Articles by John McGrath

On Revkin’s piece on poverty and climate change impacts

(A topic I return to every once in a while. See here and here.)

The link that Jason posted Sunday deserves a closer look, if you missed it over the weekend. Revkin has written an excellent, if somewhat depressing, piece on the fact that while climate change is overwhelmingly the responsibility of the world's rich nations, the nations that suffer most will be the world's poorest.

It also reminds me of something else I heard Tim Flannery say last week: whatever else we know about climate change, we know that it will stress nations, and stressed nations sometimes do horrible things. The solution to climate change must therefore necessarily be a multilateral one.

Neither can we

I mentioned in a previous post that Canadians might be facing an election soon over the Conservative government's budget. That turned out not to happen (all three opposition parties had to oppose it, and only two did).

Instead, something much more interesting may happen: The three opposition parties have finalized their much-improved version of a Clean Air Act, with hard targets on CO2 emissions and penalties for those who don't make the necessary cuts. This leaves the government in an uncomfortable position: either accept a bill that they hate, or call an election over it.

Without subsidies, they’re just not profitable

News breaking from Canada: It turns out that once the government stops subsidizing fossil fuel developments ... fossil fuel developments are increasingly unprofitable!

Brief summary of the link: It looks like all forms of fossil-fuel development in Canada -- especially the tar sands -- are going to suffer as governments are forced by public pressure to reduce the subsidies and tax breaks they've been doling out. This looks to be equal parts environmental activism and populist "screw the oil barons" attitude, but whatever it is I say huzzah!

Human impacts, Al Gore, and more

I was fortunate enough last night to hear Tim Flannery -- he of The Weathermakers -- speak here in Toronto to a crowd of businessmen and lawyers. Favorite moment:

Questioner: Mr. Flannery, do you think or wish that Al Gore should run for President?

Flannery: He's already done it, and what's more, he won!

Levity aside, Flannery delivered an excellent talk and specifically explained why, exactly, the atmosphere is so much more vulnerable to human disruption than something like the ocean.