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Most of us want to get there, a future beyond fossil-fuel and a carbon intense atmosphere but new voices suggest that contrary to much simplistic messaging the journey will not be easy. Ravaged natural environments are the, for most, invisible results of the energy sources the "developed" world now depends on for its digital devices. There ARE alternatives to our largely fossil-fuel/gasoline based economy including sun, wind, wave and “rare metal” based energy sources but in the last instance, they are, unfortunately, as pointed out by Guillaume Pitron in his 2020 book "The Rare Metals War", themselves often highly fossil-fuel based and damaging to the environment that "green" economics strives to save. Simply put, it takes lots of conventional energy to produce green energy. The only real solution, as stated by globally celebrated Canadian environmental economist Vaclav Smil, author of “Energy at the Crossroads” and other alarm sounding texts, is to reduce consumption and for the largely consumption-based economies of "developed" countries like Canada that challenge is huge. “Green” economics is convenient shorthand for a way out of our carbon drenched world but no one should be ignorant of the massive challenges to growth-based economies, from unemployment to education and culture. A major, ironic, not to say self-defeating, complication of the challenge is that the fossil fuel replacing and "rare metal" based digital devices and batteries by which “green energy” is to be enabled are themselves dependent on massive excavation and tailings residues. We must “question more” as one alternative media source has it, but more than that we must consume less if we are to survive. There is no alternative to that alternative.

After a memorable tryst with the seductive belle dame sans merci (beautiful woman without mercy) in the poem named after her, Romantic poet John Keats’ abandoned lover hears a silence in which "no birds sing". In 21st century Toronto and other motor energized cities around the world of course the birds still sing, but we no longer hear them. For many perhaps it is no longer the absence of birdsong that is now most remarkable but the sudden jarring revving of automobile engines completely in excess of the needs of day to day downtown travel and speed limits. Gentlemen, and ladies, Torontothebetter says "Quieten your engines!". And to city officials, please enforce noise regulations that exist but seem rarely, if ever, to be enforced. A better Toronto requires a quieter Toronto. Battery engined automobiles may help but we must beware the dangers of the "rare metals" they and digital devices depend on. Stay tuned here for a TorontotheBetter post on the perils of the "green economy". There is no easy way out of our energy fix. In the meantime read "The Rare Metals War: the dark side of clean energy and digital technologies" by Guillaume Pitron. It is available for loan from the Toronto Public Library. Thanks to the TorontotheBetter supporter who supplied this reference but prefers to remain anonymous.

After more than two pre-COVID years of cutting services across the country, a subject consistently noted by TorontotheBetter Greyhound Canada finally called it quits in Toornto and southern Ontario on May 17, as reported here [https://www.driving.ca/car-culture/travel/the-end-of-the-road-for-greyhound-canada]. Greyhound's regrets for the workers and users left without jobs and service were duly recorded, along with a perfunctory note that customers were adjusting to the situation. Most important take-away from Greyhound's local collapse is the lesson for citizens and their governments: key social needs like local transportation must not be left to profit based decision-making. Greyhound Canada's disappearance from Toronto and beyond opens the door for accountable governments and social enterprise to fill the gap. TorontotheBetter invites them both to heed the call.

"If the new standard is to cancel any figure in our history associated with what we now rightly regard as historical injustices then essentially that is the vast majority of our history” -Jason Kenney, as quoted in the Toronto Star on 2nd of June,2021. Got that right Kenney! And what are you doing about the historical injustices that so clearly trouble you?