NOW IS THE TIME !
Blog #7 Canada …we have a problem!
There are only two ways to reduce GHG emissions in Canada….anywhere actually!
The first is to reduce population… the second is to reduce per ca-pita consumption of energy.
We are also under the illusion that we can switch to renewable electricity and carry on with our increasingly high-tech lifestyles and achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Canada …we have a problem!
Our population keeps growing with immigration from low per ca-pita energy usage countries, more and more as climate change refugees, to the point that Canada holds the record of the highest percentage of
foreign born citizens in the world.
Canada is well known around the world for its openness to new citizens providing the engine for continued economic growth, which happens to be driven by fossil fuels and as such is logically the fundamental driver of GHG emissions. I’m a real Canadian…I don’t personally see how we can reduce immigration when there are so many people in the world so much worse off than we are.
And, Canada has the highest per ca-pita energy consumption of any nation within the G20 largest developed nations which include Russia and China, and is only exceeded by Australia and Saudi Arabia if you include all the nations of the world. Canada’s per ca-pita energy consumption even exceeds our neighbour and largest trading partner… the USA.
Many of us justify our high energy usage by our cold climate, however there are multiple Northern European cold countries that make due with much less energy than we Canadians.
In addition to developing female hockey players, we Canadians seem to be better than every country in the world at assimilating new citizens from low per ca-pita energy use countries into our high energy usage lifestyles.
Canada …we have a serious problem!
We aren’t going to reduce population …indeed it will likely grow significantly at least to 2030.
So how do we cut energy consumption while we fall faster and further into the grip of social media and the high-tech lifestyle which includes Consumerism, Big Data, robotics, artificial intelligence, 5G, 6G, 7G, the Internet of Things and now crypto currencies ….all of which require much greater amounts of energy?
Canada…we have a very serious problem!
So how do we cut our per ca-pita consumption of all forms of energy? The process actually has a name although few governments or businesses ever use it for fear of scaring people into thinking that we don’t have enough of it to sustain our high-tech lifestyles..actually we don’t !
The process is called Energy Descent. It’s the subject of my book … and it’s very clear that we don’t have enough energy to sustain our high-tech lifestyles without aggressive Energy Descent at the municipal level in every community across our country.
Canada…without serious action soon, we have a very very serious problem to 2030 and beyond!