#save tax solutions

[wavetaxes]

How to Increase Your Tax Refund in Canada & How Consulting Tax Planning Services Can Help

For many Canadians, tax returns can be a major financial boost. To maximise your refund, however, you must take benefits of all tax deductions and credits. Moreover, you need to have proper tax planning in Canada so that you can maximize your tax refund.

So, in this blog, we will discuss how to maximise your tax refund in Canada and how tax planning services can assist you.

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[transmechanicus]

It is sunday night. I remain exhausted.

[smsfaccountants]

When it comes to SMSFs, the most crucial responsibility to fulfill before filing an annual SMSF tax return is auditing. An SMSF auditor is there to make sure the financial records of your fund are in order and that you’re following all applicable laws. Every year, a qualified SMSF Auditor must audit all SMSFs. Get A Quote Now : www.quicksmsfaccountants.com.au or Call :- 0359172450

[solarkart]

Solar panel savings for companies

Solar panel savings for companies

Harnessing Solar Energy: A Game-Changer for Businesses

In today's fast-paced world, businesses are constantly seeking ways to enhance their profitability, reduce operating costs, and build a reputation for corporate responsibility. One solution that addresses all these goals is solar energy. By transitioning to solar power, businesses can unlock a multitude of benefits that go beyond just reducing their electricity bills. Here's why more and more companies are making the switch to solar energy. Commercial solar installation

1.Significant Cost Savings

The most immediate and obvious benefit of solar energy for businesses is the reduction in energy costs. Traditional electricity prices are volatile and often on the rise. Solar energy benefits for businesses By installing solar panels, companies can generate their own electricity, significantly lowering their reliance on the grid and stabilizing energy costs. In many cases, the savings on electricity bills can be substantial, allowing businesses to recoup their initial investment in just a few years.

2. Return on Investment (ROI)

While the upfront costs of installing solar panels can be high, the long-term financial benefits are undeniable. Solar energy systems typically come with warranties of 25 years or more, and once the system is paid off, the electricity it generates is virtually free. Business solar power solutions additionally, many governments offer tax credits, rebates, and other incentives to businesses that invest in renewable energy, further enhancing the ROI.

3. Environmental Impact and Corporate Social Responsibility

Consumers are increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of the businesses they support. By adopting solar energy, companies can significantly reduce their carbon footprint, demonstrating a commitment to sustainability. Corporate renewable energy This not only helps the environment but also strengthens a company's brand image. Customers and clients are more likely to engage with businesses that prioritize eco-friendly practices, giving companies a competitive edge in the market. Solar panel savings for companies

4. Energy Independence and Reliability

Relying on traditional energy sources can leave businesses vulnerable to price hikes, supply shortages, and power outages. Solar energy provides a level of energy independence that can protect businesses from these risks. With solar power, companies can generate a portion, if not all, of their electricity needs on-site, ensuring a more reliable energy supply. Some businesses also choose to pair solar panels with battery storage systems, allowing them to store excess energy for use during peak hours or outages.

5. Increased Property Value

Commercial properties equipped with solar energy systems often see an increase in property value. Potential buyers or tenants recognize the long-term cost savings and environmental benefits of solar energy, making such properties more attractive. Green energy for businesses This can be a significant advantage for businesses that own their premises, providing an additional financial incentive to go solar. Green energy for businesses

6. Job Creation and Economic Growth

Investing in solar energy can also contribute to the broader economy. Commercial solar panel benefits The solar industry is a major job creator, with opportunities ranging from manufacturing to installation to maintenance. By supporting the growth of this industry, businesses help foster economic development while contributing to a more sustainable energy future. Solar energy tax incentives

7. Compliance with Regulatory Standards

As governments worldwide ramp up efforts to combat climate change, regulations surrounding energy use and emissions are becoming stricter. Businesses that proactively adopt solar energy are better positioned to comply with current and future regulations, avoiding potential fines or penalties. Solar power ROI for businesses Moreover, businesses that exceed regulatory requirements may be eligible for additional incentives or recognition.

