Reflections, Observations, and Analyses Pertaining to the Canadian Political Scene
Wednesday, July 27, 2016
Our Arrogance Knows No Limits
Not even the most powerful water canons in the world would seem able to tame the fires of our collective arrogance, self-indulgence, bloated lifestyles and sense of entitlement. Look where they have gotten us:
Hmm, uh, what's your point? It's beginning to resemble one of those scenes in an old boxing movie where it takes 20 punches to KO the guy and we're already at number 12. The thing is how poorly we understand our resilience to the combined impacts of both cyclical and sustained severe weather events.
As we've seen, Britain now endures repeated bouts of flash flooding. Rivers overflow their banks, inundating beautiful buildings centuries old constructed to meet climate conditions that no longer obtain. Each successive flood weakens these grand old buildings and brings them nearer to inevitable condemnation and demolition.
In the past governments intervened with disaster relief programmes but they're costly and suited to real "once in a century" catastrophes that are now arriving every five or ten years. When the once remarkable becomes commonplace the old model of disaster relief becomes unviable. What then?
How are we to balance adaptation versus mitigation funding when low tax/no tax governments stand defunded? If you can't afford to fund both, political reality shifts priority to adaptation at the expense of mitigation programmes that will only begin paying off in the future. It becomes an exercise in tail chasing.
A more apt description of the futility that seems to inform our lives today I cannot think of, Mound. As I have mentioned before, I really see little prospect of our long-term viability as a thriving species.
Like Dante, Lorne, we are looking into the Inferno. And, yet, we think it's just a passing phase.
ReplyDeleteWith each passing day, Owen, I grow more and more pessimistic.
DeleteHmm, uh, what's your point? It's beginning to resemble one of those scenes in an old boxing movie where it takes 20 punches to KO the guy and we're already at number 12. The thing is how poorly we understand our resilience to the combined impacts of both cyclical and sustained severe weather events.
ReplyDeleteAs we've seen, Britain now endures repeated bouts of flash flooding. Rivers overflow their banks, inundating beautiful buildings centuries old constructed to meet climate conditions that no longer obtain. Each successive flood weakens these grand old buildings and brings them nearer to inevitable condemnation and demolition.
In the past governments intervened with disaster relief programmes but they're costly and suited to real "once in a century" catastrophes that are now arriving every five or ten years. When the once remarkable becomes commonplace the old model of disaster relief becomes unviable. What then?
How are we to balance adaptation versus mitigation funding when low tax/no tax governments stand defunded? If you can't afford to fund both, political reality shifts priority to adaptation at the expense of mitigation programmes that will only begin paying off in the future. It becomes an exercise in tail chasing.
A more apt description of the futility that seems to inform our lives today I cannot think of, Mound. As I have mentioned before, I really see little prospect of our long-term viability as a thriving species.
Delete