"The Right Side Of History"

That's how New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern describes her government's landmark climate legislation, which commits the country to zero carbon emissions by 2050. The bill passed 119 to one:

Climate change minister James Shaw said the bill, which commits New Zealand to keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees, provided a framework for the island country of nearly 5 million to adapt too, and prepare for the climate emergency.

“We’ve led the world before in nuclear disarmament and in votes for women, now we are leading again.” Shaw said.

“Climate change is the defining long-term issue of our generation that successive governments have failed to address. Today we take a significant step forward in our plan to reduce New Zealand’s emissions.”

Prime minister Jacinda Ardern told MPs New Zealand was on the “right side of history”. She said: “I absolutely believe and continue to stand by the statement that climate change is the biggest challenge of our time.

What a shame that bipartisan co-operation has become the exception rather than the rule. Clearly, the world needs more New Zealand.

Time For Reflection

While the battle for climate-change mitigation will be won or lost by regulating the big polluters, it is all too easy for us to scrutinize them to the exclusion of our own profligate greenhouse-gas-emission practices. The following letter in the print edition of today's Toronto Star should give us all pause:

We in Ontario should try for numerous gestures of reconciliation with our western neighbours.

I agree with Jason Kenney that programs for reduction of carbon emissions should focus on consumers, perhaps more than on producers. I’m a consumer.

The oil companies will continue to develop their resources as long as it is a profitable enterprise.

When we as consumers reduce our demands, oil production will be reduced accordingly. The transportation industry is the biggest contributor to carbon emissions: Long distance trucking and air cargo are filling the atmosphere with carbon, because we want our wine and beer from Europe and Australia, our clothing from Asia, our cars and computers from Japan and China, our asparagus from Peru, our fruit from California, etc.

Buy local wine, even if you think it’s not as good; buy local craft beer.

Try to buy food from the nearest possible sources, though, admittedly, in winter that’s not easy. I believe we should trade in our cars with big engines and go hybrid (better range than all-electric), even if it’s more expensive and less convenient.

Reduce long-range travel by car or plane; use transit, or car pool to work if at all possible. Think of using electricity to heat your home, even if it’s more expensive, because it’s cleaner.

Recalibrating the energy industry toward cleaner technology and alternative sources of energy will provide major employment opportunities in Alberta and everywhere. It will cause wrenching grief for some, just as the prohibition of fishing for cod caused grief for workers in Atlantic Canada some years ago.

Fighting the oil producers will only cause resentment. Everyone has to make major lifestyle changes. We have to start with ourselves.

Noel Cooper, Brechin, Ont.

Distinguishing The Forest From The Trees

An interesting article in The Guardian suggests massive tree plantings could go a long way toward solving our climate change crisis. For those seeking a kind of natural deus ex machina to solve the problem, it is likely hopeful news. However, it seems to me that the idea is doomed to failure:

Planting billions of trees across the world is by far the biggest and cheapest way to tackle the climate crisis, according to scientists, who have made the first calculation of how many more trees could be planted without encroaching on crop land or urban areas.

New research estimates that a worldwide planting programme could remove two-thirds of all the emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere by human activities, a figure the scientists describe as “mind-blowing”.

The analysis found there are 1.7bn hectares of treeless land on which 1.2tn native tree saplings would naturally grow. That area is about 11% of all land and equivalent to the size of the US and China combined. Tropical areas could have 100% tree cover, while others would be more sparsely covered, meaning that on average about half the area would be under tree canopy.

The scientists specifically excluded all fields used to grow crops and urban areas from their analysis. But they did include grazing land, on which the researchers say a few trees can also benefit sheep and cattle.

While the entire article is well-worth the read, in my view there are serious flaws to this grand scheme.

First, while the study shows that two-thirds of land throughout the world could support this program, it would require a global co-operation on a scale that has never existed and likely never will. That most nations now recognize the peril we currently face seems to have little effect, if judged only by our current inertia and ubiquitous divisions.

Secondly, the costs involved in such an undertaking would be massive. That it would be the most cost-effective mitigation we could undertake likely forks little lightning. We need only see the results of recent polling for proof that we are a decidedly short-sighted species:

... while nearly two-thirds of Canadians see fighting climate change as a top priority, half of those surveyed would not shell out more than $100 per year in taxes to prevent climate change, the equivalent of less than $9 a month.

