Rethinking Lifestyle

We’ve experienced some unusually hot weather. And its been dry, unusually dry. If you’re like me, you wonder: Is this what climate change is going to be like for us? And the answer is: We don’t know! We don’t know, because that’s not the way science works. Nevertheless when I see the smoke haze, hear and read about the wild fires in BC, and ponder our unusual weather, my mind goes to the climate change question. What kind of a world are we passing on to succeeding generations? Have we lived responsibly?

Science can tell us whether the atmosphere CO2 is going up, whether the earth’s temperature in increasing, and whether glaciers are melting. But it cannot tell us what effect this is going to have on our local climate, let alone our local weather. Science can’t even tell us with certainty whether the atmospheric CO2 level is going up because of human activity or whether it’s the result of a a natural cycle. What science does measure is the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and the amount is going up. We don’t need science to tell us that human activity is transferring carbon, buried as oil and coal below the ground millions of years ago, into the atmosphere, and that the amount being transferred is substantial. What science also tells us is that CO2 in the atmosphere acts as a blanket that keeps heat in the atmosphere – the more CO2 in the atmosphere, the more heat will be retained by the earth. Science can tell us all of that, but not how much the earth will warm up. Science tells us that the earth’s temperature is likely to go up, and that we are likely to have more catastrophic weather events, but we can’t pin any particular weather event on climate change. Weather patterns are way too complex for that. As the saying goes, “A butterfly flaps its wings in Steinbach, and this affects whether it will rain in Tokyo next week.” But science very clearly tells us that the average global temperature is going up and that this is going to affect our weather.

Given then, the likelihood that the production of atmospheric CO2 by human activity contributes to climate change and global warming, our government’s lack of response to this threat is hard to understand. The Stephen Harper government did did virtually nothing to reduce GHG production. In fact that government actively promoted the development of the Alberta oil sands, and the development of jobs in the oil sector. Justin Trudeau promised to change that, but the Trudeau government has changed little. It has said it will impose a very modest carbon tax – a tax that will increase the price of gasoline by 11.6 cents, an amount that will not affect our driving or purchasing habits. The Trudeau government has now also purchased a pipeline, which is, unquestionably another subsidy to the oil industry. Partisan politics being what it is, the Conservatives have said they will cancel even that modest carbon tax, and that they will introduce something better to reduce GHG emissions. If they would tell us what that “something better” is, that response might have credibility. Without that, it is just more partisanship.

We have said it in this column before, a serious tax shift, from an income tax to a resource consumption tax, would, on the whole, have no negative effect on our prosperity. It would not, taken across the board, decrease the amount of money in the hands of taxpayers/consumers/investors. Yes there would be winners and loosers. But the winnings would offset the loses. We need behavioral change, and without winners and losers, there will be no behavioral change.

Our cautious politicians may be shooting themselves in the foot. Voters may yet penalize them for not giving aggressive leadership in implementing policy addressing climate change. Yale University in the US has a program they call the Climate Change Communication Program. They have been measuring attitudes in the US towards climate change and policy with respect to climate change. In their 2018 survey they have found that almost 70% of those surveyed favoured a tax on fuel companies. The survey found a lot of support for policy to reduce GHG production.