Do The Right Thing, Mr Harper

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/05/05/harper-barroso-europe-climate-change-bank-tax.html

Canada shouldn't keep waiting for the rest of the world to act on climate change before making its own changes, the president of the European Union Commission said Wednesday in advance of a meeting with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Brussels..... He said that if every country adopts Canada's position that it won't start taking drastic action to combat climate change until most other countries in the world agree to do the same, "no one will move in the end."

Do the right thing Mr Harper - pay attention to climate scientists ans pass meaningful legislation limiting greenhouse gas emissions.  Invest in clean energy and green technology.

Jim Prentice Wants Your Input - actually, He is Legally Required to Ask for It.

http://www.ec.gc.ca/dd-sd/default.asp?lang=En&n=E19EE696-1

To maintain our standard of living in the 21st century, Canada must address the challenge of environmental sustainability. The issues are well known; we need to address climate change and air quality, maintain water availability and quality, and protect our natural heritage. Environmental issues must be balanced with economic considerations. By doing so, we can make long-term sustainable progress on the environment that is integrated with progress on the economic and social agenda for Canadians.  I am pleased to present to Canadians this consultation paper, Planning for a Sustainable Future: A Federal Sustainable Development Strategy for Canada, that will both strengthen how government promotes environmental sustainability, and improve the transparency and accountability of how we do it....Your comments on the draft Federal Sustainable Development Strategy can be provided by email to sdo-bdd@ec.gc.ca or mailed to the Sustainable Development Office at Environment Canada at the following address by July 12, 2010.

Please reply to Mr Prentice by June 25, 2010 as the comment period closes two weeks after the final strategy is required to be completed. (The pertinent law requires 120 days of consultation with the public - and prorogation forced the consultation period to end after the deadline for completion of the enviornmental sustainability strategy.) Please instruct the Honorable Mr Prentice to take climate change seriously and invest in clean energy and green jobs.  Additional new funds should be made available to the  Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. 

NASA and Climate Change

Pondering Syncrude's potential legal liability  for despoilation of the commons brought greenhouse gas emissions and climate change to mind.  I wondered what, if anything, NASA had to say about the nasty winter the east is suffering through.  Is is proof that climate change is not happening?  No such luck.
http://climate.nasa.gov/news/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=270

Hansen explains that the 5-year and 11-year temperature averages, i.e. the planet's annual average temperature, averaged over 5 or 11 years, are valuable because they place less emphasis on single-year variability. These running averages show a consistent rise in the Earth's temperature over the past 30 years.  Allowing for this variability, global warming theory does not posit a linear, year-to-year increase in temperatures. Nor does it say that harsh winter weather will simply end. What it does say is that increasing concentrations of gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, with unchecked growth, will contribute a greater and greater warming influence on the world's climate.

Climate change is happening as I write.  Please send a letter to the Right Honorable Stephen Harper asking him to implement science based reduction targets for greenhouse gas emissions.  Ask him to invest in clean energy and green technology a la Germany if  he wishes to stimulate the economy and get people back to work.
UPDATE:  NASA found water on the moon!

Using data from a NASA radar that flew aboard India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists have detected ice deposits near the moon's north pole. NASA's Mini-SAR instrument, a lightweight, synthetic aperture radar, found more than 40 small craters with water ice. The craters range in size from 1 to 9 miles (2 to15 km) in diameter. Although the total amount of ice depends on its thickness in each crater, it's estimated there could be at least 1.3 trillion pounds (600 million metric tons) of water ice.  "The emerging picture from the multiple measurements and resulting data of the instruments on lunar missions indicates that water creation, migration, deposition and retention are occurring on the moon."

I wonder if climate change deniers will also deny that water exists on our moon....

