Media Clipping — Saturday February 23, 2008, The Chronicale Herald

Looking (very hard) for progress

By Jim Meek

Looking (very hard) for progress

"Supplying our wants by lopping off our desires is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes."

So said Jonathan Swift, a satirist whose wit could never quite subdue his misanthropy.

Old Swift came back to me this week, when I read the latest report from GPI Atlantic - the organization that measures "genuine progress."

The new report - "How Educated are Nova Scotians" - hardly sings a hymn of praise to the province or its people.

It says that we express concern about the environment, but don't want to give up cars or pay extra taxes to protect it.

The better educated we are, the more resources we gobble up - or the bigger our "ecological footprint," if you prefer eco-babble to English.

And if everyone consumed resources at a Canadian's pace, we'd need three more Earths just to keep this one going.

I picked up these uplifting tidbits at a press conference hosted by Ron Colman, the sustainable development guru.

As head of GPI Atlantic, Colman's been trying to change the way Nova Scotians see the world - and measure their worth - for more than a decade now.

And yes, he has enjoyed success.

Most of us now understand, for instance, that progress cannot be measured by economic growth alone.

Here's one of Colman's examples: If we harvest every tree in the forest this year, our GDP for 2008 will soar. The problem is that deforestation would degrade soil, cause massive erosion into waterways, and wipe out the lumber and paper industries for 50 years.

Oh well.

GPI Atlantic, then, has helped refocus the public debate.

And even staid institutions like the OECD now look at indices that measure genuine happiness - and attachment to community - when trying to define "progress."

Unfortunately, GPI's new report suggests that these ideas have hit the brick wall of human nature.

As Swift suggested a few centuries back, none of us wants to give up a darned thing - even in the name of progress. Or pay a carbon tax for a greener world, either.

Everywhere you look in the new GPI report, you find more of the same.

The elite sustain themselves through the education system, where their children fare better than poor kids.

The kids themselves are political illiterates who need a civics lesson.

Few people under 35 understand politics, and fewer care.

Still, I resist the onslaught of pessimism. Here are my reasons.

First, my unscientific poll of university students I've taught over the past decade doesn't uncover the indifferent citizens described in the report.

Sure, they've lost faith in the ability of our politicians to solve problems - like native poverty in Canada, for instance. But they write passionately about these issues without reference to standard political solutions.

In fact, I suspect they are waiting for a Canadian Barack Obama to rekindle interest in what we used to call the democratic process.

Second, you can get Nova Scotians to support green taxes if they are universally applied.

That's one thing that three years of working in the polling business taught me.

Yes, when Nova Scotia Power tried to get people to voluntarily pay a premium to promote green power, people balked - to say the least.

The reason: No one wanted to be a sucker - the one guy on the block to pony up for the environment.

But we'd pay what I'll call a communal tax for a greener world.

Here's my final reason for optimism.

Savvy thinkers like William McDonough, author of Cradle to Cradle, believe we can sustain prosperity by designing smarter cities and recycling everything.

Nowadays, this is the great corporate theme - green is not the opposite of abundant. Terry Leahy, who runs the giant British retailer Tesco, summed up this idea in a speech delivered last year. (He is quoted in the current issue of the New Yorker magazine.)

"It (the challenge) is to take an economy where human comfort, activity and growth are inextricably linked with emitting carbon and to transform it into one which can thrive without depending on carbon."

"Thrive" is the key word.

People will put up with a little progress if it doesn't involve hair shirts, vegan diets and other forms of cruel and unnatural punishment.

And now that marketers like Leahy are taking up the eco-challenge first articulated by monks like Colman, there's hope for the planet.

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