If nothing else, you’d think climate change would have forced us to put a few things in perspective. But no, in Canada and countries around the world, things grow worse by the day. Governments in countries such as the United States, Brazil and Australia have opted for outright denial. They carry on regardless, even when that means wreaking havoc on themselves as well as the planet.

Meanwhile, talk of meeting our legal obligations under the Paris Agreement has become meaningless. And already we have conveniently forgotten the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warning that either we clean up our act by 2030 or hit the point of no return.

Yet according to the David Suzuki Foundation, “Canada is warming at twice the global average rate — higher in the north.” Premier Doug Ford has responded by devoting much of his first few months in office undoing years of environmental legislation, killing everything from the province’s carbon cap-and-trade program to a long list of green energy projects.

Though there has been the predictable backlash and Ford’s approval ratings have tanked, Ontarians haven’t lost much sleep over the issue. The crisis has been met with the usual mix of hand-wringing and yawning indifference. We’ve seen no mass movement like Extinction Rebellion, which regularly shuts down cites in the U.K., and no Greta Thunberg to remind us of truths we’d rather ignore. Perhaps we’re just too busy looking for a place to gas up the family SUV.

Like other Canadians, Ontarians have adapted to a political system so confused and conflicted it declares a national climate emergency one day and approves a pipeline to transport the dirtiest oil in the world the next. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau justifies such wildly contradictory behaviour by explaining that revenues will go toward the great cleanup, date to be announced.

Here in Toronto, we’re still living off measures taken a decade ago by then-mayor David Miller. Since then, the city has done little to reduce its carbon footprint. It has been agonizingly difficult for us to install even a few bike lanes on the streets of Toronto. They were handed over to drivers eons ago. In any case, there’s little the city can do — around here it’s always the province’s fault.

No one has put the issue more succinctly than Roy Scranton. “The greatest challenge we face is a philosophical one,” he wrote in an essay entitled “Learning to Die in the Anthropocene,” “understanding that this civilization is already dead. The sooner we confront our situation and realize that there is nothing we can do to save ourselves, the sooner we can get down to the difficult task of adapting, with mortal humility, to our new reality.”

Have your say

Some insist there’s still time “to save ourselves.” Green Party Leader Elizabeth May talks cheerfully about her “Mission Possible” plan. But given our fear of change, Scranton’s words feel closer to the truth. A recent CBC poll, for example, found that almost two-thirds of Canadians agree the climate crisis is a top priority. Yet half of those consulted admitted they’d rather not have to pay more than $100 annually to save the environment.

Figures like these may not explain why climate change is happening, but they do make it clear why we’re unable to deal with it and, perhaps, why Canadians are the heaviest per capita emitters in the world. We like to believe we’re the solution but, in fact, we’re the problem. And the argument that we can pull some last minute technological rabbit out of the hat is delusional. The time for that has come and gone.

We are on our own. Or at least our kids are. But as English naturalist David Attenborough has observed, the young are the best argument for optimism. They have figured out that it will be up to them to deal with the full consequences of environmental degradation. The Canada they inherit will be a zombie nation, undead yet not fully alive. For them, failure is not an option. Climate crisis is an existential reality of their daily life. Many no longer assume they should have children of their own.

Perhaps it’s time to start planting the trillion trees we’re told will help save the planet. Proponents say they would absorb 750 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. But as critics point out, as much as that may be, it still won’t be enough to get us out of the woods.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...