Managing to find yet another new low, President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the 195-country Paris Agreement on greenhouse gas emissions this week.
The U.S. now sits in good company with Syria and Nicaragua in rejecting the shared goal of mitigating climate change.
But easy as it is now to thumb our noses at the bass-ackwards behaviour of the U.S., we should dispense with our sense of superiority and have a look in the mirror.
Canada’s carbon emissions are about double per capita that of a typical European nation, (even those cold countries.) This has much to do with the decisions we make in our homes, vehicles and industry.
We’re at the end of Bike to Work Week, yet this has been one of the worst weeks in recent memory for traffic jams stemming from our bridgeheads.
And despite plenty of asking, it’s still not been explained to our satisfaction how Canada can do its part to reduce carbon output while expanding the tar sands and building pipelines.
Let’s turn our indignation into action and demand better choices from our own governments, businesses and, yes, ourselves.
In time – perhaps after some catastrophic storms or droughts – the United States’ leaders will see the error of their ways and rejoin the global effort to tackle the No. 1 threat to our long-term security.
In the meantime, the rest of us are going to have to pick up the slack because the atmosphere doesn’t care which country the carbon is coming from.
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