8. Long-Term Sustainability

Finally, solar energy is a renewable resource, meaning it will never run out. Sustainable business practices As fossil fuels become scarcer and more expensive, businesses that rely on solar power will be better prepared for the future. This long-term sustainability ensures that companies can continue to operate efficiently and profitably, regardless of the challenges posed by energy markets.

Conclusion

The shift to solar energy is not just a trend—it's a strategic decision that offers numerous benefits for businesses. From significant cost savings and a strong ROI to environmental responsibility and enhanced brand reputation, the advantages of going solar are clear. As the world moves towards a more sustainable future, businesses that invest in solar energy today will be the ones leading the way tomorrow.

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[willsandtrusts]

Discover top-notch accountancy services with Wills & Trusts Wealth. Our team of professional accountants provides comprehensive financial solutions tailored to your needs. From tax planning and auditing to financial advice, we ensure your financial health is in expert hands. Visit our accountancy services page to find out more about our accountancy services.

[income4myretirement]

Website: https://www.income4myretirement.com

Address: Serving Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware (USA)

AP&G Financial, LLC is a pioneering firm in retirement income planning, dedicated to maximizing retirement income and minimizing tax liabilities for a secure and comfortable retirement. Founded by Judy Sciaky, a seasoned professional with over 25 years in the advertising business, the firm specializes in creating tax-free income and ensuring a tax-free legacy for heirs. Services include Social Security maximization, protection against financial losses, and strategic retirement planning, catering to clients in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware.

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[dipnots]

The Power of Renewables: How Sustainable Energy is Shaping Our Future

Renewable energy is a term that refers to any type of energy that is generated from natural, renewable resources such as wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, and biomass. Renewable energy is becoming increasingly popular due to its many benefits, including reducing carbon emissions, improving air quality, and increasing energy security. In this blog post, we will explore renewable energy in more…

[legalntax]

Legal Tax Services India - Expert Tax Advisors

Legal Tax Services India is a leading provider of tax advisory services, helping individuals and businesses navigate the complex world of taxes. Our team of expert tax advisors offers comprehensive solutions, including tax planning, tax preparation, and tax representation. Trust us to handle all of your tax needs and help you maximize your savings. Contact us today for a consultation.

[starlithunter]

PSA

If you are in the US and do your taxes, use the official IRS site for free filing!

Many companies will advertise free filing and then claim you have deductions or needs that require their paid solutions, and they will not tell you until the end of the process when you are exhausted and want it to be over. These ones are fully free and approved by the IRS!

Save yourself money and stress.

[gallusrostromegalus]

I am constantly procrastinating working on my original fic by writing fanfic. Any advice for how to refocus and finish my novel?

Well. The novel probably needs a nap.

Procrastinating is a symptom that something is preventing you from doing the thing you "should" be doing. Most of the time it's an unrelated, but actually higher priority task like resting after an illness (society is fucking lying about anything else being more important) or filing your taxes (actually this one is pretty important).

...but if you're procrastinating on one creative project with another creative project, you're not procrastinating: something about the novel is off right now, the fanfic is more appealing to you.

Consider the following:

You may be writing fic because it brings you more joy than the novel. If you really want to get back to the novel, figure out what would make working on it more enjoyable. Engagement from a beta-editor? Skipping this really boring scene and coming back to it later? Adding more smut?

You may also be writing fic because it's got a lower spoon coat than the novel and you need to conserve your spoons right now. Any extra stress in your life? Moving? Toothache? Recovering from Covid? Annoying roommate? Sick family member? It's an election year? ANY of those could soak up extra spoons and make your novel too expensive for your spoons budget. Let it take a nap, and come back when you're feeling better.

You may be sharpening your artistic skills on a lower-stakes project before going back to the novel. This is pretty normal- even Michaelangelo took breaks to work on other pieces while sculpting The David, both for a change of pace and so he could try something out without fucking up the big block.

Fortunately, you're writing, so you can always try writing the challenging scene a dozen times in different docs or save the parts that were good but don't not in a spare parts bucket doc.

