Climate Change as an Election Issue

Vincent J. Curtis

11 Sept 2019


What Canada can do about climate change will undoubtedly be an election issue, though it shouldn’t be.  Why it shouldn’t be can be explained with a few incontrovertible facts that even ardent believers cannot ignore.

Canada produces 1.5 percent of world CO2 emissions annually, of which Ontario contributes about a third.  If every car, factory, and person in Ontario were vaporized and the land returned to primordial forest, it would reduce Canada’s contribution from 1.5 to 1.0 percent.  That reduction of 0.5 percent is equivalent to reducing atmospheric CO2 content from 408 to 406 ppm.  That 2 ppm difference has no impact at all on CO2 induced climate change – if it exists.  The wildest hopes for the Trudeau carbon tax won’t cut Canada’s CO2 emissions by anywhere near a third.

So what are we talking about – tiny fractions of ppm in this election?  Seriously?

Canada’s contribution to world CO2 emissions is too small for anything we do to make a difference.  Talk of “what Canada can do so save the planet” is happy-talk, virtue-signalling.  It is playing on ignorance.

Serious people should speak of serious things, especially in an election.  Speaking of what Canada ought to do to affect climate change isn't serious.
-30-