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Suddenly, oil, natural gas and coal became environmental pariahs

Nations of the world gathered together in the magical Kingdom of Japan and promised they would reduce the use of fossil fuels. But a decade later, fossil-fuel emissions had gone up, not down. So world leaders gathered in the French Fifth Republic to once again pledge reduction of fossil fuels. But even as world leaders announced this pledge, three dozen countries, including two with more than a third of the people in the world, continued to build hundreds of new coal-fired power plants. Coal was already the biggest source of carbon dioxide and those new plants would raise coal emissions by another 40 per cent. That meant that, even if Canada were to disappear into stardust, its tiny share of global emissions would be replaced in a matter of months.

Amazingly, these realities mattered not to Canada’s starry-eyed prime minister, who vowed that his little northern country would set an example to the world. His paladins imposed special taxes on the users of fossil fuel, creating hardship for the people while also weakening the dominion’s competitive position with its largest trading partner. The prime minister journeyed to the main oil and gas producing province, hoping to use his imagined charisma to convince workers worried about losing their jobs that “phasing-out” their industry was necessary to stop global warming.

People asked the prime minister what was to replace all that fossil fuel energy?

People asked the prime minister what was to replace all that fossil fuel energy? He proclaimed that it would be “green energy” generated by the wind and the sun. But the people knew that the wind only blew some of the time. And that, in this northern land with little sunlight during short winter days and none on long cold nights when energy is needed most, solar was useless. And the government had not learned from experience in a province called Ontario, where billions of dollars spent on green energy had yielded only small amounts of very expensive and unreliable power that needed back-up fossil-fuel power plants to prevent black-outs.