Why are We Pouring Gas in the Basement?
We desperately need a vastly ramped up response capability for responding to climate disasters. As we watch the wild fires from coast to coast to coast and await the next super storm, killer heat wave, drought and massive floods, we know we are not ready. Having the Prime Minister pay lips service to yet another problem is not an adequate response any more than the belligerent ranting based on the divisive exaggeration and falsehoods spewing from the leader of the opposition. We need massively increased emergency capability especially since, for the most part, our governments, along with their overseers in the oil and gas industry, and the big Canadian five banks, have made a decision to ramp up use of fossil fuels, engage in exploration to find more to burn, and promote the idea that we can reasonably never stop burning them.
“But based on the IEA’s forecast[1], those export markets will also evaporate, with 98 per cent of the world’s passenger-car demand for oil disappearing by 2050. There will be no market for the main products of refining, little demand for hard-to-refine bitumen.” …. “Meanwhile, Canada is spending billions on a sunset industry. Is that the best use of our limited dollars to fund the green transition? Nope. If a company wants to invest in carbon sequestering because they take a contrarian view of the future, that’s up to them. But when a government commits to shift the country to net zero by 2050 and then ignores what that means and borrows billions to prop up an industry they have essentially committed to eliminating, that is a problem.”[2]
[1] International Energy Agency
[2] Ross Belot, https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/06/12/opinion/canada-wasteful-bet-dying-industry?nih=2d21fefd587c8429da8c2233d1d12346&utm_source=National+Observer&utm_campaign=868e33696a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_06_10_02_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cacd0f141f-868e33696a-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D Mr. Belot is a retired senior manager with one of Canada’s largest energy companies with over 30 years experience in the energy sector.
As National Observer editor Linda Solomon Wood has noted: “Say these names as you huddle indoors coughing — Exxon, Shell, BP, Total, Chevron … Canada”[1]
There is overwhelming scientific evidence that if we burn all the fossil fuel reserves we have now located, we will fly past 2 degrees Celsius, never mind 1.5C. We know we have lost the goal of 1.5C.
[1] https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/06/09/opinion/say-these-names-you-huddle-indoors-coughing-exxon-shell-bp-chevron-canada?utm_source=National+Observer&utm_campaign=aa0275ec81-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_06_10_01_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-aa0275ec81-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
Canada has the worst record in the G7 on climate action.[1] Other G7 members have reduced emissions below 1990 levels but not this government. It is time we had a government that had the courage to press on the brake pedal rather than ask the oil and gas industries how much more money they need. It is time our investments in renewable energy – solar, wind, geothermal – were increased by ten times the current level. It will create far more jobs than pumping more money into fossil fuel companies wallowing in windfall profits.
We are living in a house that is on fire but our governments are unwilling to stop the banks, oil and gas companies (and in some provinces coal) from pouring gasoline in the basement. TMX! Bay du Nord. Fracking in BC. BC gas pipelines. Coal in Alberta. Plans to frack in New Brunswick. RBC is a massive funder of pouring gasoline into the basement along with the other Canadian banks. Between 2016 and 2022, the big five Canadian Banks were among the top 20 banks in the world in financing the fossil fuel industry. (Investments in billions of US dollars: Royal Bank of Canada $252.48 B; Scotia Bank 182.3 B; Toronto Dominion $172.3 B; Bank of Montreal $138.38 B; Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce $114.54 B)
[1] Barry Saxifrage, National Observer, 8 June 2023
It is time we had a government that protected Canadians rather than the ensuring the wealth growth of the 20% of Canadians who own and control 75% of all the wealth in the country including the oil and gas companies and banks. It is not surprising that for the most part, the for profit news media, owned by many of the same people, fail to report who is benefiting from short term profit- taking that drives climate change. It is disappointing that the CBC often does just as poor a job. Would increased funding for public broadcasting allow the CBC to improve its research and news reporting? Would it allow them to cover not just the disasters but the whole story, asking how did we get here and who is responsible? Or does the advertising revenue from the vehicle manufacturers promoting gas guzzling muscle trucks make CBC news shy?
It is time for people to consider drastic action. Health Canada estimates that every year in Canada, Traffic Related Air Pollution contributes to: 1,200 premature deaths; 210,000 asthma symptom days; and 2.7 million acute respiratory symptom days.[1] Then there are the deaths from ‘heat domes’ like the one in BC that killed more than 600 people in 2022. Add in wild fire and flood deaths across the country and around the world. Then add in the dying oceans and crop failures from droughts and the existential threat to our food supplies. Today in Canada it is hard to ignore the tens of thousands of families uprooted and the thousands of homes and incomes destroyed. But none of the super yachts burned.
Are the super-rich who control oil, gas, coal, banking refusing to read the science, or deliberately choosing this year’s profits over responsible action? The economic decision making of the 20% who claim they deserve their huge incomes is appallingly bad. It is not just the climate crisis. We have a linked cluster of crises: healthcare, housing, student debt, child poverty and food quality and affordability crisis – and that is just a partial list. These are not crises that the 20% face.[2]
Should we be suing the government leaders who do what the 20% and their huge corporations want? They know that for 30 years the oil companies had the scientific information that their actions would lead to climate change. They know there has been a history of misleading information, funding misinformation and green washing that has been paid for over three decades by corporate profits. And still they not only listen to these corporations and do what they want but they even fund them out of our tax dollars. Is it time for a tax strike to withhold the amount governments have paid the CO2 polluters over the past 30 years. People should be constrained only by human decency and the need to remain non-violent. As the Wetʼsuwetʼen have bitterly learned, the 20% and their corporations are backed by armed violence and the full force of the law.
[1] https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/air-quality/outdoor-pollution-health/traffic-related.html
[2] Top 20% with family income of more than $206,267 https://www.todocanada.ca/top-20-of-income-earning-families-pay-more-than-half-of-all-taxes-in-canada/#:~:text=In%20the%20study%2C%20Canadian%20families%20are%20divided%20into,20%25%20with%20family%20income%20of%20more%20than%20%24206%2C267
Global Co-operation 