Canada and global warming: a state of denial 2

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Wed, 2019-10-02 13:53

BertramPotts BertramPotts's picture

iyraste1313 wrote:

There is a climate change consensus that climate change is made primarily through the use of fossil fuels.....

There is no such consensus....I remember the letter from some 30,000 scientists denying such a consensus...recently read a report from 500 scientists in disagreement......science is not percentages, anyway!

I suspect you're standards for what constitutes a climate scientist may be too loose, how about we just trust in the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) and their position statement on climate change?

Quote:

* Earth's climate---arising from the interaction of the atmosphere, ocean, ice, land surface, and living things---undergoes changes from both human activity and natural causes.

* Knowledge of climate change is based on observations of the climate and scientific understanding of physical, chemical, and biological processes.

* Humans influence the climate through changing the atmosphere's composition, primarily through emissions of greenhouse gases as a result of combustion of fossil fuels and deforestation. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the dominant human-emitted greenhouse gas. The current CO2 concentration is approximately 50% above the pre-industrial levels.

* Human activity has been the main cause of the observed increase in temperature since the middle of the 20th century. The four recent years (2015-2018) have been the warmest years on record for global surface temperature. A long-term warming will continue in the 21st century, although individual months or years will also be affected by natural climate variations.

* Changes in climate result in responses in average and extreme temperature and precipitation, as well as in wind, sea level, snow and ice cover. There are also numerous other responses, such as ocean acidification and deoxygenation. Many of these responses, including those attributed to human activity, have already been observed and are predicted to continue in the future.

Wed, 2019-10-02 14:03

#53

NorthReport

Thanks BP

Fri, 2019-10-11 04:08

#54

jerrym

iyraste1313 wrote:

There is a climate change consensus that climate change is made primarily through the use of fossil fuels.....

There is no such consensus....I remember the letter from some 30,000 scientists denying such a consensus...recently read a report from 500 scientists in disagreement......science is not percentages, anyway!

There is a climate change consensus unless you believe 97% of scientists discussing the issue does not form a consensus, which is that climate change is made primarily through the use of fossil fuels. There are no 30,000 scientists disagreeing with this consensus and you know it.

Do scientists agree on climate change?

Yes, the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97 percent – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change. Most of the leading science organizations around the world have issued public statements expressing this, including international and U.S. science academies, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a whole host of reputable scientific bodies around the world. A list of these organizations is provided here.

READ MORE

Scientific consensus: Earth's climate is warming

“The scientific consensus on climate change,” N. Oreskes, Science, Vol. 306 no. 5702, p. 1686, doi: 10.1126/science.1103618 (2004).

“Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature,” J. Cook et al., Environ. Res. Lett., 8 024024, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024 (2013).

ADDITIONAL CITATIONS

"Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming Environ," J. Cook et al., Res. Lett. 11 (2016) 048002, pp 1–7, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002 (2016).

"Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change," P. Doran et al., EOS, Vol. 90, Issue 3, Pages 22–23, doi: 10.1029/2009EO030002 (2009).

"Expert credibility in climate change," W. Anderegg et al., PNAS, Vol. 107 no. 27, 12107–12109, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1003187107 (2010).

"Meteorologists' Views About Global Warming: A Survey of American Meteorological Society Professional Members," N. Stenhouse et al., Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 95 No. 7, pp 1029–1040, doi: 10.1175/ BAMS-D-13-00091.1 (2014).

"Scientists’ Views about Attribution of Global Warming," B. Verheggen et al., Environ. Sci. Technol., 48 (16), pp 8963–8971, doi: 10.1021/es501998e (2014).

"The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists," J.S. Carlton et al., Environ. Res. Lett. 10 (2015) 094025, pp 1–12, doi:10.1088/1748-9326/10/9/094025 (2015).

https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/17/do-scientists-agree-on-climate-change/

Many of the climate change deniers have been funded by the fossil fuel companies who have used the same researchers to promote climate change denial.

Tobacco and Oil Industries Used Same Researchers to Sway Public

Documents housed at the University of California, San Francisco, and analyzed in recent months by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, show that the oil and tobacco industries have been linked for decades. The files CIEL drew its research from have been public for years. ...

“From the 1950s onward, the oil and tobacco firms were using not only the same PR firms and same research institutes, but many of the same researchers,” CIEL President Carroll Muffett said in a statement.

“Again and again we found both the PR firms and the researchers worked first for oil, then for tobacco,” he said. “It was a pedigree the tobacco companies recognized and sought out.”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tobacco-and-oil-industries-us...

Willie Soon is the most famous of the climate change denier 'researchers' who hid his funding from the fossil fuel industry .

Soon is a climate change denier, disputing the scientific understanding of climate change, and contends that most global warming is caused by solar variation rather than by human activity. He co-wrote a paper whose methodology was widely criticised by the scientific community. Climate scientists such as Gavin Schmidtof the Goddard Institute for Space Studies have refuted Soon's arguments, and the Smithsonian does not support his conclusions. He is nonetheless frequently cited by politicians opposed to climate-change legislation. ...

From 2005 to 2015, Soon had received over $1.2 million from the fossil fuel industry, while failing to disclose that conflict of interest in most of his work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Soon

Fri, 2019-10-11 04:06

#55

jerrym

There is a growing body of scientific evidence that global warming is not only killing people, the climate change most drastic effects are occurring overwhelmingly among children, who have had 88% of deaths associated with climate change.

Abstract

Background Global climate change will have multiple effects on human health. Vulnerable populations—children, the elderly, and the poor—will be disproportionately affected.

Objective We reviewed projected impacts of climate change on children’s health, the pathways involved in these effects, and prevention strategies.

Data sources We assessed primary studies, review articles, and organizational reports.

Data synthesis Climate change is increasing the global burden of disease and in the year 2000 was responsible for > 150,000 deaths worldwide. Of this disease burden, 88% fell upon children. Documented health effects include changing ranges of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue; increased diarrheal and respiratory disease; increased morbidity and mortality from extreme weather; changed exposures to toxic chemicals; worsened poverty; food and physical insecurity; and threats to human habitation. Heat-related health effects for which research is emerging include diminished school performance, increased rates of pregnancy complications, and renal effects. Stark variation in these outcomes is evident by geographic region and socioeconomic status, and these impacts will exacerbate health disparities. Prevention strategies to reduce health impacts of climate change include reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation through multiple public health interventions.

Conclusions Further quantification of the effects of climate change on children’s health is needed globally and also at regional and local levels through enhanced monitoring of children’s environmental health and by tracking selected indicators. Climate change preparedness strategies need to be incorporated into public health programs.

https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/ehp.1002233

Wed, 2019-10-09 01:06

#56

jerrym

The Blaine Higgs Progressive Conservative New Brunswick government is being criticized by researchers for its failure to respond effectively to climate change related disasters.

The New Brunswick Legislature is seen in the background of a boat ramp sign in Carleton Park surrounded by the flood water and debris from the St. John River in Fredericton, N.B. on Saturday, April 20, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Stephen MacGillivray

The City of Fredericton can't prevent severe flooding and its consequences if the province doesn't step in and help, a researcher says.

"I'm discouraged to say that the province truly has been missing in action on climate change," said Louise Comeau, a research associate at the forestry and environmental management department at the University of New Brunswick. "For months now, they [have not been] implementing their climate change plan, which includes many investments and adaptation." ...

Fredericton has suffered major flooding over the last two years. Water levels peaked in Fredericton on April 23 at 8.36 metres, compared with a peak of 8.31 metres last year. For the second straight year, homes were evacuated and the Trans-Canada Highway was closed downriver from Fredericton.

With warming temperatures and higher levels of winter precipitation in the northern parts of the province, Comeau said flooding will become more frequent year after year. "This is a recipe for ongoing and regular flooding," she said in an interview with Information Morning Fredericton.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/flooding-mitigation-climate...

Wed, 2019-10-09 01:17

#57

jerrym

There are now wildfires in the wettest places in Canada, such as the rainforests near Zeballos in British Columbia, because of the conditions created by global warming, especially when combined with the clearcutting of old growth.

It rains in Zeballos. A lot. The village, perched at the end of a long inlet on the west coast of Vancouver Island, is surrounded by mountains and rainforest.

But despite the region’s average annual precipitation of 163 inches — more than three times that of Vancouver — the community of about 100 people was threatened when lightning sparked a wildfire last August. About 168 hectares burned over two weeks, as flames loomed over houses, and burning trees and debris tumbled down the slopes toward the village.

Within a month, evacuation orders were placed on 27 properties. Ten months later, the order still hadn’t been fully lifted because of fears the burned slopes might slide onto the community.

The fact that some of the wettest forests in North America are now considered candidates for wildfires signals the severe shifts being caused by climate change. It means that old growth trees, critical for forest resiliency and traditionally quite fire resistant, are increasingly under threat. ...

It rains in Zeballos. A lot. The village, perched at the end of a long inlet on the west coast of Vancouver Island, is surrounded by mountains and rainforest.But despite the region’s average annual precipitation of 163 inches — more than three times that of Vancouver — the community of about 100 people was threatened when lightning sparked a wildfire last August. About 168 hectares burned over two weeks, as flames loomed over houses, and burning trees and debris tumbled down the slopes toward the village.

Within a month, evacuation orders were placed on 27 properties. Ten months later, the order still hadn’t been fully lifted because of fears the burned slopes might slide onto the community.

The fact that some of the wettest forests in North America are now considered candidates for wildfires signals the severe shifts being caused by climate change. It means that old growth trees, critical for forest resiliency and traditionally quite fire resistant, are increasingly under threat. ...

Old-growth forests are resistant to burning. Older, larger trees absorb water, retain moisture and regulate the climate within the forest, especially during a hot, dry summer, he said.

The dead fallen trees and branches on the forest floor are shaded, damp and less likely to fuel a fire.

Ira Sutherland, a PhD student in forestry at UBC studying the structure and function of B.C.’s forests, said the wet, temperate climate in coastal B.C. has historically allowed old-growth forests to flourish.

