Connexions and Contradictions

New Lands in Atlas

2011-09-15T07:59:00.000-07:00

We're discovering and naming new land - thanks to of climate change. Mapmakers have deemed a new island that popped up due to ice melt large enough to be named and included in a new atlas. You can buythe atlas at
http://www.timesatlas.com/TimesAtlasRange/Pages/AtlasDetail.aspx?IDNumber=63021 for 110 British pounds on sale.
No , I have not purchased it: I read about it at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/15/new-atlas-climate-change . Naming a new island isn't the only thing that has changed. From the Guardian:

Sections of the Rio Grande, Yellow, Colorado and Tigris rivers are now drying out each summer. In Mongolia, the Ongyin Gol has been redirected to allow gold mining, while the Colorado river these days does not reach the sea most years. "We are increasingly concerned that in the near future important geographical features will disappear for ever. Greenland could reach a tipping point in about 30 years," said Jethro Lennox, editor of the atlas.

How long is Canada going to do absolutlely nothing about climate change?
Forever, if we don't generate the political will to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is a pyschological issue - not an environmental issue. Win -win solutiosn exist ( you save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions) but collectively we don't implement them. Denial is such a cozy blanket .....
Check out the site below and be arrested in Ottawa on September 26, 2011 (after taking the train to get there!) if you're tired of writing letters.
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/krystalline-kraus/2011/08/activist-communiqu%C3%A9-ottawa-tar-sands-action-call-out-%E2%80%93-sept

UPDATE:
Apparently the atlas is published by Rupert Murdoch - and is inaccurate. Quelle surprise! However, climate change is happening in the Arctic - and Canada should be taking steps to prevent and mitigate climate change. Even if Rupert Murdoch's empire publishes inaccuarate information. ....

The March of Folly

2011-09-08T20:35:00.000-07:00

What happens when ideology trumps science - and common sense? Armageddon, apparently.

An update from the Texas Forest Service yesterday, Sept. 7, 2011.

"Yesterday Texas Forest Service responded to 19 new fires for 1,490 acres, including new large fires in Red River and Rusk counties. In the past seven days Texas Forest Service has responded to 172 fires for 135,051 acres." http://tfsweb.tamu.edu/main/article.aspx?id=12888

Oooooh. Scary stuff. And look at their drought index: Texas is dryer than clothes hung out to dry on a windy summer day.

No wonder fires are burning and have been burning for a long time.

"Wildfires are burning across central Texas right now, the product of an historic drought and high winds from Tropical Storm Lee. An estimated 3.6 million acres have been scorched since November, with the flames approaching the city limits of Austin; damage is expected to exceed $5 billion. In the macro-sense, this is climate change-caused problem, with Texas' climate set to become dryer and dryer over the ensuing decades, making extended droughts the new norm."

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/09/drought-worsened-rick-perry-slashed-fire-fighting-spending

Please note that's November of 2010 !!!! These Texas fires are not merely nature gone mad: humans have contributed to the outbreak. How? That's where belief systems came in ....

"Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a GOP presidential candidate, scoffs at the notion of human-induced climate change, even suggesting recently on the campaign trail that scientists are manipulating data to make money. He also has declared a weather-related state of emergency every month since December. Meanwhile, Texas' state climatologist has warned that his fellow citizens should get used to this climate of extremes."

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/22/nation/la-na-drought-texas-20110522

Not only does Mr Perry scoff at the reality of climate change while Texas dries out around him, and refuse to discuss action on climate change, he has slashed firefighters' budgets.
"The state of Texas has been battling wildfires for almost a year now. The wildfire season began in November last year, and Gov. Rick Perry and cash-strapped state lawmakers took a stance against raising taxes and against putting their hands too deeply into the states rainy day fund. So in order to save some money, Perry and GOP allies slashed funding for the agency responsible for fighting wildfires ‑ in the midst of a historic wildfire season that's seen more than 2 million acres burned by fire. The Texas Forest Service is slapped with about $34 million in budget cuts over a two-year period, which is roughly a third of the agency's total budget."
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/210134/20110907/texas-wildfires-2011rick-perry-cut-firefighters-budget-texas-forest-service.htm

Why on earth slash government budgets for essential services when one could raise taxes? Belief systems - less government good - taxes bad.

Perhaps someone should hand Mr Perry a copy of The March of Folly by Bbarbara Tuchman.

Great Green Transportation Tune-UP

2011-09-01T13:59:00.000-07:00

Great Green
TRANSPORTATION TUNE-UP

Travel $marter, Live Better

The Kamloops 350 Environmental Association, is partnering with the City of Kamloops and BCSEA to present the Great Green Transportation Tune-up from September 26 to October 1, 2011.

The Great Green Transportation Tune-Up is a week of events that provides Kamloops residents with many ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. By promoting vehicle efficiency, removing barriers to transit use and providing fun ways for citizens to "test-drive" alternative modes, the Tune-Up will increase overall awareness of the issues and facilitate an eventual transition to a sustainable transportation future.

The Great Green Transportation Tune-Up will:

· Encourage residents to increase the efficiency of our vehicles through maintenance, trip reduction strategies and carpooling,

· Increase familiarity with our City's transit options by providing incentives and free access,

· Promote alternative modes of travel; including walking, cycling, and other "clean " ways of getting around, and

· Give residents a chance to dream a bit about what an ideal future Kamloops transportation system might look like.

Activities include:

· The Reel Sustainability Film Fest on Friday, September 23 to Saturday, September 24, 2011 at TRU. (There are too many movies to list individually.)

How to Boil A Frog will be shown Tuesday , September 27 in the evening - downtown at the Paramount or at TRU. (venue uncertain at this time.)
BCSEA will present a panel discussion on "The Future of Transportation" at TRU on Wednesday, September 28, 2011. Panelists are John Kenney and Erin Felker.
The Transit Treasure Hunt - participants become eligible for prizes as they travel the City by bus all week, picking up clues as they go.
Tire pressure checking mobs will distribute vehicle efficiency information at parking lots everywhere.
The Green Your Transportation Pledge - if you reduce your vehicle use by car pooling, biking, walking, or taking transit for one week, you will be eligible for prizes.
Cool Wheels - a show featuring hybrid & electric cars, and one solar car, as well as scooters and bikes.
The Transportation Imagination Station - a place where people can describe their vision of a sustainable Kamloops.
Bike , Bus or Boogie challenge - a multi-modal challenge where each participant uses a different means of transportation to complete a set of errands.

Check it out at http://www.kamloops350.com/

Jack Layton: 1950 -2011

2011-08-25T14:44:00.000-07:00

May your vision not perish from the earth: may love, hope and optimism increase. Rest in peace.

Thich Nhat Hanh

2011-08-20T18:39:00.000-07:00

Problems with Agriculture

2011-07-27T19:44:00.000-07:00

I recently posted - muttering to myself- about the lack of discussion on climate change in the media. As I stated earlier, Al Jazeera ia an exception. Dahr Jamal wrote an aricle on July 4, 2011 entitled The Decline of Agriculture? You can find it at http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/07/201173114451998370.html
Ze starts with a warning from the Food and Agriculture Organisation about the delterious effects climate change will have on agriculture and hence, on human eating. The FAO warned that climate change will reduce food production, and therefore, cause millions of people to go hungry - or starve. (The author also quotes the US National Climate Data Center as saying that April 2011's weather extremes were unprecedented. Don't worry , the relevance of this point will be apparent later on.)
Ze then moved into a discussion of current agricultural practices. Our industrail agribusiness methods are apparently quite disastrous. Dahr Jamal quotes Dr. Bomford, a plant and soil scientist, as saying

Clearing land for farming releases carbon into the atmosphere and that contributes to climate change. Then by farming it, using cultivation causes soil to be lost in wind and erosion, and that topsoil took thousands of years to from. One extreme weather event can cause us to lose thousands of years of soil.

Please see the comment above on April's weather extremes and picture such extremes becoming the new normal as predicted by climate change models. Goodbye soil. Goodbye cheap plentiful food.
Cultivation istn't the only problem with our agriculture. Our use of fertilizers derived from petroleum is also problematic. Dr Ryerson is quoted as follows:

The world's agricultural systems rely substantially on increasing use of fertilizers. But now, the world's farmers are witnessing signs of a declining response curve, where the use of additional fertilizer yields little additional food product. At the same time, fertilizers and intensive cropping lower the quality of soil. These factors will more and more limit the possibilities of raising food production substantially and will, at a minimum, boost relative food prices and resulting hunger for many.

Looks like starvation is on the menu for many of us as food isn't going to be! Weirdly, our penchant for large agribusiness - huge industrial farms - isn't a logical choice when one considers productivity. The bigger the farm , the less productive it is. Astonishing fact, isn't it? "Vandana Shiva....points to reams of studies by universities, the UN and FAO showing that the most productive form of agriculture is not our modern, tractor-serviced, big field monocultures, but multilple crop..., manual labour intensive smallholdings." (page 170, Good News For A Change, Suzuki and Dressel.) In fact, the UN came out with another report called Agroecology and the Right to Food which urged that we shift towards agro-ecology in order to deal with the problems of hunger, climate change, and poverty.
As defined by the UN, agroecology "applies ecological science to the design of agricultureal systems taht can help put an end to food crises and address climate change and poverty challenges. It enhances soils productivity and protects crops agaisnt pests by relying on the natural environment such as benefical trees, palnts, animals, and insects." Sounds like organic gardening to me. But whatever agroecology sounds like, it is a multiple crop system that relies on manual labour - and it is incredibly productive.
Even more weirdly, governments have ignored the facts and chosen to subsidize agribiz instead of small family farms. Even worse, in Canada the federal government has had a settled and considered policy of squeezing small holders out of existence. "During the late 1960s, the federal government instigated a major study into the future of Canadian agriculture. The study concluded that there were too many farmers in Canada (emphasis mine) and recommended that approximately two-thirds of them be eventually eliminated (page 94, Writing Off The Rural West, editors Roger Epp and Dave Epson..)

So the Canadian government chose to encourage large farms that require massive inputs of chemical fertilizers and pesticides; that destroy the soil; increase greenhouse gas emissions; and are actually less productive than small holdings. These existing problems with agribusines are now exacerbated by the effects of climate change.

The Arrogance of the Elite

2011-07-12T15:18:00.000-07:00

A succinct (relatively) video from the UK Guardian explaining the triggers and consequences of phone hacking by the News of the World.

A Green Roof

2011-07-05T21:24:00.000-07:00

A green roof has many advantages. Advantages of a green roof include that they:

are aesthetically pleasing
reduce city "heat island" effect
reduce carbon dioxide impact
reduce summer air conditioning cost
reduce winter heat demand
lengthen roof life by two to three times
remove nitrogen pollution in rain
neutralize acid rain effect
reduce noise
reduce stormwater runoff
provides songbird habitat (list from http://horticulture.psu.edu/cms/greenroofcenter/history.html )

Carbon sequestration may be one of the most important effects of a green roof.

Using plants to do this is referred to as terrestrial carbon sequestration. Through the process of photosynthesis, carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere and stored as carbon in biomass. If net primary production of these ecosystems exceeds decomposition, then these systems become at the very least a short term sink for carbon. http://www.hrt.msu.edu/greenroof/

So, if you are building or renovating, consider installing a green roof. Your new abode might look
like this! ( It is the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Yes, that is a building under that greeneery!) Even if it doesn't, you will have created a positve example and energy in the world.

Climate Change Bad and Getting Worse

2011-07-02T16:36:00.000-07:00

Al Jazeera and the UK Gaurdian seem to be the only media outlets that talk about climate change. Al Jazeera points out that it is bad and getting worse:

So far human greenhouse gas emissions have raised the temperature of the planet by one degree Celsius.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/2011622132049568952.html
The Al Jazeera article goes on to list impacts felt RIGHT NOW - including high food price - floods -wildfires - loss of biodiversity - and acidifying oceans. Meanwhile, the UK Guardian has created a huge FAQ on climate change in the hopes of educating people. Find it at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/series/the-ultimate-climate-change-faq

Media in Canada don't seem to pay attention to climate change - and Canada's politicians do nothing. The Conservatives do nothing - and are reviled for it - but the Liberals signed the Kyoto Accord and then did dick-all as well. Why? Well , Stephan Dion was soundly punished at the polls for presenting a green platform that took climate change seriously. Therefore, presumably our politicains do nothing because we don't really want them to take action. We aren't exactly rioting in the streets,are we? ( Well, we're not rioting because we're worried about the impacts of climate change.)

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt! And arguing with people in denial ends up reinforcing their defenses - what's a poor activist to do? Work through ready made communities - church groups - chambers of commerce - etc and tailor your message to the group.

And work on yourself - meditate - and work on seeing everyone in the world as connected to everyone and everything - and as worthy of your love. Then, when you carry out your activism, you will do so with loving kindness and compassion. I think it's the only chance we've got.....

Low Arctic Sea Ice

2011-06-29T19:19:00.000-07:00

Arctic Sea ice volume in 2010 was the lowest on record, with 60% missing in September 2010 compared to the average from 1979-2010

From the UK Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2011/jun/28/2010-year-global-weirding?intcmp=122#/?picture=376214022&index=2

Oceans of Trouble

2011-06-22T15:52:00.000-07:00

Think of the collapse of the cod fishery in Newfoundland - and then say the imminent crash of the oceans doesn`t matter to humanity.

Legal Innovation

2011-06-19T16:19:00.000-07:00

Canada's Use of Agent Orange

2011-06-03T07:21:00.000-07:00

Listen carefully - Canada didn't ban the use of Agent Orange until 1985!

Video from Al Jazeera - an excellent source of news.

And , apparently, Agent Orange was used country-wide. Whatthehell???!!!! I had an epiphany - and posted about it - early last year.

A repost of what I wrote then seems to be appropriate today.

I witnessed a soul retrieval healing for a friend recently. While my friend and the healer were journeying, the beat of the drum proved almost hypnotic. I wrote the following:

The healer suggested "outside, in nature find a stick...."
Are we not nature?
Not if we live in a linear world - a poverty stricken world without mess, change or growth.
And we do everything we can to destroy life and growth: spiders, bacteria, mice ....
We clean furiously,
lay traps,
sweep away cobwebs...
and we spray pesticides and weedkiller outside.
We detest life. We detest change.
We wish to end the cycle of life - death - life.
Oh - to be a machine......
We are not machines.
We are life. Stardust . Divinity. Energy.
We scintillate and shimmer and dance and coruscate and change and
die and are born once more.
From this we create balance.
We are ordered tension.
Crystals growing - decaying - shifting - changing.
When we prevent change we prevent life.
We wish to die - permanently.
That is why we try to kill Gaia.
We desire sterility.
Complete.
Utter.
Final.
END.
No change. When we achieve that, we too will be gone.
We want that. We hate ourselves.
If we learn to love ourselves, we will save the world.
She is a part of us - we are a part of her -we need her.
So -
when we are healed of self hatred, we will be healed of world hatred.

