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.