For some time I've been mulling over the impact of this so-called carbon neutral lifestyle. In order to combat global warming, so the theory goes, we have to eliminate our greenhouse gas emissions. There are two ways of doing this:

1. Reduce the energy you use.
2. Pay a form of energy tax in which you pay to offset the greenhouse gas emissions that you are responsible for.

Now here's my problem with this approach. For the poor, the amount of energy they use is minimal. Side effect of being poor. They don't have much to do that is energy-intensive, like drive twenty minutes on the highway to get to a job. The rich, on the other hand, can pay the tax (let's put aside criticisms that many of these offsets are bogus and just take them at face value), and can continue to consume energy at whatever rate they please.

The vast majority of the people in the middle -- the vast majority who all own TVs and drive cars to work and live in detached homes with central air conditioning -- those people have to choose as well in this carbon neutral world. But they don't really have a choice, do they? If they were so wealthy that they could pay the 20% or more surcharge to buy offsets, then they wouldn't be middle class. On the other hand, what can they reduce? Refuse to take jobs that can't be reached by bus, only live in multi-family apartment units, make do without air conditioning -- sounds like a major move down the social ladder.

And that made me think more -- can a carbon neutral society even have a middle class? And what is a society in which the middle class doesn't exist, or is almost invisible? It was like that in the Middle Ages, wasn't it?

I suppose we all hope technology will save us, but that's a hope. Maybe we'll have emission-less cars, but probably not. An electric car still has to get the electricity from somewhere, and if replace all the internal combustion vehicles with electric, imagine how many power plants would have to be built. In any case, you'd still have to pay the offset tax for the electricity you consumed. What I think would happen is a drive backward to a Medieval model. The vast majority of people living in carbon neutral poverty. Like peasants, they wouldn't travel because they wouldn't need too. Food would be grown to sustain their immediate needs, with a surplus going to some energy overclass, enjoying all the benefits that come from near limitless energy use, but so small in number as to make the question of their impact on the environment moot.

But widespread energy usage by the masses like we have today? Not likely if the carbon neutral people have their way.

When you think about it, one of the major shifts that saw the end of the Medieval world was the spread of industrialization. Industrialization is just a fancy word for the democratization of energy. Once technology, based mostly on fossil fuels, made it possible for just about anyone to apply vast amounts of energy to solve life's problems, the cleverest created factories and rail transportation and so on, freeing people from the connection to the land and ushering in the world of today. A world environmentalists despise. David Suzuki wishes there were less people living simpler lives:

Human population has an obvious impact on the health of our environment. Generally, more people consume more resources and leave less habitat for other creatures. But the relationship isn't simply more people = greater impact. The way we live is also an important factor, so even though our population growth is slowing, our environmental impact continues to rise.

When I was born in 1936, there were only about two billion people. Think about how much simpler our food, energy and pollution issues would be if that was all there were today!

A report published in the journal Nature argues that household dynamics also plays an important role. Right now, the worldwide trend is toward smaller households and this does not bode well for the environment. If households are smaller (ie. each dwelling contains fewer people) but population remains the same, then there will have to be more dwellings to house the same number of people. That means more urban sprawl, more land co-opted for buildings and less habitat for wildlife. It also means more stoves and furnaces burning more fossil fuels and wood. It means more electricity needed to run more refrigerators, lights and home appliances - things that used to be shared in larger households. All this leads to less habitat, more pollution and more greenhouse gas emissions.

Clearly the communal approach is what David Suzuki prefers...for the rest of us. Like the peasants of Ye Olden Times, we'd share the village cow and the village smithy and the village TV. Indeed, the Suzuki Foundation's Sustainability Within a Generation wants Canadians to shift to this model:

Encourage programs and organizations that lease and share products (e.g. car co-operatives) so that people are purchasing services, not goods.

Of course, there would be little reason for me to need the village car. Where would I go? Life in the Middle Ages meant dying having never seen the world more than a half-day's journey on foot past the village border. David Suzuki is frustrated by all the cars that pollute his view of Kitsilano, BC, and doesn't want us to have them:

I love Kitsilano and Vancouver, but there are too many people and too many cars. I think we can have greater density if we made the city much more hostile to cars. The cars have made our city unattractive, and thus I like to spend more of my time in a smaller place at Quanta [ed, Quadra] Island where we also have a home.

Right, the Suzuki's have at least two homes, one on an island no less** (the smaller one). I wonder if it belonged to his grandparents. I ask because Suzuki believes that the expanding carbon footprint the rest of us have enjoyed over the last 50 years is disgusting:

Or hear it from green priest David Suzuki, who last year told a Ballarat audience of wildly applauding town planners it was "disgusting" that we live in bigger houses than did our grandparents.

"What kind of world is this that regards this as progress?" he shouted.

Of course, he probably enjoys a lot of peace and quiet on his (second) estate on Quanta Quadra Island to think such deep thoughts.

Too bad Kitsilano is ruined by all those cars. If it weren't for that, it would be ideal, since the primary type of residence is multi-unit housing. Imagine the satisfaction Suzuki gets from watching all those people enter their little allotted boxes within the shared building. Then he's off to Quanta Quadra Island to his second home to demand that lifestyle (the multi-unit housing, not the multiple island homes) for the rest of us.

For our own good, of course. Well, that, and the fact that if the oceans rise, his island home will be flooded.

So for the rest of us, Suzuki gives us a choice. He'll make the world more hostile to cars and the other energy-intensive artifacts of our society. If you're lucky, you can afford to continue to live your multiple-home lifestyle along with him. If not, you'll drop down to a energy-lite communal existence, one that your grandparents might recognize and, if they were alive to see it, wonder at all the hard work they did to make sure you didn't have to live like that.

And get busy, you prole. David Suzuki and Al Gore and the other royalty of the Green Movement need the fruits of your labour to continue to live to good life. Of course, with the massive reduction in energy usage by the vast majority of the population, their energy gluttony is environmentally insignificant.

Maybe they wouldn't need to pay for carbon offsets once the rest of us have our cars and detached homes taken away.

And like true royalty, we'll watch as they pass their privileged status off to their children:

C: In closing, who do you think will be your successor, David? Are there loud enough voices to make the change we need heard?

D: There are lots of people, my age and younger. For example, I recently went to hear my daughter speak this weekend and I was just knocked off my feet – and not just because she’s my daughter. But as a young person, she’s got the picture and she knows she is in it to fight for her future.

Right.

The more I think about it, the more I think this whole thing is really an attempt to move society to some sort of Medieval model, where the vast majority of the population uses almost no resources, managed by a dynastic upper class of self-appointed masters with privileged access to energy.

But then David Suzuki is neither a historian nor a climatologist, but a geneticist. I suppose the historical parallels are not obvious to the fruit fly guy.

** Note: I have to say that I have not been able to find "Quanta Island" anywhere online. Anyone know exactly where this place is? Or is it a local name for some place for which we use another name?

Addendum: It's a typo. His estate is on Quadra Island:

Quadra Island is a small island community off the eastern coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada and is part of the Discovery Islands. Its population is estimated to be roughly 2,550. There are two small business centres on the island, one near the Vancouver Island ferry terminal at Quathiaski Cove, and one near the Cortes Island ferry terminal at Heriot Bay. The island has many beaches, trails, lakes, and parks.

There is an elementary school on the island, but for grades 7 through 12 island children travel by ferry to Campbell River to attend ecole Phoenix Middle School or Carihi Secondary School.

The island is home to a thriving art community, as well as a growing number of white-collar professionals who commute to Campbell River, on Vancouver Island.

Seems posh enough to suit Suzuki. And his lot? It's big. Really big. More on that later.

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