Environmental Regulation

2011-06-01T20:27:00.000-07:00

Environmental regulation is often cast as a burden on business. Clean air standards smother firms in red tape and stifle economies already facing tough times, opponents say. But what if environmental protection actually boosted economic performance? A new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that reducing ground-level ozone (a main component of smog) significantly improved worker productivity. “Our results indicate that ozone, even at levels below current air quality standards in most of the world, has significant negative impacts on worker productivity, suggesting that the strengthening of regulations on ozone pollution would yield additional benefits,” the authors note.

How big are those benefits? A back of the envelope calculation suggests that a 10 ppb reduction in the EPA’s ozone standard would translate into an annual cost savings of $1.1-billion, Mr. Neidell said.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/daily-mix/why-environmental-red-tape-may-be-good-for-business/article2042951/

Economic benefits from smog free air at ground level? Who'd have thought clean air could improve productivity?

Perhaps Robert Owen would have thought so. - he bought a mill named New Lanark quite some time ago. A couple of hundred years or so....

New Lanark became celebrated throughout Europe, with many leading royals, statesmen and reformers visiting the mills. They were astonished to find a clean, healthy industrial environment with a content, vibrant workforce and a prosperous, viable business venture all rolled into one. Owen’s philosophy was contrary to contemporary thinking, but he was able to demonstrate that it was not necessary for an industrial enterprise to treat its workers badly to be profitable. Owen was able to show visitors the village’s excellent housing and amenities, and the accounts showing the profitability of the mills.

His ideas didn't spread even though he prospered while and becuase he treated his employees well .( For one thing, he paid them in coin of the realm instead of in tokens. For another , he didn't employ children of three.)

Often, ideology trumps our own interests - and we behave in self-defeating ways.

It would be in our long term interests to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Why don't we?

We Can Do Things Differently

2011-05-30T19:29:00.000-07:00

We can do things differently - we've proved that in the past.

The British made the slave trade illegal. In 1807. And abolished slavery in most of the Empire in 1833. Of course, the pro-slavery lobby worked furiously to prevent this.

Arguments made then against abolishing slavery have a curiously modern tone.

The most approved Judges of the Commercial Interests of these Kingdoms have been of the opinion that our West-Indian and African Trades are the most nationally beneficial of any we carry on... That Traffic alone affords our Planters a constant supply of Negro Servants for the Culture of their Lands in the produce of Sugars, Tobacco, Rice, Rum, Cotton, Fustick, Pimento and all our other Plantation Produce: so that the extensive Employment of our other Shipping in, to and from America, the great Brood of Seamen consequent thereupon, and the daily bread of the most considerable of our British Manufactures, are owing primarily to the Labour of Negroes. http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/audio78797-abolition.html

In other words, the writer of the pamphlet arguing for slavery felt that British manufacturing was uneconomic without the slave trade. Of course, he was wrong.

The folks arguing that it is uneconomic to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are wrong as well.

Current economic difficulties presented an opportunity not a hurdle to move towards a low carbon economy, said Lord Stern, an economist at the London School of Economics who authored an eponymous report in 2006 on the costs of climate change. "The case for urgent action is not just powerful, its also attractive," he said, adding that emerging countries such as China had increasingly grasped this while others, like the US, were moving backwards. http://euobserver.com/884/31778

So please reduce your own greenhouse gas emissions. Educate others - with loving kindness. And lobby your politicians.

PS I started thinking about doing things differently when I read the following article in the Globe and Mail.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/radar-like-inner-vision-helps-blind-learn-to-navigate-beyond-preconceived-limits/article2035203/

Daniel Kish has no eyes, but can ride his bike down the street and walk through an unfamiliar airport on his own.

OK - Now I'm Depressed.

2011-05-30T18:46:00.000-07:00

The video is from Al Jazeera. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/05/2011530195212675595.html

Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency. The shock rise means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius – which scientists say is the threshold for potentially "dangerous climate change" – is likely to be just "a nice Utopia", according to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA. It also shows the most serious global recession for 80 years has had only a minimal effect on emissions, contrary to some predictions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/29/carbon-emissions-nuclearpower?intcmp=122

Sigh ......well, no point in being depressed. It won't help.

So ------Write your Congressperson - MP - Senator - and tell them this is a serious problem and we expect decisive leadership - not a craven grovelling at the feet of the fossil fuels industry.

Why Does Plant Diversity Matter?

2011-05-24T20:09:00.000-07:00

From the website of Kew Gardens - my new favourite site!
http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/index.htm

Plants and Climate Change

2011-05-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

From the UK Guardian at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/may/24/1

A hopeful video for once.....

Slave Lake

2011-05-22T08:06:00.000-07:00

The fire storm that decimated Slave Lake was incredibly traumatic for the residents.

"It looked like the whole town of Slave Lake was on fire," said Courtorielle, who grew up in Slave Lake. "It was like it was out of a horror movie. I have never in my life seen anything like this." http://www.edmontonsun.com/2011/05/16/resident-recalls-fleeing-slave-lake

It has happend before - in BC - in 2003.

Photo appropriated from http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2003/2003-08-25-01.html

And it will happen again. And again. and .... you get the idea. Climate change models suggest that boral forests will be more susceptible to fire as the climate heats up.

The forests are getting warmer and drying out, becoming more fire-prone; they’re being hit by more lightning storms, which start 35 per cent of fires; and they’re being attacked by the mountain pine beetle, which is migrating steadily eastward, killing trees and making them more flammable. “I think it’s consistent with what we expect from climate change. We’ve already seen increases in fire activity in Canada,” said Mike Flannigan, a University of Alberta wildland fire professor and Canadian Forest Service researcher.Almost annually, we’re crossing new [fire] thresholds,” said Brian Simpson, director of B.C.’s Wildfire Management Branch. “All the numbers speak to it.”h

ttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/prairies/slave-lake-shows-the-increasing-risk-of-serious-forest-fires-experts-warn/article2030715/page2/

So what's the solution?

Population sprawl, the pine beetle and climate change are all affecting the fire season, Mr. Simpson said. And bigger fires release more carbon, fuelling a degrading cycle. Slowing climate change is the best long-term solution, Dr. Flannigan said. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/prairies/slave-lake-shows-the-increasing-risk-of-serious-forest-fires-experts-warn/article2030715/page2/

The Alberta governemnt still seem to be living in denial, however .

Officials in Alberta, however, aren’t so quick to link their increasing forest fire problem to climate change.
“I wouldn’t relate [Slave Lake] to a situation where we’re suggesting that climate change is an issue going forward. I’d relate it to a one-off,” said Mel Knight, Alberta’s Minister of Sustainable Resource Development.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/prairies/slave-lake-shows-the-increasing-risk-of-serious-forest-fires-experts-warn/article2030715/page2/

One - off situation, huh? Does the fact that the Alberta government uses the royalties from oil and gas skew their view? How many folks have to be evacuated in the nick of time before denial becomes impossible?

The New Normal

2011-05-19T19:45:00.000-07:00

Heavy rains, deep snowfalls, monster floods and killing droughts are signs of a "new normal" of extreme U.S. weather events fueled by climate change, scientists and government planners said on Wednesday.

It's a new normal and I really do think that global weirding is the best way to describe what we're seeing," climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University told reporters. "We are used to certain conditions and there's a lot going on these days that is not what we're used to, that is outside our current frame of reference," Hayhoe said on a conference call with other experts, organized by the non-profit Union of Concerned Scientists.Hayhoe, other scientists, civic planners and a manager at the giant Swiss Re reinsurance firm all cited human-caused climate change as an factor pushing this shift toward more extreme weather. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/19/floods-droughts-extreme-weather-us_n_864046.html

So when will we, as a society , act on ever increasing greenhouse gas emissions? Are we just going to keep living in denial?

Write your Member of Parliament and ask them to restrict greenhouse gas emissions. Hell, ask them to start riots in the streets - we should be very concerned about the world our children will live in.

Maybe This is Why the Canadian Government Does Nothing

2011-05-19T16:20:00.000-07:00

That’s because global warming has the potential to be a boon for profit seekers. The reason: a hotter climate could undermine crops, leading to smaller harvests and higher prices. By studying temperature and yield records from 1980 to 2008, the team of academics from Columbia University and Stanford University estimated that the global trend to warmer temperatures has led wheat yields to be 5.5 per cent lower than they would have been had the climate been stable, and corn yields to be 3.8 per cent lower.

The reduction spread out over the world was the equivalent to losing the annual corn harvest from Mexico and the wheat harvest of France. There was upside for Canadian farmers from the research. In their number crunching, the researchers noted no effect on yields in Canada and the U.S., because temperatures haven’t risen in those countries as they have elsewhere around the globe. “Pretty much every climate model says that [North American farmers] will get warming too,” but it has not yet been affected by the trend, Dr. Schlenker said.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/warming-trend-could-prove-boon-to-canadian-farming/article2015895/

Some boon - higher food prices - more hunger. And, as a commenter on the Globe and Mail site said "The economic consequences of the instability created when other nations face declining crop yields and difficulty feeding all of their citizens is more likely than not to offset any benefits. One only has to look back to the the economic meltdown two years ago to see how bad things "over there" can cause havoc here."

The Ethics of Climate Change

2011-05-17T19:21:00.000-07:00

I am a Unitarian Universalist. Recently , our minister preached - yes, big surprise - that's what ministers do! She explored the subject of " neighbours."

Well, I believe that we are all connected - people, animals, insects, viruses, plants, fungi, stars - you get the idea. So my answer to the question "Who is my neighbour? " is - everyone and everything. Therefore, it behooves me to look after my nieghbour - or not to actively harm them. Therefore, I must act to prevent climate change as well as work to persuade others of the necessity of acting.

I'm not the only person who has arrived at this conclusion.

Climate change is changing our world. Not only is it changing our physical world, but also our intellectual, social, and moral worlds, in ways that we could not have imagined a generation or two ago. The science of climate change, and the political impasses associated with dealing with it, demonstrate that we are in a profoundly unsafe, interdependent, and uncertain world....[Therefore] be willing to take an ethical stand on climate change. There is no place to hide form this....Regard economics as being about provisioning - that is, the way socities organize themselves to provide for the sustaining and flourishing of life. http://www.e3network.org/papers/Ethics_and_the_Economist_033111.pdf

So what do I do to live ethically and to prevent and mitigate climate change?

Little and big - in no particular order:

I walk to work. If you cannot do that, take transit. Or car pool! If everyone drove to work with one aother person, you'd reduce vehicles on the road by one -half and greenhouse gas emissions accordingly.
I shop at the local farmers' market and freeze and preserve food for the winter. Trucking and flying goods generates a lot of greenhouse gases.
I am a vegetarian. Eating meat raised in the agri biz is not only cruel to animals, and destructive to the environment, but the industry generates almost 20 % of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
I buy fair trade food. (OK - it's trucked in -but at least shade grown coffee doesn't destroy the environment. And as soon as I find coffee that arrives om the Bluenose, I'll buy that.)
We have cut our electrical bill to one- half its former total by turning off lights/ appliances/ clock radios and installing CFLs. We replaced our washer , dryer , and dishwasher with European models that use very little electricity or water.
We(me and my partner) turn our heat backto 15 C at night and up to 17 C during the daytime. Walking around in a sweater isn't a hardship. And snuggling is fun!
We installed a solar hot water heater. Lots of susnshine in the Interior of BC.
We don't fly anywhere.
I write letters to politicans and urge them to to take action on climate change ( and perahps salvage Canada's reputation in the process.)
We donate to climate action groups.
We help organize climate change rallies and vigils - in fact, we volunteer a lot of time. Not only do we work for a good cause, we enlarge our community of friends. And have fun.
I educate myself on the issue and on the psychology of climate change denial.
I meditate to grow my loving kindness and to generate more love in the world.

Anyone can do some of these things. I / we didn't begin by doing all of them at once. Just begin!

If you can only choose one, please choose creating more love in the world - for yourself as well as all others. After all, Gandhi said "Be the change you want to see in the world." I say once we learn to love the world and ourselves, we will not destroy it - we will create a velvet climate revolution.

PS The picture was taken at a candlelight vigil for the Copenhagen Conference - the action was suggested by the folks at
http://www.350.org/ Check the website out - lots of ideas for actions in the fall of 2011.

Look Your Last On all Things Lovely

2011-05-14T18:53:00.000-07:00

Globally warmer seas, rising carbon dioxide emissions and local factors like over-fishing have pushed the threat level on the world's coral reefs into the danger zone, environmental advocates said on Wednesday. "Mounting pressures on land, along the coast and in the water converge in a perfect storm of threats to reefs," Jane Lubchenco, administrator at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said at a briefing. "Since the last 'Reefs at Risk' report ... threats have gone from worrisome to dire." "It's pretty clear that reducing greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide, is absolutely necessary if we want any hope of preventing a lot of the dire situations that are presented in the report," Lubchenco said.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/23/us-climate-reefs-idUSTRE71M5TL20110223

Looks like we won`t have coral reefs in our future unless we reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

We're Going to Court

2011-05-10T06:49:00.000-07:00

More accurately, the BC provincial government is going to face off with the Canadian federal government. The federal government wnats to shut down the safe drug injection site on the DowntownEasatside - Insite.

Located in the heart of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, the Insite facility has a dozen cubicles where approximately 800 addicts per day come to inject themselves. The addicts arrive with their own drugs, unimpeded by the police, who have agreed to give them safe passage in and out of the clinic. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-ottawa-head-to-top-court-over-supervised-injection-site/article2016011/

But Insite works ! Not only does it save the lives of injection drug users, it provides addictions counselling and referrals to detox.

Marjorie Brown, the legal counsel representing the BCNU at the Supreme Court, noted Insite users are 30 percent more likely to access treatment than drug users who do not use the facility.

http://www.straight.com/article-391894/vancouver/bc-nurses-argue-support-insite-supreme-court

And Insite prevents HIV infections. In fact,

A report released by B.C.'s chief medical officer in March recommended that efforts to prevent HIV infection among injection drug users, such as supervised injection services, be expanded. http://www.straight.com/article-391894/vancouver/bc-nurses-argue-support-insite-supreme-court

So Insite prevents deaths from drug overdoses,, helps prevent the transmission of HIV (and subsequent cases of AIDS,) and provides referrals to detox. Why does Mr Harper's government want it shut down?

...federal prosecutors insist that the Supreme Court must not let provinces meddle with federal criminal law powers by creating a legal oasis for people who voluntarily consume drugs.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-ottawa-head-to-top-court-over-supervised-injection-site/article2016011/

In other words, saving lives is much less important than ensuring that the federal government's jurisdiction over criminal legislation is upheld.

Addiction is an illness - not a moral failing. Laws are made for people - and both they and a government's area of jusidiction can be changed . Let`s hope the Supreme Court sides with the province of BC in this case.
UPDATE:

Five former mayors of Vancouver, plus current Mayor Gregor Robertson, have united in a heartfelt call to the Conservative government to end its strong opposition to the city’s Insite facility, North America’s only supervised injection site. “Since opening in 2003, Insite has proven – beyond a doubt – its worth to our community,” says their open letter, signed by former mayors Sam Sullivan, Larry Campbell, Philip Owen, Mike Harcourt and Art Phillips.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-politics/feds-urged-to-drop-anti-insite-stance/article2017218/

Food Budget Ever Expanding?

