Canada Stands Indicted

While I most assuredly cannot claim any virtue when it comes to climate-change mitigation (I still fly, probably the greatest environmental sin one can commit), I do understand the gravity of what the world faces; to say I am pessimistic about our future is a massive understatement. That pessimism has been given new impetus by a piece Bill McKibben has written in The Guardian.

Despite having elected a government purporting to take climate-change seriously, it is likely we will approve a new tars sands project that will add countless megatonnes of greenhouse gases to the world's atmosphere:

The Teck mine would be the biggest tar sands mine yet: 113 square miles of petroleum mining, located just 16 miles from the border of Wood Buffalo national park. A federal panel approved the mine despite conceding that it would likely be harmful to the environment and to the land culture of Indigenous people... Canadian authorities ruled that the mine was nonetheless in the “public interest”.

To put things into perspective,

Canada, which is 0.5% of the planet’s population, plans to use up nearly a third of the planet’s remaining carbon budget [emphasis added]. Ottawa hides all this behind a series of pledges about “net-zero emissions by 2050” and so on, but they are empty promises.

Despite the worldwide evidence that we are witnessing the beginnings of runaway climate-change, we just can't seem to help ourselves.

... the Teck Frontier proposal is predicated on the idea that we’ll still need vast quantities of oil in 2066, when Greta Thunberg is about to hit retirement age. If an alcoholic assured you he was taking his condition very seriously, but also laying in a 40-year store of bourbon, you’d be entitled to doubt his sincerity, or at least to note his confusion.

Canada is far from unique in its addiction to, and advocacy for, more fossil-fuel development. What perhaps differentiates us from the world's other bad-actors in this domain is our pious avowals that we are enacting measures that will address the problem

As Bill McKibben points out, nothing could be further from the truth.

The Real Adult In The Room

These days, it is hard to see the call to public office as an honourable one. The following letter sets things into their proper perspective, I think, while the video that follows shows who the real adult in the room is:

Former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne remarks that every child has the right to aspire to public office. We can look to the elections of Donald Trump, Doug Ford and now Boris Johnson and realize that children have and will continue to aspire to and achieve public office.

G.A. Corcoran, Toronto

When you can't attack the message you try to attack the messenger "that's a sign we are winning." @GretaThunberg to @NaomiAKlein.

The science is clear, there is no time to wait. #ActOnClimate#Climate #energy #tech #go100re #GreenNewDeal pic.twitter.com/CcCAImeGNp

— Mike Hudema (@MikeHudema) December 16, 2019

More Evidence That The Emperor Has No Clothes

The Mound notified me that he is having problems accessing his blog, and so directed me to the following story. Given the stellar job he has been doing on the climate file and other issues relating to the earth's viability, I know my post will be a mere shadow of the quality and depth he brings to bear, but here goes anyway.

The Guardian reports a truth about Justin Trudeau that his supporters are loathe to acknowledge: despite his election pledge, he is leading us farther away from any chance of meeting Canada's promised greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.

... Justin Trudeau’s newly re-elected government will decide whether to throw more fuel on the fires of climate change by giving the go-ahead to construction of the largest open-pit oil sands mine in Canadian history.

Approving Teck Resources’ Frontier mine would effectively signal Canada’s abandonment of its international climate goals. The mega mine would operate until 2067, adding a whopping 6 megatonnes of climate pollution every year. That’s on top of the increasing amount of carbon that Canada’s petroleum producers are already pumping out every year.

Approving Teck Resources’ Frontier mine would effectively signal Canada’s abandonment of its international climate goals. The mega mine would operate until 2067, adding a whopping 6 megatonnes of climate pollution every year. That’s on top of the increasing amount of carbon that Canada’s petroleum producers are already pumping out every year.

And despite Trudeau's repeated and lofty rhetoric about consulting Indigenous people, this project has grave implications for them:

The Teck mega mine would be on Dene and Cree territory, close to Indigenous communities. The area is home to one of the last free-roaming herds of wood bison, it’s along the migration route for the only wild population of endangered whooping cranes, and is just 30km from the boundary of Wood Buffalo national park – a Unesco world heritage site because of its cultural importance and biodiversity.

