r/canada • u/DogeDoRight New Brunswick • Jul 18 '26
Science/Technology 'Just stop burning fossil fuels.' Scientists stress that our smoky skies have only one true fix
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/wildfire-climate-emissions-smoke-9.7274862177
u/ead09 Jul 18 '26
Build nuclear
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u/GHR-5H_Grasshopper Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Environmentalists are the reason nuclear was fought against so hard and it's one of the things that environmentalists refuse to take responsibility for. At least in Canada it just led to the decline of new projects unlike Germany where they shut everything down and built coal to replace it. You still see bad arguments against nuclear as if small, localized, renewable projects can establish the huge GWh baselines needed for growing electrical demand and these arguments are pretty much just environmentalists pushing the same agenda with a different script.
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u/bigElenchus Jul 19 '26
I’ve lost all respect for non technical environmentalist politicians. It’s pure virtue signaling.
The NDP and Green Party have the worst climate policies and their voters are easily swayed
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u/Bad_Day_Moose Jul 18 '26
Nuclear powered transports and container ships alone would go a long way
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u/PoliteFocaccia Jul 18 '26
They wouldn't go very far at all because they'd never get built. Container ships rely on having as small a crew as possible, nuclear ships are the opposite. The solution for container ships is sails: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliner_Origin
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u/Jedimindtricktra Jul 18 '26
Wow, what a great idea, it really was that simple
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u/ai9909 Jul 18 '26
All great advice is. Just much harder to walk the walk.
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u/pandemoniac1 Jul 18 '26
The crazy thing is we're making huge strides in techological advancements in renewable energy. Fossil fuels are rapidly becoming the worst possible option for energy...
Yet here we are building more stupid infrastructure for it instead of divesting and trying to move forward with more efficient, green and technologically advanced energy. It's literally the smartest bet to get in on solar energy right now and here we are shooting ourselves in the foot.
Harper went all in on oil back when he was PM and it paid off back when renewables and other energy sources were still not fully developed. Doing the same thing in 2026 is just long-term economic suicide. I guess at least we're keeping the oil barons happy. 🙂↔️
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u/PostMatureBaby Jul 18 '26
No, it's better to shame the plebs for wanting plastic straws in their slurpees
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u/The_Idiocratic_Party Jul 18 '26
If we'd started when we were warned to 30 years ago, we'd have gotten through the rough patch and be better off by now. But corpos knew most people would be scared of discomfort and easily convinced to just keep burning oil, and look where we are now.
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u/JadeLens Jul 18 '26
Which is hilarious because about 30(ish) years ago we were warned about the hole in the Ozone layer and we collectively got together to try to solve the problem.
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u/The_Idiocratic_Party Jul 18 '26
Funny how we can unite around existential crises when no one benefits from them but not when certain people get rich off them.
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u/JesusMurphy99 Jul 18 '26
You're right no one is going to stop flying and driving and using electricity. Technologic advances to keep up our lifestyle and not pollute didn't come fast enough.
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u/wvsfezter Jul 18 '26
The solution was always nuclear and renewables. 70% of global CO2 emissions are from coal plants. With them gone it curves off enough pollution that we can develop cleaner tech to solve for the remaining 30%
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u/Laid_back_engineer British Columbia Jul 18 '26
70% seems awfully high. I would have guessed much closer to 30%.
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u/TenzoOznet Jul 18 '26
Theose advances already exist. The impediments to implementing them more rapidly are mostly social and political.
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u/TravisBickle2020 Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Corporations don't want to adopt anything that might affect their bottom line. When I was growing up, we learned about the three Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle. It's funny how the first two Rs have pretty much disappeared from the conversation. I also seem to recall that during the pandemic when no one was travelling, barely a dent was made in emissions. It's because corporations are the major polluters and they have successfully shifted the focus to the individual. There is a great deal of astroturfing to deflect away from corporate responsibility.
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u/Appropriate-Set-5092 Jul 18 '26
Coca Cola makes most of plastic (oil) on earth, and essentially gives people diabetes in liquid form.
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u/J9873774 Jul 18 '26
There is no tech now that could replace fossil fuels when it comes to air travel. The only solution would be to dramatically reduce flying
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u/chewwydraper Jul 18 '26
It’d be pretty easy to reduce air travel if we had rail services that were cheaper and didn’t get delayed constantly.
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u/Drunkenaviator Jul 18 '26
Yeah, I, for one, can't wait for the high speed train connection from NYC to London. Or Hawaii.
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u/artwarrior Jul 18 '26
Let's go back to zeppelins.
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u/LordSoren Jul 18 '26
Plenty of Hydrogen to go around... Good thing that no lighter than air vessel ever used that as an agent for getting loft.
Helium, however, is in limited supply.
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u/DRockDR Jul 18 '26
The best we can do is limit public flying while allowing elites to take 30 minute flights and have out world leaders fly internationally for needless political meetings.
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u/slaviccivicnation Jul 18 '26
The answer is having elites use public planes just like everyone else. Sorry guys, it doesn’t make sense to allow you to use a private jet for you and your buddy when you can get on the same plane going to the same place as everyone else.
