Why air conditioning might not be the best solution to hot weather

We do have air conditioning in our Toronto lakefront house (well, it's a heat pump - same idea, just cheaper and more efficient). But cool breezes off the lake and a certain attitude conspire against us using it very often.

American family and friends despair of us, but it's always seemed counter-intuitive to me to respond to climate change-induced exteme heat events by firing up a power-hogging electrical device which will only make climate change worse. It's also horribly expensive, as electricity rates creep up. 

But we do use it a few times a year, mainly on very hot nights where sleep would otherwise be impossible. During the day, even when it's hot, we tend not to use it - hot is just how it is in the summer. You can maybe see why visiting American family members shake their heads.

Turns out, though, I'm probably right. Certainly about the climate change piece, but also the half-formed idea I have always had that air conditioning is just not particularly healthy, and maybe even dangerous.

It's a fact that extreme heat events kill more people in the affluent West than in the wilds of Africa, where the heat is typically so much more intense and air conditioning is all but unheard of. Over millennia, Africans have adapted to the heat, physiologically and in their habits and conditions: houses maximize air flow, the workday is arranged around the hottest parts of the day, clothing is loose and cool, hydration is a regular feature of life.

But also, there's evidence that chronic use of air conditioning can reduce such resilience. Although air conditioning in offices can improve labour productivity, fans and proper air circulation can achieve the same benefits, at least up to around 30°C. In residential homes, though, AC can prove downright dangerous. In increasingly common "compound climate events" - where a heat wave induces a power failure, for example - the rapid change in temperature can result in more heat stress than the high temperatures alone. As one recent American study puts it, "high AC prevalence may have the unintended effect of amplifying heat vulnerability during grid failure events". You only have to walk out of an over-air-conditioned store into the hot street to understand the logic of that.

Now, I'm not saying that air conditioning should be banned. Nearly a third of the deaths during heat waves occur among the elderly over 80 years of age, and more Europeans than North Americans tend to die from heat exposure (air conditioning is much more prevalent in North America). It's essential that seniors homes nursing homes and hospitals are air-conditioned, and even residential apartment blocks where a high proportion of senior citizens live. 

I just think we overuse it. We don't need frigid conditions in our houses and stores during the few months of the year when the weather is actually nice and warm; that is just perversity. Maybe a fan works well most of the time, maybe just opening the windows would be sufficient. Take a cold shower, have a cold drink. Don't just automatically hit the AC button, and if you do, don't set the temperature unnecessarily low.

UPDATE 

As France suffers through another brutal season of exteme heat, the air conditioning debate is also heating up. A majority there say they would prefer to "suffer from the heat rather than install an air conditioner in order to protect the emvironment", although the latest deadly heatwave is starting to make many French people question those principles. This comes as the far-right Rassemblent National party announced a nationwide air conditioning plan, strongly opposed by the left-wing Insoumise party and others.

It's a similar story in Germany, where historically air conditioning has been largely unnecessary. But hotter summers in.recent years have seen demand for air conditioners and cooling units surge.

Is Mark Carney's extended honeymoon period starting to sour?

Mark Carney has been granted a generous, even unprecedented, honeymoon period as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and as Prime Minister of the country. This is partly - mainly - due to the singular circumstances he has inherited (basically, Donald Trump and the chaos that inevitably follows him around). But, either way, Carney is currently basking in an enviable 67% approval rate, something most other world leaders can only dream of right now, and a comfortable +8% approval of the direction he is taking the country in. After a year in government, Mr. Carney is more popular than when he was elected, and his party now has a small majority, rather than the large minority it was elected with.

This all sounds exceptional, and certainly, compared to the likes of Donald Trump and Keir Starmer, it is. But, in fact, it's not dissimilar to Justin Trudeau's popularity rating a year into his tenure a decade ago, and look how he turned out! The big test of leaders often comes after about 15 months, sometimes referred to as the "15 Month Itch".

After the events of the last few weeks, you have to wonder whether that itch is starting to be felt. At the end of April, fourteen (unspecified) members of the Liberal caucus published a letter bemoaning the government's anti-environmental trajectory. Because it's undeniable the Carney has indeed presided over a wholesale roll-back and deliberate weakening of the environmental initiatives of his predecessor. Among other things, he has repealed the consumer carbon tax, eliminated the EV sales mandate, ended the oil and gas emissions cap, and called a halt to plans to end fossil fuel subsidies. Improbably, Carney maintains he is still an ardent environmentalist and climate change leader, and that he is just being practical and pragmatic, but his actions belie that. To call it a "pivot" hardly does it justice.

Then, just this week, after Mr. Carney followed though on his disastrous pipeline agreement with Alberta, the prominent MP, environmentalist and Liberal Quebec "lieutenant" Steven Guilbeault tendered his resignation, first from his position in the Cabinet and then as a Member of Parliament, on the grounds that he cannot in good conscience watch the Liberal Party abandon its environmental stance. As environment minister, Mr. Guilbeault was the architect of many of the Trudeau-era environmental policies, which he has watched being comprehensively dismantled by Carney. As a man of conscience and principle, it is all he can do to walk away.

Now, not everyone is as principled as Steven Guilbeault. Most of the 67% that still support Mark Carney (including a good proportion of Conservatives) clearly believe, as Carney himself does, that, at this particular moment in time, economic imperatives outweigh the nice-to-have option of environmental initiatives. Even though the consequences of climate change and other environmental deteriorations may be much more important in the long run, it's hard for people to see past the short-term challenges of inflation, job losses, housing shortages, etc. In times of economic fragility, it's always "the economy, stupid", and I get that.

But I wonder whether the growing schism in the Liberal Party between what you might call the "Economy First" and the "Environment First" factions is an important one? 14 out of 174 Liberal MPs is not a huge number, after all, but I do wonder if it might be the start of a fissure, the start of a 15 Month Itch. My guess, though, is not: pragmatism will win out over principle. Stupid.

