“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.
The world is on track to reach nearly 3 degrees Celsius of warming this century, double the United Nations’s threshold, even if developed nations meet their current emissions pledges, according to a report the U.N. issued Monday.
As winter sets in, many people in Canada are struggling with home heating affordability. Fuel oil is expensive — not because of the federal carbon levy, but because it’s an inefficient way to heat, and Big Oil is taking advantage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to increase prices and rake in record profits.
North Americans love driving SUVs and big pickup trucks as passenger vehicles — a trend expected to continue as drivers replace their fossil-fuel rides with electrics. But is it possible to drive a big electric truck and be green at the same time?
In early November, I arranged to test drive a Ford F-150 Lightning — the EV version of North America’s bestselling pickup. Not because I need a truck, but to better understand the real cost of this behemoth on the world.
The US is warming faster than the global average and its people are suffering “far-reaching and worsening” consequences from the climate crisis, with worse to come, according to an authoritative report issued by the US government.