Next, the worldwide planting being advocated would require regular monitoring and constant nurturing. War-torn countries and current political realities would make this very difficult, if not impossible. Would someone like a Kim Jong Un or Donald Trump (and I use them only as examples of a widespread intractability) really be open to such 'intrusions'?)

Finally, the plan fails to take into account the massive damage already being wrought by climate change. Floods, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes and massive wildfires that affect millions of hectares of land currently would surely make this scheme more of a pipe dream than a feasible approach to the crisis. And don't forget about the feedback loops already well underway.

All that being said, I still support the effort this report advocates. However, it would be a massive mistake to regard it as the solution to our climate woes and believe that we can continue partying as if it were still the 1950s. At best, it represents but a modest beginning, just an arrow in the quiver we so desperately need.

Scheer's Climate-Change Plan - A Reality Check

While the Trudeau government engages in public double-think exercises (expansion of pipelines AND climate-change mitigation!), those hoping for climate salvation from the Conservatives under Andrew Scheer would be well-advised to watch the following. It is part of an ongoing Global News series evaluating the plans of our federal parties as we soldier on toward complete environmental collapse:



Anyone who thinks this critique of the Scheer plan somehow vindicates the approach the Liberals have taken really should read this:

The federal government recently made two truly awful decisions.

One exposes its obeisance to Big Oil, misguided notion of national interest, bad faith with regard to Indigenous peoples and devil-may-care attitude to the inevitable gushes of filthy black muck irretrievably defiling the supernatural beauty of British Columbia — possibly driving wildlife from its shores and making Canada look like a dangerous and untrustworthy clown on the world stage.

But that wasn’t the worst of the two decisions announced recently. The worst news was from Environment Minister Catherine McKenna when she said the government will freeze the carbon price at $50 per tonne.

A price on pollution is pointless without a firm commitment to continue increasing the price until there is no more pollution. That’s how carbon fee and dividend is supposed to work. It’s the only message that will get the captains of industry to change course to a no-carbon future in time to avert annihilation.

As Dr. James Hansen, father of climate change awareness, and a climate scientist, said about the Paris Agreement: “It’s just bulls--- … as long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will continue to be burned.” We must change that. It’s not about doing our best, it’s about doing what is required, as Winston Churchill said at a previous critical juncture.

John Stephenson, Etobicoke

UPDATED: The Crux Of The Problem

Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.

- Mark Twain (possibly)

The above quotation, often attributed to Mark Twain, seems more relevant than ever, especially if we substitute climate change for weather.

The ever-increasing toll exacted by 'weather events' that are only growing in intensity is impossible to ignore, as is the warning that we have only about 11 years left before the changes become irreversible. Despite that doomsday scenario, people are, to say the least, ambivalent about paying the cost necessary to avert total disaster. A survey commissioned by CBC News in which 4,500 Canadians were interviewed

found that while nearly two-thirds of Canadians see fighting climate change as a top priority, half of those surveyed would not shell out more than $100 per year in taxes to prevent climate change, the equivalent of less than $9 a month.

... 38 per cent of respondents said that "our survival depends on addressing" climate change and 25 per cent said it is a top priority. Another 20 per cent said "it's important, but not a top priority," while 11 per cent said it wasn't a priority.

The good news is that many Canadians are willing to take some measures to combat climate change, as long as they are not too painful:

The most popular options were buying local (75 per cent) and reducing the thermostat (66 per cent), while 55 per cent said they were willing to purchase fewer things in general. Just under half, or 47 per cent, said they would be willing to drive less, while 37 per cent would take public transit or use a bicycle more often.

The bad news is that people are less enthused about measures that require more 'heavy lifting.'

Just 34 per cent said they would go without air conditioning, 30 per cent would purchase a vehicle with an energy-saving mode and 25 per cent would fly less frequently. Fewer than one in five respondents who were willing to make changes to their lives said they would purchase an electric car (20 per cent), move to a smaller house or apartment (19 per cent) or give up eating meat (17 per cent).

Respondents were asked how much they would be willing to pay to combat climate change,

Nearly one-third, or 32 per cent, said they were unwilling to pay anything at all, while 17 per cent said they would be willing to pay less than $100 in taxes every year. Netflix's most basic plan comes in at a yearly price tag of $120.

Another 16 per cent of respondents were willing to pay between $100 and $500 per year — the equivalent of between $8.33 and $41.67 per month. Just seven per cent were willing to pay between $500 and $1,000 per year, while only three per cent would pay more than $1,000 per year in taxes to help prevent climate change.

