But Is Anyone Listening?

The Star has been running a series on climate change that I have read with some interest, offering as it does a good and extensive primer on the peril we face. Ultimately however, it fails, especially in the last part which talks about what we can do to combat it.

There really is only one solution, which letter writer Norm Beach of Toronto articulates. However, one has to ask a fundamental question: Is anyone in a position of power listening?

The Star’s series on our climate emergency notes that, despite Canada’s small population, we are among the top 10 biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the world. It’s important to add another inconvenient truth: Our emissions on a per-person basis are more than 20 tonnes annually, the highest of these ten largest-emitting countries, three times the G20 average and 20 times that of Bangladesh.

The good news: Our carbon footprint is getting smaller. The bad news: We’re not doing enough to avert global disaster.

If we keep on electing politicians dedicated to preserving market share for fossil fuels, our flag will get as much international respect as an oil-soaked rag and our children will inherit a devastated planet. Years ago, the Pogo cartoon put it best: “We have met the enemy … and he is us.” Canada, it’s time to get our heads out of the sand, stop squandering our hard-earned reputation, mobilize for the greater good and reclaim our right to be proud of our country.

Time For a Pre-Election Climate-Change Debate

Millenials, and those who follow them, are rightfully growing increasingly concerned about climate change. Thanks to the gift of mortality, it is unlikely that my cohort will be around to deal with most of the civil unrest, food shortages, skyrocketing prices, coastal flooding and the hordes of people fleeing their low-lying nations seeking sanctuary on our shores, but they will be.

Dozens of people rallied at CBC stations in Whitehorse and Yellowknife, among other Canadian communities, to demand the public broadcaster host a federal leaders' debate on climate change and a proposed Green New Deal.

"There's lots of questions to ask our federal leaders, and I think that this debate is the perfect opportunity to ask those hard questions and get those hard answers," said Braden Lamoureux, the organizer of the Whitehorse rally.

"Everybody deserves to know which of our leaders has a strategic plan to tackle this climate crisis."

Their concern is proving to be contagious.

A new poll finds that a majority of Canadians

want the government to take action to address climate change, even if the economy suffers....

...61 per cent of respondents strongly or somewhat agreed with the statement that it’s more important for the government to solve the issue of climate change even if that means that the economy suffers. That number was even higher in Quebec (76.8 per cent), Atlantic Canada (67.3) and B.C. (62), and among women (66.1), 18-35 year olds (64.4) and those aged 65 or older (64).

Other numbers from the poll are equally telling:

Over 85 per cent of respondents agreed that private companies should have to pay to pollute, including 69.1 per cent who strongly agreed. Support was highest in Quebec (89.1 per cent) and lowest in Alberta, though at 75.2 per cent agreeing, opposition to the concept is still rather marginal.

Also, just under 68 per cent of respondents agreed that theres’s a collective moral duty to future generations to not destroy the environment further, even if it means paying more taxes in the short term. As with the other responses, support was highest in Quebec (70.2 per cent), above the national average in B.C. (71.5) and Ontario (69.9), and lowest in Alberta (53).

Will any of this change the disastrous trajectory we are on? I doubt it, unless the major party leaders do agree to a separae debate on climate change during the campaign. This, of course, is highly unlikely, in that the Greens' Elizabeth May would without a doubt mop the floor with people like Trudeau and Scheer.

Nonetheless, it is a worthy pursuit, and for the the sake of their futures, I hope the young succeed in their efforts.

2019: What A Year So Far

With the Arctic now on fire, and the pace of climate change accelerating rapidly, even the dimmest or most ideologically bent amongst us must realize the peril we are in, and yet, remarkably, nothing seems to move us to do anything beyond giving lip service to the crisis. What a species we are, eh?

Wildfires are raging across the Arctic as warm, dry conditions persist across the region. Satellite images have revealed wildfires burning in Alaska, Greenland and throughout Siberia.

Whereas an Arctic forest fire typically lasts just a few hours or days, peat fires, which burn deep into the ground, can last weeks.

Peat also stores large amounts of carbon. As the Arctic's fires continue to burn, record amounts of CO2 are being released into the atmosphere.

Is Paris Burning?

The title question of a famous 1966 movie about the liberation of Paris from the Nazis is also an apt one to ask about the contemporary Parisian city, given the heat dome that has settled over a wide swath of Europe. As the following report (start at the 12:20 mark) makes clear, many are suffering, except for an American woman, who exults in the opportunity that climate change is offering. A good exemplar of the heedlessness of Americans, isn't she? Or perhaps a testament to their 'can-do' attitude, making lemonade out of the lemons Mother Nature is bringing our way?