Mr. Carney's disastrous pipeline deal with Alberta

Mark Carney, much like Justin Trudeau before him, is the master of the grand gesture, the grand announcement, often with little substance behind it. The difference is that, thus far at least, he seems to be managing to carry his public popularity along with him.

Yesterday was the occasion of another such grand announcement. Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith jointly announced, to great fanfare, a climate and energy agreement to follow up on their memorandum of understanding (MOU) last November. For all their talk of urgency, it has still taken six months to get to this next step.

The main item is the construction of a new one-million-barrel-a-day oil pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast. A firm  proposal is to be submitted by Alberta to the major projects office by July 1st, it is to be designated as a project of national interest by October 1st, and construction could start by "as early as" September 1st 2027, and in theory it could be up and running by 2033 or 2034. I suppose, in Canadian terms, that is expeditious, if not downright breakneck.

Of course, there is as yet no private sector proponent willing to stick its neck out and commit to building the thing. Neither is there a confirmed route that is not going to get bogged down in endless controversy and acrimony. Both parties say that they will respect Canada's duty to consult with Indigenous peoples, and the province of British Colombia remains implacably opposed to such a pipeline though its land and coastal waters. BC accuses Carney of pushing through "nationally significant" energy deals without involving the entire country, and of "rewarding" Alberta's bad behaviour and separatist rumblings. 

So, all things considered, we are probably no further forward than we were, despite the grand announcement.

The other part of the announcement was an agreement with Alberta on industrial carbon pricing and emissions reductions. Alberta is to impose on its oil producers a carbon price of $130 a tonne (that is what they would pay for carbon offsets), up from the current level of $95 a tonne, according to a gradually increasing schedule between now and 2040. Yes, 2040! 

However, it turns out that the "floor price" - the price actually enforced by government - will be only $110 a tonne, and even that price will only start to be regulated by 2030, while the floor price will actually start at the ultra-low level of $60 a tonne. Talk about devil in the details! Compare that to the Trudeau-era federal climate plan, which set the price of carbon at $170 a tonne by 2030, and you can see just how much Carney has been swayed and equivocated. Incidentally, the lower carbon price is to apply across the country, pending consultations with other provinces. 

It gets worse. Industrial emitters also get a large carbon price-free allowance before carbon prices, much reduced as they are, even kick in. This is supposed to help them compete in global markets, and I'm sure it does. But it means that the effective carbon price they pay is actually miniscule in many cases. The Canadian Climate Institute estimates that the Canada-Alberta agreement recently struck might add about 16 cents to the cost of producing a barrel of oil by 2030. And this is what Alberta and its oil companies are up in arms about? Talk about "over a barrel".

Environmentalists, of course, are not happy, slamming the deal as betraying the country, undercutting national ambitions on industrial carbon pricing, and sabotaging plans to combat climate change. It puts "Canada's target of net zero by 2050 well out of reach", they say, and its 2030 targets will be put back by at least a decade as a result. Carney is still promising that Canada will meet its 2050 net zero goal, but his promises appear increasingly divorced from reality, and hardly anyone else seems to share his optimism.

But the muck gets yet thicker. Carney also made clear that the pipeline deal is still dependent on the construction of a massive carbon capture project in the Alberta oil sands, the so-called Pathways project, which is to be built built the Oil Sands Alliance. Carney was unequivocal: "No Pathways, no pipeline".

The Pathways initiative is a 400km long pipeline, funded largely by the region's oil industry, that will transport carbon trapped at oil sands facilities to a storage area located under Cold Lake, Alberta. At the moment, though, this whole project is largely theoretical, and the oil company execs involved are increasingly getting cold feet as the costs and technical challenges become apparent. The coalition of potential builders also object the $130 price on carbon that has just been set, however low it might be. This, then, is not going to happen by September 2027 (or even 2033). And, "no Pathways, no pipeline", right?

So, where does all this leave us? Well, nowhere really. For all the grand announcements, we are no closer to getting a new pipeline built than we ever were. Now, that's not necessarily a bad in thing, in my personal opinion. And I do wonder whether this might not be some elaborate house of cards built by Mark Carney - once an environmentalist himself, remember - in full knowledge that it will almost certainly all come tumbling down eventually. Has the wily Carney been playing us (and Alberta) all along?

The next Super El Niño is due this year

Batten down the hatches, we're in for a wild ride this year, weatherwise. We're expecting the strongest El Niño weather pattern EVER in the second half of the year - a "Super El Niño", in the rather alarming argot of some climate scientists. Combined with the effects of climate change, this will probably generate some record-breaking weather in terms of temperatures and rainfall: stronger heat waves, worse droughts, more wildfires, stronger storms and more intense floods (although, as recompense, the Atlantic hurricane season may be less intense).

El Niño is a long-term weather event, usually lasting nine to twelve months, in which sea surface temperatures in the equatorial regions of the Pacific Ocean are warmer than normal. This has the effect of altering and de-stabilizing the world's weather patterns for the duration, as it re-distributes heat across the whole planet. These events tend to occur every two to seven years, following no fixed schedule. La Niña, on the either hand, is where the equatorial Pacific is cooler than average, causing different weather patterns that can have their own challenges.

Currently, sea-surface temperatures are rising rapidly, with further intensification expected in the months to follow. The volume and intensity of sub-surface warm water anomalies in the Pacific are as large as have ever been seen, scientists say, "more out of balance than at any time in observed history". 

So the chances are high that this year's El Niño will be the all-time strongest, even more extreme than the previous record-holder of 1877-8. That year's El Niño caused catastrophic famines across India, China, Brazil and elsewhere that killed more than 50 million people (3-4% of the world's population at the time), "arguably the worst environmental disaster to ever befall humanity".