Most Canadians are aware of the filthy nature of tar sand development, but even if this project does not go ahead, much further damage is being planned:

Even without Teck Frontier, there are 131 megatonnes per year in approved tar sands projects just waiting for companies to begin construction. No wonder the industry is on track to take up 53% of Canada’s emissions budget within the next 10 years.

And the signs that Trudeau is giving little more than lip service to emission-reduction is becoming very evident:

Less than two months ago, two-thirds of Canadians voted for parties vowing to do more to fight climate change. Trudeau promised during the campaign to introduce legally binding targets for Canada to reach net zero emissions by 2050. But all the current national climate policies, including a carbon tax and coal phase-out, would be overwhelmed by this carbon juggernaut and Canada would radically fail to meet its climate commitments.

There are alternatives:

By rejecting the Teck mega mine, the Canadian government could signal that it is committed to stopping this runaway train. That it does represent the two-thirds of Canadians who voted for increased action against climate breakdown. It could launch a serious program to help the oil and gas workers of Alberta, the people who are out of work and need a future to believe in, by redirecting the many billions of dollars for pipelines and fossil fuel infrastructure into diversifying and decarbonizing Alberta’s economy.

In rejecting the Teck mega mine, Canada would be joining France, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Norway and recently California – all jurisdictions that have recently constrained expansion of oil and gas due to the urgent need to build cleaner safer energy systems and fight climate change.

Based on the Trudeau government's past performance, I would say the odds of the Teck project being approved are great. But I would very much welcome being proven wrong.

It Can Be Done

I was surprised that the concept of the New Green Deal has been around for over a decade. Far more ambitious than the Green Shift once proposed by Stephan Dion, it is very much doable, but of course the usual suspects (captured governments, the fossil-fuel industry, etc.) fight it all the way.

Although the following short documentary by The Guardian is directed toward U.K. action, the ideas in it are applicable worldwide.

Look To The Skies

Only a simpleton would deny the reality of climate change. Whether we are reading almost daily about wildfires, tornadoes, floods or sea-level rise, we know in our hearts that the future has arrived and will only get worse. Despite that understanding, many of us continue with practices that will only aggravate the problem.

One of the most egregious is flying, something I continue to be guilty of, usually twice a year. Since people are not inclined to stop visiting loved ones who live far away, or taking that much-needed winter getaway, are we doomed then to simply add to the greenhouse gas emissions that are fueling climate change?

Gwynne Dyer offers his perspective both on the scope of the problem and a possible partial answer to it through new technology:

Aviation accounts for around 2.5 per cent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions at the moment, but the contrails the planes leave in the stratosphere turn into cirrus clouds that reflect heat back to the surface, and that causes an equal amount of heating.

So in reality five per cent of current warming is already due to aviation, and industry representatives estimate that the number of people flying annually will almost double (to 8.2 billion) in the next 20 years. By then flying will have grown to 10 per cent of the global heating problem, or even more if we have made good progress on cutting our other emissions.

Should we despair? Dyer suggests there are solutions that don't entail an outright stop to flying, but they are ones that the aviation industry has shown little interest in, corporate inertia being what it is.

A number of people have been working on DAC (Direct Air Capture of carbon dioxide) for more than a decade already, and the leader in the field, David Keith’s Carbon Engineering, has had a pilot plant running in British Columbia for the past three years.

Keith’s business model involves combining his captured carbon dioxide with hydrogen (produced from water by electrolysis). The electricity for both processes comes from solar power, and the final product is a high-octane fuel suitable for use in aircraft.

It emits carbon dioxide when you burn it, of course, but it’s the same carbon dioxide you extracted from the air at the start. The fuel is carbon-neutral. Scaling production up would take a long time and cost a lot, but it would also bring the price down to a commercially viable level.