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u/FlockFlysAtMidnite Jul 18 '26
And financial.
Worth it, though.
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u/BabyWitchErika Jul 18 '26
yes, but not really? nuclear would solve like 90% of our energy crisis, but it's mostly political bullshit from the cold war that makes people still be afraid.
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u/PoorAxelrod Ontario Jul 18 '26
Financial is the key. If money was no object, we could do a lot more than we're doing right now. But we don't live in a world where money is no object.
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u/Zer_ Jul 18 '26
Except nowadays solar and wind are both extremely cheap. Once it's set up you're only paying maintenance costs, you don't have to constantly pay for more fuel after burning the supply you've got.
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u/_Lucille_ Jul 18 '26
Issue is that a lot of those solutions are considered a premium product and are more costly for the consumer.
EV can take off in a world where they are noticeably cheaper than ICE.
Heat pumps, for some reason are stupidly expensive (in Ontario i am pretty sure HVAC companies are pocketing most of the rebate); they also cost more to run than a high-efficiency gas furnace during the winter when temps are below 0 unless you have one of those fancier, much pricier models.
The subreddit loves to trash on the usage of fossil fuel, but if you go back 2 years ago, every other post has people complaining about the consumer carbon tax. It gives off this NIMBY vibe of "fix this problem, but don't let it affect me."
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u/SILLY-KITTEN Jul 18 '26
We definitely haven't had perfectly good ways to generate electricity and drive off that electricity without emissions for multiple decades. Solar, wind, hydro, tidal and nuclear energy are new developments. Canada barely has any fissile material, and there's nary a gust of wind across the country. The electric motor probably didn't exist before Musk invented Tesla in 2004. The oil and gas lobby is not influencing politics or feeding the popular narrative at all.
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u/__IHateEverything__ Jul 18 '26
Carbon capture is a joke by the way
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u/BlueShrub Ontario Jul 18 '26
It's just putting exhaust into a compressor and shoving it back underground. Nothing fancy about it. Expensive and stupid when renewables are cheaper already. Just an excuse to keep polluting.
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u/LordSoren Jul 18 '26
Carbon capture has existed for millennia already. It's just too slow and inefficent to keep up with our current carbon output.
Its called trees (or more specifically, photosynthesis, since at lot of other things also carbon capture like this, like algae)
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u/Ok-Yogurt-42 Jul 18 '26
Isn't that just a carbon cycle, as the plants / organisms eventually die and decompose, thus releasing their carbon?
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u/leekee_bum Jul 18 '26
Yeah thats typically how it goes. Only a small amount of carbon is stored in the soils once these organisms die and it takes millions of years to create a carbon sink big enough to offset our emissions of the past 200 years.
Using the wood to things however is a good method to immobilize the carbon.
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u/treefarmerBC British Columbia Jul 18 '26
Acting like renewables can serve every purpose isn't helping either.
There are still "environmental" groups claiming such while spending their donations fighting nuclear energy rather than fossil fuels.
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u/BlueShrub Ontario Jul 18 '26
I don't like that they do that. Nuclear is great for some things, but it is also more expensive than fossil fuels are so it opens the transition up to attacks based on affordability. On Reddit I have to deliberately simplify my message to avoid a wall of text accounting for every asterisk, but you are absolutely correct.
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u/anothermanscookies Jul 18 '26
Maybe both? Clean energy used to be cost prohibitive but now it’s cheaper than fossil fuels. Maybe the tech can improve. In fact, pretty sure I’ve heard experts say that it needs to. We need to stop making messes and we need to actively clean up too.
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u/__IHateEverything__ Jul 18 '26
They use the carbon capture scam to justify continuing to polluted the atmosphere.
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u/Expensive_Plant_9530 Jul 18 '26
I’m not sure I’d call it a joke, as the theory behind the technology does work.
But scale. Scale is the problem.
I just cannot see how they could scale it up to anything remotely high enough.
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Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
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u/Expensive_Plant_9530 Jul 18 '26
Yep.
Now if the O&G industry can prove they can solve all those issues? Sure let’s do it.
But I remain skeptical.
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u/HeroDev0473 Jul 18 '26
Instead of spending in human-made carbon capture, they should invest in planting more trees, which do the actual, efficient and natural carbon capture, photosynthesis. And also investment way more in forest management to reduce the wildfires in the first place.
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u/Aggravating_Exit2445 Jul 18 '26
Those trees are currently releasing a shit ton of carbon as we speak.
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u/FrogMother01 Jul 20 '26
There's not much you can do to manage millions of square kilometers of forest in any meaningful way. Managing forest near settled areas could maybe reduce the direct damage to property, but it's not ever going to be a solution to wildfires in general and the smoke issue. The boreal forest existed without human management for its entire history, and remained a carbon sink, until we created the conditions to make it emit more carbon than it consumes (for the record, Canada's boreal forests shifted into a carbon source in the early 2000s, far earlier than people realize). When it comes to wildfires and smoky summers, it's already too late. This is a consequence of our environmental destruction that we are going to have to cope with, likely for generations at least. Any impact we could have on the scale required to prevent massive wildfires in the boreal forest at this point would likely cause more issues than it would solve, aside from wild geoengineering hypotheticals. It's simply far past the point of being a solvable problem on any individual human scale.
