[This article appeared in Bloomberg over a month ago:
( https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-07-26/massive-carbon-emissions-of-canada-wildfires-are-off-the-scale ). It seems a positive feedback loop has established itself, pretty much guaranteeing that emissions will continue to increase regardless of how many windmills, EVs, solar panels, carbon capture technologies, windmills and nuclear reactors we build. The article was cut and pasted into my blog to circumvent our inability to share posts directly on Facebook and other social media platforms.]

Wildfires Are Set to Double Canada’s Climate Emissions This Year

By Danielle Bochove

July 26, 2023 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

A helicopter waterbomber flies above the Cameron Bluffs wildfire near Port Alberni, British Columbia, on June 6. Photographer: James MacDonald/Bloomberg

The carbon toll of the country’s fires this year will likely far outweigh emissions from its oil and gas, transport and agriculture sectors—combined.

When the greenhouse gases released from Canada’s 2023 wildfires are eventually tallied, they will be at least double the emissions from all other sectors of the nation’s economy combined, according to a top government scientist who has spent three decades measuring the carbon footprint of forests.

The 2023 emissions are “off the scale” compared to previous years, said Werner Kurz, a senior research scientist with Natural Resources Canada. Kurz’s team helped create a carbon budget model for Canada’s forestry sector which is used by governments and scientists around the world.

A full reckoning won’t be published until 2025. But as of July 18, a preliminary estimate suggests roughly 1,420 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) have been released from the fires so far, across Canada’s managed and unmanaged forests, Kurz said. By comparison, emissions from all other sectors of the country’s economy totaled 670 million metric tons of C02e in 2021, the last year for which full-year figures are available. 

 

This season’s fires have been unprecedented both in terms of pollution — smoke blanketed major North American cities, shut down airports and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Europe — and the staggering scale of territory burned. Some 11.7 million hectares and counting have ignited, an area larger than Ohio.

However, the most far-reaching impact, only just starting to be understood, is the scale of emissions.

Kurz’s figure of 1,420 million metric tons includes both managed and unmanaged forests. Even limiting the scope to managed forests, the amount of carbon being burned is exponentially higher than in years past going back to 1990, and roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of Canada in 2021. 

A wildfire in British Columbia on July 10.Source: BC Wildfire Service

Canada’s vast boreal forests have long been carbon sinks that absorb the planet-warming gas. This year, continuing the recent trend, the country’s managed forest will be a source of CO2, releasing more than it absorbs.

Kurz’s estimate only covers direct emissions — that is, the GHGs released from burning trees as well as living and dead organic matter in and on the soil. But roughly the same amount of indirect emissions will be released when the dead remnants of scorched trees decompose in coming years, he says.

Meanwhile, the fire season is barely half over and doesn’t yet show signs of easing.

The high environmental toll of the fires makes extinguishing them as quickly as possible a matter of global concern. But in higher North American latitudes, that’s easier said than done.

In early June, firefighters began constructing a 20-foot-wide, 8-mile-long fireguard inside the southern section of Wood Buffalo National Park, which straddles the border between Alberta and the Northwest Territories. The task took six days, three bulldozers and two excavators. The crew used the heavy equipment to clear trees and scrape back a 5-foot-deep layer of organic material known as “duff” down to bare sand. It was one of hundreds of fireguards being constructed across the country: slow, hot, exhausting work.

“We’re watching things burn that, by every textbook and every TED talk and published paper, suggest that they should not burn — and yet they are.”

Less than a month later, fire had jumped the barrier and the personnel were headed back to try again, said Katie Ellsworth, a plan section chief with Parks Canada, currently deployed at Wood Buffalo, who helps in the preparation for fighting fires.

Typically those fire guards would have held, but little about this fire season has been typical, she said. “We’re watching things burn that, by every textbook and every TED talk and published paper, suggest that they should not burn — and yet they are.”

The fires are “aggressive, they’re in the crowns of the trees, they’re moving from treetop to treetop,” said Ellsworth. Previously burned areas — which she likens to the charred, tough-to-ignite logs of an old campfire — are catching fire again. “We’re looking at old burned areas from 2014 and 2015 and 2018 that, by all accounts and everything we know, should slow the passage of the fire, and they’re not holding.”

Climate change is altering the way fires behave, experts say, as extended periods of record-breaking heat, drought, and high winds create ideal conditions for wildfires to reach abnormal intensity. Most of the outbreaks in Canada are the result of lightning strikes, rather than preventable causes like campfires or sparks from electrical wires (though those also occur). More intense storms can mean many more lightning strikes on a single day, often across remote areas that are hundreds or even thousands of kilometers from airstrips or roads.

A swimmer in Cameron Lake in front of the Cameron Bluffs wildfire near Port Alberni, British Columbia, on June 6.Photographer: James MacDonald/Bloomberg

The world’s boreal zone circles the Northern Hemisphere in a vast band that begins just south of the Arctic Circle. It includes lakes, wetlands and other naturally treeless areas like mountain tops but also one-third of Earth’s forests. In Canada, three-quarters of forests are in the boreal zone, covering 307 million hectares, an area larger than Argentina. A vast cache of biodiversity, it contains half the country’s species of birds and unique mammals like woodland caribou and is home to many of Canada’s Indigenous communities.

