David Suzuki and The Bottom Line

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.

Ethical Investing

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/more-carrot-than-stick/article1496341/

Shareholders of Suncor Energy Inc. will soon know more about the costs of carbon in the company’s business. ... Enbridge Inc. will provide additional disclosure about its Northern Gateway oil-pipeline project. These Calgary companies didn’t reach these decisions independently, however. In each case, the commitment to expanded disclosure about environmental issues came after talks with executives at Ethical Funds Co., an institutional investor with social responsibility as part of its core mission.  The efforts of Ethical Funds illustrate a growing place for environmental concerns in the corporate governance movement.....Now activist institutional investors are asking to bring carbon costs and water quality to the annual shareholder ballot.

Businesses that ignore climate change ignore both opportunities and risks.  Firstly, they ignore outright threats  to their business - such as the risk that they won't have available water when they need it. ( Just ask the Merritt rancher that was isntructed to turn off his irrigation pumps last fall because the kokanee were spawning.)  Secondly, they ignore the opportunity to positon themselves as environmental leaders and attract more customers or investors by doing so.

March 4, 2010 Meeting 7:00 pm TRUSU Boardroom

The folks who brought the 350 rallies to Kamloops last fall are now asking for the public’s participation in a new venture. Jan Greenwood, chair of the Social and Environmental Action Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, says the group is following up on a promise to kick start a local environmental/sustainability network with an evening meeting on March 4 at TRU.

Ideally, the group would like to see involvement from a broad spectrum of community organizations, everything from fly fishers to local food networks to backcountry users to birdwatchers to riverkeepers to conservationists. “Everyone has a vested interest in maintaining a healthy environment to pass on to our children,” says Greenwood. “Each community organization comes at it from a slightly different angle, but there are many places where our interests overlap. Our goal is to set up connections between these groups, and set up a real web of communication.”

What would this community network look like? What form would it take? How would it be set up? Those are questions that will be answered at the organizational workshop planned for 7 pm March 4 at the TRUSU Boardroom at TRU’s Independent Centre.

Syncrude Goes to Court

Call me naive: I'm  wondering why Syncrude is fighting federal and provincial charges in the case of the dead ducks in their tailings pond.  Syncrude has apologized in public for the  1600 duck deaths.  So why isn't Syncrude taking its legal fees and putting its money into measures to prevent this from happening again? 
Not only that, their public relations staff could announce that Syncrude fully accepts responsibility amd os saving taxpayers the cost of a full trial. The answer, of course, is that the issue at stake is bigger than a one time incident. 
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2010/03/01/edmonton-syncrude-trial-dead-ducks.html

Speaking outside the courthouse Monday, Sierra Club Prairie director Lindsay Telfer said the case goes far beyond the ducks, and the "tailings ponds themselves are on trial.  I think that this incident specifically showed the world just how toxic the tailings ponds are," she said. "We know now that the waters have killed 1,600 ducks, we know that those waters are leaking into the Athabasca [River] and we know downstream communities have significant health problems."  Environmentalists and observers from the oil industry are watching the trial closely because it could set a precedent for tailings-pond operators.

And there you have it: tar sands producers are worried this case will set a legal precedent.  They fear they will be forced to take responsibility for their despoilation of the commons.  And if Syncrude loses, might tar sand producers also be forced to account for their emission of greenhouse gases?

 Watch for this case to go all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada if Syncrude loses. 

And You thought Albertans Hated the NEP

Wait until they hear about the following  idea.
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/monitor/private-gain-or-public-interest

Canada’s oil and gas industry can and should be converted to a public-interest industry whose mandate would be to serve the broader public interest, not just the private interests of owners and shareholders....At present, the private corporations that dominate the oil and gas industry in Canada are inflicting serious environmental harm and causing major social and economic problems...The oil and gas corporations strenuously resist paying adequate royalties to the public owners of these resources, resulting in a loss of government revenue to support public services, infrastructure, and long-term savings.

The authors of this opinion piece suggest that "as with any corporate acquisition, the cost of buying out the industry would be paid for out of its future profits. In other words, the net cost to Canadian taxpayers would be zero, or close to it."  You have to admit, it is an interesting alternative to merely raising royalties and strengthening environmental regulations in the oil patch.  Perhaps "publicizing" the oil and gas industry would upset Albertans - but it would benefit Canadians and our democracy.