While this year's El Niño may be even stronger, it's effects may not be quite as drastic. These days, we are forewarned by our technology (although we do then have to act on the warnings!) The Super El Niño of 1982-3 was a pivotal turning point in our understanding of the phenomenon, and led to crucial advances in ocean monitoring and real-time tracking. They helped predict the Super El Niños in 1997-8 and 2015-6.

Plus, we are better prepared socially, politically, technologically and economically to deal with the effects - at least in theory, and provided we can stop waging war on each other for long enough to deal with it.

Wind power under attack

And I don't mean from Donald Trump!

Sweden, always the overachiever, has managed to get to the point where it produces 99% of its electricity from "clean" sources (40% from hydro, 23% from wind, 2% from solar, and - OK - 27% from nuclear). Just 1.2% comes from fossil fuels. A pretty impressive achievement, even for an overachiever, and Swedes can justifiably congratulate themselves.

If you read Swedish social media, though, you'd get a very different impression. You'd think that Sweden's reliance on wind power in particular is excessive and somehow dangerous. You'd think that most of the country was up in arms against all this wrong-headed reliance on cheap, non-polluting wind energy. 

There are four main narratives: the wind industry is run by greedy developers putting naked profit before environmental and social good; wind power is being imposed by distant political or economic elites on unwilling local populations; wind turbines are harmful to nature and wildlife; and wind power is inherently destabilizing, technologically unviable, and economically unfeasible.

Of course, almost all of the online posts are disinformation (deliberately deceiving), those that aren't just misinformation (merely incorrect or out-of-context), and all of these contentions have been repeatedly disproved by reputable studies over many years. 

What's more, these attacks on the wind industry appear to be coordinated. Most of the attack posts seem to have been written in Sweden, but a good percentage of them are from France, Norway, Finland, UK and Germany. Analysis shows that those from the UK generate the most engagement, followed by Germany, Norway and France. Engagement from Swedish posts seems to be much lower. There doesn't seem to be a comparable backlash against solar, hydro, or even nuclear energy.

It's not clear where these social media posts are coming from, and how - or even if - they are being coordinated. It seems that they may be emanating from political groups hanging onto Trump's coattails. They seems to be attempts, presumably by the far right, to attack the business model of European companies and to weaponize anti-EU sentiment, or just to discredit the status quo. Just as in America, unscrupulous populist politicians can use such sentiments for electoral gain, regardless of whether they are based on truth or reality.

It seems there's no such thing as paradise, whether socially, environmentally or politically. Someone always wants to crap on it.

Alternative climate conference gets under way in Santa Marta

I have neglected to mention it thus far, but I would be remiss to ignore the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, happening right now in Santa Marta, Colombia.

With all that they need to come up with a more succinct name or acronym (FICJTAFF?), this seems like a wholly laudable attempt to rescue the climate action movement from the tyranny of the majority. While great things were once hoped for from the UN Climate Change Conferences (or COPS - Conference of the Parties), in recent years they have been increasingly taken over by oil-producing countries that either don't believe in, or don't care about, climate change.

The Netherlands and Colombia have been at the forefront of this new initiative. Over 50 countries are attending the Santa Marta conference, a so-called "coalition of do-ers", representing almost 50% of the global population. Sub-national actors, Indigenous Peoples, social and youth movements, and invited non-governmental organizations will also be represented. 

The USA, under the climate-denying Trump administration, is not even invited, and neither are a whole swathe of other potentially obstructive countries like Middle Eastern oil producers. There is no China, no Russia, to veto promising motions. 

Despite its embarrassing back-pedalling on climate issues under Mark Carney, Canada is indeed attending, although it is sending a team of negotiators rather than higher level government ministers. Along with Nigeria and Australia, it is one of the few oil and gas producers at the summit.

The concept is to see what progressive climate action ideas can be developed without the constant drag and naysaying of the more regressive elements. There will be no flashy binding global treaties, but instead is focussed more on actionable, non-consensus-based pathways. It is seen as a precursor to future negotiations, rather than a final decision-making body. It hopes to set targets and advance concrete pathways to transition away from fossil fuels, which increasingly seems like the only real solution to climate change.

Should we expect much from the conference, other than virtue-signalling and bromides? Is it just a choir preaching to itself? Maybe this first conference might not produce too much, but it will be interesting to see what momentum it generates. And, anyway, do you still expect anything from UN COP conferences?

To tell you the truth, it's nice to be reporting on something other than the United States right now. That feels like a win in itself.

Plug-in solar is coming...

Plug-in solar is coming! I've seen that headline in multiple places recently. And it is kind of a big deal, in a small way.

So, what is plug-in solar anyway? It's "a simple, reliable way to save money by generating your own electricity" from small-scale modular solar panels that connect (via an inverter) to a standard power outlet in your home. It's an easy and affordable way to get started generating your own power. 

Solar panels can be put on any accessible flat surface, such as a balcony, in a front or back yard, or on a roof deck. Unlike a full-scale roof-top grid-tied system, installation is pretty straightforward and can be done without engaging a contractor and a whole lot of bureaucracy. Even renters and apartment dwellers can now reduce their grid dependence.

Plug-in panels come in a range of output sizes from 200W to 1,600W (as compared to a typical rooftop installation of 3,000W to 9,000W), and cost from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. It's not intended to power your whole home, merely to reduce load (particularly during peak times), and to save the consumer some money. Even a small 200W unit can power a fridge or overhead lighting, or be used to recharge laptops, phones, etc, or it can be used remotely to power camping appliances, a small boat, etc. Larger units can of course power larger and more power-hungry appliances.

