Dyer, Dyer pants on fire

[Re: “Dyer bunk,” Letters, Dec. 4] I thought W. Tournay deserved a reply. So environmental degradation is a leftist conspiracy? That’s good to know. As I understand it, in Canada at least, “leftist” is a word used by the National Post to describe people who don’t read the National Post. 

I remember one of the last times I saw Gwynne Dyer on Canadian TV. It was during the Persian Gulf War. Dyer was a regular expert head on the CBC, but for some reason I recall Barbara Frum getting annoyed with Dyer because he dared to mention that Iraqi conscripts were probably dying in large numbers as a result of the bombings. That crazy leftist.

I haven’t always agreed with Dyer, but I look forward to having a look at his book. It’s true, prediction is tricky. Who can say where the present economic crisis is going from week to week, or what happens to citizens when their government is incapable of governing?

More to the point, we don’t need to see the future to find ways the environment is affecting the way we get along. The issue of water is a good example. Just ask Israelis and Palestinians about how water distribution has affected politics. And water distribution (and contamination) could be considered a very real human rights problem in China.

It took the execution of a family of mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo for Western media to pay attention to a civil war that has claimed millions of human lives.

The world is too big, and many worlds are shifting in these interesting times. Choose you politics. For better or worse, this planet is under the care of the human species. Will the future see us get our acts together?

>>Sean Macdonald

Perhaps Dyer and his like are jumping the gun on climate change, but the fact is that nature can take only so much pounding (i.e., pollution) without a payback.

Even if climate change is more natural than not, remedies for it such as recycling, alternate energies and efforts to make cities more bicycle-friendly are necessary and ultimately feasible. We have polluted too much already, and must try to save what’s left.

>>David Mills

[Re: “Hot times at the apocalypse,” Cover, Nov. 27] I read your cover story with dismay at the ludicrousness of Dyer’s new book Climate Wars. First of all, given his military background, it’s no wonder that he seems biased towards some of the insane war-like ideas outlined in the interview.

Although I didn’t read the book, I would like to point out a few concerns which Dyer attempts to cover: the whole notion of geo-engineering (manipulating the environment to offset global warming) and, in this case, blasting sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, is nonsensical. The goal of this theoretical theory is usually to make other worlds habitable for life.

This theory was first raised by Professor Paul Crutzen, who won a Nobel Prize in 1995 for his work on the hole in the ozone layer, because he believes that political attempts to limit manmade greenhouse gases are so pitiful that a radical contingency plan is needed. But these are theories and given the uncertainty of science and the law of unintended consequences, I would not trust any scientist with toying with my natural environment—Nobel Prize or not.

The only positive aspect of the interview is that there is an overwhelming emphasis on the “maybes” in the book. This makes for good science fiction. 

I really had a laugh when I got to the section where he mentions that the U.S. military is looking at a “staged retreat” of populations in the New Orleans and Florida since they (the military) are good at drawing realistic scenarios. Oh yes, they have drawn up some fantastic plans for Iraq.

Dyer mentions that “he doesn’t think Harper is really serious about climate change yet” and that the Americans are going to move ahead. Although I like the imagery of Harper being dragged and whimpering, the economics of climate change is such that having a system by which Canada will go on its own does not make sense. A North American model is much more realistic and this is being promoted by Harper/Prentice since Obama got elected.

Finally, on the question “do you think it will be too late?” the reply was “I think it may be.” Dyer doesn’t get it. It is too late. We need a fundamental change in our society—and we need it now. The conservative Deutsche Bank just released a study where it concludes that environmental pricing needs to be integrated in a new economic model and now is the time to take these steps.

So let’s stop cheating ourselves with science fiction and get on with the real business of climate change: renewable energy incentives, carbon pricing, integrating environmental damage into the real economic cost, and education of citizens on how they can alter their consumption-driven lifestyles to more sustainable levels.

>>Grace Barrasso

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