2011-05-06T08:10:00.000-07:00

Spending more money at the grocery store? Notice that your food budget is consuming more of your income? It's not your imagination....

Prices for food purchased from stores rose 3.7% in March [2011] , the largest year-over-year advance since August 2009. This increase follows a 2.0% gain in February [2011]. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/subjects-sujets/cpi-ipc/cpi-ipc-eng.htm

You can blame climate change food price increases.

new research joins a small number of studies in which the fingerprint of climate change has been separated from natural variations in weather and other factors, demonstrating that the effects of warming have already been felt in the world..... scientists found that global wheat production was 33m tonnes (5.5%) lower than it would have been without warming and maize production was 23m tonnes (3.8%) lower. Specific countries fared worse than the average, with Russia losing 15% of its potential wheat crop, and Brazil, Mexico and Italy suffering above average losses. ...The losses drove up food prices by as much as 18.9%. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/05/food-prices-global-warming?intcmp=122

I predict food prices will continue to increase. We don't seem to be worried about climate change - at least not enough to take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions . So cliamte change will bite harder and harder - and food wil increase in price drastically. Chew on that thought while you complain about your budget.

Voting System Problems

2011-05-05T13:34:00.000-07:00

A visual representation of First Past the Post voiting systems - and a reason Mr harper won the election on May 2, 2011. The Conservatives won 167 seats (out of 3080 with 39.6 % of the popular vote.

A Comment By a Friend

2011-05-03T06:12:00.000-07:00

May 2nd was a great night for the NDP: JackLayton finally got his break. It was a great night for democracy: Elizabeth May now has a chance to be heard. (Just try excluding her from the debates now!) And perhaps the Greens will get more members elected next time around. BUT !!!! What were the voters thinking to to give Harper a Majority? The voting public must Really not give a shit for social justice,the environment, or our global reputation. , We could easily be an innovator in green solutions and we're falling behind the US and China. SAD, So SAD.....

I for one feel a deep sense of shame being a Canadian - I feel this is not a day to be celebrate. We have truly chosen an elected Dictator. Can you say "Drill, Baby ,Drill?" I truly feel we have elected a Republican- style Government. W only need look south of the 49th to see the results of the policies in place to get a glimpse of the path we have chosen......

SAD, So SAD.....

Save Your Energy

2011-04-30T18:04:00.000-07:00

It's a British made video - but a fun way to learn about conserving energy.

A Week is A Long Time In Politics

2011-04-29T19:27:00.000-07:00

I've never seen anything like the turnaround in the polls for Jack Llayton and the NDP party. (Well - maybe once - the Progessive Conservatives did get their asses kicked in 1993. Remember when Jean Charest and Elsie Wayne could hold caucus meetings in a phone booth?)

But why now? Rick Mercer has been wondering the same thing - and puts it down to TV.

At first I believed Jack’s new-found success among anglophone voters in Quebec could be attributed to the fact that in the French language debates his translator sounded like Sean Connery, but clearly it’s more than that. And while the crowds are larger than Jack is used to, Jack is doing exactly what he has done for almost a decade. I watched him get a rock-star response at a Sikh Khalsa Day celebration in Toronto, I saw him talk blue-collar issues for a boisterous crowd in Saint John, N.B., and ﬁnally parlez-vous them into a frenzy in Gatineau, Que....And Jack Layton is a great campaigner but a good speech in Gatineau doesn’t put the NDP in first place in Quebec. Jack made that happen on French debate night. Again, it’s the air war.
http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/04/28/is-stephen-harper-a-hologram/

I don't think it is only TV though. The Conservatives underestimated the voters - you and me.

Many pollsters, and some insiders from other parties, entered this campaign sharing the belief that the vast majority of voters aren’t really in play.Then, after the leaders’ debates, all hell broke loose. Starting in Quebec, then spreading to other provinces, support started shifting toward the NDP – not just in tiny blocs, but in large numbers. If the polls are to be believed, millions of voters have moved to a party that was assumed to have hit its ceiling in the last campaign. It is not Conservative voters, primarily, who have shifted. In Quebec, where Mr. Layton has for years been courting left-of-centre and soft nationalist voters, the NDP capitalized on fatigue and annoyance with the Bloc Québécois. Elsewhere, the gains have mostly come at the expense of the Liberals and the Green Party. But the Conservatives, who thought they had this election fully gamed out, have not been nimble enough to respond. They have watched as anti-Harper support has consolidated behind the NDP, putting in jeopardy some of the seats they were counting on, and until the last few days seemingly refused to believe it was happening. And because they didn’t think it was worth speaking to most self-identified supporters of other parties, they’ve been unable to woo many of the disaffected Liberals leaving that party in droves..... And in future campaigns, all parties will know better than to treat us as quite the automatons the Conservatives thought we were.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/adam-radwanski/why-this-campaign-has-been-a-boon-to-democracy/article2004853/

The shift in polling patterns happened after the debates - so perhaps Rick Mercer is correct about the "air war.". But some of the effect has to have been achieved by the Conservatives themselves - not talking to supporters of other parties - not permitting people without an approved Facebook profile into Conservative rallies - working from fear rather than from hope.

And, perhaps the many times the Liberals propped the Conservatives up by voting with them has come back to bite them or maybe Jack Layton just seems - well - warmer and nicer and more hopeful than the other two.

I hope this trend holds - I'd love to do a conga line chanting Harper's gone, Harper's gone a la 1993!

Another Reason Not to Vote Conservative

2011-04-26T18:18:00.000-07:00

If you needed another reason not to vote Conservative in the May 2nd federal election, here's one.

There’s a hole in the Conservative platform…a hole so big, you could fit Canada’s oil and gas sector or every single one of our fossil-fuel power plants into it. The hole is projected to get bigger, and will be large enough to fit every single car, truck, SUV, train, bus, and ATV in Canada into it by 2020. These are not figures from David Suzuki. They are taken from speeches by Conservative Environment Minister Peter Kent and reports provided by Environment Canada earlier this year. ...The Conservatives are clearly aware of this hole in their platform, but they have failed to introduce any substantial new programs to close the 178 Mt gap....The Conservatives need to answer one of two questions on costs which they have not included in their platform. Either they must address the costs of meeting our targets, or the costs to our export industries and our international reputation if we don’t meet them.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/the-economists/theres-a-dirty-secret-in-tory-greenhouse-gas-plan/article1999296/

Who is this pinko author? He is an Assistant Professor at the Alberta School of Business. He blogs on energy, environment, and oilsands issues at http://www.andrewleach.ca

Steve it's Time to Leave

2011-04-24T16:34:00.001-07:00

Watching a Train Wreck

2011-04-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

Over the six years Alex Gardner monitored Canada's Arctic glaciers and ice caps, he says they lost almost as much water as there is in Lake Erie.

The ice loss has increased sharply "in direct response to warmer summer temperatures" since 2004 — so sharply that Gardner and his colleagues say the Canadian Arctic Archipelago was the single largest contributor to global sea-level rise outside Greenland and Antarctica between 2007 and 2009.

He says that in 2009, the ice-loss rate was four times larger than estimated by NASA for the mid- to late-1990s. ..

"It's like watching a slow train wreck," says Gardner, noting that millions of people around the world could be displaced in coming decades as ice melts and sea levels rise.

Gardner, ... says it might be possible to avoid the worst outcomes by coming up with a "more responsible" way of managing the economy.

"Canada still has one of the largest carbon footprints in the world, so I would say we are failing on that," he said.
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Melting+Arctic+could+nearly+fill+Lake+Erie+Study/4649174/story.html

Watching a train wreck indeed......

Changing Minds Part 2

2011-04-23T18:43:00.000-07:00

The short answer: use peer pressure.

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v1/n1/full/nclimate1076.html

Recent research suggests that much of our consumption stems from a deep desire to fit in, to do what others do. While Murtagh has been finding ways to be diplomatic with neighbours who don't want to walk their children to school, she has been documenting similar attitudes in working parents across the UK. In a 2010 study published as a working paper at the University of Surrey6, Murtagh, and colleagues Birgitta Gatersleben and David Uzzell surveyed parents who earned at least £25,000 per year and lived in suburban or urban locations. In their sample, participants made 80% of their trips by car (compared with a national average of 71%) and 52% of their trips to school by car (also higher than the national average of 43%). More than 70% said that being a driver was important to their identity, behind being a 'parent' and 'worker', suggesting their decision to drive is partly governed by how they think others perceive them....although peer pressure may prompt us to continue driving, it can also provide the necessary incentive to switch to more sustainable behaviour. In a study motivated by reports of the enormous popularity of the Toyota Prius hybrid car in the US, even after tax rebates there ended, Vladas Griskevicius of the University of Minnesota and colleagues found that status-seeking motivates individuals to buy greener products more strongly than any desire to save energy and reduce emissions. Writing in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2010, the team reported the results of a series of experiments on the motivators behind shopping behaviour^{7. ....}All this suggests that we have barriers to deal with in ourselves. Some social scientists now argue that understanding how we care on an emotional level, known in the field as 'affect', is the only way to motivate society to change its energy use. “If we are recognizing a gap between what people say and what they value,” says Renee Lertzman, a climate and behaviour consultant at Portland State University, “we want to understand what's going on with people: conflict dilemmas, contradictions, ambivalence.” In other words, we need to psychoanalyse people a little bit, she acknowledges, and understand the gloomy, melancholy side of how people are facing climate change.

The slightly longer answer: use peer pressure; target your audience, understand them and their values, and use language they understand in an effort to get them to change driving habits or to conserve energy.

Changing Minds

2011-04-23T14:57:00.000-07:00

People do change their minds occasionally. About what to wear - or where to holiday. Changing one's mind seems to be a rarer thing on issues where people are heavily invested emotionally. Think abortion.... Or climate change.Mother Jones has an interesting article on this at

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney?page=4

The writer of the article describes how an emotional investment can skew our reasoning by discussing relationships. Ze says

We all understand these mechanisms when it comes to interpersonal relationships. If I don't want to believe that my spouse is being unfaithful, or that my child is a bully, I can go to great lengths to explain away behavior that seems obvious to everybody else—everybody who isn't too emotionally invested to accept it, anyway.

Ze goes on to demonstrate, that, since this emotional skewing happens to everyone, it is virtually useless to argue with people over the facts .

Take, for instance, the question of whether Saddam Hussein possessed hidden weapons of mass destruction just before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. When political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler showed subjects fake newspaper articles (PDF) in which this was first suggested (in a 2004 quote from President Bush) and then refuted (with the findings of the Bush-commissioned Iraq Survey Group report, which found no evidence of active WMD programs in pre-invasion Iraq), they found that conservatives were more likely than before to believe the claim.

Uh huh. The stronger the evidence against their belifes, the more the subjects clung to their beliefs. Gad - what's a poor climate change or environmental activist to do in that case ? Arguing doesn't change anyone's mind. Presenting facts entrenches beliefs! Aaagggh! One ray of hope remains:

Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via a business or religious leader, who can set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue.

So sell climate change adaptation and greenhouse gas emission reduction to deniers on the basis of their values - using someone they already respect as a spokesperson if possible. Couch measures in patriotic language and present said maeasures as business opportunities.

Another ray of hope. sometimes people change their minds on the basis of their experiences. A conservative Christian campaigner against gay amrriage in the US changed his mind and recanted his opposition to gay marriage.

between what I had witnessed on the marriage tour and RJ’s post about marriage equality, I really came to understand that gays and lesbians were just real people who wanted to live real lives and be treated equally as opposed to, for example, wanting to destroy American culture. No, they didn’t want to destroy American culture, they wanted to openly particulate in it. I was well on my way to becoming a supporter of civil marriage equality. My name is Louis J. Marinelli, a conservative-Republican and I now support full civil marriage equality. The constitution calls for nothing less.

http://louisjmarinelli.com/politics/i-now-support-full-marriage-equality

The trick is gonna be changing enough folks' minds - in time. Tick, tock, tick, tock.......

I Didn't Know this

2011-04-22T06:28:00.001-07:00

From a website new to me:

http://shitharperdid.ca.nyud.net/

More Gloom - But From Jeffrey Sachs this Time

2011-03-29T06:14:00.000-07:00

Jeffrey Sachs spoke at the University of Toronto.

Something very dramatic is happening,” he warned a rapt audience. “We’ve entered a new global scenario with respect to food, hunger and conflict … an era where things are likely to get tougher, not easier, in terms of production,” he said. “We’re hitting boundaries that are very important to understand and very important to counteract.” Chief among those is the fact that global demand for food – and the agricultural commodities used to produce it – is outpacing the growth of supplies. The onset of climate change, which affects everything from the water supply to crop yields, is a ballooning wedge that will continue to force those trend lines in opposite directions, Dr. Sachs said.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/renowned-economists-outlook-darkens-on-global-food-prospects/article1957725/

And from the March 25, 2011 edition of the Economist:

Peak, rather than average, temperatures are what matter most to maize. Days above 30 degrees C are particualrly damaging. In otherwise normal conditons, every day the temperature is over this threshold dimishes yields by at least 1 5. Moreover, days where the ttemperature exceeds 32 degrees C do twice the harm of those at 31 degrees C. And during a drought, things are worse still. page 91

What does this mean? It looks like climate change has an viscious effect on crop failure: the hotter it gets the less food we get - on an exponential scale. It's going to be tougher to produce enough food to feed all of humanity. That's you and me, folks. Oh we won't starve in the rich countires. Our food will be very expensive, that's all.

But what can we DO? Well, there is a federal election looming on the horizon. Educate your friends. Go to candidate forums and ask questions. Write letters to the editor. Email leaders of the parties. Vote strategically. Tell everyone you want Canada to live up to its promises regarding money for small holders.
We've been failing badly on keeping our promises as Dr Sachs points out.

Dr. Sachs is particularly incensed by the failure of G8 countries to come through on a $22-billion pledge made in 2008 to establish a World Bank fund to help smallholder farmers. Improving the livelihoods and farming practices of smallholders across a host of poor countries is seen by many economists as a critical approach to tackling hunger.Dr. Sachs said G8 countries are guilty of merely feigning support. “The G8 lied. It made the promise but didn’t follow through,” Dr. Sachs said. “Your Mr. [Stephen] Harper is so big on accountability, but there is no accountability whatsoever and there is no money in the bank.” Although Canada is a small country. Dr. Sachs said Canada bears a share of the responsibility for the fact that wars are getting more investment than agriculture, the boosting of which is a well-known ground stone of development.

Kick up a fuss!

A Movie: The Vanishing of the Bees

2011-03-26T18:13:00.000-07:00

The Vanishing of the Bees

In the Opinion of the Writer

2011-03-24T20:34:00.000-07:00

My neighbours are up in arms and furious with the City of Kamloops. Why?

The City is proposing to rezone six properties within the city as affordable housing. If you haven't heard about this, I've provided a link to an article in the Kamloops Daily News below.
http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/article/20110315/KAMLOOPS0101/110319851/-1/kamloops0101/public-hearing-to-look-at-rezoning-for-affordable-housing

The City is holding a public hearing on Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 7:00 pm at Kamloops Convention Centre, Ballroom "C" (1250 Rogers Way) on this issue.

