Can we talk?

As it becomes harder to avoid seeing how climate change is affecting our daily lives, there is more interest in exploring the causes and workable solutions, and more people wanting to talk about it.

Climate Action Newmarket-Aurora has begun venturing into additional territory by going out to interact with community groups to talk about climate change, and by hosting a market tent at both Newmarket and Aurora farmers markets in September.

As it becomes harder to avoid seeing how climate change is affecting our daily lives, there is more interest in exploring the causes and workable solutions, and more people wanting to talk about it.

In a survey provided at those events we asked people to choose their fears and hopes about climate change from among a number of options. There was an enthusiastic response from many who were eager to engage, and to share additional comments. Wildfire, drought and extreme heat topped the list of climate fears, while leading causes for hope were solar energy, scientists and local progress.

Perhaps not surprisingly, politicians received the fewest votes for a source of hope! Details of these responses will be provided on our website.

Energy, housing, health care, transportation, and food security are all top of mind for Canadians. Linking those concerns to a changing climate is one way of reaching an understanding of why it is important to phase out fossil fuels, and turn toward the enormous potential of clean, renewable, sustainable resources to transform our economy and our lives.

When we sit down with a group of people to discuss climate change, we find that we can learn from each other. By connecting the dots that lead from burning oil and gas to rising greenhouse gas pollution, all the way to increased costs of everything including health care, food, housing, and insurance premiums, we see that there is a need for open, frank discussion.

Through conversations fuelled by awareness and shared action, we signal to leaders, big business, and communities our desire for meaningful action on climate change. Together we can counteract misinformation, and increase our understanding and our resilience.

We can learn from other countries that are surging ahead to a clean energy future. The Environmental Defense Fund in 2024 put out a list of the top 10 countries leading the way in clean energy technologies. So why isn’t Canada on that list, with our abundant resources in solar and wind power?

Denmark leads with 67 per cent of its power derived from wind and solar. Wind power alone providing 54 per cent. China is showing the way with a steady transition from reliance on fossil fuels to rapidly increasing use of solar and wind energy.

Reducing, and ultimately ending our reliance on fossil fuels will lead to healthier, more secure lives, so let’s not keep kicking the climate crisis down the road, because we are almost out of pavement. The prospect of stranded assets is a major concern for the fossil fuel industry.

Investments in mining and oil drilling are done with a long-term view and are not expected to break even and become profitable for decades. This is one reason oil and gas companies lobby hard against any attempts by the government to put a cap on emissions. They would have us believe that future generations will develop some means of reducing the greenhouse gases we have added to our finite atmosphere.

The wind and the sun are free, advances in battery storage are moving ahead fast, so putting the burden on the shoulders of youth is not acceptable. We must act now.

Change begins with talking, but it is what we do after the conversation that drives real action.

Canada could become a superpower in clean energy, and a beacon of hope in a warming world, showing the way to a brighter future. Getting together to talk about it is one way to begin. Drop us a line if your community or school group would like to start a conversation — we are listening.

Read this article on Newmarket Today!

It's time to rev up electrification of York Region school buses

With diesel exhaust linked to cancer and respiratory illness, let's encourage Ontario government to accelerate the shift toward an all-electric fleet of school buses.

York Region's climate action goal is a fully electric bus fleet by 2050. That target has to include school buses. The sooner the better.

With September here and school routines re-established, the collegial work of knowledge building in York Region District School Board and York Catholic District School Board schools reaches pace. School days ought to be filled with positive momentum, challenges faced, problems tackled/solved, personal fulfillment and life-affirming progress attained.

The formative leaders in the learning odyssey are teachers. Administrators and custodial care workers, in immeasurable ways, sustain the edifice of education. Dedicated adults steer the students to destiny's doorstep by daily transporting 56,000 children to York Region schools. Yet all these communities of advancement dwell in a compromised health atmosphere.

Clouds of anthropogenic pollutants surround and enter areas where diesel school buses run.

Barely visible wafts of poisonous chemicals and dangerous microparticles wheeze out of tailpipes to carry sickening emissions into nearby buildings, around the buses and even more inside them. Some kids (adults, too) may have or will get asthma, some will develop other respiratory ailments, many school days will be lost.

Someday, some of those kids as grown-ups may look at life-shortening diseases they have and wonder: why them? How galling for them that we already knew when they were young the ominous links to diesel engine exhaust (DEE) and traffic-related air pollution (TRAP).

