After two years of backsliding, is the United States ready to once again be an environmental leader? Historically the country was a pioneer in creating environment departments, and passing clean air and water laws. Since Donald Trump became president two years ago federal environmental action has stalled and protections have been weakened. [However, many state and municipal governments have continued with their environmental agendas.] Now, some members of the Democratic Party are proposing a major sustainability agenda. It is called the Green New Deal, harking back to the New Deal President Franklin Delano Roosevelt brought in during the Great Depression of the 1930s to stabilize the economy, and provide jobs and relief to the many unemployed. The Green New Deal is aimed at systemic racial, regional, social, environmental and economic injustices. It would provide more support for health care and education, strengthen labour laws, promote a more sustainable food system and rapidly move the United States to renewable energy. It is certainly the most ambitious sustainability plan for any major nation so far.

This week some of the richest and most powerful people in the world are at the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort town of Davos. Usually, the focus is on keeping the global economy running smoothly. Now the winds of environmental change are blowing through these corridors of power. Before the meeting the forum published the Global Risks Report 2019, with a stark assessment of the future. While issues such as economic instability, trade wars, cyber-attacks and the instability of some states were part of the list of concerns, the report opens with the statement: “Environmental risks continue to dominate the results of our annual Global Risks Perception Survey. This year, they accounted for three of the top five risks by likelihood and four by impact.” People were worried about extreme weather and rising sea levels as the result of climate change, and about a failure of the world to reduce the risks and to prepare for the coming changes. The report also highlighted biodiversity loss, saying species abundance has dropped by 60 per cent since 1970, “affecting health and socioeconomic development, with implications for well-being, productivity, and even regional security.”

The report worries about the world’s willingness to tackle the big problems given the hardening of political and social divisions within and among many countries. A growing number of countries are looking inward and turning away from the multilateral institutions built up over the past 70 years. “Global risks are intensifying but the collective will to tackle them appears to be lacking,” the report warns, saying the world appears to be “sleepwalking” into crisis. “We are drifting deeper into global problems from which we will struggle to extricate ourselves.”

Today, the opening was dominated by environmental issues. Prominent British naturalist Sir David Attenborough said there have been so many changes to the planet that “the Garden of Eden is no more.” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that leaders who deny or fail to do enough to deal with climate change are on the wrong side of history. She said they just have to look at receding shorelines in the Pacific to see how a warming planet is causing sea levels to rise. She said wants to bring the New Zealand Maori philosophy of ‘guardianship’ of the environment into politics and get leaders to think beyond election cycles.

Every three years Canadians get to tell Environment Canada what it thinks of the federal government’s approach to sustainability. The environment department has posted the draft 2019 to 2022 Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, and is asking people to comment on it up to April 2. The draft strategy sets out priorities, goals and targets for a dozen sectors, including climate change, clean growth, greening government and sustainable food and forests. People are asked for their ideas of sustainable development, their sustainability priorities and what they will do to make the country more sustainable.

It was another small step for humankind in the face of the greatest disaster our species has faced since the last ice age. Last Saturday, representatives from 196 countries and the European Union signed the Katowice Climate Package. The Katowice guidelines cover how to set new targets for financing emissions reductions, how to measure progress and how to verify reductions. The meeting in a coal mining city in southern Poland was unable to reach agreement on how to create a market in carbon credits. The issue of making even deeper cuts to emissions has been pushed to a UN summit next September. One delegate summed up the meeting by saying, “it’s what’s possible, but not what’s necessary.”

The Katowice conference, known as COP24, is the latest in a series of global meetings trying to reach agreement on how to control climate change. It came just a few weeks after an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] report warning that global warming on Earth is proceeding faster than governments are responding. The IPCC report, Global Warming of 1.5° C  said the world’s climate will reach a dangerous 1.5 degrees Celsius increase from pre-industrial levels by as early as 2030, bringing extreme drought, huge wildfires, great floods and food shortages for hundreds of millions of people. As a sign of how contentious climate change has become, four oil-producing countries, the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, blocked the inclusion of the IPCC findings in the official text from Katowice.

