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Whereas in 1992 , the Union of Concerned Scientists
composed of over 1700 scientists, including a 104 Nobel
Laureates, the most knowledgeable group of people in the
world, stated the following:
"Human beings and the natural world are on a collision
course. Human activities inflict harsh and often
irreversible damage to the environment and on critical
resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put
at serious risk the future that we wish for human society
and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the
living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the
manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we
are to avoid the collision our present course will bring
about." In 1982, at the Rio Earth Summit, Canada promised to
stabilize the net emissions of greenhouse gases at the 1990
level but has been unable to do so - we are now 16% above
the 1990 level.
In 1997, at the Kyota Conference, Canada signed a legally
binding agreement to reduce emissions from the 1990 level by
6% by the year 2012. Canada, therefore, has committed us to
a total emissions reduction of 22%. Yet this is totally
inadequate in that the I.P.C.C. (Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change) calls for a 60% reduction from the 1990
levels to stabilize world wide atmospheric concentrations.
At the present time in Europe the gasoline tax averages
$1.25 per litre. In Canada, we pay approximately 25 cents
per litre. Only in North America is gasoline cheaper than at
any other time in history relative to inflation. In fact,
gas is now cheaper than bottled water. We drive three times
as far as Europeans do and we increasingly drive bigger and
heavier cars. (48% of the market this year was is sports
utility vehicles or vans which use from 10 to 11.4 litres
per 100 km.). In contrast, Europeans drive smaller and
lighter cars which consume approximately 5 litres of gas per
100 km. As Europeans have been willing to be taxed this
amount to protect the environment, why would not Canadian be
willing to do likewise?
Therefore the Unitarian Church of Vancouver urges all
levels of Canadian governments to add an additional fuel tax
of fifteen cents per litre per year for the next five years.
This would result in a total fuel tax increase of
seventy-five cents per litre by the year 2005 which would
bring the cost of gasoline up to the European level.
We are proposing that there be no increase in taxes
overall and that these tax revenues allow the Government to
cancel the G.S.T. and other taxes. Thus, this increased
gasoline tax , which is a user-pay consumption tax, is
merely a swap for the more general user-pay consumption tax
of the G.S.T. Riders of buses, bikes, walkers, etc. would
pay no tax. Drivers of small cars and people car pooling
would pay less tax because they would be using less
gasoline.
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APPENDIX
The world is rapidly warming up; the eleven hottest years
on record have occurred since 1987. The national average
temperature for the first eight months of 1998 was 2.7
degrees Celsius above normal, with the Northern part of the
Northwest Territories experiencing temperature increases
greater than 5 degrees. The worst storms Canada has ever
experienced - the ice storm and the Red River flood - have
occurred in the past three years. Similar severe storms,
floods, droughts, etc. are occurring all over the world.
Glaciers are receding at record rates with resulting rises
in sea levels. Low-Iying areas in B. C., particularly
Richmond and Delta, are threatened.
The I.P.C.C. has stated that climate change is likely to
have wide-ranging and most adverse impacts on human health
with significant loss of life. A medical panel in B.C. this
fall stated that children and the aged are particularly at
risk due to air pollutants. Estimates are that asthma in
Canada will rise about 30%.
The amount of C02 in the atmosphere has increased from
280 to 365 ppm and is still increasing at an ever-rising
rate to match the ever-rising rate of industrialization all
over the world. This present rate of expansion cannot
possibly go on much longer. Humans have consumed more energy
in the last fifty years than have all other previous
generations. Maintenance or restoration of ecosystems must
take priority over endless economic expansion. As the David
Suzuki Foundation's Declaration of Independence states, "We
are but one brief generation in the long march of time, the
future is not ours to erase." Canadians are the world's
greatest consumers per capita of fossil fuels. There is an
unstoppable momentum all over the world for the same basic
good life that we enjoy ; but the biosphere cannot
accommodate all the pollutants that would result from this
world-wide increase in industrialization. One immediate
solution to reduce our fuel consumption is to raise gasoline
prices. This has happened before, for during the rapid
increase in fuel prices from 1979-1984, we decreased our
fuel consumption by 4.5% per year. The longer we
procrastinate the greater the costs will be, ecologically
and monetarily.
We in the First World created the present problems in
climate change, and it is our responsibility to find the
solutions North Americans emit on average 5.4 tonnes of C02
per capita into the atmosphere, while Europeans emit 2.6
tonnes, Chinese emit 0.7 tonnes, India emits 0.3 tonnes.
Most of the world's scientists agree that irreversible
damage will have occurred to our Earth by 2050, if not
sooner, unless we rapidly change our habits and reduce our
greenhouse emissions.
