I've long wanted to draw a polar bear on an ice floe, which has become the symbol for global warming -- and is now verging on cliché. I settled for Horst. The polar bear will join him next week.

It must have been 1988 when I went to a speech at the Ontario Science Centre by David Suzuki, at which he said we had a decade or two at the most to turn around global warming. In the subsequent years, I kept thinking about that speech, as humans proceeded blindly on, with nary a thought nor a front-page headline as to the consequences. Then as now, there was a sense of urgency about the environment. I still remember how hot the summer was. The Rio Summit took place in 1992. There was momentum.

Then the recession hit, followed by a boom that hasn't ended, and only now are we waking up. But will humans grow further committed to changing our ways? Our attention span is notoriously short. And our entire econimic system is built around continued growth -- in population and CO2. This "news story" will play out over the next hundred years. It's a story with legs -- but perhaps the legs are far too long for us short-sighted hairless apes.

10 Years Ago This Week: March 27, 1997
Ontario had just approved slots at race-tracks and opening casinos everywhere, while hospitals were closing. Combining the two seemed a natural strategy for the Common Sense Revolution. "Are you here to gamble or see a doctor?"