But this critically important ecosystem doesn’t respond as well to some of the standard fire measures used in other parts of the world. In contrast to the southwestern US, for example, where fires often occur in a mix of trees and grassland, fire retardant dropped from planes may not reach flames on the ground because it’s caught by the thick layer of underbrush and smaller trees often found beneath the boreal canopy. Also, most of the trees in Canada’s Northern forests are coniferous — spruce and pine — and highly flammable.

It’s also vast and remote. By necessity, firefighting efforts in northern Canada, as well as Alaska, have concentrated on populated areas or areas with key infrastructure, putting out fires when possible and redirecting others that threaten to head that way. The rest are mostly allowed to burn themselves out. When that happens, the value of the forest as a carbon sink changes to a carbon liability.

French firefighters battle fires north of the city of Chibugamau, Quebec, Canada, on June 12.Photographer: Quentin Tyberghien/AFP/Getty Images

Accurately measuring the full carbon footprint of global wildfires is tricky. A number of variables — including the depth and composition of organic matter burned, the size and species of dominant trees and what happens to the forest after the fire — make modeling a challenge. Human activity, whether tree planting, harvesting, or controlled burns, adds further complexity, removing and adding carbon to the equations.

Carbon-rich peat, for example, releases roughly 25% more emissions than regular boreal forest when burned and can be very difficult to extinguish, smoldering underground and resurfacing months later. It can also hold a greater volume of organic material because it is so deep below ground, although normally the lowest sections don’t ignite.

In northern latitudes, thawing permafrost is another knock-on effect of wildfires, said Brendan Rogers, an associate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Permafrost doesn’t burn — it is too full of frozen water — but the organic material on top of it can, removing an important layer of insulation and exposing the permafrost to more heat. “The permafrost wouldn’t exist except for the organic matter and the vegetation,” he said. “When you burn that off, what you tend to get in the years after a fire is that soil warms, the permafrost thaws, and you get deeper active layers,” which means a thinner layer of permafrost remains frozen year-round.

Thawing permafrost releases its own GHGs, including methane, and collapsing permafrost can create lakes that dissolve and release even more methane. Meanwhile peatlands — which exist across much of Canada, including in boreal forests and on permafrost — may be left more flammable after a fire because they are drier, he said.

Rogers’ research suggests the world is dramatically underestimating the carbon impact of wildfires. Climate trajectories and carbon budgets are based on Earth system models that include the impact of fire. However, many of those global models don’t include direct emissions from burned organic material under the surface, Rogers says, which his research indicates represents 80% to 90% of fire emissions in boreal forests, nor do they include the indirect effects of fire on permafrost. As a result, projections by leading bodies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he said, are “quite conservative.”

Looking at the amount of carbon the world can burn and still meet Paris Agreement targets, “10 to 20% of those remaining [carbon] budgets, we’re estimating, will be eaten up by the combination of intensifying fire regimes and permafrost thaw, and the interactions between the two,” he said, referring to the findings of a soon-to-be-published paper.

That makes preventing wildfires a matter of global urgency, especially in vast areas of sequestered carbon. The fuel load of a forest can be lightened to make it more fire resistant, by clearing away brush, harvesting small trees or doing a controlled burn. Vast forests can be broken up by clearing trees to create areas of grassland, while highly flammable trees, like black spruce, can be replaced with different native species. More resources can be focused on putting out small fires in remote areas quickly, rather than allowing them to spread as is the norm.

Unfortunately, most of these strategies are very expensive to deploy on a large scale and may also be less effective as northern climates warm.

“Carbon content, or risk of carbon emissions, is at the moment not a criterion for setting firefighting priorities,” said Kurz. “In the northern boreal there are few people, there are few roads, there are few airports. There is just not the infrastructure to effectively fight fires. And so while it would be really good to do this from a climate perspective, the actual feasibility of doing so is going to be very challenging.”

Past the Tipping Point:

Here in Canada we are now past the tipping point. Even if we eliminate emissions from all other sources, wildfires alone put us well over our emission targets. A positive feedback loop in which this year's emissions get added to the accumulated emissions from previous years/decades/centuries, ensure that next year's temperatures will be even higher, drying out even more forests and tundra, melting even more permafrost, turning it all into kindling for next year's fires, thereby ensuring that they will be more numerous and ferocious than this year's fires. And so on.

None of this will be immediately apparent to most people because powerful interests don't want it to be. We are constantly being fed a steady diet of claptrap to bamboozle us and to lull us into an unwarranted sense of complacency. First and foremost, emissions from wildfires are not included in the tally of Canada's emissions because they are considered carbon neutral--the vegetation will grow back and reabsorb any GHG emissions released by a fire; and secondly, because wildfires are not considered to be anthropomorphic (caused by humans). But discounting them does not make these emissions go away, just as exporting fossil fuels doesn't mean that they don't get burnt elsewhere and contribute to global warming. A realistic prognosis for the planet must include all GHG emissions, whether someone accepts responsibility for them or not. GHG emissions are a global problem, and as such national solutions are limited.

Some wildfires are not anthropomorphic. Wildfires predate the industrial revolution and the burning of fossil fuels. But the increased intensity, frequency, size and number of wildfires is indeed anthropomorphic--exacerbated by global warming. The importance of this cannot be exaggerated; the emissions from wildfires in Canada have now eclipsed emissions from all other sources. Our once enviable carbon sinks have become liabilities--primary sources of GHG emissions. Discounting and excluding wildfire emissions from the total tally gives a very deceptive and dangerously misleading indication of where we're really at. 

