For about 40 years many ecologists as well as other scientists have reported on the consequences of climate change. In recent years there has been more and more public awareness of the problems associated with changing climate. But there it all seems to stop. Jobs and dollars trump everything in the western world. I sit today listening to the Federal Government in Canada approving a very large export agreement for liquefied natural gas (LNG) on the central west coast of British Columbia. The gas will be largely obtained by fracking and in spite of the fact that the shipping point is near the mouth of one of the largest salmon rivers on the west coast, and requires a long pipeline to deliver the gas with all its problems, the report of the government states that this development will have no harmful effects on the environment. The perception that burning natural gas is somehow good for the environment boggles my mind. You have heard all of this kind of discussion many times before I am sure.

Yet as far as we can tell these are not evil people who are approving these developments but their decisions are so far away from scientific reality that one can only wonder what drives this current economic system. There are several competing hypotheses. (1) Climate change is not a problem and is not caused by human actions releasing greenhouse gases. This is not believable if scientific evidence is given any credibility. So we need a better excuse for our current myopia. (2) The problems of climate change are so uncertain and far into the distant future so that it is not our job to be concerned about action now. (3) We should take action now but if we do it will disrupt the global economy too much to contemplate. Taxes will have to increase. (4) Much money can be made by these enterprises and this will allow western countries to develop technologies that will remove carbon from the atmosphere, so all will be well in the future. (5) A price can be set on carbon so that business as usual under a carbon price will take care of the problem. The market will take care of us.

Take your pick on these last 4 excuses, but as an ecologist I cannot buy any of them. Clearly I am not a social scientist or an economist, and consequently have little understanding of how all of this proceeds and how the continued nonsense of business as usual is reported on much of the media as though this is the only way forward. The disconnect between what the educated public believes and what the government and business economists push has never been more serious. Perhaps the dominant view of many people is that we have always managed to muddle through in the past, and so this is a minor issue that we will overcome as usual by some kind of technological fix. And it is a long term problem, and I will not be here in the long term.

What can we ecologists do? Teach, report, communicate to the wider public via social media or traditional media, and hope that progress in understanding will finally take hold. Set an example, and hope that we can turn this juggernaut around. David Suzuki and Bill McKibben and many others are doing this. As an army dedicated to peace we can move forward and hope for wisdom to prevail.

Ehrlich, P.R., and Ehrlich, A.H. 2013. Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided? Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 280(1754): 20122845. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2012.2845.

Ehrlich, P.R., and Ehrlich, A.H. 2013. Future collapse: how optimistic should we be? Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 280(1767): 20131373. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2013.1373.

Kelly, M.J. 2013. Why a collapse of global civilization will be avoided: a comment on Ehrlich & Ehrlich. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 280(1767). doi: 10.1098/rspb.2013.1193.

McKibben, B. 2013. Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist. Henry Holt and Company, New York. 257 pp.  ISBN: 978-08050-9284-4