“When you have all that rain, you have an absence of fire,” said Sutherland. “The fire return interval — how often a fire does happen — is usually about 150 to 350 years on the coast. In some areas where it’s really wet, you don’t have fires for 4,000 years.”

https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/07/15/Increase-Fire-Risk-Coastal-Forests/

Thu, 2019-10-10 23:28

#58

jerrym

Today Yukon MLAs voted unanimously on a motion to declare a climate emergency in the Yukon.

"There is no question that climate change is happening faster in the North," Environment Minister Pauline Frost said in the Legislature. Many of the changes we are experiencing now are unprecedented, in terms of scope and speed. My elders lived through winter temperatures that tomorrow's children may never experience. We are seeing wildlife and plant species claim habitat in places they haven't before."

Frost initially introduced a motion that "recognizes that Yukon is experiencing the impacts of a climate change emergency" and promised continued action to reduce greenhouse gases, pursue renewable energy and build a green economy.

But NDP Leader Kate White said the motion didn't quite go far enough. She suggested the motion should more clearly "declare a climate emergency. On some issues there is no middle ground and there's no room for compromise. And I believe that climate change is one of those issues," White said. "It's one line, but this is the most powerful line that we will ever be judged on." ...

MLAs then voted unanimously in favour of the amended motion. White says that makes Yukon the first province or territory to make such a declaration.

Last month, the City of Whitehorse made a similar declaration, following the lead of the Vuntut Gwichin First Nation in Old Crow, Yukon, earlier this year.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/yukon-government-climate-emergency-...

Fri, 2019-10-11 04:04

#59

jerrym

Across the country campus and community radio stations are providing information on climate change and helping to organize people, especially 18-35 year olds who are the largest electoral cohort, to impact the election. The url below includes a related podcast with interviews of Shreya Kalra, a field organizer with Future Majority, and Luke Smith with the Facts are Free campaign about the Canadian climate change situation.

Facts are Free is a collection of public service announcements that are being aired on campus and community radio stations across the country in the weeks leading up to the election. The non-profit and charitable radio sector in Canada has launched a campaign to raise awareness about climate change and environmental issues facing Canadians. The campaign is called Facts are Free and it's been created in cooperation with with Environmental Defence and the VX3 Exchange. Luke Smith is a learning and development officer with the National Campus and Community Radio Association. He talked to Victoria Fenner.

Canada's youth have the opportunity this election to shift the political landscape considerably. For the first time in Canada's history, millennials and Gen Z make up the largest voting bloc -- 37 per cent of the electorate -- so there is a lot of opportunity to force politicians to focus on youth issues that are otherwise ignored. If youth come out to vote, there could be far reaching consequences. Whether they'll take advantage.

http://rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/rabble-radio/2019/10/climate-change-acti...

Fri, 2019-10-11 13:34

#60

NDPP

Sea Boiling With Methane Discovered in Siberia

https://twitter.com/freedomrideblog/status/1182657862935416833

"No one has ever recorded anything like this before. This isn't scary. Nope. Not at all..."

Sat, 2019-10-12 15:06

#61

jerrym

Iceland has placed a plaque to commenorate the loss of its first glacier, the first of 400 Icelandic glaciers to disappear. The plaque warns that "all of Iceland's glaciers are expected to disappear in the next two hundred years." Even if drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions it is expected that 1/3 of the world's glaciers, including many in Canada, will disappear by 2100.

In the video accompanying the video on the disappearance of Iceland's glaciers, Asad Rehman, the Director of War on Want, a global anti-poverty and climate justice organisation, discusses the significance of Iceland's lost glacier.

He notes that as the ice melt the heat involved in melting the glaciers is released into the oceans triggering more melting of ocean ice and increasing the albedo effect, as dark water absorbs more heat than the white colour of snow or ice, further accelerating global warming. In the Himalayas 40% of all glaciers are expected to disappear, thereby losing much of the source of freshwater melt that sustains India's rivers, the water supply of many Indians, as well as those of many places around the world, including the Canadian prairies.

Some cities in India have already run out of freshwater this year because of this. It is now predicted that 40% of India's 1.3 billion people will be without freshwater in the future.

As sea levels rise due to glacier melting many of the world's coastal will be threatened with long-term flooding. Asad Rehman notes that scientific estimates of the number of people displaced by sea level rise is two billion, one fifth of the world's population. In Prince Edward Island, the Lennox Island reserve is already starting to disappear. The loss of freshwater from glacier melt also threatens the food supply in many places, including the Canadian prairies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv29DiY7dLA&vl=en

Sat, 2019-10-12 15:17

#62

jerrym

Canadian glaciers are also shrinking at a rapid rate. According to David Hik, an ecology professor at Simon Fraser University, "Probably 80 per cent of the mountain glaciers in Alberta and B.C. will disappear in the next 50 years."

The Wedgemont Glacier, north of Whistler, B.C. Of the estimated 200,000 square kilometres of Canadian glaciers, one quarter is found in the west of the country, with the remainder in the Arctic.

As the Earth warms at a faster rate, a combination of less snow and a rapid melt is causing glaciers to recede in length and volume, Robinson said.

The first State of the Mountains report, co-authored by Hik and University of Alberta professor Zac Robinson and published in May by the Alpine Club of Canada, says outside of the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland, Canada has more glacier cover than any other nation.

Of the estimated 200,000 square kilometres of Canadian glaciers, one quarter is found in the west of the country and the remainder are in the Canadian Arctic archipelago. ...

The rates of melting are similar to what is seen in the European Alps and the Andes. One of the first effects of melting glaciers is an increase in sea level, Hik said. ...

While the melt increases water levels and sets off coastal erosion and flooding, it also causes dry areas and dust bowls. As glaciers recede, more water flows downhill, but the further the ice sheets retreat, the less water there is to go down stream and soon the area begins to dry, Hik said. "In places like the Kluane River in Yukon there is significantly more dust because the valley that the river flows through is essentially dried out," he said. This dust can create problems for vegetation by settling on trees and plants, and reducing photosynthesis, he said.

Glaciers act as a bank account during hot summers when water is scarce, Hik said. The melt also changes the way water flows and where it accumulates. "In some places you'll have locally increased water availability and in many, many, many places that water availability will be reduced as well," said Hik.

Robinson said mountains are recognized as sentinels of change because they respond rapidly and intensely to climate changes. "Mountains give an important glimpse into the future and can show us what's coming down the line," he said.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/western-glaciers-disappe...

Sun, 2019-10-13 12:45

#63

NDPP

Methane SOS!

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/10/11/methane-sos/

"Global warming is on speed, especially in northern latitudes..."

Tue, 2019-10-15 01:55

#64

jerrym

Greta Thunberg is coming to Alberta soon.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has announced that's she's going to Alberta.

The 16-year-old tweeted that she'll be heading north following "a few days of well needed rest while enjoying the spectacular nature of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana."

She did not say when she will arrive in Alberta or where specifically she will visit. ...

Last week at a rally in South Dakota, Thunberg spoke out against the proposed path of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry crude from Alberta through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska. ...

Late last month, Thunberg spoke about the dire state of the planet at a climate change protest in Montreal, one of many youth-led demonstrations her activism has galvanized across the globe. ...

She has said she plans to keep touring the Americas through a UN climate conference in Chile in December.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/10/14/news/coming-greta-thunbergs-...

Sat, 2019-10-19 02:28

#65

jerrym

When Hurricane Dorian hit Nova Scotia, it became a reminder of how hurricanes in the Atlantic and cyclones in the Pacific are moving into cooler regions as climate change warms the oceans.

A crane outside a new development at the corner of South Park Street and Spring Garden Road in Halifax, N.S. collapsed onto the building as winds from hurricane Dorian lashed the city. Photo provided by Jake Poulton.

As hurricane Dorian sets its sights on Atlantic Canada this weekend, a Halifax-based researcher says the devastation already left in its wake is a reminder we need to have tough conversations about rising sea levels, climate change and its future impacts on this region.

“In Nova Scotia, 70 per cent of our population lives in coastal communities and we are actually going to be experiencing the greatest local sea level rise in all of Atlantic Canada,” Anya Waite, scientific director of the Ocean Frontier Institute and associate vice-president of ocean research at Dalhousie University, said in an interview. “For us, it’s hugely important what our response is.”

https://www.thestar.com/halifax/2019/09/05/halifax-researcher-says-hurri...

Tue, 2019-10-15 17:32

#66

jerrym

Nova Scotia was not alone in facing increased megastorms due to hurricanes in regions that rarely saw them in the past. In 2018, New Zealand had four times its normal number of cyclones, causing immense damage.

While the cyclone season was tracking near-normal across the southwest Pacific, New Zealand's activity this year was heading toward 400 per cent of normal.

"I mean, we only average two thirds of a cyclone every season – at least according to the 30-year averages between 1981 and 2010 – so we are certainly getting a bit fatigued here in New Zealand," Niwa meteorologist Ben Noll said. ...

With the extra visits from tropical cyclones, a record marine heatwave and our hottest summer in 150 years, many people are understandably pointing to the hidden hand of climate change. ...

We could expect future cyclones to pack a lower central pressure, stronger winds, and much more rainfall because of the extra moisture in the air.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12009480

Tue, 2019-10-15 17:48

#67

jerrym

Another example of the increasing impact of hurricanes and cyclones is Super Typhoon Hagibis, which just hit Japan, the worst to hit Japan since at least 1958. The following article, in addition to discussing Super Typhoon Hagibis, describes two scientific studies that describe the increasing frequency of rapidly intensifying storms in the North Atlantic and how the growing strength of hurricanes and cyclones could result in a new more powerful category of super storms - Category 6, as well as a major uptick in tropical major storms between now and 2035.

Super Typhoon Hagibis on Tuesday morning. The old eye is nestled within the new, larger structure.

Super Typhoon Hagibis was on the brink of reclaiming its Category 5 intensity as of Tuesday morning Eastern time, having reorganized its inner core, known as the eyewall, where the strongest winds and heaviest rains are found.

