Opportunity Might Soon Stop Knocking

If there were a grand prize for glad-handing, Steven Harper would win it. With the culmination of this, the most recent G8 summit meetings, Harper has once again shown his true colours. I'm reminded of a quote from the movie Green Street Hooligans. The tough, older football firm leader, Pete Dunnham, speaking to the nervous, in-over-his-head american Matt Buckner as they approach a local pub, Pete's firm's main hangout.

"Look, we're sorta goin' into my place of business....keep your head down, shut up 'till you're spoken to and you might have a better run of things"

That is exactly what Harper and many other world leaders did. With such a huge chance to affect real change in the way we are managing (or rather, mis-managing) the growing climate crisis on our planet, all anyone did was let themselves be pushed around by the big business representatives....namely George W. Bush and Hu Jintao. Backed (or held at gunpoint by) the world's biggest corporations and leading the world's two largest economies, these two men managed yet again to forstall any headway being made towards reducing carbon emmissions. What does this mean for the average Joe? For the most part?....nothing at all. Nothing is going to change any time soon. Just as with the "intensity targets" that Bush and Harper have been so proud of recently, this new plan to "seriously consider lowing emmissions by 2050" is nothing more than a whole lot of talk about nothing. Personally, i find this very troubling. There seems to be a theme developping in this relatively new century. Individuality is becoming a paramount priority for the citizens of the western world, and with that individuality comes an odd sence of everything being "someone else's problem". I've noticed this especially recently, as i have become more involved with an awareness campaign for the plethora of problems in africa. One of my friends even questioned my motives for the admittedly small amount of work i've done with a few groups. "are you doing this because its important to you? or are you doing it for attention, or to further your eventual journalistic career?" The question forced me to stop and think about what my motives really are, but it also foced me to think about why someone would ask such a question in the first place. I am not accusing my friend of thinking this way himself, but his comments along with some that i had recieved from a few other people puzzled me. First of all, does it really matter what someone's motives are if the final outcome is beneficial? Why does it seem that all too often someone takes flak from society for 'stealing so and so's cause'? If an anti-capitalism protester is only at the G8 summit because they enjoy the adrenaline rush of fighting against an enormously overbearing power, so what? At the end of the day, that person is still making a contribution to a cause. What is even more troubling is how along with this sence of 'i can't be a protester, thats not MY thing...its someone elses' comes a false sence that that someone else will take care of everything for you, since it is their job as a protester, or MP or garbadge man or whatever. It seems that this trend is not restricted to individual people either. It can be seen playing out on the world stage, with this summit as a prime example. If our leaders continue to display the same fear of hard decision making, the same procrastination and what essentially amounts to spinelessness that we ourselves are displaying, they will only accomplish one thing. The choice will no longer be theirs, or ours or anyone's. If you wait long enough on a decision, it gets made for you...usually to your detriment. If you let the phone ring long enough, the person on the other line will eventually just hang up. Opportunity will eventually get frustrated and quite knocking on our collective door, and when that happens....i dont want to think about that, its someone else's job after all, isn't it?