All For One and One For All

During the same week the Alberta Government was embarrassed by the death of 500 ducks that mistakenly landed in a toxic waste lake (Syncrude uses the innocuous term “tailing pond” to refer to it - great spin on their part), Alberta Environment announced that the Province is scrapping mandatory environmental studies for high voltage transmission power lines. Where is this new environmental accountability Ed Stelmach has been promising? In fact his leadership has been so dismal that rather than coming up with a plan to address the duck disaster issue he is pointing a finger at the number of birds California’s wind generators kill each year. While all this is going on British Columbia is pointing a finger at Alberta because it was BC ducks that were killed. You know, the same BC that is responsible for dumping so much waste into our oceans. Not to worry, our Prime Minister has promised a full investigation into the whole matter. The same Prime Minister who is refusing to even try to abide by the Kyoto Protocol. It really seems like no one is willing to take responsibility for pulling us off this path of self destruction. We’re all good at pointing a finger at each other but no one is really willing to provide the leadership and initiative that is going to make a difference.

I was listening to Gord Whitehead on the radio a few weeks ago. He mentioned a story about a Weather Channel representative who had just retired and went on record as saying that global warming is a myth and a bunch of environmental babble. Mr. Whitehead went on to speculate that if someone of this caliber was questioning global warming, you had to listen. Obviously Gord himself does not believe global warming is an issue. A couple of weeks later the same Gord Whitehead was talking about the Pine Beetle infestation that has crossed the border from British Columbia and is now entering Alberta. He talked about the carnage and total destruction left in the wake of the beetle. Gord went on to say that we really need to figure out why this is happening and that we need to come up with a solution before it is too late. He even mentioned that the mild winters we have been experiencing have contributed to the magnitude of the problem. What the heck? According to him global warming does not exist but for some unrelated reason we have had so many mild winters that the pine beetle is destroying our forests.

With political leaders more concerned with keeping their jobs as opposed to doing their jobs and with irresponsible media skewing their reporting to represent their views as opposed to facts, it is going to take a herculean effort on everyone’s part to cause the paradigm shift necessary to initiate change. As martial artists let’s use our leadership to initiate the change we want to see. Let’s set an example by making ourselves accountable and let’s stop accepting mediocrity from our government leaders. Let’s vote with our wallets and put our money where our values are. Let’s demand accountability from our media and educate our students about the issues that are going to have a bigger impact on their lives than traditional self defense. Let’s get organized and work together to encourage everyone we touch to step up and take responsibility for improving our world.

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
- Henry Ford (1863 -1947)