This follows an extraordinary display of ultra-rapid intensification on Sunday and Monday, when the storm’s winds increased by 100 miles per hour in just 24 hours, one of the fastest rates of intensification ever observed on Earth. According to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Philip Klotzbach, the storm has now been a super typhoon, with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph or greater, for at least 36 hours. This is a record in the western North Pacific so far this season.

Typically, this ocean basin spawns some of the most intense tropical cyclones of any place on Earth, though storm activity has been somewhat suppressed so far this year.

Global warming may already be contributing to rapid intensification

If it seems as though rapidly intensifying storms such as Super Typhoon Hagibis are occurring more regularly, it’s because they are — at least in some parts of the world. Rapidly intensifying storms are becoming more common in the North Atlantic Ocean Basin, for example. More importantly, such storms are expected to become more frequent worldwide as human-caused global warming continues.

A satellite loop of Super Typhoon Hagibis on Tuesday morning, showing the old eye structure pinwheeling around the new, larger eye. (CIRA/RAMMB)

For example, a 2017 paper that studied modeled Atlantic storms showed an uptick in the number of storms that would rapidly intensify just before landfall in a warmer world. Even more alarming was the study’s simulation that storms intensifying by 70 mph or more within 24 hours — which the author, MIT’s Kerry Emanuel, found had occurred on the average of only once per century in the late-20th-century climate — may occur “every 5-10 years by the end of this century.”

Another study, published last year, found that with continued global warming, more tropical cyclones will undergo rapid intensification than had done so before. It also found, using a climate model capable of simulating these massive storms amid changing atmospheric and oceanic conditions, that future storms could be so intense that a new category — Category 6 — might be required to describe their intensity.

For the period between 2016 and 2035, the study found there would be an 11 percent uptick in major tropical cyclones, of Category 3 intensity or greater. It also showed 72 storms with maximum sustained winds above 190 mph by the end of the century, compared with just nine such storms in a simulation of the late-20th-century climate.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/10/08/super-typhoon-hagibis-...

Wed, 2019-10-16 03:32

#68

NorthReport

The Election and the Climate Crisis: A Tyee Reader

You asked us to make the climate emergency a key election issue. Here’s what we did.

omments yet

A wildfire burns near Glacier National Park in BC, 2017. The climate crisis is Tyee readers’ number one priority. Photo via Shutterstock.

When The Tyee asked its readers to guide our election coverage by identifying five key election questions you wanted answered by candidates and parties, the number one choice was no surprise.

ANNOUNCEMENTS, EVENTS & MORE FROM TYEE AND SELECT PARTNERS

The Run, Our Election Newsletter, Is Now Running Faster
We’ll be publishing more frequently, from now till Election Day. Here’s why.

“Do you agree Canada should be on an emergency footing regarding climate change, and if so what actions will your party take?”

Tyee readers — and Canadians overall — wanted this election to be about the damage we are doing to our environment and what parties will do to avert disaster.

So while federal leaders fixated on each other’s individual failings, The Tyee ran story after story aimed at answering your question.

This update serves two purposes. More than 1,000 Tyee readers contributed to help fund our election coverage, and we want to show you how much we were able to do with your support. And this update gives you a chance to catch up on any stories you might have missed.

The Tyee is supported by readers like you

Join us and grow independent media in Canada

Here are some of the ways we went about answering your number one election question.

Early in the summer we profiled the youth, labour, environmental and Indigenous groups leading the charge for an economy-transforming Green New Deal in Canada. We also reported on Our Time, a youth-led movement pushing to make climate change an election issue.

We asked two experts from different backgrounds — a policy wonk and a social movement organizer — to evaluate each climate platform and break down the substantial but sometimes hard-to-discern differences between all the parties. And we took critical looks at Andrew Scheer’s climate plan, concluding it was “designed to show voters he really doesn’t care,” and Justin Trudeau’s climate record.

The Tyee asked candidates in four of Canada’s most climate-exposed ridings what they will do to confront the emergency and received a lacklustre but illuminating response.

And we reported how much — or little — the parties would do to help Vancouver, a stand-in for many cities across the country, meet its climate goals.

We ran a widely shared open letter from Mount Royal University journalism professor Sean Holman urging media to do a better job covering the climate emergency and followed that with a piece looking at the responses from leading news media organizations.

We profiled Svend Robinson, a former radical superstar in the NDP who’s returning to politics in the hopes of accelerating Canada’s fight against global heating, and Indigenous socialist NDP candidate Leah Gazan who said that bold climate action and ensuring human rights for Indigenous peoples must go hand in hand. And we talked to Green candidate Amita Kuttner, who explained why they’re in favour of evidence-based policy.

Seth Klein contrasted the weakness of the political response to the climate crisis with the federal leaders’ remarkable and effective response to another crisis — the Second World War.

The Tyee interviewed experts in Canada and the U.S. about why federal leaders here are so reluctant to name and confront the main barrier to climate progress in this country — the fossil fuel industry — while leading U.S. Democratic candidates are calling for that industry’s demise. We dug into a group of Calgary oil and gas executives backing Scheer. And James Boothroyd helped us explore the political importance of the climate issue.

We were in New York to cover Greta Thunberg’s fiery call-to-arms to hundreds of thousands of teens and other people worried about climate change. And we were inside the United Nations meeting where world leaders failed to take Thunberg’s warnings about ecological collapse seriously.

Hundreds of interviews and thousands of words on one of the defining issues of our time, and Tyee readers’ most urgent election priority.

Now the decision is up to you. [Tyee]

https://thetyee.ca/Tyeenews/2019/10/16/Reader-Election-Climate-Crisis/

Wed, 2019-10-16 13:29

#69

NDPP

When Talking About the Climate Crisis, We Can't Forget About Nuclear Weapons

https://www.thenation.com/article/climate-change-nuclear/

"Both are existential threats but only one is getting the attention it deserves..."

Wed, 2019-10-16 15:57

#70

jerrym

The threat to Nova Scotia from Hurricane Dorian described in post #65 raises another concern - the threat of Nova Scotia being cut off from the rest of the country because the Chignecto Isthmus that links Nova Scotia and New Brunswick could be flooded by climate change induced sea level rise and/or storm surge. In fact, some damage has already been done in the last few years due to climate change as the following article notes. Experts warn it is not a matter of whether such major flooding of this region of Nova Scotia will happen but when. Despite this, federal and provincial governments have grossly underfunded any protective measures.

As storms like Dorian become more common, there is one area that’s being considered especially vulnerable, the Chignecto Isthmus. It is described by the United Nations as one of the most vulnerable spots in North America for both the rising tide and storm surges. ...

The isthmus is a 23km stretch of land that connects Nova Scotia to New Brunswick, and ultimately the rest of the country. ...

At the information centre on the Nova Scotia side of the border you can see the is Minas Basin, which is an arm of the Bay of Fundy. “So there is not a lot of elevation between that water and where we are standing,” said Mayor of David Kogon at the information centre. “Which is why this area is in such peril if there’s a storm surge, or if the sea level rise becomes more significant.” ...

Around the Chignecto Isthmus, sea levels are predicted to rise about a metre in the next eight decades. Currently, the area is protected by a system of dikes and aboiteaus, but the stability of the system is a concern.

John Atkinson is a farmer in the area. His family has owned marsh land for decades, but he has concerns about a dike along the LaPlance river that’s protecting his land. He says the site of the old Amherst wharf has become a weak spot with erosion of the foreshore. Atkinson estimates about 50-60 feet of land has slid into the channel over the past few years.

Dr. Jeff Ollerhead, a coastal geographer at Mount Allison University in Sackville says dikes require constant maintenance to be effective. “Those dikes are constantly under pressure from both wave energy from strong tidal currents, and also ice and other debris banging into them,” he explained.

“The agencies that are in charge of maintaining the dikes have to work with relatively small budgets for the amount of dikes they have to maintain,” said Ollerhead. “So they have to strategically decide what to protect.”

But dikes can’t protect everything. One perfect storm could see the tide go over existing dikes and flood the area.

“It’s not if it happens, it will happen, it’s just a statistically question of when,” said Ollerhead.

https://globalnews.ca/news/5956328/how-climate-change-is-threatening-to-...

Wed, 2019-10-16 16:05

#71

jerrym

Greta Thunberg arrived in Calgary on Wednesday and plans to attend a student strike in Edmonton on Friday.

Climate activist Greta Thunberg, whose climate strikes have inspired similar protests around the world, will be taking part in another strike in downtown Edmonton Friday.

Environmental advocacy group Climate Justice Edmonton announced Thunberg will join "hundreds of Edmonton youth, climate activists, and community members" at the Alberta Legislature Friday at noon.

The strike will be preceded by a march from Beaver Hills House Park at 11 a.m. ...

Thunberg has been making her way across North America after she sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to take part in the UN's climate action summit last month.

She made headlines when she blasted world leaders for inaction on the issue of climate change.

Friday's march will call on all levels of government to implement a "Canadian Green New Deal" that would transition to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030.

Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson has already issued an invite to Thunberg to visit city hall, while the provincial government has said they won’t meet with the Swedish teen.

https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/activist-greta-thunberg-to-march-in-edmonton...

Sat, 2019-10-19 02:31

#72

jerrym

Greta Thunberg calls for climate action in Alberta but doesn’t talk oilsands while Jason Kenney spoke claimed that the fossil fuel industry is the basis of modern economy when it is built on the remains of dinosaurs and run by dinosaurs who think they can extract the last drop of tar sands oil in their pursuit of profits and avoid a shift to renewable energy.

Rebel News asked Thunberg associates (who is on the autistic spectrum) whether it is appropriate to exploit a child who has a mental illness, once again demonstrating there is no level to which it is not ready to sink.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg speaks in front of about 8,000 protesters outside the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton on Oct. 18, 2019. SHAUGHN BUTTS / POSTMEDIA

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg stayed away from any direct criticism of Alberta’s oilsands as she took her message to the provincial capital on Friday.

The 16-year-old told thousands of people in front of the legislature in Edmonton that the future of the planet is at stake.

