Image Credit: City of Kamloops council stream (council’s vote on Singh’s climate change motion)

By Mel Rothenburger

ARMCHAIR MAYOR

ROTHENBURGER: City council’s toughest choice – green or growth

Jul 6, 2019 | 12:13 AM

SELDOM HAS AN ISSUE been so starkly defined within the walls of Kamloops City Hall as during council’s climate change debate.

And never before have we heard Coun. Arjun Singh speak so articulately and passionately as he did when he proposed his motion to set strict targets for meeting anti-climate change goals.

The choice is this: green or growth.

The 8-1 vote in favour of Singh’s motion doesn’t reflect the divergence of opinion on the issue.

Singh made it clear he understands that green involves pain but insists it’s necessary and “not negotiable.” Mayor Ken Christian, on the other hand, is onside with green as long as it isn’t at the expense of growth.

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Singh’s two-part motion resolves to set a goal for reducing community greenhouse gas emissions “in line with Kamloops’ portion of global efforts to keep global temperature rise to 1.5C” and to “mandate” staff to outline actions to get there.

Keeping temperature rise to within 1.5 degrees is what scientists now believe would give Earth a fighting chance.

The “mandate” word worried Coun. Dieter Dudy, whose proposal to change the word to “encourage” caused some angst until staff pointed out the motion only mandates proposals for actions, not the achievement of targets.

Coun. Bill Sarai expressed support for Singh’s sentiment but preferred the feds do it rather than create “a patchwork.” Coun. Mike O’Reilly worried about “fiscal responsibility.”

But it all came down to green vs. growth and “bold” leadership.

Singh: “What I’m worried about is we’ll be fiddling and Rome will be burning and, actually, Kamloops and the region has been burning…. The planet’s not going to care if we build on what we’ve done already, the planet says there’s a hard goal…. I’m kind of a lover not a fighter but I’ve got to understand as an elected official this is not negotiable… We have to set a goal and try to reach it. That’s going to secure our economic future, our social fabric as well as our environment.”

Christian: “If this is a choice between green or growth I’m gonna go with growth because it’s only through growth and the available tax incentive and tax allotment that we’re actually able to do some of the things like buy EV cars or any of the other things that we’ve put forward….”

There you have it — the eternal struggle. The environment versus jobs and amenities. Pipelines or whales. Emergency action versus slow transition.

It would be a mistake to think Christian doesn’t care about the environment but his comments are pretty clear: work on climate change but growth must continue.

So can’t we have both? Maybe, but at some point a choice has to be made. And growth, sacred growth, is a daunting opponent. Politicians in general have vision that extends as far as their term in office. Growth brings immediate satisfaction.

To quote none other than the Armchair Mayor, “When will we have enough big-box stores, coffee shops and drive-through restaurants? Is there a quota?” I wrote those words in a column in February 2017.

To quote myself further, “We’re caught in a never-ending quest to build more so we can get more. We put more pipelines in the ground to get more oil to somebody on the other side of the world who wasn’t around 20 or 30 years ago but now needs gas for his car and petroleum

products for just about everything in the house. We dig massive holes in the ground to find the metals to build those cars and turn into cellphones and electrical cables. We cut down our forests to construct the houses needed in the cities that are hell-bent on getting bigger.

“We worship at the altar of growth. Ask any economic developer. We see it as the way to prosperity and getting all those swimming pools and hair salons and decaf lattes we think we need.”

Yes, we see growth as necessary and good. But it’s also at the root of many of our problems. It increases the tax base but requires ever-expanding infrastructure and services, bigger landfills, and more asphalt. It creates more biosolids, burns more power and more fossil fuels.

We change the land and the air, we create ever more C02 and methane, and greenhouse gases increase.

Sooner or later, something will have to give. Clinging to the notion that “we can have both” is politically convenient but on a given day, choices will have to be made that involve money. That will be the acid test for political will.

Singh’s words remind me of those of Greta Thunberg, the originator of the global students’ strike for climate action. “I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.”

An open letter from a group of students co-ordinating the day of action put it this way: “We finally need to treat the climate crisis as a crisis. It is the biggest threat in human history and we will not accept the world’s decision-makers’ inaction that threatens our entire civilization…. We demand the world’s decision-makers take responsibility and solve this crisis.”

In the end, only O’Reilly voted against Singh’s motion but that’s only the beginning. There will have to be many more debates and council will have to choose time and time again. There will be days when council will have to say, “Sorry, growth, not today. You don’t fit.”

Singh is getting a good response to his motion but he’ll be hearing from detractors, too. I hope he doesn’t compromise. This could be the most important thing he’ll ever do as a City councillor.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and newspaper editor. He publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.