{"id":444928,"date":"2022-05-10T17:23:10","date_gmt":"2022-05-10T14:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/how-to-fight-the-climate-crisis-with-electricity\/"},"modified":"2022-05-10T17:23:10","modified_gmt":"2022-05-10T14:23:10","slug":"how-to-fight-the-climate-crisis-with-electricity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-to-fight-the-climate-crisis-with-electricity\/","title":{"rendered":"#How to fight the climate crisis with electricity"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a26b72ec532e\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a26b72ec532e\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-1'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/how-to-fight-the-climate-crisis-with-electricity\/#%E2%80%9CHow_to_fight_the_climate_crisis_with_electricity%E2%80%9D\" >&#8220;How to fight the climate crisis with electricity&#8221;<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h1><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"%E2%80%9CHow_to_fight_the_climate_crisis_with_electricity%E2%80%9D\"><\/span>&#8220;How to fight the climate crisis with electricity&#8221;<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h1>\n<div>\n                            Canada can cut its emissions by scaling up one of our oldest technologies\n                        <\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><em>Rick Smith\u00a0<\/em><i>is <\/i><span class=\"s2\"><i>president of the Canadian Climate Institute and co-author of two books on the effects of pollution on human health, including the bestseller <\/i>Slow Death by Rubber Duck<i>. He\u2019s in the market for a new electric car.<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The first family on our street<\/span> who <span class=\"s2\">bought an electric vehicle back in 2019 were rebels. Our neighbourhood is typical of east-end Toronto\u2014full of small, semi-detached homes with no driveways\u2014so charging was difficult. I discovered how they solved their problem one night while walking my dog, when I <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/trip-and-travel\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"10\" title=\"Trip &amp; Travel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">trip<\/a>ped over the extension cord they\u2019d strung across the sidewalk under the cover of darkness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">Just three years later, a tidal wave of public charging stations are being installed across the country (a 39 per cent increase in 2021 alone), along with huge new investments in EV and battery manufacturing. This flurry of innovation will soon carry over to trucks, <\/span><span class=\"s3\">trains and\u2014vehicles aside\u2014heat pumps, in<\/span><span class=\"s2\">duction stoves and industrial boilers. One of the best ways to fight climate change is to electrify almost everything, and to do it as quickly as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>MORE:\u00a0Jet fuel is bad for the environment. Contrails are even worse.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">The reason why this has to h<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>en is clear: global greenhouse gas emissions must stop rising by 2025 to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the point at which catastrophic problems start to occur. Last year, B.C. burned and flooded within a matter of months, and hundreds of Canadians died during a record-setting heat wave last June. A recent report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change points to rapid, widespread electrification as one key way to cut our fossil fuel consumption. As for how it happens: this isn\u2019t a pie-in-the-sky plan. Canada already has a few home advantages, the most important being a relatively clean electricity system, with 80 per cent of our power generation coming from non-polluting sources (mostly hydro). <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">And yet electricity supplies less than a quarter of the typical Canadian household\u2019s <\/span>energy, enough to cover the gadgets and ap<span class=\"s2\">pliances we plug into the wall, but not the fuel in our cars, the natural gas in our stoves or the propane in our barbecues. We\u2019ll need to swap our gas-guzzling cars for zippy electric models, like the Tesla that blew my kids\u2019 minds during a recent test drive. School buses, delivery trucks and public transit are going green, too. Homes and businesses will forgo natural-gas furnaces in favour of highly efficient heat pumps, which are <\/span><span class=\"s3\">popping up on the sides of people\u2019s houses<\/span><span class=\"s2\">. <\/span><span class=\"s4\">Not that long ago, it was unusual to see a glass-topped induction stove in a friend\u2019s place; now they\u2019re on HGTV and everybody wants one. Much of this will be run with the help of grid-responsive smart appliances and smartphone apps that program our dishwashers to turn on and our vehicles to charge when demand and costs are lowest. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">To power all of this, electricity grids will have to produce as much as double what we generate today. We\u2019ll have to replace coal and natural gas with non-polluting sources, like wind, solar and hydro. (By 2050, wind and solar are expected to account for as much as 75 per cent of the energy mix; right now, they sit at six.) We\u2019ll also need thousands of new high-skilled workers to build the infrastructure. More cobalt, copper and nickel are going to be mined to build batteries\u2014why not do it in Canada? There will be a boost in demand for energy auditors, who visit your house to measure your energy usage and advise you on how to reduce it. <\/span>We just had a woman come to my badly in<span class=\"s2\">sulated red-brick semi and stick a giant fan through the door to find all of our air leaks. Her work cut our energy consumption by 30 per cent. Not too shabby.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">Skeptics need only look to Europe for successful examples of mass electrification. In Norway, nearly 85 per cent of all recent new car sales were electric. The market for heat pumps in Europe is expanding like crazy, with 1.8 million households purchasing them in 2020, a number that\u2019s sure to go up as countries like Germany double down on green energy to wean themselves off Russian gas. Here at home, the federal government has released its own Emissions Reduction Plan, which stipulates that all light-duty vehicles sold in Canada need to be electric by 2035. They even threw in a <span class=\"s3\">$450-million top-up to the Canada Greener<\/span> Homes initiative, which provides grants for home retrofits.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>READ:\u00a0Why these artists are leaving ghostly sculptures at the bottom of the ocean<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">EVs and induction stoves will vastly improve our indoor and outdoor air quality. Electrification is also significantly cheaper: wind, solar and battery <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/technology\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"4\" title=\"Technology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">technology<\/a> is getting less expensive with each passing year. Imagine how nice it will be not to have to time your car fill-ups to the unpredictable ups and downs of gas prices. That peace of mind even extends to noise levels: electric cars, motorcycles and even snowmobiles are surprisingly quiet. Environmental appeals used to revolve around sacrifice: \u201cConsume less! Pay more! Be less comfortable!\u201d This is not one of those appeals. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s2\">We\u2019ve gone through these kinds of technological sea changes before, like when we jumped from flip phones to smartphones and from cable to streaming. Seeing just how fast electrification is happening has me feeling more optimistic than I have in a long time. When people learn I work on climate change for a living, the most common thing they ask is <\/span>\u201cAre <span class=\"s2\">we all screwed?\u201d And the answer is no. We\u2019re making a lot of progress, especially with electrification. We\u2019ve just got to accelerate it.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<p><em>This article appears in print in the June 2022 issue of<\/em>\u00a0Maclean\u2019s\u00a0<em>magazine with the headline, \u201cElectrify Everything.\u201d Subscribe to the monthly print magazine\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/secure.macleans.ca\/loc\/MME\/head_subscribe\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"under-article-widget-nl\">\n<p class=\"under-article-widget-title\">Looking for more?<\/p>\n<p class=\"under-article-widget-description\">Get the best of <em>Maclean<\/em>&#8216;s sent straight to your inbox. Sign up for <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news<\/a>, commentary and analysis.<\/p>\n<p>                <iframe style=\"display:none;width:0px;height:0px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/society\/environment\/how-to-fight-the-climate-crisis-with-electricity\/about:blank\" name=\"gform_ajax_frame_26\" id=\"gform_ajax_frame_26\" title=\"This iframe contains the logic required to handle Ajax powered Gravity Forms.\"><\/iframe><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script async defer crossorigin=\"anonymous\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more News articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/general\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">General category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/society\/environment\/how-to-fight-the-climate-crisis-with-electricity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;How to fight the climate crisis with electricity&#8221; Canada can cut its emissions by scaling up one of our oldest technologies Rick Smith\u00a0is president of the Canadian Climate Institute and co-author of two books on the effects of pollution on human health, including the bestseller Slow Death by Rubber Duck. He\u2019s in the market for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":444929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/BigIdea_illo_PeteRyan-766x431.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[77143,70752,10595,67878,67907],"class_list":["post-444928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-climate","tag-energy","tag-environment","tag-life","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}