One of the lots proposed for rezoning is in my neighbourhood. My acquaintances say publicly that many people use this site, 697 Cowan, as a recreational area. Well - maybe. I've never seen anyone use it as anything but an area to walk their dogs - and judging from my shoes, leave their dog's shit in.

However, I have been told privately, and most emphatically, that social housing for low income people drives down property values and drives up crime. And that surely I don't want "those " people living in my neighbourhood!

Firstly, crime rates do not increase in the areas where social housing is built. That is a myth - an outworn, hoary, fallacious myth.

Affordable housing can help a community maintain a stable population by making it easier to retain people who already live and work there. In fact, a Denver study shows that "…there was no statistically significant evidence that supportive housing development led to increased rates of reported violent, property, criminal mischief, disorderly conduct or total crimes. These findings were equally true of supportive housing for perceived "dangerous clientele" ex-offenders, people with mental illness and recovering substance abusers." Source: "Impact of supportive housing on local crime rates" - HUD, Urban Institute, Wayne State University - 2002 http://www.cagh.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30&Itemid=84

Neither do property values decrease.

Studies have shown that housing developments which are well-designed do not have a negative effect on neighbouring property values. In fact, some developments may actually increase property values." (Source: "Impact of Non-Market Housing on Property Values" - BC Government - Feb. 2000 -http://www.housing.gov.bc.ca/housing/00_Jan_PropVal.http://www.cagh.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30&Itemid=84

So , actually, I do want "those " people living in my neighbourhood. They will not have a negative impact on my neighbourhood in any way. They will probably enrich it - by open-midedness if nothing else. And most importantly, I want an equitable and just society where the inherent worth and dignity of every person is recognized. I want everyone to have a home. And, most fervently, I wish my neighbours would start seeing through the eyes of loving kindness rather than fear. If you support this rezoning project, please send the mayor and council an email telling them so. Better yet, go to the rezoning hearing and tell them in person. I've listed email addresses below for your convenience.

mayor@kamloops.ca

nbepple@kamloops.ca

jdecicco@kamloops.ca

jharker@kamloops.ca

tlange@kamloops.ca

jofee@kamloops.ca

mspina@kamloops.ca

pwallace@kamloops.ca

dwalsh@kamloops.ca

More Good News on Food

2011-03-13T21:23:00.000-07:00

Low-input farming projects, not reliant on chemical fertilisers and pesticides, have brought significant increases in food production in Africa, south-east Asia and South America, according to a UN report. Small-scale farmers can double food production within 10 years in Africa by using ecological methods rather than chemical fertilisers. In a review of agroecological farming projects, which focus on a minimal use of external inputs, like chemical fertilisers, in favour of controlling pests and disease with natural predators, mixed crop and livestock management and agroforestry (interplanting of trees and crops), the report found average increases in crop yield of 80 per cent in 57 less-industrialised countries. In Africa the average increase was 116 per cent.... Conventional farming relies on expensive inputs, degrades soils, fuels climate change and is not resilient to climatic shocks. It simply is not the best choice anymore today. Schutter said in the long run agroecological farming would build long-term resilience for countries and make them less reliant on expensive imports based on oil and gas, chemicals and pesticides.
http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/805229/agroecological_farming_can_double_food_production_in_africa_over_next_10_years.html

Like to Eat?

2011-03-12T07:15:00.000-08:00

If you like to eat, we best do something about our 'lifestyle" in North America.

The UN on Thursday expressed alarm at a huge decline in bee colonies under a multiple onslaught of pests and pollution, urging an international effort to save the pollinators that are vital for food crops. Much of the decline, ranging up to 85 percent in some areas, is taking place in the industrialised northern hemisphere due to more than a dozen factors, according to a report by the UN's environmental agency. They include pesticides, air pollution, a lethal pinhead-sized parasite that only affects bee species in the northern hemisphere, mismanagement of the countryside, the loss of flowering plants and a decline in beekeepers in Europe. "The way humanity manages or mismanages its nature-based assets, including pollinators, will in part define our collective future in the 21st century," said UNEP executive director Achim Steiner. "The fact is that of the 100 crop species that provide 90 percent of the world's food, over 70 are pollinated by bees," he added.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/global-warming/UN-alarmed-at-huge-decline-in-bee-numbers/articleshow/7676603.cms

Remember my post on the fertile soils (terra preta) created by First Nations people in the Amazon? The same soils that have maintained their fertility for hundreds of years without fertilizers made from oil while being fantastically productive? We could create the same kind of soils in Canada. and farm and garden organically. Then, perhaps we wouldn't destory the ecosystems upon which we depend. Our survival will be measured and secured by these kinds of step - seemingly small, labour intensive, steps that one can take ina community garden.

"But in a sense they are an indicator of the wider changes that are happening in the countryside but also urban environments, in terms of whether nature can continue to provide the services as it has been doing for thousands or millions of years in the face of acute environmental change," he added.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/global-warming/UN-alarmed-at-huge-decline-in-bee-numbers/articleshow/7676603.cms

Climate Change is Really Happening - and Really a Problem

2011-03-10T20:23:00.000-08:00

What makes me think climate change is a real problem? Besides those people with the funny degrees in climatology, that is.

Well, climate change keeps getting mentioned in all kinds of places by all kinds of people as a serious problem.

From The Economist a surprising admission:

It is healthy ....to recognise that even in an age of high technology, our propserity and well-being depend upon our natural environment, which furnishes us with air, water, food and teh natural resources on which indutry relies.

In other word, the economy is a subset of the environment - not the other way around.

Then there was the entire issue they dedicated to climate change back in the spring of 2010. The article concluded:

The doubters are right that uncertainties are rife in climate science. They are wrong when they presen that as a reason for inaction.

The US Navy seems to be worrying its head about climate change as well.

"Even the most moderate predicted trends in climate change will present new national security challenges for the US navy, marine corps, and coastguard," said Frank Bowman, a retired US navy admiral and co-chair of the committee that produced the report....The report, four years in the making, reflects growing concern in US military and strategic circles about the security implications of climate change. In addition to the looming security challenges in the Arctic, the report warned that $100bn in navy installations were at risk from rising sea levels.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/10/arctic-struggle-climate-change

Insurance companies are fretting about climate change too.

In 1990, when the first report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came out, Swiss Re decided that sea-level rise, desertification, and other risks of climate change are real. If the company failed to take them into account, it risked losing money. Now, Swiss Re is in the vanguard of companies and organizations that are raising the alarm about climate change. Last year, it released a detailed scientific rebuttal of the arguments climate skeptics make against anthropogenic warming.

http://blogs.physicstoday.org/thedayside/2011/01/climate-change-insurance-companies-and-criminals.html

So why isn't the Canadian federal government instituting carbon rationing? The public doesn't want them to, that's why. That's right - you and me - we're the problem. We think climate change doesn't affect us - and maybe we don't worry a lot aobut our kids or grandkids.

Well - we're wrong about not being hurt by climate change.

Extreme rainstorms and snowfalls have grown substantially stronger, two studies suggest, with scientists for the first time finding the telltale fingerprints of man-made global warming on downpours that often cause deadly flooding. Two studies in Wednesday's issue of the journal Nature link heavy rains to increases in greenhouse gases more than ever before.Both studies should weaken the argument that climate change is a “victimless crime,” said Myles Allen of the University of Oxford. He co-authored the second study, which connected flooding and climate change in Britain. “Extreme weather is what actually hurts people.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/extreme-weather-getting-worse---and-climate-change-to-blame-studies-say/article1910066/

Maybe you and me should write to the Prime Minister and instruct him to take some significant steps to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

Vandana Shiva and Climate Debt

2011-03-10T19:20:00.001-08:00

From Al Jazeera

2011-03-09T19:04:00.000-08:00

Remember those floods and droughts in 2010? Wildfires around Moscow? Flooding in Pakistan and Oz? So does this writer from Al Jazeera.

2010 proved to be a model year for what the planet can expect as the result of climate change. Huge floods occurred in Pakistan, Australia, and California. A record-breaking heat wave in Russia, and the severe die-offs of coral reefs underscored the acceleration of the global trends in Climate Change. Last year was also the 34th consecutive year that global temperatures have been above the 20th-century average, and nine of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001 due to what scientists attribute to a 40 per cent increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution began....On February 16 two new studies published in the journal Nature confirmed the link between climate change and more extreme precipitation events. Based on measurements taken from over 6,000 weather stations, results revealed that human-induced heating of the planet has already made rainfall more intense, which has led to more severe floods. The studies suggest that the planet's climatic system may well be more sensitive to small temperature increases than was previously believed....Warmer atmospheric temperatures means increasing moisture in the air, and thus greater amounts in precipitation events.

But isn't this nasty winter proof that the climate isn't warming? In a word, no.

The current string of harsh winters around much of the globe for the last decade is also attributed to climate change, according to scientists who published a report in December.

"Recent severe winters [in Europe] like last year’s or the one of 2005-2006 do not conflict with the global warming picture, but rather supplement it," Vladimir Petoukhov, lead author of the study and a physicist at the Potsdam Institute reported.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/201132141536987194.html

We're going to have wilder, more extreme weather events as cliame change continues.

Dangerous Stuff

2011-03-08T19:32:00.000-08:00

The following comment was made on Thompson Environmental Network about an educational project in an elementary school:

This sounds like deliberate indoctrination to me. How dare they recruit children for their political purposes in this shameless manner! Let it not be forgotten that there is not a shred of convincing evidence, nor even convincing theory, that the recent and projected growth of CO2 levels in the atmosphere is driving climate in any alarming manner. The idea of CO2 as a major driver of climate is not supported by the geological record over many hundreds of thousands of years (in which CO2 levels follow temperature changes, and do not precede them), nor by recent data which shows the climate displaying 'business as usual'. http://thompsonenvironmental.net/2011/03/climate-change-heroes/

The above commenter obviously has made a hither-to unheard of breakthrough in climatology. I assume he is one of George Monbiot's astroturfers: a commenter paid to troll the internet and deny that climate change is occurring. I look forward to reading his PhD thesis on the subject as his statement is unsupported by 99 % of climatologists. All the evidence I have found indicates that manmade global warming, or climate change is happening right now - and is a serious problem. Many lines of evidence demonstrate this. From the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration site:

Based on comprehensive data from multiple sources, the report defines 10 measurable planet-wide features used to gauge global temperature changes. The relative movement of each of these indicators proves consistent with a warming world. Seven indicators are rising: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, air temperature over oceans, sea level, ocean heat, humidity and tropospheric temperature in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface. Three indicators are declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern hemisphere.

Check it our for yourself at
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100728_stateoftheclimate.html

Why do climate change deniers live in denial of a very serious problem that requires action immediately? The World Bank pondered the same subject. In May 2009, Kari Marie Norgaard published a working paper for The World Bank entitled Cognitive and Behavioral Challenges in Responding to Climate Change. Find the araticle at:
http://www-wds.worldbank.org/servlet/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&entityID=000158349_20090519142931

She found that public awareness and concern regarding climate change is not a function of scientific information alone, but psychological and sociological issues as well. Moreover, people ACTUALLY WORK TO AVOID ACKNOWLEDGING DISTURBING INFORMATION in order to avoid emotions of fear, guilt and helplessness. Mr. Commenter, you seem to be working hard at avoiding confronting the biggest, most serious problem facing us: global warming.

But, Mr Commenter, you need not cope with your terror and discomfort with denial. Hope exists: it IS POSSIBLE to solve this problem as the City of Portland has demonstrated. That city has reduced greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels without any support from the federal government of the USA.

Hope is what the BCSEA and the City of Kamloops are giving children. Hope and the knowledge that actions matter. Dangerous stuff , indeed!

More Terra Preta

2011-03-06T19:45:00.000-08:00

Terra Preta

2011-03-06T19:35:00.000-08:00

Perhaps 100 million people lived in the Americas before Columbus and before contact. What on earth were all those people doing? In the Amazon, they created soil. Soil in the Amazon is typically orange bauxite - incapable of supporting crops - terrible stuff if you are a farmer silly enough to clear the land. (The nutrients in a rain forest are held in the vegetation.) Some anomalies exist though - large patches of something called terra preta show up where indigenous populations had their cities. Those black soils are prized by farmers as they are highly productive. When archaeologists analysed terra preta they discovered it is full of pre-Columbian ceramics, charcoal, and lots and lots of microbes. In other words, terra preta was created hundreds of years ago - and has maintained its productivity over that huge length of time.

This is good news. For one thing, we can learn from "los indios" how to create soil instead of destroying it. (Agribiz tends to "mine" soil and therefore destroy it.) Secondly, bio char soils sequester carbon.

The charcoal, acting a lot like humus, had been colonized by myriad microbes, fungi, earthworms, and other creatures; these soil organisms produced carbon-based molecules that stuck to the charcoal, gradually increasing the soil's carbon content. ... Crops have been shown to grow 45 per cent greater biomass on unfertilized terra preta soil versus poor soil fertilized with chemical fertilizers. Page 70, Organic Gardening, Dec/Jan 2011

So if we create bio char from organic waste that goes to landfills now, we help sequester carbon while we farm organically and increase crop yields. A triple win! And a solution to one of the problems created by peak oil. Chemical fertilizers are made from oil - and now we don't need them!

Bill Maher On Climate Change

2011-03-05T18:17:00.000-08:00

El Savador

2011-02-26T17:12:00.000-08:00

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/02/2011213174138761638.html

While debate about whether climate change is real or not continues in the US, the world's leading producer of CO2 emissions per capita, those already living with the effects, like Jose Domingo Cruz in El Salvador, don't have time to debate. "Our storms are increasing in number and intensity," Cruz, a member of his community Civil Protection Committee that responds to community needs during natural disasters, told Al Jazeera while standing on a levy that ruptured during Tropical Storm Agatha last year. "All of us attribute this to climate change."

...the people are, however, forming a movement that is learning to protect and sustain itself in the increasingly chaotic world of global climate change and its severe ramifications on people, the environment, and local economies.

"Local communities are on the front-lines of climate change, and many local organisations like the Mangrove Association are offering the only significant response to this very serious problem," Nathan Weller of EcoViva told Al Jazeera. "Communities like those in the Bay of Jiquilisco can no longer rely solely on the conventional development model to intervene for them. They live the effects of climate change, are working actively on solutions to confront them, and the Mangrove Association serves to catalyse these efforts."

In what has become a major grassroots social movement that aims to increase diversified sustainable farming, organic foods, food security, and all of this via environmentally friendly methods, many people living in this area are actually seeing their lives improve, despite the challenges.

We could learn something from these folks in El Savador.

Subsidies to Fossil Fuel

2011-02-26T17:01:00.000-08:00

You know I have often heard discussion at the local Timmie's regardin goil and cola corporations. Folks are sympathetic when they consider how sickly - how impoverished - oil companies are in Canada. Ditto those poor, poor coal mining corporation s- hardly make enough to feed and clothe their CEOs. Why, fossil fule corporations barely made a hundred billions last year worldwide.