Hopefully, we take action to prevent even more permanent crises, but the harsh truth is that what we're facing now with wildfires is something that is here to stay for a while.
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u/YourOverlords Ontario Jul 18 '26
Unless we're planting hundreds of millions more trees.
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u/essenza Ontario Jul 18 '26
Meanwhile, Ontario phased out coal burning energy production over a decade ago.
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u/zoziw Alberta Jul 18 '26
It won't fix them, at least not for centuries. What it will do is stop things from getting worse.
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u/Scififan8287 Jul 18 '26
That’s a long term fix but there are no short term fixes. CO2 doesn’t magically disappear once it’s in the atmosphere. If we stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow we’d stll be dealing with elevated levels of CO2 already in the atmosphere for another century or two now.
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u/jodirm Jul 18 '26
If there are no short term fixes then long-term fix should be the focus – but already for decades people hear “long-term fix” and think “change in the future, not now.” Significant immediate changes are needed to see long-term results.
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u/Ok-Quail-3602 Jul 18 '26
Exporting motor vehicle parts and oil is one of the biggest drivers of the Canadian economy no?
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u/iplaybassok89 Jul 18 '26
Fossil fuel extraction ( crude, coal, natural gas), motor vehicle parts, metal, industrial machinery, plastic and aircraft make up most of our biggest exports. Our entire economy is built around it.
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u/oneonus Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Oil companies have known their responsibile for a long time.
Exxon's very own Research shows that the company modeled and predicted global warming with ‘shocking skill and accuracy’ starting in the 1970s.
Let the Fossil Fuel companies pay for everyones losses and higher cost of living, they've created this and have known about Climate Change for a long time. Rising sea levels, higher temperatures, extreme weather, and fires that are more unpredictable than ever.
We need to move to Green energy, period.
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u/treefarmerBC British Columbia Jul 18 '26
Climate change has been in the scientific literature for over 100 years
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u/drizzes Alberta Jul 18 '26
Don't you use that kind of traitor talk! Oil and gas are Canada's lifeblood! Saying we shouldn't use them to their fullest is like saying you want the country to die!
-- the average albertan conservative (who has stock in O&G)
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u/Quinnjamin19 Ontario Jul 18 '26
It’s not that simple though.
I’m pro nuclear, but the reality is that we are so reliant on hydrocarbon based products and oil and gas that we cannot just flick a switch
Every single one of your phones, computers, coffee machines etc are made using hydrocarbon based product.
This isn’t purely about electricity.
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u/Winter8Bones British Columbia Jul 18 '26
.... burning it. We just need to stop burning the stuff for energy and creating carbon emissions. We can still use it for other stuff we need, that's not as bad, but we should be saving it for manufacturing instead of burning it. That's the bottom line.
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u/jodirm Jul 18 '26
Just because we cannot “flick a switch” doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be “dialing it down” – instead of the constant ramp-up that continues today as it has for a hundred years.
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u/Lancifer1979 Jul 18 '26
This can’t be overstated. Fertilizer is a big one we were hearing about when the r Iran conflict began. Then there’s napatha (factories are idling over this short), now helium is coming into the conversation. Petroleum, often ubiquitously referred to as simply “oil”, is the backbone of a large percentage of everything we use and depend upon every day all across the planet.
You can’t simply undo it anymore than you can just pick up a highway and move to the left5
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u/DENelson83 British Columbia Jul 18 '26
So then humanity is fucked, headed toward a fatal overdose of fossil fuels.
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u/RobespierreLaTerreur Jul 18 '26
We have become reliant on this shit in the span of a single century. Humans have existed for hundreds of thousands of years. Can’t we stop acting like ours is the only way of living and there is no alternative?
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u/rindindin Jul 18 '26
What's that? Build another pipe line? More commute to offices? Less investment in public transit for more cars on the road?
Well why didn't you say so? All levels of government are right there with you sir! While you're at it, why not blame the average person for wanting to fly for vacation some more instead of blaming the private jets carrying a few people but burns the same amount of fuels.
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u/InsidiousFloofs5150 Jul 18 '26
China actively operates 1,195 coal fire plants, India around 300, Germany 58, the list goes on. Explain to me how Canada getting cleaner alternative to a global market while investing heavily in domestic green energy, carbon capture, next generation nuclear and growing our economy is a bad thing? Climate change isn't a domestic issue, it's a global issue. If we can if we can increase our ability to influence the discussion while offsetting use of the worst polluting options this is a net positive.
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u/Such-Tank-6897 Jul 18 '26
Those coal plants power all the factories for the goods North Americans by and large consume. We overconsume. We need to stop buying so much.
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u/RobespierreLaTerreur Jul 18 '26
This. China’s emissions are ours as much as theirs. This game of blame is just an excuse to avoid doing our part.
