FINALLY: A TV ad that tells it like it is: EXXON HATES AMERICA (and Canada, too). The ad, from green groups Oil Change International, The Other 98% and Environmental Action, is a follow-up to last year’s “Exxon Hates Your Children” video. * Go to http://ExxonHates.com if you want to see it on national television.
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Shift happens. A movie made by a movement. * TheShiftMovie.com * If you are an investor, the risks of climate change should matter to you. That’s the message from the Risky Business Project, led by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, billionaire financier Tom Steyer and former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. These business and political leaders have come together to quantify the economic costs. Judy Woodruff […] Not two weeks since the federal government’s long-anticipated approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline, the magnitude of the obstacles faced by the project are becoming clearer by the day. There is widespread public hostility — both in Kitimat, envisioned as the pipeline’s end location, as well as across British Columbia more generally. First Nations and environmental groups have launched several court challenges, with more expected to come. Massive protests and civil disobedience are inevitable. Efforts will soon be underway to initiate a province-wide referendum. The government of BC, which must provide about 60 permits, is ambivalent about the (Read more…) This is what we get for not changing the system that is killing us – a half-assed, piecemeal romp toward oblivion.
“Richard Smith, in a tour de force paper published in the Real-World Economics Review, “Green capitalism: the god that failed,” summed up the dilemma: “[T]he problem is not just special interests, lobbyists and corruption. … [Under] capitalism, it is, perversely, in the general interest, in everyone’s immediate interests to do all we can to maximize growth right now, therefore, unavoidably, to maximize fossil fuel consumption right now — because practically every job in the country (Read more…) Overheard a young couple yesterday in one of Scarborough’s relatively upscale pubs. He had taken her out for dinner. They were both Millennials, sporting elaborate tattoos. He said that he had considered leaving for Fort Mac to shovel bitumen outta the tar-sands, but decided that doing so would mean selling out his values, betraying the good Mother Earth, and etc. He didn’t care about money. Life was so much more. Good lad. I’m pretty sure he was trying to get laid, but whatever. Back in my day, if you wanted to advertise your sensitivity creds you just threw on (Read more…) Early China coal mine When it comes to global warming, coal is the biggest culprit in the warming of the earth. China is taking giant strides to reduce its need for coal to generate energy by exploiting its vast shale gas reserves: Although serious obstacles remain, China is finally making progress on tapping its vast shale gas reserves, which hold the promise of a new source of clean energy for the coal smoke-choked country. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, China holds the world’s largest reserves of technically recoverable shale gas in the world, 1,115 trillion cubic feet. (Read more…) . . . → Read More: CuriosityCat: Good news: China’s Fracking to reduce its use of Coal Inspired by these headlines: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canadian-economy-starts-2014-with-weak-gdp-gain-1.2659284 http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/28/3442208/meteorologists-climate-change/ Conservative and conservation are almost the same word, both deriving from the Latin conservare, “to preserve,” and differing only by two letters. We might expect, therefore, that conservatives would be great conservationists, deeply concerned about preserving the natural world, foremost stewards of the environment. Yet that doesn’t seem to be the case. Not that conservatives aren’t concerned It seems the planet is running out of ice. The latest news on that front came with two reports last week that said the Western Antarctic ice sheet is collapsing. The loss of the entire ice sheet could eventually cause a sea level rise of up to 4 metres. Studies by NASA and the University of Washington both concluded that the melting of the ice sheet, driven by climate change, has begun and I received this essay from Mound yesterday. He asked me to read it carefully before deciding whether to post it, given its dark, apocalyptic overtones. I acquiesced in the Mound’s request and concluded there was no way I would not put it on my blog, dealing as it does with issues and truths that, as a species, we have far too long been willfully blind to. My philosophy has always been, ‘Better a bitter truth than a sweet lie.’ So, just as Neo does in The Matrix, prepare to swallow a pill that will point you to the (Read more…) Depending heavily for jobs, profits and taxes on our most rapidly increasing source of greenhouse gas emissions is environmental folly. It may mean more economic prosperity in the short term, but by contributing to global warming, it will undermine economic prosperity, and a lot else, in the long term. It is a dangerous dependence. And pollution may not be the only danger this dependence presents While the fossil fuel companies and the governments that protect them continue to draw in record profits and conspicuously blockade any amelioration of carbon output, the real world pays the price: Recommend this Post Recently, I wrote about a ruling against APEGA, Alberta’s professional association for engineers, by the province’s Human Rights Tribunal. Low and behold, the defendant