Eat a Banana, Save the Planet!
Posted by Unknown in Banana, Canada, Climate Change, Environmental Issues, Global Warming on Tuesday, 29 January 2013
Look,
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Chiquita Bananas, after having long
ago learned about human-rights repressing, anti-democratic business
practices which their predecessor, the United Fruit Company, engaged in
throughout Central America in the past century. So I find having to
write about what’s been happening in the media today a little ironic.
But at the same time, there’s actually a lot at stake, and since much of
it is going on behind-the-scenes, I thought I’d take a few moments to
share my own observations about bananas and their media-hyped impact on
climate change.
For
rest assured, despite Ezra Levant’s rant in Sun Media today (“Yes we
have no bananas, you hypocrite”, the Sudbury Star, December 20, 2011),
the issue at hand isn’t simply about bananas, or even Levant’s strange
concept of “ethical oil” (on which he wrote the book – quite literally,
he wrote the book “Ethical Oil” from which he now profits through
shameless self-promotion of the term). Nor is it necessarily even about
human rights – at least not in the way that Levant and others are
portraying the matter.
Instead,
what we’re seeing playing out in the media today has everything to do
with Canada’s war on climate change action, and our government’s
shameless shilling for the multinational oil industry. You see, the
Harper regime came to the conclusion quite a while ago that fighting
climate change for the good of Canadians and providing profit for Big
Oil was mutually exclusive. Since then, they’ve gone out of their way to
put the interests of their corporatist supporters ahead of those of
Canadians. Indeed, with their recent decision to withdraw from the Kyoto
Accord, the Harper regime has taken considerable pride in giving the
finger to the entire world.
But
this isn’t about Kyoto. This is about the Harper regime’s constant war
on the interests of Canadians. By continuing their unmitigated acts of
sabotage against the interests of average middle-class Canadians by
accommodating at seemingly every opportunity the interests of the oil
industry, Harper and his ilk are condemning both Canada and the world to
the effects of runaway climate change. All of this is being done simply
so the oil companies can make even more profit. There is no other
reason which stands up to scrutiny.
Sun Media Goes Bananas
Now,
if that sounds a little over-the-top to you, consider the humble
banana. Levant and his cohorts at Sun Media seem to think that they’ve
hit upon a really cheery holiday story which will warm the cockles of
their neo-liberal supporters, some of whom, such as Jason Kenney, are
ministers of the Canadian government. Levant has tweaked to the notion
that Chiquita Brands has somehow made a decision to boycott Alberta’s
oil. And in Levant’s world, that’s tantamount to treason against the
State! Although which state, exactly, no one is sure (maybe it’s that
North American Union which the neo-liberals are just waiting to spring
on us all, without any consultation…kinda like yesterday’s health “deal”
announcement. But that’s another story).
In
response, Levant and Sun Media have called for a boycott of Chiquita
bananas. To provide even more ammunition in support of a boycott, Levant
points out that Chiquita was just fined back in 2007 for giving
“protection money” to South American paramilitary organizations, some of
which appear on the U.S.A’s list of known terrorist organizations. And
Levant is right: that’s pretty bad. Of course, giving money to the
government of Colombia, which continues to threaten and abuse the rights
of its own people is also pretty bad. It’s all pretty messy in
Colombia, no matter how you look at it. But, depending on who is doing
the looking, the mess might not matter so much. And thanks to the Harper
regime, Canada now has a free-trade deal with the human-rights
repressing regime currently in charge of Colombia. Well, most of
Colombia anyway. But that’s another story.
Now,
here’s where things get interesting. A little further digging reveals
that Chiquita Brands has not launched any kind of boycott against
Alberta oil. What they have done is announce that they will try to use
petroleum from non-dirty sources for transport fuel, in order to try to
limit the effects of climate change, at least somewhat. This does mean
that Chiquita will be trying to steer clear of oil produced from tar
sands bitumen. And that’s what seems to have Levant’s so upset.
I
guess Levant would feel a lot better if the humans-rights abusing,
terrorist-sponsoring Chiquita Brands had instead decided to buy tar
sands oil. I know that I would have felt better. I suppose that for
Levant it’s best to do business with the devil than have the devil take
his business elsewhere. But that’s another story.
Environmental Tariffs
There
are actually a few things at stake here, and singling out Chiquita
Brands for a boycott actually plays quite well as a media-hypable proxy
for addressing the bigger issues. You see, right now the European Union
is considering labelling Canadian heavy oil produced from tar sands
bitumen as “harmful to the environment” (and therefore “dirty”) in
comparison to oil derived from conventional sources. This means that
importing tar sands oil into the EU will require the imposition of a
surcharge (a.k.a. “a tariff”), which amounts to a financial penalty
assessed against dirty oil producers.
And
it also could stand as a precedent which ends up penalizing dirty
Canadian industries. The State of California has just recently announced
that it will support the EU’s labelling initiative as it pertains to
tar sands oil. Presumably, that means that tar sands oil ending up in
California may also be subject to a tariff.
And
California…that’s the same U.S. state which has been in the news lately
because it is part of the Western Climate Initiative (WCI). Recently,
the Province of Quebec announced that it was moving forward with
establishing a cap and trade emissions trading scheme under the auspices
of the WCI. So, dirty Alberta oil could also receive a surcharge of
sorts through a cap and trade program if it were to be imported
to…Quebec.
