Tag renewable energy

Greta Thunberg Shares Op-Ed Calling Out Trudeau’s Climate Hypocrisy – HP

Liberal MPs Urge Trudeau To Reject Massive Alberta Oilsands Mine – HP

Trudeau’s continued failure to act substantively on climate change has to end. While pretending to care about climate action, Trudeau and the Liberals continue to act in ways that can not be justified – and they are rightly being called out, by environmentalists, and even by some of their own MPs.

”If an alcoholic assured you he was taking his condition very seriously, but also laying in a 40-year store of bourbon, you’d be entitled to doubt his sincerity.”

(Bill McKibben, quoted by Greta Thunberg)

HP

So, to hold this government to account, I am suggesting contacting your MP (whether Liberal or other), and the PM’s office, asking for an immediate commitment to the following:

1) Immediate end to all fossil fuel subsidies, no new fossil fuel or nuclear projects and a rapid phase out of existing projects, with all funds put towards clean projects/sustainability.

2) Support for immediate implementation of Proportional Representation, to give the Green Party and others the voice that they rightfully deserve at the table.

3) Substantial climate targets – with annual and 5-year goals – that are in line with the best science. A theoretical aim to be climate neutral by 2050 is meaningless. If they need something easy to grasp, how about this? 1% reduction/month = approx 10% per year, which then leads to carbon neutral in 10 years, and carbon negative after that. 🙂

I have heard, too often, from a few Liberals (those that I have spoken to about this, which is obviously not a representative sample), that anything that they do has to be considered “good enough”, and we shouldn’t complain, because others – parties or provinces or countries or whoever they can find – are doing less. However, doing the right thing is not a race to the bottom, there is a lot of room for improvement, and it needs to start now. 🙂

The Guardian: Rise of renewables may see off oil firms decades earlier than they think.

Some rare good news in climate action. Here are several key quotes:

The world’s rising reliance on fossil fuels may come to an end decades earlier than the most polluting companies predict, offering early signs of hope in the global battle to tackle the climate crisis.

The climate green shoots have emerged amid a renewable energy revolution that promises an end to the rising demand for oil and coal in the 2020s, before the fossil fuels face a terminal decline.

The looming fossil fuel peak is expected to emerge decades ahead of forecasts from oil and mining companies, which are betting that demand for polluting energy will rise until the 2040s.

Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/14/rise-renewables-oil-firms-decades-earlier-think

Within the energy industry, experts believe the rapid rise of renewable energy in recent years may soon seem glacial compared with the changes to come.

Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/14/rise-renewables-oil-firms-decades-earlier-think

It is a cautionary tale for fossil fuel companies that believe the world’s demand for polluting energy will continue to rise until the middle of the century. It is also a new narrative of hope, he says.

“We’re a lot further on than we were. And yes, we need to go faster. And yes, it’s difficult and complicated. But at the same time we now live in a world where two-thirds of the global population live in a country where wind and solar power is the cheapest form of new electricity capacity. We have the tools to do this,” he says.

Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/14/rise-renewables-oil-firms-decades-earlier-think

BBC News: Some firms give more time off to those who shun plane travel.
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20190918-some-firms-give-more-time-off-to-those-who-shun-plane-travel

This is an excellent idea! We need to break the habit of hopping on a plane for trips where a high-efficiency (run on renewables) train could do the trick. Might take a bit longer, but it’s worth it.

Now, what Canada needs is to switch from subsidizing fossil fuels to promoting electric trains (and public transit) so that everybody can afford them, and use them regularly. And, trips within Canada should cost less to do by train than on an airplane – the opposite of the current status (based on the times that I have checked).

FYI, here’s the link to the Green Party of Canada summary on transportation goals: https://www.greenparty.ca/en/platform/climate-emergency#green-climate-action-plan