 

We hear a great deal about emission reduction plans: Solar energy, wind energy, new nuclear plants, car battery plants for EVs, carbon capture technologies, etc. Despite all these, even excluding wildfire emissions and exported fossil fuels from the mix, our total GHG emissions have continued to rise. Nothing that has been done to date has lowered our GHG emissions. On the contrary. Adding wildfire emissions to the mix more than doubles Canada's total emissions. No proffered solution can reduce emissions by the amount required. 

Just a cursory examination of the most popular climate solutions reveals that all of them are intended, not only to reduce emissions, but also to make business as usual possible; the new "green" economy is intended to allow for continued capitalist expansion and perpetual economic growth. Replacing "zero" emission targets with "net zero" targets allows fossil fuel exporting countries to keep on exporting as long as they have enough carbon credits to do so. Under "net zero" there is no requirement to leave fossil fuels in the ground as long as you have enough carbon credits to offset any emissions in the process of extracting them. Carbon credits are acquired by sequestering carbon, either by planting and/or purchasing swamps and forests, or by installing carbon capture technology to capture emissions at the source--at a coal-fired power plant for instance. The responsibility for any CO2 emissions that occur after export falls to whichever country burns them. Of course this does nothing to reduce global emissions, but it does effectively protect fossil fuel exporters from liability while continuing to extract and export fossil fuels. Even banks can reach net zero while financing the fossil fuel industry as long as they have enough carbon credits to offset emissions that occur in their offices. Even the mineral extraction industry is re-branding itself as "green", not because of lowering its CO2 emissions, but because minerals for EV batteries, solar panels and windmills are needed in the new "green" economy. None of this has reduced the total global emissions, or even that of a particular country, but nonetheless seems to be convincing a lot of people that real effective work on reducing emissions is being done in a timely manner. Not so!

DeepGreen mining seafloor

Now, even ignoring all other sources of GHG emissions, wildfires by themselves are enough to ensure a climate holocaust. Given the positive feedback loop described above, we can only expect the damage caused by wildfires to continue to grow exponentially, regardless of what we do. Only an actual reduction in global temperatures could interrupt our invincible defeat. Perhaps if we had decoupled climate action from economic growth ten, twenty or thirty years ago we could have reduced emissions enough prevent the positive feedback loop now fuelling wildfires. We didn't.

--by Stewart Vriesinga

The Great Net Zero Green-Washing Deception: A Path to Oblivion

"Net Zero" has become the new buzzword for setting emission targets. Countries and corporations alike have set net zero emission targets to convince us that they are "doing their part" to reduce global emissions. But what is net zero exactly? Are they really doing their part? What, exactly, is the difference between net zero and zero emissions? Instead of reducing emissions to zero, with net zero one can buy a license to emit through the purchase of carbon offsets. But this leads us to the next question: What are carbon offsets?

Carbon offsets are devices that capture and sequester carbon. Some offsets are biological, some are technological. The former includes things like forests, wetlands, peat reserves, etc. These can be purchased and protected, locally or abroad, or created through reforestation and reclaiming of wetlands etc. 

Technological carbon offsets are ways of capturing carbon at the source of emission, or removing it from the atmosphere. The latter has not yet been achieved on a large scale, but is being invested in by corporations and countries on the assumption that they can developed in time for them to meet their net net zero emission targets. Theoretically captured carbon must somehow be sequestered in a way that it cannot be re-released into the atmosphere. This is usually done using deep underground deposits, often utilizing already depleted oil wells. 

The main problem with net zero emission targets is that they do little to discourage global consumption of fossil fuels; they only provide incentives to reduce those emissions emitted in a particular country or by a particular corporation. Fossil fuels extraction intended for export markets can continue unabated provided they exporters are, or assumed will be in possession of enough carbon offsets to offset emissions that occur as a result of extraction. This allows a corporation or country to meet its emission targets while continuing to extract fossil fuels for export, because it disregards emissions that occur after export. Once the fuels are out of their domain--once they have been exported to other end users--it is no longer the extractor's responsibility; it is the purchasers who must account for those emissions. Net zero emissions are extremely attractive to fossil fuel exporting countries and corporations. Exxon Mobile is one example of this: 

The plant’s main function is to process natural gas from a nearby deposit. But in order to purify and sell the gas, Exxon must first strip out carbon dioxide, which comprises about two-thirds of the mix of gases extracted from nearby wells.

The company found a revenue stream for this otherwise useless, climate-warming byproduct: It began capturing the CO2 and selling it to other companies, which injected it into depleted oil fields to help produce more oil.

--Inside Climate News

Oil companies have found a way, not only to meet their net zero emission targets, but to make a handsome profit while they're at it by cashing in on generous government subsidies for emission reductions,  while also selling the carbon they've captured to smaller companies who pump it into depleted wells to extract even more oil! This double-dipping actually increases global fossil fuel consumption rather than reducing it.  

The oil industry is not the only one to use deceptive accounting methods. Banks, for instance, can set a few solar panels on the roof and maybe hook up a couple of other alternative energy sources, and then claim to be carbon neutral, while their huge loans to fossil fuel industries continue uninterrupted. Net zero targets take the onus for emission reductions off of the fossil fuel and other industries in possession of carbon offsets, and externalizes  responsibility for these emissions to countries who import fossil fuels, in much the same way that industry is outsourced to overseas supply chains to reduce labour costs, avoid taxes, worker protection laws, and local environmental standards, etc. 