Or keep working on that fic, it's helping you learn on a subconscious level.

You don't love the novel right now. This is alright. This is usually temporary, and the solution is the same- put it aside and work on something else.

Maybe you are just bored of the novel. That's fine and normal, you just save all the documents to your hard drive and come back later. When the fic inevitably gets boring too, you'll come back to the novel and either go "oh hey this kicks ass!" And return to it with renewed enthusiasm.

...Or you'll come back to it and go "oh. This is actually a piece of shit" And that's okay too, because there's nothing more useless than polishing a turd, but that turd is still valuable as compost. You learned things writing it, and you can still rifle through the novel for good lines or scenes or turns of phrase and put those in your spare parts doc to ferment into The Good Shit in the back of your mind.

HOWEVER:

If you are experiencing a different phenomenon wherein you are actively distressed while writing the fic- either out of misplaced guilt, or the fic isn't actually fun you just feel compelled to do something, or absolutely every creative endeavor is stressing you out, you may be experiencing a serious mental or physical health issue and you should see your GP or a specialist ASAP. Pain is an indicator that something is wrong. Do not ignore your body's warning light.

That sounds really dramatic and hyperbolic but realizing I was not enjoying ANY creative work was the symptom that finally got me to sit down and go "huh. All these random pains, irregular sleep cycle, frequent migraines and weird bouts of vertigo aren't normal either, I should get this looked at." And it turned out I had dangerously low blood oxygen at night from undiagnosed sleep apnea. I have a CPAP machine now and it's AMAZING.

I really hope this is regular artistic shuffle and not a serious health concern, but if you're experiencing creative stress AND a bunch of other shit, it may be serious.

[blogborsa]

CREVH - GOLD

QuickBooks is a renowned accounting software that offers a seamless solution for small businesses to manage their financial tasks efficiently. With features designed to streamline accounting processes, QuickBooks simplifies tasks such as tracking receipts, income, bank transactions, and more. This software is available in both online and desktop versions, catering to the diverse needs of businesses of all sizes. QuickBooks Online, for instance, allows users to easily track mileage, expenses, payroll, send invoices, and receive payments online, making it a comprehensive tool for financial management. Moreover, QuickBooks Desktop provides accountants with exclusive features to save time and enhance productivity. Whether it's managing income and expenses, staying tax-ready, invoicing, paying bills, managing inventory, or running reports, QuickBooks offers a range of functionalities to support businesses in their accounting needs.

Utilizing qb accounting software purposes comes with a myriad of benefits that can significantly enhance business operations. Some key advantages of using QuickBooks include:

- Efficient tracking of income and expenses

- Simplified tax preparation and compliance

- Streamlined invoicing and payment processes

- Effective management of inventory

- Generation of insightful financial reports

- Integration with payroll and HR functions

These benefits not only save time and effort but also contribute to better financial decision-making and overall business growth. QuickBooks is designed to meet the diverse needs of businesses, offering tailored solutions for various industries and sizes.

When considering accounting qb software options, QuickBooks stands out as a versatile and comprehensive choice. To provide a holistic view, let's compare QuickBooks with two other popular accounting software options - Xero and FreshBooks. quick book accounting package and offers robust features for small businesses, including advanced accounting capabilities, invoicing, payment processing, and payroll management. Xero, on the other hand, is known for its user-friendly interface and strong collaboration features, making it a popular choice among startups and small businesses. FreshBooks excels in invoicing and time tracking functionalities, catering to freelancers and service-based businesses. By evaluating the features, pricing, and user experience of these accounting software options, businesses can make an informed decision based on their specific needs and preferences.

[sirfrogsworth]

I'm not upset that blu-rays are being phased out. Formats all become obsolete and then die out.

My worry is there is not an adequate replacement for physical media. If you stream a 4K movie, it is usually over compressed and has a lossy audio track. Usually the quality *improves* when you move on to the next thing. But in this case, only the convenience is improved.

