Not In My Backyard

Everyone wants to save the environment but no one wants to pay for it.

This march in London on 29 November was held as part of a series of rallies worldwide prior to the Paris climate change talks. Activists want decisive action to limit the rise in average global temperature to 2 degrees celcius above pre-industrial levels. (Alisdare Hickson)

Landfills? Absolutely. Gotta have ’em. Our trash has to go somewhere, right? No question about that. And we sure make a lot of it.

A landfill in the woods behind my house, you say? Blasphemy! Sacrilege! Desiccation! Destruction! Fire! Fever! Murder!

How about your backyard, instead?

Everybody (else)

Most people want to save the environment. Sure, why not? As long as it doesn’t inconvenience them personally.

Higher taxes, fewer hard-earned dollars available for things like rent and food, is certainly an inconvenience. More so for some than for others.

It is an unfortunate irony of the environmental movement that the world’s poorest are the most adversely affected by climate change, and society’s poorest are the most adversely affected by its solutions.

In European countries, even in Canada where the once-beloved Justin Trudeau is now experiencing deep polling trouble, and in other countries that have tried such measures, high carbon-offset taxes have hit the working class, the lower-income, the disadvantaged, the elderly, the differently-abled, and those living at or under the poverty line the hardest.