http://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/07/trudeaus-climate-plan-dangerous-fraud
[links in online article]
Trudeau's climate plan is a dangerous fraud
Linda McQuaig
July 4, 2019
It's possible that the world's top climate scientists are lying.
If so, we can relax and feel confident that Justin Trudeau has dealt
with the climate crisis in the appropriate way.
Although the prime minister approved the expansion of the Trans Mountain
pipeline last month, he's vowed to channel pipeline profits into clean
energy projects. Compared to the Conservatives, Trudeau's climate
package, which includes taxes on carbon, seems reasonable and balanced
-- with a sweetener of environmental activism thrown in. (After all,
it's 2019.)
But if climate scientists are not lying, if they're just honestly
reporting their scientific findings, Trudeau's package is a dangerous
fraud -- one that gives us a false sense that we can dramatically
increase output from Alberta's oilsands without seriously imperiling the
world, and ourselves.
I'm inclined to believe the scientists. Convened by the United Nations,
they reviewed more than 6,000 scientific studies and reported last fall
that we have only about a dozen years left if we are to prevent truly
dire climate conditions which go well beyond the kind of horrific
wildfires, heat waves, droughts and floods we're already experiencing.
To avoid this, the scientists on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change called on the world to make urgent and unprecedented
changes that would dramatically reduce our fossil fuel consumption.
The chances of the world doing so are, of course, slim.
But that slim hope would be reduced to a thread by the Trans Mountain
expansion, which would triple the pipeline's capacity to transport the
province's heavy crude oil, one of the world's dirtiest, most
carbon-intensive fuels.
That would be equivalent to adding 34 million cars to our roads,
according to the environmental group Oil Change International.
Renowned U.S. climate scientist James Hansen has said if Alberta's
oilsands are fully exploited, it's "game over."
So Trudeau's promise to direct pipeline profits to clean energy -- as
good as that sounds -- is like allowing cigarettes to be sold to kids as
long as tobacco companies make generous donations to cancer research.
Given the Canadian political landscape, Trudeau's compromise may seem
like the best we can do. But, as Winston Churchill once said: "Sometimes
it is not enough to do our best; we must do what is required."
By that standard, we're failing miserably.
With climate change increasingly in the headlines, it's easy to be
lulled into believing the world is finally cutting carbon emissions. In
fact, they continue to rise.
The climate has warmed roughly 1 C since the 1850s, and it's expected to
warm another half-degree, due to carbon already in the atmosphere. The
big question is whether we can hold it to 1.5 C -- a level of warming
with severe but manageable consequences. At 2 C, it gets truly scary.
Ottawa admits Canada is far from meeting its carbon-reduction targets.
This understates our poor performance.
A 2018 study published in the journal Nature Communications ranked
Canada among countries with the world's least effective climate
policies. The study found that if Canada's policies were adopted
worldwide, global temperatures would rise by a disastrous 5.1 C by the
end of the century. And that assessment was made before Trudeau approved
the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.
Given the potential catastrophe ahead, it's amazing the subject is often
discussed with detachment.
Economist Moshe Lander of Concordia University recently argued that,
with the world moving toward a carbon-free future, Alberta's oil should
be extracted while there's still time; "it's sort of a now or never
approach."
This attitude -- let's dump every bit of carbon into the air while we
can still make a buck from it! -- reveals a stunning indifference to the
enormity of the crisis we face, and the fighting spirit we'll need to
summon if we're going to save ourselves and future generations.
Winston Churchill demonstrated that sort of fighting spirit when he
vowed in 1940: "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the
landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets ..."
Imagine if he'd settled for: "We'll do our best. But we have to balance
the need to fight tyranny with the need to create jobs."
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