The problem with this nationalistic approach is that global warming is a global phenomenon. Corporations and nation states externalizing the cost of carbon emissions is not going to reduce global emissions. We all live on the same planet. And countries that must import fossil fuels and sell off their own carbon offsets--forests, wetlands, etc.-- are usually less able to bear the costs of transitioning to cleaner renewable energy than the countries they import the fuel from. Similarly, large oil producers are selling off their most carbon intensive operations to smaller wholly-owned private operators who do not trade on the stock market and are therefore not subjected to same scrutiny and regulations. Furthermore, divesting themselves of carbon intensive holdings qualifies these large global operators for huge government subsidies as a reward for "reducing" their carbon emissions:

 

Exxon Touts Carbon Capture as a Climate Fix, but Uses It to Maximize Profit and Keep Oil Flowing

The company sells the CO2 to other companies that use it to revive depleted oil fields and has relentlessly fought EPA oversight of the practice.

In 2008, when concerns about climate change led Congress to pass a tax credit meant to encourage companies to capture and store carbon dioxide, Exxon was presented with another way to make money from the technology. The massive amounts of carbon dioxide captured at its Wyoming facility put the oil and gas giant in a position to claim more credits under the tax break than any other company.

In the ensuing years, Exxon may have claimed hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits, according to estimates based on publicly available data from the Internal Revenue Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a global think tank that tracks the technology.

--Inside Climate News

So, as we can see, Net Zero targets are a clever and useful way of accounting for, or, more precisely, not accounting for carbon emissions. Consequently those who want to appear serious about reducing their carbon emissions may in reality be doing little if anything at all to reduce global emissions. Are there better ways of measuring, accounting for, and reducing fossil fuel emissions? Ways of more accurately measuring a country's global carbon footprint and setting emissions targets accordingly? Yes, there certainly are!

A big part of the problem is that instead of recognizing and naming climate change as a cost of production, the cost has been externalized. Wealthy and fossil fuel producing nations are using net zero targets, not as a way of reducing global emissions, but rather transferring responsibility for existing emissions onto poorer countries and pretending that this somehow will reduce global emissions. It won't. Just as offshoring production is used to reduce the cost of labour, so too offshoring responsibility for CO2 emissions from fossil fuel producers to fossil fuel consumers obfuscates the true cost of extraction. The former will reduce the cost of labour for production, while the latter will reduce the cost of fossil fuel extraction by transferring responsibility for emissions from sellers to buyers. Offshoring production costs does not reduce the global amount of labour required to produce a commodity; it may increase it if reduced labour costs forestall automation. So too, offshoring fossil fuel extraction and consumption costs to end consumers does not reduce the total amount of global emissions. The consequences this faulty net zero accounting are largely borne by those least responsible for CO2 emissions, and those least able to afford it. By off-loading responsibility for emissions onto those least able to afford it, instead of reducing global emissions net zero targets actually increase emissions. 

Not only does this practice increase emissions; they constitute a grave injustice to those who suffer the consequences of global warming and climate change. If the car we are driving jumps the curb and kills innocent pedestrians we expect the driver to take responsibility, and insofar as compensation for damages the driver is liable. Why should it be any different for for the drivers of CO2 emissions?

The True Prohibitive Costs of Externalizing Production:

Off-shoring and out-sourcing production can result in significant savings. The cost of labour, including skilled labour, can often be obtained at a fraction of the price of what it would cost to feed and house a slave, never mind what it would cost to hire a worker locally. Out-sourcing production also allows investors to take advantage of economies of scale, in which manufacturers of components such as micro chips used in computers, cell phones, automobiles, etc. can be purchased much more cheaply than the costs of end-users manufacturing such components for themselves. Economies of scale also allow manufactures to purchase extracted raw materials in bulk at reduced prices. Furthermore, local environmental regulations are often prohibitive to manufacturing. For instance, things requiring the use of rare earth elements –cellular telephones, computer hard drives, electric and hybrid vehicles, flat-screen monitors and televisions, significant defence applications such as electronic displays, guidance systems, lasers, and radar and sonar systems—are primarily produced in China, not because rare earth itself is particularly rare, but because the process of extracting rare earth elements is so highly destructive to the environment –to water, crops, people and animals, etc.—that almost all rare-earth-derived products originate in China. Similarly, the cost of compliance with local regulations protecting worker safety, the safety of the buildings in which they work, etc. can also be externalized by out-sourcing or off-shoring production. Finally, by reinvesting profits in off-shore holdings corporations can avoid paying taxes in their home countries. Externalizing all these costs means that the cost paid by end consumers does not include or reflect the social and environmental costs borne by the citizens of the countries in which the goods they consume are produced.

The externalization of carbon emissions:

Another aspect of out-sourcing and off-shoring production is the externalization of carbon emissions. Under the status quo responsibility for carbon emissions that take place in another country are also externalized, and end consumers in wealthy countries escape responsibility and accountability, not only for any fossil fuels used in 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th country production processes, but also for the shipping of raw materials, components, and finished products.

This is further exacerbated by the purchase of carbon off-sets. Instead of a business or individual reducing their own carbon emissions, they can purchase the right to emit by enabling an equivalent emission-reducing activity somewhere else in the world. By purchasing or otherwise protecting enough jungle in Brazil or Indonesia, for instance, an individual or business wealthy enough to do so can claim to be carbon neutral without actually reducing their own emissions. This option is of course not available to poor people or poor countries who sell control over forests as off-sets to wealthier countries and businesses. The purchase of carbon-offsets may confer carbon neutrality on some wealthy emitters, but at the cost of increased global economic disparity.

