Canada’s 2019 election has been another frustrating one for those who think climate change is the most urgent and important political challenge we face – with Canada’s electoral system and party structure working against us on one hand and the practical effect that the Liberals and Conservatives are controlled by oil-linked industries including finance and […]
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It didn’t have a strong effect on my view of the situation: that Trudeau has been a poor prime minister on the most important issues, that Scheer would be worse, and that everyone else is scrambling for a few parliamentary seats in hopes of being influential in a minority government. So far the most interesting […]
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After attending half of a classmate’s job talk for a law and political science position at Guelph I photographed today’s Climate Strike in Toronto. It was a big organic crowd, with some contingents from labour or specific causes who were clearly together but where most people carried home-made signs which didn’t come out of a […]
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Geoff Dembicki has a piece out about how Trudeau’s method is to promise substantive reforms to voters, while privately comforting business with the understanding they won’t really be meaningful: So on climate, for instance, he was presented as this kind of river-paddling environmental Adonis. He promised that fossil fuel projects wouldn’t go ahead without the […]
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It seems like a plausible rule for climate change reduction schemes that the people running them will generally prioritize other political and economic objectives over actual emission reductions. This meshes together with other forms of wishful thinking, where we give ourselves credit for overly generous assumptions about reduced emissions, then find every possible way to […]
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The CBC is reporting on polling results pertinent to this fall’s federal election: CBC News poll takes snapshot of Canadians ahead of fall election. They say the cost of living was the top concern identified, followed by climate change. This suggests a familiar Canadian dynamic: being notionally concerned about climate change, but rejecting action on […]
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Conservatives have no more reason to want to destabilize the climate than anyone else, though the political right has largely become where those who deny the existence of or need to do anything about climate change can persist unrebuked and win converts. A central view of mine these days is that it’s hopeless to pursue […]
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From CBC radio: What would it take for Canada to meet its climate targets? In short, Canada does not have a plan to meet the emission reductions in the Paris Agreement, created by the Harper government. Also, those targets are nowhere near adequate to meet Canada’s stated goal of avoiding over 1.5 ˚C of warming.
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Canadian politics has an unhealthy fixation on the profits associated with fossil fuel production and use. It’s the threat of losing those that is always evoked by pro-fossil interests when they are asserting that this or that piece of new fossil fuel infrastructure (this pipeline, that bitumen mine or in situ extraction project) needs to […]
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In an article called “Oilpatch in open rebellion as Ottawa ignores industry’s input on Bill C-69” Chris Varcoe notes: The uproar over the bill came as CAPP released its annual outlook, forecasting oil production will grow by a tepid 1.4 per cent annually — less than half the pace anticipated five years ago — by […]
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