So, the global temperature keeps rising, the ice sheets are melting, the climate in becoming more extreme and unpredictable. Countries have started to react, but the pollution cuts promised are nowhere near enough. Global net emissions of carbon dioxide would need to fall by 45 per cent from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach “net zero” around 2050 in order to keep the warming around 1.5 degrees C. Instead, emissions are rising. We are now on a track to see global warming reach 3C by the end of this century, taking us into uncharted and dangerous territory. According to the IPCC, lowering emissions to a safe level, while technically possible, would require widespread changes in energy,industry, buildings, transportation and cities, the report says. It would mean a dramatic overhaul of the global economy, including a shift away from fossil fuels.

At the COP 24 global climate negotiations in Poland, thousands of people are struggling to come up with detailed plans on how to control climate change. They are under pressure from a grim report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this fall that gave us until 2030 to start making major cuts to greenhouse gases or face disastrous impacts on our lives. It means transforming the world economy, now mainly powered by fossil fuels, and doing it in just a few years. It’s an unprecedented challenge. As people come to terms with the reality of the transition they face two huge questions. What are the best and most feasible ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and how do we make a transition that is just and fair to people, many of whom will see their jobs vanish and lives altered?

The changes have started. Last month nearly 3,000 General Motors employees in Oshawa were told their jobs will end next year when GM closes the huge car factory as part of a shift to electric and self-driving vehicles. GM is just one of the major car makers to announce a move to cleaner vehicles. There is a huge knock-on effect. The union representing the GM workers said the closure will cost more than 5,000 direct jobs, as well as about 15,000 indirect jobs in the region.

Another sector facing major dislocation is fossil fuels. Some of the  first to be affected are people in the coal industry as Canada moves to phase out traditional coal-generated electricity by 2030. As part of the plan Ottawa launched the Task Force on the Just Transition for Canadian Coal Power Workers and Communities, including funding for skills development, economic diversification, and transition centres. The federal government said a just transition “…is an approach to economic and environmental policy that aims to minimize the impact on workers and communities during the transition to a low-carbon economy. This approach includes involving workers and communities in decisions that would affect their livelihood. It identifies and supports economic opportunities for the future and helps workers and communities succeed through and benefit from the transition.” For an excellent article on the impact of the move away from coal see The Narwhal article on Alberta miners.

We are just at the beginning. If we are going to reduce greenhouse gases enough to avoid the worst of climate change, it is clear that we have to phase out fossil fuel energy. That will affect tens of thousands of people in the industry and millions more who are involved in the fuel businesses. It will affect everyone who use these fuels to heat their homes and power their cars and industries. The task force for a just transition should be just the first step toward a national strategy to help the nation’s greatest change ever. It needs to be our new industrial strategy for the long term.

We usually expect signals of a shift to sustainability to come from governments or non-government organizations. The announcement by General Motors that it is shutting its huge car manufacturing plant in Oshawa next year is a terrible blow for thousands who work there and for parts suppliers. But it is also a signal of big changes coming as business responds to environmental pressures. As part of the closure of Oshawa and four other plants in the United States, GM said it will stop building a number of gasoline-powered sedans to focus more on electric and self-driving vehicles. GM is just one of the major car makers to signal a shift to cleaner vehicles. Big companies know the world has to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, and people are slowly migrating to hybrid and all-electric vehicles as their range improves. There is also growing political pressure. A number of countries, particularly in Europe, have said they want to phase out fossil fuel powered vehicles over the next few decades. The challenge for governments and workers is to adapt to the new reality and become part of electric car future.

We know the climate is changing. It’s clear that if we don’t stop pouring greenhouse gases into the air we will have more and worse fires, floods, storms, droughts and disruptions to our lives. People also know that we need change how we travel, heat our buildings. Many of our jobs will be different. What most are not sure about is how to move to a sustainable lifestyle without giving up many things they take for granted. People are looking for clear messages about a transition that won’t leave them unemployed and bankrupt. Governments traditionally provide leadership to guide societies through periods of change. Some have started to impose controls on greenhouse gases, but many hesitate to order the major changes needed to stop runaway climate change.

