It’s funny how much the public discussion about climate change got lost in a nasty argument about ideology, at least here in North America. Far more virulent in the States than the version we had here in Canada, but we had it too. Our current federal goverment is the same party that argued that global warming wasn’t a serious problem. Odd that very basic science should become something one can argue about as a matter of faith. We don’t take sides and get all knotted up over whether we believe in the second law of thermodynamics. Or maybe I just missed it.
I haven’t sung this song for years now, but I’ve been wondering if it might be good to add a few verses. Although I could wish the piece was a little more dated than it seems. I guess these sorts of unfortunate behaviours on the part of governments never go completely out of fashion. The verses were written deep in the middle of a time when the politics of blame still held power. We’re still feeling the effects of some of it. Around here they gutted mental health services, and generally as much of the public healthcare system as they could get away with. On the one hand telling us that we can’t afford it, and on the other hand trying to convince you and me that it’s somehow bogus to believe that a complete and fair public healthcare system is part of what makes our society Canadian. And of course there will always be business interests who will make good money if the government does as little as possible. I just honestly don’t understand how a business which must make a healthy profit in order to exist is going to do things more cheaply than a public system which doesn’t need to make that profit. And am I the only one who has noticed that where our current system seems to be having difficulty is at exactly the same point where the public part of our system has to give way to the private part? We’ve never had a completely public system. Too many self-made business-people telling us it’s not possible.
Ah well, what do I know? Not much, apparently. Guess I’ll just have to stick to singing songs.
the song –>Learn to Behave–from the CD ‘letters from home’, 1997 (NHC 401)