Provincial and federal politicians talk about Canada being carbon neutral at some distant time, but continue using direct and indirect subsidies to promote higher production of fossil fuels. They pretend that this country’s oil, gas, and coal may impact global climate if consumed here, but will not if burned elsewhere.
To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we have to make two big transitions at once: First, we have to generate all of our electricity from clean sources, like wind turbines and solar panels, rather than power plants that run on coal and methane gas. Second, we have to retool nearly everything else that burns oil and gas — like cars, buses and furnaces that heat buildings — to run on that clean electricity.
Areas burned by wildfires in British Columbia have been steadily increasing, and with months remaining in fire season, this year’s destruction by fire is already more than double the average of the ten preceding years.
Turns out that people are like governments that are willing to moderate climate risks, but only if actions are not painful. Seems that cartoonist Walt Kelly was correct when he wrote for Earth Day 1970, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
According to analysis by Oxfam published in 2023, wealthy Group of Seven (G7) countries owe low- and middle-income countries $13.3 trillion in unpaid aid and funding for climate action.
If we choose to enrich our lives in the present at the cost of the quality of life of future generations, that is a choice of values that we rarely like to make explicitly. We have to be willing to look in the mirror and say that we are willing to live our lives selfishly, without regard to the lives of our children and grandchildren. And if we are not willing to own that selfish value, then we have to make a change in our behavior today.
British Columbia’s government searched the world for options before settling on a climate plan acceptable to the province’s oil and gas industry. A creative solution was found in a report by Australian satirical news source The Shovel. The original article is reproduced here.
The Donnie Creek wildfire, having now scorched more than 1.3 million acres, is burning in one of the world’s biggest fossil gas deposits. The Narwhal reporter Sarah Cox believes this raises questions about potential dangers to human health. And, of course, we cannot forget the wood pellet industry is converting BC forests from carbon sinks to carbon emitters.
Canada’s largest newspaper chain promotes climate change denial and works to elect right-wing politicians, even Danielle Smith who a Postmedia columnist said was surrounded by “guaranteed chaos.”
A disaster strikes. The news reaches every home for a few days, perhaps a week. A debate erupts over whether climate change is to blame. Victims are profiled. There’s a tally of lives lost and property destroyed, and then the disaster is forgotten… But the story is quite different for those of us who are directly affected. We won’t just move on. Instead, we’ll likely be caught in what we might call a disaster’s long tail, a slow-moving series of effects both immaterial and material.
Instead of moving away from climate damaging energy sources, both Liberal and NDP governments of British Columbia have accelerated fossil fuel production through direct and indirect subsidies paid for with carbon taxes.
We have zero years before climate and ecological breakdown, because it’s already here. We have zero years left to procrastinate. The longer we wait to act, the worse the floods, fires, droughts, famines and heatwaves will get.
Humanity has never removed an atmospheric pollutant at a global, continental or, even, regional scale — we have only ever shut down the source and let nature do the clearing up. The scale of the challenge is immense. We must slow the carbon clock to a crawl before we can turn it back.
The UK commissioned a study published in 2021 that was to help the government establish environmental policies for 25-years. Project leader Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta of Cambridge University was assisted by a long list of expert contributors, advisors, and reviewers…
“There is a genuine possibility that within the coming century, we will hit temperatures that are deeply incompatible with the continued existence of human life.”
Canadian industrialists, the Trudeau government, and western provinces collectively respond to the warnings of climate scientists, “Forget about it. We’re not limiting fossil fuel production. We’re doing the opposite.”
Following are excerpts from The Symbolic and Substantive Politics of Climate Change, an article by Dr. Steven Cohen, Senior Vice Dean of Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies.
In Bill Henderson’s guest post, he drew attention to a commentary by University of New Brunswick’s Jason MacLean. Published in April 2022, Dr. MacLean’s article should be reviewed. Excerpts follow…
Denial is fast becoming an addict’s tantrum, and nobody can be quite as clueless and ignorant about existential climate dangers like those in the oil patch and the journalists, think tanks, academics, and politicians who profit by assisting climate change denial.
Along with Greta Thunberg and Naomi Klein, The Guardian presented on video three other panelists, Prof. Saleem Huq, Prof. Kate Raworth and Ayisha Siddiqa. The panelists did a great job of presenting how the intersecting crisis’s of climate change, climate justice, loss & damages and capitalist biodiversity destruction are all interconnected.
The NDP government of British Columbia says the province’s CleanBC Roadmap to 2030 “is one the strongest climate plans on the continent.” If that is true, the continent is in more trouble than most of us know.
Hi Norm, You have that right. The angle we can use at the local level effectively has changed from directly…
[…] A friend of mine is deeply engaged with his local government. He is, by his own admission, a royal…
That alone should be investigated Why not one generator ata time and time it to rain season
Thanks for the summary Norm. This is the first year that Williston Reservoir has reached full pool for many years.…
in-sights.ca 
God luck in the election. Your platform resonates with me, and we are thinking of returning to PR for our…