[Criminality] Problems Upholding Our Own Environmental Laws

Two of today's leading headlines on CBC News read as follows:

May Accuses Harper of Breaking Law Over Kyoto

Environment Canada Struggling to Enforce Law

The basic finding in the first article is that the Harper government is violating domestic law by withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol without any kind of parliamentary debate or discussion, since the Protocol was ratified by the House of Commons and later received royal assent. One of the dangers of Harper's unilateral withdrawal from Kyoto is that the Protocol requires good record keeping of GHG trends in Canada, so there is a worry that Harper now might scrap the budget of the GHG monitoring programs (just like he scrapped the long gun registry and the long form census). Of course, one major ramification of the Harper government's announcement of withdrawal from Kyoto is that Canada is now a complete embarrassment, an international pariah that is seen as a bully and selfish member of the global community that cares little about others and fails to come to grips with the severity of climate change. It really is a shame that the rest of the world is acquiring such a negative image of this country - a shame for which we can place blame squarely on the shoulders of the leaders of the Conservative Party.

The basic finding in the second article is that the Harper government is failing to uphold it's own environmental laws. But the second level of travesty in this news story is that the auditor who has been trying to improve the systems we have for regulating the environment is typically ignored by the Harper cohort. Reports by the federal environment commissioner - Scott Vaughan - have been repeatedly repudiated or simply brushed aside by members of the Harper caucus, in particular the Minister of Environment - Peter Kent. In his report, Vaughan noted how senior management at Environment Canada "refused to acknowledge the facts presented in this report."

My friends, we are in the ironic position of having a government which claims to be 'tough on crime', but whose own approach to environmental law is basically being labelled as criminal by two high-ranking members of the Canadian government (Member of Parliament Elizabeth May and the Federal Environment Commissioner). What does one do when their own government - claiming to be tough on crime and open to dialogue and democracy - somehow makes unilateral decisions that impact the entire planet without a minute of democratic debate, and which seems to violate national and international laws? It's time that our members of parliament act in the best interest their constituents: display your vote lack of confidence in Stephen Harper and his cronies, and bring in a new political leadership that cares about the future of the planet!

[Strategizing] Fighting Sarah Palin's Conception of 'Sound Science'

In December 2009 Sarah Palin wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post titled "Sarah Palin on the Politicization of the Copenhagen Climate Conference", where she basically argued that the USA should boycott the international climate change negotiations because the science on climate change wasn't 'credible' (she doesn't deny the existence of climate change; she merely doesn't believe humans play any role in exacerbating these changes). She claims that we now have 'proof' that the science isn't credible because of the so-called 'Climategate' email scandal at the University of East Anglia.

Now, there are a number of ways to respond to Palin, aside from just tuning out and avoiding her annoying hypocritical political diatribes. For one, it's not difficult to demonstrate how insignificant the East Anglia email 'scandal' is in the context of the overall global scientific effort to understand the human contribution to climatological change (see the Huffington Post's article about this here). Nor it it difficult to identify numerous problems of logic within Palin's reasoning about why Copenhagen should be boycotted (a good response to Palin's op-ed can be found in Marc Ambinder's annotated rebuttal in The Atlantic Monthly).

However, some might say that a more successful critique lies in exposing Palin's understanding of science as some totally objective, apolitical monolithic 'truth' that exists out there devoid from prevailing social relations and politico-economic realities. In other words, the response to Palin should not be to bombard her (and her throngs of misguided followers) with more of the very scientific evidence that she's bound to find faulty regardless of its 'prestige'; rather, the best response to Palin is to acknowledge the obvious nature of her statement that the science is in many ways political, while at the same time making efforts to exemplify how this 'knowledge' about the anthropogenic influence on climate change, while imperfect, is still pretty darn good! It's actually the best we've got. It's good enough, we might add, to do something about it (including sending our political leaders to international conferences).

I believe this is what the constructivist geographer David Demeritt would argue. In a 2001 article in the Annals titled "The Construction of Global Warming and the Politics of Science," Demeritt calls for "a more reflexive politics of climate change and of scientific knowledge based on active trust" (307). He makes quite a complicated argument; at first he comes across as a skeptic as he highlights numerous flaws with the way climatic models provide numerous venues for scientists to hide the complicated web of social politics and relations that shape their very models.  But then he comes around, showcasing his broader purpose in exposing the political nature of climate science, and how he believes we should respond to skeptics who view science as solid gold (I quote at length from p. 329):

The proper response to public doubts is not to increase the public's technical knowledge about and therefore belief in the scientific facts of global warming. Rather, it should be to increase public understanding and therefore trust in the social process through which those facts are scientifically determined. Science does not offer the final word, and its public authority should not be based on the myth that it does, because such an understanding of science ignores the ongoing process of organized skepticism that is, in fact, the secret of its epistemic success. Instead scientific knowledge should be presented more conditionally as the best that we can do for the moment. Though perhaps less authoritative, such a reflexive understanding of science in the making provides an answer to the climate skeptics and their attempts to refute global warming as merely a social construction.

