A Word From the Editors
October 2050
Welcome to the inaugural issue of We Did It!? Longtime subscribers may be confused, but rest assured this is still the same quality reporting and storytelling you’ve come to expect for the last 25 years from Can We Do It? The name has changed, but the mission remains. We began this journey in 2025, setting out to chronicle Canada’s aspirational journey to Net Zero. Frankly, it’s been a circuitous path. But here we are. It’s 2050. We had some doubts along the way, not a few setbacks, and too many tragedies. But when Prime Minister Rathmaran triumphantly announced in August that Canada had done it, proclaiming that we had joined the sorority of net zero nations, the editorial team met the news with joy, and the realization that a name change was in order for the labour of love that is our little zine.
It has been a long road, filled as much with missteps, conflict, and surprise as it has with progress planned and hoped for. What Canada has accomplished is no small feat:
After much debate, forays into biofuels, and an unfortunately extended dalliance with large scale carbon capture, in the 2030s we zeroed in on an all-out push to renewable energy. The result is that today we’re approaching 80% emissions reductions from 2005 levels. Revolutions in macro and microgrids are bringing this energy coast to coast to coast.
Carbon capture as a way to keep the fossil sector going was largely abandoned in the 2030s and 2040s but remains a key element of our Net Zero accomplishment—especially direct air capture to deep sea mineralization.
The once impossible dream of Federal-Provincial alignment on Net Zero and climate change goals has never been fully realized. Still, breakthroughs in the 2030s centered on the goals of a Just Transition, economic reforms aimed at more equitable income distribution, and Energy Aid policies made Net Zero a national project in a way few thought possible.
Culturally, Canada has seen a revolution almost as stark as the technological one. We are becoming less meat dependent and less focused on consumption, with an ethos of circular economy. Our cities have been transformed, we get around differently, and our young people’s dreams and aspirations are more pro social than when rampant individualism permeated our society at the turn of the century.
Yet, even amidst the triumphalism emanating from Ottawa and capitals around the world, our victory is incomplete. The overshoot past 1.5 degrees remains an enormous global concern, even if the two degree cap seems to be holding. Navigating ongoing climate disasters means vigilantly maintaining the quest for equity and justice, not only moving forward, but also redressing the ills that ‘progress’ produced in the last 25 years:
Progress towards Net Zero in Canada and abroad helped address some inequalities and injustices of the late 20th and early 21st century, but certainly not all. It has also deepened others, and even generated some new sources of inequality and injustice with which this generation must now contend.
Indigenous-Settler reconciliation is progressing, but more slowly than it should.
While the global community may have acted quickly enough to avoid utter catastrophe, we live in a far more uncertain, dangerous, and precarious world than we had hoped. The new normal of nearly constant deadly heat waves and flooding in South Asia are but one stressor on the global Loss and Damage fund that is now the biggest source of foreign aid flows.
So, We Did It is both a triumphant cry (!) and a source of uncertainty (?). A celebration and an agenda for the work to come. Join us on this ride as our stories provide a retrospective look at how we got here, explore where we are, and imagine where we might go.
In our inaugural issue we have kept the familiar format that long time readers have come to expect. In Life, we have five stories about the people, places, and happenings around Net Zero Canada. Culture explores Net Zero in the world of film and books. In Lives Lived we again showcase our reader-submitted stories of their lives and memories. Poetry Corner has made a triumphant return with one classic poem from 2035 and the winner and runner up from our Net Zero poetry competition.
We hope you enjoy reading We Did It!? as much as you have loved reading Can We Do It? Remember to support us on Facenet and spread the word!