The average payback time right now is about 5 years, and costs are expected to continue falling as market take-up increases. Annual savings depend on available sunshine hours and the cost of locally produced electricity.

Germany has been doing it for years, since the German government streamlined the rules for power generation without needing approval from electricity utilities back in 2019. The technology is tried, tested and safe. Germany remains the largest market - about 1 in 10 households there use some form of plug-in solar panels. Now, more and more other jurisdictions are starting to cut the red tape to make it easy for consumers to install a plug-in solar system. Plug-in solar is now legal in most EU states (25 of 27), excepting Sweden (puzzling) and Hungary (not so puzzling).r

Utah was the first US state to pass legislation allowing it, and many others have followed suit.(or are in the process). Britain recently changed its rules to allow, and even encourage, it. Embarrassingly, here in Canada, the Canadian Standards Association is still "evaluating" the technology, and there are still "regulatory barriers" to overcome. 

With the crunch on gas prices caused by the US war in Iran, there has never been a better time for plug-in solar.

And now we need to think about "fungal storms"?

Fungal storms are not so much a storm of fungi, but fungi that spread through storms, and these events are becoming much more prevalent as climate change amps up the intensity and the frequency of storms. In particular, they are affecting the dry, dusty and hot south-west of America.

In south-western USA, storms often manifest as dust storms, where clouds of sand, soil and dust are whipped up by extreme temperatures, including the fast-moving walls of dust known as "haboobs". Construction, agriculture and wildfires also add to the particles carried in these intense storms. 

As well as dirty windows and hazy skies, these storms can disrupt air and ground transportation, agriculture, and solar power generation. They can also trigger heavy rain, flooding and mud flows. But it's now becoming clear that these storms also carry fungal spores from disturbed or contaminated soil hundreds of kilometers from where they were once safely buried.

Once airborne, these microscopic spores are easily ingested by humans and animals alike. Fungal infections are spiking in desert states like Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas, but also even further afield, like Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Kansas. 

Infections from fungus species like coccidoides, aspergillus, candida auris, histoplasma capsulatum and blastomyces dermititidis are being found far from their traditional stomping grounds, making diagnosis tricky. They are expected to spread still further into the Midwest, even Canada, in the comimg decades. Coccidoides causes "valley fever" and severe pulmonary disease in some cases. Aspergillis, particularly drug-resistant strains, can lead to life-threatening infections in people with weakened immune systems. 

These dangerous species, of course, only represent a small fraction of fungi, the vast majority of which are harmless, even beneficial. But it's an important minority, and becoming ever more important.

The challenges of doing science in Trump's America

Here's a good account of how scientific research has had to pivot in Trump's America.

The article deals specifically with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), but I'm sure it applies to any number of government departments and agencies. Scientists and researchers are having to self-censor and find creative ways around the Trump-mandated ban on using MAGA trigger words and phrases like "global warming", "climate change", "solar energy", "alternative energy", "decarbonization", "energy transition", "renewables", "environmental justice", "greenhouse gas emissions", "carbon sequestration", "sustainability", even "safe drinking water". Otherwise, they run the risk of having their research censored or their grant applications denied.

So, instead of using phrases like "climate change", resourceful researchers - those that have not already given up completely or moved away, that is - are trying to use less controversial, softer phrases like "elevated temperatures", "soil health" and "extreme weather", so as not to trigger discovery by the automated tools of the Trump woke police.

I know it reads like a bad science fiction story, but this is really happening in modern-day America. In Trump's America there are about 100-plus words and phrases that are essentially banned in academic and scientific research circles, about a third of them related to climate change (which is, remember, a "hoax"). Some of them are real head-scratchers, like "diesel", "affordable housing", "runoff", "microplastics", "rural water". There are also whole other categories of banned words to do with DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), gender, abortion, immigration, etc. 

Of course, if your whole paper or grant application is about solar energy or affordable housing, it is essentially impossible to avoid these phrases. So, the beleaguered American scientific community is finding alternative sources of funding and alternative publication destinations. And some of them are just leaving for less restrictive and repressive regimes. This is having a huge impact, not only on the American research community, but on that of other countries too, where local talent is now having to compete against well-qualified American ex-patriates and academic exiles (as my son-in-law, who is currently looking for post-doc opportunities abroad, is finding, to his chagrin).

US government department websites have been dilligently "scrubbed" of offensive words like "climate change" and "renewable energy" since early in Trump's second administration. Whole reports have been conveniently removed if they were considered too woke or prejudicial. It makes me wonder: did Trump personally come up with the list of proscribed words and phrases? And who are the people who carry out these bizarre instructions? Talk about the banality of evil.

Imagine working in such a system! Imagine that the field of inquiry you have spent your whole career in (or your future prospective career) is in one of these proscribed areas! Imagine having to avoid using the word "green" or "black" anywhere in your dissertation! I'm sure that many are just hoping to wait it out, on the assumption that "this too shall pass". Others, though, may be second-guessing their whole careers.

I have a suspicion that most Americans are not even aware that this is going on under their noses. Many will not care, of course, those who routinely complain about "radical wokeness" and other such nonsense. But many others will. And if I just found out about it (or at least about the extent of it), I'm sure there are many potentially concerned citizens who have no idea just how close to Margaret Atwood's Gilead or George Orwell's Thought Police modern America has become.

Clean power as an energy security issue

Perhaps it's not much, but maybe something good might come out of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Spooked by the precipitous increase in oil and has prices, Britain's biggest energy company, Octopus Energy, has already seen a 50% rise in solar panel sales in the few weeks since the war started, as well as a spike in heat pumps and enquiries about electric vehicles and chargers.

Now, the UK is introducing new rules to the effect that all new homes built there (from 2028) must be installed with heat pumps and solar panels. In addition, plug-in solar panels are to be widely available in stores in Britain. The idea is to avoid being held hostage by the globalized oil and gas market, as is happening in the aftermath of the Iran war, and to move closer to "energy sovereignty" for the country. 

