Ten years later, did it even matter?

This is a column I had planned for a little while but was a teeny-weeny bit distracted in November by, well, stuff. Anyway, in the end my connection between the book and the protest may be a tenuous one but it occurred to me while I was reading it and I stuck with it.

Paul J. Henderson, The Times

Published: Friday, December 4, 2009

Ten years ago this week, my curiosity—invigorated as a new J-school graduate—took me to downtown Seattle to be among thousands of protesters that filled the streets and shut down the World Trade Organization Ministerial Conference.

I admit I wasn't entirely clear what it was all about and I didn't go down on Nov. 30, 1999 to join in what would be dubbed the Battle in Seattle, to shake my fist at the power brokers attempting to link our global corporate world in ever-more intimate ways.

I was just curious and yet soon was amid frustrated delegates, more than a few anarchists, and large groups of parading environmentalists and union workers worried what liberalized trade would do to workers' rights and the environment. And, of course, hundreds of riot-gear-equipped police officers that eventually filled the air of downtown Seattle, not to mention a few eyeballs, with the burning sensation and acrid stench of tear gas and pepper spray.

That day illustrated the power of organized protests and showed the world that Americans, and more than a few Canadians, weren't necessarily all in favour of the supposed oligarchy the WTO represented.

Of course complete opposition to global trade is silly. Opposition to the World Trade Organization whose power and influence waned considerably after the near riot scenes was a little different.

But in his recent book, Canadian economist Jeff Rubin points out that because of the simple fact that cheap oil makes globalization tick, it may soon all be over anyway. In Why Your World is About to Get A Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization, Rubin explains how cheap oil holds the global economy together and there will be no more cheap oil.

"Expensive oil may mean the end of life as we know it, but maybe that life wasn't particularly great to start with," Rubin writes. "Smog-congested cities, global warming, oil slicks and other forms of environmental degradation are all part of the legacy of cheap oil."

When exactly the serious oil shocks Rubin warns of will occur is unclear, but what is clear is that the trade advantages of cheap labour in developing nations will disappear when transportation costs start to skyrocket.

And while I like my lemons and coffee, maybe, overall, that's not a bad thing. For those who are already seeking to purchase more food and other products more locally for environmental reasons (an insidious trend, according to the Fraser Institute) that urge maybe just become the new reality because of oil prices.

"Get ready for a smaller world. Soon, your food is going to come from a field much closer to home, and the things you buy will probably come from a factory down the road rather than one on the other side of the world. You will almost certainly drive less and walk more, and that means you will be shopping and working closer to home. Your neighbours and your neighbourhood are about to get a lot more important in the smaller world of the none-too-distant future."

Sounds good to me.

There was a lot of misinformation and misdirected anger 10 years ago on the streets of Seattle, and I don't want to claim that the protesters who galvanized themselves so powerfully that day did so for no good reason. Maybe the WTO would have come to be a powerful and insidious global rulemaker forcing nation by nation into abandoning their individual environmental policies if they were deemed to be barriers to free trade.

But it looks like globalization as we know it today may become a footnote of history anyway.