Politicians understand that we can’t get the big changes needed for sustainability without a social consensus. We can’t achieve such consensus without discussions that include everyone. Too often the discussion about climate change amounts to people shouting at each other. So, how do we move from isolation to agreement? I had the chance to listen to experts on communicating climate change issues. They and other commentators say that too often the messages about climate are still about the threats. They need to move spelling out practical solutions, and they need to be led by a range of highly respected leaders.

According to George Marshall of Climate Outreach those trying to promote climate action have to connect with people’s values and concerns. That means starting a conversation not by trying to sell solutions right away but by listening. The discussions need to be about how climate change will affect people, their families and the things they care about. The goal should be to find common ground. Although climate change is rapidly worsening, the discussions cannot be rushed. It will take time for people to change attitudes.

How you hold such a conversation? One example is the Alberta Narratives Project, part of an international movement to hold discussions about climate change. Earlier this year the project team held 55 meetings with a wide range of people, including farmers, oil sands workers, energy leaders, senior business people, youth and environmental activists. Not surprisingly, it found “…marked differences in opinion between different occupation groups, different parts of the province and, especially between people holding different political values. These divisions make it increasingly difficult for Albertans to discuss climate change and energy with each other, to conduct a civil debate around options for the future, or to form a coherent and sustained vision of the future.” The narratives project aim is not to advocate or even educate but “…to replace a combative and acrimonious debate with a constructive conversation based on shared values.” People running the project found an openness to renewable energy, but most felt that fossil fuel production in the province will continue for many years, even generations. They found 39 per cent of those surveyed wanted to see more oil production and 35 per cent wanted a decrease.

The message to politicians is clear. A transition to a sustainable future cannot be dealt with in one or even two election cycles. It’s hard for people to accept that many of the ways we have been using fossil fuels for generations, even centuries, are no longer sustainable. It’s even harder to figure out how we can make a smooth and relatively painless transition to a clean, green economy and lifestyle. It will take many years. Now is the time to engage people in a discussion about what is important to them and how to preserve that during one of the greatest transitions in modern human history.

It is a historic first: a government is being punished for doing too much for the environment. French President Emmanuel Macron recently increased taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel, in order to help finance a transition to renewable energy. Public reaction was swift and often violent, including the largest demonstrations in France since the riots of 1968. Many complained the tax was hurting low income people who had to drive. The demonstrators, wearing yellow safety vests that are found in every car, also complained about the cost of living and income inequality. The protests were so widespread that the French government has suspended the tax. For a good analysis of fuel taxes please see an article by the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

President Macron was trying to meet France’s commitments to the Paris Accord to fight climate change by making fuel more expensive thus encouraging people to switch to electric cars. But, it appears he failed to heed a core premise of sustainable development – the need to integrate environmental, economic and social needs. This is the biggest challenge facing political leaders. How do you make a transition to a renewable fuel economy without harming people whose livelihoods depend on the production or use of fossil fuels? What happened in France is a powerful signal to leaders around the world. They face increasing pressure to cut greenhouse gas emissions but to do it in a way that does not cause too much pain for their citizens. Are there other ways of doing it?

In 2008, British Columbia imposed North America’s first broad-based carbon tax on fossil fuels for transportation, home heating and electricity generation. But, the government also reduced personal income taxes and corporate taxes by a roughly equal amount. As a result, there has been relatively little opposition. The province has been gradually increasing the carbon tax and by now has raised the price of diesel fuel by close to 9 cents per litre. The French tax raised diesel by 24 Euro cents per litre and came rapidly.