“We cannot allow this crisis to continue to be a partisan, political question. The climate and ecological crisis is far beyond party politics and the main enemy right now should not be any political opponents, because our main enemy is physics,” she said. “We teenagers are not scientists, nor are we politicians, but it seems many of us, apart from most others, understand the science because we have done our homework.”

A group of oil and gas industry supporters, some who travelled to Edmonton in a truck convoy from Red Deer, held a counter-rally at the legislature, but were vastly outnumbered by climate activists. ...

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney had said his government didn’t plan on meeting with Thunberg, and on Friday he visited a power plant west of the city that is switching from coal to cleaner natural gas.

“This is the kind of real, practical, technological solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Kenney said. “The truth is that the so-called climate strike movement is opposed to natural gas. They’re opposed to zero-emitting nuclear power. They’re opposed to technological solutions. They’re opposed to the entire modern, industrial economy. Their manifesto effectively calls for shutting down our entire modern economy, so that is not a real world solution.” ...

Before the rally, Thunberg was confronted in the hallway of her hotel by right-wing media outlet Rebel News. In a 10-minute video posted to YouTube late Thursday, the Rebel employee asked Thunberg’s associates whether it’s appropriate to exploit a child with a mental illness.

“I don’t have a mental illness,” Thunberg laughed in the video.

The questioner asked whether she’ll disclose who funded her trip to Canada in the middle of a federal election campaign.

“I have not spoken about politics,” Thunberg said.

“Climate change is politics, is it not?” the Rebel employee asked.

“No. It’s science,” Thunberg responded.

https://calgaryherald.com/business/energy/greta-thunberg-calls-for-clima...

Sat, 2019-10-19 02:51

#73

jerrym

Many First Nations people participated in Student Strike for climate action in Edmonton on Friday where Greta Thunberg spoke to 8,000 people, as they have often suffered the most from the environmental damage caused by the Alberta Tar Sands because many of them live so close to extraction sites.

https://www.thestar.com/edmonton/2019/10/18/greta-thunberg-in-edmonton-f...

The impact of climate change impact on Indigenous lands and peoples took centre stage at Friday’s protest, where there were warnings of stolen land and threatened water.

https://www.macleans.ca/society/environment/greta-thunbergs-visit-to-alb...

Thu, 2019-10-24 00:45

#74

jerrym

The Trump administration is suing California over its cap and trade deal with Quebec to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

The Trump administration on Wednesday launched a legal assault on another of California’s plans to combat climate change, filing a lawsuit challenging the state’s carbon-cutting pact with Quebec.

The lawsuit, filed in a Sacramento-based U.S. district court, argues the state stepped outside its proper constitutional lane by making a deal with the Canadian province on a cap-and-trade scheme for limiting carbon dioxide emissions.

The move is the latest in a series of actions the Trump administration has taken against California as it simultaneously challenges the state’s authority to set aggressive greenhouse gas emissions-cutting mandates on vehicles and complains the state has been too lax in confronting local pollution problems. ...

The administration argues that the Constitution bars states from making treaties or compacts with foreign powers — like the regional cap-and-trade agreement California entered into with Quebec in 2013.

The Western Climate Initiative targeted by the Justice Department caps greenhouse gas emissions but allows power plants, factories and other industrial facilities to buy permits to release them. A similar regional cap-and-trade program is designed to curb emissions in New York, Massachusetts and other Northeast U.S. states but, unlike the California plan, it does not include international partners.

California Governor Gavin Newsom blasted the Trump administration’s move Wednesday, casting it as part of a broad “political vendetta against California, our climate policies and the health of our communities.”

“California’s landmark cap-and-trade program has inspired the creation of dozens of businesses, is a model for similar policies around the world and puts California well ahead of the pack as we prepare for a low-carbon future,” Newsom said in an emailed statement. “This latest attack shows that the White House has its head in the sand when it comes to climate change and serves no purpose other than continued political retribution.”

https://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/trump-battle-with-...

Thu, 2019-10-24 00:59

#75

jerrym

Fifteen Canadian youth are suing the Trudeau Liberal government for violating their human rights because government policies with regard to dealing with climate change are limiting their their constitutional rights to life, liberty and security of the person.

Madeline Laurendeau: “We feel like we have no place in democracy. Decisions are being made against our interest and we cannot even vote.”

Madeline Laurendeau has a simple explanation for her decision to join 14 other teens from across Canada suing the federal government over its failure to address the climate crisis. ...

The lawsuit will be filed in Federal Court Friday in Vancouver, the same day Greta Thunberg joins a climate protest in the city. Teens from eight provinces and the David Suzuki Foundation will be plaintiffs.

The suit will claim the federal government violated the teens’ Charter rights by failing to address the climate crisis, despite scientific evidence of the threat. ...

“We feel like we have no place in democracy,” said Laurendeau, a 17-year-old from Winnipeg. “Decisions are being made against our interest and we cannot even vote.” ...

Laurendeau said she decided to join the lawsuit because governments won’t take meaningful action unless they’re pushed. “A lawsuit seems like the best way to get them to act,” she said.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees Canadians the right to life, liberty, the security of the person and to equal protection and benefit under the law.

The lawsuit says the federal government continues to expand fossil fuel extraction projects and is failing to take meaningful action on carbon emissions despite the threat to Canadians. It aims to force the government to pursue bold climate action. ...

Laurendeau said her Charter rights are already being violated. She has severe asthma and a couple of summers ago the forest fire smog was so thick in Winnipeg she had to stay inside, only going outside for short periods of time. Whenever she left her house, she had to bring her emergency puffer. She said she also struggles with generalized anxiety disorder and depression, both exacerbated by the mounting eco-anxiety she feels. “Personally, that’s what the case is all about,” she says. “The ways it’s already affected me.” ...

Laurendeau said she’s tired of being called “inspiring” by adults. This sort of language makes her feel like the youth aren’t being taken seriously and that adults are using it to absolve themselves of responsibility to take action and join the youth in the streets. “We are having to force this change,” she said. “Calling us inspiring is not the action that we’re asking for. That’s just words.”

https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/10/23/Teens-To-Sue-Government-Over-Climate-...

Thu, 2019-10-24 01:40

#76

jerrym

Greta Thunberg will be at the Fridays for Future climate strike in at the Vancouver Art Gallery starting at 11 AM on Friday. This will be the fourth climate action protest in Vancouver in the last month, with 150,000 attending the September 27th student strike.

Thunberg, who attended a rally last Friday in Edmonton with thousands of young people and their supporters, will be at the Vancouver Art Gallery Friday to demand governments take urgent action to deal with the climate crisis, according to a news release from Sustainabiliteens, a Vancouver youth group that has been staging Fridays for Future rallies. ...

The strike could draw larger than usual crowds. In Montreal, an estimated half a million people came out to hear Thunberg speak during the Global Climate Strike on Sept. 27. Also, many Metro Vancouver students have the day off. It’s a pro-development day in many districts including Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Port Moody, Richmond, and Surrey. ...

On Sept. 27, it is estimated that more than 150,000 people rallied downtown Vancouver as part of the Global Climate Strike. Millions more rallied in cities around the world.

Rebecca Hamilton, an organizer with Sustainabiliteens, said this Friday they will be calling on the new Liberal minority government to work together for a “Green New Deal that legislates science-aligned emission reduction targets, prioritizes Indigenous rights, and creates good jobs for all.” ...

They want cross-party collaboration to deal with the climate crisis. Another organizer Sam Lin said they are calling on the new MPS to “act like adults” and put aside partisan differences to create laws for a safer environment.

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/teen-climate-activist-greta-thu...

Fri, 2019-10-25 14:14

#77

epaulo13

Join us for a discussion on

The Red Deal

“A Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save the Earth," is a document from The Red Nation, a socialist Indigenous group in the U.S. It is available here: https://therednation.org/2019/09/22/the-red-deal/

Please read the document before the discussion.

The document aims to help non-indigenous people who oppose settler colonialism and capitalism educate themselves and reflect on the perspective presented in A Red Deal.

All people who oppose settler colonialism and capitalism are welcome to participate.

Hope to see you there!

Saturday,
October 26, 2019
3PM

Workers Organizing Resource Centre
432B Ellice Avenue
Organized by Solidarity Winnipeg.

...

A RED DEAL: INDIGENOUS ACTION TO SAVE THE EARTH

TAKE ACTION

The Red Nation (TRN) invites allied movements, comrades, and relatives to join us for a series of listening sessions and workshops to draft and implement the Red Deal, a movement-oriented document for climate justice and grassroots reform and revolution.

We are drafting a skeleton outline of a comprehensive Red Deal platform that we will discuss and debate in the course of several community-wide meetings. This will not be a regional- or nation-specific document, but a document that will encompass the entirety of Indigenous America, which includes our non-Indigenous comrades and relatives who live here. This is a document so that our planet may live. We cannot expect politicians to do what only mass movements can do. Join us as we build this movement! No skirts required. All are welcome. Skoden!

BACKGROUND

The proposed Green New Deal (GND) legislation is a step in the right direction to combat climate change and to hold corporate polluters responsible. A mass mobilization, one like we’ve never seen before in history, is required to save this planet. Indigenous movements have always been at the forefront of environmental justice struggles.

Democratic socialist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the main proponent of the GND, is herself a Water Protector who began her successful congressional run while she was at Standing Rock protesting the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Thus, the GND and the climate justice movement in North America trace their origins to Indigenous frontline struggles.

With this background in mind, TRN is proposing a Red Deal. It’s not the “Red New Deal” because it’s the same “Old Deal”—the fulfillment of treaty rights, land restoration, sovereignty, self-determination, decolonization, and liberation. Ours is the oldest class struggle in the Americas; centuries-long resistance for a world in which many worlds fit. Indigenous peoples are best suited to lead this important movement. But it must come from the ground-up.

THE RED DEAL

The Red Deal is not a counter program of the GND. It’s a call for action beyond the scope of the US colonial state. It’s a program for Indigenous liberation, life, and land—an affirmation that colonialism and capitalism must be overturned for this planet to be habitable for human and other-than-human relatives to live dignified lives.