Had this advice (which it should be noted was available a whole 8 years before the so-called 'climategate' scandal) been followed, it is possible that we could be a whole lot more productive at these international negotiations. The science is never going to be perfect, and the scientists need to be blatant about this fact. And yet, after four assessments by the IPCC and other research units, some absolutely impressive work has been done. In the face of this impressive work (despite all its flaws and imperfections) there lies plenty of good reason to confront the issue of climate change and tackle some of the ways in which we know* that human activities are exacerbating/influencing some of the processes of the Earth system - even if, through democratic political negotiation, we decide that our confrontation efforts should be more reactive (through adaptation) than preemptive (through mitigation).


* Of course we'll never 'know' anything with 100% certainty, but for all intent and purpose, the certainty we do have is enough to warrant action.

[Billing] Vote in C-311 Tomorrow!

Tomorrow, (Wednesday, May 5th), the House of Commons will conduct its FINAL VOTE on Bill C-311, The Climate Change Accountability Act. This Bill has been on the table for nearly four years, but has been subject to stalling pressure, death by election, and prorogation! Yet the Bill has been resurrected and survives! It is essential that all three opposition parties pull through and support this bill tomorrow.

Why?
- Because you may have noticed that last year (2009) was the warmest year on record; that the last decade is the warmest decade ever recorded; that within the last 12 years we have experienced the 10 warmest years recorded!
- Because the world now consumes 86.6 MILLION Barrels of Crude Oil EVERY DAY!
- Because the global atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases is presently at 391 parts per million (far above the widely recognized upper limit safety threshold of 350ppm).
- Because glaciers, arctic sea ice, coral reefs, and countless species are disappearing!
- Because the world's poor are extremely vulnerable to global warming and lack the financial capacity to adapt to climate change.
- Because the Harper Government has done NOTHING to mitigate or adapt to climate change.
- Because Canada is quickly gaining a reputation as the 'asshole of the world' at global climate talks (the bully of the business as usual approach).

Will Bill C-311 change any of this?
Likely not. However, it does force the Canadian government to at least fall in line with the basic international agreements on reductions. It will tell Harper that he can't continue killing the planet with impunity. Most importantly, Bill C-311 could foment new regulations and public infrastructure projects to help us reach the carbon reduction targets set out in the Bill.

So what should you do?
Send an email TODAY to Iggy and the leaders of the three opposition parties letting them know that you expect them to vote in favour of C-311 tomorrow! The Green Party has already set up a letter template and will automatically the letter for you: Go to http://greenparty.ca/action/C-311

[List] 10 Reasons Why Alberta's Climate Change Plan is a Total Joke

In January 2008 the Government of Alberta released its new Climate Change Action Plan. The original plan of 2002 (the first of its kind in Canada) has been reworked, revamped and perfected. As an additional effort to curb emissions in the province, the government implemented its carbon intensity reduction plan for industry in 2007, based on a carbon credit system. Given all the work our government has done on climate change, one would assume that Alberta is doing its part to tackle global warming. Upon closer inspection, however, it is evident that the action plan is seriously flawed. It appears to be specifically designed to allow the continued emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) within the booming energy industry - Now that's a joke!

Albertans should not accept this kind of dishonest propaganda from our elected officials. We should ask that a better plan be brought into effect immediately - a real working strategy that will put a halt to this province's embarrassing environmental and climatological destruction. Here are ten reasons why the climate change plan is a total joke:

1) The plan allows crude oil production to double over the next 12 years! The only word to describe this is "insanity". The province currently produces approximately 2 million Barrels Per Day of crude oil and equivalent. Stelmach's conservatives want to see that production grow to 4 million Barrels Per Day by 2020. Every Albertan knows that the production of crude oil is dirty business, especially when it requires the removal of copious amounts of sand and other contaminants. And let us not forget that the final product - the vast majority of which we ship to the United States - will eventually get burned only to unleash even more greenhouse gases into our dying atmosphere. A real climate change plan would put an immediate moratorium on bitumen extraction. Knowing that Stelmach intends to double oil production while pretending to be serious about climate change is symptomatic of the collective joke he is playing on us.