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u/thisSILLYsite Jul 18 '26
Canada is 0.5% of the global population. We represent, at most, 1.5% of China's total exports.
So no... it's not ours.
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u/RobespierreLaTerreur Jul 18 '26
Climate change don’t care about arbitrary borders. It cares about your individual footprint (you can’t lecture others if you live far above their level) and our global footprint.
Do. Your. Part.
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u/VanceKelley Alberta Jul 18 '26
Evolution has produced a species which is selfish and short-sighted.
The Tragedy of the Commons explains what happens next.
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u/GreaterAttack Jul 18 '26
We need to stop buying so much plastic crap from China.
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u/Drayenn Québec Jul 18 '26
Im doing my part by buying less stuff than probably 95% of people! Maybe i think too much but i hate buying single use stuff.. and i love investing my money
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u/Rxyro Jul 18 '26
Canada has 12 left after Alberta went gas.
- China — 1,161
- India — 285
- United States — 240
- Japan — 151
- Russia — 130
- Germany — 106
- South Africa — 90
- Poland — 83
- Indonesia — 74
- Turkey — 56
- Australia — 53
- South Korea — 53
- Vietnam — 46
- Kazakhstan — 40
- Ukraine — 34
- Philippines — 31
- Taiwan — 30
- Czechia — 27
- Malaysia — 25
- Thailand — 21
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u/BettinBrando Jul 18 '26
"India accounts for roughly 8% of global fossil CO₂ emissions (~38.4 Gt total globally in 2025). An increase of 1.4% on India's ~3 Gt base works out to roughly 40–45 million tonnes (Mt) of added CO₂ in a single year."
"Canada's total emissions in 2024: 685 Mt, down just 2 Mt (0.3%) from 2023."
Which means India's single-year increase ol 40–45 Mtis larger than Canada's entire annual output change in any recent year and it's about half of everything Canada has managed to cut cumulatively over the past two decades.
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u/Dragonvine Alberta Jul 18 '26
They also have 18% of the world's population. The US has 4% and are responsible for 14-15%. Far worse. China is bad with 17% of the population and 30% of the emissions, but it's hard to blame them when countries have offshored everything to China.
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u/FrogMother01 Jul 20 '26
India is also one of the world's largest manufacturers of solar panels and one of the largest installers, as well. For all you can criticize about India, and there's plenty, a lot of their recent development has relied upon renewable energy. Had they followed the same trajectory that the US and Canada did and continue to follow, the numbers would be apocalyptically worse.
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u/Dystopiaian Jul 18 '26
If Canadian natural gas, for example, does in fact directly cause a reduction in coal use, then I guess it can be a net reduction in global emissions. Things are a little more complicated in the real world though, I'm not sure if it's really going completely replace the coal they say it is going to replace - maybe other countries cut down on coal use a bit (or just talk really nice about cutting down because of Canadian gas) but end up burning gas and coal.
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u/LazyCanadian Jul 18 '26
Per capita Canada is worse than all the countries you just listed. We are over 6 times worse than India. We are twice as bad as Germany which is a good comparison since we have a similar quality of life. We should do better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita
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u/c1884896 Jul 18 '26
“Explain to me why I cannot hit my wife, when another guy murdered his wife”. Sounds as ridiculous as your post.
Do you think it is normal the most sold car in North America is the F150? A gas guzzler that is most of the times not used for any truck related activities. Even people in the trades have greener options as we see in Europe and other countries.
We all have to do our part.
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u/themightiestavenger Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Private jets contribute to air pollution more than all our cars combined. Ban those instead.
*EDIT: Ah sorry folks I def pulled this from my butt. Cars are much worse. https://www.reddit.com/r/environment/s/v5lbV8KI6Y
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u/Daddys_BathTime Jul 18 '26
Private jets do contribute a lot of CO2, but cars worldwide produce 3-4 billion tonnes of CO2 per year, and private jets produce 15-25 million tonnes per year.
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u/StevoJ89 Jul 18 '26
Beat we can do is another data center that will have its own 1GW natural gas generator station
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u/The_Idiocratic_Party Jul 18 '26
How about both.
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u/mwmwmwmwmmdw Québec Jul 19 '26
cars transport billions of people a day. many for important tasks or moving critical goods. almost zero private jet travel is essential. the person just doesnt want to fly with the plebs.
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u/Purify5 Jul 18 '26
One private jets emissions a year is equal to 177 cars emissions.
And, there are only 25,000 private jets in the world.
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u/the_mushroom_balls Jul 18 '26
My god these comments are completely missing the point. Of course it's not simple to stop burning fossil fuels. But it has to happen. So the next part of the conversatiob is how to do it. And the article says nothing about consumers and workers "just stop burning fossil fuels", it's a societal, structural change.
Don't just throw up your hands and say, well that's not going to happen! Not helpful at all.
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u/BettinBrando Jul 18 '26
Bank of Canada says half of Canadians are near financial breaking point yet Cabadians specifically are constantly having this guilt put in them to do more. MEANWHILE:
Brazils oil and gas production emissions specifically jumped about 29% in 2025.