The problem with the heat-reflection caused by contrails also has some mitigation-avenues available:

The planes are flying so high for two reasons. The air is less dense up there, so you don’t use so much fuel pushing through it. But the main reason, especially for passenger planes, is that there is much less turbulence in the stratosphere than in the lower atmosphere. If the planes flew down there, they’d be bouncing around half the time, and everybody’s sick-bag would be on their knee.

So what can you do about it? Well, contrails only form in air masses with high humidity, and therefore only affect 10 to 20 per cent of flights. With adequate information, most of those flights could simply fly around them. Alternatively, fly below 7,600 metres for that section of the flight, and contrails won’t form anyway.

It will be more turbulent down there, so in the long run we should be building aircraft that automatically damp out most of the turbulence. This is probably best achieved by ducted flows of air that instantly counter any sudden changes of altitude or attitude, but if aircraft designers started incorporating such ducts into their designs today, they’d only come into regular use in about 15 years’ time.

One should always be wary of deus ex machina solutions. However, the approach suggested by Dyer surely deserves consideration as one of the strategies needed as the climate crisis continues to worsen.

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.

As The Dust Settles....

I will offer no analysis of our federal election; I will only say that from my perspective (my disappointment that the Greens did not do better notwithstanding), the fact of a minority government is the best of all outcomes. The question of whether or not Justin can find within himself the capacity to play nice with others is yet to be determined, but for the sake of the country, we can only hope he does.

While many pressing issues stand to be addressed, pharmacare being uppermost in Jagmeet Singh's mind, I do hope that effective action to address climate change will also be on the agenda. This latest report reminds us that we have little time to lose:

Research has found Arctic soil has warmed to the point where it releases more carbon in winter than northern plants can absorb during the summer.

The finding means the extensive belt of tundra around the globe — a vast reserve of carbon that dwarfs what's held in the atmosphere — is becoming a source of greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change.

The research by scientists in 12 countries and from dozens of institutions is the latest warning that northern natural systems that once reliably kept carbon out of the atmosphere are starting to release it.

While this is only one of several feedback loops exacerbating climate change, it is a potent one.

The scientists placed carbon dioxide monitors along the ground at more than 100 sites around the circumpolar Arctic to see what was actually happening and took more than 1,000 measurements.

They found much more carbon was being released than previously thought. The results found carbon dioxide emissions of 1.7 billion tonnes a year are about twice as high as previous estimates.

Arctic plants are thought to take in just over one billion tonnes of the gas from the atmosphere every year during growing season. The net result is that Arctic soil around the globe is probably already releasing more than 600 million tonnes of CO2 annually.

And the process is accelerating.

Under a business-as-usual scenario, emissions from northern soil would be likely to release 41 per cent more carbon by the end of the century.

But the Arctic is already warming at three times the pace of the rest of the globe. Even if significant mitigation efforts are made, those emissions will increase by 17 per cent, said the report.

Our house is on fire. Only resolute, principled politics holds any hope of containing the conflagration.

UPDATED:This Is How To Do It

With our typical timidity, Canadians are notoriously reluctant to put our money where our mouth is when it comes to climate change. Sure, we recently had very loud and proud displays of concern during September's climate strike, but once that happened, one wonders how to sustain any momentum.

Perhaps we can take some tips from the Brits who, despite their own Brexit worries, seem to have found their focus through ongoing Extinction Rebellion demonstrations.

Extinction Rebellion protesters have shut off large parts of Westminster as they began a planned two-week shutdown of central London.

The Metropolitan police said 135 people had been arrested. Westminster Bridge, Lambeth Bridge, Trafalgar Square and Whitehall were all blocked off as throngs of people demonstrated about the lack of meaningful action to tackle the climate crisis.

In Trafalgar Square a hearse was parked carrying a coffin that said: “Our future.” The driver had used a D-lock to attach himself to the steering wheel while other protesters attached themselves to the bottom of the vehicle and some lay in the road.

Yards from Downing Street, protesters blocked off Whitehall and the Embankment was shut off for about four hours outside the Ministry of Defence (MoD) by activists who attached themselves to cars before being removed by police using buzzsaws.

