| Over the last few weeks, God sent us a bit of a wrist slap for all of the sinning and intemperance and debauchery that we Albertans have been a committin’. Either that, or an abundance of liquid water droplets, from vapour condensed in the atmosphere, having diameters greater than drizzle, has fallen from the sky.
Take your pick, but the amount of rain over the past weeks and the resultant flooding and damage has been at best a serious inconvenience and at worst a tragedy for those affected. It has also put a serious strain on the City of Calgary’s ability to screen, pre-treat, filter and disinfect the water that flows from our taps, sprinklers and enema hoses.
When the water crisis hit, my first inclination was to go on a Punisher-style vigilante night mission wrapped in my homemade Ninja suit, turning off sprinklers and shutting off hoses all over my neighbourhood. I called myself Ecoja. Once I realized that water ban or not, most people don’t water their lawns at a quarter to four in the morning, I decided to go home and eat some cereal. On my way, I spotted a headline that made me livid.
It rains. Our treatment plants are overrun. The mayor asks us to conserve. Most do, but some don’t, and he calls them dopes. Yes folks, straight from the front pages of Calgary’s chief fish-wrapper, after coming straight from the mouth of Calgary’s (elected by nine per cent of eligible voter support) mayor: "In a city of a million people, you’re going to have a few dopes who think it’s their God given right to use water, even when it has an impact on the entire city."
Damn right Mr. Mayor, a few bad apples are inevitable. But what’s worse to both me and Ecoja is that, to quote from the pages of my diary: "In a city of a million people, it is inconceivable that we elect a mayor whose argument and reasoning have as much order as the motion of a squirrel. A mayor who chooses ostracization over leadership, who chooses to berate his citizens before he will lead them to do good, who fails to start them on the path to responsible lifestyles long before it turns into a disaster. In a city of a million people, you’re going to have one dope who thinks it’s his God given right to shirk the responsibilities of leadership, even when it has an impact on the entire city."
This situation points to a wider problem in our city. Nobody who encourages Calgary to develop in an environmentally sustainable manner is asking too much. Many good people out there get it and are educating about it, fighting for it and living these practices. But sadly, most of us need it fed into the public consciousness, need it talked about in front of us again and again. I know that the city does many good things in these areas, is in fact a leader in some practices, but this information does no good as a PDF on a website, and these practices do no good as a pilot project in a drawer.
The amount of water we use and waste in this city continues to be embarrassing. Why does our mayor have to ask us to: (a) limit our showers to five minutes (unless you just lost a 12-round battle and your trainer died on the same day, what are you doing in there for more than five minutes?); (b) keep our baths shallow (I know it sucks to have things sticking out of the warm water into the cold air, but double up – ask your sweetie or someone you met on the internet or your neighbour to join you); (c) turn off the tap while shaving or brushing your teeth (you’re damn right I’m going to tell you about the millions of people in places you have never heard of who die from a lack of clean drinking water or have to do a hell of a lot of work to get the shitty water that they do use, while you are too stupid or too lazy to turn the tap off and on a couple of times).
Every three years a group of committed folks at Sustainable Calgary pump out a State of Our City report looking at ecological, social and economic sustainability and quality of life trends in Calgary. The average Calgarian has the highest overall "ecological footprint" in Canada. Of the 36 indicators documented, Calgary comes out embarrassing on 10, doing OK on 11, and, for the remaining 15, most of us don’t seem to understand or care.
Then we get called names when we don’t snap to ecological attention when the rains come. Our collective water usage is just one example of our city’s audacity. We as Canadians consume resources at a rate more than double the earth’s biological capacity. Read that sentence again and then begin a minimum of three minutes contemplation.
Sustainable Calgary reminds us and our mayor every three years that a long habit of not acknowledging when something is wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right. Show your dog with love how and where to go to the bathroom – don’t just smash him with a rolled up newspaper when he pisses on your latest issue of Big City Mayor Monthly. Show some real, groundbreaking leadership – take us to a place where our water usage is always lower.
In the meantime, be warned: next time you call someone a dope, let’s just say that I’m going to ask you to stop doing that. And if you do it again, then let’s just say that I’m gonna come back at you with what starts with B and rhymes with zeeeatch. And then me and Ecoja are going to suit up and get environmental on your ass. |
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