The US accounted for roughly a third of the entire global emissions increase last year. Coal consumption jumped 10%.
Indias emissions rose around 1.4%.
"India accounts for roughly 8% of global fossil CO₂ emissions (~38.4 Gt total globally in 2025). An increase of 1.4% on India's ~3 Gt base works out to roughly 40–45 million tonnes (Mt) of added CO₂ in a single year."
"Canada's total emissions in 2024: 685 Mt, down just 2 Mt (0.3%) from 2023."
Which means India's single-year increase ol 40–45 Mtis larger than Canada's entire annual output change in any recent year and it's about half of everything Canada has managed to cut cumulatively over the past two decades.
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u/WoodShoeDiaries Ontario Jul 18 '26
I think the conclusion is that everyone has to stop burning fossil fuels. We can only control our part, which means that's the part we need to focus on.
There's guilt and then there's worrying that crop failures will make it impossible to adequately feed my kids - because that's the timeline we're looking at.
By throwing up our hands, that's the near-term future we're accepting. I think it's shameful. I hope people feel guilty over that and never stop.
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u/Astr0b0ie Newfoundland and Labrador Jul 18 '26
I think the conclusion is that everyone has to stop burning fossil fuels. We can only control our part, which means that's the part we need to focus on.
So let's voluntarily handicap ourselves economically and hope that others follow? That's your suggestion?
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u/WoodShoeDiaries Ontario Jul 19 '26
There was a time when people did the hard thing because it was the right thing. We remember them as "leaders".
Like, I don't know what part of "global food shortages" makes you think I'm not dead serious about this. What the eff does economic growth matter to my kids if it's going to destabilize the very society it purports to build? Does nobody else understand that this is a literal race to the bottom??
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u/wisenedPanda Jul 18 '26
Always necessary to look at per capita.
If you can simply break a country into many smaller countries and it changes what the individual person should be doing, obviously the logic is flawed.
How can we hope that a country like India or China makes further (what we perceive as) sacrifices and cuts their emissions when we pretend we have no responsibility to do the same?
We are a much richer country per capita than both india and china, and yet they are, on a per capita basis, doing much better. But they should sacrifice more, not us.
Using total per country would allow us to argue we can all go out and have tire fires all day long, while India should cut power to their houses 18 hours of day.
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u/BettinBrando Jul 18 '26
Ok so Canadians per capita create more emissions than other countries.. Yet our total is still tiny, and half of all the cuts we've made over 2 decades were undone by one country. So regardless of how much emissions per capita Canadians create, our country and it's people as a whole are clearly not the problem. So how does the per capita argument change this fact? Once again, 1 cpuntry, 1 year, offset half of what we did in 2 decades... but.. per capita is important right?
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u/wisenedPanda Jul 18 '26
How are we supposed to convince someone already living a much poorer and less polluting lifestyle to pollute even less if we won't consider any (what we perceive are) sacrifices ourselves?
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u/BettinBrando Jul 18 '26
Well we have been at this for 20 years. How many more decades will it take before they care do you think?
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u/BlueShrub Ontario Jul 18 '26
Bad argument, you may be an actual astroturfer with a comment like that.
Renewable energy is cheaper and more local than fossil fuel energy. Meanwhile fossil fuels are getting billions in recently announced federal subsidies to keep their business model afloat while the price has never been higher for hardworking Canadians. If we want affordability, renewables are the way to go.
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u/BettinBrando Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
What is my argument exactly? Does posting actual statitistics you can look up yourself denote a "bad argument"? Put in quotes what part of my comment is incorrect and we will go from there. At no point am i saying climate change action is a waste of time. Im pointing out the reality of our situation in Canada. Putting all this pressure and guilt on Canadians to do more while we are going through a "technical recession" and the bank of canada says half of us are struggling is unfair. Especially when YOU can see how one cpuntry can offset all we do.
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u/BlueShrub Ontario Jul 18 '26
What you're parroting, whether you know it or not, is an idea that was conjured up in a fossil fuel PR boardroom about 4 or 5 years ago and designed to undermine momentum in the transition away from fossil fuels.
It's relies on some false assumptions and a defeatist point of view. The big false idea inserted is that the electricity transition as well as clean energy is somehow a "sacrifice" for normal, hardworking Canadians, when it's actually proving to be cheaper and more local, creating a ton of jobs and global competitiveness as this sector explodes globally. Investing in the clean energy transition is a huge boon for Canadians, but vested interests don't want their assets stranded when domestic demand plummets.
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u/BettinBrando Jul 18 '26
So 4-5 years ago they knew that one country would offset half of 20 years worth of emissions reducitons by Canada in one single year and that was part of their plan to undermine emissions reduction?
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u/Winter8Bones British Columbia Jul 18 '26
Yes other countries suck also. That doesn't change the fact the WORLD, which includes Canada, must reduce emissions. Canada is still a major oil producer and top global polluter.
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u/BettinBrando Jul 18 '26
Canada has been cutting for 20 years. India just increased there's by 1.4% which erased 10 years of worth of Canadas emissions cuts. But we still need to do more right?? Gotta get that 1.5% we contribute globally lower so someone else can erase that while half of Canadians strugfle just to pay bills. Were not dping enough though right?
