This op-ed was published in the Globe and Mail on July 26, 2005

By Keith Stewart and Jamie Swift

As central Canadians wither under a seemingly endless, record-breaking heatwave, the summertime hurricane season down south is starting earlier than ever. Out west they’re still mopping up after being deluged by unseasonal rainstorms. Meanwhile, federal and provincial ministers of housing and energy are meeting to hammer out a $100 million national affordable housing energy efficiency strategy as part of our Kyoto plan to fight climate change. And Ontario, by far Canada’s biggest energy user, is struggling to keep the lights on.

What we need is an aggressive, community-based conservation strategy. Ontario made the first hesitant steps down such a path more than 15 years ago, but lost its way in the swamps of red ink from nuclear power and an Enron-inspired privatization scheme. In recent months the McGuinty government has backpedaled from an almost-bold electoral promise to reduce the amount of electricity we use by 5 per cent by 2007: the government now simply aims to slow increases in consumption.

The province has decided to pour over $2 billion into the sinkhole that is the Pickering A nuclear plant. It is also quietly negotiating a $3 billion sweetheart deal – a private power company will rebuild nuclear reactors at the Bruce power station, provided the public pays the costs. Add another billion for so-called ‘smart meters’ which encourage you to use electricity at night rather than during the day. Such plans aren’t expected to save much energy overall. Contrast them to the paltry $160 million – over three years – for energy conservation. The priorities are obvious.

The real solution is to use less power and use what we truly need as efficiently as possible. Toronto’s current heatwave has been linked to six deaths, people roasted in poor-quality housing. Compare that with Philadelphia, where they have been covering rooming house black-tar roofs with white, waterproof covers that reduce temperatures in the top floor by three degrees Celsius. (The street temperature also goes down.)

The City of Brotherly Love has also introduced energy efficiency programs for low-income housing that not only cut consumption but also reduce unnecessary heat from inefficient appliances and incandescent light bulbs. Such programs are already being introduced by forward thinking landlords such as Toronto Community Housing; senior levels of government should be making sure they are applied everywhere.

Philadelphia has opened neighbourhood energy centres that offer information on saving power, and help for those who can’t afford their energy bills. Meanwhile, neighbourhood block captains check on seniors or shut-ins who might need help during heat waves.

If Canadians took our inspiration from such decentralized programs, we might still need air conditioners – but they’d have a lot less work to do. Overall energy use would fall, reducing bills and pollution while avoiding the need for expensive new central generating stations and power lines. By planting city trees and ensuring that all new roofs are light-coloured, we would reduce the urban “heat island” effect. In the Greater Toronto Area, it would cut electricity demand by 250 megawatts – the equivalent of one of the big new gas plants being planned for Mississauga.

Integrating effective, low-tech geothermal heat pumps and solar water heaters into our buildings is a cost-effective way to cut heating and cooling needs by half. We could also adopt European-style renewable laws that pay homeowners and small businesses a fair price for putting up their own solar panels or windmills to reduce the stress on the electricity system as a whole. Yesterday’s power system was a hub and spoke affair, with massive central generating plants and unsightly transmission corridors vulnerable to freak weather events. Tomorrow’s power system will look like a thousand points of light, with control exercised on a local level.

It’s high time we redirected our path to a green energy future. Yet current federal proposals are top-down and overly bureaucratic. Ontario should push for a greener, bottom-up alternative.

The heat will only get worse until we cut greenhouse gas emissions in half. We need to deal with one of the world’s most pressing problems by fighting pollution at the local level. And if prices have to go up, we can bring in changes that will help those least able to afford power to weather the storm.

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Toronto Environmental Alliance campaigner Keith Stewart and Kingston, Ont. writer Jamie Swift are authors of Hydro: The Decline and Fall of Ontario’s Electric Empire.