While you're at it, be sure to watch the piece on Alaska, which immediately follows the Paris report.



If you crave a more global perspective on the climate crisis, be sure to read this sobering piece by climate science lecturer Tom Matthews.

Post-Partisanship (A.K.A., This Will Inflame Many)

In a move sure to enrage those 'progressives' who see a vote for anyone other than the Liberals as an attempt to subvert the natural order, Green Party head Elizabeth May says that she would consider supporting the Conservative Party or anyone else should the upcoming federal election result in a minority government:

“People change their minds when they see the dynamic of a way a Parliament is assembled and maybe think, ‘Killing carbon taxes isn’t such a good idea if the only way I get to be prime minister is by keeping them,’ ” May said.

“I think it’s really important to communicate with Canadians how our democracy works and that a minority Parliament is the very best thing, if, and this is a big if, you have parties and MPs in Parliament who are committed to working together,” she added.

“By ‘working together’,” CP adds, “she specifically means to slow climate change with policies that drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, don’t build any more oil pipelines, and replace fossil fuels with renewable energy as fast as possible.”

May's declaration comes at a time when there are many within the environmental movement, including Greens themselves, who are upset about her plan to continue with the tar sands rather than rely on imported oil:

Earlier this month, [Alex] Tyrell [leader of the Green Party of Quebec] launched a website, GreensRising.ca, urging May to change the platform to support a “rapid shut down” of the tar sands/oil sands in the first mandate of a Green government, “while investing heavily to support the estimated 140,000 people who work in the industry,” the Star states.

While I find May's idea about continuing with the tar sands quite disconcerting, she defends it by saying it

“would also halt all new development of fossil fuels in Canada—including multi-billion-dollar natural gas export projects—and stop all oil and gas imports from other countries. ... In their place, May proposes that Canada use energy that’s already produced here for domestic needs while the country shifts to 100% renewable energy. By 2050, the Greens would ensure all bitumen produced in Canada would be used only for the petrochemical industry, but May said the country will need to stop burning fossil fuels ‘well before’ that.”

No political party is perfect, and while I don't support May's idea about the tar sands, I do applaud her willingness to play well with others. In a political landscaped riven by hyper-partisanship, it is good to see someone with a vision that goes beyond simply acquiring power for its own sake. The common good, so long sacrificed on the altar of venal, craven ambition, may once again give people a modicum of hope for the future.

America The Beautiful, Eh?

Georgia State Representative Erica Thomas was subjected to a vicious racist verbal assault while shopping. Painful to watch, it once againt attests to how primitive our species really can be. Notably, the racist who attacked her quoted Trump:

We have made contact with @Publix @PublixHelps on Veterans Memorial HWY to get the tape and information #IStandWithErica pic.twitter.com/BD55GD0Uhh

— Gerald A. Griggs (@AttorneyGriggs) July 20, 2019

The Yesterday Man

Those with undying affection for, and advocacy of, fossil fuels are indulging in a venal nostalgia for the way things were. They cling to past truths about price differentials that allegedly make green energy too costly. They continue to claim that green energy, if produced during the day via solar panels, cannot meet night-time demand, a problem rapidly being addressed by quickly-evolving storage systems, the very same systems utilized when there is no wind powering wind turbines.

Their arguments, designed to protect assets doomed to become stranded are, to put it succinctly, running out of steam.

Indeed, Toronto Star letter-writer Sheri Kimura, of Toronto, is of the view that the federal government's purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline truly makes Justin Trudeau a yesterday man:

Since the Trudeau government purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline (meaning that we, as taxpayers, funded the purchase), it seems like good business to ensure that the Canadian public is educated about how much the project costs, what the expected profit might be and which markets we are serving. China plans to convert all it’s vehicles to clean energy in this generation, and Volkswagen — the single-largest car manufacturer in the world — is planning on making it’s entire fleet electric by 2025. Seems like a strange move to push a commodity that the largest available markets are phasing out. When Canada has so much money and potential for clean energy, why is anyone in our government, from any party, still pushing an antiquated commodity?

Even if we doubt the economic windfalls of clean energy, we cannot deny the weakening of the carbon-based industry and the decline in demand for oil. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has made a terrible business decision on behalf of Canada. Any politician who pursues increased oil development is not making an economically-sound decision — they are simply sentimental about Canada’s oil-rich past and aging identity. We need political leaders with the clarity of mind to embrace (and make profitable) the inevitable change in Canada’s natural resources sector. Only then will our country truly progress, and our country’s identity will finally be free to evolve as well.