Over-reliance on Global Supply Chains:

The current and on-going interruptions in supply chains are also due in large part to the externalizing production costs. The COVID 19 pandemic illuminated the global economies reliance on a highly complex global web of suppliers of raw materials, components, manufactures, end consumers, and the just-on-time-delivery of most of the above. In the early days of the pandemic this was manifest in the shortage of PPEs—masks and such—after borders were closed. Today factory closures due to poor distribution of vaccines and the resulting COVID outbreaks, interruptions in shipping and overland transport, a shortage in computer chips, etc. continue to impede a return to normal. Over-reliance on global supply chains intended to externalize and minimize production costs are no longer able to adequately supply existing demand. Just-in-time-delivery seems to be a thing of the past when it comes to everything from automobiles to refrigerators to Christmas gifts. Pivoting to this new reality requires a reconstruction of the dominant business model—something that is going to take considerable time.

Geopolitics is also playing a role. First the Trump administration, and now the Biden administration, see China as a major threat and adversary. However sanctions on China and tariffs on Chinese products also hurt US businesses and corporations, and will therefore be limited in scope. EU reliance on Russian gas is also providing Russia with the opportunity to limit access to Russian gas to further their political objectives. The degree to which a country can prioritize its political objectives over economic considerations depends to a considerable extent on how reliant its economy is on access to goods supplied by, and access to markets of their political adversaries. Western countries have allowed their economies to become particularly reliant on access to out-sourced goods and off-shore production.

Challenges:

Can Western countries successfully extricate themselves from their over-reliance on externalized production costs? Will their economies and social safety nets be able to withstand such a transition?

The greatest challenge of all is reducing global Greenhouse Gas emissions while allowing corporations to externalize the cost of cutting emissions to countries ill-equipped to reduce them. It is simply unrealistic to assume that the countries producing our consumer goods will willingly cut their emissions without compensation from the countries consuming the lion's share of the goods they produce. Yet the carbon emission reduction strategies and proposals of Western countries do not include incentives to induce developing and poor countries—the very countries to which they have externalized the costs of their high-consumption life-styles—to reduce their emissions. This while the countries least responsible but most affected, and least able to mitigate against the effects of extreme weather events—cyclones, floods, droughts, mudslides, etc.—bare the brunt of the burden, as climate refugees, along with economic and political refugees, are warehoused in concentration camps because the developed countries that once colonized don't want them, ostensibly because they are unvaccinated.

The reality is that an over-privileged few are benefiting from an unjust global supply chain and distribution of resources, while much of the cost of this economic development model is borne by those too powerless to do anything about it.

THE PLANET CANNOT BE SAVED WITHOUT GLOBAL REGIME CHANGE

All countries without exception are interlinked and interdependent in the global market place. This reality became starkly evident in the early days of this pandemic when more and more countries closed their borders, resulting in interruptions in supply chains that caused many factories to grind to a halt. Many countries had also outsourced the manufacture their own PPEs, and during border closures and lockdowns struggled to obtain enough PPEs to keep their populations and healthcare professionals safe. Indeed, most of what we consume is manufactured elsewhere, where the costs of production are considerably lower. Outsourcing production not only results in huge savings in labour costs; it also evades the much stricter environmental standards, workers rights, and workplace safety standards in place in much wealthier consumer nations. The raw materials and energy required for manufacture are also sourced from countries all over the world, from whichever country can supply the demand at the lowest cost. Almost every good we consume, from cell phones to clothes to automobiles to food, involves the coordinated actions of a complex global web of people from many countries around the world. Restrictions on the movement of goods and services are minimal, and efforts are being made to further reduce them through minimizing government intervention –through the promotion of what is called Free Trade. The remarkable thing is that for the most part it is self-regulating. For middle class and upper middle class this system has been working well, providing them with an ever increasing array of consumer goods at affordable prices. They most anxiously await the full recovery of this economic system in the wake of disruptions caused by the pandemic.

But can a self-regulating system, characterized by minimal government intervention, respond to that other even greater existential crisis –to global warming? Is it simply a matter of switching over to renewable energy so that economic growth can continue unabated without destroying the planet? Is national governments' “putting a price on pollution” and setting carbon emission reduction targets going to be enough? To date even significantly reducing carbon emissions within our borders has proved to be a challenge, especially for countries whose economies rely on the extraction and exportation of fossil fuels. Should countries and corporations be allowed to exempt themselves from lower emission requirements in exchange for buying up carbon syncs that presumably offset their emissions? (forests etc. known to sequester carbon) Externalizing production costs has become essential to compete in the global marketplace; only by outsourcing production to countries with grossly underpaid workers, often working in abysmal conditions, in countries with minimal or unenforced labour and environmental standards, can suppliers supply the insatiable appetites of consumers at competitive prices. The social and environmental costs will be borne by others in the countries that produce the goods we consume.

But due to the global nature of the climate crisis the cost of carbon emissions cannot be externalized. Reduction in global carbon emissions cannot be achieved without the cooperation of all the countries that supply the world's consumer goods. The refrain that “We are all in this together”, belied by the global distribution of vaccines, has to become much more than a euphemism if the worsening of the global climate apocalypse is to be avoided. Even countries that have managed to meet national carbon emissions targets within their borders are not doing their part if they continue to import consumer goods with a high carbon footprint. Emissions must be reduced everywhere in the chain of the production process, from the extraction and shipping of raw materials, to the processing of materials into metals, plastics, etc., to the fabrication and assembly of all components into the end products, and the shipping of all of the above. That's a lot of emissions that aren't accounted for in consumer prices, but nonetheless form part and parcel of emissions embodied in the goods we consume. To continue this pattern of consumption is to continue to participate in ecocide and self-annihilation, regardless of how many EVs we buy or solar panels we install. 