DEE and TRAP are both Group 1 carcinogens, meaning strongly associated with certain cancers, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

CANA's local environmental advocacy includes nudging levers of change and encouraging the elected to use their political power to build and reinforce healthy, just and sustainable living for all.

Our political outreach volunteers' requests to meet Newmarket-Aurora MPP Dawn Gallagher Murphy have gone unanswered. We'll report here what comes from pressing our political representative for a timeline on electric school buses when a meeting is eventually convened.

In the meantime, we'll tell you, dear reader, what we'll be saying to her.

We believe disparate sides on societal conflicts have better outcomes working from common ground. Opportunities hidden in challenges are always ours to find.

The economic impacts of school bus electrification are broadly positive and extend across health-care savings, operational cost reductions, job creation, and regional economic growth. Key findings from recent reports and analyses include:

Health-care cost savings: Electrifying school buses can reduce exposure to harmful diesel exhaust, which is linked to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, leading to significant health-care savings. Ecology Ottawa estimates a single electric school bus could account for $980 a year in total health savings. That's approximately $20 million annual health-care savings as a result of reduced DEE and TRAP-promoted illness in children, and their hospital visits, once Ontario's entire school bus fleet is electrified.

Lowering operating costs: Electric school buses cost about 50 per cent less to maintain than diesel buses. Electricity to power electric school buses costs about 80 per cent less than diesel fuel per kilometre, resulting in more than $10,000 per bus savings per year, according to Canadian Urban Transit Research & Innovation Consortium.

Revenue generation via vehicle-to-grid (V2G): Many electric school buses can participate in V2G programs. Through Ontario government innovation funding, Elocity (1) is setting up bi-directional charging in the province allowing electric vehicles (EVs), and with hope including electric school buses, to feed stored energy back into the grid. This technology generates additional revenue which can also offset electric school buses charging costs.

Job creation and economic output: In Ontario alone, transitioning to electric school buses could create around 13,000 jobs and generate nearly $2 billion in economic output, strengthening local manufacturing and the automotive sector, according to the Pembina Institute.

Climate and environmental benefits: Electrification contributes to greenhouse gas emission reductions, helping provinces and countries meet climate targets. Ecology Ottawa reports one electric school bus reduces greenhouse gas production by 17 tonnes a year. That's 340,000 tonnes a year across Ontario's whole school bus fleet or more than four million tonnes over the aggregate of 12-year lifespans of Ontario's 20,000 school buses.

York Region is actively adding to its transit fleet and expanding on-route battery refilling. Bus depot upgrades will feature solar power for battery charging. When they return, federal and Ontario finance incentives for electric bus acquisition and transit charging ports could stretch further if the infrastructure is shared between public transport and school bus service in York Region.

CANA recommends a transition plan with time-bound targets and regular reporting on government progress toward school bus electrification. Commitment and transparency could help address public perceptions that the Ford government is intent on slow-rolling the transition away from fossil fuels' dangerous changing of climate.

Expanding clean energy production and electric grid infrastructure with a focus on health improvements in air, water and soil quality will net investments, job creation, technological innovation and signal Ontario's rise as the Canadian clean economy leader it should be.

Call your trustee and your MPP and let's start this transition to electric school buses now.

1. https://electricautonomy.ca/charging/v2g/2025-06-24/hiev-nano-ontario-v2g-charing-evs/

Read this article on Newmarket Today

Say 'no' to short-sighted development, dismantling protections, false solutions

Over 75% of Canadians are concerned about climate impacts on safety, food prices, taxes, and insurance

When we first started this column, we stated climate change is scary; extreme weather comes to mind for most people, especially this summer, with wildfire pollution and floodwater. You can’t turn on the media without the latest disaster.

What we don’t think about as much is the interconnectedness of biodiversity, water systems, and greenspaces with climate change, and we should. We’re now in a catch-22, and unless we interrupt this vicious cycle, the chaos will keep escalating.

Our oceans, lakes and waterways, meadows, wetlands, peatlands and mature forests quietly and consistently absorb Earth’s greenhouse gases. This system worked until industrialization triggered fuel-hungry growth that outpaced what nature could handle. Now, emissions accumulate faster than ecosystems can absorb them, warming oceans and land, intensifying weather patterns, and disrupting life support systems.

Sudden tropical-style downpours no longer soak into soil like they used to. The ground becomes so dry and compacted it repels water, triggering flash floods like in Toronto and Montreal last year.

