Pictures of receding glaciers and polar bears looking for ice were the closest many of us came to the phenomenon of global warming, until recently. Now we have photos of a flooded subway concourse, cars submerged on the Don Valley Parkway and a GO train stranded in a lake like the Mariposa Belle.

The phenomenon has struck home; the chickens have come home to roost. Like residents of Peterborough five years ago and Calgary before the Stampede, we understand that warmer air holds more water and can drop prodigious amounts of rain in a short time.

Of course we must find the money to repair the damage and look at ways to protect the city from such outcomes in the future. The bigger question is taking the action required to reduce carbon emissions so these events are minimized.

Is there a political will for this kind of change? I can’t think of a single political leader in a senior position at the city, provincial or federal level ready to commit to that change. At the city level, virtually every aspect of the city’s strategies needs to be rethought. New buildings need to be carbon neutral — and that applies as much to David Mirvish’s three 80-storey towers on King Street as to a mid-rise condo on Yonge Street or new townhouses in the Junction. Can you hear the clamour the development industry would raise about those kinds of rules?

The suburbs would need to be retrofitted and intensified to reduce carbon use, and new rules preventing new low-density subdivisions on green farmland — on either side of Highway 400 or on Highway 401 near Milton or along the new 407 expressway east of the city — would be required. You can hear suburban councillors screaming about how those kinds of rules would interfere with their God-given right to make decisions the way they see fit, on behalf of their constituents. 

Significant investment is needed in high-speed rail to reduce airplane and car use in southern Ontario. And that must happen on top of investment in transit serving local needs. Our goal should be to reduce emission levels caused by transport to those in Manhattan, where most vehicular travel is by transit, not (like Toronto) by private vehicle. 

Private investment intended to rely on high carbon use in the longer term must be discouraged. This is the best reason to refuse to approve the Keystone pipeline to the USA: once built, its owners will raise serious arguments about the need for increased oil usage in order to pay the costs of the pipe. It also means we have to stop building new expressways like the 407 extension.

These are just a few of the local changes needed if we are serious about responding to the climate change that comes with more carbon in the air. The political tasks are daunting, particularly because they begin with a recognition that we are living beyond our means and that serious change is necessary.

The place where this change will begin to happen first — and I believe it will — is in the city. City politicians are unconstrained by the very conservative structure of political parties that are interested in spin but not in serious change. And cities are always the places where progressive change first finds expression — provincial and federal governments lag behind by 10 or 20 years. (Stephen Harper’s government hardly acknowledges climate change; the provincial governing started phasing out coal plants as a way to produce electricity about a decade ago; the city of Toronto, with its Atmospheric Fund, has been addressing the issue in small ways for almost two decades.)

What we need are a few good candidates running for city council 16 months from now with commitments to change our priorities in a big way, generating and spending public money to reduce carbon emissions. We’ll not get a mayoralty candidate willing to take that risk, but if we pitch in and work hard, maybe there will be some credible councillor candidates who can define the new agenda and stake out the new ground for our city’s bright future. 

A few such voices on city council can begin to forge the change required. That’s a thought worth having on a hot summer day.

Post City Magazines’ columnist John Sewell is a former mayor of Toronto and the author of a number of urban planning books, including The Shape of Suburbs.