No? You haven't heard that either? Why in hell is the federal government subisdizing them?
http://www.rabble.ca/news/2011/02/its-time-end-canada%E2%80%99s-billion-dollar-handout-big-oil-and-coal

Meanwhile, the federal government subsidizes oil companies to the tune of $1.4 billion every year, according to the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD). It's more if you factor in other fossil fuels such as coal.

If the government ended those subisidies, and directed them to the clean energy industry, wouldn't we all be better off in the long run?

And why doesn't the mainstream media mention those subsidies more often?

The Climate Action Network is working to get the federal government to end those irresponsible tax breaks.
Please go to
http://www.climateactionnetwork.ca/e/fossil-tax-breaks/index.php
and add your voice to those protesting this.

Extreme Weather

2011-02-21T17:57:00.000-08:00

Unlike northern China, Queensland, Australia has no shortage of precipiation. Are flooding and violent cyclones connected to climate change? Cliamte change models predict extreme weather events ......

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/feb/16/climate-change-extreme-weather

....we begin to see trends which suggest that rising temperatures are making a particular kind of weather more likely to occur. One such trend has now become clearer. Two new papers, published by Nature, should make us sit up, as they suggest for the first time a clear link between global warming and extreme precipitation (precipitation means water falling out of the sky in any form: rain, hail or snow.)

Maybe we should worry ......

This Is What Drought Looks Like in China

2011-02-21T17:38:00.000-08:00

Baby, It's Weird Outside

2011-02-16T06:59:00.000-08:00

Remember the heat wave in Russia laast summer? The forest fires? The loss of their wheat crop due to drought? How about the floods in Pakistan and the loss of their cotton crops?

Climate change models predict unusual and extreme weather events. Like severe droughts. Hmmnnnn... we seem to be happenign another drought. This one is in northern China. From Forbes ....
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/02/14/business-health-care-providers-us-business-highlights_8308227.html

BEIJING (AP) - Provinces in China's severely parched northeast have been ordered to step up emergency irrigation as part of a $1 billion effort to minimize the loss of crucial wheat crops. China is the world's largest wheat-growing nation but its wheat belt has gotten virtually no precipitation since October. Expected shortages of the crop in China have already pushed up global prices for the commodity. The government's Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters said in an online statement late Sunday that the drought situation remained "grim" and urged local officials to dig more wells and carry out other emergency irrigation measures. The U.N.'s food agency has warned the drought is driving up China's wheat prices, and now the focus is on whether China will buy more from the global market, where prices have risen about 35 percent since mid-November.

China doesn't usually import wheat. If it is forced to import, wheat prices are going to increase again. This is going to affect you, dear reader. Your bread and pasta is going to get pricey. Unhappily, higher food prices probably aren't enough to wake up the middle classes in North America and get them to riot in the streets demanding action on climate change.

“The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side.”

2011-02-11T08:16:00.000-08:00

Wikileaks has exposed all kinds of interesting things - including US worries about oil reserves.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/08/saudi-oil-reserves-overstated-wikileaks

The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show. The revelation comes as the oil price has soared in recent weeks to more than $100 a barrel on global demand and tensions in the Middle East. Many analysts expect that the Saudis and their Opec cartel partners would pump more oil if rising prices threatened to choke off demand. However, Sadad al-Husseini, a geologist and former head of exploration at the Saudi oil monopoly Aramco, met the US consul general in Riyadh in November 2007 and told the US diplomat that Aramco's 12.5m barrel-a-day capacity needed to keep a lid on prices could not be reached.….The US consul then told Washington: "While al-Husseini fundamentally contradicts the Aramco company line, he is no doomsday theorist. His pedigree, experience and outlook demand that his predictions be thoughtfully considered."

That consular officer's fears appear to be well founded:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying. The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.

Looks like those peak oil theorists were correct - except they haven't been crying "the doom has come upon us!"

The Warmest Year(s) on Record

2011-02-08T15:10:00.000-08:00

Was I in a coma? How did I miss the news about the warmest year on record in Canada?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110111/wl_canada_nm/canada_us_environment_temperature

Canada had its warmest year on record in 2010, according to the country's environmental agency, with the biggest impact seen in the Arctic region.

The national average temperature for the year was 3 degrees Celsius above normal, based on preliminary data, according to a report put on Environment Canada's website on Monday. That made it the warmest year since nationwide records began in 1948. Most areas of the northern territory of Nunavut and of northern Quebec were at least 4 degrees above normal, while the Arctic tundra region was 4.3 degrees above normal. Along with the Arctic tundra, the Arctic mountains and fiords, the northeastern forest and Atlantic regions also had the warmest year on record.

And did anyone see a lot of coverage of the fact that 2010 was the warmest everywhere?

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/sci/2011-01/21/c_13700425.htm

The year 2010 is the warmest year on record, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said here on Thursday, warning that the warming trend may trigger more extreme weather events. "We can indeed report that 2010 is now going to rank as the warmest year on record at the same level as 2005 and 1998," WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud told a press conference.

It’s not just the World Meteorological Organization – Check out the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – NOAA for short.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110112_globalstats.html

According to NOAA scientists, 2010 tied with 2005 as the warmest year of the global surface temperature record, beginning in 1880. This was the 34th consecutive year with global temperatures above the 20th century average.by researchers at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.

The Times of India reported on the effects of climate change as well. A lot …..

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/global-warming/2010-was-warmest-year-on-record-UN-weather-agency/articleshow/7328368.cms#ixzz1DOekj0da

Global average temperature last year was 0.53 degrees Celsius above the average level during 1961-90, and it is higher than the two previous warmest years -- 1998 and 2005 -- in the last decade. More disturbingly, the Arctic sea-ice cover, which is a protective layer against global warming, was the lowest on record last month, with an average monthly extent of 12 million square kilometres or 1.35 square kilometres below the 1979-2000 average for December.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/global-warming/Australia-faces-worse-storms-Climate-experts/articleshow/7424790.cms

Researchers at the prestigious Climate Institute in Sydney said that warmer temperatures were expected to produce more intense torrential downpours like Yasi, particularly in the country's tropical north. Yasi, a maximum-category five storm reportedly large enough to cover most of the United States and with winds stronger than Hurricane Katrina, hit Queensland on Thursday, packing winds of up to 290 kilometres (180 miles) per hour. Queensland is still recovering from a record deluge and floods that destroyed tens of thousands of homes and killed more than 30 people last month. The Climate Institute is calling for urgent measures to arrest global warming as north Queensland recovers from the twin disasters.

So why aren't Canadians rioting in the streets?

Cool Things at TRU

2011-01-22T07:56:00.000-08:00

Didja know that TRU has an international week? Following is an event that will interest those concerned aobut cliamte change.

Wednesday Feb 9, 2011

THE POWER OF COMMUNITY: HOW CUBA SURVIVED
PEAK OIL

7:00PM – 9:00PM

ROOM 1020, INTERNATIONAL BUILDING

A documentary film will be shown followed by a discussion of the
way Cuba has decreased its energy consumption, led by past
and present field school participants. This is an awareness and
fund-raising event for the 2011 Cuba Field School.

Admission $5

Presented by Dr. Wendy Hulko, Jane Birkbeck, and SOCW 3300 students
Sponsored by School of Social Work and Human Service, and the
Kamloops Chapter of the Council of Canadians.

Check out more at

http://www.tru.ca/__shared/assets/2011pg22648.pdf

Interval

2011-01-22T07:52:00.000-08:00

No, this blog isn't dead - but the darling of my heart is. The person I love most (Iknow my partner will forgive me for saying this) committed suicide on September 30, 2010.

I will nevr get over it - but I will learn to cope. I am learning - hence the new posts....

Why Just On August 27th?

2010-08-26T15:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.crazysustainablecommute.org/

Could The Federal Government Be A Tad Defensive?

2010-08-21T11:54:00.000-07:00

From the Liberal Report on water contamination by tar sands mining entitled The Hidden Dimension: Water and Oil Sands:

No should one underestimate the intensity of the reaction that any suggestion the industry is contaminating water in the region can provoke among oil sands promoters and defenders - even those in the normally staid realm of the public service. For example, Preston McEachern, head of science, research and innovation with Alberta Environment, was recedently forced to issue a retraction and apology to two respected scientists, Kevin Tomoney and Peter Lee, for alleging they "lied in their research about the oil sands industry" in relation to its impact on Alberta's waer resources. The same defensiveness was observed when federal environment minster Jim Prentice, answeringa a question from Liberal M.P. Francis Scarpaleggia in the House of Commons about research by world-renowned water scientist Dr. David Schindler that proved the industry is contributing to contamination of the Athabasca River, described Dr. Schindler's findings as mere "allegations."

http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/08/19/LiberalTarSandsReport/

The Liberal report found that industry developments are indeed contaminating the Athabasca River; that the framework for protecting the river is based on "bureaucratic compromise" as opposed to rigorous science-based policy; that there is inadequate baseline data and studies on the project's impact on groundwater;.... and finally that the federal government "has devolved and diluted" its water monitoring responsibilities.

Now we dismiss published peer reviewed studies as mere allegations? Wow!!!!

I Mentioned This

2010-08-20T17:27:00.000-07:00

The longterm threat to Pakistan’s wellbeing is that the country is gradually drying out. The Indus river system is the main year-round source of water for both Pakistan and northwestern India, but the glaciers up on the Tibetan plateau that feed the system’s various tributaries are melting.

While they are melting, of course, the amount of water in the system will not fall steeply—but according the Chinese Academy of Sciences, some of the glaciers will be gone in as little as 20 years. Then the river levels will drop permanently, and the real problems will begin.

Fifteen or 20 years from now, the water shortage (and therefore also food scarcities) will be a permanent political obsession in Pakistan. Even now, Pakistani politicians tend to blame India for their country’s water shortage (and vice versa, of course). It will get worse when the shortage grows acute.

On the other hand, no Pakistani government, civilian or military, could just sit by as land that has been irrigated for a century goes back to desert and food rationing is imposed nationwide. Especially not if India’s fields just across the border were still green. That is the nightmare confrontation that lies down the road for these two nuclear powers.

http://www.straight.com/article-339568/vancouver/gwynne-dyer-question-water-pakistan/

Conflict between nuclear nations over water shortages due to climate change? Naah - climate change isn't happening. If it is, it's over there - ssomewhere poorer and browner than us. Doesn't matter to us..... Sure. We don't need to act....

One would think that this summer would have disabused people of hte notion that chillier nations such as Canada or Russia would actually benefit from climate change. Pretty hard to see a benefit in Moscow - or in Interior BC, Alberta or Saskatchewan at the moment. Cough, cough. Moutnains - what mountains?

Wildfires 2010

2010-08-19T16:58:00.000-07:00

I cannot see past the house across the street - no trees - no mountains - no river - just a wall of grey smoke. Even the dog sneezes when she spends time outdoors as the air quality is very poor. I think I'll take another anti-histamine while I consider the fact that most of our summers may be like this one - hot , smoky, and miserable.

An article in Scientific American states

fires are not just a result of a changing climate, they're also contributing to the overall warming trend much more than imagined, the authors report. As vegetation burns, it releases stored-up carbon into the atmosphere, speeding global warming and thereby exacerbating conditions that may generate a greater incidence of wildfires in the coming years. But across the globe, fires have been getting larger and stronger. "We are witnessing an increasing instance of these megafires," says Thomas Swetnam, director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fires-fuel-climate-change

In other words, wildfires are partly a result of climate change - and accelerate climate change at the same time. BC is particlarly vulnerable to this feedback loop due to all the pine beetle killed trees. A wonderful prospect......

Let's Hope They Are Wrong

2010-08-16T06:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/aug/10/greenland-ice-sheet-tipping-point

The entire ice mass of Greenland will disappear from the world map if temperatures rise by as little as 2C, with severe consequences for the rest of the world, a panel of scientists told Congress today. Greenland shed its largest chunk of ice in nearly half a century last week, and faces an even grimmer future, according to Richard Alley, a geosciences professor at Pennsylvania State University. "Sometime in the next decade we may pass that tipping point which would put us warmer than temperatures that Greenland can survive," Alley told a briefing in Congress, adding that a rise in the range of 2C to 7C would mean the obliteration of Greenland's ice sheet. The fall-out would be felt thousands of miles away from the Arctic, unleashing a global sea level rise of 23ft (7 metres), Alley warned. Low-lying cities such as New Orleans would vanish.

Seems like a feeble way to deal with calamity in the future. Hope , that is. While hope is necessary , it isn't enough. What can one person do (besides curling up in bed in the fetal position? ) I walk to work. One can always drive less - take public transit - insulate one's house - turn the thermostat down . All important collectively. However, the most important - join or create a group of like minded people so that you have community support and can educate and encourage other people IN A MANNER THAT MOTIVATES THEM TO ACT. (The tone of the message should reflect the interests/ motivations of the group in front of you.) And second most important - pressure your government to take action and to change policy. Maybe equally important!

Water Woes

2010-08-15T13:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.ogc.gov.bc.ca/documents/directives/dir_2010-05_Suspension_of_Surface_Water_Withdrawals.pdf

SUSPENSION OF SURFACE WATER WITHDRAWALS (PEACE RIVER)
REQUIREMENT:
Effective immediately, the BC Oil and Gas Commission (Commission) is requiring suspension of waterwithdrawal from rivers, lakes and streams, previously approved by the Commission under Section 8 of the Water Act, for the following basins within the Peace River Watershed.

I said climate change would affect everything we do. What if this summer's "drought" bcomes the new normal ? We're going to have to reduce personal and industrial wataer consumption in the future - why not start now?

Floods Predicted

2010-08-15T10:59:00.000-07:00

Those "freak " floods were predicted on June 10, 2009.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/enviornment/climate-change-could-displace-25-million-by-2010-with-image_100203119.html

By next year - that’s how soon around 25-50 million people will be displaced by climate change as it unleashes more natural disasters and affects farm output, says a senior UN researcher. Northern India will be among the worst affected in the long term. As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of natural hazards such as cyclones, floods and droughts, the number of temporarily displaced people will rise,” Warner told IANS in an interview. “This will be especially true in countries that fail to invest now in disaster risk reduction and where the official response to disasters is limited.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/14/pakistan-flooding-disaster-partition-gilani

Pakistan's government has compared the impact of the country's devastating floods to the country's partition from India as it revealed more than 20 million people had been made homeless by the disaster.

Gee- we're almost at the number predicted to be dispalced by flooding in northern India. Who'd have thunk it ? Those elitists with PdDs in climatology and those UN funded researachers seem to have been - cough, cough - correct.

A commentoer on the first article says:

Our world’s climate is changing whether we open our eyes and accept it or not. Great changes are coming to our way of life. Will we hide from it until it overcomes us, or will we unite and cooperate with each other to meet and survive the challenges.

We will not able to pretend that human caused climate change is not happening much longer. Why don't we use it as an opportunity to create a just way of live for everyone - and everything? One where we cooperate - and restrain ourselves and our grred - where status is gained by who and how much we help rather than how much shit we've bought? OK - I'm a dreamer ....but I'm not the only one.

