May 2022

Right relations for past life means respecting the fossilized remains of plants and animals  – this is climate action at its core. We’ve been getting drunk on fossil fuels for a while now, and the energy return on investment is dwindling. For every barrel of energy used to extract oil from the Alberta tar sands in 2010, producers got back four times their energy investment (which excludes an analysis of ‘energy’ required to reclaim contaminated water and land). Compare that to the 1930’s in Texas where this ratio was 100:1 (Homer-Dixon, 2010). Fast forward to 2022, and people are feeling the higher cost of oil production in a global market strife with uncertainty brought about by war and a myriad of climate induced impacts – fire, floods, droughts etc. Our relationship with fossilized plants and animals is being felt acutely with BC gas prices peaking at 2.279/l as of May 14, 2022. Since money is an expression of energy and conventional oil provides about 95% of the world’s transportation energy (Homer-Dixon, 2010), will the escalating cost of oil offer the leverage point required to shift how we move people, goods, and services? Despite targets and initiatives to reduce GHG emissions in BC’s transportation sector, as of 2019 emissions have increased 22% since 2007 levels and makes up 39% of BC’s total GHG emissions (Government of BC, 2021). A transdisciplinary climate leader would deconstruct and reframe this ominous challenge as an opportunity and prompt for possibilities (Corman & Cox, 2020). What other fields of study, areas of expertise need to be included in this dialogue? Or is it a matter of going back to the people, ordinary people, once again, to inspire involvement, innovation and collaborative engagement (Gram‑Hanssen, 2021)?

How can a climate leader move the dial on reducing transportation emissions? Do we all collectively need more information to make informed decisions? Is number crunching the answer? What is the carbon “calories” of driving a 99 Toyota 4runner to the store verses taking transit, verses cycling, verses not consuming the stuff from the store? Carbon labelling, much like a nutritional label, could be a very useful tool for informing humans (to make rational decisions so we don’t collectively perish like fruit flies that have exceeded their carrying capacity). As a society, we did a very good job of educating the public about calories in the form of fat, protein, and carbs. Would energy accounting for every action or product, like a nutritional label, but more comprehensive change how we relate to life on earth? If it were known that driving XX km to the store consumed XX fossilized relatives and emitted XX emissions for present relatives resulting in XX impacts for future relatives make a difference in behavior?

Climate leadership is creative, courageous, communication that informs, warns, persuades and mobilizes. The end goal is to put climate leaders out of a job once the values of right relations with the interconnectedness of life become embedded in human ways of being. That’s all we have to do right?

References

Corman, I., & Cox, R. (2020). Transdisciplinarity: A Primer. Royal Roads University.

Gram-Hanssen, I., Schafenacker, N., & Bentz, J. (2022). Decolonizing transformations through ‘right relations’. Sustainability Science, 17(2), 673-685.

Government of BC. (2021). CleanBC 2021 Climate Change Accountability Report.

Homer-Dixon, T. (2010). Complexity science and public policy. New Directions Series, 11, 7-19.