Dear Editor:
Two commentaries in recent days, one from the Financial Post, the other from Rex Murphy, both call into question how sincere we are about the measures needed to limit climate warming. B.C. Green Party leader Andrew Weaver is being portrayed as a villain bent on stifling what amounts to the “business as usual” option for dealing with carbon dioxide.
Well before the Paris climate change conference in 2015, Weaver had identified 2°C as the amount of post-industrial revolution warming that we must strive to limit ourselves to.
This is a trade-off between the actual speed with which we can turn down oil and gas use and the increasing hardship that climate change will inflict. As well as a top notch climate scientist, Weaver is an eloquent communicator on the subject. One needs only to read his excellent treatment of climate change, “Keeping our Cool,” to realize this. He has been informing the public with countless presentations. Other politicians have not been taking action to achieve the 2°C target.
That’s a major reason why he abandoned a distinguished scientific career to enter politics.
I can imagine Weaver’s frustration at various industrial proposals over the past few years. The Pacific Northwest LNG terminal operation would double the carbon dioxide output of B.C. and would take the electrical capacity of Site C to do it. Alberta wants to increase its sales of oil. We’re long past the doomsday outlook that was forecast by M. King
Hubbert’s “peak oil” curve. Hubbert was spot on, but new technologies have extended the peak way into the future.
But we are confronted with a new peak that I call Weaver’s Curve. This is the trajectory of carbon production that we have to follow to keep climate warming to 2°C. There is just no way to get by it if the 2°C goal is to be reached.
This is why Weaver is taking the stands regarding oil and gas use that he is – how could he do otherwise?
Larry Dyke
North Vancouver
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