The midsummer fire danger map published by the federal government showed elevated danger in western Canada, the country’s primary producers of fossil fuels. All three provinces have provincial governments determined to increase production of products known to be the largest contributors to global climate change. Fossil fuels account for over 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 90 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions.
Wildfires worsened by climate change result in air quality in large parts of British Columbia being labeled as unhealthy, and not just for sensitive groups.
The recent publication of the IPCC Assessment Report 6 on climate science again underlines the urgency of reducing emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. This means a rapid reduction in the production and use of fossil fuels. In a new paper published in Nature, we estimate the fossil fuel reserves that will need to remain unextracted in order to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
Welsby, D., Price, J., Pye, S., & Ekins, P. (2021). Unextractable fossil fuels in a 1.5°C world. Nature.
Researchers, led by environmental and energy economist Dan Welsby at University College London, noted the forecasts were somewhat conservative and varied by region. They wrote that Canada has much higher unextractable estimates than in other regions, at 83 percent.
But most Canadian politicians are blithe to climate science. The federal government is currently building or assisting construction of fossil fuel pipelines costing over $45 billion. In the last few days, BC Premier David Eby joined Alberta Premier and oil industry puppet Danielle Smith at a Vancouver conference promoting production and consumption of fossil gas. CBC reported that Eby is aware of demands for more support for gas producers. He said that could take years, so he has set up a task force to “speed that up.”
Eby’s government wants to increase production of fossil fuels but wants us to pay more carbon tax if used to heat homes or power vehicles in British Columbia. In fact, David Eby has dramatically accelerated carbon taxes in British Columbia.
As reader EVIL EYE said while commenting on an earlier article, Eby’s government mainly sees climate change as a revenue opportunity.
To be clear, I do not oppose carbon taxes, even though the rate of carbon tax to heat my home has increased by 117 percent under the NDP. But if carbon taxes are used to subsidize increased production of fossil fuels that are burned elsewhere in the world, the impositions are worse than useless. Programs to reduce consumption of fossil fuel within the province only mean that more can be exported and consumed elsewhere, which harms Earth even more because of the dirty products that fuel most ocean tankers and the energy used for long distance transport.
Republicans in the USA demonstrated the unrealistic thinking of politicians who don’t want to take climate actions demanded by science.
As Speaker Kevin McCarthy visited a natural gas drilling site in northeast Ohio to promote House Republicans’ plan to sharply increase domestic production of energy from fossil fuels last month, the signs of rising global temperatures could not be ignored. Smoke from Canadian wildfires hung in the air. When the speaker was asked about climate change and forest fires, he was ready with a response: Plant a trillion trees.
Associated Press
Trouble is, if government and industry planted ten trees every second of the day, every day of the year, it would take 3,169 years to complete the job. And a trillion trees grown to maturity would cover about two and a half times the area of the continental USA.
Categories: Climate Change
in-sights.ca 
If there was any hint that the NDP were serious about global Warming, one could support a Carbon Tax, but they are not and continue to play the “blame game” blaming everyone but them selves.
You want to reduce auto use, one must have an user-friendly and affordable alternative to the car.
The NDP – NADA, as they are spending over $11 billion dollars to extend the museum piece SkyTrain light metro system a mere 21.7 km.
Restoring the E&N Railway ans reinstating a usable rail service on the former BC Electric Interurban line, over 400 km would cost around $5 billion.
Building an 8 lane tunnel to nowhere is another multi billion dollar boondoggle as all the replaced Massey tunnel will do is mover Gridlock 3 km into Richmond.
Falcon’s “change a name” party is even worse, moaning on and on about a 10 lane bridge to nowhere, but then he ain’t in power, the NDP are.
No mention of improving transit, except for some well choreographed photo-ops with express buses in Surrey.
No changes in the building code to make new-build houses have solar/wind power generators to reduce power consumption.
No mass planting of trees, which are very good carbon sinks.
And this strikes me has really bizarre, no open fire ban until the fire season was roaring into the history books. Excuse me, government knew of the drought months before this.
Eby’s NDP are ground zero with climate change denial and have little to offer but hubris, ennui and rhetoric.
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You just cannot tax yourself out of global Warming and Climate Change.
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I say, this climate change thing all started with too much horse poop on the streets of eg. New York
‘… with the invention of the automobile in the nineteenth century, partly in response to the transport needs of a world in midst of an industrial era, and partly to address a much more mundane cause: horse poop.’
Its been a delaying tactic that has failed
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