Ummmm - We're Actually Increasing Emissions?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/canada-outlines-greenhouse-gas-targets/article1450606/

The federal government formally notified the United Nations that Canada will cut its carbon emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels over the next 10 years as part of the Copenhagen accord on climate change, Environment Minister Jim Prentice said Saturday. ...While the government's previous emission targets, announced in 2006, would have resulted in a 3-per-cent reduction in emissions over 1990 levels, these latest targets will actually increase emissions by 2.5 per cent, said Dave Martin, a climate and energy co-ordinator with Greenpeace.

I presume that Mr Martin means that GHG emissions will now increase by 2.5 per cent over 1990 levels.
Meanwhile, as I've posted elsewhere, Portland, Oregon will reduce its emissions to 10 per cent below 1990 levels in 2010. AND - this is a big point - reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating clean energy sources creates more jobs than investing in fossil fuel industries.  Numerous win- win opportunities exist that Canada is neglecting.  Moreover, the risks posed by inaction are far higher than taking action now as pointed out by Lord Stern.  Prime Minister Stephen Harper will not take action without being pressured due to the short term time line imposed by politics. Let's pressure him: please send him a letter on the benefits of creating a green economy.

Bright Idea of the Year - Not!

Did I mention earlier that American Senators and Congresspersons are not  whipped into line by their party as Canadian Members of Parliarment are?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/21/lisa-murkowski-epa-greenhouse-gases

In a speech to Congress, a Republican senator from Alaska announced she would use an obscure and rarely used measure to try to strip the Environmental Protection Agency of its powers to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as a dangerous pollutant....In an ominous sign for supporters of a climate law, she had the support of three Democratic Senators, further underscoring the unease in Obama's own party in enacting legislation to tackle global warming. In her speech, Murkowski argued that giving the EPA the authority to act on global warming would cost jobs and hurt the economy: "Under the guise of protecting the environment, it's set to unleash a wave of damaging new regulations that will wash over and further submerge our struggling economy."

With all due respect to the Senator, she is wrong . Dead wrong. Nicholas Stern found that doing nothing about climate change will cost the economies of the world twenty (20!!!) per cent of their GDP.   Taking action will cost two (2) per cent of GDP.  A research study carried out at the University of Masschusetts predicted that a federal government investment of 100 billion dollars would create 2 million jobs over two years.  Moreover, this money would "Create nearly four times more jobs than spending the same amount of money within the oil industry and 300,000 more jobs than a similar amount of spending directed toward household consumption and Create roughly triple the number of good jobs—paying at least $16 dollars an hour—as spending the same amount of money within the oil industry."
http://www.americanprogress.org/pressroom/releases/2008/09/peri_report.html

So Senator Murkowski is attempting to  hit our economies very, very hard.  Sounds like a good plan.....

Greening The Tar Sands

An article in today's Globe and Mail on companies developing technology to green tar sands mining:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/battle-for-the-oil-sands/article1406051/

 there remains a profound skepticism on the part of industry to embrace new technology. It's visible in spending patterns – energy companies spend half as much on research and development than the Canadian industrial average. 

An inventor having difficulties raising enough money to build a prototype to test his technology stated:

“I'll be blunt, part of the problem is Alberta,” he says, blaming government-owned research facilities who control the flow of some research dollars. “I think part of the issue is that we may represent competition to the steam status quo. … I don't understand that myself. The industry has so much to gain and so little to lose.”

Does the industry reluctance to innovate have anything to do with the federal government?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/climate-change/canadas-strategy-promise-now-implement-later/article1406232/

Canadians will still have a lengthy wait before Ottawa rolls out its climate change plan, despite a tentative political accord at the Copenhagen summit.   The delays will make it more difficult, and potentially more costly, for Canada to meet its target to reduce emissions by 20 per cent from 2006 levels by 2020. Companies are continuing to invest – particularly in the emissions-intensive oil sands sector – without knowing what emissions limits they will face. If regulations are put in place in 2010, the country will have to reduce emissions by 17.3 megatonnes a year to meet the target; by delaying until 2012, the annual effort increases to 21.6 megatonnes.

