Change Needed

In response to growing concern about climate change, Nova Scotia’s Environment and Sustainable Prosperity Act mandates that greenhouse gas emissions be reduced, to 10% below 1990 levels, by 2020. This conservative target signals just how difficult it will be to meaningfully lower emissions within the current energy framework.

What’s needed, therefore, is to break from the status quo, where energy is linked to carbon dioxide emissions. Such a break is only made possible by switching to renewables like solar and wind power.

We know what needs to be done, so what’s stopping us? Success has already been achieved elsewhere in the world, most notably in Germany, where path-breaking legislation was aimed at first breaking the link between government and the private energy utility. The result has been to catapult Germany to the front ranks of the green-energy business in under a decade.The legislation’s crafter, Hermann Sheer, is now calling on Canada to make a wholesale switch to 100% renewables.

It’s too late for Canada to take a leading role on this issue, but Canada must act before it’s too late – period. The twin problem facing the world today, peak oil and climate change, is mirrored in the twin problem facing individuals and populations at risk: poverty and pollution.

Canadians can’t make the necessary changes alone; nor can changes on the individual level prevent large-scale disaster. It is incumbent upon government to lead the way to a clean, safe, energy-secure future; and to protect the most vulnerable members of its constituency then and now.

Posted by Mike Targett | Email a comment