EARTH CHANGES

Mother Nature, the newest scapegoat, says Suzuki

As a result of tumultuous weather and geological events, thousands of people have been evacuated, hundreds have lost their homes, many have lost their jobs and a few have even lost their lives. So it's only natural for people to be looking for a scapegoat. Someone or something to point the finger at and say - you! It was your fault! Yet I was still quite taken aback when my local newspaper bizarrely chose to blame Mother Nature.
A lead editorial in the Vancouver Sun likens Mother Nature to Mommy Dearest, claims that 'our culture has a history of viewing nature as benign, as the wellspring from which all good things come,' and argues that 'it's time to relieve ourselves of the notion that everything natural is good.'
The intent of the editorial, it seems, is to remove any hint of human culpability from the disasters that have gripped the province. Never mind that the extreme weather events and insect infestations British Columbia has been experiencing are exactly what scientists have been telling us for years are the kind of thing we will be seeing more and more of if we don't stop pumping increasing amounts of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. Instead, the editorial seeks to frame the world as "nature vs humans" as though the two entities are fundamentally different and at odds. In such a world, whatever people do to shore up their defenses against the dangers of nature could be seen as justifiable.