 

Can developing and newly industrialized countries be relied upon to voluntarily reduce their emissions in a way that not even most wealthy countries have thus far been willing to do? Can those stitching our clothes together, or working long hours in unsafe working conditions, earning a pittance insufficient to properly house or feed themselves, be expected set aside all immediate existential threats to themselves and their families and get on board with the climate agenda of a few rich nations? If they are not, will we encourage them by financing their transition to green energy? Or will we resort to some form of coercion? Without a pan-global government, who would do the coercing? The under-funded UN, in which five countries who almost never agree on anything have veto power, is not up to the task, much less the WHO, whose pleas for a more equitable distribution of vaccines continue to fall on deaf ears. If rich countries were to put tariffs on all goods imported from non-compliant countries, would that result in reduced emissions? Or would that only result in even more deplorable working conditions as suppliers try to keep up profits despite tariffs? What about an outright ban on such imports? But that would hurt compliant rich countries as well, because they would have to pay the full cost of production of consumer goods. All the externalized costs –the cheap labour, the lax or poor worker safety and environmental laws, etc. that made these imported goods so affordable--would then have to be added to the sales price. Citizens of rich nations would have to absorb, not only the costs of reducing their own emissions, but also the higher consumer prices required to pay for the transition to green energy in the countries producing these goods, resulting in inflation. Perhaps that is as it should be, since it is the citizens of rich nations that, because of their high levels of consumption, are primarily responsible for global warming. When we moved industry off shore we also moved their carbon emissions off shore, out of our national jurisdiction, but they still take place on the same planet. It is urgent that we take ownership of all emissions associated with the products we consume, including those being produced offshore.

To date even most relatively wealthy countries haven't done much to reduce emissions, despite the devastating impact of increasingly frequent extreme weather events. There are a number of reasons for this. Rich countries can deal with catastrophic weather events, and are becoming increasing adept at preventing economic, political and climate refugees from entering their countries. Ironically the high costs of dealing with emergency responses and the rebuilding required after a fire, flood, hurricane or other extreme weather event register as being of net-benefit to the country in the accounting. The billions of dollars in expenditures such events require all contribute to the GDP and therefore register as economic growth. A few good storms or fires or floods can boost economic growth, while climate action –shuttering all fossil fuel and related industries—detracts from economic growth. As long as the economy is in the driver's seat, in the short term governments are more likely to choose coping with climate change and extreme weather events over the slow almost imperceptible benefits of reduction of global warming in the longer term –a far longer term than the term in office of any elected government. Even when more and more of the general population is citing climate change as the number one issue facing us today, governments are slow to take action. Even political parties who include concern about carbon emissions in their election platforms are only addressing domestic emissions; they do not have a plan for getting poor and newly industrialized nations on board. They make no mention of the carbon emissions embodied in all the imported goods we consume. They do not acknowledge that the economy and perpetual economic growth can no longer remain in the drivers seat if we are to avert a complete climate apocalypse. Not nationally, not globally. Up until now we have left the allocation and use of resources to the algorithm of supply and demand, in which suppliers competed with each other to supply demand until equilibrium was reached. Now we need to suppress our inclination to compete and replace it with an inclination to cooperate. Unless a spirit of cooperation occupies the drivers seat we are doomed. That transition could prove to be an even more formidable obstacle to climate action than does the transition to renewable energy sources.  But we better get on with it, because time is running out, and without regime change we have no future.

From COVID Prevention to Coexistance:

COVID vaccinations have become a very polarizing issue in Canada and elsewhere. The long-awaited vaccinations have arrived, but the promised salvation and return to normalcy remain elusive. The unvaccinated are increasingly being singled out as the primary obstacle to normalcy. To be sure, not all of the unvaccinated are unvaccinated because they are refusing vaccinations. Many –children under twelve and those with allergies to vaccine components for instance—would be refused vaccines even if they wanted one. But those who are eligible and nevertheless have not availed themselves of readily available vaccines are increasingly being disparaged and vilified as selfish greedy individualists whose non-compliance regarding vaccinations is prioritizing their freedom to choose over the common good. The vaccines are safe, approved by public health, and any side effects are negligible when compared to the risks of severe infection and possible death due to COVID infections. Severe infections requiring hospitalization, and scarce resources jeopardize not only those so infected, but all others they end up infecting, and many many others being denied access to increasingly scarce healthcare resources –a triple jeopardy. It all seems pretty black and white –the us who are fully-vaccinated and the them who are not. The incumbent Liberals, who have opportunistically called an election in the midst of this pandemic, are exploiting and exacerbating this great divide, betting that the fully vaccinated majority will join them in denigrating and vilifying the unvaccinated, and vote Liberal. A small number of very vocal and increasingly confrontational anti-vaxers are targeting politicians on the campaign trail and impeding access to hospitals by their actions. Despite being only a very small percentage of the so-called vaccine-hesitant, conveniently for the Liberals, they have become the face of, and representative of all those opting out of vaccinations.

