Opinion

Policies are urgently needed to reduce greenhouse gases by at least seven per cent each year from now to 2030 and beyond, writes Ralph Martin.

The government says it will focus on building a clean economy in its 2021 budget. Establishing a just transition framework to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 is long overdue, writes Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood, a senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Rarely has Jason Kenney's government been more explicit in its back-to-the-future approach to governing than with its new proposed K-6 curriculum, which takes the government’s atavistic approach to a whole different level, writes columnist Max Fawcett.

Martin Hellman and Vinton Cerf may disagree on how to view the issue, but both conclude that the risk of a nuclear war is unacceptably high and risk reduction measures are urgently needed.

"A key indicator that a government understands the climate emergency is a willingness to tell the truth," writes columnist Seth Klein. "In Alberta’s case, that doesn’t mean we have to shut down the oilsands tomorrow. But it does mean admitting the oil and gas sector needs to be carefully and thoughtfully managed for wind-down over the next 20 to 30 years."

"I would dearly welcome the return of an Alberta NDP government in 2023," writes columnist Seth Klein. "But as someone who is deeply anxious about the climate emergency, I also wonder whether a second Notley government would be prepared to tackle the climate crisis more aggressively than during its first incarnation."

Those holding our savings and mortgages and controlling the flow of money into coal, oil and gas — RBC and the rest of Canadian banking gang — need to wake up and smell the CO2, writes Richard Brooks, climate finance director with Stand.earth.

Organizations like CAPP and the API are welcome to make this the hill they die on, of course. But there’s a growing army of people, many of them on Bay and Wall streets, who will be more than happy to put a sword through their hearts. It’s up to the companies that fund those organizations, both here in Canada and in the United States, to decide whether they want to die there with them or not.  

The Supreme Court of Canada's ruling Ottawa's right to impose a carbon tax is just the latest in a series of humiliations for Jason Kenney, writes Max Fawcett.

Where does the Conservative Party of Canada go from here? How can Canadians put their trust in a political party that denies "climate change is real?" asks Gerald Kutney.

When we work to create a fair and affordable Alberta, we ultimately build a strong public service, writes Alberta Union of Provincial Employees president Guy Smith.

Perhaps the real reason for the Alberta government's "ruinously stupid" campaign is to deflect attention from the province's sorry economic state, writes Max Fawcett.

The Trudeau government’s refusal to offer ongoing COVID-19 relief to student loan borrowers is indicative of a larger problem plaguing post-secondary education in the last few decades, writes #FreezeTheNSLSC organizer Patty Facy: Student debt is profitable.

Enbridge calls Line 5 “as good as new” and says it can last “forever,” even though the pipeline has failed at least 33 times since 1968, spilling more than 1.1 million gallons of oil in Michigan and Wisconsin, write Maude Barlow and Jim Olson.

National Observer columnist Andrea Reimer is proud to say she's down to one bag of garbage every three months or so.