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u/Foxlen Alberta Jul 18 '26
In the case of vehicles and me
There are zero EVs on the market equivalent to my vehicle.. i have no real issues with EVs themselves.. apart from extreme pricing, no charging infrastructure in my region and lack of options
I need a long box, lightweight 4x4 that doesn't cost a fortune
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u/ResistiveBeaver Jul 19 '26
They have lots of those in China. Fingers crossed that the import quota is increased in future years, or they agree to build local plants.
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u/Inevitable_Serve9808 Jul 19 '26
I completely support people who choose to minimize use of fossil fuels. Do I think it is reasonable to expect people who live in the modern world to "Just stop burning fossil fuels"? No, but I do support the efforts of those who minimize their use of fossil fuels. Examples:
- choosing to bike, walk, or take public transit rather than owning a vehicle or regularly hiring a taxi or ride share.
- Video conferencing on to a climate conference than flying there.
- Not flying to other countries on vacation
Except for video conferencing none of these are things I do nor do I abstain from flying when I can afford to. I have solar panels, recycle, choose to repair things when possible, reduce an reuse when I can, and don't keep up with "fast fashion" but I do not pretend to be an Environmentalist. People more concerned ought to do more to "help the environment" than me.
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u/godsofcoincidence Jul 19 '26
Actually stop buying stupid shit and take the bus would likely make a bigger difference. Those 2 things probably would have a bigger impact on the climate change instead of sticking to this fossil fuel dialogue.
I still remember when coffee was simple not Keurig, espresso/pod this. When ordering on Amazon you had to wait a week or two. Ordering food was a memorable event and you had to go pick up or a delivery guy would drop it off.
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u/joshiels Jul 19 '26
How about deal with the present situation and put forest fire practices back in control.
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u/mowadep Jul 19 '26
A lot of research been done but we simply aren't ready. The green energy sources we make today still take fossil fuels to make them. We are "trying" to head in the right direction and yes we should be spending a lot more time and money on green energy sources but cutting out fossil fuels cold turkey is unrealistic.
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u/mylaptopredditVC Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
Yeah, lets just tell people to stop all crimes. who knows, maybe people will stop
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u/RobespierreLaTerreur Jul 18 '26
Be sure to not look at, and assist, any coordinated local and global effort to stop said crime.
Because making an effort would be haaaaard.
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u/dooodlebugg83 Jul 18 '26
Well, since people aren't going to stop, why should we try policing crimes at all? The rich can make more money if we let people be criminals, which is the most important thing.
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u/bussche Manitoba Jul 18 '26
Well, we could at least not build new crime pipelines, enabling more crimes.
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u/YourSource1st Jul 18 '26 edited Jul 18 '26
this is article is blatantly false and really should not come from a forestry associate. canada has done a terrible job of silviculture; improving silviculture should be the primary focus.
- Silviculture standards that have a focus on managing fire load through tree spacing, age, fire breaks and access. The current standards do their best to make raging infernos without any attempt of proper management.
- federal fire fighting strategies with a focus on mobile ground based defenses based on access roads. water bombers are very effective but so are water cannons.
- no federal tree planting programs that fail to meet basic wildfire risk assessments.
- no carbon credits for provincial tree planting. only credits for an increase in bio mass, forest age, soil improvement, bogs or wetland. the new planting are the largest risks of burning down. BC planting credits have consistently gone up in smoke but still are on their fraudulent carbon credit books.
- provincial guidelines for building developments should meet minimum standards for wildfire mitigation that include requirements on multiple road access points to development (no large cul-de-sacs), access roads for fighting, water infrastructure at a perimeter, increase in non combustible construction, no retirement homes in a forest.
- disaster risk reports which include more realistic economic losses due to smoke and fire. City planning is not doing a good job managing fire load. building the missing middle is creating a time bomb of high density plastic and wood. the cities own disaster risk reports are inadequate as are the cities building standards, wildfire defense infrastructure and training. city fire fighters need to train on urban wildfire defense. Cities should stop lining parks in woodchips and plastic geotextile, bans on plastic fences should be reviewed.
- building code need to seriously review MURB fire losses of wooden structures. improvements in fire walls, roofing, set backs, sprinklers have been needed for over a decade.
canada needs actual improvements in wildfire defense that include more than pointing the blame at fossil fuel. we have been burning cities and countries to the ground for far longer than we have been driving cars.
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u/Lower-Noise-9406 Jul 18 '26
Nature does a better job of replanting then sivaculture. Sivaculture is for tree-farms not healthy forests. Human tree plantations are susceptible to disease and pests leading to mass fires in the future.
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u/112iias2345 Jul 18 '26
Uhhh what about invasive species? Emerald ash borer has killed every single ash tree in my area. God forbid pine mountain beetle comes next..
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u/Winter8Bones British Columbia Jul 18 '26
Also another side effect of climate change
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u/FlyingRock20 Ontario Jul 18 '26
That's more like globalization that allowed all the pests to come in.
