Worried about the climate crisis? You’ve got plenty of company after the events of 2021: heat waves, hurricanes, fires and floods hit new and deadly extremes. Global leaders belly-flopped well short of the pool at a pivotal climate-protection summit, even after the United Nations declared a “code red” emergency.

And, in the U.S., political gridlock chopped the heart out of the most ambitious clean energy plan to reach the Congress.

Meanwhile, across the dewy-green region north of California, supposedly eco-friendly governments of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia that failed to fulfil climate promises for a decade have once again pledged to do better. But planet-warming emissions just keep on increasing, according to analysis of the latest data by InvestigateWest for the year-long series “Getting to Zero: Decarbonizing Cascadia” published by the The Tyee and other media partners.

And yet there is hope. The climate news coming out of B.C. and the U.S. Pacific Northwest — “Cascadia” to many — is decidedly positive in three important ways, as demonstrated by the Getting To Zero series which wraps up today.

1. 1. Cascadia has in its possession or within its reach all the technological firepower needed to go carbon neutral by mid-century. If not sooner.
   2. The economics of carbon-free living have fallen into place. Renewable solar and wind power now typically cost less than fossil-fuel alternatives. This is also largely true across North America, and beyond.

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