Perhaps the Canadian government should implement greenhouse gas emissions regualtions soon so that tar sands miners have an incentive to invest in better technology.  Please send the PM a letter on the subject ...

Another Missed Opportunity

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/16/uk-green-technologies

Britain's transformation to a low-carbon society will be delayed by a lack of people trained in the right skills unless the government significantly increases its investment in the sector, a group of MPs have warned. They said that hundreds of thousands of jobs could be created if the government doubled its funding of green technologies, making the UK a world leader in a market worth £3tr worldwide.

"The government has missed a big opportunity to kick-start a green industrial revolution with its £3bn fiscal stimulus. Germany, the US, Japan and China have invested billions in their low-carbon industries," said Tim Yeo MP, chair of the House of Commons environmental audit committee (EAC).

In the US, the government has spent about £50bn to create half a million new green jobs, while Germany, Japan and Korea have also announced major plans to grow their domestic environmental sectors. China's economic stimulus plan includes £142bn for environmental measures

And what are Canada's plans for funding green technologies and clean energy?  It seems we are defending the tar sands instead .... another missed opportunity.

Perhaps our PM should read The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman. 

Lord Stern Is Hopeful

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/03/nicholas-stern-copenhagen-pledges
Lord Stern disagrees with James Hansen - he wants the copenhagen talks to succeed.  He said:

If you look at the kind of offers that are now on the table we are just a few billion tonnes short per annum of the kind of emission cuts we need to get on target for 2020.  "That means there is a significant way to go but it is possible to get there."  Lord Stern said a "strong, outline, political agreement" at Copenhagen could lead to a dynamic industrial revolution. He said the "extra bit" that needed to be done would require increased commitments from some countries which had already made emissions-cutting offers, as well as a bigger fight against deforestation. "Both those things could take us there and I trust they are both possible."

If Canada agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions, instead of burying its head in the tar sands, that would help the world achieve the 2020 tragets.  Please send Prime Minister Harper a letter suggesting that he commit Canada to significant targets.

More Good News From Quebec

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/quebec-splits-with-ottawa-on-climate-change/article1374487/
From the article:
Quebec is taking the final step in its break from Ottawa on climate change, unveiling an ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gases and blasting the federal government for inaction only a few weeks before a major international environmental conference

Premier Jean Charest announced Monday that, by 2020, the province will reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 per cent below 1990 levels, a goal similar to the target the European Union has adopted.

Ontario and British Columbia are the only other provinces with emission-reduction targets. Ontario plans to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by 15 per cent below the 1990 level by 2020. B.C. plans to reduce emissions by 33 per cent below 2007 levels, which Quebec said is the equivalent of about a 14-per-cent reduction below 1990 levels by 2020.


Ottawa's intended target is to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 2020 by 3 per cent below 1990 levels. Mr. Charest urged the federal government to be more aggressive, or face a challenge from Quebec and other provinces before the international community.

“We will defend the Quebec position [in Copenhagen]. We won't be shy about it. Furthermore, we are part of a decentralized federation. Once decisions are taken we [the provinces] have the responsibility of enforcing them,” Mr. Charest said. 

I think I'm in love with Mr. Charest!

Canada Is Falling Behind

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125657972873108537.html
Per the Wall Street Journal: "The Obama administration is putting its green-power agenda back on center stage Tuesday as a Senate committee begins debating a bill to curb the greenhouse gases from fossil fuels.
President Barack Obama is in Florida, where he is expected Tuesday to highlight the $3.4 billion in economic-stimulus funding devoted to modernizing the power grid so it can better handle wind turbines, solar power and other forms of renewable electricity generation. Vice President Joe Biden, meanwhile, is scheduled to be in Wilmington, Del., to herald a deal to retool a shuttered General Motors factory to produce plug-in hybrid cars."
And Canada?  We are cutting science funding....... this is sure to make Canada a leader in green technology and help us cut pollution and greenhouse gas emissions........ Yeah, right!
Canada needs to start investing in clean energy and in training a workforce to work with green  technology.