nation is facing. We are reprioritizing the problem of pollution because it is not in our faces, screwing with our 2012 daily routine, which seems to be a requirement for meaningful popular support.

Worst yet is that we do not know what Environment Canada’s plan is moving forward. We have yet to hear what these “other priorities” are, which might help in defending their universally detestable decision. Their spokesman has also come forward to assure the world that EC will “still [provide] world class analysis,” which seems like a tall order for a recently downsized organization with less manpower in the field after today.

What is truly incomprehensible is the theory that these scientists have been relocated to the oil sands and other potential fuel-bearing regions as a measure in bolstering Canada’s export economy and evaluating the risk of environmental damage caused by new drilling maneuvers. Would that not be contributing to the problem instead of remedying it?

We have more immediate problems; that much I can comprehend. There is a global financial crisis that we are obligated to tread about carefully. There is ongoing strife in the Middle East that we are expected to combat. There are twenty thousand metric Rob Fords of garbage that have no place to go while we pad the ground with it. No doubt additional problems will surface while those persist, as is their tendency. But there will always be other problems. Now is not the time to shelve the importance of our gaseous lifeline.

We breathe what we sow, and at the moment the seeds we are spreading are awfully grey.