2) The plan projects an increase of nearly 30% GHG emissions over the next 12 years! A climate change plan is supposed to reduce GHG emissions, not allow them to skyrocket in astronomical proportions! At our current rate of approximately 210 Megatonnes of GHG emissions per year, Alberta is by far the worst global warming culprit in the country. Yet the climate change plan expects an increase of nearly 60 Megatonnes of GHGs by 2020! That's a 30% increase of greenhouse gases within a timespan that is equivalent to 5% of the entire industrial era (when this climate change problem started). A functional climate change strategy would start reductions now, not allow a grace period of more than a decade for polluting corporations to unleash unprecedented amounts of carbon dioxide.

3) The plan only pays lip service to alternative energy. Alternative energy should be the main focus of our climate change strategy. We should be investing as much as possible RIGHT NOW into renewable energy technologies. We have lots of sun in this province. We have lots of wind. We have locations that are perfect for geothermal energy generation. And best of all, we have a wealth of the most important resource required for green energy production: Highly trained, innovative and hard working people! The province should have spearheaded and invested in these alternative energy industries years ago. Instead, they are so obsessed with the money to be made from fossil fuels that they still have not published their implementation plan for alternative energy production! For crying out loud - we're still burning coal to power our society! Our climate change plan should provide a framework for us to eventually source 100% of our energy from green sustainable sources. Instead, the Stelmach plan expects that by 2050, we'll only replace 18% of our dirty energy sources with alternative green sources. It's a real shame.

4) The plan only calls for a reduction of 14% of our GHG emissions in a period of 45 years! This is far too little, far too late! The government's highly-funded communications department is leading us on, by saying it will cut emissions by "50%", meaning a reduction of "200 Megatonnes". But in fact, if you read beyond the headlines it is clear that they only intend to cut emissions by 14% of 2005 levels! That equals less than 30 Megatonnes of real emission reductions from the base year of 2005. This is because they are asking for a 50% reduction of projected levels for 2050. It is absolutely ludicrous to claim that they will reduce emissions that are totally avoidable in the first place! A real climate change plan does not try to reduce emissions that could be created, it tries to reduce emissions that already exist! The irony is that if we adopted the government's plan for reducing GHG emissions by 200 Megatonnes today, we could be nearly carbon neutral by 2050! Instead, with Stelmach's current plan we'll still be producing more emissions in 2050 (after full implementation of the plan) than every other province managed to produce in 2005 (with the exception of Ontario).

5) The plan relies way too heavily on carbon capture and storage technology. The three main ways to reduce emissions, according to Stelmach, are by increasing efficiency and conservation (which will account for 12% of planned reductions), using alternative energy (18% of planned reductions), and finally, adopting carbon sequestration practices (accounting for 70% of our planned reductions!). This puts an overwhelming amount of faith in a technology that has not yet even been put to use in the province! We're talking about a proposed 140 Megatonnes of GHGs that will be captured every single year, and we don't yet have a place to store all of this! Some experts note that plants that are set up to capture carbon actually use 25% more energy than those plants that just let it float away. Here's another joke for you: When the oil companies tell you that their operations are "carbon capture ready", all this actually means is that they have left space on their industrial plants where they can build the appropriate carbon capture facilities when they are required to do so. However, they are not required to do so. Further, a carbon pipeline will have to be built between the plants that emit CO2 (which happen to be all over the province) to the right location for storage (a location that needs to be chosen based on the appropriate geological formations (where the carbon is pumped underground). Such a pipeline is estimated to cost at least $5 billion in Alberta, and nobody appears to want to foot the bill. The climate change plan should put a moratorium on projects that create high emissions until the carbon capture technology and infrastructure is already fully in place.

6) They got the numbers wrong. The provincial government projections for GHG growth and reductions suggest that in 2005 Alberta produced 205 Megatonnes of GHGs. However, the federal agency which tabulates emissions suggests that this is a very low estimate. In its "2005 Greenhouse Gas Inventory", Environment Canada indicates that Alberta produced more that 235 Megatonnes of GHGs in 2005. That our provincial government is underestimating our 2005 emissions by 30 Megatonnes is a frightening thought. First of all, our government could potentially be lying to us about the emissions to downplay the province's leading role as contributor to climate change. Secondly, the entire plan's projections are based on the calculations for 2005 emissions. Within the provincial schema, the "business as usual" model projects GHG emissions to climb from 205 Megatonnes in 2005 up to approximately 375 Megatonnes by 2050. But if Environment Canada is right in its figure of Alberta's 2005 emissions, we're in for trouble: the recalculated projection would bring the 2050 emission level back to 205 Megatonnes after a 50% reduction. The punchline? This is the very amount of emissions that the province is claiming we need to reduce! Rather than underestimate the amount of emissions currently produced, the climate change forecast model should overestimate the amount we currently produce, in order to "play it safe" and ensure our impact is not worse than we expect. Instead, thanks to this underestimation mistake on our government's behalf, we will see NO REDUCTIONS of 2005 levels by 2050!