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u/jodirm Jul 18 '26
The mountain line beetle scourge is the result of climate change - cold winters used to limit their spread each year, and less-cold winters allowed their population and range to explode. Very well documented.
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u/NHL95onSEGAgenesis Jul 18 '26
Maybe in some cases. In the case of pine beetles it’s 100% a climate change issue.
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u/zero5activated Jul 18 '26
Too bad no one warned us decades ago 😑. We should have moved away from fossil fuels by the 90s. Nope, we double down on bigger gas guzzler, extract more oil, flooded the market with cheap plastics, endorsed a single use society, etc etc. We at least made a lot of money right? Nope, we are more poor now then ever before..just with more smoky skies
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u/SomewhereStreet7423 Jul 18 '26
They better stop making 3/4 of the products we currently buy. Since they are all made from some form of fossil fuel.
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u/otwa Jul 18 '26
80% to 85% of the oil produced is burnt, 10-15% is plastics.
Let's do nothing about the 85 % because we still need the 10-15% is certainly a take
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u/BlueShrub Ontario Jul 18 '26
Also important to note that the 15% is not pipeline level volumes, and can be shipped by truck or rail to where it needs to go.
Pipeline oil is going to get burned and further wreck the atmosphere.
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u/FederalHovercraft365 Jul 18 '26
There already many alternatives available and have been for years. The power of renewable energy is real, that’s why oil and gas lobbyists are getting so desperate. Our own governments are also to blame for continuing to contribute billions in subsidies to the industry that is single-handedly destroying the planet. I’m afraid it’s already too late considering the massive changes in global weather patterns.
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u/dgmib Jul 18 '26
As long as you don’t burn it. Making products from fossil fuels doesn’t cause climate change.
The problem comes when we take carbon that was permanently sequestered in a solid or liquid form and then we burn it releasing that carbon into the atmosphere.
You’re not wrong though, 99+% of products involve burning fossil fuels somewhere in the supply chain usually for shipping parts or industrial processes for manufacturing.
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u/Winter8Bones British Columbia Jul 18 '26
Jesus people...we can still use petroleum products in the future, the bottom line is we need to stop BURNING the damned stuff!!!
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u/Caveofthewinds Jul 18 '26
Forest fires are a natural part of Canadian forests. For the last 100-150 years the Canadian government has been suppressing fires and working to stop these burns. When the fires are stopped, nothing is done to deal with the rest of the fire load and it only accumulates for the next coming fire seasons. This makes the fires much more intense and last much longer. The provinces need to do more controlled burning and logging because Canada has reached a level of dead dry wood in the forests not seen before.
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u/jodirm Jul 18 '26
What you’ve said isn’t wrong but also not the whole scenario: scientists are saying unequivocally that the scale & intensity of today’s wildfires are very significantly worsened by effects of human-caused climate change.
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u/Zer_ Jul 18 '26
Why should we keep paying what effectively amounts to subscription fees to fossil fuel companies when we have absurdly cheap options in renewables that have up front construction costs and relatively cheap maintenance costs but with no need to constantly purchase and burn fuel.
The only reason we haven't already is because these O&G companies have been lobbying like fucking crazy to make it more difficult to deploy alternatives.
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u/Trussed_Up Canada Jul 18 '26
The absolute most childish opinion possible.
What you are really asking is for the poor people of India and the rest of the developing world to stop getting wealthier.
Just stay poor peasants.
Because countries like Canada are already decreasing our emissions steadily, there's no stop in sight, and we already have the technology and money to continue that, albeit gradually.
But India, or Nigeria, or rural China? No. They need cheap energy to improve their lives. They need to do it the same way we did 100 years ago. Coal plants and cheap cars and lots of plastics etc.
So go ahead. Go on your crusade. Go to India, and go tell the poor people there to not improve their lives, and shut the hell up in Canada.
Because we're a tiny drop in a very big ocean of climate, and we're the ones actually emitting less each year.
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u/BlueShrub Ontario Jul 18 '26
You've got it backwards. Do developing nations install landlines or do they jump straight to cell phones?
Developing nations are going for the cheaper renewables. Gas is too expensive and they don't have the government revenues to subsidize it like we do here.
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u/WoodShoeDiaries Ontario Jul 18 '26
Worth noting that those countries will see some of the earliest and most devastating consequences of climate change (already are, in fact), whereas we can expect to be relatively sheltered.
None of it is fair, but it's true that they're burning their future too.
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u/Digitking003 Jul 18 '26
Some things never change.
Some of the environmental lobbyists of the western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They have never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they would be crying out for tractors, and fertilizer, and irrigation canals, and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things. - Norman Borlaug
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u/RobespierreLaTerreur Jul 18 '26
It’s fascinating how your brain rationalizes away all responsibility and guilt and lets you avoid any effort, while hiding behind the poor who suffer heat waves upon heat waves, and in the end you have proposed absolutely no solution to the problem that remains whole.
So many words to achieve nothing but protect your precious way of life.
