Two obvious but generally unstated details about the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline are climate change and that oil and gas companies stand to make mega-profits. An honest appraisal of the project would be something like, “yes, putting in the pipeline will facilitate even more greenhouse gas emissions from the Alberta oil sands, but our buddies [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Environment, resources & sustainability'
Odious profits and the Enbridge pipeline
January 27th, 2012 · Marc Lee · 1 Comment · Climate change, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability
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Fossil fuel lobbyists: the real radicals
January 25th, 2012 · Robert Hackett · No Comments · Climate change, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability
Most of the fossil fuel lobby’s arguments against its opponents should be reversed. Consider: Who are the real ‘radicals’ – those working for a sustainable climate and environment – or those who promote carbon-bombing the atmosphere, making us all guinea pigs in one of history’s most reckless experiments? Who are the real hypocrites – those [...]
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Who’s really “skewing” the pipeline debate?
January 11th, 2012 · Robert Hackett · 1 Comment · Environment, resources & sustainability
Apparently the Harper government and its echo chamber in the blogosphere (e.g. Vivian Krause) think that philanthropic funding of environmental groups is “skewing” the debate on the northern pipeline project. Presumably they would like to return to a more “normal” debate. You know, one disproportionately influenced by well-heeled corporate-funded market fundamentalist think tanks and pseudo-grassroots [...]
Inequality and Climate Injustice: A Durban Post-Mortem
December 13th, 2011 · Marc Lee · 5 Comments · Climate change, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability, First Nations & Aboriginal
The United Nations climate change talks in Durban, South Africa, ended 2011 with a whimper. After a year in which climate disasters rolled across the globe, major polluting nations like Canada chose to ignore them, seeking instead to disrupt the Durban negotiations, then blew the world a raspberry, by officially pulling out of the Kyoto [...]
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Time to give shale gas industry a closer look before we’re totally fracked
November 9th, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · Comments Off · Climate change, Economy, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability, First Nations & Aboriginal, Uncategorized
Despite the recent release by Canada’s natural gas industry of a set of guiding principles governing the controversial gas well “stimulation” method known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”, and despite the almost immediate endorsement of those principles by BC Premier and industry cheerleader Christy Clark, more and more British Columbians are justifiably worried about what [...]
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The Union of BC Municipalities Convention: a potpourri of policy
October 2nd, 2011 · Keith Reynolds · Comments Off · Economy, Employment & labour, Environment, resources & sustainability, Housing & homelessness, Municipalities, Privatization, P3s & public services, Provincial budget & finance, Taxes, Transparency & accountability
For people who follow local policy issues the annual meeting of the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) is always chock-a-block with material. Last week’s meeting in Vancouver, which saw hundreds of mayors and councilors along with most of the Cabinet, much of the BC opposition and dozens of groups selling both items and ideas, was [...]
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So Where is the Science?
September 8th, 2011 · Marvin Shaffer · 2 Comments · Climate change, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability
The headline in the Globe today was certainly ominous — “Clark’s Hydro policy threatens to collapse B.C.’s climate change progress, scientist says”. The purported policy change seemed scary — the government might roll back the requirement for BC Hydro to be able to meet domestic electricity requirements in drought conditions. And the scientist’s description of [...]
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BC’s wood trade with China may be booming – but at a price
August 11th, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · 4 Comments · Economy, Employment & labour, Environment, resources & sustainability, First Nations & Aboriginal
This year, members of the Lax Kw’alaams First Nation expect to fill the holds of nine ocean freighters in Prince Rupert with raw logs from BC’s north coast – logs that will then be shipped across the Pacific Ocean to ports in China. The northern coastal Nation has been active in logging for some time, [...]
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Public consultation down the drain as government comes to fracking industry’s aid
August 3rd, 2011 · Ben Parfitt · Comments Off · Economy, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability, First Nations & Aboriginal, Transparency & accountability
It has been a year since word began to percolate in the Hudson’s Hope area that Talisman Energy Inc. was eying the Williston Reservoir a short distance east of town as a long-term source of water for use in developing its gas resources. Yet in the intervening months – months in which local residents watched [...]
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Decarbonizing BC homes and the price of gas
July 28th, 2011 · Marc Lee · 2 Comments · Climate change, Energy, Environment, resources & sustainability
Our climate justice framework for BC is to eliminate fossil fuels by 2040. In the household sector, this poses a significant challenge, not so much in terms of technology and knowledge, but because natural gas is much cheaper than electricity per unit of energy. Even though BC has among the lowest prices in North America, [...]
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