Something very similar is happening in Europe, which is seeing a wave of increased interested in solar power. Ditto, Australia, which had all but given up on its ambitious target of 82% renewables by 2030, until a huge surge in household solar and battery installations since the US-Iran war.

All this thanks to anti-renewables Donald Trump and his misguided Iran war?

Well, partly. The last time there was an oil crunch of this magnitude, in the 1970s, there were few practical alternatives available. This time there are viable substitutes, powerful and cheap enough to build at scale, and many countries are looking towards that off-ramp, bringing in long-overdue policies that will stand them in good stead decades into the future.

Hey, maybe we could do that here too, here in sunny Canada? Ah, no, Alberta would never allow that!

Does the world still run on oil?

The other thing the current oil crisis has brought home to me is the extent to which we still rely on oil. A depressing article in the Globe and Mail entitled "What energy transition? The Middle East war shows the world still runs on oil", pointed out that 87% of total global energy in the 1970s was from fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal), and that figure today is still 81%. 

That does indeed seem to be the case: the Energy Institute's 2024 Statistical Review of World Energy shows that primary energy consumption is made up 31.7% by oil, 26.5% by coal, 23.3% by natural gas (so, 81.5% by fossil fuels in total), 4.0% by nuclear, 6.4% by hydroelectricity, and 8.2% by other renewables (mainly wind and solar). So, 18.6% could be called carbon-free. Furthermore, overall energy consumption is still increasing at a pretty steady clip.

A more granular look shows that the contribution from renewables is still increasing, and increasing faster than the other sources, much of that due to China. So, the picture could be substantially different in a few years time. But it's still a pretty depressing picture, and all the more worrying since the move away from fossil fuels has noticeably slowed in the last year or so, mainly due to the single-handed influence of one, Donald Trump.

Carney explains why he still considers himself a climate change leader

Apparently, Mark Carney still sees himself and Canada as a leader on climate change.

In an interview just a couple of days ago, one reporter put it to him starkly: "Along with cutting the EV mandate, you've cut the consumer carbon tax, weakened a commitment to the oil and gas emissions cap, you're exempting Alberta from clean-up energy regulations, and abandoned a promise to plant two billion trees. Do you still consider yourself a leader on climate change?" 

Yow, pretty damning stuff! How did Carney respond? "Absolutely, I consider Canada a leader on climate change, and I'm focussing on climate change results and solutions". Wow. I can feel the cognitive dissonance creeping over me as I write.

To his credit, Carney went on to enumerate what he sees as his justification for his claims, namely: tax relief and support for the entire EV production chain, incentives for consumers to adopt EVs, tightening (two-fold, he says) Canada's greenhouse gas emissions while giving the auto industry flexibility as to how they achieve that, and a plan (to be announced) to double the capacity of Canada's clean electricity system. He also said that the liquid natural gas (LNG) coming out of British Columbia, which he has been encouraging and facilitating, is among the cleanest LNG in the world (for what that's worth), and it is also being twinned with carbon capture and storage technology (albeit largely unproven and unbuilt).

So, credit where credit is due, the guy talks a good game. But let's not be fooled, what he is proposing and talking up is really not as effective or direct a solution to climate change as the various policies he has just abandoned (and even those were not sufficient). I have a lot of respect for Mr. Carney, and I believe he is doing a reasonably good job in most respects under very trying circumstances. But on the environment and climate change, he is absolutely guilty of pulling the wool over our eyes. (If you want to see what you actually need to do to make EVs a mainstream option, look no further than Norway.)

UPDATE

This also comes as the Canadian Climate Institute warns that the country is not in track to meet any of its climate change and carbon emission goals - not the 2026 interim target, not the 2030 Paris Agreement commitment, not even the long-term 2050 zero-emission goal. The reason? "A slackening of policy effort over the last year, marked by the removal or weakening of climate policies across the country". A year, let's be clear, when Mark Carney was in control.

Hard data seems surprisingly hard to find. As of 2023 (the latest data available, for some reason, and long before Carney was involved), Canada had only achieved a 9% reduction in emissions from 2005 levels, while moat other G7 nations had achieved reductions of around 30%. Even the USA managed 17%, although that was before Trump took the reins, to be fair.

Dropping Canada's EV mandate illustrates the failings of our auto sector

The way I see it, Canada's decision to drop its electric vehicle (EV) mandate, widely expected to be announced in the next day or two, in favour of a new, less-aggressive system of fuel efficiency standards and credits, represents a failure on the part of the Canadian auto industry - at the production, wholesale and retail levels - as well as, to some extent, the Canadian public.

It's not that the Trudeau-era climate change policies were inherently bad ones, as Pierre Poilievre and the CEOs of multiple automotive companies would have us think. Mark Carney would have supported them wholeheartedly at one time - he was a very vocal apologist of carbon taxes at one time. But Carney is pragmatic to a fault, and not fond of grand gestures and statements of principle (in the way that Trudeau was very fond of them, to a fault).

But our automotive industry just did not put much effort into actively pursuing the EV policy. It just sat back and hoped it would happen of its own accord. And, while some members of the public (like me!) did the right thing - i.e. go electric - for its own sake, most others also sat back and waited for everybody else to do the right thing, which is never going to work. Then, when the Trudeau government started sending mixed messages on its environmental commitments, and when EV rebates were withdrawn, the driving public just threw up its hands and said, "well, what can we do?"