The Red Deal is not a “deal” or “bargain” with the elite and powerful. It’s a deal with the humble people of the earth; a pact that we shall strive for peace and justice and that movements for justice must come from below and to the left. We do not speak truth to the powerful. Our shared truth makes us powerful. And this people’s truth includes those excluded from the realms of power and policy-making.....

Mon, 2019-10-28 10:22

#78

epaulo13

BREAKING: Young people occupy House of Commons

Dozens of young people are currently occupying the House of Commons to call on our newly elected MPs to come together, put partisan politics aside, and govern for a Green New Deal. It’s the only plan that gives Canada a real chance of tackling the climate emergency.

We’ve brought 338 mandate letters — one for every MP in the house of commons. We want every MP to accept their letter and pledge to make a Green New Deal a top priority when the House resumes.

Sign the petition

Mon, 2019-10-28 12:00

#79

epaulo13

Mon, 2019-10-28 16:30

#80

epaulo13

..scroll down for this.

The Inside Scoop:

I was one of 27 young people arrested this morning for occupying the House of Commons to call on our newly elected Members of Parliament to govern for a Green New Deal. As the new government gets set to enter the 43rd parliament, the demands of our generation for bold action on climate hauntingly echoed through the halls of power.

I’ll be frank. This isn’t how I imagined my first visit to Parliament in Ottawa, but it is our collective future on the line if we don’t address the climate crisis at the scale necessary. Young people made this election the climate election, and it is Our Time to Lead. We did not back down in the face of power.

As police rushed in dragged us across the floor one by one, our collective voices did not waiver as we spread the 338 mandate letters and the demands of our generation across the floor of the House of Commons urging our elected officials to take our future seriously.

After we were all forcibly removed off the steps of Parliament, we came together to share space, sing together and share our stories. Some of our elected officials and Green New Deal champions who heard us loud and clear sent words of solidarity, including NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh. And Green New Deal champion and MP-elect Matthew Green even came out mid-way through his orientation to accept his mandate letter to push his party to govern for a Green New Deal.

Risking arrest and watching comrades get dragged out by the limbs just for defending our collective future was hard to stomach in the heat of the moment. But bearing witness to young people being brave and putting their bodies on the line to defend our future filled me with courage. We all owe it to future generations to stand up and fight for our people and planet.

Onwards,

Jennifer

Mon, 2019-10-28 19:01

#81

NDPP

"Indeed, the platforms of all major parties - Liberals, Conservatives, NDP and Greens - guarantee that an astounding outlay of public funds will continue flowing to war profiteers courtesy of a militarist orthodoxy equally adhered to by all.

The NDP's Green New Deal is expected to result in investments of $15 billion over four years: That's $85 billion less than what they will invest in a war department whose climate change emissions, at over 500 kilotons a year, will seriously diminish any gains made under the NDP's plan. In addition, the NDP is satisifed to spend an additional $130 billion - plus on warships and bombers. The 'New Deal for the People' is the same old deal for the war industry.

As millions march in the streets to protest inaction on climate change, the popular sign calling for system change is one that is conveniently ignored by all of Canada's major federal party leaders. They seek at best merely to tinker with a dangerous system and unfortunately, accept assumptions that will doom any effort to reduce our carbon footprint. Nowhere is that more clear than in their collective commitment to Canadian militarism and war profiteers."

Behrens: The Biggest Winner in Canada's Election is the Military

https://t.co/reW6VSCJOM

Sun, 2019-11-03 21:43

#82

jerrym

The 15 young Canadians who have sued the Canadian government for its failure to deal with climate change because the greatest impact will be on their lives in the future are part of an international movement to sue governments over their failure to carry out meaningful action on climate change. A court in the Netherlands has already ruled in favour of Dutch youth in a similar lawsuit.

Some of the 15 young people who are parties to a lawsuit filed against the federal government for contributing to high levels of greenhouse gas emissions and dangerous climate change are seen at a press conference, in Vancouver, Friday October 25, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

The lawsuit from the group of 15 youth, who range in age from 10 to 19, is the latest in a new legal strategy looking to hold governments across the planet accountable for the consequences of climate change. Similar legal action has been taken in India, the Netherlands and the United States.

The plaintiffs stood together on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery on Friday morning to announce their lawsuit, introducing themselves, one after the other, by name, age, home and climate fears. Each spoke about losing parts of their everyday culture to consequences of a changing environment, namely wildfires, floods, drought and crop failure.

"I don't want to die before I even get a chance to live," Sàj Starcevich, 13, of Melfort, Sask., told an applauding crowd gathered on the gallery plaza. ...

The children and teens are claiming they have "suffered specific, individualized injuries" due to climate change and high greenhouse gas emissions in the country. They claim the government has infringed on their constitutional rights to life, liberty and security of the person by standing idle as the climate shifts.

The statement of claim filed in a federal court in Vancouver on Friday alleges that, "despite knowing for decades" that carbon emissions "cause climate change and disproportionately harm children," the government continued to allow emissions to increase at a level "incompatible with a stable climate capable of sustaining human life and liberties."...

Albert Lalonde, 17, said young Canadians can't dream, pursue a career or think about raising children in the face of a deteriorating climate.

"I am forced to be here because my conscience won't let me do anything else but fight every single day of my life, and I'm not alone. I am joined in this fight by the millions of young people around the world demanding climate justice," he told a cheering crowd Friday.

"We will fight ... until we have secured our future on this planet," added Lalonde, who lives in Montreal and Laval, Que.

The lawsuit was filed ahead of a climate strike in Vancouver, which will be attended by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. Thunberg, 16, stood quietly alongside the plaintiffs as they made their speeches Friday.

The group is calling on the Canadian government to create a climate change plan that lowers the country's greenhouse gas emissions "in a manner consistent with what best available science indicates is needed for the federal government to protect young Canadians, do its fair share to stabilize the climate system and avert the catastrophic consequences of climate change," the statement read.

The plaintiffs are from B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and the Northwest Territories. The group is being represented by a high-profile legal team, including noted constitutional lawyer Joseph Arvay. The David Suzuki Foundation is backing the teens by supporting the legal framework. ...

Similar lawsuits around the world, including the Canadian effort, are supported by Our Children's Trust, a non-profit organization that says it's dedicated to protecting natural systems for present and future generations.

Senior attorneys with the trust have said the courts are a key part of government, with the ability to intervene when the nation's leaders take action that violates the rights of the people.

The lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal actions filed by youth around the world in recent years.

A district court in the Netherlands sided with an environmental group in 2015, ruling the Dutch government was legally obligated to protect its citizens by doing its part to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 C — the target, the United Nations has said, that must be met in order to avoid a "severe, pervasive and irreversible" impact on the planet.

A group of young Americans between the ages of 11 and 22 sued the U.S. federal government in 2015, accusing federal officials and oil industry executives of violating their due process rights by doing nothing about carbon pollution, despite knowing for decades that it poisons the environment.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/canadian-teens-lawsuit-f...

Wed, 2019-10-30 15:54

#83

epaulo13

Fossil-Power Top 50

To highlight key powerful players within Canada’s fossil fuel industry, we developed the Fossil-Power Top 50 listing, with detailed profiles for the most influential organizations in and around the sector. The Fossil-Power Top 50 was assembled over the past four years as the Corporate Mapping Project team conducted extensive research on the economic organization of the industry and its reach into wider society.

Our listing focuses on extractive corporations with the greatest emissions footprint (including end-use emissions when extracted fossil fuels are consumed), corporations that play a particularly central role within a provincial jurisdiction or sub-sector of the industry, and organizations that facilitate or promote continued expansion and dependence on fossil fuel extraction.

Each profile contains details on the corporation, its background, how it exerts influence on communities and/or public policy, and a visual map showing its connections to other players in the fossil fuel industry as well as the wider corporate sector and notable connections to public bodies, think tanks, industry groups, etc.

The Fossil-Power Top 50 is organized in three categories:

- Emitters – Corporations based in Western Canada that are directly involved extracting, processing and transporting oil, gas and coal.
- Enablers – Organizations that enable fossil fuel production such as banks and industry-friendly regulators.
- Legitimators – Organizations that persuade the public or political elites that ‘business as usual’ must continue or that a timely shift away from dependence on fossil fuels is unfeasible or unnecessary. Legitimators include industry associations, think tanks, lobby groups, business councils and pro-oil advocacy groups.

Case Study Head Office Status

Alberta Chamber of Resources Edmonton, Alberta Legitimator

Sun, 2019-11-03 21:44

#84

jerrym

The California fires now burning throughout the state are another warning that not just American governments but governments everywhere are not coming anywhere close to dealing with climate change effectively. In the last couple of years Canada itself have lost a large part of Fort McMurray, had an area in BC more three times the size of PEI burnt by wildfires, seen extensive spring flooding in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, seen its glaciers rapidly shrinking, and sea level rise in the country with the longest coast in the world as it continues to expand fossil fuel production under the 'No worry we have a carbon tax' Liberal government. Most media are no better, providing wildfire and other global warming disaster porn without ever mentioning the words climate change. The following article fortunately tackles the problem head-on, both in California and elsewhere.

Kincade Fire Photo by Jane Tyska/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images

Fires are a fact of life in California, but the state’s fire season has grown wilder and more destructive as the planet warms, and these fires give us a taste of what climate change will mean in human terms. Longer droughts and more unpredictable winds turn what would once have been manageable fires into region-wide catastrophes. We’re only one year removed from the largest fire in California history, and few think that record will hold much longer. The slow-moving nature of the climate crisis means that, under even the best scenarios, these fires will keep growing for the next 40 years. The longer we keep going this way, the more powerful they’ll get.

If a foreign country had caused something like this, we would be mobilizing for war. If the threat had appeared suddenly, you might expect emergency declarations from Congress and wall-to-wall press coverage. But the response to the fires has been strangely muted. There’s been no address from the president and no particular attention from lawmakers. After last year’s Camp Fire, Congress was unable to pass a disaster relief bill until the following June, and Congress’ looming appropriations fight suggests it will be no easier this time around. California’s governor has called for a state of emergency and FEMA has pledged funding, but there’s a creeping sense that our institutions just aren’t up to a challenge of this magnitude. As the fires grow, that’s a profoundly frightening thought. ...

