Canada's 'shell game'.

• Author: MICHELS, BOB

When I was a youth celebrating the end of World War II, it was safe to anticipate the future and to calculate how to turn it to one's advantage. Development was "good'. Science and technology would be our salvation. I couldn't wait for next month's issues of "Popular Science" and "Popular Mechanics" to show up in our mail box. It was great to be young and even better to consider the benefits of growing older.

No more. At least, the future isn't what it used to be.

If you have been watching your television news or reading your newspaper in recent months, you will know that a potential disaster looms "Global Warming". Expect to hear a lot more over the next 12 months.

What used to be a "some day" issue is rapidly becoming a "tomorrow" issue. I don't mean that, suddenly, on March 10, sunbathing will be the new winter pastime in North Bay. But, the near-term scenario should be of some concern to most people. It seems that a rise in the earth's temperature of three or five degrees Celsius, or even more, is not out of the question. Why is that?

First, the pace of worldwide environmental degradation continues to outpace attempts to reform our practices of living on hydrocarbons - oil, gas, and coal. Witness the current power shortages in California where the only solution on offer is to build more electricity-generating stations. Slowing or reversing energy-consuming economic development is not something that America or Canada is willing to consider.

Second, developing countries such as China are burning dirty coal at an exponentially growing rate. Eastern Europe is impoverished and has no financial ability to curtail its pollution. Canada is running a 'shell game', promising one thing but doing another.

Third, cleaner automotive engine technology is being overwhelmed by millions of new cars and trucks that are turning the world's highways into parking lots. Smog alerts and the resulting health hazards are no longer restricted to California and Mexico City.

And, so on. Everyone say "Oink, oink", as we celebrate our status as energy hogs. And, as is the custom in polite-society, everyone gaze elsewhere, making as if nothing happened, when the hog farts!

As a result, the once fanciful predictions of a major meltdown of Arctic and Antarctic ice leading to rising sea levels are much more likely to occur. Wide-scale flooding will occur along both the Eastern and Western seaboards of North America, the west coast of Europe, and many inhabited islands...