David Suzuki, Salt Cay, and low hanging fruit
There is something called going after "low hanging fruit". When confronted with a large task, one approach is to go after the most easily solved problems first.
Engineers are often taught to do the opposite -- tackle the hardest problem first. The reason is that you will almost certainly spend too much time on the low hanging fruit. Such a problem is solved easily, of course, but you will try to do a complete a job as possible, to the point of gold-plating (that is, doing more than is necessary). Often it is to avoid tackling the big problem while still looking like you're make progress towards reaching the overall goal.
The bad thing is that you've used up precious time you'll need to tackle the hard problem you've put off. In fact, you are almost sure to fail now.
Environmentalists are like that. They go after the low hanging fruit. Kyoto is all about low hanging fruit. Get the industrialized world to carry the load, since they have the technological prowess to make it happen, and the democratic institutions that can be used to compel politicians to go along. On the other hand, tough nuts like India and China are deferred until some unspecified future time. These countries and others like them present difficult problems -- a lack of sophisticated industrial infrastructure, huge energy-hungry populations, and most importantly in the cases like China, governments that are authoritarian or even dictatorial and have no reason to listen to anyone, not to their own people and certainly not to foreign busybodies.
So the foreign busybodies make excuses about why these countries are allowed to skip any effort to meet Kyoto targets, and they go after countries like Canada that contribute a tiny percent of green house gas emissions.
The busybodies will waste a great deal of effort on Canada because Canada is a low hanging fruit. China, on the other hand, continues to build coal-fired power plants daily.
But here's another example you might not know about. The Turks and Caicos Islands are negligible when it comes to things like global warming, ocean pollution, ozone depletion, or anything else. Environmentally-speaking, the impact on the ecology of these islands is zero.
But the government of this British dependency has declared that one tiny island that makes up this tiny place is going "green".
And David Suzuki is flying down there to celebrate this achievement.
Frankly, the notion that this news has any impact of importance to anything ecological is ludicrous. All new development on this tiny spec of dirt is going to be green:
The Turks and Caicos Islands is to give the Caribbean region its first “green island” in the near future as part of the government’s sustainable tourism programme, Premier, Dr. Michael Misick has said.
The 2.5 mile island of Salt Cay, once the centre of the Bermudan salt industry and the mainstay of the Turks and Caicos economy from the late 1600’s until the early 1960’s, has been chosen to be transformed into the “green island,” Premier Misick said at a news conference here.
“Any new development will be consistent with that philosophy (of sustainable development),” the Premier told journalists.
If the salt trade is gone, just what economic activity is there on Salt Cay? Just tourism:
The conference, organised by the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), in collaboration with the Turks and Caicos Islands Tourist Board and the Caribbean Hotel Association, has as its theme, Keeping the Right Balance: Sustaining the Caribbean Coastal Product "It is hoped that by doing this conference, we are seen as leading the way in sustainable tourism development, but also it would help to educate some of the various people in the tourism industry and the people of the TCI of the need to preserve the environment, the need to have a clean surroundings," Premier Misick said.
When an environmental conference is organized by the tourism board, you have to wonder. Indeed, they goal is to increase air traffic to the Turks and Caicos:
The CTO secretary general, Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, who also addressed the news conference, said that greater awareness of sustainable tourism among travellers means more people want to go to destinations that practice it. “This is not only good business sense but it is profitable for the tourism product,” he said.
Doesn't increasing air traffic to the Turks and Caicos Islands degrade the general environmental well-being of the Turks and Caicos Islands?
Now if the "green" development program was being applied across all the Turks and Caicos, you might think the improvement to the coastal ecosystems would offset the increased pollution from those extra flights. But remember that only development on Salt Cay is being throttled back.
So what development is at risk now? Well, to put it bluntly, none whatsoever.
From a website entitled Salt Cay: And Insland Where Time Stands Still:
Time truly stands still on this wonderful island of Salt Cay. Years ago, in the early 80's, I visited the island archipelago of the Turks and Caicos. The opportunity arose again in the winter of 2003. It was then that the peaceful nature of the island struck me once again. Come and share this wonderful experience. If what you seek is a hectic paced life, then spend some time in New York City, Mexico City, or Washington. But if you long for a quiet and relaxed experience, then do drop by and visit this tranquil place. Enjoy your little excursion here, and we hope to hear from you.
At one time, the cay was the world's largest producer of salt. In its heyday, over 100 vessels a year left the island for the US with their cargo of `white gold'. Today things are less hectic and the island is asphalt free- though it has barely half a dozen cars. Donkeys, wild cattle and iguanas far outnumber the 125 human inhabitants.
OK, let's get this straight. There are 6 cars, no roads, 125 people, and iguanas.
And further development will be strictly controlled? Are you kidding?
Another site makes it clear just what sort of development is underway on Salt Cay:
A visit to Salt Cay is essential if you want to understand the history of the Salt Islands. Little has changed in Salt Cay since 1900, when the Salt Industry flourished.
Little has changed in a century.
So the Turks and Caicos Islands government is taking a little spec of an island that has had no development in 100 years, is not undergoing any development in the foreseeable future, and shows few signs of impact from industrialization (no cars, roads, or overcrowding), and is declaring with much fanfare that the difficult decision is being taken to ensure that development is green (as it impacts the coasts) going forward.
Well, colour me unimpressed.
That would mean something if all of the Turks and Caicos Islands were forced under the same strict guidelines. It would really mean something if environmentalists got China to apply the same strict guidelines to its coastal cities.
But China is about as high as the fruit can go, so the environmentalists are ignoring it.
Of course, there is a punchline to this absurd story:
A number of prominent speakers, among them the noted Canadian naturalist, Dr David Suzuki, will make presentations at the conference. It will also feature a dynamic programme, including study tours of the host country, Turks & Caicos Islands. One such comprehensive tour will include a visit to the world’s only conch farm.
So David Suzuki is going to fly down to the Turks and Caicos Islands (I'm thinking the CTO or the island government is picking up the tab for the entire trip) to help celebrate this achievement.
Celebrate an achievement that is designed to bring planeloads of tourists to the Turks and Caicos Islands while preventing pollution that would never have happened, and if it did, would never have amounted to much.
But it is an achievement of sorts, so David Suzuki is off to the Caribbean to present his paper. It is, however, as trivial an achievement imaginable, as far as I can tell. It is the epitome of the low hanging fruit. It is typical of the sorts of "successes" the environmental movement aims for. Successes that are easily achieved representing little actual change, resulting in an improvement that is utterly overwhelmed by the growing problems those environmentalists are studiously ignoring.
On the other hand, David Suzuki gets a (free?) Caribbean vacation out of it. I assume the plane will be burning smug self-righteousness instead of Jet A-1 as fuel, and will be emitting butterflies instead of carbon dioxide as exhaust. But I'm sure that if the plane taking David Suzuki is off to Caribbean romp actually pollutes, he'll be paying for his carbon offset so he can burble on about Kyoto while relaxing by the pool and think he's making a difference.
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