Among those arrested on Monday on Victoria Embankment was 81-year-old Sarah Lasenby, a Quaker and retired social worker from Oxford. She said: “For 21 years my main concern has been to help get rid of UK nuclear weapons. I am still keen to do this but once I came across XR I was so relieved to have something I could do about the ghastly state we have got our planet in.

“The whole thing is so urgent that it is imperative the government should take serious actions and put pressure on other states and global powers to radically reduce the use of fossil fuels even if this means we need to reduce our comfort at home and so much flying.”

UPDATE: Then again, I may have written too soon.

“If You’re A Liberal, You’ve Got To Be Very Nervous”

So says pollster Nik Nanos, after a poll showing young people's support for Justin Trudeau dropping dramatically after his recent chat with Greta Thunberg during her visit to Canada.

Polling data from Nanos Research shows that the proportion of voters aged 18 to 29 who cite Trudeau as their preferred prime minister fell from nearly 35 per cent to a little more than 24 per cent within 24 hours.

The Liberal leader met with Thunberg on Friday while the prominent activist was in Montreal for a climate-change march that was attended by hundreds of thousands of people.

The 16-year-old Swede took Trudeau to task, telling him he wasn’t doing enough to fight climate change. Though that is her standard message for any world leader, Nanos said he still saw it as a risk for Trudeau to agree to the meeting.

The results seem to indicate a narrowing of the gap between Trudeau and Scheer (a climate-change denier in all but name), and a small uptick of support for the Green Party.

While those two parties appear to be battling to win the most seats on Oct. 21, another fight is underway further down in the polls.

The NDP are polling at 13.18 per cent and the Greens at 12.63 per cent, likely bringing the two parties into fierce competition.

“It’s like a double horse race … the horse race to win and the horse race to place third,” Nanos said.

The Greens have been hovering around 13 per cent for several days now – their highest level ever, and approximately double the support they were pulling during the early days of the campaign.

“The last week has been very good for the Green Party,” Nanos said.

While I am long past the stage of holding out much hope for our collective future, whatever sliver there is resides in the awakening consciousness of young people, who seem to see with a perspicacity denied to many who, blinded by ideology and past practices, keep voting the same way but hoping for different results.

And that, of course, is a mere variant of a famous definition:

"It Is Not Fair"

H/t Greg Perry

I suspect the following letter by a young person expresses the angst of an entire generation:

I had hoped my final years in high school would go smoothly. But instead of stressing over university applications, I worry if it is even worth it to go through all this trouble.

Why should I study more and look for future career options when the world will crumble soon? When I receive my diploma and prepare for interviews, my window’s view will be of dying trees and collapsed houses.

It is not fair that I am compelled to strike for my time on Earth. It is not fair that I cannot even dream of a future without images of a dying home. It is not fair that my parents had the chance to bring me to this Earth, only to say goodbye together in a few year's time. I do not want to strike continuously for some higher official to just acknowledge the problem. I want them to see it and fix it.

Give me a chance. A chance to live and dream, without vivid images of organisms dying. No more is school my priority. My priority is just to have a chance to live until I reach my final years in life. That is all I want and that is not fair.

Zainab Muneer, Ajax

Connecting The Dots

While concern grows daily about the increasing toll climate change is exacting, people still have a hard time connecting it with their daily practices. Sadly, this cognitive dissonance is being facilitated by poor media coverage of the primary cause of our many natural disasters. The following Global News report addresses this pressing issue.



Additional communication resources can be found here and here.

Fool Me Once

It would be nice to believe that Team Trudeau's newly-announced commitment to climate change mitigation in the form of net-zero emissions by 2050 were a heart-felt response to the latest reports about the peril the world is in, or the result of being deeply moved by the impassioned declarations of Greta Thunberg, the brave lass who has become the conscience of the world.

Doubtlessly, Trudeau's fan clubs throughout the land will hail the leader's proclamation as yet another reason to vote Liberal in the upcoming election. Those given to less emotion and more critical thinking will remember the old adage, Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. And there is much basis to be skeptical rather than rhapsodic on this issue.

