Smoke-filled valleys, orange suns, watery eyes, mega-wildfires spreading rapidly, residents forced to abandon their homes and communities, overworked firefighters getting out of the way of raging fiery beasts—It has been a rough summer here in British Columbia. We’ve had the worst wildfire season in the province’s history, including mass evacuations of entire communities. Alberta, the Northwest Territories and Quebec suffered similarly. As a result, wildfire smoke plagued much of North America. Heat domes, droughts, wildfires, extreme storms followed by catastrophic flooding, you name it, happened all around the world. As well, 2023 is stacking up to be the warmest year on record.
Yes, climate change is on us with a vengeance. And it’s going to get much worse. Even fossil-fuel-producing giant ExxonMobil has admitted that by 2050 oil and gas will still be supplying 54% of the world’s energy needs (currently supplying 79%) and global temperature increase will rise above 2.0ºC, not held to the 1.5ºC increase the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says should not be exceeded if we wish to prevent extreme climate catastrophes (currently, the world is about 1.2ºC above pre-industrial levels).
And Exxon should know. In its own 1970s and ‘80s research on the environmental consequences of burning fossil fuels, Exxon accurately predicted what we’re seeing today. Their scientists knew early on what their fossil fuels were doing to our environment. But instead of developing plans to make an orderly transition from burning fossil fuels to developing efficient renewable energy technologies, Exxon and the rest of the petroleum industry decided there was too much money to be made from the oil and gas remaining in the ground. Instead, they hid the results of their research and organized disinformation campaigns to deny the science and confuse the public. Thus, they left the problem of climate change for future generations to solve.
Well, those future generations are here now and they’re rightly angry about the mess being left to them. And any kind of transition from fossil to renewable energies will have to be quite fast if we are going to avoid the worst of what’s coming at us in 2050 and beyond. It’s no wonder our youth and indeed the State of California are suing oil companies for depriving people the right to have a clean and healthy environment into the future.
Yet, despite the climate-change predictions coming true, causing catastrophic disruption of millions of people around the planet, governments are still reluctant to do much about slowing—let alone stopping—fossil fuel emissions. And it’s not hard to understand why. Fossil fuels are infused in just about everything we do and the products and services we use. It’s an easy sale for the petroleum industry to convince a politician that there will be a need for oil and gas production for a long time to come, not to mention generous financial contributions to election campaigns. As a result, government reluctance to act now pretty well cancels any hope of holding global temperature increase to 1.5ºC. Holding it to 2.0ºC will be a struggle. So, if we think what we’re seeing now is bad, we haven’t seen anything yet.
And despite the temperatures and number of world-wide catastrophes rising, the petroleum companies continue to hold onto their credo of profits first. Independent journalist John Vaillant (author of the books Fire Weather, The Tiger, and The Golden Spruce) made that perfectly clear in his piece in The Tyee about his recent appearance before a Canadian House of Commons committee concerning the real threats of climate change. At the hearing Suncor CEO (and former VP of ExxonMobil) Richard Kruger testified the fossil fuel industry held no more responsibility for climate change than anyone else—totally ignoring all the research ExxonMobil had done and hid from the public, demonstrating their absolute complicity.
What’s frustrating is that Canada could be leading the world in an orderly transfer to renewable energy. We have the wealth, capacity and expertise. But instead, we’re dawdling while our country burns around us.
But we still have time if our governments and leaders take on climate change as the crisis indeed it is! In his presentation before Parliament, Vaillant pointed out that at this point in history, “Canada is perfectly poised to embrace the greatest, greenest energy opportunity the world has ever known.” Do we have the leadership to make it happen?
I agree with your warning and admire your ability to explain the risks in plain language - based on science. I don't think we have the political leadership to make it happen and the health of the planet and survival of humanity will depend on public demands for democratic reform.