And there is no way to truly own the media you buy online. Even on Amazon when you "buy" something, that just means you have indefinite access to the file on their server. But if they lose the rights to that content or decide to delete it for tax purposes, you lose it too.

There is a service called Kaleidescape. It allows you to download blu-ray quality movie files onto local storage. Unfortunately the service has way too many caveats. You can only play the movies on their proprietary equipment. If they go out of business you will lose all of your movie purchases. And while they have a lot of mainstream, big budget movies, their selection is far from vast.

Oh, and their hardware starts at $8,000 and each movie is between $10 and $30 to purchase. And if you want to save more than 125 movies, the cost balloons to nearly $20K for the hardware.

The quality issue will eventually solve itself. New codecs like AV1 and H.266 will allow files to be compressed without losing any quality.

But I have no idea what to do about being unable to truly own your media. No studio will agree to DRM-free downloads that you can store anywhere and play with any device.

Maybe they can create a system where you can register any device you own and be allowed to play the file on those registered devices. So you get a file you can download, but the DRM requires verification you own the device it is being played on.

Perhaps they could designate a few cloud storage services as approved download platforms. You are free to shift your media from cloud to cloud, but it must always stay on the cloud and be registered to you. That way if a cloud storage company bites the dust, you still have the option to move your media to another place.

It's not as good as DRM-free local storage, but I don't see studios agreeing to anything else.

In truth, people are probably never going to buy movies in the future. If you have the option to rent for $3 or buy for $20, people probably aren't going to see the value in spending that much to own a movie.

Maybe the solution lies in some kind of law. If a platform no longer wishes to host a show or movie and they can't sell it to another streaming service, then they must give up the rights and allow the Library of Congress to save and distribute it.

[mellowwillowy]

"Oh..." Your boyfriend secretly checked your scorecard before you did and was greeted with a line of miserable A until his eyes landed on a B. This would surely take a taxing toll on your mind.

"Hmm..."

He started to hum, what should he do? Hack through the website and change the inputted number for you? What if the scoring system was filed through physical form too?

I really hope you would just shrug it off and say your classic 'It had happened, what more could I do?' instead of stressing yourself with it.

Blue pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes squinted shut as he tried to find a solution for this. Your scholarship is at stake, edged to the despairing ending. But there might be chances that your scholarship was only a one-semester thing and this could ease the burden on your mind.

Hacking through the website system is not a problem but ensuring that your score is true to the one inputted online is the real problem here. Bribery would work but should he risk it all? Should he really taint something so pristine, something so you?

Jaw clenched tightly, the urge to throw the mouse across the room is increasing. Why must the professor go through such trouble to give you a ridiculous grade? The unreasonable one here is her and not you.

"God... dammit-!" With a flick of his wrist, the mouse shattered into pieces as it hit the ground. "This fucking pebble-like old hag, why must you trouble me with this bullshit." He cursed under his breath as though he was the one unbenefited from this instance, face darkened while his blue eyes glinted in fury.

Upon a moment of silence, Blue decided to save you from this headache. He started to work on his PC again, this time to hack through the website and change your supposed score into an A.

"Whatever, not a thing that I can't manage. I suppose a visit with a wrapped gun would work or whatever, maybe a wrapped nail-packed lunch... or just poisonous flower..." His mumblings were mostly drowned with the clackings of the keyboard, "or maybe just a branded bag... or something better."

Something of his forte.

"Maybe some fresh blackmail material... or perhaps, debt."

---

"Woahhh~! Look, Blue! Look! I aced it all! A whole A!"

Blue laughed at your excitement as he easily lifted you up and twirled you around, "Guess this call for a celebration? What about a trip to your favorite diner and bust all their menu?"

You urged him to drop you down before you hop excitedly, "Yes! Let's get them now!"

Chuckling to himself, he thought to himself, Today is our good day so I shouldn't bother myself with that old hag just yet. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after. Any day but today.

"Let's fill this tummy with its expected reward, come." He held you by your hand toward the front door.

