Pierre Poilievre and the Climate Change Trap

Pierre Poilievre has been a professional politician all his life. It's the only job he's ever done.

He's a feral politico if ever there was one, with a well honed survival instinct.

So it's hard to understand how he could have made such a potentially catastrophic mistake as thinking he could get away with ignoring the issue of climate change.

Even though it's the biggest issue we face.

Even as the planet burns.

Poilievre gambled on the ignorance and greed of many Canadians, he lost, and now he's going to get burned.

For what's happening in the U.K. and in Europe has made climate change too big, too uncomfortable and too dangerous to ignore. 

Sweltering temperatures hit much of Western Europe on Tuesday as a ferocious heatwave headed north.

The UK hit its highest ever temperature of 40.2C, according to provisional Met Office figures, and forecasters warned temperatures were still climbing.

Extreme heat warnings were issued in France and record July temperatures were reported in the Netherlands.

Deadly wildfires in France, Portugal, Spain and Greece have forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes.

It's a heat apocalypse.

And in the UK where so few people have air conditioning, thousands could die. Roads and runways are melting, rail tracks are warping, many fires are burning even in London.

The heat is so intense keeping even the fittest from collapsing is quite a challenge...

And climate activists are already taking aim at the country's right wing media.

Extinction Rebellion protesters have smashed windows at the London headquarters of Rupert Murdoch’s media company, in protest at his outlets’ coverage of the climate crisis.

A spokesperson said: “Instead of warning readers of the increased risks from such heatwaves as the climate crisis intensifies, the Sun chose to cover their front pages in images of women in bikinis, beachgoers and happy toddlers with ice-creams.”

As they soon will here, for downplaying the threat of climate change to protect our oil industry.

And all of that will make it really hard for Poilievre to keep on demanding that the carbon tax be "axed." 

When it's the best tool we have to fight climate change.

And the horrifying truth is it can only get worse.

When our children are our age, they will yearn for a summer as “cool” as 2022, because long before the century’s end, 40C-plus heat will be nothing to write home about in the climate-mangled world they inherit.

The brutal truth is that dodging dangerous, all-pervasive, climate breakdown is now practically impossible.

And of course, it could happen here. 

In fact it already has, in B.C. last year, where about 500 people died in a so called Heat Dome.

And where wildfires are a growing threat to many communities.

If Poilievre hadn't made such a big deal about "axing the tax" he might have been able to fudge his way out of this emergency.

But he made it a campaign slogan, so now whatever he says about the tax he can only lose. He fell into the carbon tax trap. 

And he will learn the hard way that climate change can no longer be ignored.

 

And he will be forced to run for his life like this Spanish farmer...

Poilievre is running away from a lot of things these days.

The Bitcoin balloon that blew up in his face. His sinister buddies in the trucker terrorist movement. His brutish record as a stooge in the Harper regime.

But he can't get away from climate change, and it will be the issue that eats him alive...

P.S: I got a couple of texts from friends in England announcing that they are planning to move to Canada. But I told them not to bother. Where I live it was 35 degrees this afternoon, and felt like 42. So we’re all in this together…