Are Profits The Most Important Thing?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/18/worlds-top-firms-environmental-damage

The cost of pollution and other damage to the natural environment caused by the world's biggest companies would wipe out more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable, a major unpublished study for the United Nations has found.  The report comes amid growing concern that no one is made to pay for most of the use, loss and damage of the environment, which is reaching crisis proportions in the form of pollution and the rapid loss of freshwater, fisheries and fertile soils.....Another major concern is the risk that companies simply run out of resources they need to operate, said Andrea Moffat, of the US-based investor lobby group Ceres, whose members include more than 80 funds with assets worth more than US$8tn. An example was the estimated loss of 20,000 jobs and $1bn last year for agricultural companies because of water shortages in California.

Are profits the most important thing in the world?  More important than healthy ecoysystems?  Just in case no one else has noticed, I'd like to point out that the economy is a subset of the environment, not the other way around.   We have no Planet B  - so let's work for a velvet climate revolution  - a world that is sustainable and more democratic than  the one we live in now. 

Preconceived Ideas Rap Us On Our Shins

I am reading two books at once:  1491 by Charles C Mann and Integral Ecology by Esbjorn  (the o should have an umlaut) and Zimmerman. Curioulsy, a commonality between the two books exists.  Both books/ authors refer to environmentalists who long for a supposed pristine past - one where humans were closer to nature -and then demolish that argument. 

Many deep ecologists are epistemological realists who condemn post modern environmentalists for speaking of nature as a social construct. In so doing, deep ecologists call upon the very same modern, scientific worldview that they otherwise blame for contributing to environmental destruction.  (Integral Ecology, page 146)

Indians worked on a very large scale, transforming huge swathes of landscape for their own ends.( 1491, p 279) Faced with an ecological probem, the Indians fixed it. Rather than adapt to Nature, they created it. They were in the midst of terraforming the Amazon when Columbus showed up. {(1491 page 349) Please see Mann's appendix for an explanation of his use of the word "Indian.}

So our - my -  preconceived notion that nature is pristine is supported neither by logic nor by the practices of the First Nations of North and South America.    Perhaps we should picture an ideal world and ecosystem and work to create it.    

Climate Change and Water

You would think that anyone who has been blethering on about climate change as much as I have would know about the connections between water, climate change, and energy usage.  However, I did not until I found a paper entitled Climate Change and the Global Water Crisis: What Businessess Need to Know and Do at                           http://www.pacinst.org/reports/ungc_climate_water/index.htm

Water  is used for extracting, refining, processing, and transporting all forms of energy, from coal to solar.  Large volumes of water are used as cooling water in conventional thermal generating plants. Energy production can also cause signicant water pollution.  A much less recognized connection between water and energy are the vast amounts of energy used to treat, distribute, and use water. Water is heavy . . . .Energy needs are particularly high for places where water is .... piped over long distances and steep terrain.

Climate change will increase water demand due to droughts; reduce the quality of available because of sea level rises and extreme flooding (does anyone remember the lack of drinking water in Haiti after Hurricane Jeanne dumped two meters of water in 36 hours?;) and melt the glaciers that supply water to China, Pakistan, Indian , and western Canada .

The authors of the paper suggest that companies should manage their risk in various ways.  To me, the most important is that businesses 

seek opportunities for collective action as water and energy are connected to social, cultural, and environmental issues ... by pooling resources and bringing together a wide range of expertise and knowledge through partnerships for a common goal.

A velvet climate revolution will require us all to pool our knowledge and expertise in pursuit of the common goal: survival.  And presumaly, we all wish for more than a mere Hobbesian survival:  we all want a  socially and environmentally just culture living within  limits imposed by the environement.   Cooperation is and will be absolutely necessary - between people, nations, and businesses.

Queen of Green

The Queen of Green has recipes for cosmetics; gifts; toothpaste; candles and all kinds of environmentally friendly stuff and information at her site. Check it out! Plus her recipes will save you money .... a bonus!
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Naturechallenge/QueenofGreen