7) Companies can easily buy their way out of dealing with climate change. As part of the Climate Change and Emissions Management Act, the large GHG emitting companies in the province are required to reduce their emissions by 12% each year. While this is an excellent policy - in principle - the system that is set up to ensure that this happens is severely flawed. The system is based on carbon credits - a company gets a credit when it reduces emissions. But what if a company is not able to actually reduce annual emissions by the target 12%? In this case, the company has the option of buying a credit at the rate of $15/tonne. This rate is way too low - it allows companies to easily buy their way out of dealing with global warming. The money from these carbon credit purchases goes into the province's Climate Change and Emissions Management Fund. After 2007, we now know that companies are opting to just pay the low rate rather than actually reduce emissions. The fund now has $40 million. That may sound good - but it's actually bad news: First of all, it means that 12.7 Megatonnes of CO2 that should NOT have been emitted were actually emitted! Secondly, $40 million is "chump change" relative to the massive profits in the oil industry - an industry that often deals in "billions" of dollars. What this means is that the companies that pollute are just absorbing the cost emitting carbon dioxide into their regular operating costs.

8) The carbon credit system only targets the top few emitters, and allows other emitters to continue polluting without any requirement to make reductions. The legislation only calls for companies that produce over 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas per year in the province. That equals approximately 100 companies mostly in the energy, electrical and chemical industry. But what about the companies that produce 90,000 tonnes of GHGs a year? Or even 20,000 tonnes (which is an awful lot of climate changing gas!). In short, nothing - only those companies that produce over 100,000 tonnes per year are required to take part in the carbon credit system. This has caused me to think twice about recent media reports about energy companies that "split" (rather than merge) into two subsidiary companies. It is common for energy companies to set up new subsidiary companies to operate new projects (such as the "Fort Hills Energy Corporation" or the "Albian Sands Energy Corporation", which are both subsidiaries of other common energy companies). I sometimes wonder if by spreading the work across different corporate entities, they are avoiding their responsibilities in reducing emissions (and they can thereby save money). The requirement to reduce emissions by 12% should apply to ALL polluters, not just the few worst polluters.

9) The culprit companies can merely channel costs to the Alberta citizen rather than suffer the costs themselves. The government expects the "costs of compliance" for companies attempting to reduce emissions to total $177 million. In other words, it costs money to reduce emissions. Rather than foot the bill themselves, however, the government has no regulation on whether companies can merely increase the prices of their products (and thereby pass the cost on to the consumer). In fact, they invite companies to simply charge more for the final product (electricity, for example). While it is a good idea for consumers to pay a premium on products that cause high emissions, it is not right for companies to merely shrug off the costs of dealing with climate change. There should be regulations in place that require companies that produce emissions to pay for it, at least in part. We need to make it less lucrative to be in the business of planet killing, and more profitable to be leading the way in sustainable energy creation.

10) The province's climate change plan is designed to keep the oil industry growing. Why else would a climate change plan allow emissions of GHGs to increase by so much? Why else would the plan not come into effect for 12 years? Why else would the plan rely so heavily on carbon sequestration and storage (rather than reducing carbon emissions in the first place?). The reason is that this government is addicted to oil, and oil revenues and investments. They can't think outside the box. They worry that if they fail to make the business climate attractive for investment that the world will end or something. But what they don't realize is that they are playing a genuine role in destroying the planet, destroying the future of our civilization. The free market is not going to solve our climate change crisis. It's time for our climate change responsibilities to come first - before the oil industry. Maybe then we might see an "oil reduction" plan that shows how we will wean ourselves off of this dirty 20th century commodity and move onto cleaner, better things. Right now we've got things backwards.

So there you have it - 10 reasons why the very people we voted into office are playing a crude joke on us! It's high time that this province - by far the worst culprit in the country for emissions - get serious about climate change. Our atmosphere is already approaching 385 parts per million of Carbon Dioxide. We are playing with fire, and it may already be too late to reverse the damage. We need politicians who will take climate change seriously NOW, and we need a Premier who has the guts to take on the oil companies, not one who acquiesces to their every desire.