First, voters will remember Justin's betrayal of his avowal that 2015 would be the last election under the fiat past the post system, an oath quickly abandoned after a brief period of inadequate consultation with the public.

Then, of course, there was his purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline to double the capacity to ship the world's dirtiest oil to the West Coast. It was also a massive corporate bailout of Kinder Morgan Canada, part of an ongoing pattern of neoliberal policies of this government.

Finally, there is the whiff of deathbed desperation in Trudeau's announcement, given the polling numbers that show the Liberals and the Conservatives very close, with some support bleeding off to the NDP and the Green Party, the latter of which has a long-history of policy purity when it comes to environmental issues.

However, probably one of the greatest reasons to be suspicious of the liberals new 'policy' is its lack of detail, as reported by Alex Ballingall:

...even as he declined to outline specific policies to slash emissions in an unprecedented way, Trudeau was adamant that a re-elected Liberal government would break with Canada’s track record of failure to meet climate targets by “exceeding” its commitment under the international Paris Agreement and achieving “net zero emissions” by the middle of the century.

“This will be a huge opportunity for Canadians,” he said, pointing to the possibilities for economic growth in the renewable energy and clean tech sectors.

“It will require us to slash our emissions, transform our economy and use the power of nature — like planting trees and protecting ecosystems — to bring us to net zero.

“It’s an ambitious target, but it’s doable.”

The new “net zero” target brings the Liberals in line with what the New Democrats and Greens have already pledged if they form government after the Oct. 21 election.

Sound public policy is not made on the back of an envelop. Credible policy is not an emergency response in the middle of a political campaign because someone has detected what way the proverbial winds are blowing. And good policy cannot emerge from an attempt to cynically manipulate the public into voting for your party.

Our country and our planet deserve much, much better.

Climate Refugees On The Move

We have been told countless times that one of the mainstays of our troubled future will be climate refugees, those fleeing their homelands due to environmental destruction, be it caused by drought, flood, or wildfire. For people tempted to see this as a problem only their descendants will have to confront, the following report will be both jarring and sobering.

Please begin at the 10:15 mark:

Young People Speak With One Voice

And that voice is growing ever louder:

Natural Climate Solutions - Protect, Restore, Fund

While it would be dishonest to suggest that I harbour any real hope for the future, I admire deeply those with the strength of character, vision, and resilience to keep fighting the good fight on climate change. Well-known activist Greta Thunberg and Guardian journalist George Monbiot remind us that an important ingredient in climate-change mitigation is nature itself:

The protection and restoration of living ecosystems such as forests, mangroves and seagrass meadows can repair the planet’s broken climate but are being overlooked, Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot have warned in a new short film.

Natural climate solutions could remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as plants grow. But these methods receive only 2% of the funding spent on cutting emissions, say the climate activists.

The following short video offers a concise overview of what they are advocating:

Closer Than We Think

It is probably to state the obvious that, being a tribal and insular species, we tend to be less moved by disasters when they occur far from our shores. But counting on catastrophe to stay away from our immediate environs is becoming an increasingly difficult assumption. As the following report from NBC's Al Roker makes clear, geographic and economic disruption is closer than we care to think:

Climate in Crisis

If you really want a detailed assessment of anything, print is always your best source. For example, today's Star details the horrendous changes taking place in the Arctic thanks to the record-breaking temperatures occurring there.

If, however, you want a quick overview of what is happening in the North, take a look at the following report by NBC's Lester Holt:



Finally, if you have the heart for it, read how our existential crisis is playing a role in helping people decide whether they want to bring children into this world.

The Media Awaken

To put it concisely, owing to a sense of general disillusionment, I have been taking a break from my blog, a break that is likely to continue with some exceptions, as in the following.

A large number of news outlets have banded together under the name Covering Climate Now, their mission, to provide better reporting on the climate crisis. While I fear that this collaboration will only turn out to be a substitute for, rather than a spur to, action on the crisis, I plan to link to stories that suggest Americans are becoming increasingly aware of the dangers posed by it. And let's face it; unless the U.S. and other populous nations take this seriously, nothing substantive can happen to mitigate the disaster we are now witnessing on an almost daily basis.

