"From Russia without love." This was the headline in several 1966 newspapers after Britain's female panda, on a loan from China, returned from a trip to Moscow in the same virginal state as when she left, having repeatedly refused to even get close to her hopeful, pre-arranged mate.
Captive pandas don't seem interested in love affairs; successful breeding in confinement is rare. Given the apparent effort that China puts into panda conservation and the coveted panda loans, shouldn't they have noticed this some time ago? They have, and they'd have given up, except that pandas are a very powerful tool that helps them, and their allies, get exactly what they want.
The Chinese aren't pioneers of this trick. Already back in 100 A.D., Roman poets were denouncing politicians' use of costly circus games to gain public consent, not through exemplary service, but through distraction of Roman citizens instead. Much later on, where I come from, Spanish dictator Franco was a master of this trend - he used soccer to keep people home on critical dates, and had no qualms about changing the time when the best games should be aired, all to avoid historically violent working-class gatherings, as on May 1, International Workers' Day.
So even today, it's not a surprise to find someone trying to pull the wool over our eyes. While hugging a panda during his recent trip to China, Prime Minister Harper declared, "In spite of all the very important deals [] we signed this week, people in Canada will notice the pandas more than anything else." If YouTube statistics are anything to go by, he's probably right; a video of a panda sneezing was watched 130 million times almost overnight.
Yes, the power of the panda is widely known, and we Canadians have unsuccessfully tried to get our hands on them before. On his visit to China in 1973, Prime Minister Trudeau even took four beavers with him, hoping that in exchange he'd get one of the fuzzy-looking beasts. Alas, it was the wrong time for this expensive gift. Why? It boils down to Chinese wants and needs: For a long time, self-sufficiency was the pillar of the Chinese economy. As late as 1993, China's oil imports amounted to a meagre 1 per cent. But this figure is nearly 50 per cent today, so China's self-sufficiency is wearing a little thin... and here's where Harper and the pandas come in!
Napoleon warned us all two centuries ago, "Let China sleep, for when the dragon awakes, she'll shake the world." Well, the dragon's out of bed, and in our province, perhaps more than anywhere else, we fear the hunger that she's looking to satiate. While we're enthralled with the pandas, the dragon will sneak into our tar sands, and PM Harper will do anything he can to give her access to our expensive, poor-quality grub; the Northern Gateway pipeline is key to a successful feeding plan.
But pipeline-construction giant Enbridge's CEO Patrick Daniel worries about regulatory delays. By 2025, China will consume 14 million barrels of oil a day. Hunger like this cannot be dismissed - if we aren't ready to feed her, the dragon will look elsewhere; Africa and South America are next. Hence, Mr. Daniel is also over the moon about Chinese pandas coming to Canadian zoos. The last few years have been rough on the ground - 804 spills occurred on Enbridge's pipelines between 1999 and 2010, including the largest oil spill ever in the U.S. Midwest. The pandas haven't arrived, so it was Mr. Daniel's good luck to have Enbridge selected one of Canada's Greenest Employers at the same time. The green award recognizes employers who develop "exceptional earth-friendly initiatives and (demonstrate) environmental leadership." Oh, really?
The European Union, however, doesn't want to know about pandas or awards. To encourage use of cleaner fuels, they have ranked them according to their carbon footprint. Needless to say, Alberta's product doesn't look very good among the rest. Offended and reluctant to change, Canada has threatened action at the World Trade Organization if the EU goes ahead with the classification.
My fellow Canadians, both in the domestic and global scenes, the picture we're painting looks rather bleak. Every barrel of tar sands oil uses three barrels of water, two tons of sand and 1,400 cubic feet of natural gas. The average Canadian (not the 60-barrel Albertan!) burns 25 barrels of oil a year - plenty of room for improvement here. Is it time to re-evaluate our collective values and the impact of our individual actions? What do you think we can do together? What can you do yourself? Tell me all about it at www.movingplanets.net.
