It was good to see Doug Harkness discuss the two most pressing issues of our time, climate change and energy supply in his column of April 15.

I can agree with two things Harkness said: Donald Johnston’s article in Canadian Business is thoughtful and well-written and, yes, we should be investing much more on energy research.

Not only will the sun power the planet but the sun is and has always been powering the planet. Unfortunately in our present fossil fuel dependent civilization we are burning about 400 years of solar sequestered carbon each year. We have no hope of maintaining our present arrangements on one-400th of the solar energy we are using now. We cannot even think of doing even that unless we can use all of the solar energy hitting the earth. Our present technology is less than 20 per cent efficient at recovering this energy and we are only tapping a miniscule amount with this technology. The math is not encouraging.

However, I believe Harkness missed the main points in Johnston’s article, these being that governments and populations have not shown any concern or ability to implement even modest measures in the past and that the future cannot vote. Politicians have no reason to risk anything for the future. Even while highlighting some positive political rumblings, Johnston is left simply to exhort our political leaders to care about the future.

I would expect Harkness, as a political commentator, to focus more upon the political issues of climate change and peak oil, and less upon the technology, an area he is much less well informed in. The title for his piece is wrong in claiming that technology will save us. Political, economic and lifestyle decisions will be much more important than hoping for technical solutions to our dilemma. Johnston’s article, while emphasizing technical solutions such as carbon capture, highlights the many technical and political barriers to all options. In the end, it comes down to the need for political leadership both to develop the technology, even to the point of seeing if it works, and to implementing significant conservation efforts. It would be very helpful if people like Harkness would use their political connections to try and encourage this leadership.

The problem in both looming crises of climate change and peak oil can be divided into two basic areas: resources used for transportation and resources used for everything else, mainly electricity generation, provision of food and space heating. The political problems and the technical issues differ somewhat between the two areas and are too long to discuss in one letter.  Let me briefly discuss transportation.

Dufferin County is an excellent microcosm in which to examine this issue. We are basically the “ex-burbia” of the GTA and the majority of wage earners depend upon commuting long distances. At the same time we are at the end of a long transportation line for almost all of our essential goods and services. We are therefore greatly impacted by fuel price and supply issues and we have a greater production of green house gasses per capita than most. Our dependence upon road transportation means we are very sensitive to any changes. This makes it a very hot political problem both locally and nationally. Politicians are very reluctant to mess with our happy motoring lifestyle, lest we take it out on them.  In the light of this the most likely outcome will be for our leaders to do nothing to reduce this dependence or mitigate its environmental impact. In spite of Doug’s abhorrence for carbon taxes, the rising cost of road transportation, no matter how it is achieved will be the only mechanism that will spur change. We are seeing this happening now but instead of revenue neutral carbon taxes we are simply paying a surcharge that goes up through the supply chain to whatever company is pumping the crude. Everyone else from the refiner to the wholesaler, retailer and consumer are simply paying this levy with no benefit except to a few owners of the crude oil. Consumers are finally beginning to react to this increase with lifestyle changes ranging from buying smaller vehicles and driving better and less to simply stealing fuel. It is good that we individuals are accepting more personal responsibility.

However the poor are suffering more than the rich and instead of all this extra money going towards long term solutions to our energy/climate change crisis it is simply being sucked out of the economy. It isn’t even being spent on what would be a futile attempt to find more oil but is simply lining the pockets of investors or to subsidise an unsustainable lifestyle in those countries (or provinces) with a temporary surplus of oil.  As we are now experiencing, this state of affairs will weaken the economy. This will lead to the other great consumption control of recession or worse. The leaders of all governments in Dufferin County should be very concerned by this.  Unfortunately most seem to be occupied with ways to bring more resident commuters and transportation dependent jobs. They see the main problem as financing the debt to pay for this effort. As with Harkness and Johnston, they embrace the idea of unlimited growth.  Even if they were willing to lead they cannot see the real problem of sustainability and are incapable of accepting the solution of limiting growth and making the economy more local. While I too have great respect for the intelligence and ingenuity of the young, they are limited by the laws of energy physics. These limits are now appearing on their own in terms of the economy, climate and energy availability. In the long run nature does not negotiate and we will soon be left only to react instead of act.  There may only be a small window left. Let us see if we can get our leaders to act.

Don Hayward, Shelburne