Climate Change Will Change Everything

2010-08-13T11:10:00.000-07:00

More accurately, the effects of climate change will change everything. For example, from the pages of that environmental rag, the Globe and Mail, an article in today's edition (Friday, August 13, 2010 page B3) describes the problems Brookfield Renewable Power fund is having. The fund has

had a dismal 2010 as near-record-low precipitation last winter and spring in Ontario and Quebec has deprived it of the water levels needed to turn its turbines. The winter's sparse snowfall and the dry spring are posing challenges for hydroelectricity producers acrosss Central Canada, drawing down Hydro-Quebec's massive reservoirs...and hammering production and financial results of investor-owned power companies. ....still, he said the company is in a strong financial position to weather the drought, and is maintaining its distributions to unit holders in anticipation of a return to more normal precipitation levels.

Brookfield Renewable Power Fund will be in trouble if precipitation levels have changed their patterns, and this "drought" is the new normal. (Just ask the Australians about a new normal - drought, that is.) Climate change models predict that rainfall patterns will shift - be more unpredictable - and more variable as the temperature climbs.

It might be a good idea to plan for increased variability in rainfall patterns among other things - and to take meaningful steps to mitigate the effects fo climate change. It will take years - decades - to change the physical infrastructure of our lives - so we had better start now. Continuing denial is not a good option - if one is concerned about the long term viability of humnaity.

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

2010-08-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

If you have prominient climate change deniers in your town, ask them to sign the global warming skeptic's declaration. You can download a copy from the site below.

http://www.prairiedogmag.com/archive/?id=317

Commentary form the site:

Bravo, gentlemen! Thanks to your efforts, support for climate science is sliding and the hopes that there’ll be any global action in time to slow the planet’s heating are all but lost. Good thing I’m heavily invested in hip waders. Nice work! But I have to ask: why’d you do it? Why do all you climate deniers risk your reputations defending positions utterly at odds with science and reason? Much has been made of your ties to the oil and coal lobbies, but can you really be doing it just for the money?“Climate science suggests [people’s] behaviours are destroying the earth,” says Kasser. “If they accept that climate change is real, they also have to accept that they’re engaging in behaviours which conflict with their conception of themselves as good, caring people.” To overcome all this psychology, Kasser believes scientists and environmental advocates are going to have change the way they communicate with the public — that is, if they’re serious about drowning out the misinformation. Making the science even stronger isn’t going to cut it anymore. “What we need to do is pay more attention to the emotional state that people are in when they’re hearing our data,” he continues, “and recognize that this data is scary and when people are scared they’re not more likely to listen to the data but less.” But Kasser notes that if changing western society’s core values fails, there’s one last way in which people will ultimately be convinced that the climate is changing. “Once Florida is under water and once we’ve got droughts threatening our food system and all the rest — eventually there comes a point where even the most die-hard identity falls to the data,” he says.

Let's hope we don't have to wait for Florida to be under water before we generate the political will to act. And let's hold deniers accountable: get them to sign the global warming skeptics paper now . Dr. Lotta Hitschmanova (for you Unitarian Universalists out there) did something very similar trying to get governments to assist displace persons after WW II. She would ask leaders if they were concerned about the plight of dispalce persons - of course - they always answered yes. She would note the fact in a little notebook with the date - and if they later attempted to not fund her efforts, she'd whip her notebook out and point out that opn such and such a date - they had said they were concerned. .

One could use the skeptics declaration in the same way - if the denier won't sign, note the date and time and use their refusal to press them to support greenhouse gas reduction initiatives later. If they are sure enough of their denial to sign, well.... at least you will have written proof once all hell has broken out that they were deniers.

Denial Still Exists

2010-08-13T08:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/climate-scientists-forecast-more-heat-fires-and-floods/article1671364/

Floods, fires, melting ice and feverish heat: From smoke-choked Moscow to water-soaked Pakistan and the High Arctic, the planet seems to be having a midsummer breakdown. It’s not just a portent of things to come, scientists say, but a sign of troubling climate change already under way.
The weather-related cataclysms of July and August fit patterns predicted by climate scientists, the Geneva-based World Meteorological Organization says – although those scientists always shy from tying individual disasters directly to global warming.

If you read the news, you will know Russia is suffering through the hottest summer ever, Pakistan has had the heaviest monsoon rains ever, China is flooding, and the Arctic glaciers are calving. Not to mention that the Arctic was /is scarily warm.

What did the much maligned 2007 IPCC predict?

The 2007 IPCC report predicted a doubling of disastrous droughts in Russia this century and cited studies foreseeing catastrophic fires during dry years. It also said Russia would suffer large crop losses.

The 2007 IPCC report said rains have grown heavier for 40 years over northern Pakistan and predicted greater flooding this century in southern Asia’s monsoon region.

The IPCC reported in 2007 that rains had increased in northwest China by up to 33 per cent since 1961, and floods nationwide had increased sevenfold since the 1950s. It predicted still more frequent flooding this century.

Hmmmnnnn - could it be ? Naaah - those scientists with PhDs in climatatology who publish in peer reveiwed journals must be wrong. So say the commenters on the above article. Following is a sample:

In the past people blamed demons and witches for the weather. In our so called 'englightened age' people blame fossil fuels. I don't understand why so many people have a psychological need to believe in such claptrap.

Here come the "global warming" freaks labeled as scientists out of the wood work again. We are getting a hot-spell in August and leave to these windbags to spin it into a crisis. Better raise taxes and mail your paychecks to the government so they can solve the problem. Stupid socialist/marxist windbags.

The majority of the Anthropogenic Global Warming clymers are ignorant fools following a core of criminal elite. If they ever grow a brain, they will become dangerous.

All comments published by people who do peer reveiwed research in climatology, of course. I'm beginning to think that science education in high school needs to be strengthened. But more information is not going to convince deniers like those quoted above. In fact, if you load them with too much information, they will move directly to despair from denial - and sit around apathetically saying "it is too late - what is the point of trying - we might as well keep living the way we do."

If you are a climate change activist, try to work through groups to faciliate lifestyle change and political activism. (Or create a group with a positive outlook such as a Transistion Town in your community. ) Group members will support each other - therfore, change will be easier for the entire group. Potential groups - churches (they have an interest in social and climate justice); universities (they have a pool of educated people and students who care about the environment); and business groups (many win win situations exist that save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions). (I'm sure more potential types of groups exist that I haven't thought of.) Don't focus on past disasters - focus on what we can do now and in the future. Borrow from the Transition Town ethos - concentrate on both internal pyschological change and external change - and keep your message positive.

Don't let your own despair wear you down: look after yourself and keep working. You have allies - and climate change activism is a job worth doing.

Many Lines of Evidence

2010-08-08T20:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100728_stateoftheclimate.html

Based on comprehensive data from multiple sources, the report defines 10 measurable planet-wide features used to gauge global temperature changes. The relative movement of each of these indicators proves consistent with a warming world. Seven indicators are rising: air temperature over land, sea-surface temperature, air temperature over oceans, sea level, ocean heat, humidity and tropospheric temperature in the “active-weather” layer of the atmosphere closest to the Earth’s surface. Three indicators are declining: Arctic sea ice, glaciers and spring snow cover in the Northern hemisphere.

(Graphic from the NOAA site.) Climate change is happening: many lines of evidence point in one direction - up. As in temperature rising. And snow cover and glaciers shrinking.

I have seen climate change deniers skip directly from denial to apathy between news articles. Yes - climate change is happening. No, it isn't too late to change teh way we live. As I've posted before, solutions exist.

Flooding In Pakistan

2010-08-07T20:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/oxfam_in_action/emergencies/pakistan-floods2010.html

With what we know about climate change, it is a sad fact that for Oxfam the recent floods in Pakistan are not a massive surprise.

This is not the same as saying this particular flood is due to climate change - the world’s atmosphere is so complex that it is currently impossible to draw such direct, concrete conclusions. However as Oxfam research in three regions of Pakistan shows, people there are suffering more intense and heavier rainfall in coastal areas, more intense cyclones, more intense flooding in flood-prone areas along the Indus, and more pronounced droughts in the arid areas of Khuzdar. It is this flooding along the Indus that is causing such massive upheaval now.

This trend of more frequent, more intense weather patterns - and the increased suffering it brings - is a global phenomenon. Oxfam’s ‘Right to Survive’ report indicates that we can expect the number of people being affected by climate related disasters to rise by 50% from 250 million people in 2010 to 375 million people in 2015.

And that’s why as we react to the immediate needs of people suffering today and this week we need to help the people rebuild in a way that will build in future resilience to the more intense, more frequent climatic disasters that are expected in the future.

Climate models predict more frequent extreme weather events - looks like they are right. So when is Canada going to take some meaningful steps to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions?

Scarier Than I First Thought

2010-08-07T19:56:00.000-07:00

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/08/20108520215744896.html

No details about the munitions involved were disclosed but the armed forces have said that a naval logistics base near Moscow had been destroyed by the ongoing inferno. Russian media reported as many as 200 planes may have been destroyed at the naval air base....In Sarov, firefighters have focused on beating flames back from the top-secret Russian Federal Nuclear Research Centre. A Sarov news website on Thursday cited local officials as saying a wall of fire had been broken down into several smaller blazes. The officials said the closest blaze was still several kilometres from the research facilities and as a precaution all hazardous materials had been evacuated.

Wow - an even even scarier scenario than was apparent at first reading the news.

Some Perspective

2010-08-07T17:55:00.000-07:00

What would the Russian drought look like if it had occurred in North America?

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1568

One of the most remarkable weather events of my lifetime is unfolding this summer in Russia, where an unprecedented heat wave has brought another day of 102°F heat to the nation's capital. At 3:30 pm local time today, the mercury hit 39°C (102.2°F) at Moscow's Domodedovo Airport. Moscow had never recorded a temperature exceeding 100°F prior to this year, and today marks the second time the city has beaten the 100°F mark. The first time was on July 29, when the Moscow observatory recorded 100.8°C and Baltschug, another official downtown Moscow weather site, hit an astonishing 102.2°F (39.0°C). Prior to this year, the hottest temperature in Moscow's history was 37.2°C (99°F), set in August 1920. The Moscow Observatory has now matched or exceeded this 1920 all-time record five times in the past eleven days, including today. The 2010 average July temperature in Moscow was 7.8°C (14°F) above normal, smashing the previous record for hottest July, set in 1938 (5.3°C above normal.) July 2010 also set the record for most July days in excess of 30°C--twenty-two. The previous record was 13 such days, set in July 1972. The past 24 days in a row have exceeded 30°C in Moscow, and there is no relief in sight--the latest forecast for Moscow calls for high temperatures near 100°F (37.8°C) for the next seven days. It is stunning to me that the country whose famous winters stopped the armies of Napoleon and Hitler is experiencing day after day of heat near 100°F, with no end in sight.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/8/7/890455/-This-week-in-science

To put this in rough perspective -- and note this is not absolutely precise, it's purely ballpark to give you some feel for what the Russian people are enduring -- if this heat wave was hitting North America, it would be near 100°F in Fairbanks, Alaska. Most of Canada would be baking at 100° or higher, the northeast, from Maine to the Great Lakes region would be hitting upwards of 105° everyday, even the nightly low in the massive urban heat islands of New York and Chicago would be over 90°! The midwest grain belt and parts of the Pacific Northwest would not see a drop of rain for two months and pushing as high as 110° in places. The desert southwest, even some of the higher elevations of Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and West Texas, would be as uninhabitable as Death Valley or the Sahara.

It would mean nation-wide massive power brownouts, unprecedented crop failures, water rationing like you have never seen, record wildfires raging in dozens of states, thousands of deaths [Correction: Dr. Jeff Masters at WeatherUnderground informs me it would probably more like tens of thousands of deaths] and life threatening heat related illness, roads and highways clogged with broken-down, over-heated cars, and emergency services stretched beyond the breaking point across the US and Canada.

So nothing to worry about, right? Well, it's gonna affect the price of your pasta and toast.

http://www.straight.com/article-337565/vancouver/gwynne-dyer-russian-response-wildfires-gives-early-glimpse-climate-change-impact

At least 20 percent of Russia’s wheat crop has already been destroyed by the drought, the extreme heat—circa 40 º C for several weeks now—and the wildfires. The export ban is needed, explained Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, because “we shouldn’t allow domestic prices in Russia to rise, we need to preserve our cattle and build up supplies for next year”. If anybody starves, it won’t be Russians.

This is the vision of the future that has the soldiers and security experts worried: a world where access to enough food becomes a big political and strategic issue even for developed countries that do not have big surpluses at home. It would be a very ugly world indeed, teeming with climate refugees and failed states and interstate conflicts over water (which is just food at one remove).

What is happening in Russia now, and its impacts elsewhere, give us an early glimpse of what that world will be like. And although nobody can say for certain that the current disaster there is due to climate change, it certainly could be.

Late last year, Britain’s Hadley Centre for Climate Change produced a world map showing how different countries will be affected by the rise in average global temperature over the next 50 years. The European countries that the Hadley map predicts will be among the hardest hit—Greece, Spain, and Russia—are precisely the ones have suffered most from extreme heat, runaway forest fires, and wildfires in the past few years.

The main impact of global warming on human beings will be on the food supply, and eating is a non-negotiable activity. Today Russia, tomorrow the world.

Here's a novel thought - why don't we take measures to reduce greenhosue gas emissions now?

Swimming on Mt Everest

2010-08-07T17:39:00.000-07:00

The glaciers are melting in the Himalyas -and one can go swimming in the lakes left behind. Please listen until the end: I found Mr Pugh's statements on the mind set required to tackle the problem of climate change very interesting.

I'm Back

2010-08-07T17:36:00.000-07:00

That was a lovely holiday. I'm back - to floods in Pakistan, wildfires and drought in Russia, floods in Saskatcheqan, wildfires in the interior of BC - extreme weather events everywhere. Hmmmnnns - climate models predict an increase frequency of extreme weather events as climate change begins to bite. Could it be ?????

Voting and Discrimination

2010-07-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2010/07/01/north-first-nations-right-to-vote-60-years.html#socialcomments

Fifty years ago, the Canadian government granted First Nations people the right to vote in federal elections without losing their treaty status.

Wow - within living memory, Canada discriminated - legally - agaisnt First Nations peoples. Changing the law was a good idea. But,as Americans have also discovered, legislating egalitarinaism does nothing to change racist attitudes. (Read the comments on the above article for a samll taste.) What does? I'm not sure - not at all. However, I'm going to push for a series of educational seminars on First Nations history and racism through my church. I'm hoping that knowledge leads to changed attitudes.
And, as a part of those seminars, i'm going to include the following:

http://www.afn.ca/article.asp?id=4866

•We can agree that Canada has moved forward. We welcome the Apology to residential school survivors. We welcome the commitment to work with us to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

•Yet we can also agree that we need to move much further ahead, and we must travel together. Where we have made gains, it is because we have worked together as partners who both recognize and respect one another.

•The key to all our efforts is active and honest participation by First Nations in setting the direction forward.

•Participation is a founding principle of the UN Declaration. It is a founding principle of the Treaties we signed to forge this country.

•I stand here today to make it clear that First Nations are ready and willing to work with any and all partners on a better, brighter future for all our people and all Canadians.

Happy Canada Day! May ourour future be more inclusive, eglitarian, and sustainable.

