According to Robert Paehlke, professor emeritus of environmental and resource studies and political science at Trent University, Canada’s record on greenhouse gas reduction is dismal. After years of talking the talk, we are not walking the walk. “Canada’s failure to act effectively with regard to climate change is symptomatic of a fractured and flawed democracy,” he writes in Some Like It Cold, adding that our country “is highly prone to the pull of regional power and to weak and ineffective national governments.”

Canada should be an example to the world, Paehlke believes. We are one of the largest per-capita CO2 emitters on the planet and the third-largest source of fossil fuels to the U.S. There is tremendous potential for exerting pressure on other nations to conform to rigorous standards if we get our act together. Individual action – e.g., changing light bulbs – is not substantive change. Paehlke emphasizes collective measures sparked by government initiative.

Yet subsidies continue to pour into fossil fuel industries, while carbon-profligate companies get slaps on the wrist. Paehlke is especially hard on the Alberta tar sands project, as both an environmental blight and a symbol of short-sightedness. He points a sharp finger at politicians eager to appease the western provinces and business elites, weighing the small cost of alienating green voters against the larger cost of our country’s health. Paehlke also accuses ambivalence-prone Canadian citizens of allowing others to handle problems they are too passive to tackle themselves. The result is almost two decades of lost opportunities for worthy action.

The urgency of Paehlke’s message may explain the rushed feel of the introductory chapters and the occasionally garbled turns of phrase. (“There are still cars, but they are mandated to gradually, on average, become fuel-efficient, and public transit is improved so that more people use it.”) Shorter, clearer sentences would have improved the book considerably.

Nevertheless, Some Like It Cold is an informative and impassioned wake-up call to those who still believe there’s ample time to act on critical environmental issues.