That kind of adaptation challenge extends far beyond California. Whatever the next 40 years bring, you can count on more destructive hurricane seasons and higher sea levels across the Eastern Seaboard — but many coastal communities have yet to grapple with what that will truly mean. We are still building homes in flood plains and low-lying areas, and propping up their value with federal flood insurance. Entire regions are at risk of Katrina-level storms in the coming decade, and while communities can react and prepare for individual storms, few seem ready to grapple with the big picture.

The biggest challenge of all is still decarbonization. We have a chance to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, and we aren’t taking it.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/29/20936979/california-kincade-fire-wil...

Thu, 2019-10-31 15:56

#85

iyraste1313

Climate change, wildfires caused by CO2 increases in the 'parts per billion'?

Ed Jewitt: Aluminum Dust from Geoengineering Fueling Super Wildfires According to Author

“Millions of tons of aluminum and barium are being sprayed almost daily across the U.S., stated Mills, a former naval officer and UCLA graduate. “Just sprinkle aluminum or barium dust on a fire and see what happens. It’s near explosive. When wildfires break out, the aluminum/barium dust results in levels of fire intensity so great as to cause firefighters to coin a new term ̶ ‘firenados,’ ” he said. The entire U.S., in addition to various other NATO countries, are being sprayed.”

.........climate changes must be analysed openly and critically!

Likewise the wildfires of BC, what are the causes? CO2 intensification? Or otherwise?

Maybe due to our forms of silviculture and logging? Maybe due to chemtrails spraying?

Maybe we are looking in thew wrong direction! Maybe the communities facing the wildfires ought to be given a more honest analysis, not based on the superprofits from the Carbon Futures market!

Sat, 2019-11-02 01:16

(Reply to #85) #86

jerrym

iyraste1313 wrote:

Maybe due to our forms of silviculture and logging? Maybe due to chemtrails spraying?

Maybe we are looking in thew wrong direction! Maybe the communities facing the wildfires ought to be given a more honest analysis, not based on the superprofits from the Carbon Futures market!

Maybe you should team up with Trump in your climate change denials.

Sat, 2019-11-02 01:30

#87

jerrym

Quebec is facing another round of flooding and other damage from torrential rain and extremely strong winds causing flooding in Montreal and threatening the Sherbrooke region, following record spring flooding as well as in the summer.

Successive weather events marked the first half of 2019, pushing claims up significantly for P&C insurers, with total compensation of $292 million paid out* in Quebec, up 165% from the same period last year.

While the spring floods in Quebec cost $127 million, episodes of torrential rains, strong winds and floods between January and March totalled $165 million. ...

The number of weather-related claims was up 63% from the first half of 2018. ...

"Extreme weather events are becoming increasingly frequent as a result of climate change and the insurance industry is mobilizing to deal with this. Insurance Bureau of Canada is continuing its information and prevention campaigns to help citizens better understand the risks, so that they can manage them more effectively," said Pierre Babinsky, Director, Communications and Public Affairs for Quebec, at Insurance Bureau of Canada.

https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/more-severe-weather-events-affect-...

Strong winds and heavy rain have knocked out power to thousands of Quebecers and led to concerns about flooding in parts of the province.

In Sherbrooke, firefighters plan to evacuate 50 homes in the downtown area as water levels in the Saint-François River rose quickly overnight — at one point, the water rose more than a metre in 30 minutes. ...

Between 80 and 100 millimetres of rain fell in Sherbrooke Thursday overnight into Friday. The ground was already saturated, so the water quickly drained toward the lower parts of the city, he said. Residents have called 911 to report mudslides, flooding due to backed up storm drains and downed tree branches. Officials have opened an emergency centre.

In Cowansville, about 100 kilometres east of Sherbrooke, people living in the Bonnette, Jean-Baptiste, des Vétérans and Saint-Rémi neighbourhoods are being asked to evacuate. The town has set up a disaster centre at the library, 608 du Sud Street.

A small landslide near Beauceville has closed Highway 173, which connects many towns in the region. In Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce, officials are monitoring water levels in the Chaudière River. The town has issued a warning to residents downtown to prepare for flooding later today. ...

Fallen tree branches are touching power lines and causing outages across the province — more than 231,000 customers have lost power, most of them in Montreal, the Montérégie, the Laurentians and the Eastern Townships.

https://www.theweathernetwork.com/ca/news/article/heavy-rain-damaging-wi...

Sun, 2019-11-03 18:44

#88

iyraste1313

Maybe you should team up with Trump in your climate change denials......

No denials for climate change! My appeal is for dispassionate analysis of the facts to explain the changes.

Political correctness has no place in these vitally crucial discussions.

Chem Trails must be stopped! Industrial logging and silviculture must be changed, all its scientists and managers and politicians must be scrapped...as we experiment with new techniques and new politics. If the present status quo refuses to lead the charge...then they too must be scrapped. New visions and new politics must be formed.

The Carbon Futures markets must be scrapped. Carbon taxers are taxes on the poor and small and cooperative business.

The elites that control the political process, who never will pay...must be challenged!

Sun, 2019-11-03 18:46

#89

jerrym

The Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, is warning that unless the world acts quickly on climate change we are facing 300 million global climate change refugees from rising sea levels alone by 2050 according to a recently released UN report. He notes the world needs to cut emissions by 45% by 2030, which is well beyond the 30% target of the Trudeau government. However, we are not even on the way to meeting that low target according to Canada's environmental commissioner, Julie Gelfand, who reported in April that "Canada is not on track to hit its 2030 target, despite policies like the national price on carbon". (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/environment-commissioner-julie-gelfand-...)

The UN chief informed the press of a recently published report saying that climate change was causing ocean levels to rise much faster than previously forecasted.

“According to this new report, unless we are able to…defeat climate change, in 2050, the research has forecasted that 300 million people will be flooded by sea water in the world”, Mr. Guterres stated, and called climate change “the biggest threat to the planet at the present moment, [and] the defining issue of our time”.

Pledging his commitment to raising global attention on the need “to abide by what scientists tell us is necessary to do”, he argued that that “we need to contain the rising temperatures 1.5 degrees until the end of the century” and “to be carbon neutral in 2050 and reduce the emissions by 45 per cent in the next decade”.

“We have to put a price on carbon”, he continued. “We need to stop subsidies for fossil fuels and…the creation of new power plants based on coal in the future”.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/11/1050491

Sun, 2019-11-03 21:46

#90

jerrym

The Sierra Club of Canada asked the Trudeau Liberal government in August to stop trade talks with the Bolsonaro government of Brazil because it has allowed much greater levels of Amazonian exploitation that is threatening the Amazon through wildfires and mining and leading to the murder of indigenous Amazonian land protectors. The destruction of the Amazon is a global threat because this jungle is the lungs of the world that stores vast amounts of carbon that enters the atmosphere when the forest is destroyed.

Instead, "International Trade Diversification Minister Jim Carr's office says Canada will continue its trade negotiations with Mercosur, the South American trading bloc that includes Brazil, despite demands to call a halt to the talks until more action is taken to protect the Amazon rainforest." (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mercosur-negotiation-canada-tuesday-1.5...)

Amazonian wildfire

Canada is not innocent in this as "Canada is home to almost 1,300 mining companies, constituting 75 percent of all the mining companies in the world ... 'Canada provides very favorable conditions,' Kneen told VICE. 'The listing requirements for the TSX [Toronto Stock Exchange] are pretty lax, the disclosure requirements are pretty lax, you don’t have to have Canadian directories or Canadian shareholders to be a Canadian company.' Whereas American companies can be prosecuted for environmental and social policies abroad under the U.S. Alien Tort Statute, Canada does not have any laws to hold companies accountable." (https://globaljournalist.org/2013/10/when-canadian-mining-companies-take...)

In Brazil there are "30 Canadian mining companies operating" (https://news.mongabay.com/2017/12/mine-tailings-dam-failures-major-cause...)

An environmental group wants the Canadian government to halt trade talks with Brazil and its far-right president Jair Bolsonaro over their failure to take action and accept global support to help combat the thousands of forest fires ravaging the Amazon rainforests.

“We are in a climate emergency and so we need to have leaders who are going to take it seriously and want to work co-operatively with others around the world,” said Gretchen Fitzgerald, program director with the Sierra Club of Canada. ...

“If we are a part of that in some ways through free trade, taking advantage of Brazil’s regime of deregulation, then we need to step up and stop trade negotiations until some real steps on the part of Brazil are made to protect the Amazon,” said Fitzgerald.

The Amazon rainforest is often described as the “lungs of the Earth,” as it has the capacity to absorb massive levels of carbon dioxide and in turn produce upwards of 20 percent of the planet’s oxygen. ...

The damage to the Amazon doesn’t just harm the environment but poses a threat to Indigenous people in Brazil as well.

Barbara Zimmerman is the director of the Kayapo Project at the International Conservation Fund of Canada, which works directly with the Kayapo Indigenous tribe in the Brazilian Amazon to help them defend their traditional lands.

Zimmerman says the attempts to clear their land for ranching and clear-cutting for logging and gold mining are a constant threat to the Kayapo people. They total around 10,000 in population and inhabit a 110,000-square kilometre range in the southeastern region of the Amazon rainforest, which is under direct threat of deforestation. ...

“Their lands are extremely important for conservation and as well, of course, the immense amounts of carbon that are sequestered in those primary forest trees and the other aqua system services that are provided by this land area that they protect,” said Zimmerman.

https://globalnews.ca/news/5820289/environmental-group-pressure-canada-b...

Sun, 2019-11-03 21:48

#91

jerrym

Even before the request by the Sierra Club's to stop trade talks with Brazil because of the environmental destruction of the Amazon and its indigenous people, indigenous land protectors were being murdered in greater numbers, including by miners, an industry where 75% of corporate headquarters are in Canada because of its lax international mining laws. At the beginning of November, another one was murdered.

