Running Out of Time

Rather than cheering Mark Carney on, maybe people should be worrying about the climate. Science can’t be manipulated. Science doesn’t lie, but politicians do lie and do so oftenIncreasing fossil fuel production, along with forestry and mining, guarantees widespread human suffering. Building pipelines guarantees continued fossil fuel use for at least the next 50 years. Carbon capture & SMRs are excellent, but there are still significant issues involving tech and scalability.

 There is no shortcut to addressing climate change; technology and engineering cannot save us. Climate change is not going to wait for us until we feel we are ready. It is happening right now. We are at a point that we need to start thinking about climate adaptation.  Climate mitigation is no longer a feasible possibility.

Governments, in aggregate, still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030. The world is now most likely on a high trajectory. The Canada Environment & Climate high emission model predicts a 3.2 to 5.4°C over pre-industrial levels. Canada warms twice as fast, so the projected temperature would be double in Canada. A 2.0 degree increase is dangerous; 4.0 is catastrophic.

Canada’s unreported emissions are oil & gas emissions (Methane underestimated by up to 50%); emissions (1.5–2 times higher); oil sands emissions (65% higher) & logging emissions (80 to 90 Mt CO2e).

In addition to the typical greenwashing, Canada excludes emissions from wildfires and attributes the carbon emissions from naturally regrowing forests to the logging sector. Setting an emission at 2005 against 2022 where emissions at 2010 were significantly lower, made the emission reduction look larger than it really was. Questionable accounting: Critics argue that government accounting methods downplay the climate impact of industrial logging by excluding emissions from wildfires and attributing carbon absorption from naturally regrowing forests to the logging sector.

The economy that everyone is trying to keep growing will soon have nothing to grow. We need to have a sustainable economy. We need to change, and we need to do it now. By 2050, Canadians will be experiencing temperatures ranging from 6.4 to 10.8 degrees Fahrenheit. There will be severe drought reducing our food production while our population grows to 9 billion human beings. On a high emission trajectory by 2050, there will be 14.5 million deaths, between 8-80 million more people will face hunger, and up to 216 million environmental refugees. Society will unravel, and the world will become extremely violent in search of food & shelter. If you have kids, think of what their future will look like. If you don’t have children, think of those you love. What I posted is not a Chicken Little “the sky is falling” story; it is what is happening now and into the future.