[smsfaccountants]

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[seat-safety-switch]

Have you considered purchasing an "investment property?" A lot of folks are doing it these days, buying a second or third building that they then rent out to other people. Problem is, being a landlord is unethical and may even be a crime against humanity! Don't worry, we have a solution.

One of the fastest-growing businesses in America today is the humble storage locker. We got too many fucking things, it seems, and we don't want to throw any of them out, so we will instead pay someone else a couple hundred bucks a month to keep them on their property. Until our credit card expires, that is, and then they sell all of our shit to some television bargain hunters.

Here's my proposal. Instead of giving those people money (and eventually the salvage rights to your aunt Edna's leg lamp,) just give the bank money instead. Buy distressed commercial properties. It's extremely cheap if you shop at the right foreclosure auction, and you'll be bailing out our most important citizens: overleveraged wannabe real-estate moguls. Hey, they're four payments behind on their own Mercedes, so you're really helping the whole economy by keeping that thing out of the repo lot.

Now, you might be doubtful. What am I going to do with this disused office in the middle of nowhere that nobody wants to buy or even rent? Easy. Commercial districts often have extremely permissive rules about what you can do with "your" property. That means that Peggy Bylaw and Eric Zoning-Laws can't come by and hassle you for keeping, oh, forty cars lying around the place. Look, dude, I don't know what to tell you. It's an investment property that is currently whatever business it has to be in order for you to fuck off. Some eccentric rich dude is paying me to keep his shitty cars here. Yeah, I think he golfs with The Mayor. Surely there's someone with a loud exhaust or the wrong colour of dog that you could be bothering instead.

The best part is saved for last. When you forget to pay the property tax, the city gives you at least a year of increasingly-angry letters before they start seizing your stuff and selling it off. Much nicer terms than the storage locker fascists, and the folks who shop at those auctions are only looking for old cop cars to buy, so you can probably buy back your own stuff and get excited about it all over again.

[mariacallous]

Climate denial may be on the decline, but a phenomenon at least as injurious to the cause of climate protection has blossomed beside it: doomism, or the belief that there’s no way to halt the Earth’s ascendant temperatures. Burgeoning ranks of doomers throw up their hands, crying that it’s too late, too hard, too costly to save humanity from near-future extinction.

There are numerous strands of doomism. The followers of ecologist Guy McPherson, for example, gravitate to wild conspiracy theories that claim humanity won’t last another decade. Many young people, understandably overwhelmed by negative climate headlines and TikTok videos, are convinced that all engagement is for naught. Even the Guardian, which boasts superlative climate coverage, sometimes publishes alarmist articles and headlines that exaggerate grim climate projections.

This gloom-and-doomism robs people of the agency and incentive to participate in a solution to the climate crisis. As a writer on climate and energy, I am convinced that we have everything we require to go carbon neutral by 2050: the science, the technology, the policy proposals, and the money, as well as an international agreement in which nearly 200 countries have pledged to contain the crisis. We don’t need a miracle or exorbitantly expensive nuclear energy to stave off the worst. The Gordian knot before us is figuring out how to use the resources we already have in order to make that happen.

One particularly insidious form of doomism is exhibited in Kohei Saito’s Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto, originally published in 2020 and translated from Japanese into English this year. In his unlikely international bestseller, Saito, a Marxist philosopher, puts forth the familiar thesis that economic growth and decarbonization are inherently at odds. He goes further, though, and speculates that the climate crisis can only be curbed in a classless, commons-based society. Capitalism, he writes, seeks to “use all the world’s resources and labor power, opening new markets and never passing up even the slightest chance to make more money.”

Capitalism’s record is indeed damning. The United States and Europe are responsible for the lion’s share of the world’s emissions since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, yet the global south suffers most egregiously from climate breakdown. Today, the richest tenth of the world’s population—living overwhelmingly in the global north and China—is responsible for half of global emissions. If the super-rich alone cut their footprints down to the size of the average European, global emissions would fall by a third, Saito writes.