At the same time, vegetation dries out faster and becomes tinder as temperatures soar. Already in 2025, Canada is experiencing its second-worst wildfire year on record. In Manitoba, over 12,000 people have been evacuated. Nova Scotia has been hit by both fire and floods. Sandy Lake First Nation in Northern Ontario had to be evacuated by air. Southern Ontario has endured multiple air quality advisories. Yet, Premier Ford continues to cut over $40 million from wildfire emergency services in 2025.

Nationwide, over 7.8 million acres have burned, equivalent to 3.5 million soccer fields or eight times the size of Toronto.

Now imagine ecosystems washed away, burned, contaminated, and further weakened as protected greenspaces are lost to development. Fire is part of natural renewal, but recovery can’t keep pace with this new frequency. Over 100 native species have already disappeared in Canada, and many others that had begun to recover in Ontario are now precariously vulnerable under Bill 5.

Why is Doug Ford willing to sell off a third of Wasaga provincial park to developers? Every ecological loss weakens our planet’s ability to store carbon. The cycle intensifies. This is scary stuff but there’s no hiding from it anymore.

According to the Stockholm Resilience Centre, we’ve now surpassed the seventh planetary boundary for Earth’s health. Driven by emissions, ocean acidification now undermines marine food webs, carbon cycles, and climate regulation. The first sign was widespread coral reef destruction. What was once a warning for future generations is happening now.

In fact, what the Paris Agreement aimed to prevent by 2100 may arrive in just five years unless emissions are rapidly curbed. That means drastically reducing both CO₂ and methane, with the most impactful step being a full phase-out of fossil fuels.

So, is this finally enough to start taking more serious action? One person it seems can trigger economic upheaval but wildfires, floods, food insecurity, and deadly heat and pollution still don’t shift political priorities? The solutions do exist. Climate action is economic stability. Climate action is cost-of-living stability.

For many, the reckoning has begun. Over 75% of Canadians are concerned about climate impacts on safety, food prices, taxes, and insurance. Insurance rates are a new climate barometer, and they’re rising. Why aren’t climate priorities aligned with national economic goals, Ontario’s infrastructure, and youth well-being?

In Ontario, we are on track to miss our climate targets. Greenspaces and ecosystems, including the Greenbelt, face weakened protections now reliant on diluted federal laws. Renewable energy is sidelined in favour of gas-fired power, while Ontario bets on unproven, U.S.-developed nuclear technology still a decade away — even as the premier pushes a fossil fuel pipeline to avoid relying on the very country we're depending on for nuclear.

Transit projects have been cut, with millions being spent to remove Toronto bike lanes while highways are fast-tracked through protected lands. Municipalities still reel from Bills 5, 17 and ​​23 , which limit their power to uphold energy saving standards, greenspace protections, and sustainable planning.

Federally, it remains to be seen. Hopes for a climate-economy approach turn to skepticism. For some, the politics of power seems to be blocking meaningful action. ‘Climate’ is a dirty word and plans, if they exist, remain vague or insufficient. The next three years are critical for meeting Canada’s climate commitments and safeguarding our health.

Do we brace for more danger and rising costs or push politicians by becoming a greater collective that drives bottom-up change through local choices? We can, through purchasing power and our voice in community planning and energy choices.

Climate Action Newmarket-Aurora advocates at local councils to phase out fossil fuel use, and to raise concerns about damaging provincial legislation. Repeal petitions are circulating on the latter, and a constitutional challenge is underway by First Nations.

Take action letters to protect ecosystems and carbon sinks like for Ontario proposals to remove ‘protected’ lands from Wasaga, French River and Grundy Lake provincial parks are on our website. Calls, emails to officials, and community conversations do matter and so will 2026 municipal elections, where residents can vote for councils that prioritize climate alongside infrastructure and housing needs. Our power is part of that politics.

That’s the power of yes: protecting youth, safer communities, clean air and water, and long-term prosperity. But “yes” also means saying “no” to short-sighted development, dismantling protections, false solutions, and silence. Sometimes, saying yes to a livable future requires a firm no right now. Just like the ‘elbows up’ against the imposed tariffs while we get our collective economic act together, we must expect the same in our existential fight on climate change.

“Wait and see” is no longer safe or acceptable. We still have a small window to act reasonably, ambitiously, and urgently even if some try to legislate denial or threaten to walk away from Confederation.

Read this article on Newmarket Today.