One of the environmental principles of our Church states,
"The heath of our economy and our society are dependent upon
the quality of our environment. We no longer have the luxury
of "trading off ecological damage for economic benefits if
we hope to have a sustainable future." To quote Phillip
Hewett," we have lost the ability to distinguish between
greed and need. We know what needs to be done, but lack the
will to do it."
Father Thomas Berry a world renowned environmentalist
writes, "suddenly we awaken to the devastation that has
resulted from our actions" I quote again from the report of
the World Scientists Warning to Humanity, "No more than one
or a few decades remain before the chance to avert the
threats we now confront will be lost and the prospects for
humanity immeasurably diminished." To accomplish this
paradigm shift in our thinking we must have a renewed
spiritual, ethical renewal. It is to be hoped that all
individuals, including CEO's of the automobile and fossil
fuel industries will respond when appeals are made to their
moral ethical natures. As Thomas Berry says we need a new
story, a new myth explaining man's relationship with the
environment- to our air, our water, our beloved earth.
Seeing ourselves as the problem is a necessary step, but we
must not ever give up on hope. As Phillip Hewett states,
"what we need is what, at their best, the religions of the
world have always provided in the past- the spiritual
underpinnings for effective action." Effective action
demands that we place the environment first - in our
churches, our communities, and in our private lives.
Aboriginal beliefs and
most Eastern religions view the earth (soil), the air, the
water, and the sun (fire) as an integral part of Creation
and therefore sacred. One of our Church beliefs is that
humankind is but one strand in the web of existence. If we
truly believed the above then every time we drive our cars
we would be conscious that we are despoiling our Earth. If
we can but visualize ourselves as co-creators of the
Universe we must of necessity change our ways. We can begin
by becoming more conscious of our relationship to the
automobile. Each gallon of gas that the car consumes
releases about eight pounds of C02, plus many other noxious
pollutants into the atmosphere. Greater Los Angeles, which
has a population of 12 million people, also has nine million
cars - with the resulting smog and traffic tie-ups. We, in
Canada, generally follow their lead.
Compare Holland with the Lower Mainland which have
comparable densities of population. Holland is a land of
bicycles and efficient rail services. Our area has cars
bumper to bumper, slowly grinding their way along, producing
toxic pollutants which are dangerous to our health. Cars
kill more of us, directly and indirectly, than any other
factor in our lives other than smoking. We are finally
beginning to win the PR battle over cigarettes - can we
begin to see the similarities between the auto and cigarette
manufacturers - both being responsible for obnoxious
emissions that are poisoning our environment?
Only in the very recent times has the delusion arisen
that humanity can flourish apart from the rest of the living
world. A society built on the assumption of endless growth,
and on the liquidation of our natural resources is bound to
collapse. Yet in our global economy the natural world (the
world that provides the air we breath, the water we drink,
the food we eat) has little importance in our actions.
The future of the earth as we know it is now in our
hands-something that has happened with incredible rapidity.
Even in my lifetime, we assumed that the resources of the
earth were limitless, and we weren't aware of the
limitations of the earth to absorb our toxic wastes. Only
when we have grasped these facts, that we are now despoiling
our lovely earthly home, will we respond quickly and
decisively. This is the fundamental sacred, religious, moral
issue of our times. Roderick Haig-Brown states that any
generation of men can only have a lease, not ownership of
the Earth. We need to develop rules of self-limitation, to
walk lightly on the planet. Unfortunately we are devoted to
our consumerism, to our materialistic Heaven, and have made
only insignificant changes to date. When we understand the
difference between needs and wants, we will lead healthier
happier lives.
Our short term economic goals completely dominate our
long term ecological perspective. Most of us are living in a
state of denial. We were hardly aware of these unprecedented
disasters sneaking up on us, and now can hardly face up to
the seriousness of our unintended actions. We need new
visions, new dreams, new goals to satisfy the soul. Let us
now replace our present economic Gods with renewed spiritual
ones. Many people would welcome an eleventh commandment
which would read; "The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness
thereof, thou shalt not despoil the Earth nor the Life
thereon, "We accept as our ultimate obligation the
responsibility for passing on to our descendants a world as
beautiful and as productive as that which has been
momentarily ours. As the Earth Charter developed in Rio so
beautifully states,"We must preserve a strong faith in the
possibilities of the human spirit, and a deep sense of
belonging to the universe. We must respect and care for the
Earth and all of life. We must live sustainably, and not do
to the environment of others, what we do not want done to
our environment."
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