We’ve been debating climate change since 1953

Yet again, issues environmental have emerged as weighing on the hearts and minds of Canadians.

Backing up for a moment to 1969, I was then-hired to teach the newly-developed Environmental Science program at Simcoe Composite School – part of the Agriculture Department. Our course offerings included the impact of carbon dioxide and methane – the greenhouse effect.

Rewinding even further to 1953, a friend, Robert McKaskell from Windsor, drew my attention to a May 15 Globe and Mail headline of that year, ‘Carbon Dioxide in Air Making World Warmer’.

And these cycles of concern – 1969, 1953 – will continue into the future. Last week’s Globe and Mail headline is a case in point, ‘The fallout of global warming: 1,000 years’.

Usually when there’s smoke one would expect some fire. But, I regret the present Ontario Government has done little with respect to climate change and nothing that I’m aware of with respect to carbon sequestration.

In fact, Ontario still has no articulated climate change policy or strategy to guide government operations and planning.

Further, under the present government, not a single investment has been made in technology that would make Ontario’s coal plants cleaner - technology that would save lives, preserve health and reduce health care costs. Technology like the Selective Catalytic Reduction units that the previous government installed at both the Lambton and Nanticoke stations. And no research into carbon sequestration to determine the feasibility of pumping CO2 underground at Nanticoke – in the Mount Simon sandstone – or at Atikokan – in the Steep Rock Mine shafts below the plant.

As the Finance Committee traveled Ontario over the past two weeks for pre-budget hearings, deputants told us the last thing they need is the closure of one of their few remaining economic drivers.

Closure of the Atikokan coal plant would further exacerbate the area’s forest industry crisis by eliminating a cost-effective source of energy. If switched to expensive natural gas, the Thunder Bay station would no longer be able to fill its current role of setting the electricity price for the region. And, the fact that a natural gas plant is planned to replace Lambton’s coal generator sends up red flags as many are aware of the limited natural gas reserves available and rapidly increasing price.

Premier McGuinty made, what third parties have agreed was, an ill-advised decision when he promised to shut down all the coal plants….and to do so on an utterly unrealistic time line. He wanted to be heralded as an environmental champion – and some advocates heralded him as exactly that for signing on to the very commitment that almost everyone said could not and would not be met.

But these same advocates know better than many that rhetoric and unrealistic commitments do not cap emissions – action does. And of course now the 2007 deadline is here. The plants are still open -- save for the closure of Lakeview initiated by the previous government. After several subsequent vacillations Mr. McGuinty’s original promise has been indefinitely put on hold.

The fact that this government refuses to continue with clean air investments is the kind of approach I think the public finds exasperating and cynical.

We need significant emission reductions and we need them achieved on a specific timetable.