The year 2023 was by far the warmest in human history. Climate extremes now routinely shock in their intensity, with a direct monetary cost that borders on the unfathomable. Over $3 trillion (US) in damages to infrastructure, property, agriculture, and human health have already slammed the world economy this century, owing to extreme weather. That number will likely pale in comparison to what is coming. The World Economic Forum, hardly a hotbed of environmental activists, now reports that global damage from climate change will probably cost some $1.7 trillion to $3.1 trillion (US) per year by 2050, with the lion’s share of the damage borne by the poorest countries in the world.
And yet we fiddle.
In today’s Canada, there is deception, national in scope, coming directly from the right‑wing opposition benches in Ottawa. In 2023, the populist Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre adopted “Axe the tax” as his new mantra and has shaped his federal election campaign around that hackneyed rhyme.
That is a weakness in Cons, not the carbon tax. Can you list 5 positive planks in the Con platform that promise universal benefits to all of us?
I can’t. And that’s because they don’t know how to do that, except by removing benefits from the regular folk so the rich can get richer.
That’s who they serve.