The cost of inaction

The Cons have made much of the supposedly unjustifiable costs of cutting emissions to meet our Kyoto commitments. But what could we end up spending to make up for a failure to deal with climate change? Environment Canada has one possible answer:

Canada's bridges, sewers, roads and buildings are at risk of failure because of climate change over the next 50 years, says a new study by Environment Canada.

Infrastructure worth $5 trillion is designed on the assumption that past extremes will represent future conditions, but this assumption is no longer valid, says the study released Thursday...

"Changing weather extremes and weathering processes...are expected to effectively shorten the lifespan of existing structures in many regions."

The study suggests disasters like the 1998 ice storm may become more frequent in Canada as storm tracks shift northward, producing more freezing-rain events.

The report does note that it's too late to avoid at least some of the effects of climate change, and certainly current conditions would support that conclusion. But knowing that much of the infrastructure currently underlying Canada's strong economy is already at risk due to climate change, it must be all the more irresponsible not to at least make a reasonable effort to prevent matters from getting even worse.

Unfortunately, the Cons are too busy concocting their idea of a doomsday scenario, suggesting that even the once-modest Kyoto goals can't be met except by shutting down the country. And the longer that kind of inaction is the status quo in Ottawa, the more damage will get done to Canada's already-endangered infrastructure in the long run.