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Apocalypse (With or Without the Zomnies)
Blog posts reflect the views of their authors.
Hilariously and terrifyingly, Romney zombies or “Zomnies” have gone viral, thanks in large part to this video in which director Joss Whedon warns about the “deep rollbacks in health care, education, social services, reproductive rights” of a future Romney presidency “that will guarantee poverty, unemployment, overpopulation, disease, rioting – all crucial elements in creating a nightmare zombie wasteland.”
But even more terrifyingly, if less hilariously, we are facing an increasingly probable global apocalypse. The latest glimpse of that apocalyptic future has been provided by super-storm Sandy. Unfortunately, there seems to be bipartisan agreement in both the US and Canada to ignore the ravages the climate change.
Not only are our leaders refusing to do anything to mitigate climate change, but their pro-drilling, pro-pipeline, pro-fracking policies are actually guaranteed to make future apocalyptic scenarios even worse. As Bill McKibben’s truly “terrifying new math” shows, the only way to avoid a worst-case apocalyptic scenario is for us to leave about 80% of known fossil fuels reserves the ground.
The dirtiest apocalypse fuel is in Canada’s tarsands. Romney wants to pump that sludge post-haste via the Keystone XL pipeline to US refineries. Obama has delayed that process, and seems to have a few concerns about ecologically sensitive areas in the path of the pipeline that could cause a few delays in the oncoming climate Armageddon.
Meanwhile in Canada, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, frustrated by delays to the Keystone XL pipeline, is doing everything possible to transform northern Alberta into Mordor – the blackened and barren core of the global apocalypse. He is simultaneously promoting the Northern Gateway project to pump tarsands goo over the Rockies to the ecologically sensitive BC coast for tanker shipping to China and the Keystone XL pipeline to the US.
The leader of Canada’s official opposition New Democratic Party, Thomas Mulcair, is critical of the Conservative-supported Northern Gateway and Keystone XL projects to pump diluted tarsands bitumen for refining in China and the US. Unfortunately, Mulcair favours refining and burning tarsands at home to fuel a made-in-Canada apocalypse. To repeat, the only scientifically and mathematically viable way to avoid apocalypse is to leave roughly 80% of known carbon reserves in the ground.
While conservatives like Romney and Harper seek to attack and muzzle climate scientists, liberals like Obama and Mulcair are content to simply ignore scientists’ apocalyptic (but very realistic) warnings, giving lip-service to climate change initiatives while continuing to promote the fossil fuel economy.
Ironically, Romney mocks Obama for his feeble attempts to slow the rising of the oceans while Harper’s operatives poke fun at a mythical NDP “job-killing carbon tax.”
So without any real debate on climate change, Canadians and Americans alike are marching like zombies straight into the apocalypse.
David Bernans is a Québec-based writer and translator. Follow him on twitter @dbernans.
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