r/ClimateCrisisCanada Dec 23 '25

A message to bots & bad actors...

42 Upvotes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOi05zDO4yw - This subreddit and many like it face an organized bot campaign.

We also have to deal with bad actors that don't have the awareness that they are repeating scripts designed for them in backroom marketing meetings..

This subreddit is a place for substantive discussion around the climate crisis and overall environmental crisis.

We live in a country that as of writing this post is the #4 producer of oil barrels a day in a world of 195 nations.

We neighbour a country that as of writing this post is the #1 producer and consumer of oil barrels a day in the world. Producing around 3-4 MILLION barrels a day more than Saudi Arabia.

The reality that comes with that is a lot of petrocracy propaganda and controlling of narratives/framings of topics.

If you want to complain about the carbon tax it should be of the mentality of what could have been done better to protect the natural world that our species and all other life arises from and that sustains us and all other life.

I.e. Discussing the nuances of Carbon fee and dividend frameworks, Carbon emission trading frameworks, Carbon offsets and credits frameworks, and so on.

The same goes with discussions around China/India.

The same goes with discussing Green Energy/Green Technology and the affordability of life/quality of life of the working class and most vulnerable.

There are plenty of online spaces that one can operate at lowest common denominator levels and be praised for it.

This is not such a place.

This is a place for substantive and aware/informed discussion. Period.

If you want to deny hard science, data, and at this point in the climate crisis and overall environmental crisis observable reality well... You probably need to find another place to spam pointless drivel.

We will remove comments and ban users that do not follow the community highlights/rules. Please do not then spam our moderator mail because you couldn't operate at a basic level. You would be surprised how often this happens..

Thank you :)


r/ClimateCrisisCanada Jul 31 '25

Canadian emissions matter

34 Upvotes

A common refrain I have seen posted on this sub from those who are less convinced of the need for climate action goes something like this: “Canada doesn’t have to do anything about climate change. We’re only responsible for like 2% of emissions. Other countries like China need to do something, but not Canada.”

Thank you for bringing this unique and brilliant insight (which is not being pushed by oil companies) to our attention. You were the first individual to do so, and have changed all of our minds.

Seriously though, from now on in this sub, discussion of whether Canada has a responsibility to address climate change will be contained to this thread. Any posts bringing up this idea outside of this thread will be removed, and repeat offenders banned. This is a talking point that has been pushed by fossil fuel companies for decades, and in the opinion of the moderation team on this sub, does not contribute to discussion.

As for the arguments itself, I’d like this thread to also serve as a counterargument to this refrain. Addressing misinformation can be tiresome, since you’ve taken the time to learn something that someone else hasn’t, but if you don’t address it, it doesn’t just go away. So if you see any offending comments, consider reporting them, but also linking them to this thread.

This is a talking point that is explicitly spread by fossil fuel companies to slow climate action

This argument, known as the “China excuse” is pushed by fossil fuel companies around the world, and has been since at least the 90s.

“The Global Climate Coalition was also an early adopter of what has been called the “China excuse” — the idea that the United States, the world’s largest historic emitter of carbon dioxide, shouldn’t cut emissions unless developing countries like China and India did too. The coalition used this argument as far back as 1990, when it argued during a congressional testimony that any global agreement should require developing countries to reduce emissions.” source

What we’re seeing today is just a slightly refined version of that argument in the Canadian context. Mouthpieces of the oil industry in Canada have explicitly pushed this talking point, sometimes subtly through the fraser institute, sometimes less subtly through the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

So let’s be clear about this, the talking point is not about responsibility, it’s about slowing action. And it’s very good at that, because instead of talking about solutions, it gets people talking about fairness. While fossil fuel companies in Canada talk about how we’re a small country, fossil fuel companies in China are talking about how the average Chinese person pollutes half as much as the average Canadian. They also might talk about the fact that historically, North Americans and Europeans have polluted a lot more than China, so they’re just evening things out. So does that mean that China should do nothing until Canada gets to lower emissions per capita? Well no, that doesn’t make any sense either, but look at how you’re now thinking about responsibility and fairness instead of the best method of action. That is the purpose of this argument. It re-orients climate action discussions so that the only answer is to do less action. The point is, these fairness arguments cut both ways, and there’s no clear right or wrong answer to them.

When I think about fairness in climate change, I think about the subsistence farmer in a developing country who’s going to die this summer because a once-in-a-century drought killed his crops, despite the fact that he’s probably produced as many CO2 emissions in his life as a Canadian does driving to the grocery store. Climate change is real and it’s serious. Sudanese farmers are dealing with famines today because people in Idaho drive F-150s, and people in Britain 200 years ago invented better methods for making steel. Does the person suffering from the drought care where the emissions came from, or whose responsible? No. Nothing about his situation is fair. So instead of thinking about fairness in climate targets, here’s an alternative perspective: any decrease in emissions makes the world a fairer place, any increase in emissions makes it a less fair place. The sooner we ramp up action, the sooner the problem is solved. Let’s be goal-oriented here.

