This article was written by Damian Carrington and was published by The Guardian on May 9, 2024.
This article was written by Damian Carrington and was published in The Guardian of May 8, 2024.
This opinion was written by Gillian Steward and was published in the Toronto Star on May 7, 2024.
It’s the time of year when corporate commanders pull together their shareholders and employees to brag about how many millions or billions of dollars they brought in last year.
In Calgary, that means it’s show time for the Alberta oil sands operators. And they do indeed have a lot to brag about. Canadian Natural Resources and Suncor both racked up $8.2 billion in profit in 2023. And those are just two of the six companies shipping out just over three million barrels of oil a day.
But while there’s lots to be smug about at corporate head offices, industry leaders seem wilfully blind to the ongoing global transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy; from gasoline guzzlers to electric vehicles; from fossil fuel generated electricity to solar and wind power.
Instead they are fixated on what they see as obstacles to their success imposed by the federal government as it tries to reduce carbon emissions, limit global warming and incentivize renewable energy.
So, it was not surprising when a shareholder stood up at Canadian Natural Resources annual meeting last week and complained about the federal government and in particular Steven Guilbeault, minister of environment and climate change, for constantly attacking Alberta and its oil industry.
Murray Edwards, Canadian Natural Resources executive chair, and a billionaire three times over, who resides in St. Moritz, Switzerland, told the shareholder that he has met with federal officials many times and “they are starting to realize how important the oil and gas industry is to the country … and that this sector has to be successful.”
Starting to realize? Did he mean the feds didn’t realize that when Justin Trudeau and then-Alberta premier Rachel Notley struck a deal in 2018 that saw the federal government eventually buy the foundering Trans Mountain Pipeline and pour $35 billion into it so Alberta could export oil to Asia?
Or when the federal government shipped $1.7 billion to western provinces to clean up abandoned oil wells that the industry should be paying for; most of those messes were in Alberta and still haven’t been cleaned up.
Or when the Trudeau government offered significant tax credits (the industry wants even more) for a multibillion-dollar carbon capture utilization and storage project that the oil sands operators are promising but have yet to do much about.
The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion finally started shipping oil to the West Coast last week and that will surely benefit Canadian Natural Resources, Edwards told the meeting. He didn’t mention that it was the Trudeau government that made that possible. Edwards is also a co-owner of the Calgary Flames, which struck a deal with the city to build a new $1-billion arena that will see city taxpayers cough up most of the money. That might be the model the oil industry is hoping to rely on when cleaning up toxic tailings ponds and abandoned oil wells becomes too expensive for them.
Of course, the oil barons couldn’t ask for a better promoter than Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. She sees an ever-increasing and never ending supply of oil sloshing out of Alberta that will somehow also be carbon free. Who needs renewable energy when you have oil? The word delusional doesn’t even begin to cover it.
Oil production isn’t going to be shut down overnight even though carbon emissions from the fossil fuel industry are causing the planet to rapidly heat up. We will need gasoline, diesel fuel and plastics for some years yet.
But how much and at what price? Albertans and other Canadians have grown used to the jobs, wealth and government revenue provided by the oil and gas industry. But what will happen when demand drops, prices soften and that sector of our economy isn’t as key as it used to be?
That’s the scenario Canada’s oil industry and Alberta’s premier refuse to plan for. But no matter what happens, the oil barons will walk away with millions of dollars while the rest of us will have to pay for their sins.
Canadians have grown used to the jobs, wealth and government revenue provided by the oil and gas industry. But what will happen when demand drops, prices soften and that sector of our economy isn’t as key as it used to be?
This article was written by Benjamin Shingler and was published by CBC News on May 2, 2024.
This video was produced by PBS Terra and was published on Youtube on March 28, 2024.
Western cultures — and even some climate scientists and sustainability advocates — often share the idea that there is the “natural world” and the “human world.” The natural world is seen as pristine and untouched, while the human world is chaotic and ever changing. But all living things change the world around them in order to build homes, eat, drink and move around. In this first episode, join host Rae Wynn-Grant, Ph.D., as she explores how humans can think differently about the way we change the environments around us, how we can do it better, and why doing so could be a key foundation for addressing climate change. Based on the Jenny Price book “Stop Saving the Planet!”