Waiapi people in Manila village in the Waiapi indigenous land in Amapa state, Brazil, in March 2019. Apu Gomes

In July, Viseni Waiapi, an indigenous environmental leader warned about the danger for indigenous people.

Illegal gold miners armed with automatic weapons and shotguns, invaded the remote indigenous community of the Waiapi and murdered one of its chiefs in Brazil’s northern Amazon last week, according to several of the group’s leaders and indigenous rights activists.

The body of chief Emyra Waiapi, 68, was discovered last Monday with several stab wounds, including to his genitals, one of the group’s leaders, Viseni Waiapi, said in an audio message sent to NBC reporters Saturday in Portuguese.

“We are in great danger,” Viseni said. The invaders assaulted women and children and were accompanied by a pit bull as they roamed around several Waiapi villages day and night last week, using special night vision goggles to navigate the area in the dark, he said.

The murder of international indigenous environmentalists contines with the latest being on November 2nd.

Paulo Paulino was a member of Guardians of the Forest, formed to ward off illegal logging gangs.

A Brazilian indigenous land defender has been killed in an ambush by illegal loggers in an Amazon frontier region.

According to a statement by the Brazilian Indigenous Peoples Association, Paulo Paulino Guajajara was shot and killed inside the Araribóia indigenous territory in Maranhão state. Another tribesman, Laércio Guajajara, was also shot and hospitalised and a logger has been reported missing. No body has yet been recovered. ...

The tribesmen are members of an indigenous forest guard called Guardians of the Forest, which formed in 2012 to ward off logging gangs pillaging their rare, hardwood-rich reserve.

Their work involves armed patrols and destroying logging encampments and has earned them dangerous enemies. Several Guardians in Maranhão have been killed in recent years, including three from Araribóia. ...

Few land conflict-related killings in Brazil result in convictions, which advocates say has produced a culture of impunity. According to Brazil’s pastoral land commission, a rural violence watchdog, of 157 land conflict killings in Maranhão state between 1985 and 2017, just five cases went to court.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/02/brazilian-forest-guardian-...

Sun, 2019-11-03 20:34

#92

jerrym

The map below shows how extensive the Amazonian wildfires are that threaten both the global environment and indigenous people .

image: https://thumbs-prod.si-cdn.com/re69weYvMWLOF6rT5n3Jm1b85lw=/1024x596/htt...

The Amazonian fires are so large that they can be seen from space (NASA Earth Observatory)

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/three-things-know-about-fires-...
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

Sun, 2019-11-03 21:49

#93

jerrym

In the midst of a South Dakota hearing this week on the environmental risks of extending the Keystone pipeline through the state's water supply, a leak from the already existing North Dakota Keystone pipeline dramatized the great risk of leaks from this pipeline and also from the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline to Vancouver and the Enbridge 3 pipeline to Minnesota. It also raises questions about the quality of construction of these pipelines and their maintenance.

As is so often the case, the greatest risk is borne by indigenous people in the path of the pipelines.

In the midst of this week’s hearings, the Keystone pipeline in North Dakota leaked an approximate 383,000 gallons (1.4 million liters) in the northeastern part of the state, affecting a wetland. The cause of the leak is under investigation. ...

“When we’re sitting in a hearing room and people are saying these pipelines are safe, then this happens,” said Faith Spotted Eagle, a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe, which opposes the water permits.

TC Energy, which is also developing the Keystone XL, is applying for permits to tap the Cheyenne, White, and Bad rivers in South Dakota during construction. The water will be used for drilling to install pipe, build pump stations and control dust during construction. Two ranchers also applied for water permits to supply backup water to worker camps. ...

“Certainly it’s another example of the poor quality of construction and problems that we have seen repeatedly not only with the Keystone 1 but with the overall practices of this company that wants to build another pipeline through our state,” said Rebecca Terk, an organizer with Dakota Rural Action. ...

Opponents argue the pipeline construction will affect water supplies of several Native American tribes. Although the pipeline avoids any tribal land, it does affect water upstream of reservations. Tribal members also said they plan to raise how the pipeline construction may affect their spiritual practices and pose a threat to safety due to influxes of construction workers in small communities. ...

Pipeline opponents elsewhere have taken note of the Keystone spill, too. Opponents cited it in Minnesota as a reason against a proposed upgrade and expansion of Enbridge Energy’s Line 3 in the northern part of the state. Winona LaDuke, an environmental activist from the White Earth reservation in northern Minnesota, said, “This latest spill proves once again that new pipelines are not necessarily safer.”

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders tweeted Thursday that he would shut down the Keystone pipeline if elected.

Keystone XL is planned as 1,184-mile line from Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska that would carry up to 830,000 barrels of crude oil a day. In Nebraska, it would connect with other lines that go to Gulf Coast Refineries. The company plans to begin construction next year, though its opponents in South Dakota have other plans.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/energy-environment/south-dakota-...

Mon, 2019-11-04 21:19

#94

epaulo13

Tsilhqot’in First Nation opens B.C.’s largest solar farm

quote:

Project granted 25-year power purchase agreement with BC Hydro

Last month the 3,456 panel solar farm held its grand opening and is now waiting for BC Hydro to complete the hookup so power from the sun can flow into the grid.

The Tsilhqot’in company that oversaw the project, Dandzen Development Corporation, has a 25-year electricity purchase agreement with BC Hydro.

Susie Rieder, BC Hydro spokesperson said there is not yet a firm date for “completion of the interconnection process.”

The solar farm is one of five shovel-ready projects with “significant Indigenous Nations involvement” approved last year as part of a benefit agreement with BC Hydro. The program was suspended indefinitely when, following approval of the Site C dam on the Peace River, the province ordered BC Hydro to reconsider its power procurement policies.

Myers Ross is happy that the Tsilhqot’in project squeezed in under the wire and, even without the final connection and despite the construction challenges, he is breathing a sigh of relief.

“This is the first project to generate our own source of revenue for our Tsilhqot’in organization and the community, which is significant for our overall goal of self-sufficiency,” he said

The solar farm, with panels lined in 216 sections on a two-hectare site, will provide 1.25 megawatts, creating 1,500 megawatt hours of power annually, which is enough to power about 135 homes.

The project is expected to generate about $175,000 a year in annual revenue.

“It’s not a big moneymaker. It is sort of modest, but it gets us on our way. It’s a big accomplishment and it is one of the first building blocks to getting revenue and being able to use the money where we want to allocate it, with no strings attached,” Myers Ross said.

Project entirely Indigenous owned and operated

The project is the largest solar farm of its kind in B.C. and the only one that is 100 per cent owned and operated by a First Nation.

The final result is “pretty impressive,” said Gabe Pukacz, a Yunesit’in councillor and construction manager for the project.

Mon, 2019-11-04 21:41

#95

epaulo13

..from an email

quote:

Across Canada, the playing field is uneven in favour of corporations. The federal government negotiated NAFTA 2.0 with the TransMountain Pipeline purchase in mind. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers helped rewrite our environmental laws. It sometimes feels impossible for regular people like you and me to fight back against this type of corporate power.

In Nova Scotia, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board (CNSOPB) is no different. This board promotes and regulates the offshore oil industry, which is experiencing a recent surge as traditional oil reserves become scarce. You might not be surprised to learn that four of the six CNSOPB board members have oil industry backgrounds.

This is “ corporate capture,” and it comes at the expense of our marine ecosystems, communities and economies that rely on them, and the global climate. [https://canadians.org/blog/canadas-offshore-boards-are-captured-industry]

quote:

I want to thank you again for adding your voice to stop offshore drilling. More than 65,000 fellow concerned people have already joined you in signing our national petition. https://secure.canadians.org/page/20746/petition/1].
Communities in Nova Scotia are standing up against the corporate interests that want offshore drilling to proceed, including 12 municipal governments that are demanding a public inquiry to investigate the socioeconomic and environmental effects of offshore drilling and exploration.

We all owe a debt of gratitude to the community organizers that have driven this campaign since day one. [https://canadians.org/blog/photo-essay-faces-offshore-resistance]

Now the Council of Canadians is building even more momentum to push for a public inquiry.

Tomorrow, we will host a media conference to highlight the municipal leaders who are fighting against offshore drilling and asking critical questions about the status quo of governance in Nova Scotia.

Later in the week, we’ll be joined by Mayor Sheila Davies from Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, and Councillor John Weber from Bradley Beach, New Jersey who are part of the movement that is successfully fighting Trump’s attempts to open the Atlantic Coast to offshore drilling. Mayor Davies and Councillor Weber will meet with Nova Scotia’s coastal communities and elected officials and share their
successes in working with grassroots allies to fight offshore drilling.

quote:

I’ll be in touch again later this week to let you know how our work is going and how you can be a part of the movement to stop offshore drilling.

Tue, 2019-11-05 10:32

#96

jerrym

Today 11,000 scientists from 153 countries have signed a declaration of a global climate emergency.

Climate emergencies have been declared by countries like Canada, Portugal, Ireland and France, and in individual cities such as Paris, New York, Toronto and Vancouver. Now a collection 11,000 scientists from 153 countries is doing the same.

In a declaration published Tuesday in the journal BioScience, the collective put forth six "critical and interrelated steps" that governments and policy-makers should take into account in order to reduce the effects of climate change, which are:

Energy.

Short-lived pollutants.

Nature.

Food.

Economy.

Population.

"Our goal is to make it extremely brief and easy to understand, so we get a wide readership of the paper," said co-author William Ripple, a distinguished professor of ecology at Oregon State University. "Our goal is to have more individuals from the public and policy-makers read it."

Though the paper doesn't dive into specifics for the six steps, Ripple said there is a longer online supplement people can read should they want to further explore each topic. ...

Following that warning, Ripple and his colleagues formed the Alliance of World Scientists, a collective of 23,000 members from 180 countries.

Why issue this declaration?

With climate emergencies now being declared around the world, why was it important for the Alliance to issue one?

"There are a lot of government bodies that have already declared [climate] emergencies … but so far no large group of scientists has declared a climate emergency," explained Ripple.