The first story comes from NBC Nightly News:

UPDATED: Uh, Uh. Trudeau Enthusiasts Won't Like This

Start at the 1:40 mark to see what I mean. To whet your appetite, here are some viewer comments:

What an awesome way to drop that Saudi Arabia thing. Hasan's show just keeps getting better and better.

The look on his face after that question! He thought they were gonna joke about his cool socks!

Canada selling weapons of mass death to Saudi Arabia is them just following Americans lead.

Trudeau is the Canadian Obama. They both campaigned as progressives but as soon as they got in they turned into conservative establishment centrists who cater to the status quo and big oil.

This has got to be the worst condemnation of msm journalists today, they got upstaged by a comedian.




UPDATE: The Star's Venay Menon offers his take on the interview:

When I was a kid, this one time we were driving through Pennsylvania late at night when a fawn suddenly appeared in the headlights of our station wagon. Since my father maddeningly drove under the speed limit — and there was no traffic on the interstate — he was able to brake without incident. But that adorable creature just stood there for a good 30 seconds, motionless, unsure of what to do next.

It seemed so helpless and lost in the chaos.

I was reminded of it while watching Netflix’s Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj on Sunday. Trudeau might as well buy himself a pair of antlers and a bushy tail before Halloween. Just based on the moments of awkward silence and the reaction shots in which he looked absolutely paralyzed with fear, he was that fawn.

What Trudeau’s inner circle probably didn’t realize when it thought this interview — and global exposure via Netflix — was a great idea was that much of the really damning material would come from taped segments. In between clips of Minhaj’s sit-down with Trudeau, the comedian also blitzed his in-studio audience with facts, observations and timelines that portrayed Trudeau as a scandal-ridden leader who speaks out of both sides of his mouth. The show went after Trudeau over the SNC-Lavalin scandal. It raised the issue of ethics violations. It more or less called Trudeau a fraud on the environment. It condemned him over Canada’s arms sales to Saudi Arabia.

Venon concludes that regarding the Trudeau cachet, the bloom is off the rose. I agree wholeheartedly.

Not Nearly Enough

For those who take a measure of pride in the fact that Canada has put a price on carbon, one that is essentially painless, by the way, thanks to the federal rebate, here is some sobering news: Canada ranks among the worst countries in its efforts to combat climate change.

The Climate Action Network, a global association of more than 1,300 climate groups, issued a report card on the climate plans of the G7 nations ahead of the leaders’ summit in France this weekend.

The report card says Canada’s current policies are consistent with global warming exceeding 4 C compared to pre-industrial levels, more than twice the stated goal of the Paris agreement of staying as close to 1.5 C as possible. The United States and Japan are also both in the 4 C category, while the other four G7 members, France, Ital
y, Germany and the United Kingdom, have policies consistent with more than 3 C in warming.

It is a report our faux Environment and Climate Change Minister, Catherine McKenna, is desperately trying to repudiate with her usual misrepresentations, as her spokeswoman claims

Canada is leading internationally with its initiative to wean the world off coal power, and financing projects in developing nations to mitigate or adapt to climate change.

“Over the past three and a half years, our government has delivered on an ambitious, affordable plan that is doing more to cut carbon pollution than any other federal government in Canada’s history,” Sabrina Kim said in a written statement.

But the Climate Action Network ranks Canada’s climate plan as having the same impact on global warming as the policies of the United States, where President Donald Trump has rejected the Paris agreement.

The usual suspects, of course, will gloss over this by saying that at least the Liberals have a plan, something essentially absent from the Conservatives' platform. True enough, but of what value is a plan that does nothing to achieve the goals set out and agreed to in the Paris Agreement?

While it might provide a talking point in the upcoming election, such a plan is otherwise valueless.

Meanwhile, with no relief in sight, the climate-change race to the bottom continues apace.