Well, if you’re worried about affordability just consider how the climate crisis is, and will continue, to drive up the cost of almost everything and that it will be worse if we do not adopt green solutions.
Short-term vs long-term. People are currently worried about short-term costs to the exclusion of long-term ones. You’re correct that not investing in green solutions has a high long-term cost, but people who are struggling to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table don’t have the mental resources to worry about the condition of the world and its influence on prices a year or a decade or a century from now. And that may not be right, but it’s the way things are.
And it is the job of our politicians and leaders to create policies, rules and innovations to allow canadians to make better choices without them being fully educated on those choices, without making financial sacarafices in the short term, or without significant quality of life changes.
It is hard for climate change denier to use electricifed transit over their car if the transit takes 3x as long, however they are far more likely to use that transit if it is both free and faster than commuting by car. Those are the kinds of feedbacks we need, where people can make the green decision but still personally benefit by saving time, money, or convenience.
Maslow’s heirarchy in action.
No matter how bad things are, we certainly can worry about the conditions of the world. However, it’s not very constructive.
I think we’ll just keep blaming insurance companies for being greedy instead of connecting the dots that rising home insurance is largely influenced by increased disaster risk.
Look at Alberta where the insurance companies are paying for cloud seeding to avoid hailstorms which have increased in severity.
Yes. But if you literally can’t afford to go green you don’t have a choice, really.
I am worried about affordability.
I all too often consider the fact that climate collapse with take human quality of life back the better part of a century in the developed world, and much more on the global south. Not to mention the damage to non-human life we’ve been doing, even from the beginning of the industrial revolution, constituting a mass extinction as bad as any in the age of the Earth.
But I owe my housemates two months rent, and now they don’t have any more money either. What can I do? I have to buy the cheapest, and least, of whatever is available.
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Everyday Canadians should not be expected to lead the transition to green energy while our politicians resist it: vilifying the carbon tax, expanding pipelines, levying Chinese EVs, the RCMP terrorizing Indigenous land defenders, all the pro-oil and anti-renewable stuff in Alberta (eg, windmills disrupt pristine landscapes and are prohibited while multibillion dollar oil companies are slapped on the wrist when they desecrate our environment).
We urgently need climate leadership in Canadian politics
This is a tangent, but as a kid I always thought windmills looked cool as shit. I hate that talking point.
Big agree! I think they look solarpunk
I also thought smoke stacks from factories looked cool as kid, not that i didagree with your point here.
I still think windmills are pretty cool lol. There’s a program in my school for becoming a windmill technician and you can see the size of one blade and they truly are massive.
Ive watched a few videos of trucks transporting the blades. Really helped me understand the scale of them.
It should be funded by big business that exploits workers.
The difference in salary between the highest paid employee and lowest paid contributor (not even direct employee, contractor/whatever) to the business should be paid every pay cycle to fund transition to green living.
Want to lose less to government? Raise worker wages or take an executive pay cut.
I love your idea in theory. In practice, I think it’s far too easy to hide CEO compensation and too effortful (ie, costly) for the government to track that. The easiest solution would probably be a carbon tax - which I figure would be linked to more transparently documented corporate revenue. As important historical context: that is the pro-business solution to navigating the climate crisis that the Conservatives and the ownership class wanted: a market-based solution without direct government regulation. Years later, they’ve rejected the most pro-business solution that they themselves championed and have worked hard to turn average Canadian voters against it through propaganda that the carbon tax is taking money from average Canadians. Now the Conservatives and ownership class’s solution to navigating the climate crisis is: pretend it doesn’t exist, keep riding this blip of unsustainable profitability as long as possible, and prevent everyday Canadians from realizing what they’re doing. The carbon tax should have been able to fund good jobs in a new economy
Imagine, just imagine, how much better of a society we’d have if we just taxed the rich like it was 1962 again.
AC $2000, Heatpump $5000