In reality things are a bit more nuanced than that. Could it be that some of the claims being made about vaccines are not as black and white as the official narrative leads us to believe? Lets take a closer look at some of them:

• The Vaccines are safe: In Canada expedited approval has been granted to AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Moderna vaccines under an Interim Order Respecting the Importation, Sale and Advertising of Drugs for Use in Relation to COVID-19 signed into effect by by the Minister of Health on Sept. 16, 2020. Expedited approval was deemed necessary because of the severity of COVID 19; going through normal channels for approval and waiting for more information about unforeseen long-term effects would have cost too many lives and overwhelmed the capacity of our healthcare systems. The efficacy of these vaccines at preventing serious illness and death in the short term has been deemed to outweigh any known and as yet unknown possible long-term adverse side effects. This interim order will expire on Sept. 16, 2021, but provisions to extend it are already underway:

As we reported, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Health Canada established emergency pathways to expedite review and approval of drugs and medical devices for use in relation to COVID-19 through Interim Orders. Health Canada intends to leverage and build upon those emergency pathways, as well as other existing policies and procedures, in updating the regulatory framework for drugs and medical devices. (source: Canada: Health Canada's Proposed Amendments To The Food And Drug Regulations And The Medical Devices Regulations)

Most authorized vaccines in the US have been authorized for emergency use only (EUA). However, in August Pfizer was given full approval, despite the fact that it is far too early to know what, if any, the long term side-effects might be. Because these long-term side-effects remain unknown there are no grounds for presuming there will be no serious delayed side-effects resulting from the use of the vaccine. Nor are there grounds to assume that there will be. It would be more accurate to say based on the scientific evidence to date the vaccines are presumed to be safe. While the known risks of side-effects caused by the vaccines are minimal in comparison with the severe illness and death that the virus often causes, the long-term risks associated with inoculations are unknown, and cannot be dismissed. The vaccine-hesitant may simply be less predisposed to ignore them than are pro-vaxers. The evidence suggests that, at least in the short term, vaccines are relatively safe compared to the risks associated with becoming infected.

The confidence of vaccine manufactures themselves is more in line with that of the vaccine-hesitant than with the pro-vaxers. Manufacturers are insisting on indemnity from prosecution for any unforeseen consequences resulting from the use of their products. Almost all countries have agreed to grant that indemnity, with a few exceptions; India, for instance, cannot procure and import vaccines because of it's refusal to grant manufacturers indemnity. Manufacturers are required to continue to conduct clinical studies on the long-term effects of their vaccines for five years or more.

• The efficacy of vaccines: References to the efficacy of vaccines are often confusing. The efficacy of vaccines is actually a measurement of how likely a vaccinated person is to become so ill they require hospitalization, ICU care, and/or die as the result of a COVID infection. It is not a measurement their immunity, nor their likelihood of infecting others.
  
  While there is statistical evidence to suggest that fully-vaccinated people are less likely to become infected, and less likely to infect others, if they do become infected, how much less likely they are to become infected and infect others is much more difficult to ascertain. There are a number of variables at play here. Despite frequent references to “a pandemic of the unvaccinated”, we now know that “breakthrough infections” in which fully-vaccinated become infected do occur, and they can go on to infect others. How frequently such breakthrough infections occur is largely unknown.
  
  Because fully-vaccinated people are less likely to show symptoms they may not even know they are infected, and are therefore less likely to present for testing. Continued reliance on self-assessments as the primary indicator of infections –the daily monitoring of symptoms—will not detect asymptomatic infections, so the number of breakthrough infections may be much higher than the statistics on known infections imply. This statistical omission is further exacerbated because the fully-vaccinated are often exempt from the frequent random testing requirements imposed on the unvaccinated.
  
  Furthermore, statistical data on the efficacy of vaccines doesn't always distinguish between the original SARS-CoV-2 and its variants; the efficacy of a vaccine against the now-dominant highly contagious and more virulent Delta variant is markedly lower than the level of protection vaccines conferred on those exposed to the original SARS-CoV-2 virus. Data on breakthrough cases –infections of the fully-vaccinated—does not give us a very complete picture of the number of breakthrough infections in Canada. We know that with the Delta variant breakthrough cases are on the rise. Fully-vaccinated people are less likely to show symptoms, and are usually not screened unless they happen to live in an area with a high prevalence of the virus or are identified as being a close contact or were in a situation where a breakout has occurred. However, if they are infected with the now-dominant Delta virus, their viral load is likely to be equal to that of an unvaccinated person –they will be equally contagious. (See: What do we know about breakthrough COVID-19 cases? Experts break down the science)

Finally, the efficacy of vaccines is also known to wane over time. Although Canada is now a world leader in terms of the percentage of the population that has been fully-vaccinated, most of us have not been fully-vaccinated for all that long. Israel might be a far better bellwether in this regard, because it was the first to vaccinate the majority of its population, almost exclusively with Pfizer. Israel began vaccinating its population in December 2020, and many Israelis received their second dose soon after their first dose in early 2021. Perhaps too soon after their first dose. While COVID news stories in Canada and much of the world talked about a “pandemic of the unvaccinated”, Israel talked of a pandemic of the double-dosed vaccinated. Either because the efficacy of vaccines is significantly less after six months—some studies suggest as low as 29 %; or because the second dose was administered too soon after the first; or because most were infected with the far more contagious far more virulent Delta variant; or most probably some combination of all three of these factors, many fully-vaccinated (two dose) Israelis ended up being hospitalized, some in ICUs:

What is clear is that “breakthrough” cases are not the rare events the term implies. As of 15 August, 514 Israelis were hospitalized with severe or critical COVID-19, a 31% increase from just 4 days earlier. Of the 514, 59% were fully vaccinated. Of the vaccinated, 87% were 60 or older. [As in Canada, the elderly were the first to be vaccinated. The elderly are not only among the most vulnerable; because they also received their vaccinations earlier their immunity has had more time to wear off.] (Source: A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta)

• Natural Immunity: Among the unvaccinated are those who have recovered from a COVID 19 infection and those who are generally healthy and simply assume they will recover if they do become infected. This assumption is probably fairly well-founded, since most healthy individuals do indeed recover while self-isolating at home and the vast majority of positive cases do not require hospitalization. In the early days of the pandemic people with mild symptoms were actually discouraged from presenting for testing to avoid further overwhelming already overwhelmed testing facilities. Fighting the infection conferred natural immunity on recovered individuals –an immunity that may well be superior to, and longer-lasting than the immunity conferred by vaccines. Some say the immunity of recovered COVID cases would not be bolstered by even one dose of a vaccine, and getting two doses is almost certainly pointless. Others say that their natural immunity may not extend to protection against new more virulent variants such as Delta, and recommend that recovered COVID cases also be fully-vaccinated.
  
  But, as we have seen above, even the fully-vaccinated may not be adequately protected from new and emerging variants. It is entirely possible that unvaccinated fully-recovered COVID cases have greater immunity than do the fully-vaccinated. The presence and number of antibodies can only be detected by a serology (blood) test. Serology tests are also the only way of determining if a recovered asymptomatic person was ever infected by COVID 19 in the first place. Certainly a person whose serology test indicates that he or she has had COVID and retains sufficient antibodies to fight off new infections should not be obliged to get vaccinated!
  
  

• Long-haulers: Little is known about long-haulers, but we are learning more. Even the definition of a long-hauler is not widely agreed upon. Long-haulers are those who continue to, or begin to show symptoms long after most normal positive COVID cases have fully recovered. Their illness is sometimes referred to as a post-COVID malady, although some never even knew they had been infected until serology tests proved otherwise. These illnesses can be quite serious. Some children, who had initially remained symptom-free in the early days of their infections, were later hospitalized because of delayed adverse reactions to the infection.
  
  

• Herd immunity: Herd immunity is no longer attainable. The numbers required to reach herd immunity have risen with the advent of new, much more contagious, and more virulent variants of the virus. It is no longer 70 % but 90 % of the population that must be immune to the virus to achieve herd immunity. Given that over 10 % of the population is comprised of children under twelve years of age who cannot be vaccinated, 90 % immunity is unachievable. If you add those who have allergies to that number, and all those experiencing breakthrough infections despite being fully vaccinated to that number, striving to achieve herd immunity is futile.
  
  This reality, though seldom stated, is reflected in the subtext of current COVID policies. The strategy is now to devise methods in which we can coexist with the virus. While vaccinations cannot end the spread of the virus and newly emerging variants, they can allow for the resumption of economic and leisure activity by the fully vaccinated. The incidence of severe illness and death is low enough among the fully vaccinated that they can be allowed to shop, travel, eat in restaurants, attend theatres, sports events and schools, and most importantly, work, without overwhelming the healthcare systems. But only if all eligible people become fully-vaccinated. Hence the incessant push to get everyone vaccinated. Those relatively few serious breakthrough infections, along with the serious infections among unvaccinated children and serious non-COVID illnesses, can all be accommodated by the healthcare system as long as there aren't large numbers of seriously ill unvaccinated COVID victims taking up most of the ICU beds.
  
  

These are but a few of the considerations to bear in mind when trying to make sense of the ever-changing COVID 19 protocols, vaccine passports, and vaccine hesitancy. Thinks aren't as black and white as they are made out to be. Some of the inconsistencies are due to trade-offs when public health policies are deemed to be too great an impediment to economic recovery. One has to parse out public health considerations from political considerations from economic considerations, all of which are often conflated by government recommendations and policies.

Public Health is administered by the provinces, and policies vary from province to province. A look at what COVID policies can do and cannot do provide clues as to whether they are primarily designed to prevent the spread of the virus, or allow for the resumption of full participation in the economy as producers, providers of services, and as consumers. We will take a cursory look at a few protocols and policies that remain in effect, that have been changed or relaxed, and new exemptions to certain requirements. This table does not capture all of the nuances, but the number of checks in the right-hand column, and particularly policies 1, 5, 6, and 8 which do absolutely nothing to prevent spread or transmission, are clearly designed to promote economic recovery in the midst of a pandemic rather than prevent or slow transmission. Note that the relaxing of student self-assessment symptoms not only allows more mildly symptomatic children to attend school; it also allows their parents to go to work while the child is in school.The granting of exemptions to the fully-vaccinated and the asymptomatic underscore that concern for the economy has now eclipsed concern about the spread of the virus. Vaccinations still play a crucial role, not because they will result in herd immunity and an end to the pandemic, but because the fully-vaccinated for the most part will be able to function normally even when they are infected. This will require periodic booster shots as the efficacy of vaccines wears off. The healthcare system can cope with a few cases of severe breakthrough infections, as well as non-COVID critical illnesses, as long as enough of the unvaccinated get vaccinated to ensure that the healthcare system is not once again overwhelmed by severe COVID cases.