Carney, once a staunch environmentalist, has gradually dismantled (or at least scaled back) most of the progressive environmental initiatives of the previous administration. Scrapping the EV mandate is just another such, although one welcomed by the lazy domestic auto sector. Relying on tailpipe standards would be a return to the pre-EV mandate, pre-carbon tax status quo, which, you might remember, was not particularly effective in reducing our carbon emissions. There is talk of bringing back some EV rebates, but we must wait to see what that entails, just as we need to wait to see how stringent the tailpipe emission regulations will be. (We don't have a progressive US model to follow this time.)

Frankly, I'm not holding my breath.

UPDATE

The new Liberal EV policy, as expected, has scrapped a firm EV sales mandate, although it did restate non-enforceable (and still rather improbable) "goals" of 75% EVs by 2035 and 90% by 2040. This is still much more modest than the Trudeau-era goal of 100% by 2035.

To that end, the announcement details a return of incentive rebates of $5,000 for full battery EVs and $2,500 for plug-in hybrid EVs, although even that modest rebate is set to reduce each year until it reaches $2,000 for full EVs and $1,000 for PHEVs by 2030. The rebates also only apply to EVs with a sales value below $50,000, unless it is a model that is made in Canada (which I guess is fair enough), and then only for imports from a country with which Canada has a free-trade agreement, which disqualifies those 49,000 Chinese EVs a year that Canada recently agreed to. So, pretty carefully-worded.

The package also includes $1.5 billion towards improving the country's EV fast-charging network, given that range anxiety is still perceived as a major barrier to consumers looking to switch to an electric vehicle.

It also installs new supports for Canadian auto workers as the EV transition ramps up, including a "work-sharing grant" and a "workforce alliance", as well as committing $3 billion from the existing Strategic Response Fund and $100 million from the Regional Tariff Response Initiative to help accelerate investment in Canada's auto sector.

Interestingly, the main thrust of the new rules was supposed to be the implementation of more stringent tailpipe carbon emissions standards for Canadian vehicles, but we didn't get to find out about those - they will supposedly be outlined later this year, and will apply to model years 2027 to 2032. So, in a way, the bad news (for many people, and certainly for vehicle manufacturers) has been postponed, presumably lest it rain on Mr. Carney's EV parade. We are told it is supposed to "ultimately lead to emission reductions equivalent to 75% of all 2035 automobile sales falling into the EV category". Except, I'm not really sure what on earth that means (I'm not even sure the grammar is right!)

The auto sector has been generally welcoming of the new policy, although - shock horror! - the opposition Conservatives appear to disagree with pretty much everything in it.

Canadian cities triumph in new sustainability index

Well, this is surprising. A new ranking of the greenest and most sustainable cities in the world has three Canadian cities in the top ten, with one Canadian city right at the top of the pile.

The Green Cities Index, by Dutch sustainability experts Reinders Corporation (which makes industrial climate systems, dehumidifiers, etc), takes into account accessibility of green space per capita, renewable energy usage, air quality, public transportation efficiency, bikeability, and a few other measures. It shows Vancouver at No. 1, above the likes of Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen. Montreal is at No 7, and hometown Toronto comes in at No. 9.

I don't think of our cities as being in the same league as many European cities as regards sustainability, so this comes as quite a (pleasant) surprise. Vancouver scored particularly highly on green space and renewable energy, and had the best air quality in the study (this was presumably measured outside of wildfire season).

The full top 10 is:

1. Vancouver, Canada
2. Oslo Norway
3. Stockholm, Sweden
4. Munich, Germany
5. Zurich, Switzerland
6. Copenhagen, Denmark
7. Montreal, Canada
8. Sam Francisco, USA
9. Toronto Canada
10. London, UK

Interestingly, although the findings are reported by several media outlets, I can't find a link to the original Reinders index. Also interesting that a similar exercise by Canadian sustainability organization Corporate Knights has Vancouver down at No. 10, Toronto at No. 15, and, yes, the Scandinavian cities at the top.

Mark Carney seems like a nice guy, but he has abandoned the environment

Prime Minister Mark Carney's honeymoon period seems to be extending much longer than I had expected. Most liberals still seem to like him, and many conservatives have joined them (which shouldn't surprise us too much given that most of his policies are very much conservative ones, regardless of the party he is supposed to be leading).

Me, I'm feeling a bit sour about the guy. Perhaps the best that can be said is that he's not Pierre Poilievre. And he's been given a crappy job, to be fair, battling against the headwinds of Trumpism. But he has now abandoned too many liberal/progressive stances to be taken seriously as a Liberal or a progressive. Most glaringly, he has abandoned the environment in general and the fight against climate change in particular. 

I said this to a Liberal friend recently and she insisted that, no, no, no, he hasn't abandoned it, he has a plan, a long-term plan. But that's not at all evident to me. It seems to me that Carney - who once talked a good game on climate change and other issues - has decided that the economy is more important than the environment. And, short-term, he may be right, but long-term this will take some recovering from.

Anyway, someone else has done the hard work of keeping track of the extent to which Carney has dropped the climate change ball. University of Toronto prof and climate activist Laura Tozer lists the evidence in a handy little crib-sheet on her LinkedIn post:

❌ Suspended Canada's Clean Electricity Regulations in Alberta ❌ Weakened methane regulations ❌ Scrapped the Oil & Gas Sector Emissions Cap ❌ Abandoned Canada’s consumer carbon pricing system ❌ Ended Canada Greener Homes retrofit program to electrify and improve household efficiency ❌ Ended Canada Greener Homes Loan Program to electrify and improve household efficiency ❌ Ended the Electric Vehicles (iZEV) program ❌ Delayed Canada’s Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate ❌ Passed bill C5 ‘Building Canada Act’ to allow government to override 12 laws and 7 regulations, including the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, for designated projects ❌ Committed to clawing back Canada’s anti-greenwashing legislation ❌ Announced plans to eliminate a tax on private jets and yachts ❌ Weakened the Alberta industrial carbon price from the $170/tonne it should have been (if the federal government enforced its own policies) to $130/tonne

Not a very auspicious summary, is it? And I don't see much evidence of a plan there, long-term or otherwise.