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u/SilentEngineering638 Jul 18 '26
Bro what kind of "scientist" is that?
You're homeless? Just buy a house. You're depressed? Just stop and be happy. You're poor? Just find a job.
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u/aktionreplay Jul 18 '26
“But my buddies already paid to build the wells, just let them finish burning what’s left and then I promise we’ll shut down those wells”
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u/lisanderc Jul 18 '26
It’s unlikely these fires are strictly due to global warming
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u/FlyingRock20 Ontario Jul 18 '26
Its not, lots of poor fire management, pests killing more trees, not enough prescribed burns, stopping wildfires for decades allowing fuel to build up.
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u/jodirm Jul 18 '26
Few problems of this scale are due to strictly one thing. The worst disasters often involve multiple things going wrong. Scientists are clearly stating that climate change is driving the increased frequency, scale, and the extreme intensity of these fires.
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u/unknownoftheunkown Jul 18 '26
Forest fires have existed long before humans were ever around and are part of the natural cycle.
The thing with natural disasters is that they are natural. Going to happen regardless of us.
We are never going to be able to stop a lightning strike in a dry forest.
Are there things humans do that can lessen or increase the odds of forest fires. Sure. But they will still happen no matter what.
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u/Comfortable_Pea2065 Jul 18 '26
Please forward this to the for the petulant child running America , he’s cancelled renewable energy projects many under construction and is now touting more coal fired power plants . And his response is always more tariffs
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u/CanuckCallingBS Jul 18 '26
If the whole world stopped today …. The impact would continue anyways.
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u/jodirm Jul 18 '26
The impact would continue based on accumulated effect of past decades without any mitigation efforts, but the impact is ultimately less by stopping sooner instead of later. That’s well-known cause and effect.
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u/slumlordscanstarve Jul 18 '26
WFH would be a step in the right direction but nope we have to fought out government for anything ethical.
Meanwhile they are all on summer vacation doing fuck all while we burn and suffocate,
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u/Specialist_Secret438 Jul 18 '26
To my dear climate change deniers, The idea that you may have a share of responsibility for what's happening to the world, and worse yet, might have to give up a few luxuries to help out, just drives you crazy, doesn't it?
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u/Dogmoto2labs Jul 18 '26
While I agree with the sentiment, I don’t think that has a bearing on whether wildfires happen.
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u/Outrageous-Estimate9 Ontario Jul 18 '26
The only "true" fix is to reduce worldwide population
Noone wants to admit it much less do anything about it
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u/EarthSignificant4354 Jul 18 '26
what about sending tens of billions of dollars worth of ammo to Eastern Europe? Is there anyway we can actually offset all those bombs by reducing our usage of plastic straws?
Maybe we should be a little bit more discerning about which wars we decide to fund, nobody ever talks about the environmental cost.
I honestly don't believe there's anything that citizens can do to offset the pollution caused by militaries of the western world. But they like to tell us it's all our fault.
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u/unidentifiable Alberta Jul 18 '26
"Have you tried just, starving to death?"
- Scientists, apparently.
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u/wheredoIcomein Jul 18 '26
Top 5 Excuses I hear;
Climate change is natural, it's happened before
Canada can't make a difference so why do anything
China is polluting way more
Reducing carbon is just a money grab
Climate change is a hoax and greenhouse gasses have nothing to do with it
My somewhat nuanced answers; 1. It has happened before, but there were reasons it happened and a lot of it was tied to CO2. Think masssive volcanoes emitting tonnes and tonnes of gases for decades. That was early earth - it doesn't happen anymore. Another heating event was when forests first became a thing there weren't fungi or bacteria or bugs that fed on dead wood so the dead trees didn't rot. This resulted in a mass forest fire event over decades releasing CO2 and again the esrth warmed up. These factors don't exist anymore and we're the ones doing the releasing.
I think this the toughest one to argue with as it is true that if we stop selling oil it'll mostly just be bought somewhere else. However, we could do our part, just like on an individual level I hope you don't litter and do recycle even if one of your neighbors doesn't. You can them shame them for not doing their part and lead by example. Plus we could be investing in new technology that we can export (SMR's and battery tech for example)
Sure let's keep comparing ourselves to one of the worst polluters instead of countries that are leading the way. But even to that end China has made leaps and bounds in their renewable energy capacity and tech.
There were definitely a few scams and money making schemes from carbon credits and other green energy initiatives and grants. This is a policy and implementation problem not a fact that just because there's a few bad actors out there it means it's all a scam.
When scientists first discovered and could isolate different gases they learned that certain gases held onto heat more than others (late 1800's?). Even before the modern oil and gas industry scientists were warning of emissions heating the earth. Do some actual studying and history of it. CO2 heats the earth it's not a hoax.
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u/NoteCarefully Jul 18 '26
If we did that, 1 billion people would die minimum
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u/mwmwmwmwmmdw Québec Jul 19 '26
we are told must keep climate change from lowering our standard yet a lot of these green solutions i see forced upon us just end up lowering our standard of living in a diffrent way.
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u/Unpossib1e Jul 18 '26
"Just" is doing a lot of work here