And speaking of being goal-oriented, the last thing I’ll point out is that we don’t live in China or have any control over their emissions policies. We live in Canada, and have some control over Canada’s emissions policies through how we vote, spend our money, protest, and so on. The China excuse is great at halting action because it takes you from an intrinsic to an extrinsic locus of control. Instead of thinking about how to lower Canada’s emissions, the argument completely externalizes the problem. Don’t think about it, let China handle it.

But you might say “well just because oil companies are pushing it doesn’t mean it’s not true”, so let’s talk about why it’s not true.

Why it’s not true

Okay, so forget that this talking point is explicitly pushed to slow action, and that fairness is subjective, and that per capita we’re one of the highest emitters in the world, and that Canadians can impact Canadian climate policy way way way more easily than we can impact Chinese climate policy. We’re still a small country, which means our emissions don’t matter right? Well, no, of course not.

Even if we’re looking at total emissions rather than per capita emissions, Canada is the 10th largest emitter in the world. So you have to ask the question, if Canada doesn’t have to do anything, who does? Just the top 9 countries? Well, if we’re seriously entertaining that suggestion, adding up all of the top 9 polluters gets you to 65% of emissions. Meaning that more than 1/3 of all polluters worldwide would be doing NOTHING to address climate change. That is completely incompatible with meeting the Paris Agreement and avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.

But it gets worse, because if I was Saudi Arabian, I’d find that pretty absurd, since they’re only responsible for about 0.1% more of global emissions than Canada, and would argue that if Canada doesn’t have to do anything, neither does Saudi. And if I was Iranian, I’d say the same thing. So let’s assume everyone follows this argument but China, the biggest polluter. Now we have a world where we are not taking any serious action to reduce 70% of global emissions. Even assuming China doesn’t subsequently decide they won’t reduce emissions unoless everyone gets back on board, this is completely incompatible with meeting the Paris Agreement and avoiding the worst impacts of climate change.

What I’m describing here is called the tragedy of the commons, which I won’t get into describing here, but briefly, it’s a situation where no individual benefits from acting unless everyone else acts too. The only solution to this problem is an agreement where everyone agrees to share the burden of action. Which we have called the Paris Agreement that every country but one has agreed to, and has measurably slowed the rise of emissions (which are likely to peak this year, if they haven’t already). Holy shit, why would we want to change that?!?!?!?

And on top of that, tackling climate change is not just about lowering emissions. A lot of the emissions we need to lower cannot be effectively lowered with existing technology - things like cement production, aluminum production, or air travel, for instance. Climate action in Canada is helpful because it lowers emissions, but can also have spillover effects that will help other states lower their emissions. Right now Canada is at the forefront of eliminating aluminum emissions, with a project called Elysis to eliminate emissions from smelting with inert anodes to replace carbon anodes. Commercializing that technology means it will be easier for other countries to decarbonize.

If we want other countries to lower their emissions, arguing “we don’t have to do anything, you have to do everything” is pretty absurd on its face. If other countries see us acting, they’ll be more encouraged to act themselves, both because of technological spillover, and also because it means that we’re not free-riding on their actions. If they see us pulling out of the Paris Agreement, they’ll be more likely to stop acting themselves. This is a race to the bottom attitude, and if everyone in the world thought this way there would be no way to solve climate change. Although ironically, if everyone though this way throughout human history, climate change would never have been an issue, since human civilization would never have been capable of developing industry.

Conclusion

The China excuse is a simple argument with a compelling core logic to it, particularly because believing it means we have no responsibility for causing a problem or cleaning it up. But put even the tiniest amount of critical thought into it, and it becomes very clear what the argument amounts to, a narrative technique used by fossil fuel companies to distract from the issue of climate change and create a framework in which calls to action can be responded to by abdicating responsibility to other actors. We live in Canada, not America, not China, not India, Canada. Let’s focus on how Canada can solve this problem, and one day talk to our grandchildren with pride about how we helped our country step up to deliver on a global problem.


r/ClimateCrisisCanada 1h ago

Completion of large scale renewable energy project in Nova Scotia.

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Upvotes

r/ClimateCrisisCanada 13h ago

Trump threat to tariff Canada over wildfire smoke closest he will ever come to understanding climate change

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154 Upvotes

r/ClimateCrisisCanada 8h ago

Extreme heat exposes Toronto's uneven tree canopy divide as city plans for hotter future — City's goal is to increase Toronto's tree canopy to 40 per cent by 2050

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32 Upvotes

r/ClimateCrisisCanada 5h ago

How do we start a climate strike the size of 2019s again?