Trump's cancellation of offshore wind projects makes no sense

Donald Trump has cancelled five more offshore wind power projects along the east coast, despite them being well advanced, with billions of dollars already sunk into them. It's worth looking into exactly why he would do such a thing.

The US is in need of more electricity production, as even Trump agrees, but Trump wants to see any new power generated by coal, oil and gas, because, for whatever reason, he likes fossil fuels and he hates clean renewable energy. It's not very clear why he hates wind power so much, but it may just come down to an offshore wind project spoiling the view at one of his golf courses in Scotland. Yes, he's that petty. He has blamed wind turbines for causing cancer, killing whales, all sorts of unjustifiable claims.

But, of course [sic], he can't just come out and say that he is cancelling the wind farms because he doesn't like them; he would get laughed out of town. So, he falls back on his tried and tested excuse for pretty much anything illogical - "emergency national security concerns". And, because the words "national security" are in there, he doesn't have to explain any further, he can just say that the reasons are "classified".

The only national security concern anyone can think of in respect to wind turbines is interference with radio signals, due to reflection by the moving blades on wind towers. This could theoretically interfere with target tracking and impede critical weather forecasting, something the Department of Energy under Trump has talked about before, although countries like the UK and Denmark have been using offshore wind for decades without any such national security concerns. 

Conceivably, the very need for more power could be framed as an "emergency national security concern". Such a designation, by its very nature, means that discussion and explanation are out of the question because, well, national security. But if the problem is lack of power, cancelling almost finished wind projects that would provide said power doesn't make much sense. 

Wind currently generates about 10% of America's electricity, with most wind farms located on the Great Plains of Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa and Illinois, where the winds are "steady and consistent". The smaller number of offshore wind farms are mainly off the east coast, where winds are also steady and consistent, and where they are close to major population centres. It is one of the cheapest sources of power nowadays, much cheaper than coal or gas, and certainly less polluting.

Cancelling these offshore wind projects will waste billions of dollars in already sunk costs (who will pay for that?), and say goodbye to 6 to 8 gigawatts of annual power, enough to heat and light millions of homes in an area where it is most needed. But logic is not Trump's strong suit. He doesn't care about achieving net zero, or reducing the country's carbon footprint. He doesn't even care about economics unless it serves his ideological predilections. He prefers to just go with his gut, and everyone around him seems content to let him.

UPDATE

A few months later and estimates are that the Trump administration has also mothballed upwards of 250 onshore wind projects, mainly by strong-arming the Department of Defense and the Federal Aviation Administration. This is in line with Trump's inexplicable vow "to not let any windmill be built". It's also in spite of several legal losses in which the courts have struck down or overruled Trump's unilateral and extrajudicical actions.

Iran is moving its capital city

Iran is in the process of moving its capital city. Tehran, a city of 9 million inhabitants (15 million in the entire metropolitan area) is now widely considered to be unsustainable.

Tehran has been the capital of Iran/Persia since 1786, but it is by no means the original capital. In fact, Tehran is the 32nd location of the country's capital throughout its long and turbulent history. Now, though, an acute water shortage ("water bankruptcy") due to its rapidly-draining underground aquifers, regular earthquakes, and the compressing and sinking land it is built on (it is sinking at an alarming 35cm a year!) has led to President Pezeshkian's decision that the whole capital city should be moved nearly 2,000km to the under-developed and remote Makran coast in the far south of the country. The idea has been in the air for at least 25 years, but never acted on until now (maybe).

Climate change (particularly in the form of failed rains) is, of course, part of the reason, but experts say that land, water and and waste-water mismanagement, overpopulation, air pollution, power shortages, and rampant corruption, have all made the natural crisis much worse. The Makran region is known for its harsh climate and difficult terrain, and it is by no means certain that such a move will in fact be viable, but the writing is on the wall for Tehran, and the President is finally admitting that they now have little choice in the matter. 

Moving a whole megacity and all its administrative, commercial and government functions is expected to cost the country north of $100 billion. Estimates for the time required vary between 25 and 100 years! But what else to do?

Any "understanding" between the governments of Canada and Alberta will be hard won

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Liberal government of Canada and the United Conservative government of Alberta was never going be an easy thing. There is very little common ground between the Liberals and Danielle Smith's United Conservative Party, although Prime Minister Mark Carney is in the process of dragging the Liberals much further to the right in his determination to kick-start Canada's economy, for example by avoiding awkward environmental reviews and such like.

There was lots of talk about "hinge moments" and "inflection points" and other such trendy buzzwords, and Carney and Smith were like a couple of giggling schoolkids at the official signing ceremony. However, the agreement may not actually be worth the paper it was written on.

This so-called "grand bargain" involves Ottawa giving the green light to a new pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific, a major sop to a fractious and trigger-happy Alberta. The only stipulations for Alberta are rather vague ones about pursuing carbon capture technology, stricter industrial carbon pricing rules, and of course getting the buy-in of British Columbia and First Nations, through whose territory the pipeline would run (which will not be easy, if indeed it is even possible). 

Carney is still insisting that it will all happen in a spirit of "cooperative federalism", in which "all stakeholders have to agree", including the province of British Columbia and several affected First Nations, but that seems naïve to me. He also seems to think that Alberta can still achieve its greenhouse gas emissions targets by 2050, apparently not realizing that Alberta has no intentions of chasing any such target.

Quite how Mr. Carney hopes to achieve this feat is not clear, and a lot of other people are equally skeptical. Many British Columbia Liberal MPs and their constituents are strongly opposed to the proposed carve-out of environmental protections for the ecologically-sensitive North West coast. Many First Nations rights holders are strongly opposed to a pipeline through their territory, and the transportation of oil through the pristine fjords and inlets of the BC coast. The exemption of Alberta from Canada's Clean Electricity Regulations has also raised the hackles of other provinces.

