Climate change actions of British Columbia and Manitoba are inadequate and the main efforts by Alberta and Saskatchewan to reduce greenhouse emissions are illusory. While provinces in central and eastern Canada have reduced harmful discharges, western provinces have done the opposite.

Canada’s recently released greenhouse gas inventory shows that every western province has increased its climate pollution since 1990, the international baseline year for measuring climate action.

On the other side of the country, every eastern province has reduced its emissions.

The great Canadian climate divide — Barry Saxifrage, National Observer

That we are trending toward destruction seems clear. A vast majority of active climate scientists agree that human activities are causing climate change and we must alter today’s behaviour to protect future generations.

The task before us is to convince a majority of Western Canadians that decarbonization policies of our governments must be revised.

ScienceNordic is a journalism project by Norwegian and Danish organizations. It published an article by Catherine Jex that reported on ways to build the collective will of our communities to deal effectively with climate issues:

Psychologists have now found that almost anyone can be motivated to take action against climate change, by appealing to the so-called co-benefits. These are the benefits that go hand in hand with tackling climate change, such as social, economic, and scientific development.

“Simply saying that we should tackle an environmental problem because it’s important has not worked, because it’s so linked to an individual’s political agenda,” says co-author Professor Lars-Olof Johansson, from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

“But we can influence peoples’ motivations if we talk about the effect of so-called co-benefits, instead of focussing on the science or the importance of tackling the problem of climate change,” he says.

…communicating the co-benefits of climate action, as this study argues, appears to be a sound strategy

Co-benefits of climate action are proven, particularly in relation to public health and the economy. Climate policy objectives include:

• Improved health and human well-being,
• Protection of wildlife and natural ecosystems,
• Abundant, affordable clean energy,
• Efficient energy use,
• Non-destructive employment,
• Sustainable communities.

Some people argue that while Canada emits more greenhouse gases than 180 or so nations of the world, regions with much higher populations have even larger carbon footprints. That’s like excusing theft of $10,000 because someone else stole $50,000. Not a reasonable position.

“I don’t know what word in the language… applies to people of that kind who are willing to sacrifice the literal existence of organized human life… so they can put a few more dollars in highly overstuffed pockets.” – Noam Chomsky