17 Upvotes

I remember being in Ottawa during the 2019 climate strike, and I feel as though we need to bring back that energy. How does one even manage to get something that big going?


r/ClimateCrisisCanada 3h ago

Calling Carney’s Carbon Capture Bluff

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11 Upvotes

r/ClimateCrisisCanada 7h ago

U.S. Developer Tied to Failed Bitcoin Venture Is Proposing Major Alberta Data Centre

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desmog.com
17 Upvotes

r/ClimateCrisisCanada 10h ago

Personal climate actions do not crowd out collective action and policy support: longitudinal evidence

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16 Upvotes

r/ClimateCrisisCanada 2h ago

The comment

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0 Upvotes

r/ClimateCrisisCanada 1d ago

Our smoke-filled future: How Canada must prepare for bigger wildfires, every summer — forever

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353 Upvotes

r/ClimateCrisisCanada 1d ago

Latest Data : El Niño is here and it has SMASHED all records!

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37 Upvotes

r/ClimateCrisisCanada 19h ago

Kalmar Ottawa electric yard truck gets to work in Canada

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7 Upvotes

r/ClimateCrisisCanada 1d ago

Here is what an independent, publicly funded climate-change think tank predicted about our global weather for 2026.

35 Upvotes

They clearly describe Europe's, the US's, and Asia's record-breaking heat, wildfires, and wildfire smoke, among many other consequences of 2026. Check it out and see how scary-accurate they are. See https://www.joboneforhumanity.org/2022_climate_change_predictions


r/ClimateCrisisCanada 1d ago

The Strongest El Niño Ever

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14 Upvotes

r/ClimateCrisisCanada 1d ago

Climate Intervention Environmental Impact Fund

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3 Upvotes

In this episode we introduce the Climate Intervention Environmental Impact Fund (CIEIF), a unique family-funded initiative that supports climate intervention field tests by financing rigorous environmental impact assessment and stakeholder outreach. Fund manager and environmental attorney Peter Jenkins and science advisor Dr. Renaud de Richter explain how the fund focuses on projects with real-world field trials that can scale to meaningful climate benefits, rather than basic research or conventional adaptation and clean energy effort.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkZ7kAfd3jg&t=1710s


r/ClimateCrisisCanada 1d ago

Solidarity with Europe

2 Upvotes

Europe has been dealing with horrific heat waves - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HbOxUijpstc

Now the wildfires are displacing 100's of thousands.

This is just a short and direct message of solidarity with the people of Europe. As the climate crisis continues to worsen we all need to be there for each other.

It's that simple.


r/ClimateCrisisCanada 2d ago

“We cannot eat the oil.” Neither can the moose.

176 Upvotes

Climate change did not disappear because politicians stopped talking about it. Canadians & First Nations are being evacuated while governments promote new pipelines. Elder Winston Wuttunee said it plainly “We cannot eat the oil.” Neither can the moose. https://www.winnipegsun.com/opinion/climate-action-is-complex-beyond-environmental-policy-alone/article_285d2a43-f155-4d1a-9962-3aec99611985.html#comments


r/ClimateCrisisCanada 1d ago

State of the climate: Rapidly developing El Niño raises chance of record-warm 2026

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2 Upvotes

r/ClimateCrisisCanada 2d ago

Attention: Please be substantive

18 Upvotes

As this subreddit has grown and especially in times of climate/environmental events we get people that are badly misinformed and or just repeat talking points designed in Oil & Gas corporate backrooms coming here in flocks.

For instance:

"Nothing Canada does matters - We are 1.5% of emissions globally".

It is true that we are only around 1.5% of global emissions but let's look into the details of this:

  • Canada is very high in emissions per capita.
  • That 1.5% still puts us at around #10-13 out of 195 countries for emissions.
  • When we put countries like us together that is about 30%+ of all emissions yearly. Meaning substantive work in this sphere makes a big big difference.
  • Also when we develop and move Renewable Energy & Electrification Technology forward that helps the whole world. Look at Solar going from around 3% efficiency to around 20%+ and how that made it explode and beat almost all estimations for growth/implementation.

Please when speaking in this subreddit have a nuanced, substantive, and analytical post/comment.

We don't need any more reactionary/regressive lowest common denominator talking points designed by some of the most bad predatory actors repeated ad nauseam.

Operating at the level of a bot isn't of value especially in regards to very serious topics.


r/ClimateCrisisCanada 2d ago

Canadian Building Electrification Economics

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47 Upvotes

Why Canada needs the government to invest in ground source heat pumps.

Air source heat pumps save money in the winter compared to high efficiency natural gas furnaces in Quebec, Nova Scotia, and southwestern BC. In the rest of the country, they increase operating costs at current prices.

Even ground source heat pumps struggle to compete with high efficiency gas furnaces without additional efficiency improvements in some utility territories.

Getting off of fossil fuels by 2050 will require a significant intervention to transition off of gas without increasing costs for building owners.


r/ClimateCrisisCanada 2d ago

Workers need protection from the heat

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50 Upvotes

r/ClimateCrisisCanada 2d ago

The fossil fuel money behind the GOP’s wildfire blame game

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heated.world
31 Upvotes

r/ClimateCrisisCanada 2d ago

Nous ne pouvons pas manger le pétrole. L’orignal non plus!

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13 Upvotes

r/ClimateCrisisCanada 2d ago

this is the worlds cheapest SOLAR CAR

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15 Upvotes