In Canada a number of provinces now have carbon fees, but in 2019 the federal government will impose a carbon tax on any province that does not. The federal government says it will give back most of what it collects in household rebates so people will not suffer financially. The goal is to encourage people to shift to lower carbon fuels thus reducing costs while still collecting rebates. So far there has been strong criticism from opposition politicians but no signs of a popular resistance to the pollution fee.

People are more worried than ever about the fate of the planet according to the 27^th annual survey by the Asahi Glass Foundation in Japan. It publishes an Environmental Doomsday Clock based on a “Questionnaire on Environmental Problems and the Survival of Humankind.” The responses are recorded as how much time we have left to fix environmental crises. This year the foundation got 1,866 responses from people in 139 countries. On average, people felt we at 9:47pm, with not much time to save the planet. The greatest concern was from people in North America and western Europe, while the lowest concern was in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The Environmental Doomsday Clock is modeled on the Doomsday Clock created by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in 1947 to represent the threat of nuclear war to human survival.

Getting to sustainability is always going to be hard. A major article in The New York Times Magazine gives a perfect example. It documents how scientists pushed almost to the point of trying to control climate change a generation ago. The article, Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change, documents how scientists, including those from the fossil fuel industry and policy makers especially in the United States knew of the hazards of climate change decades ago. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, senior politicians were seriously considering ambitious targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Members of the fossil fuel industry mounted a campaign against controls on their products. Politicians backed away from commitments. While the article is largely about American science and politics, it provides good insights into how hard it is to get societies to make the huge shifts needed to become sustainable. The article is about 30,000 words long. It’s worth reading through if you want to see how issues rise from the science and are handled by politicians. If you want a good synopsis of the implications for dealing with complex issues, go to the epilogue.

The Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion project has degenerated into an old-fashioned jobs vs. environment battle. The federal government, which bought the pipeline from Kinder Morgan, says the project is needed to maintain jobs in the heavy oil industry. Opponents say it encourages more oil production and greenhouse gases. Ottawa has tried to counter that by saying part of the deal is that it will ensure there is a price on carbon in Canada to encourage a reduction in pollution. The problem is that while the pipeline is certain to make it easier to ship more oil to markets, there is much less certainty that the government can ensure reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in Canada. Until the country has a clear road map on how we are going to meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets, people will be sceptical of any plans that are likely to increase pollution.

Nearly three years ago, Canada along with other members of the United Nations agreed on 17 sustainable development goals and 169 specific targets for the post-2015 UN development agenda. These included ending poverty and hunger, ensuring equity, promoting sustainable patterns of consumption and production, and protecting and managing the natural resource base of economic and social development. According to a report by the Ottawa-based McLeod Group, it’s hard to know how we are doing. The report says Canada has yet to produce a national framework setting out how it will reach the sustainable development goals. McLeod Group cites a report published last fall by the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. saying that Canada did not have data on 108 of 169 sustainable development targets. Where data existed, the country was only on track for 17.

No aspect of the transition to sustainability is more difficult and controversial than energy. We are heading into a climate change crisis. Yet more than 81 per cent of global energy comes from burning fossil fuels, which release greenhouse gases that are causing global warming. Governments and people around the world are struggling with how to change to new energy systems. The UN climate experts say we need to cut carbon emissions by about 70 per cent by mid-century. It was interesting to hear James Hansen, one of the world experts on climate change tackle that issue in a speech last night in Toronto. Hansen, formerly Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is now at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where he directs a program in Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions. His testimony to the U.S. Government in the 1980s helped make climate change a major public issue. In his speech Hansen made a pitch for more nuclear power. He said that research into cheaper and more efficient forms of nu

James Hansen Credit: The Independent

clear energy is lagging, but there are indications that new reactors could be far more efficient and produce much less radioactive waste. Ironically, a group at the entrance to the speaking venue was handing out flyers calling for a shutdown of one of Canada’s major nuclear power stations, about 35 km to the east. Both Hansen and the protesters were making the point that all forms of energy generation have some risks and benefits. These clashes of ideas are useful to push the kind of debate we need to have, but they are like isolated flashes of light that come and go. What we need is a permanent forum where experts can provide advice on the pros and cons of different energy sources so people can develop informed ideas about what kind of energy future they want, and this can guide governments to make policies that reflect scientific information and public opinion.

