We Cannot Afford Climate Change
We hear and read daily of the growing list of climate disasters. They destroy infrastructure and multiply the cost of new infrastructure. They drive up the cost of insurance. The health costs are huge and climbing from wild fire smoke and heat domes like those our friends in Europe and the USA as well as Canadians are enduring. The science linking fossil fuel use and climate change has been known since the 1959 American Petroleum Institute conference held at Columbia University in New York City where renowned Physicist Edward Teller warned industry leaders that burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, causes a greenhouse effect, and could eventually melt ice caps and submerge coastal cities. He might have added results like killer heat domes, floods, super storms, droughts and wild fires. The fossil fuel industries have made many billions of dollars of profits, spread misinformation and spent millions on climate denial for more than 50 years.
So far in 2026 nearly 10,000 people have died from high temperatures in Germany alone, and those figures only track that one country, and only through to the middle of this summer. (Robert Koch Institute.) Taking a broader sweep, heat has claimed more than 200,000 European lives in the past four years, according to the World Health Organization. In Canada more than 600 people died as a result of the 2021 BC heat dome. A statement from the BC government at the time said, ““We are saddened by the confirmation that 619 people lost their lives due to heat during the unprecedented heat dome in summer 2021. Our hearts go out to the families and friends who continue to grieve the loss of a loved one.” As subsequent events and the current wild fire season have proved, the BC government was not saddened enough, and are proceeding with massive fracking and US owned LNG terminals.
The fire conditions in Spain were 20 times more likely because of fossil-fuelled climate change, according to an analysis conducted by scientists at World Weather Attribution. The same study found that climate change doubled the chances of massive fires in France. “As long as we keep burning fossil fuels, temperatures will increase globally. And that will mean that these fire weather conditions will get worse and worse and worse,” said Friederike Otto, a scientist at Imperial College of London who coordinates World Weather Attribution.
The science is clear. Greenhouse gasses, mainly methane and carbon dioxide, are building up in the earth’s atmosphere. Methane is 95% of natural gas and carbon dioxide is produced by burning both oil and natural gas. Sunlight passes easily through the greenhouse gas layer and warms the ground and water on the earth’s surface. Heat radiates back up but the layer of greenhouse gases reflects the heat back to the surface of the planet causing air temperatures to rise slowly over decades, the greenhouse effect. The result is global warming which raises air and water temperatures. Warmer air absorbs more moisture making the weather more volatile – stronger storms, heat waves and droughts. Continued use of oil and natural gas will increase global warming and increased use will speed up global warming and global burning.
It is clear our Prime Minister has access to climate information based on his past statements before he became Prime Minister, and, that he understands the issues and evidence. He has now chosen to listen to the servants of the fossil fuel companies, people like Danielle Smith and Donald Trump and wealthy oil industry leaders who appear to feel no inclination to act in the interest of humanity. Mr. Carney has chosen, like Nova Scotian Premier Houston and Premier Eby in BC, to pour more fuel on the fires by increasing fossil fuel production and use around the world. These leaders know, or should know about the impact of ramping up fracking and LNG terminals. If the decision makers significantly responsible for policies that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and have decided to make it worse with the inevitable result of even more deaths, do they not share some level of responsibility for those deaths?
It is not about jobs or the economy. A planned transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy will help our economy, not wreck it. Climate change destruction will decrease. There are more jobs to be created in solar, wind, geothermal and batteries and storage and better transmission lines. There are also other enormous opportunities such as the manufacture of a Canadian electric vehicle made solely of Canadian made parts. Canadian auto parts manufacturers have designed and produced a proto type of such a vehicle. The increase in good jobs is especially true when we take a sobering look at the significant decline in oil industry jobs in Alberta. Recent increases in fossil fuel production have led to a decline in the number of people employed. These increases in production were facilitated by the Trans Mountain Pipeline that Canadian tax payers paid more than $30 billion to build, did not result in more oil industry employment. A solid future for our children and grandchildren can only be built with a sustainable renewable energy economy.
It is time for ordinary people to demand that governments begin a gradual but determined shift to sustainable energy options that do not doom our grandchildren to a planet growing more difficult to live on week by week, month by month and year by year. We need governments that serve all the people rather than a few fossil fuel multi-millionaires and billionaires.
Global Co-operation 