First-time voters were a notable exception. They were half as likely as the general population to want to pay nothing and markedly more willing to pay extra taxes.

I have said it before: people are their own worst enemies. Coupled with a craven political class all to happy to exploit the electorate, it is surely a recipe for disaster that will grow even greater as the years unfold.

UPDATE: For those climate-change scofflaws who believe we still have time to debate mitigation, a little something for your consideration:

Permafrost at outposts in the Canadian Arctic is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted, an expedition has discovered, in the latest sign that the global climate crisis is accelerating even faster than scientists had feared.

A team from the University of Alaska Fairbanks said they were astounded by how quickly a succession of unusually hot summers had destabilised the upper layers of giant subterranean ice blocks that had been frozen solid for millennia.

“What we saw was amazing,” Vladimir Romanovsky, a professor of geophysics at the university, told Reuters. “It’s an indication that the climate is now warmer than at any time in the last 5,000 or more years.“

Climate Change And Cities

This is a time when the credibility of national governments is at an all-time low. In the United States, Donald Trump openly denies climate science. Indeed, he has declared his intention to revive the coal industry and boost fracking, two very dangerous sources of environmental disruption. He is even musing about withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement Climate.

Here at home, things are not much better. While avoiding the harsh rhetoric of a climate-change denier, Justin Trudeau, by some feat of rhetorical legerdemain, insists that developing the tarsands is not incompatible with a cleaner environment. Such may sound good to the untutored mind, but for the critical thinker demanding specifics, the prime minister offers pretty thin gruel.

So where are we to look for real leadership? Even though they are at best very junior partners, because they have the most to lose as recent events have made very clear, cities may have far more ability to exert substantial influence on the climate change file than most people might think.

The late Benjamin Barber wrote a book, recently published, called Cool Cities: Urban Sovereignty and the Fix for Global Warming arguing that cities, not national governments, hold the key to real progress on the climate change file. An excerpt in The Guardian offers some of his thinking:

The list [of what municipalities can do] includes divestment of public funds from carbon energy companies; investment to encourage renewable energy and green infrastructure; municipal carbon taxes; fracking and drilling bans; new waste incineration technologies; regulation of the use of plastic bottles and bags; policies to improve public transport and reduce car use; and recycling.

Barber cites the city of Oslo, which is pursuing a zero-emissions campaign, as an exemplar:

The city is applying the goal with particular efficiency to transportation, and electric vehicle charging stations are plentiful. The plan is to make Oslo the most electric vehicle-friendly city in the world – one in four new cars sold in Norway are electric – and a champion of green housing and architecture: its new opera house is set in a neighbourhood that gleams with green infrastructure.

And cities in Asia are embracing some surprising initiatives as well:

The greater Seoul region has a population of almost 25 million, and in 2015 it was ranked the continent’s most sustainable city. Seoul has made a massive investment in electric-powered buses. It already has the world’s third largest subway system, but its carbon fuel bus fleet of 120,000 vehicles has been a massive source of pollution. Current plans are to convert half this fleet to electric by 2020, which would be the world’s most ambitious achievement of this kind.

One of the main impediments to a wider application of municipal green projects is the constraint on the power of local government:

There are two formidable obstacles blocking a larger role for cities: a paucity of resources and the absence of autonomy and jurisdiction. The European Union favours regions over cities, and works more on agricultural subsidies than affordable urban housing. In the United States, the structure of congressional representation means a suburban and rural minority rules over the urban majority.

Here in Canada, at least in Ontario, what a local government can do, as Toronto mayor John Tory found out to his great disgruntlement, is only what the provincial government will permit it to do. Road tolls in Toronto, as had been proposed and initially approved by the Wynne government, was ultimately vetoed, given that a provincial election is pending next year, and motorists have long memories.

There is only one answer, according to Barber:

If cities are to get the power they need, they will have to demand the right of self-governance...

Because urban citizens are the planet’s majority, their natural rights are endowed with democratic urgency. They carry the noble name of “citizen”, associated with the word “city”. But the aim is not to set urban against rural: it is to restore a more judicious balance between them. Today it is cities that look forward, speaking to global common goods, while fearful nations look back.

We, as a species, have a clear choice: continue on our present heedless course to planetary destruction, or start to make the hard, painful and expensive choices in order to live to fight another day.