The battle over the future of a pipeline to carry Alberta oil sands bitumen to the Pacific is the latest example of how hard it is to move to sustainable development. The Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion project would twin an existing pipeline from Alberta to Burnaby, B.C. The Alberta government wants the new pipeline to get more oil to overseas markets and fetch a better price. British Columbia’s government wants to block the project on the grounds that a spill of dilbit [diluted bitumen from the oil sands] could cause great environmental damage. Many protesters want to stop the project saying we should not be selling more oil at a time when we are supposed to be reducing greenhouse gas emissions from sources such as fossil fuels. The dispute has put the federal government in a bind. It signed the Paris climate accord, which promises to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, but is supporting the pipeline expansion. Last month an extraordinary report by the majority of Canada’s auditors general found that most governments in Canada were not on track to meet their commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “Canada has missed two separate emission reduction targets (the 1992 Rio target and the 2005 Kyoto target) and is likely to miss the 2020 Copenhagen target as well. In fact, emissions in 2020 are expected to be nearly 20 percent above the target.” Most provincial governments have or will introduce pricing to discourage fossil fuel use, but the impacts are far below what is needed to meet even modest targets. While we have carbon pricing and incentives for greener energy and for energy conservation, we still have no clear roadmap of how we are going to meet ever more stringent targets. According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world will have to cut greenhouse gas emissions as much as 70 percent by mid-century.

Canada is ill-prepared for the changing climate we are entering, and is failing to meet its targets to slow climate change. In a stinging report “Canada’s auditors general found that most governments in Canada were not on track to meet their commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and were not ready for the impacts of a changing climate.” Seven of 12 provinces and territories did not even have overall targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Of those with targets, only two, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, were on track to meet them. The report was prepared by the auditors general for the federal government, which also covered the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon, and the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan. The report said we are already feeling the effects of climate change in the form of floods and forest fires, and the damage will only increase as the world gets warmer. It said most governments did not have plans on how to adapt to the climate change that is already started and will only increase.

We get a constant stream of reports in the news media about our health care, economy, housing, traffic jams, poverty and the environment. What do these signals add up to? How are we doing as a society? For years, Community Foundations of Canada, a network for Canada’s 191 community foundations has produced municipal, regional and provincial reports under the Vital Signs banner. Their goal: “…to measure the vitality of our communities and support action towards improving our collective quality of life.”

Toronto’s Vital Signs Report, Towards a more just city, pictures a booming, bustling and successful metropolis, of more than 2.7 million. “Toronto is one of the best places to live in the world,” says the report, especially if you have money. It says the quality of life in Toronto varies drastically depending on neighbourhood, income, race, immigration status, gender, sexual identity and age. “Toronto is becoming a city of islands,” according to Sharon Avery, President and CEO of the Toronto Foundation. The report says “One in five people in the city lives in poverty, the middle class has been consistently declining over the past 45 years, and income and wealth inequality is growing.” Toronto is the child poverty capital of Canada, with over one-in-four children living below the poverty line.

“Systemic issues such as the increase in precarious work, rising costs of real estate and high costs of living are increasingly making Toronto a city of haves and have-nots.”

Among the issues and discrepancies:

More than 70 per cent of high-income earners report good or excellent health compared to just under half among low-income earners. In Toronto, infant mortality in the lowest income group is 50 per cent higher than in the highest income group.

While one well-off part of the city is almost two-thirds treed, other neighbourhoods have only seven per cent tree cover.

Sixty per cent of downtowners have access to the arts compared to 37 per cent of Scarborough residents.

Just over half of Torontonians drive daily, leading to more traffic congestion and an increase in traffic deaths, especially for pedestrians.

Home ownership is becoming unaffordable for more and more people

There is less smog now, but still worrisome levels of air pollution and rapidly accelerating climate change, with a forecast of more heat waves and heavy rains.