Sheila Colla, a conservation biologist and assistant professor at York University who signed the declaration, said it's important for these declarations to come from a wide variety of sources — and perhaps particularly from scientists.

"You … need lots of different movements to sign on to these things," she said. "We know the youth have been kicking [scientists'] butts on this for a year now." ...

"What we wanted was a wide diversity of scientists in many different disciplines, because climate change has moved beyond a topic just for climate scientists," Ripple said. "We're asking for and suggesting in our paper that we have a transformative change in society. And this involves economics, and the population, and what we eat, and how we function, and our politics. So having a wide variety involved in the paper seems most appropriate." ...

"In general, countries do not appear to be meeting their stated goals and milestones for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, so I'm quite concerned with the lack of progress," he said. ...

"What worries me is that our government is not taking this issue seriously enough from a policy perspective and … short-sighted priorities fail to acknowledge the tremendous cost of inaction," she [Gwen Flowers, a glaciologist and graduate program chair with Simon Fraser University's Department of Earth Sciences,] said.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/scientists-declare-climate-emergency-...

Tue, 2019-11-05 11:28

#97

epaulo13

Montreal-developed satellite pinpoints carbon from space

It’s the future in a major Canadian city. Streets hum with electric buses and every burger is made with lab-grown beef. Just after New Year’s Day, people gather around their televisions to watch the annual global carbon count. One by one, an envoy from each country on earth submits their emissions total, then waits nervously as the governing body checks that number against the official list.

How is there an official list? Because satellites have been circling the planet all year, not only able to read the amount of carbon in the atmosphere but to trace where it came from. Canada, it turns out, has underestimated its emissions and is slapped with a penalty.

This futuristic scenario isn’t quite as far away as it seems. Carbon-counting satellites have been around for more than 15 years, with a rash of higher-tech ones in development. Ahead in the field, a Montreal-developed satellite can already pinpoint, from space, the origin of methane emissions so precisely that it can spot individual leaky gas wells.

“Within a period of [about] a day we got ahold of the operator and alerted them to what we saw,” said Stéphane Germain, the president of GHGSat Global Emissions Monitoring, about an anomaly the company spotted in a Texas gas field in 2018.....

Tue, 2019-11-05 11:33

#98

epaulo13

Why Quebec leads in clean tech — so far

In a hangar-like space an hour from Montreal, workers in safety glasses carefully jockey huge aluminum arches into rows, like ribs, before switching on a whining drill to screw them into place.

The object takes shape — one of the world’s most recognizable shapes, a yellow school bus.

But that’s the only thing familiar about this bus. It’s all-electric, a wild pipe dream until just three years ago, when the first three like it hit the roads.

What has happened since then has been nearly as unfamiliar, at least in a province that’s historically had very little auto production. The manufacturer, Lion Electric, will have put 300 buses into operation by the end of this year, and it’s now completing one bus per day to meet demand. It employs 190 people in the small town of St. Jerome.

Lion Electric isn’t just Quebec’s or Canada’s biggest producer of electric school buses — it’s the continent’s biggest.....

Tue, 2019-11-05 22:30

#99

epaulo13

‘Deep state’ lobbying a growing tactic of fossil fuel industry, report finds

A new report from the Corporate Mapping Project documents the reach of the fossil fuel industry when it comes to lobbying the federal government, raising red flags about what it calls a “troubling shift in lobbying patterns.”

The report’s findings suggest that industry lobbyists are increasingly focusing on developing closer, long-term relationships with federal bureaucrats rather than elected officials, especially since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office in 2015.

The report tracked fossil-fuel-industry lobbying over seven years, from 2011 to 2018 — finding that the fossil fuel industry vastly outnumbered other resource sectors, including the forestry and renewable energy industries — and analyzed how lobbying activities changed with prime ministers.

The result, the report found, is lobbying that’s increasingly focused on “deep state” connections, rather than elected officials, meaning the power of the fossil fuel industry lasts far beyond a federal election, regardless of voter appetite for climate action.

What that means, according to Nicolas Graham, a sociologist at the University of Victoria and lead author on the report, is there’s evidence of a sort of “elite policy network,” of long-lasting connections between high-powered and well-connected lobbyists and bureaucrats, “one that outlasts election cycles and develops over time.”

Proponents of the fossil fuel industry, like Alberta premier Jason Kenney, have long made a point of accusing environmental groups of being behind a “campaign of lies and defamation” against the province’s energy industry.

When it comes to lobbying, the report found that the fossil fuel industry reported far more lobbying of the federal government than did environmental non-governmental organizations — five times more.

quote:

‘Co-writing of policy’

Elected officials were the most-lobbied group when Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in office, according to the report. That started to change in 2015, when Justin Trudeau was elected prime minister. Then, the focus of fossil-fuel lobbyists shifted — to bureaucrats.

The report, “Big Oil’s Political Reach: Mapping fossil fuel lobbying from Harper to Trudeau,” dubs this a shift to “deep state” lobbying, “whereby key government institutions and actors become integrated with private firms and interest groups that together co-produce regulation and policy.”

The result, Graham said, could suggest a kind of “co-governance and co-writing of policy,” in which industry groups take on an increasingly important role in influencing policy.

“It becomes this kind of a fusion of private interest and public bodies,” he added

Wed, 2019-11-06 01:16

#100

jerrym

The Canadian Defence Department warns in an internal document that instability created by climate change driven problems is likely to lead to increasing requests for help from Canada, including its military.

Climate change is expected to play havoc with already fragile African countries, prompting more calls for help from the Canadian military, warns an internal Defence Department analysis.

The Earth's warming climate will contribute to growing instability and insecurity on the continent, which is already grappling with pervasive economic, social and political challenges, says the starkly worded memorandum.

The document notes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts temperatures in Africa will rise between two and four per cent by 2100, about 1.5 times the global average.

Conflicts over water supplies, flooding and extreme weather events, food shortages and desertifcation could result, the memo says. In turn, there could be mass migration that leads to the spread of disease and increases in piracy and terrorism. ...

The six-page memo, prepared in April of last year for the deputy defence minister, was recently obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act. Portions of the document were considered too sensitive to disclose.

Canada recently completed a year-long military deployment of helicopters and medical personnel to Mali, where water scarcity has worsened violence between factions.

The projected challenges posed by climate change could see more requests to the Canadian Armed Forces for humanitarian assistance and disaster-response operations, peace-support missions, counter-terrorism efforts and capacity-building activities, the memo says.

"In general, the effects of climate change will present a more unstable, complicated and dangerous operational environment for the CAF in Africa." ...

The memo cautions that the effects of climate change anywhere in the world, and human responses to them, are impossible to predict precisely. However, it underscores the consequences of three broad changes stemming from rising temperatures: shifts in rainfall patterns, more frequent and serious weather events and a rise of sea levels.

Among the implications:

— Devastating damage to infrastructure from more cyclones and flooding along the heavily populated coast from the Niger Delta to Accra, Ghana, and flash flooding and mudslides in Central Africa.

— The complete inundation of smaller islands and severe flooding of coastal centres of larger ones, contaminating freshwater and harming fisheries.

— Diminished crop yields from lack of rain and erosion of agricultural land from rising seas.

— Tensions between animal herders seeking more fertile grazing lands and conventional farmers in western Africa's Sahel region.

— Introduction of pathogens, such as the deadly Ebola virus, to new areas by migrants and a rise in malaria from mosquitoes nesting in more plentiful pools of standing water as more rain falls in some areas.

— Recruitment of desperate young people by criminal organizations involved in piracy, terrorism and trafficking in drugs or people.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/10/30/news/climate-change-driving-...

Thu, 2019-11-07 02:46

#101

jerrym

Food security both in Canada and around the world is increasing being put at risk by climate change.

Climate change appears to be fuelling a rise in people getting sick from food-borne illnesses in Canada and around the world, says a Canadian food safety expert.

The disparate causes include increased flooding that is washing contaminants like salmonella, Listeria and E. coli onto crops, and rising ocean temperatures that allow bacteria to flourish in shellfish.

"As the planet becomes warmer and the air temperature becomes warmer, I expect that we're going to see more outbreaks," said Lawrence Goodridge, a professor of food safety at the University of Guelph in Ontario.

While precise numbers linking climate change to food-borne illness aren't available, Goodridge has tracked a growing number of examples of the link between the two.

Last year in North Carolina, Hurricane Florence caused widespread flooding. Floodwaters led to lagoons of hog waste at farms overflowing and contaminating crops, said Goodridge. The contaminants in those floodwaters forced the state to ban crops in flooded areas from being used for human consumption. ...

Destructive weather events like hurricanes can also cause a spike in food-borne illnesses because of the widespread power outages they often create. "If we can't refrigerate our food anymore, you know, as the temperature increases in the refrigerator or freezer, the temperature of the food increases and the bacteria grow," said Goodridge. ...

But climate change also has more subtle ways of harming the food supply. Over the years, small temperature increases in the ocean have been connected to hundreds of people getting sick in British Columbia, said Eleni Galanis, a physician epidemiologist with the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control.

As the sea warms, it's easier for vibrio bacteria to grow and accumulate in greater numbers in shellfish like mussels and oysters. That's led to an increase in the number of people in B.C. getting sick after eating raw or undercooked shellfish. Vibrio parahaemolyticus, the most common form of the bacteria found in B.C. waters, causes diarrhea in humans that can last for up to a week and lead to dehydration. ...

Goodridge said some studies indicate the warming weather will lead to an increase in houseflies. "They fly onto manure or feces, and then they come and fly onto food, so they can deposit those pathogens on food," he said. ...

Researchers have turned to plants that contain naturally occurring chemicals that kill bacteria. Those chemicals can be extracted and turned into an antimicrobial spray that can be applied to fruits and vegetables.

There are also bacteriophages — naturally occurring viruses that infect and kill bacteria — that are increasingly being used to kill off bacteria. Each phage infects specific bacteria and won't harm others, such as healthy gut bacteria that help people digest food, said Goodridge.

He says roughly one in eight Canadians gets sick each year due to a food-borne illness, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/climate-change-food-borne-ill...