in the case, Ladislav Mihaly, emailed me with a follow up request for help. My name is Ladislav Mihaly, and I am the Engineer who won the case Ladislav Mihaly vs. APEGA. I do not intend to publish my opinion regarding the Tribunal decision and fighting APEGA over the Internet as they do with me. I am writing you this E-mail, because you probably could help me to start a discussion or challenging AL GORE, (Read more…) * SAN DIEGO, MARCH 3, 2014 – An aggressively-priced carbon tax in California, with revenue returned to the public, would actually grow the state’s economy and increase jobs, according to a new study released by Citizens Climate Lobby. The study, prepared for CCL by Regional Economic Models, Inc. (REMI), looked at the economic impact of […] Anybody with the ability to reason realizes that anthropogenic climate change is happening – and it’s happening in an unpredictable but faster way than previously imagined. The fact that fools argue against this infuriates me as they are essentially arguing against reality. Recently, two acclaimed scientific bodies (The Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences) concluded that human caused climate change is occurring. This adds to a chorus of institutions that have reached the same conclusion years ago. So what is possibly good about anthropogenic climate change? I have no idea if there is anything positive about it (Read more…) * The recent extreme flooding in the UK and Ireland has highlighted the devastating effect our changing climate can have; but if we do not take action fast, future generations will experience weather shocks on a far greater scale. Our planet is warming to a catastrophic extent, and the human race must step up. The […] BuzzFeed, of all places, as a great and simple way that explains why the weather of 2014 has been so extreme. In North America it has been more cold than the new “normal,” the UK has been hit hard by flooding, and in the South Pacific there has been above average rainfall. Crazy people think this is evidence that global warming (AKA climate change) isn’t happening. Those people clearly don’t live in reality. This awful weather is a result of something that’s been predicted for quite some time: the loss of power in the jet stream. Why is this good (Read more…) The controversial Keystone XL pipeline has received a big bolster of support by a US State Department report finding that the pipeline won’t create a significant increase in greenhouse gases, effectively ensuring that Barack Obama will OK the proposal. A huge amount of momentum in the environmental movement was tied up in this project and it should rightly be thought of as a significant loss in the fight. However, for a variety of reasons, pipelines are simply not the best elements of our society for the environmental movement to target and it is a mistake, I think, to have (Read more…) The people of Uummannaq are trying to adapt in order to survive. Photo: Mark Brooks My documentary on the impacts of climate change in the Greenlandic village of Uummannaq aired in December on the Deutsche Welle international radio program Living Planet. I recorded and produced this report while working as the on-board journalist during the 2013 Students on Ice Arctic Expedition. Located on a small island off the Greenland coast, 600 km (372 miles) north of the Arctic Circle, Uummannaq is one of many Inuit communities in the North that are already experiencing the impacts of climate change. Not only (Read more…) The unholy trinity of the Alberta tarsands industry, the Conservative Party and the right-wing media has gone all-out in its attacks on Neil Young for his stance against their destructive policies and actions. One thing that these corporate wolves and subservient sheep overlook is that, of course, Neil Young is right. The main arguments by the Conservative tarsands mob are that: 1) Young hasn’t lived in Canada for a long time, so he has no right to talk about anything that happens in Canada. 2) He’s a rich rock star, so he has no right to talk (Read more…) 
 Alberta, alberta government, Alberta News, Alberta Politics, Canada, Canadian environment, Canadian government, Canadian news, Canadian Politics, climate change, Enbridge, global warming, Harper, keystone, Neil Young, Northern Gateway, oil sands, oilsands, pipelines, stephen harper, Tar Sands, tarsands While Neil Young very publicly feuds with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and its ally the Canadian government, tar sands production continues to systematically advance Alberta’s position as the country’s pollution province. Already producing more greenhouse gasses than Ontario, despite having less than 30 per cent of its population, tar sands expansion will have it producing London, Ontario (The Skwib) — The first schism within the Pastafarian religion has appeared in the sleepy Canadian city of London, Ontario, and it is led by the charismatic preacher Dr. Maximilian Tundra. “Other worshipers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster … Continue reading → Canadian soldiers, summoned by Mayor Mel Lastman, clean up the streets of Toronto after the big dump of 1999. Below: Mr. Lastman. (Photos grabbed from the Toronto Star.) More days of silence from the prime minister of Canada have passed while the citizens of Toronto continue to dig themselves out from under a catastrophic sheet of ice. While putative leader of the country says nothing, 32,000 Torontonians remain without electricity today. The Globe and Mail now reports that a forecast of high winds means that number may increase again. With Stephen Harper working the levers behind the green curtain (Read more…) |
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