This is your wakeup call to catastrophic climate change

GIBSONS, B.C.—This is a stunning occurrence and an off-the-chart record. A tenth of a degree increase in a temperature record like this would be remarkable, but this lack of real winter in Canada broke the previous record by more than a full degree. For comparison, an individual's rise in temperature by the same amount would be a raging, life-threatening fever. Has this profound change of Canadian reality been a wakeup call to all of us that climate change is getting past serious; that somebody should really do something because now we know it’s getting seriously dangerous? Not really—a frog in boiling water. Has the gobsmackingly bananas 12 straight months of record warming globally—with record sea and land temperatures and extreme weather events in every part of the world, including Canada—awakened publics and policymakers globally to the need for real, effective, urgent mitigation? Not really, same old same old—the climate scientists and activists are agitated and distraught, but if anything the world is speeding away to even more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from increasing production and use of fossil fuels. The frog in boiling water again. We have been turned into cold-blooded, irresponsible fools who refuse to care, or to responsibly mitigate by mass consumer culture. The dominant neoliberal global governance in their super myopic, economically-centric lack of reason and responsibility insists it’s the economy, stupid, and keeps all of our governments in a golden straitjacket where effective mitigation isn’t possible. The important societal issues of today are the cost of living and Canadian economic competitiveness, housing and inflation, jobs and taxes. Firefighters at the site of a wildfire in Alberta in the summer of 2023. Photograph courtesy of New South Wales Rural Fire Service Worse, our national plan for stopping the unstoppable warming, our plan to mitigate climate change by reducing GHG emissions, is not only failing again—as has every Canadian government's plan for three decades—but even a little kid can see that it is failing. Our climate intelligentsia should have told us that it is far too late for puny carbon pricing and flex-reg policies, but that’s all that’s allowed in economic and political business-as-usual. Of course, we need effective mitigation globally to have any chance of preventing catastrophe and collapse in Canada; if it could be possible, the mitigation situation globally is even worse—GHG emissions continue to rise, fossil fuel production and use continue to grow. The global mainstream conception of mitigation, the energy transition—where building renewable capacity displaces fossil fuels—has proven to be an illusion. Renewable capacity is growing remarkably, but only in addition to increased fossil fuel use in a world of ever increasing energy demand. The energy transition is now a form of denial employed by the patient that doesn’t want to give up fossil fuels and the very fortunate lifestyles we all enjoy. And all signs point to even worse failure in the crucial next couple of decades with accelerating fossil fuel production. Again, the climate intelligentsia refuse to acknowledge reality, and cling to false hope as emissions continue to rise and when the political and economic trends are clearly going the wrong way. They don’t tell us that the energy transition is systemically ineffectual—just triple our investment in renewables, they lie to themselves and the public. If it is not too late already, only a very rapid regulated wind-down of fossil fuel production—in Canada and of course globally—could reduce emissions at a scale needed today. Mitigation would have to be deeply disruptive; there would have to be personal, financial and societal pain. There would have to be an emergency government with a very draconian plan for a rushed evolution out of our present socio-economy to a powering down—at best steady state—socio-economy that is hard to even imagine. Such a transition is too daunting to think about for business, policymakers, and politicians let alone the precariat and the poor. But nothing less will mitigate climate change. Nothing less will be needed to protect all we know and love. Canada is a wealthy, technologically gifted country. A decade from now, with temperature continuing to rise, we’ll probably still be alright, but we’ll be dead-man walking. And each of us would by then be acutely aware of how our failure to mitigate while there was still a chance—how our GHG emissions produced when we should have known better—are going to lead to tremendous loss and suffering, how we are going to rain unfathomable evil down on every future generation for hundreds if not thousands of years. Because we have been turned into cold blooded, irresponsible fools who refuse to care and act responsibly. Is it still possible to effectively mitigate or at least reduce the dangers and risks of increasing warming? Yes, but we’re still not going there—in fact, nobody is even considering emergency government, and directly stopping the production and use of fossil fuels yet. There are nascent visions of an evolution to a safer future, but realistically those in power, those in political office, and even those who recognize the climate dangers, are still stolidly immersed in the now close-to-boiling water. It would take leadership that is sadly lacking, almost impossible. Canada or Australia could lead in declaring an emergency, shutting down their fossil fuel production, and attempt to evolve. Both are major fossil fuel producers; both are wealthy and technologically apt; both have governance where emergency government has worked historically—in past world wars—where deep transformative change is theoretically possible. But, as Bhagwant Sandu makes abundantly clear in his recent Hill Times op-ed, there are no political leaders in Canada who will lead in effective mitigation, and cold-blooded indifference and ignorance is on the upswing. Those who also could lead, who should know better, and could force change are either committed delayers, or are still just wishing and hoping. Wake up! Bill Henderson is a longtime climate activist. He can be reached at bhenderson@dccnet.com The Hill Times

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This is your wakeup call to catastrophic climate change

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