Canada heralds Green Plan

Whole Earth Review, Fall, 1991 by Huey D. Johnson

CANADA'S ANNOUNCEMENT in December 1990 of a comprehensive plan to invest $3 billion in its environmental recovery is a shout of joy for the world. The Green Plan for a healthy environment is, I believe, the most complete, big-picture strategy ever proposed by any nation. With it, Canada moves its ship of state from a dangerous, issue-by-issue, leak-patching practice to rebuilding the nation for a safe 1,000-year voyage. Other nations, including the U.S., will follow.

Critics are already grousing about the cost of this plan (which is b no means enough ). What they miss is that the money is an investment that will return far greater financial rewards to the nation. If the U.S. were to develop a similar environmental and economic plan, our government would need to reallocate at least 1 percent of its military budget, or $35 billion a year. This amount should then be distributed to each of the 50 states to devise individual state plans as broad as Canada's.

The Canadian Green Plan is immense, complete, and integrated. For instance, it takes on sticky policy problems and transcontinental political problems on energy, air and water quality recovery. It announces the intention to virtually eliminate persistent toxic discharge into the environment. And it will require that government institutions lead by example, by cleaning up their facilities and mandating a Code of Environmental Stewardship. The Canadians intend to create new laws and give old ones teeth to assure sustainable development and to assure that everyone's needs, notably those of native peoples in places like British Columbia and the Arctic, plus women's and youth groups, are heard and heeded.

The sustainability idea began to emerge back in 1987, when the United Nations-sponsored World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) published its report, Our Common Future (Ecolog, p. 100).* Norway was the first to base a national environmental sustainability plan on the recommendations of the WCED; the Netherlands followed suit and improved on Norway's plan.

Not previously known for environmental leadership, why did the Canadian government decide to act so forcefully on such a grand scale? One answer is that it is a response to political reality In opinion polls, 95 percent of the Canadian public has consistently demanded improvement in environmental quality.

In the U.S., as in Canada, special-interest domination has blocked the idea of taking a serious approach to solving environmental problems, but U.S. polls consistently show that 85 percent of the public wants environmental improvement. Canada will still have a struggle to get this plan into action, but its government is taking a stand. The pressure here is building; it won't take much longer to force such a plan. The concept is powerful because the idea of a Green Plan applies as well to a community as to a nation; it reaches right down to the individual.

A second problem we have in the U.S. is that our national debate has been on single issues, missing the big picture. We've become intent on achieving easier goals, like saving wild rivers or trying to get an acid-rain bill passed. The problem with this approach is that we let politicians compromise on splinter issues, and let them off the hook when it comes to the larger principles and needed policies. Mr. Bush, for instance, believes himself to be a balanced environmentalist because he supports the planting of a million trees.

The Canadian plan is a wanderful breakthrough. It is just the kind of comprehensive approach to environmental recovery I've been hammering on for a long time, while I was in California state government and as an advisor to the Banff Center, a Canadian natural-resource-policy think tank. The fact that the great nation to the north, connected to us by land and commerce, is carrying out the dream gives me great joy, and hope for the world.