All this has driven a substantial wedge within the Liberal Party, because there are still many MPs in the Liberal caucus from the old environmentalist days of Justin Trudeau, including some MPs like Steven Guilbeault that were instrumental in drawing up some of the key environmental legislation that Carney is apparently now all too happy to trample over.

There have been some rather testy discussions between the Prime Minister's Office and Liberal MPs like Mr. Guilbeault and others, and particularly with many of the British Columbia Liberal MPs, who are having to explain this volte face to their electorate. BC Premier David Eby, whose province was inexplicably not included in talks, remains implacably opposed to it, particularly over the prospect of the federal government using its recently acquired power to grant exemptions to the current BC oil tanker ban. The Union of BC Indian Chiefs, as well as various individual Indigenous groups, issued a strong statement indicating their continued opposition to such a pipeline.

Carney and Smith are publicly portrating this as a done deal, even though no "private proponent" has yet shown any willingness to take on such a contentious project, and even though there are loud rumblings of discontent within the Liberal Party itself. Maybe Mr. Carney sees this as a way to reset fractured federal-provincial relations but, in attempting a rapprochement with Alberta, he has alienated other provinces, mainly BC and Quebec (which issued its own statement about how iniqutious it finds the Alberta deal, calling it the day Canada's commitment to climate action died).

So, is Mr. Carney just being naïve and idealistic by putting such a great emphasis on this deal with Alberta? What value is any kind of understanding between Alberta and the federal government if there is no chance of projects going forward, and if two of the major parties involved - British Columbia and First Nations -  were not even included in the negotiations.  He is normally a very pragmatic man, but in this case he seems to have let his heart rule in his head. 

Or maybe it's all just political theatre? Is Carney only pretending to want a new pipeline, as some have suggested. Either way, this is a vague promise not a practical plan, and promises can be broken or just fall by the wayside. The reality is: a pipeline to the BC coast seems no closer to reality than it was before the MOU, and Mr. Carney may have damaged relations with other provinces, and even his own caucus, in the process.

UPDATE

It's probably no surprise, but Steven Guilbeault, a lifelong environmental advocate, has resigned from the Liberal Cabinet over the Alberta deal. He will continue to represent his Montreal riding, but will no longer serve in Cabinet as Minster of Canadian Identity and Culture. 

There seems to be an irreparable rift between Carney snd Gilbeault over the environmental repercussions of the Alberta MOU. Kudos to Mr. Guilbeault for having the guts to stand up for his principles. Carney, once a stand-out apologist for climate action financing, seems to have drunk the Trump Cool-aid and gone all-in on fossil fuels and abandoned his old zeal for sustainable clean energy. You can see why Guilbeault reached the end of his tether.

Trump administration is still trying to prove that climate change is good

In their ongoing crusade to prove that black is white, the Trump administration's latest sally is a report by the Department of the Energy (DOE) which claims that climate change is actually good for American farmers (ah, so they do admit that climate change is happening, then?)

The draft report, authored by a group of fringe "experts" that has subsequently been disbanded under a cloud of controversy, claims that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will help increase the amount of food that farmers can produce. The MAGA-hijacked Environmental Protection Agency is using this spurious report as part of its ploy to reverse the Obama-era determination that carbon pollution is a threat to public health and welfare.

Unfortunately, it's just plain wrong. A group of 85 real climate experts, along with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, have published a comprehensive refutation of the report, confirming that the body of scientific evidence shows that climate change-related extreme weather will reduce crop yields and make food more expensive. Any growing advantage from higher CO2 levels will be much more than offset by crops damage from increasing exteme weather events.

Not that that will unduly worry the Trumpies. Truth and scientific evidence is not their strong suit, and they will doubtless use this discredited report to their advantage. Wait, remind me, how is it to their, and the country's, advantage exactly?

Is there any point in fact-checking Trump's tirades against renewable energy?

It's too depressing to go into all of the various lies about renewable energy and climate change that Donald Trump reeled off at his address to the UN General Assembly yesterday. Among other howlers, he reiterated his unfounded beliefs that renewable energy sources like wind and solar "don't work" and are "too expensive", called the Paris Agreement a "scam" and all of consensus climate science a "hoax", claimed China and Germany are pulling back from renewable energy, called the UN'S assessment of climate change impacts are "exaggerated" and "incorrect" and a "con job", that reducing carbon emissions costs jobs. His solution to all this? More "clean, beautiful coal".

Wow. It's hard to know where to start, but ABC has already fact-checked most of these ridiculous claims and outright lies, so I don't have to. As Trump strengthens his economic stranglehold over the rest of the world, he is more and more forthright in putting forward his own magical and unsubstantiated beliefs about global warming and clearly energy. 

What's still not clear to me is why. Is he really in the pocket of the American coal lobby? I find that hard to believe. Are his views all coloured by the wind turbines just offshore from his Scottish golf course? I can just about believe he is petty enough for that, but hard to think that his whole worldview has been changed by that. Is it just a "conservative" desire to return to the American dominance and global influence of the 1930s (1950s? 1890s?)? Again, it doesn't make much sense logically, but logic is nothing to do with it. People have been trying to psychoanalyze Trump for years, and remain perplexed. 

I guess all we can do is keep fact-checking Trump's nonsensical tirades. We're not going to change his mind; he only listens to himself. But there is a small chance - and I admit it's a small one - that his followers may be swayed by the truth. 

If we admit the truth to ourselves, though, perhaps a more likely outcome is that, if Trump keeps banging on about this stuff, he will persuade more and more people by sheer force of will.