Free Transit Ottawa (FTO) organized a public meeting on March 18 on the theme “Fighting Climate Change: Beyond the Carbon Tax.”
The event was cosponsored by a range of local climate-justice movements: Ecology Ottawa, Horizon Ottawa, Justice for Workers, Fridays for Future and CAWI (City for All Women Initiative).
When Alex Tavasoli came across a patent filed in Wisconsin that used carbon dioxide to cure cement — essentially capturing and storing CO2 — she was surprised to learn that it was from 1874.
The year 2024 is shaping up to be the most important ever for climate action — just like 2023 before it and 2022 before that, and so on back through at least the 1980s.
It may be a tired refrain. But in this era of accelerating and compounding crises, the longer we fail to address climate change, the more urgent the problem becomes.
So what trends, events and opportunities should concerned citizens be paying attention to in 2024?
In the U.S., the Biden administration approved nearly 10,000 oil and gas drilling permits on public lands in its first three years, while Donald Trump is moronically pledging to “drill baby, drill”
Last week, I documented the massive impact of the fossil-fuel industry on people and the planet, an impact the industry generally ignores or downplays in its rush to make money and maintain its power, earning it the title of “the new tobacco.”
“At the end of the day, that’s still counting on the market … to build out these industries and then hoping the benefits trickle down to workers and to communities and to people,” he said. But Mertins-Kirkwood stressed the crux of the issue is time. “If we had 100 years to decarbonize, I’d say it’s better to take it slow and let the market figure it out, but every month counts right now.”
Sigh. So, once again, the carbon tax — only ever a meagre climate measure — is sucking up all the political and media oxygen at the expense of other more systemic and bold changes. It now appears we are destined to spend the next federal election, quite likely next year’s British Columbia election and possibly other forthcoming provincial elections re-prosecuting past climate fights.