Saito’s self-stated goals aren’t that distinct from mine: a more egalitarian, sustainable, and just society. One doesn’t have to be an orthodox Marxist to find the gaping disparities in global income grotesque or to see the restructuring of the economy as a way to address both climate breakdown and social injustice. But his central argument—that climate justice can’t happen within a market economy of any kind—is flawed. In fact, it serves next to no purpose because more-radical-than-thou theories remove it from the nuts-and-bolts debate about the way forward.

We already possess a host of mechanisms and policies that can redistribute the burdens of climate breakdown and forge a path to climate neutrality. They include carbon pricing, wealth and global transaction taxes, debt cancellation, climate reparations, and disaster risk reduction, among others. Economies regulated by these policies are a distant cry from neoliberal capitalism—and some, particularly in Europe, have already chalked up marked accomplishments in reducing emissions.

Saito himself acknowledges that between 2000 and 2013, Britain’s GDP increased by 27 percent while emissions fell by 9 percent and that Germany and Denmark also logged decoupling. He writes off this trend as exclusively the upshot of economic stagnation following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008. However, U.K. emissions have continued to fall, plummeting from 959 million to 582 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent between 2007 and 2020. The secret to Britain’s success, which Saito doesn’t mention, was the creation of a booming wind power sector and trailblazing carbon pricing system that forced coal-fired plants out of the market practically overnight. Nor does Saito consider that from 1990 to 2022, the European Union reduced its emissions by 31 percent while its economy grew by 66 percent.

Climate protection has to make strides where it can, when it can, and experts acknowledge that it’s hard to change consumption patterns—let alone entire economic systems—rapidly. Progress means scaling back the most harmful types of consumption and energy production. It is possible to do this in stages, but it needs to be implemented much faster than the current plodding pace.

This is why Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie, a data scientist at the University of Oxford, is infinitely more pertinent to the public discourse on climate than Saito’s esoteric work. Ritchie’s book is a noble attempt to illustrate that environmental protection to date boasts impressive feats that can be built on, even as the world faces what she concedes is an epic battle to contain greenhouse gases.

Ritchie underscores two environmental afflictions that humankind solved through a mixture of science, smart policy, and international cooperation: acid rain and ozone depletion. I’m old enough to remember the mid-1980s, when factories and power plants spewed out sulfurous and nitric emissions and acid rain blighted forests from the northeastern United States to Eastern Europe. Acidic precipitation in the Adirondacks, my stomping grounds at the time, decimated pine forests and mountain lakes, leaving ghostly swaths of dead timber. Then, scientists pinpointed the industries responsible, and policymakers designed a cap-and-trade system that put a price on their emissions, which forced industry into action; for example, power plants had to fit scrubbers on their flue stacks. The harmful pollutants dropped by 80 percent by the end of the decade, and forests grew back.

The campaign to reverse the thinning of the ozone layer also bore fruit. An international team of scientists deduced that man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) in fridges, freezers, air conditioners, and aerosol cans were to blame. Despite fierce industry pushback, more than 40 countries came together in Montreal in 1987 to introduce a staggered ban on CFCs. Since then, more countries joined the Montreal Protocol, and CFCs are now largely a relic of the past. As Ritchie points out, this was the first international pact of any kind to win the participation of every nation in the world.

While these cases instill inspiration, Ritchie’s assessment of our current crisis is a little too pat and can veer into the Panglossian. The climate crisis is many sizes larger in scope than the scourges of the 1980s, and its antidote—to Saito’s credit—entails revamping society and economy on a global scale, though not with the absolutist end goal of degrowth communism.

Ritchie doesn’t quite acknowledge that a thoroughgoing restructuring is necessary. Although she does not invoke the term, she is an acolyte of “green growth.” She maintains that tweaks to the world’s current economic system can improve the living standards of the world’s poorest, maintain the global north’s level of comfort, and achieve global net zero by 2050. “Economic growth is not incompatible with reducing our environmental impact,” she writes. For her, the big question is whether the world can decouple growth and emissions in time to stave off the darkest scenarios.