What
other provinces are also a part of the WCI? Why, Ontario, Manitoba and
British Columbia. Together with Quebec, that means that over half of
Canadians may one day end up paying more for dirty Alberta oil through
some sort of surcharge levied through a cap and trade scheme.
Dirty Oil
Look,
call it what you want, but the fact is that oil produced from tar sands
bitumen produces significantly more greenhouse gases than oil derived
from conventional sources (between 3 and 5 times as much). So, from the
point of view of carbon pollution, the oil is dirtier, period, end of
story. And we know that the historic build-up of greenhouse gases in our
atmosphere is what’s responsible for global warming and the Earth’s
changing climate.
Interestingly,
the Harper regime has probably done its corporatist oil-industry
buddies no favours by pulling out of Kyoto. What Harper has accomplished
is to hand the European Union the smoking gun it needs to affirm that
Canadian tar sands oil really is dirty and therefore to subject it to a
tariff at the time of import. And while its true that the EU imports
hardly any dirty oil from Canada right now, it’s the precedent of the
matter which is much more important.
And
if the importation of dirty oil itself can be subject to a tariff, what
about products produced exclusively from energy derived from dirty
sources? Why not subject them to a tariff as well?
Climate Change and the Economy
EU
nations, including the tar-sands supporting United Kingdom (with David
Cameron’s government playing Harper’s proxy at the EU negotiations),
have met their Kyoto greenhouse reduction commitments, and in many
cases, have exceeded them. The governments of the European nations made
the hard choices back in the late 1990s to take Kyoto seriously. It
turns out that those choices weren’t really all that hard to make, as
producing cleaner energy has actually led to job creation throughout the
EU, and especially in nations such as Denmark and Germany, which (along
with China) are now the go-to places for clean energy products and
research and development. The EU nations accomplished all of this while
still growing their economies. Their success story doesn’t at all mirror
the Harper regime’s narrative which pits the choice of “jobs” against
“the environment”. But that’s another story.
With
the EU having done their heavy-lifting regarding climate change,
Canada’s withdrawal from Kyoto has come as a bit of a slap in the face.
That Canada’s withdrawal has come at the same time of an announcement to
continue to expand the dirty-oil producing tar sands (coincidentally
timed to take place during the Durban COP-17 climate change conference)
will not be lost on the Europeans. With Canada’s declaration of war
against those wishing to stave off the economy-crippling horrors of
climate change, labelling tar sands oil as “dirty” now more than ever
seems like an easy decision for the EU to make.
And
make no mistake: the economies of most nations in the world face
significant risk from a changing climate. That Canada, which has been
pushing the completely misguided notions of “climate prosperity” and
“ethical oil”, will also suffer from the upheaval of climate change
seems to matter little to the Harper regime. Canada’s economy is
integrated with the global economic village, and our economy is sure to
be negatively impacted by economic upheaval throughout the globe. For
the Harper regime, that average Canadians will suffer from global
economic devastation isn’t nearly as important as the need to continue
to enrich the Harper’s oil interest buddies and supporters.
And
that’s what makes this all a human rights issue, and a moral issue. Is
it moral for Canada, one of the world’s biggest per-capita polluters, to
sabotage international efforts which seek to limit greenhouse gas
emissions and which (hopefully) will lessen the social/physical/economic
impacts of climate change? Is it ethical to put the corporatist
interests of Big Oil ahead of the interests of just about everyone else
on the planet? By declaring war on efforts to combat climate change,
Canada’s government has made its decision. I’ll leave it to you to
determine whether it was a moral one. I suspect that you know my own
opinion.
Saving the Planet, One Banana at a Time!
Which
brings us back to bananas and the boycott against Chiquita Brands for
having the audacity to finally make an attempt at being a “good
corporate citizen” (at least as far as climate change goes…which, by the
way, will almost certainly impact Chiquita’s own bottom line, as they
have invested heavily in agricultural activities in tropical areas of
the world, which are sure to be some of those hardest hit by climate
change…so Chiquita probably does have a vested interest in taking
climate change action). If Chiquita can be made to bend on the concept
of “dirty oil”, it will prove to be yet more ammunition in the fight
against labelling at the EU, and (probably more importantly) by
California (and potentially other WCI partners). And if the boycott
works and leads to Chiquita backing down, woe be to any other business
which decides that it’s going to try to implement a similar action in
the name of “environmental responsibility”. Including those businesses
which operate almost exclusively in California and which may not have a
choice in the matter. Canadian boycotts of Californian businesses may
yet prove to be the sort of political wedge issue which neo-liberal
Republicans in California might use to gain control of the State and
turn back the clock on dirty tar sands oil decisions. There is a long
game being played here.
The
banana may yet become a more compelling symbol in the fight against
climate change than “350” or “2 degrees C”. Although the science would
likely prove otherwise, I can certainly see the slogan, “Eat a banana,
save the planet” catching on, at least for a little while, thanks to Sun
Media.
Posted By Steve May
(opinions
expressed in this blog post are my own and should not be considered to
be in keeping with those of the Green Party of Canada)
(this blogpost was originally posted at www.sudburysteve.blogspot.com)
