Canada forced to take its garbage back.

Environmental Nihilism

Vincent J. Curtis

30 May 2019


Two large ocean freighters are returning Canadian garbage from the Philippines and Malaysia.  Rather than deal with our own garbage responsibly here in Canada, we sent it to two third-world countries on whose corruption we counted to accept it.  A country as geographically huge, wealthy, and as technically sophisticated as Canada found it easier to hide the garbage problem in the third world rather than solve it itself.

Canada has a history of refusing to deal with its own garbage and shoving the problem onto another country.  In the 1990s, Toronto desperately needed a replacement municipal landfill, and the NDP government under Bob Rae could find nowhere in all of Ontario to create one.  The solution was to ship Toronto’s garbage to a landfill in Michigan, and it was arranged for 250 trucks per day to pass through the border carrying Toronto’s municipal garbage to the landfill in Michigan.

Recycling of paper became an example of good environmental stewardship, embraced by municipalities everywhere.  But the waste paper was being sent to China.  Not until China stopped accepting garbage paper did the actual fate of that recycled product become known.  Now, waste paper simply piles up with nowhere to go.

Now we know that waste plastics were sent to Malaysia and other mysterious garbage sent to the Philippines, probably under shady circumstances.  Local pride and anti-corruption efforts have forced Canada to take it back.

These examples have one thing in common: environmentalism can identify a problem but the movement is too chaotic and incoherent to accept reasonable solutions.  Confronted with claimant demands to fix an environmental problem, politicians find that no practical solution is acceptable to those demanding immediate solution.

Toronto needed a new landfill, but nowhere in the vast province was a place found acceptable to those adhering to environmentalism.  Coal burning power generation is now environmentally unacceptable, but the obvious alternatives, nuclear and hydroelectric, are unacceptable also for environmental reasons.  The impractical alternatives, wind and solar, are found upon implementation to have environmental issues of their own, to say nothing of their adverse economics.  The technology required to recycle paper and plastics is economically impractical, the regulatory burden of getting a recycling plant into operation is heavy, and the project is sure to be met with vociferous objections by self-styled environmentalists.

It’s simply easier to ship the problem elsewhere, however irresponsible in the end that may be.

The sovereign solution to waste paper and most waste plastics is incineration.  But the incineration of paper and plastics creates carbon dioxide, and environmentalism has an objection to that too.  Both Canada and the United States would like to dispose of nuclear waste from electrical generation in one location, but environmentalists make it impossible to commission the disposal sites and to transport the waste from source to site.  And so nuclear waste lies distributed in scores of locations all over the continent.

If Canada and other western societies are going to solve responsibly the problems raised by environmentalism, we need to understand and account for the nihilist nature of environmentalism.  The movement isn’t about identifying and solving problems related to the environment, its aim is to create chaos, and specifically economic chaos, by exploiting real or contrived issues related to “the environment.”  Cognoscenti will recognized the Marxian character of the method.  “I identify a problem that you have to fix, but no solution you offer will be acceptable to every one of my friends, and damn you for your failure.”  That’s the politics of environmentalism in a nutshell.

Canada needs to deal with its own environmental issues itself.  That means that a mature public has to expect and discount criticisms from environmentalism.  The perfect is the enemy of the good, and it is not in the nature of a Marxian movement to accept a solution other than as a temporary expedient.
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