Cariboo Chilcotin

We know how to tackle the climate crisis.

The technologies, the policies, the lifestyle changes - most are already being implemented somewhere on our planet. All that we lack is the political will, so that they might be implemented everywhere, and much more rapidly.

I say this with some confidence, having just spent two years researching and writing The Climate Challenge: 101 Solutions to Global Warming, which will be in bookshops by mid to late November. (New Society Publishers)

The warnings were grim nine years ago, when I wrote my first book - Stormy Weather - on the topic. They are even grimmer today.

A vigorous post-screening discussion at the recent Victoria screening of The Age of Stupid culminated with the sharing of action ideas around how we can all be “Not Stupid”. Here are the top nine actions to share with your friends and family.

Four of these are political actions, which are very important in the present situation. We have to move our provincial and federal governments to move more quickly and with much more vigor to address this supremely important problem.

Five of the actions are personal or household actions which are always necessary for any real change to take place. Now is the time to make these changes.

BCSEA has created an online petition to call for the restoration of funding for LiveSmart BC in the next provincial budget.

LiveSmart BC's Efficiency Incentive Program met its three-year target of 40,000 households in just 15 months, and its $60-million budget has been fully allocated. As a result the program was declared complete in mid-August and to date, no further commitment of funding has been made.

BCSEA strongly believes that a renewed and extended LiveSmart-style engagement program is required to encourage homeowners to undertake the energy efficiency upgrades and renewable energy retrofits necessary for BC meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals.

On October 24, my kids Duncan and Sabrina, and my wife, Elle, and I will together march in our first-ever global-warming, er, “action.”

The occasion is Bridge to a Cool Planet, which will likely be British Columbia’s largest event marking the International Day of Climate Action. Expect drummers, people dressed up in polar bear costumes, dudes on stilts and unicycles, and lots of off-key improvised call-and-response singing and chanting.

It’s the kind of gaggle-of-people-holding-signs event that, once upon a time, I would have driven on past without even blinking. But this time, I’ll be on the other side of the windshield. And you should be, too.

The federal government has committed $130 million of "green infrastructure" funding to a British Columbia project designed to support mining proposals. According to Prime Minister Harper, the proposed 335-kilometer Northwest Transmission Line would contribute to "a more efficient energy grid" and provide "cleaner, greener energy" -- but he overlooked the fact its main purpose is to extend the existing electrical grid to support resource extraction in the province's northwest corner.

"This is not the first place you would extend the grid to if you want to develop renewable energy," said Tom Hackney, BC Sustainable Energy Association vice-president for Policy. "There are more promising areas much closer to population centres where the power is needed. This project is on the books because mine proposals in the area would not be viable without it."