Are we heading into another dustbowl? And does anyone care?

For those who don't subscribe to the Globe and Mail, my column about dry wells in Nova Scotia is now on-line at my own site.

What was touched on, but never really explored, was the question of what the role of governments should be in this disaster. There have been droughts across Canada, and thus far governments mostly choose to pretend that this is something entirely out of their control.

On the macro level, this is of course nonsense. Global warming and climate change are the direct result of the burning of fossil fuels and the wastes that this dumps into the environment. For at least three or four decades, it has been evident that the amounts of fossil fuel use can and should be limited.

This is not really something that the individual can change. It requires government to say that heating and transportation have to move away from oil and gas and towards electric, and that electricity has to be generated from the sun and wind. In countries like China and Norway this transition is well underway. In Canada, governments of every stripe seem determined to block these changes.

Yes, they pay lip service to climate change, sometimes, but in terms of actions it is at best a token effort. The oil and gas companies, and their subsidiaries, still pay a large part of the campaign bills, and sway the central bankers and economists. Despite the availability of technology - which does exist - and the desperate need - which is undeniable - no-one in government is prepared to step up and take a stand.

Which leaves people all over Nova Scotia, and elsewhere, with no running water in their homes, and no solution except to spend tens of thousands of dollars to drill a new, deeper well.

Or, if you can't afford that, to shower at the local gym, and do laundry with handfuls of quarters.

This raises the second question, one that I find myself returning to over and over these days: what, exactly, is the purpose of government today?

Is making sure that every family has clean, safe running water not an essential thing? Shouldn't governments be stepping up to drill wells or run municipal water lines to all of these people? Or do rural households deserve less than people that live in cities and towns? What would happen if half of Toronto or Vancouver suddenly had no running water? Would city councils just say, "Hey, it's not our fault."

Governments, both federal and provincial, always have money for the military, and for large corporations, all in the name of "economic growth" and "creating jobs." Almost always, the amounts being spent dwarf the actual paycheques generated. At the same time that there is always money for the corporate sector, the same governments plead poverty when ordinary people need help.

Somehow, the cutbacks in government spending never, ever reach the very wealthy in this country.

Right now in Canada, while billionaires plead poverty and seek government handouts, there are people living in tents in every city, and people with dry wells, and children who go to bed hungry. There are hospitals whose emergency rooms are closed several days each week, and have been so for months or years. There are people waiting months or even years for surgeries and treatments.

And yet, in Nova Scotia, there is always money to widen highways and add interchanges. There is government support for fossil fuels that add directly to the odds that Nova Scotia residents will have no drinking water. There is a government created power monopoly, Nova Scotia Power, that is widely acknowledged to be one of the worst utilities anywhere, but which is deemed untouchable by the very government that sold off the power system to their friends.

And, once again, the government claims that they are powerless to change any of this.

That is obviously not true. Governments make the rules. They make the laws and regulations that corporations must follow. And governments decide on a daily basis who will be provided with essential services, and who will suffer.

It is time that every ordinary person understood that all of these are choices that are being made. There is nothing in the world that stops governments from caring for their constituents, or from taxing the rich, or stopping polluters. If you don't have running water, or your fields are dried to dust, or temperatures are rising while rains seem to have disappeared, it's because your government has decided that this is how things should be.

And at that point, the question is simple: what do you do about it?