It is becoming an older city, with more seniors than children for the first time, and more people living alone, bringing concerns of isolation with its risk of depression and other ailments.

News media have long played a critical role in the functioning of democratic societies. They help us understand what is happening in our neighborhood, country and the world. When they do their job well, they hold the powerful, particularly in governments and business, accountable for their actions or inactions. That is why the continuing cutbacks in traditional journalism in Canada and many other countries is important to the future of our economy, environment and the health of our society.

A seismic shift in how we get our news is underway. Since the early 2000s, more and more people get their news digitally, and expect it to be free. This shift is sapping the advertising dollars from traditional media, and shifting it to new media giants, such as Google and Facebook. Newspapers are struggling to move online while maintaining their long-existing formats. Larger papers seem to be holding on so far, but the small and medium-sized ones are having a hard time surviving financially. In late 2017, 36 small Canadian newspapers shut down, the largest mass closure of newspapers ever in this country. In the past nine years, 234 local Canadian news outlets have closed. Remaining papers are often getting smaller and reducing staff. Some print only a few days a week. Some have stopped the presses forever and gone digital. Even two decades ago a handful of major outlets – big papers, magazines, TV chains, and news services – set much of the public agenda by their decisions about what to print and broadcast. Now, many younger people ignore the traditional media and rely on electronic news feeds. The result has been a fragmentation of news and information sources.

According to Beth Parke, founding director of the Society of Environmental Journalists, the U.S. environmental reporting scene varies by region, often depending on local demand. Famously, the New York Times disbanded its environmental team a few years ago, but has since created a climate and environment page. In other cases, public outcry has helped maintain environmental coverage. The SEJ also provides funding and brokers grants from other organizations to support environmental reporting in the United States and Canada.

What does the shift to digital mean for sustainability? On the plus side, there are many more voices being heard. Some of them are experts, who can now broadcast to a world-wide audience with a few clicks, bringing attention to important environment issues. Others on the web are simply skimming off stories from major media and reposting them. And still others are used the Internet as a way to try to cast doubt on established scientific information about issues such as climate change and toxic chemicals. They use media tools in an attempt to stall or delay actions such as a switch away from fossil fuels. When people get news from a traditional outlet, there is some guarantee of professional quality. When they click on a link from a social media alert, there is no guarantee of quality or accuracy.

A classic newsroom. Note the amount of research material.

A good media organization employs trained and experienced journalists, overseen by professional editors who check for fairness and accuracy. It has the resources to fund long-term, in-depth reporting. A healthy media organization can resist outside pressures by people who want to suppress some stories, or have them slanted in their favour. In the 1980s, when I was environment reporter for The Globe and Mail, I would get days, weeks, even months to do major series on environmental issues, such as acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer, climate change, forestry, toxic substances and water, especially the state of the Great Lakes. I had voluminous files that allowed me to track promises and performance by governments and industries. A steady stream of stories by me and other environment reporters on issues such as acid rain helped push change. It was a time when many if not most large newspapers had an environment reporter. Now, the title “environmental reporter” has almost disappeared from Canadian news media. In a recent Internet search, I could only find eight people in Canada with this title. In addition, there are some freelancer environment writers, and some science reporters, who cover environment as part of their beat. The Society of Environmental Journalists has about 60 Canadian members. The lack of full-time environment reporters doesn’t mean the environment is not being covered. There are stories by general assignment, business and political reporters, but these journalists do not have the time to build up detailed files and sources that allow them to track issues, and give a broad view of what is happening. At a time for critical decisions about how to become more sustainable, there is less clarity and professional analysis in much that is disseminated online.

