Is climate change a threat or a business model?

> Thoughts on GLOBE 2016

Jamal Al-Bayaa
Staff Writer

 

LOBE 2016 was an

opportunity for business
leaders to gather, educate, and
create awareness about the
state of our planet in the hopes
that serious strategies targeting
climate change’s top issues would
be made. If the intention of
GLOBE 2016 was to treat climate
change as a serious threat that
required actions, discussions,
and sacrifice, that was not what
was presented by the speakers.

Presentation buzzwords
throughout the event included:
energy, innovation, economy,
and efficiency. Climate change
was referred to as a “business
opportunity” numerous times.
The idea behind GLOBE 2016
was that with climate change
comes a demand for new energy
technology, and it’s the jobs of
the people in those rooms to
profit off of them. GLOBE 2016
was a way for business leaders to
come together and showcase their
new business plans, marketed
with words like “responsible,”
and “sustainable,” in a dual
effort of increasing profits and
improving brand image.

Sure, environmental concern
is a major issue, but it’s beena
major issue for almost 40 years
now. The only difference now is

that it’s a profitable issue as well.

The turn of the century
has placed the environmental
movement into the hands
of the corporations that the
public is often blaming for
the major environmental
problems. Even oil corporations
are looking for new markets
to sell renewable energy to.

Is this the best that GLOBE
2016 has to offer, though? Is the
message to the people going to be
that once perfectly clean energy
is available for us, there’s going
to bea major premium involved
for anybody who wants to use it?

All criticisms aside, the profit
mentality has brought incredible
innovations that can’t be ignored.

XPrize is currently
encouraging teams of scientists
from around the world to
collaborate and compete on
a project that is capable of
sucking carbon directly out of
the atmosphere and turning
that carbon into a resalable
product, most likely as fuel to
be burned and released back
into the atmosphere. Whoever
successfully completes the project
will win a $20-million cash prize
and have a long future full of
research funding ahead of them.
In 2004, the same company
awarded a $10-million cash prize
to the team of scientists who
were able to successfully launch
a spacecraft into space twice in

   
  
 

two weeks. The invention shook

the world, as private space travel
is now a $2-billion industry.
Enterra, a local company
from Langley, BC, is doing work
that’s less glamorous but equally
important and rewarding. They're

obe 2016 via www.globeseries.com

Justin Trudeau speaking at

currently running a sustainable
bug-farm, growing black soldier
fly larvae and using them to
create organic fertilizer and
natural and nutritious farm feed
for livestock, both of which are
desperately in demand with our

Americans want to move to Canada if Trump wins

> It’s so American to abandon a problem they've caused

Elliot Chan
Opinions Editor

 

Wr it’s meant as
fodder for comedy or as a
legitimate survey, the American
people sounded off. According
to a poll conducted by Ipsos,

19 per cent of Americans said
they would move to Canada if
Donald Trump wins presidency,
and 15 per cent would do

the same if Hillary wins.

As a Canadian, I first thought
this was a compliment, since we
do call one of the most livable
countries in the world home.
Sure, we have our own problems,
but compared to America’s,
our issues seem so fixable.

Then, I thought a bit more
about it, and realized it was
not a compliment to Canada.

If Americans idolized Canada,
America would be like Canada.
No, like an angsty teenager
threatening to run away from
home, Americans are doing the
same when they are not getting
what they want. Grow up, I say.

The problem is not going to fix
itself if you just run away from it.
Time and time again, Americans
are dealt a heavy lesson and
seldom do they learn from it.
Just watch the American news;
it’s the same episode every day.
It’s history repeating itself.

I digress. At this
moment, less than one per
cent of Canada is made up of

American immigrants. That
is an insignificant amount—
and usually we see Canadians
crossing the border south rather
than the other way around.

Yes, perhaps the Americans
feel like victims, but give me
a break. Resorting to flight
instead of fight is no way to
solve a country-sized problem.
If a country is your home and

  

Image via thinkstoc

you feel passionately enough
about the politics that govern
it, youd fight for what’s best.
Instead of trying to piggy
back off of us Canadians, why
don’t you try to learn from
us? In 2015, we went through
a pivotal election that ousted
the Right Honourable—and
backwards thinking—Stephen
Harper from his seat as prime

increased need for agriculture.
Many say that the real
ideological innovation won't
come until we grow those bugs
for human use, too. The United
Nations says that the benefits
of eating bugs are so great (to
ourselves and to our planet)
that the two billion people
globally who do eat bugs need
to convert the other five billion
into doing it, immediately.
Sustainable business is
good. It allows us to slowly
and steadily improve the way
we treat our environment.
Still, there are some things
that should be considered
when combining business and
environmentalism. Technologies
and ideas that promoted
increased consumption in
consumers were common themes
at GLOBE 2016. Any discussion of
reducing the amount of products
we consume each day were
clearly rejected at the proposal
phase. The cycle of businesses
promoting over-consumption
got us into this mess of
environmental debt, so why are
we allowing the same strategy
to be what gets us out of it?
As of March 2016, the
fate of the planet rests in the
hands of businesses willing
to doas much as possible to
prevent climate change—so
long as profits stay steady.

minister. During the campaign,
the country was divided, but we
banded together to do what’s
best on Election Day. Some of us
might have threatened to move
to Switzerland or somewhere else
if Harper won, but many took to
the polls to vote, not necessarily
for the candidate they believed
in, but the candidate that would
beat Harper’s Conservative party.
It was strategic, and it worked.
Democracy is your right;
however, welcoming yourself
to someone else’s home is not.
Americans, known for their
arrogance and self-righteousness,
often thinks that the whole
world belongs to them. They
think that Canada is their little
brother, who, if their get-rich-
fast plan falls through, will let
them just crash at their place
until they get their footing back.
It doesn’t surprise me that
Americans would consider
moving up north, but it would
surprise me if they actually
do. Like government, like
citizens—if you talk the talk,
then you better walk the walk.