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Sputnik and climate change
Tuesday August 26 2008
Rob Strang On Politics
 
On Oct. 4, 1957, the Russians launched a satellite called “Sputnik 1.” It was the first man-made satellite to be launched into the earth’s orbit, and announced the Russians were ahead in the space race. At the top of my family’s Christmas tree throughout the ‘60s was a round ball with spikes coming out of it, lit up by a light bulb in the middle. Our family called it Sputnik, and I was embarrassingly old before I realized that it was supposed to be a star, not a satellite. The Russians had infiltrated Canadian homes like ours. While this had a rather light-hearted affect on my family, the Russian Sputnik program damaged the psyche of the American people. Many Americans saw Russian technical superiority as a national security threat. This was the impetus for President Dwight Eisenhower to create the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 and for John F. Kennedy to announce, in 1961, that the United States of America would send a man to the moon within the decade. At the time, the Americans didn’t have a rocket to deliver the necessary payload into orbit, much less to the moon and back. Regardless, JFK had talked it over with Dr. Wernher Von Braun and his team of crack scientists and believed it could be done. The U.S. was faced with a perceived threat unlike any they had ever known. They had an inspiring political leader who had the faith to rely on a community of scientists and engineers with the vision and confidence to respond to a national, if not global threat. The measure of the threat was in space, but the breadth was science and technology in general. An American colleague of mine, a scientist who grew up in this era, tells of the tremendous support that any student who was scientifically inclined received. The U.S. was achieving the unachievable and the ramifications were profound. For decades since, the U.S. economy has dominated the world to a large degree because of technical superiority that has its origin in their leadership challenging the nation to go “where no man had gone before” (I stole that from somewhere). The global threat of today is not a military power. It is carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It is our total dependence of fossil fuels, at a time when their use is threatening the world’s climate and our children’s future and world peace. So what does Canada do in the face of this global threat? Our leader, Stephen Harper, works hard to convince other world leaders that we should set goals that are “achievable.” Not goals that will address the crisis, but rather goals that are practical. Goals that are far less than other countries are prepared to achieve. Goals that are within reach of countries with no vision, no ambition and no real intent to truly deal with the crisis. Rob Strang is a former Orangeville Town Councillor, a professional engineer and a self-employed father of three, committed to promoting sustainable development.