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Today I was reading the paper and there was an article about droughts in Bolivia. While Bolivia is the country making headlines, Ecuador is also have many problems and towns here have to shut down electricity for set times during the day. Apparently Bolivia is in even worse shape and if water problems are not solved, "El Alto, a poor city near La Paz, could be the first major urban casualty of climate change".
"The Glaciers that have long provided water and electricity to this part of Bolivia are melting and disappearing, victims of global warming most scientists say. A world bank report concluded last year that climate change would eliminate many glaciers in the Andes within 20 years, threatening the existence of nearly 100 million people."
"'A lot of us think about not having kids anymore', said Marharita Limachi Alvarez, 46, a blue Andean cap with ear flaps pulled over her head. 'Without Water or food, how would we survive? Why bring them here to suffer?'"
The rest of this article in the New York Times goes on the describe how countries like Bolivia are rightfully demanding compensation from wealthier nations to help them adjust.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/science/earth/14bolivia.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1
Bolivia was arguably the high point of my trip. The culture there I thought was the most different and interesting that I have seen. One thing I can remember that impressed me so much about Bolivia was how unwasteful the people seemed. I remember eating dinner at a chicken restaurant by myself when two local people with their kids sat down at the table with me. When I looked around, I realized that no chairs were empty and concluded that they don't waste space. People sit anywhere regardless of whether they know each other. I also remember watching the people eat and there wasn't a single piece of meat left on any chicken bone or rice left over in that restaurant. Very different than our North American culture. The same can be said for how they use their energy and natural resources. Bolivians burn 1 metric ton of carbon per capita. Americans use 19 and Canadians 17. The amazing amount of energy that we emit compared to Bolivians is not even justified by accounting for GDP or standard of living.
Thinking about Bolivia and the damage we have done to the environment has led me think about a question I have been debating for several years. Is Al Gore a good environmentalist? I think this question first surfaced for me when my friend Chris Cote and I debated this one night while eating ice cream overlooking the ocean in Morocco. I remember the debate being lively but that no real conclusion was drawn from it.
The argument that I was trying to make is that if the 6 billion people who inhabit this planet lived a lifestyle similar to his and were flying all around the world and living in luxury like he does that we would probably have even more carbon in the atmosphere than we do now. It is rare that in a given field someone can be one of the outright leaders and at the same time be setting an example that shouldnt be followed. Al Gore might argue that he offsets his carbon emissions and leads a carbon neutral lifestyle but I am personally not a beleiver that someone can simply erase their carbon emissions.
Chris's argument was that no one else has done as much to create awareness and education about these causes than Al Gore has. I believe this is true and I credit the film An Inconvenient Truth in helping me understand climate change and instill my passion for the environment. It is also the case that Al Gore's line of work demands heavy travel, which is by nature highly polluting. He makes a tradeoff between polluting and education that will ultimately benefit the world in the long term. All the while he does his best to limit his impact by offsetting his emissions and making eco-friendly choices. By this line of argument he is one of the greatest environmentalists in the world and that is the reason he won the Nobel Peace Prize.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but I find it still an interesting question to think about. Poor unindustrialzed nations typically look to western nations for help. Maybe it is the case that we have just as much to learn from them as we do from our western leaders. Who is the better environmentalist: a Bolivian who lives in a clay hut in the Altiplano or Al Gore?
The answers are definitely not clear, but what I did learn today is that Bolivians are hungry and thirsty. Families are being displaced and the world will likely turn a blind eye. Some of the hardest suffering and the least fault. Injustice.