Adrienne Tanner

For the first time in a while, I am truly worried about the future of climate policy in our country.

It’s easy, living in a large urban centre, to develop a false sense of imperviousness to disasters caused by extreme weather events.

Combine our own energy vulnerability with our economic reliance on fossil fuels and throw in a 25 per cent U.S. tariff threat, and what you get is the current national crisis.

What Adam Kinzinger's talk really drove home is the fundamental difference between our two countries. Kinzinger strikes me as a decent man with a strong moral compass. But he’s American to the core and there is a vast difference between his views and the way most Canadians see the world.

I’m under no illusion my picayune consumer vegetable protest will deliver the death blow to Trump’s trade war. That is the role of our government and its much bigger clout.

Poilievre promises his supporters an instant fix, a walk back in time all the way to the fifties, a decade of prosperity when middle-class home ownership was a given, drugs were not killing so many and we could burn hydrocarbons with impunity, blissfully ignorant of the consequences.

As some of the values we once shared with the US erode — respect for law, pride in an ethical military, concern for the environment and protection of free speech — we must push back against this spillover effect.

The Alberta Energy Regulator's approval of a coal mine exploration project has us creeping toward yet another fossil fuel development when we should be looking for less carbon polluting alternatives.

The fact that oil companies are reluctant to invest in their own giant carbon reduction projects speaks volumes about how they view their longevity. If anyone understands the economics of peak oil, it’s them.

Later this week, Toronto city council is scheduled to debate a staff report recommending new guidelines for fossil fuel industry advertising. The report, as written, is not as strong as it should be. With any luck, council will ask for more backbone.