This article was written by Hannah Ritchie and was published by Our World in Data on March 25, 2024.
This video was produced by The Elders and was published on Youtube on February 15, 2024.
The Elders, the Future of Life Institute and a diverse range of co-signatories call on decision-makers to urgently address the ongoing impact and escalating risks of the climate crisis, pandemics, nuclear weapons, and ungoverned AI.
Add your voice to the call for long-view leadership. Sign and share the open letter: https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/…
Why do we need long-view leadership? While the knowledge and resources to address these challenges exist, too many of our leaders lack the political will or capability to take decisive action. They seek short-term fixes over long-term solutions. We urge all those in power to take a bold, new approach.
Sign the open letter: https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/…#LongviewLead
This article was written by Jeremy Plester and was published in The Guardian on April 26, 2024.
Here is one of their videos: Mark Maslin x Jo Brand NSFW | Climate Science Translated
This video was released on April 29, 2024 and was produced by Climate Spring.
This Letter to the Editor was written by Wayne Poole and was published in the Hamilton Spectator on April 2, 2024.
We have just come through a winter, with little snow, 52 days above 0 C as of March 5, and record temperatures of 18.8 C on March 4 and 5.
This is unnatural and unsettling.
Has winter, as we’ve known it, disappeared? According to Environment Canada’s senior climatologist David Phillips, we have experienced the warmest winter in 77 years — the warmest year globally, ever.
Climate change, as a result of human activity, is indisputable, our eco-anxiety ramping up with every wildfire, flood, temperature record, and melting ice cap.
This takes a toll on our mental and emotional health.
According to psychotherapist Caroline Hickman, “The conspiracy theorists are reassuring. If you can’t tolerate anxiety, you will then spin off into believing somebody who will give you false promises.”
Eco-anxiety can drive depression and debilitate us. Psychotherapy, or Reinhold Neibuhr’s “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference,” may alleviate some of our anxiety.
The entitled will always invoke their right to over consume endlessly, unconcerned about climate change. As for the rest of us, we can only control our response to it, to change the things that we can.
Sarah Ray, author of “A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety,” says, “I’d say as much as half of our climate anxiety has to do with the feeling of not being efficacious to do something about it.
“The thing that reduces the climate anxiety is being part of a collective … where people care as much as you do. You’re not the only one.”
Our politicians control the levers of climate change policy. We must vote for politicians who pledge to enact effective climate change legislation and continue to push back against those who don’t, or won’t.
We can become activists and join the like-minded in environmental/climate change organizations; Environment Hamilton, Hamilton.350, Save our Streams, Action 13, BurlingtonGreen and others.
There is strength in numbers but, in spite of the evidence, too many of us remain stubbornly indifferent to the crisis.
We discovered our strength when we came together and successfully pushed back against Premier Doug Ford’s Greenbelt carve-outs, but this is exhausting work.
The fossil fuel industry has resisted all efforts to transition to carbon-free energy. Fossil fuel producers are the drug dealers and we’re the users, hooked on their products.
Fossil fuels are not as deadly as OxyContin or fentanyl, but are just as addictive. Enjoying windfall profits, the industry won’t reduce the supply as long as we keep buying, happy to feed our addiction.
The industry and governments have their own addictions, to money and power. We feel frustrated and betrayed when politicians renege on climate change promises, throw roadblocks in front of green energy projects, propose unnecessary gas plants, block carbon taxes and remain beholden to the fossil fuel industry
Breaking our addiction requires determination.
There is no fossil fuel equivalent of naloxone to help us on our way. Consumers have choices, depending on our circumstances and budgets. Stop buying gas guzzlers. Take advantage of incentives and replace your gas furnace with a heat pump, better insulate your home, install rooftop solar, support the carbon tax.
In the longer term this will save you money and stop feeding the fossil fuel industry.
“The future we choose” suggests that we have a future, and we have choices.
We have and we do, but the fossil fuels industry and our governments have to be on board. There are too many self-serving agendas in play. We can all act by holding our governments to account. Vote and speak up.
Wayne Poole lives in Dundas.
Mobilize, Canada! 