Emissions pact would hurt all Canadians

Question of future energy supply needs to be addressed, H. Douglas Lightfoot writes

The consequences to Canadians if carbon dioxide emissions are sharply reduced are never discussed. Neither are they discussed on the world stage. This is strange because the consumption of fossil fuels is the reason Canadians live better than ever before.

In Canada, 74 per cent of our energy comes from coal, oil and natural gas and it is these energies that provide us with:

Clean water and air, safe and abundant food, sanitation, protection of the environment

Health care, including medicine, hospitals, doctors, nurses

Shelter, including houses, apartments, cottages, parks

Schools, factories, heating, air conditioning, lighting, pets and clothing

Communication, including telephones, computers, TV, movies, cameras, email, newspapers

Transportation, including cars, trucks, trains, ships, airplanes, roads, bridges, airports You can probably add more items to that list. Which of these items would you eliminate, or shrink, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 28 per cent, i. e., by removing one quarter of the items, in the next 10 years to 2025?

Reduction of carbon dioxide emissions to 28 per cent below the 2005 level by 2025 was the plan submitted in May by Canada to the 2015 Paris Climate Conference ( COP21) to be held in December 2015.

By thinking carefully about your choices, you can begin to understand why there is a very high cost to the welfare of Canadians in reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Any removal or shrinkage of any of these items will hurt many Canadians.

Renewable energies are a false hope for replacing fossil fuels and their benefits. Renewables were virtually 100 per cent of the fuel supply as wood, concentrated solar energy, in 1700 and are currently about 11 per cent.

For reference, today, three- quarters of renew-

Renewable energies are a false hope for replacing fossil fuels and their benefits.

able energy is hydro because it is concentrated energy and can provide electricity constantly or virtually instantly when needed.

There were 600,000 people living in London in 1700 and forests were being guarded to prevent the theft of trees for fuel. The conversion to coal was not going well because mines were flooding. Thomas Newcomen invented the steam engine to pump water out of the mines. James Watt later made the steam engine more efficient and it was widely adopted.

Today, there are many examples around the world where the environment suffers when fossil fuels are not the source of fuel.

For example, witness the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where there are no trees on the Haiti side. When people use wood and animal dung for fuel, there are no trees and nothing grows because of a lack of soil nutrients. In the U. S., there are as many trees today as there were in 1850, when the railroads and steam boats were burning wood faster than it could grow. The trees were saved by coal.

Sometimes people forget humans are as much a natural part of the environment as every other living thing. Humans and every living thing change their environment just by living. We must make the Earth work well for both people and the environment. To sacrifice people to the environment is just as wrong as sacrificing the environment to people.

It is essential that Canadians recommend to their elected representatives that Canada must not sign the COP 21 treaty in Paris this December. Canada must provide leadership in this area, even though currently it can be unpopular.

At some point, we must realistically also address the question of future energy supply.