Direction for Climate Action

The enormous expense to recover from fires, floods, powerful storms, and coastal erosion should be an incentive for government action to accelerate its phase-out of coal and greatly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

Emission Reduction Now

Recent articles in the press indicate proposals that will move us toward net zero emissions and take us further away from the benefits of achieving this goal.

Cloe Logan, writing for the National Observer, reports on Canada’s only underground coal mine coming back into production in Cape Breton.

After one full year, the mine is expected to produce enough coal to spew about eight million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when it is burned. The three million tonnes of coal the mine will produce a year will create as many greenhouse gas emissions as the yearly energy use of over a million homes — more than the entire population of Nova Scotia. When Marshall hears those statistics, she thinks of the extraction of natural resources by large corporations coupled with the restriction of Indigenous Peoples’ access to traditional food sources, medicine and land. It’s the “continued poisoning of the people of Unama'ki, which is Cape Breton,” she said. (Logan, 2022)

A NS Government Press Release quotes Premier Tim Houston.“Setting this target sends a clear signal to the world that Nova Scotia is open for business and becoming an international leader in offshore wind and green hydrogen development.”

The most promising use for offshore wind energy is generating renewable electricity to produce green hydrogen for use in the province and for export. Green hydrogen is a clean alternative to fossil fuels because it does not create greenhouse gas emissions. Offshore wind is also another option to help Nova Scotia and Canada meet future clean electricity needs.

The Province also announced that it is developing a green hydrogen action plan to be released in 2023. The plan will outline the role green hydrogen can play in the transition to clean energy and the steps the government will take to build this industry, which will help Nova Scotia reach net-zero emissions by 2050. (Province Sets Offshore Wind Target, 2022)

Joan Baxter reports on EverWind Fuels’ 'green hydrogen' project that may depend on sketchy carbon calculations and an enormous public subsidy.

Ralph Torrie, research director at Corporate Knights, has co-authored two recent reports on how Nova Scotia can accelerate its phase-out of coal and greatly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions throughout its electricity and energy systems to tackle the climate emergency and reach net zero by 2050. Torrie prepared one report for the Ecology Action Centre in 2020, and the second was a white paper he co-authored with EfficiencyOne in 2021.

Both reports found that the most immediate and effective steps Nova Scotia could take on a “net-zero pathway” were in energy efficiency, electrification, and decarbonisation. They also stressed the importance of a just energy transition to eliminate energy poverty in the province. (Baxter, 2022)

Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations, has recently expressed the opinion that our world is in big trouble. He urges the nations of the world to develop common solutions to common problems — grounded in goodwill, trust, and the rights shared by every human being.

Our world is in big trouble.

Let’s develop common solutions to common problems — grounded in goodwill, trust, and the rights shared by every human being.

Let’s work as one, as a coalition of the world. As united nations. pic.twitter.com/roRwCwUoay

— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) September 20, 2022

This goal can be translated to action in Nova Scotia that addresses the climate change mitigation that we can begin now based on available technology for electrification, energy efficiency, and decarbonization.

References

Baxter, J. (2022, September 20). The 'hydrogen hyperbole epidemic' comes to Nova Scotia. Halifax Examiner. Retrieved September 20, 2022, from https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/province-house/the-hydrogen-hyperbole-epidemic-comes-to-nova-scotia/ 

Logan, C. (2022, September 16). Canada's only underground coal mine is back in business — and emissions rules don't apply. National Observer. Retrieved September 20, 2022, from https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/09/16/investigations/canadas-only-underground-coal-mine-back-business-emissions 

Province Sets Offshore Wind Target. (2022, September 20). Government of Nova Scotia. Retrieved September 20, 2022, from https://novascotia.ca/news/release/?id=20220920003 

Such is the Kingdom

Recently I had the great pleasure of watching, engaging in, and contemplating what a three year old can reveal to us about the interplay of imagination in the reality of our spiritual experiences.

My second youngest grandchild is gifted with a highly active imagination. When he dawns his superhero costume he enters a space where he becomes Spiderman or the Flash. His backyard is transformed to landscape for important missions to find missing toys or to provide assistance to needy persons that are present in his mind and are able to communicate with him through thoughts generated like dreams. Other people in his life, mostly adults on this day, may join the imaginative play with the caution that they need to attend to the details of the place and purpose that is generated in his mind. The interaction of reality that we can analyse with our senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell with that more encompassing reality of fable, mission, adventure, and fullness of life may remind adults that our gifts of openness to audacious action, generous acceptance, and incredible outcomes have likely diminished. In the play from a three year old imagination we are nudged to be more open, less cynical, and happily involved with our mission in life.