David Suzuki and The Bottom Line

2010-06-29T21:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/david-suzuki-looks-back-with-a-hint-of-regret/article1623210/

The Bottom Line is as much about people’s mindset toward environmental issues as about the issues themselves. “It’s about what we come to value and believe,” he explains. For example, two programs will be devoted to the oil sands – not simply on the environment, but the social and economic implications for the region and Canada. “We have a situation today where the Prime Minister has said for four years, ‘We can’t do anything about climate change; it’ll destroy the economy.’ So the economy comes before the very atmosphere that we depend on for our weather and climate and our breathing. “I would suggest that there’s a very radically different bottom line, which is, if you don’t have air for two or three minutes, you’re dead. It’s the same for water. If you don’t have water for a few days, if you don’t have food for a few weeks … Surely to God, it ought to be our highest priority to protect these. But we pour toxic chemicals into them, because that’s the price of doing business.”

The economy is a subset of the environment - not the other way around.

The Rule of Law

2010-06-28T22:49:00.000-07:00

I rather like the idea of the rule of law. I fancy living my life unmolested by gangs of thieves and rapists. I also rather enjoy peacefully exercising my charter rights - unmolested by the government as far as possible. Last time I checked, charter rights included the freedom of speech and assembly and protecction against unreasonable search and seizure. http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/1.html#anchorbo-ga:l_I-gb:s_1

Fundamental Freedoms

2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.

I'd say that freedom of expression includes the right to walk around a city without being arrested on the basis of the Bush doctrine. (You remember W's preemptive strikes, don't you?) Apparently I'm naive, and Canadians' rights can be over ridden by secret cabinet decisions.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/torontog20summit/article/829917--cabinet-secrecy-opens-door-to-legal-challenge?bn=1

Questions are piling up about a secret cabinet decision giving police immense power to search and arrest anyone within five metres of the barrier. Legal experts say a regulation authorizing the searches could be vulnerable to attack not just for potentially violating Charter protections against unreasonable search and seizure. It could also be challenged on the grounds the public was not given adequate notice of the sweeping changes that required them to identify themselves to police officers or agree to be searched.

When did Canada become a police state where basic freedoms can be over ridden in secrcey by politicians? 1997 at the APEC summit? 2010 at the Winter Olympics?

Syncrude is Guilty

2010-06-28T06:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/syncrude-guilty-in-ducks-trial/article1618384/

A judge has found oil sands giant Syncrude Canada Ltd. guilty of a pair of environmental charges stemming from the deaths of 1,606 birds two years ago. Provincial Court Judge Ken Tjosvold ruled Friday that Syncrude was indeed responsible for its tailings pond where the ducks were found, and it “did not deploy the [bird] deterrents early enough and quickly enough” around the 12-square-kilometre pond, which contained toxic, oily bitumen byproduct.

Mr. White [the lawyer acting for Syncrude] will recommend his clients appeal because he believes the “judgment is incorrect,” arguing that to find the company guilty when its tailings pond was provincially licensed could effectively make all such ponds illegal.

It is to be hoped that Mr White is correct and that this ruling has serious repercussions for resource extraction industries. (However, had Syncrude taken steps to prevent ducks from landing on its ponds, it wouldn't have been found guilty. ) June 25, 2010 may be identifiable later as the day where the tide turned against polluters - the day where they became responsible for their "externalities." How can it be profitable to extract resources if taxpayers are left with the bills for cleanup of horrible messes? It shouldn't be....

Ruling Expected in The Case of the Dead Ducks

2010-06-25T07:14:00.000-07:00

No - I haven't found an undiscovered Agatha Christie manuscript secreted in Grandmother's trunk. The Globe and Mail contains an excellent article on Syncrude and those ducks that perished in their tailings pond.

More than two years after 1,606 dead ducks were first found in a northern Alberta industrial tailings pond, a judge is scheduled to rule Friday afternoon on whether the deaths amounted to a violation of provincial or federal law.

A guilty verdict would be a major victory for environmentalists, long critical of Alberta's oil sands. But energy giant Syncrude Canada Ltd., which has been operating in the oil sands for over 30 years, warns such a verdict would effectively make tailings ponds – which are essential in the refining of Alberta's oil sands bitumen – illegal, bringing the economically vital industry to a standstill.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/prairies/ruling-expected-in-syncrude-duck-trial/article1617402/?cmpid=rss1

In other words, tar sands miners are worried that the costs of their "externalities" may be brought home to them.

Over Optimistic

2010-06-15T06:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/06/15/chevron-deepwater-oil-drill-615.html#socialcomments

Chevron Canada executives defended Monday their decision to pursue an unprecedented exploratory well off Newfoundland, so soon in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster.

The project has attracted increasing international attention — and scrutiny — because Chevron is drilling a well in more than 2,600 metres of water, significantly deeper than the Deepwater Horizon project in the Gulf of Mexico, where a blowout in April continues to have a devastating environmental impact.

But vice-president Mark MacLeod said Chevron has an industry-leading safety record.

"Chevron has drilled over 300 deepwater wells. We've never had a blowout in deep water," MacLeod told reporters during a conference call.

Hmmmnnn -couldn't BP have said the they had never had a blowout before April? Moreover, perhaps Chevron should share their plans for shutting off the Gulf of Mexico gusher. If that (hypothetical) plan works expeditiously, perhaps we could belive that they had the ability to shut off a blowout off Newfoundland.

Ahem !

2010-06-13T18:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/13/deepwater-dividend-post-oil-economy

But the deeper lessons of the oil spill concern the future of our energy supplies, of regulation, and the shape of our society and economy....Out of crisis comes damage, but also opportunity. This is the opportunity to make a decisive turn in the road towards a post-oil economy: for the US, and for the world. But it needs politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to say it with gusto, rather than spend their time attacking BP. We cannot stop our reliance on oil and gas tomorrow. They are an essential bridge to our energy future. But the question is whether they are a bridge or a stopping point....The renewables industry struggles for finance – while investments in tar sands and other projects get the green light. It is the worst of short-termism: for the planet and for all our economic futures.

But there is no point in railing against the short-termism of markets: it is what they do unless the rules are right. The job of government is to change this short-termism. The obvious opportunity comes as we consider the future of our banking system.As the oil gushes into the Gulf, this is the time to stand proud and declare that we want a hi-tech clean-tech future faster than ever before. The countries that make the leap first will be the successful economies of this century, exporting technology around the world to cities seeking cleaner air and lower emissions.

What did I just tell you?

Positives from an Oil Spill

2010-06-13T18:03:00.000-07:00

The extraction of oil pollutes and destroys livelihoods, lives, and ecosystems. Not much room for argument there: look at the results of BP’s gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, Royal Dutch Shell’s presence in Nigeria, and Chevron’s inherited mess in Ecuador. Then, once the oil is out of the ground our use of it pollutes even more. Burning fossil fuels increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere - warming the planet. W also create deadly smog in our urban areas by zipping around in our cars instead of taking public transit. Moreover, we destroy vast areas of pristine boreal forest by mining tar sands. (“Reclaimed” land is never as biologically diverse as untouched land.) Moreover, those toxic tailings ponds produced by tar sands mining are really nasty - and 7 out of 9 tar sands extractors do not plan to comply with Regulation 074 on capturing and reducing toxic tailings between 2011 and 2013. The decision is in: our use of oil is disastrous.

But, in a bizarre way, BP’s gusher may turn out to be a positive.

Have I gone mad? No – not exactly – I just spotted a glimmer of hope. The Friday, June 11, 2010 Report on Business section of the Globe and Mail contained several promising items. The lead headline reads “Spill Puts New Oil Frontiers at Risk.” (page B1 ) In other words, politicians and regulators and the public are now aware that another spill is inevitable if we continue drilling as we have. A smaller headline reads “Cheap, abundant, politically secure oil in no longer available.” That article continues on page B5. “According to a new Deutsche Bank report, this is the end of the oil age as we knew it….and our behaviour must change to recognize that. “ So this spill, horrible an environmental disaster that it is, is also an opportunity for environmental activists.

We should use increased awareness on the part of the public and politicians to prevent the lifting of the moratorium on drilling for oil off the coast of British Columbia. Write Mr. Campbell and tell him offshore drilling is too risky. We should also work to shutdown the Enbridge Gateway North Pipeline to coastal BC as, once it is in place, oil tankers will sail BC’s pristine coast – and eventually spill oil. (The Dogwood Initiative Project is already fighting this – check out their website at http://dogwoodinitiative.org/ if you want to work on this project.) Thirdly, we should push both provincial and federal governments to invest in light rapid transit and clean energy. Encourage everyone you know to write to the Right Honorable Stephen Harper, to their federal MP, and to the provincial representatives.

BP and a Coffee Spill

2010-06-11T10:27:00.000-07:00

Nasty Conclusions

2010-06-10T11:25:00.000-07:00

I'm drawing nasty conclusions from the news reports on BP's environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100609/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_sketchy_plans

BP PLC's 582-page regional spill plan for the Gulf, and its 52-page, site-specific plan for the Deepwater Horizon rig vastly understate the dangers posed by an uncontrolled leak and vastly overstate the company's preparedness to deal with one, according to an Associated Press analysis. The lengthy plans were approved by the federal government last year before BP drilled its ill-fated well. ... Among the glaring errors in the report: A professor is listed in BP's 2009 response plan for a Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a national wildlife expert. He died in 2005.

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/06/bp-campaign-donations-obama

Who's BP's favorite politician ever? If you're just going by the numbers, it's none other than President Barack Obama, who leads BP's lifetime campaign donation list with $77,051. That puts him just ahead of reliable oilmen such as Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young, his retired colleague Sen. Ted Stevens, and George W. Bush. According to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics, BP and its employees have given more than $3.4 million to federal candidates since 1990.

Is it cynical to make a connection between money spent on politicans and favourable regulatory regimes? However cynical, it doesn't happen in Canada, right? We don't allow the public interest to be subverted by political connections, do we? Maybe. "Oil" sands mining flourishes in Canada - even if it is much less than green. Jeff Rubin, an economist, notes that:

There’s nothing clean about the production of synthetic oil from tar sands. The production of a single barrel of synthetic oil pollutes some 125 gallons of fresh water and emits over 200 pounds of carbon dioxide, principally as a result of the combustion of the natural gas, over 1,000 cubic feet of it, needed to generate the heat to separate the oil from the sand and then process it. Currently, Canadian tar sands produce roughly one and a quarter million barrels per day, but the International Energy Agency (IEA) is projecting ultimate production at around 4 million barrels per day. Do the math on carbon emissions and water pollution, and you begin to get a sense of what has made the tar sands the most recent bête noire of the world environmental movement. ...The tar sands aren’t a greener alternative to deep-water oil. They’re just a more expensive alternative. And the more that synthetic oil from tar sands replaces deep-water production, the more you’ll pay to burn it.http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/jeff-rubins-smaller-world/gulf-oil-disaster-doesnt-make-the-tar-sands-green/article1596265/

The government of Canada has subsidized development of the tar sands in the past and continues to do so to the tune of $ 1 billion per year according to Kairos' report Pumped Up. Moreover , the party currently in power has ties to the energy sector. For example, Clarke Cross is a hired lobbyist for Enbridge who formerly worked for Canadian Alliance Party MPs. Yaroslav Baran lobbied the federal government on behalf of Enbridge throughout 2006 and is also a long time Conservative Party staffer (Out on the Tar Sands Mainline , Polaris Institute.) This cozy relationship between oil and gas corporations and federal politicians has culminated in the Conservatives tabling an omnibus bill that "is trying to rollback key environmental assessment rules through an omnibus bill currently under review by a House of Commons Committee. " http://www.waterkeeper.ca/2010/05/04/rollbacks-to-canadian-environmental-legislation-come-on-the-heels-of-the-gulf-oil-disaster/

This cozy intimacy will lead to more environmental destruction in Canada unless the Senate breaks up the bill . A nasty conclusion indeed .

Employment Standards

2010-06-09T06:27:00.000-07:00

I always read the business news as doing so gives me a different perspective on the environment and on climate change. Today I found a viewpoint poverty and social jsutice activists will be interested in. The June 2010 issue of BC Business contains an article questioning the wisdom of eviserating the Employment Standards Act in 2002 and of reducing civil service numbers at the same time - from a business perspective. A roofing contractor explains on page 52 that he pays overtime as required by BC law - but that he strongly suspects his competition doesn't -and uses the cost savings to undercut his bids. A dry walliing contractor (page 58) states " I don't like more government regulation. ...But realistically, the workers don't have anywhere else to go, and there's no way for people who are trying to operate aove the line to counter that kind of operation. Does that mean the government has to step in? Nobody else is going to do it."

Therefore, social justice and labour activists can argue that enforcing employment regulations is good for business - and that some business people with the government would do so. Extrapolating to environmental issues, I bet that some business people wish that governments would strengthen and enforce environmental regulations. I told you it pays to read business news!

Canada: Accountable and Transparent Government

2010-06-05T20:15:00.000-07:00

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/emissions-reductions-10-times-less-than-governments-projections-report/article1591784/

Environment Canada overestimated by 10 times the amount of emissions reductions that result from government measures when it reported last year on its efforts to meet this country’s obligations under the Kyoto protocol. .... What is more, although Ottawa started handing over the first installments of a five-year $1.5-billion Clean Air and Climate Change Trust fund to the provinces in 2008, the federal government cannot monitor them or verify whether they are being spent for the intended purpose.

The federal government gave out money to the provinces and cannot verify what the provinces did with it? Isn't this the party that promised open, transparent, and accountable government? And who told them a prize existed for the most greenhouse gas emissions per capita? They appear to be attempting to said prize..... *sigh*.

Maternal Health

2010-06-05T07:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/06/04/summit-abortion004.html

A leaked draft of the final communiqué for the upcoming G8 summit suggests Canada has dodged a bullet on the thorny issues of abortion and climate change.... There is no agreement yet on specific funding for the maternal initiative, climate change, food security or aid to developing countries, despite strong words urging concrete measures.... On the environment, the only thing G8 negotiators have apparently agreed to is that fighting climate change shouldn't hurt countries' economies — a position the Harper government has been pushing.

The G8 summit at Huntsville rolls over into the the G20 summit in downtown Toronto. However touching any declaration of concern for maternal health may look, why are the leaders of the world bothering to state that maternal and child health is of great interest to them if they are not prepared to take meaningful steps on climate change? They could do more for the health and safety of women if they implemented meaningful measures to prevent / mitigate climate change as that is ALREADY impacting women in a disproportionate and negative manner.

http://www.awid.org/Issues-and-Analysis/Library/How-are-Women-Impacted-by-Climate-Change

Women are particularly affected by climate change because they generally do not have secure, affordable access to and control over land, water, livestock and trees; thus, they are forced to make do with limited resources and alternatives when their subsistence needs and livelihoods are threatened. Elderly women, disabled women, women widows and indigenous women often face the most acute challenges related to climate change whilst having fewer resources to compensate for and adjust to changes.

Why not plow the $ 11 billion Canada is spending on security for the G20 summit on preventing climate change? Could it be that maternal health is a "feel good" isssue only - and that no one attending the G20 summit desires to improve maternal health in reality?

