Aging Buildings and the Climate Emergency: Opportunity Knocks!
A Canadian study shows that upgrading North America’s aging buildings offer a historic opportunity for climate action and renewal.
Author Archive for: Ralph
Entries by Ralph Torrie
Why Doesn’t Canada Have a National Retrofit Program Already?
In 1906, American philosopher William James coined the phrase “the moral equivalent of war” in referring to the problem of sustaining political unity and resolve in the absence of war. U.S. President Jimmy Carter used the phrase in his famous energy crisis speech of 1977 to describe what it was going to take to respond […]
The Art and Science of City Carbon Budgets
In 2017, the City of Oslo pioneered a game-changing approach to fighting climate change: the carbon budget. The budget sets a cap on how much the city can emit before 2030, when Oslo plans to become carbon neutral, and divides that amount into annual budgets. The City’s finance department considers the budget alongside its finances […]
As Go the Ecosystems, So Goes the Economy
An energy and environment expert reflects on the post-Covid recovery. When daily life is humming along more-or-less routinely, it is easy to lose sight of just how uncertain the future really is, even during the best of times. And these are not the best of times. The pandemic has brought an abrupt halt to business […]
