Fracking & LNG

LNG’s big lie

Jun 17, 2019
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The federal government is seeking to use a clause in the Paris Agreement on climate change to get emissions credits for exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Asian countries. This plan is nonsensical for a number of reasons, but at its heart is the “big lie” that LNG will help to reduce global emissions…. View Article

Memo to northeast BC: More fracking earthquakes ahead

Apr 30, 2019
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Of the many “unknowns” flagged in a recent science panel report, few are as disturbing as the finding that no one can say how destructive an earthquake may one day be triggered during brute-force oil and gas industry fracking operations. The panel’s report—commissioned by Michelle Mungall, BC’s Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources—has landed… View Article

How clean is a BC that subsidizes accelerated fossil fuel extraction?

Feb 25, 2019
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When the provincial government unveiled its new climate plan late last year, Environment Minister George Heyman, Green Party leader Andrew Weaver and Premier John Horgan presented a happy, united front as ceremonies got underway at Vancouver’s main library. But the biggest smiles of the day may have been on the faces of senior executives at… View Article

False advertising by the Alberta government and oil lobby

Feb 20, 2019
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As an Alberta-born and -raised earth scientist who has made a career studying fossil fuels and energy issues, I am dismayed at the bombardment of ‘fake news’ in print, online and TV ads from the Alberta government on the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (TMX). These ads are repeated hourly on several TV stations. One ad… View Article

Through the front door, then the back: How government methodically killed environmental oversight of major gas industry projects

Jan 23, 2019
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Few regulations in British Columbia have died as quick and ignoble a death as a 2014 Order in Council exempting proposed natural gas plants from having to undergo environmental assessments. It was a change that fossil fuel companies drilling and fracking for natural gas in the northeast of the province had demanded for some time…. View Article

BC’s shiny new climate plan: A look under the hood

Dec 17, 2018
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BC’s new climate plan, Clean BC, is a big and visionary document and was instantly lauded by environmental groups and businesses alike. In this post, I recap the key components of the plan and do a bit of a reality check against the hype, in particular the challenge of fitting liquefied natural gas (LNG) into… View Article