The Oil Spill

2010-06-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

Far reaching consquences to that oil spill....and it just keeps gushing....perhaps until December!

http://cnmnewsnetwork.com/117743/oil-spill-in-gulf-of-mexico-2010-3-june-oil-spill-updates/

The Obama administration now says that the “long-term solution” to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill could take until August to implement. In fact, some experts are now forecasting that the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico may continue gushing into December.

The oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico may or may not exacerbate the "Dead Zone" caused by fertilizers leaching into the Gulf.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-will-the-oil-spill-impact-dead-zone

Each spring and summer fertilizer from the fields of the U.S. Midwest runs off into the Mississippi River. Old Muddy carries the nutrients down the length of the continent before dumping them into the Gulf of Mexico. Once introduced, the nitrogen and phosphorus prompts a bloom in algae, phytoplankton and other microscopic plants. After the plants die they drift to the bottom and their decomposition sucks the oxygen out of the seawater. The result is a vast dead zone, lethal to sea life that cannot swim out of the way, in inhabitable waters near the Gulf Coast that is sometimes as large as New Jersey—and the as much as 3.8 million liters of oil now spilling into the Gulf per day may make it worse.

The oil is going to be swept into the Atlantic:

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/06/03/oil-spread.html

Actually, our best knowledge says the scope of this environmental disaster is likely to reach far beyond Florida, with impacts that have yet to be understood.” The simulations suggest that when the oil that's closest to the surface gets caught up in the Gulf of Mexico's powerful Loop Current, it will likely reach Florida's Atlantic coast by early summer.

The oil spill has demonstrated that we don't have an easy way of turning the taps off a mile under the ocean. Nor are we sure of the consequences ... what happens when the oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout reaches the open Atlantic? Having seen this spill, do we really want to drill under the Arctic ocean? Please inform the Right Honorable Stephen Harper of your opposition to offshore drilling .

Oil Is A Curse

2010-05-31T21:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell

According to Nigerian academics, writers and environment groups, oil companies have acted with such impunity and recklessness that much of the region has been devastated by leaks. In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP's Deepwater Horizon rig last month....According to Nigerian federal government figures, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2,000 official major spillages sites, many going back decades, with thousands of smaller ones still waiting to be cleared up. More than 1,000 spill cases have been filed against Shell alone.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2629678120090227

A rupture in Ecuador's second largest oil pipeline has polluted the Santa Rosa river in the lush Amazon jungle and shut off the flow of crude to a Pacific port in the city of Esmeraldas....Repeated oil spills by foreign companies and the country's state oil company, Petroecuador, are a threat to rare species of jaguars and river dolphins in the Amazon jungle, where most of the Andean country's oil operations are located.

Oil is a curse: its possession subverts democracy, impoverishes the local population, and destroys the environment. But we - we Canadians , that is, intend going to get every drop out of the tar sands and sell it to Asia regardless of any risks.

http://dcnonl.com/article/id39094

“The Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline project will open important new markets for Canadian crude oil,” Enbridge president and chief executive Patrick Daniel said in a statement last week. “It will create jobs and a substantial long-term boost to our nation’s economy as well as the communities through which it will pass.”

And we're in the process of weakening environmental protections that might prevent oil spills.

http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/05/31/OilSpillPrevention/

Many British Columbians watching the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are wondering what safeguards are in place to ensure such a disaster does not happen here. What they don't know is that the federal government recently made sweeping changes to the primary advisory panel put in place to ensure that a major oil spill does not occur on the B.C. coast.

Are we insane?

Please write to the Prime Minister and to your local MP and register your protest against this insanity. Think about walking to work. Or biking. Or taking the bus. Get involved with your local environmental group. Or create your local environmental group. Educate yourself and your family and your friends.

A Visionary Ad by BP Oil - 1999

2010-05-30T15:50:00.001-07:00

Don't Wait for the United States

2010-05-28T13:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/mexicos-president-pushes-ottawa-to-act-on-climate-change/article1583574/

Prime Minister Harper has said Canada will wait to see what policies the U.S. adopts to regulate major emitters of greenhouse gases, because the two countries’ economies are so closely integrated. But Felipe Calderon, who leads the United States’ other border nation and trade-bloc partner, expressed exasperation at waiting for rich countries to step forward.

Mr. Calderon said Mexico couldn’t wait for rich countries to do something about climate change, as droughts hit his country and Mexico City’s water supply shrank, and had to take its own action.

Mexico has set out its own plans to regulate greenhouse gases, and is now seen as a leader among developing nations in tackling climate change. Like Canada, its economy is highly linked to that of the U.S., but it has not insisted that its regulations must wait a U.S. first move

If Mexico can afford to take action on climate change, Canada surely can. After all, climate change will not pccur in some hypothetical future - it is happening now. Look out your window at the pine bark beetle killed trees .....and ponder the fact that Mexico City's water supply has shrunk - both due to climate change.

Why Are We Doing This?

2010-05-28T13:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/gulf-oil-spill-runs-a-pipeline-to-our-collective-unconscious/article1584868/

"This is what I don't understand,” she admitted. “If BP doesn't know how to cut off the well, why are they drilling on the bottom of the ocean in the first place?”
“Don't be ridiculous,” another man at the table replied. “It's a mile deep. It's not just a question of shutting off a tap.”

Why are we drilling a mile deep if we have no idea how we are going to plug leaks or clean up spills? Risky behaviour and no idea of consequences will be coped with is symtomatic of addictions. Have a look at the article diagram for a visual depiction of the size of the oil spill - it is gigantic. And, read right to the end. There, Ian Brown states "The temptation is to pass it all off as American. We ought to remember the oil sands in our own backyard. Their toxic tailing ponds already cover more than 50 square kilometres. They're a stone's throw from the Athabasca River, one of the continent's most delicate watersheds. Let's hope they don't spring a leak. "

Costs of Cheap Oil

2010-05-28T10:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/may/27/cheap-oil-cost-developing-countries

Big Oil is holding its breath. BP's shares are in steep decline after the debacle in the Gulf of Mexico. Barack Obama, the American people and the global environmental community are outraged, and now the company stands to lose the rights to drill for oil in the Arctic and other ecologically sensitive places. The gulf disaster may cost it a few billion dollars, but so what? When annual profits for a company often run to tens of billions, the cost of laying 5,000 miles of booms, or spraying millions of gallons of dispersants and settling 100,000 court cases is not much more than missing a few months' production. It's awkward, but it can easily be passed on....Big Oil's real horror was not the spillage, which was common enough, but because it happened so close to the US. Millions of barrels of oil are spilled, jettisoned or wasted every year without much attention being paid.
If this accident had occurred in a developing country, say off the west coast of Africa or Indonesia, BP could probably have avoided all publicity and escaped starting a clean-up for many months

Ethically, if we (that means you and I) don't press our governments to invest in alternative energy, we are complicit in oil spills like Deepwater Horizon. If we don't lobby for and use rapid transit we are complicit. If we do nothing to prevent Enbridge building a pipeline to the BC coast from the tar sands, we will be reponsible for spills from oil tankers carrying oil down the coast. If we don't work to change the system, we will be complicit in climate change.

Richard Heinberg on Peak Oil

2010-05-25T16:15:00.001-07:00

The End of (Cheap ) Oil

2010-05-25T16:09:00.000-07:00

The oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico demonstrates that we are:

a. addicted to oil, and
b. are willing to do anything to get it.

But the consequences are dire, as Richard Heinberg points out.

http://www.straight.com/article-325613/vancouver/richard-heinberg-what-end-oil-age-looks

This is what the end of the oil age looks like. The cheap, easy petroleum is gone; from now on, we will pay steadily more and more for what we put in our gas tanks—more not just in dollars, but in lives and health, in a failed foreign policy that spawns foreign wars and military occupations, and in the lost integrity of the biological systems that sustain life on this planet.The only solution is to do proactively, and sooner, what we will end up doing anyway as a result of resource depletion and economic, environmental, and military ruin: end our dependence on the stuff. Everybody knows we must do this. Even a recent American president (an oil man, it should be noted) admitted that “America is addicted to oil.” Will we let this addiction destroy us, or will we overcome it?

So why don't our governments invest in alternatives to oil?

Oil Spills

2010-05-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/14027-1

As the costs of Gulf Coast cleanup efforts from the BP oil spill continue to rise, a new report examines the industry as a whole, in terms of safety and accident records. The international environmental education and resource group Global Exchange has found that operating errors and incidents around the globe are more common than the public likely realizes because most events don't make the news.

http://truecostofchevron.com/report.html

In 2009 Chevron spent more money lobbying thge federal government than at any time in its history, more than 60 % over 2008 - Chevron's previous record breaking year. With more than $ 21 million spent, Chevron earned a spot on the top ten list of highest spenders on all 2009 federal lobbying. ...while campaign giving became more partisan.....Chevron has led lobbying efforts for decades to get the U.S. moratorium on offshore drilling lifted.

I wonder who is lobbying the BC government in an efffort to permit offshore drilling on the coast of BC? Who in their right mind thinks that would be a good thing? Oil company executives and shareholders, perhaps? Please ensure that your RRSP doesn't hold any oil related mutual funds or shares. And please write letters to the provincial and federal governemtns expressing your disapproval of osshore drilling.

Arctic Sea Ice

2010-05-20T10:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/arctic-sea-ice-heading-for-new-record-low/article1575212/

Arctic sea ice is on track to recede to a record low this year, suggesting that northern waters free of summer ice are coming faster than anyone thought. One of Canada's top sea-ice experts suggests things might even be worse than Dr. Serreze thinks. His data could be underestimating the collapse of summer ice cover, said David Barber of the University of Manitoba. Researchers can't learn anything from satellite data about the state or thickness of the ice. “What we think is thick multiyear ice late in the summer is in fact not,” he said. “It's heavily decayed first-year ice. When that stuff starts to reform in the fall, we think it's multiyear ice, but it's not.” Arctic explorers and scientific expeditions are finding more open water and untrustworthy ice ever, Prof. Barber said. He pointed out the Arctic continued to lose multiyear ice even in 2008 and 2009, when total ice coverage rebounded somewhat. True multiyear ice – the thick, hard stuff that stops ships – now comprises about 18 per cent of the Arctic ice pack. In 1981, when Prof. Barber first went north, that figure was 90 per cent.

You know, I would love it if the Climate Change Deniers were correct and this weren't really happening.
But we have to cope with reality - not with the life our imaginary friends have.

Water Shortages in The Tar Sands

2010-05-17T19:57:00.000-07:00

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/oil-sands-report-warns-of-investor-risk/article1571659/

Oil sands companies could soon run out of water and, in years to come, find themselves with a shrinking market for their product, according to grim new research. Under current expansion plans, companies could run out of adequate winter water supplies as early as 2014, estimates the report, which was prepared for Boston-based investor and environmental advocacy group Ceres....“All of this should give investors pause as they consider anteing up for what has become a $200-billion bet,” said Douglas Kogan, director of climate risk management for research group Riskmetrics Group, which wrote the report. “There may be safer places to put their money, and certainly more environmentally sustainable ones.”

I predicted this: not the shrinking markets - the water shortages. Check your RRSP and make sure you're not investing in the tar sands. And nag your pension plan administrators regarding the issue. Not only will you be environmentally responsible, you'll make more money investing elsewhere. Where ??? Run proposed investments through my link titled "Corporate Environmental and Social Reports."

Drill, Baby, Drill

2010-05-17T06:01:00.000-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/16/gulf-oil-spill-bp

Ocean scientists in the Gulf of Mexico have found giant plumes of oil coagulating at up to 1,300 metres below the surface, raising fears that the BP oil spill may be larger than thought – and that it might create huge "dead zones"....The presence of huge strings of oil deep underwater has puzzled scientists on board the research vessel Pelican, back in dock after almost two weeks at sea. The assumption had been that the oil would rise to the surface, but instead it has formed into multiple layers suspended in varying thicknesses deep in the water.

Does anyone still think that drilling for oil offshore in the Arctic is a good idea? Does anyone still think that we shouldn't deal with our addiction to fossil fuels?

The Evil Twin

2010-05-15T20:20:00.000-07:00

From Al Jazeera - English.

We Are Insane

2010-05-14T17:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/drilling-clash-puts-arctic-oil-at-risk/article1567542/

Canadian oil companies say they will not be able to drill in Arctic deep waters unless the National Energy Board drops a provision that requires them to be able to quickly complete a relief well in the event of a blowout.

The board had agreed to review its rule for requiring companies to be able to deal with a blowout by drilling a relief well in the same season. After BP's Gulf of Mexico blowout, the regulator suspended planned hearings on the issue, and said this week that it will examine its entire regulatory approach, including the same-season relief well policy.

In its March submission, BP said the same-season relief well policy “ought to be rescinded, and replaced by a series of goal-oriented regulations” that would include preventive measures and mitigation efforts that would include longer schedule for drilling a relief well.

In fact, Imperial Oil Ltd. had asked the NEB for an exemption from that relief-well regulation as it prepares for a drilling program in Ajurak property, which lies 120 kilometres off shore in 650 metres of water.

A strict application of the rule “would essentially preclude the drilling of deepwater wells, such as the Ajurak exploration well, which require multiseason operations,” Imperial said in a submission to the board earlier this year.”

Hmmm - the NEB is worried about the propect of oil belching into the Arctic ocean. Frivolously and needlessly? After all, it has been easy to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico and to prevent damage to delicate ecoystems, there. Am I right?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100513-science-environment-gulf-oil-spill-cap-leak/

If efforts fail to cap the leaking Deepwater Horizon wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico, oil could gush for years—poisoning coastal habitats for decades, experts say. "We don't have any idea how to stop this," Simmons said of the Gulf leak. Some of the proposed strategies—such as temporarily plugging the leaking pipe with a jet of golf balls and other material—are a "joke," he added.

And the next hurricane season is about to begin. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATWOAT+shtml/302338.shtml

I have always assumed that oil company executives are doing the best that they can in the corporate environment - that they do not really wish to despoil ecosystems or warm the entire earth. After all, they are under enormous pressure to produce short term profits for their shareholders. Therefore, they cannot take measures to protect the environment if the compettition is not doing the same - which means no company will do so unless forced by regulations.

If we don't pressure our governments to prevent such environmental disasters, we're collectively insane.
Write the Prime Minister and ask him to have place a moratorium on deep water drilling in the Arctic. Ask him to fund alternative energies in the same letter.

Oil Spills and Environmental Damage

2010-05-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

http://climateprogress.org/2010/05/02/20-year-veteran-of-coast-guard-with-a-spill-of-this-magnitude-and-complexity-there-is-no-such-thing-as-an-effective-response/

Oil spill responses have a very large component of symbolic reassurance to them. For example, no doubt we will see oily ducks being washed in the coming days. However, the mortality rate of such ducks is extremely high. So while these salves may make us feel better, they do little to actually deal with the situation. ....there will be considerable ecological and economic damage, and there is basically nothing that can be done to effectively stop that from happening. ....prevention is the best policy. But that involves regulations to prevent corporations from taking calculated risks by shaving safety margins to decrease production costs.... We need to get over our technological hubris and stop taking risks with our global ecoystems.

Amen.