I was born in 1983. Barely 40 years ago. When I was a child, cigarettes were everywhere. In every corner of our daily lives, this cloud and this characteristic smell insinuated itself – during our family outings, to the bowling alley, to the grocery store, in the parks and even, until 1986, in schools, daycare centers and public transport. On entering the school, one first passed through the smoking room. A good breath of stale air, what an introduction to learning!
Today, it is almost unthinkable to remember these scenes. We say to ourselves “what a time! “. Why remind you of this “old story”, you ask me? Well, because the last significant changes to the Tobacco Act, including banning smoking in bars and restaurants, happened in 2005, just 18 years ago! In less than two decades, we have succeeded in detoxification. We did it for our children.
The urgency of radical change
Today we face another challenge, an even greater challenge. We need to detox from another addiction that is harmful to our children and future generations — our addiction to an unsustainable lifestyle. Global warming is reaching such a level that we are breaking record after heat record, and the planet is literally burning.
A recent analysis by a professor from Monash University revealed that only 0.18% of the earth’s surface was spared from air pollution. When we know that it is the cause of nearly 7 million premature deaths per year in the world and that it reduces life expectancy by two years on average, this is nothing to reassure us.
The world is changing, and not for the better. Evidence of this devastating mutation mounts, from floods and periods of intense smog to wildfires and tornadoes.
A long-standing threat
This problem is not new. Man-made global warming was first discussed in 1988. I was five years old. It was the year of the founding of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Today, my youngest daughter is five years old, and we continue to ignore warnings from experts. We have to do better, and we have to do it now.
The task seems immense, but it is not as huge as one might think. We already have all the tools to deal with it. No need to wait for the development of a miracle technology. Experts have been telling us this since I was a child. Here’s what we can do right now:
– Invest massively in local, interurban and interregional public transport;
– Densify our neighborhoods to minimize urban sprawl;
-Encourage local trade to reduce dependence on long and energy-intensive distribution chains;
– Abandoning the individual car to favor more economical and more ecological modes of transport;
-Encourage active transportation, such as cycling and walking, which have minimal impact on the environment;
– Demineralize our cities by favoring green spaces and permeable surfaces;
– Greening the territory, by planting trees and protecting natural spaces.
We are capable of it
We have already proven that we can evolve, adapt and make sacrifices for the good of all. The fight against tobacco has shown us that when we make them aware of the danger, we can move our politicians.
We won’t be able to wean ourselves off the car and change our lifestyles enough to create real, lasting change. We will need courageous politicians, who will be able to face the inevitable crises of resistance to change that such a transformation will bring.
This fight can pay off in the medium and long term for our communities. For example, banning tobacco represents more than $600 million in health care savings per year. However, in the Montreal region, transportation accounts for 40% of GHGs. According to the Montreal Metropolitan Community (CMM), the costs of automobile congestion have doubled in ten years and were estimated in 2018 at nearly $4.2 billion in the greater Montreal area. Imagine the sums we could save in prevention at a time when our cities need to increase their resilience in the face of the crisis.
When I was little, we took the road on vacation in a smoky car. It is unthinkable today. I hope that my grandchildren will take the road to vacation by train and will find the bad habits of this beginning of the 21st century just as abnormal.e century. It’s up to us to make that journey to a cleaner, safer, greener future. Demand change from your elected officials now!