It was over a long Christmas dinner that I got an insight into some of the challenges of moving toward sustainability. We started talking about recycling, and the host said people were having a hard time figuring out what to put in Toronto’s three bins: garbage, recycling and compost. He talked of buying food in a package that had a clear top [recyclable] and a black bottom [not recyclable because of the recycling machinery]. It’s too confusing for most people he added, asking why companies are allowed to mix recyclable and non-recyclable materials in the same package. I can sympathize. After some 40 years of writing about the environment, it’s hard work to keep up with the changing rules. I have my own cheat sheet taped inside a cupboard door to help with such choices as which containers get recycled, and which go with caps or without.

We’re in a period of great transition. In the past, people invented things, and consumers bought them based on their needs, tastes and desires. Now we need to factor in the environmental impact. There is a growing discussion about how much meat to eat, or whether to go vegetarian, given the amount of natural resources it takes to feed an animal and bring it to your dinner plate. Cars are another big choice. It looks as if the gas burning engine will go the way of the buggy whip, but when? Should one spend extra for a hybrid? Should it be a plug-in hybrid? Where does one put the recharging plug, especially if parking some distance from the house? How about a pure electric car? It’s probably the greenest choice, but you don’t want to get stuck in a snowstorm without a very long extension cord. We’ve hard rumblings of a need to stop burning fossil fuels to heat our homes, offices, schools, hospitals recreation centres and factories. When is it going to happen? What kind of heating system should I put in a new building?

There is a growing list of questions. The answers are not always clear, but we need to spend more time looking at choices and looking ahead.

The world’s greatest challenge is whether we can make the transition to a sustainable lifestyle fast enough to avoid environmental catastrophe. The signal issue is climate change. Earlier this week, on the second anniversary of the historic Paris climate accord, French President Emmanuel Macron held the One Planet Summit. It brought more than 50 world leaders, as well as CEOs, celebrities, philanthropists and investment fund managers to Paris. President Macron had a sobering message, saying the world is “losing the battle” against climate change.

The meeting sought to mobilize billions of dollars in financing to help poor countries reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and there were encouraging signs. More than 200 institutional investors managing $26 trillion said they would increase pressure on the biggest corporate greenhouse gas emitters to fight climate change. The World Bank said it will virtually stop financing upstream oil and gas projects after 2019. Norwegian pension fund Storebrand will issue a $1.9-billion bond that will exclude investments in fossil fuel companies. Dutch bank ING said that by end of 2025 it will stop funding any utility that relies on coal for more than five per cent of its energy.

At a green economy forum in Toronto later in the week, Green Party leader Elizabeth May said Canada has been regularly missing targets for greenhouse gas reductions, and this is “a failure of leadership…the problem has always been a lack of political will.” She said one of the biggest problems facing government is a long-term shift in influence in which corporate power trumps political power.

The world is still going to hell in a handbasket. That’s the message from some 15,000 scientists from 184 countries in an open letter called World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice. It harks back to the November 1992 World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity in which 1,700 scientists from 49 countries warned, “Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course,” and we had to change our destructive ways “ if vast human misery is to be avoided.” The ‘second notice’ tracks nine key indicators of planetary health over the intervening 25 years, finding declines in forests, wildlife and freshwater availability, and increases in greenhouse gases, ocean dead zones and human population. The only good news is the stabilization of the stratospheric ozone layer following the first global atmospheric treaty.

The new report comes at a time of great transition. There are dramatic increases in renewable energy projects, and forests are increasing in some parts of the world, But, there are forecasts of another rise in emissions from fossil-fuel burning and industries this year and next, driving even more climate change. A recent report found three-quarters of flying insects had vanished from nature reserves in Germany in 25 years, a trend that may be more widespread. Another report said that globally one in six deaths was linked to pollution, mainly air pollution in poor nations.

The second notice report blames problems on excessive material consumption, and calls for cuts to greenhouse gases and the destruction of nature. It asks people to limit reproduction to replacement levels, and to drastically cut individual consumption of fossil fuels, meat and other resources. If we do not act, it says, “Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out.” The second notice project was led by Oregon State University ecologist William Ripple, and has led to a new organization, the Alliance of World Scientists, aimed at providing a science-based perspective on issues affecting the well-being of people and the planet.