Ritchie approaches today’s environmental disasters—air pollution, deforestation, carbon-intensive food production, biodiversity loss, ocean plastics, and overfishing—as problems solvable in ways similar to the crises of the 1980s. Like CFCs and acid rain, so too can major pollutants such as black carbon and carbon monoxide be reined in. Ritchie writes that the “solution to air pollution … follows just one basic principle: stop burning stuff.” As she points out, smart policy has already enhanced air quality in cities such as Beijing (Warsaw, too, as a recent visit convinced me), and renewable energy is now the cheapest form of power globally. What we have to do, she argues, is roll renewables out en masse.

The devil is in making it happen. Ritchie admits that environmental reforms must be accelerated many times over, but she doesn’t address how to achieve this or how to counter growing pushback against green policies. Just consider the mass demonstrations across Europe in recent months as farmers have revolted against the very measures for which Ritchie (correctly) advocates, such as cutting subsidies to diesel gas, requiring crop rotation, eliminating toxic pesticides, and phasing down meat production. Already, the farmers’ vehemence has led the EU to dilute important legislation on agriculture, deforestation, and biodiversity.

Ritchie’s admonishes us to walk more, take public transit, and eat less beef. Undertaken individually, this won’t change anything. But she acknowledges that sound policy is key—chiefly, economic incentives to steer markets and consumer behavior. Getting the right parties into office, she writes, should be voters’ priority.

Yet the parties fully behind Ritchie’s agenda tend to be the Green parties, which are largely in Northern Europe and usually garner little more than 10 percent of the vote. Throughout Europe, environmentalism is badmouthed by center-right and far-right politicos, many of whom lead or participate in governments, as in Finland, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Serbia, Slovakia, and Sweden. And while she argues that all major economies must adopt carbon pricing like the EU’s cap-and-trade system, she doesn’t address how to get the United States, the world’s second-largest emitter, to introduce this nationwide or even expand its two carbon markets currently operating regionally—one encompassing 12 states on the East Coast, the other in California.

History shows that the best way to make progress in the battle to rescue our planet is to work with what we have and build on it. The EU has a record of exceeding and revising its emissions reduction targets. In the 1990s, the bloc had the modest goal of sinking greenhouse gases to 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12; by 2012, it had slashed them by an estimated 18 percent. More recently, the 2021 European Climate Law adjusted the bloc’s target for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions from 40 percent to at least 55 percent by 2030, and the European Commission is considering setting the 2040 target to 90 percent below 1990 levels.

This process can’t be exclusively top down. By far the best way for everyday citizens to counter climate doomism is to become active beyond individual lifestyle choices—whether that’s by bettering neighborhood recycling programs, investing in clean tech equities, or becoming involved in innovative clean energy projects.

Take, for example, “community energy,” which Saito considers briefly and Ritchie misses entirely. In the 1980s, Northern Europeans started to cobble together do-it-yourself cooperatives, in which citizens pooled money to set up renewable energy generation facilities. Many of the now more than 9,000 collectives across the EU are relatively small—the idea is to stay local and decentralized—but larger co-ops illustrate that this kind of enterprise can function at scale. For example, Belgium’s Ecopower, which forgoes profit and reinvests in new energy efficiency and renewables projects, provides 65,000 members with zero-carbon energy at a reduced price.

Grassroots groups and municipalities are now investing in nonprofit clean energy generation in the United States, particularly in California and Minnesota. This takes many forms, including solar fields; small wind parks; electricity grids; and rooftop photovoltaic arrays bolted to schools, parking lots, and other public buildings. Just as important as co-ownership—in contrast to mega-companies’ domination of the fossil fuel market—is democratic decision-making. These start-ups, usually undertaken by ordinary citizens, pry the means of generation out of the hands of the big utilities, which only grudgingly alter their business models.

Around the world, the transition is in progress—and ideally, could involve all of us. The armchair prophets of doom should either join in or, at the least, sit on the sidelines quietly. The last thing we need is more people sowing desperation and angst. They play straight into the court of the fossil fuel industry.