Living In A Time of Diminishing Returns

Listening to all the arguments in Parliament leaves one with the impression that we still live in a time of no limitations.  We continue to act as though there are plenty of resources to go around and I'm troubled that a true sense of urgency hasn't yet gripped all parties.We have consumed for so long that we feel invincible in a way.  As perhaps the greatest generation of consumers, we follow a kind of collective delusion that is quickly leading us into a place of few options. Like our friends south of the border, we have fooled ourselves into thinking that our economic prosperity has left us in a place of perpetual freedom.For far too long we have felt we have a limitless supply of natural resources and we don't know how to think any other way.  But if the Al Gore event in Montreal taught me anything, it was that those days are gone and in their place is coming a time when we all have to change our expectations.  I believe we know this in our minds as parliamentarians but we continue to reason as though we have limitless resources, limitless wealth, limitless fossil fuel supplies, and perhaps the most delusional of all, limitless growth.  Add to this list limitless progress and you can see that we have reached a strange era of disconnect - aware enough of the effects of climate change but not yet at that place where we are willing to legislate as though we are entering a time of limits.It doesn't matter how much new oil is found; our refining of it is choking the planet. And yet we proceed as though we'll manage our way out of this mess somehow. Like others before us, we have held to a blind belief that technology will win the day and lead us into a new era of, dare I say it, "limitlessness."  Yet creeping around the edges of our collective consciousness as parliamentarians is the silent acknowledgement that we can't hope to cure the ills of industrialism by adding more technology.  Without admitting it to our constituents or to the media, we are slowly comprehending that the days of endless resources are over.And yet because we can't admit it publicly (to do so would be to acknowledge our own failure to act) we appear frozen in place, incapable of acting in a way that provides sensibly for our children and those that follow.  Having had so much to assist us - researchers, pollsters, scientists, public concern, and, yes, even Al Gore - we have failed to recognize that since the days of endless consumption are drawing to a close, we must begin to lead the Canadian public to a place of deeper responsibility and citizen commitment. Perhaps that moment will come, but it yet eludes our grasp.  More on this to follow.