[Synopsis] Imagining the Green Tar Sands

It's a Tuesday Morning, and I'm listending to Sounds Like Canada, a CBC radio show hosted by Shelagh Rogers. She's talking to a guy named Murray who's involved in some program at the University of Alberta, and a guy named Simon from the Pembina Institute in Calgary. The show is about "greening" the Tar Sands. Murray is an environmental consultant for tar sands corporations, trying to find a way to make operations more green. Simon, for the most part advocates against the tar sands, since it is such an environmental disaster for which no amount of "greening" can do the trick.

Simon takes the lead. We hear how the tar sands are visible from space and the total mining area is the size of three cities of Calgary. We learn about the tailing "ponds", which are more actually like tailing "lakes" that hold dangerous contaminants that we don't know what to do with. We learn how the Athabasca River has approximately 16% of its volume diverted at Fort Mac, simply for use in the energy industry. We learn how despite a major lack of environmental assessment, both the provincial and federal governments are pushing through with approval of new projects as quickly as possible....

But Murray counters. One of the things he says resonates: He explains how the companies he works with (the same ones that just this morning reported world record profits) are very concerned about their environmental image (note that they are not necessarily concerned about the environment). And then he says it more clearly: "They are very concerned about how the company looks with their shareholders - the people who own the company." Murray's comment confirmed a long held suspicion of mine: The companies that operate within the tar sands, and their cronies within the Alberta Government DON'T CARE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT. What they do care about is making it LOOK like they care about the environment.

Image is everything in the corporate world. This is something Naomi Klein taught us. If the operators at Syncrude really cared about the 500 ducks that died in their toxic lake of death, they would have closed up shop, or at least found an alternative way of dealing with toxic waste water. Instead, they spent who knows how much to publish "apology letters" in the major papers of the country. It's all about image.

If Stelmach really cared about greening up the tar sands, he would put a moratorium on bitumen extraction today. After all, we're talking about one of the dirtiest known industrial practices known to (wo)man: It involves stealing water from fresh resources, using extraordinary amounts of heat and energy, burning up precious natural gas supplies, all for the purpose of removing sand from of a deep underground source of tar, so that you can pump out synthetic heavy crude oil, so that people can keep driving their cars. This is as DIRTY AS IT GETS folks. But Stelmach DOES care about his environmental image. That's why he is wasting $25 Million worth of Alberta's tax-payer money to brand the tar sands as being environmentally friendly. What a joke.

It's all image I tell you... Branding yourself the right way allows you to keep bringing in the big bucks. It's not what you sell (read dirty oil), it's how you sell it (read $25 green oil sands project).

[Good News?] Al Gore trying hard again...

Well, at least this isn't BAD news...

Some good news for once: Al Gore's Climate Change organization, The Alliance for Climate Protection, is initiating a $300 Million propaganda campaign in the United States, to help convince the American people that a radically new vision for curbing emissions is needed. It will be spent mostly on TV ads and the internet... and hopefully it will get through to the worst culprits of the carbon guzzlers. Good work Al!

One more thing: If you read the CBC article about this, you'll see this quote that Gore offered to the Washington Post: "The simple algorithm is this: It's important to change the light bulbs, but it's much more important to change the laws." YEAH, NO KIDDING! This is what I've been saying since the beginning of this whole frickin carbon conundrum came on the radar: Individualist solutions to global warming are all fine and dandy (and even necessary), but we won't see any SIGNIFICANT decline in the amount of carbon emissions until we make major changes to our political and economic STRUCTURE... and that means LEGISLATION. See my previous article on the Political Economy of Global Warming.

[Plea] Letter to the Environment Minister

To The Honourable John Baird, M.P.
Minister of the Environment
bairdj@parl.gc.ca

Mr. Baird, I write this personal letter to you as part of a desperate plea – a plea for you to take a new approach on carbon emissions and climate change.

As a citizen of Canada, I am responsible and complicit in the unacceptably high per capita CO2 emissions produced in this country. Ranked within the top ten per capita emitter countries, each Canadian is playing a significant role in causing rising global temperatures - These rising temperatures in turn will see the great North ice caps melt, various small island states submerged (not to mention low lying areas such as the city of Manhattan - gone), the belt of the tropical planet dried up by desertification, and an increase in devastating storms on par with Hurricane Katrina (if not stronger - Katrina had weakened to a class 3 hurricane by the time it struck New Orleans), and lets not forget the hundreds of millions of people who will become "environmental refugees" as a result. There is a list of predicted devastations in the IPCC's latest report, which I have posted for viewing here, (in case you haven't had a chance to read it).

As a citizen of Canada, I do not want to be accountable for these impending human disasters. Do you? This is why I have tried to reduce my personal emissions: I have given up on cars and I now ride my bike year round (this was not an easy trade off given Edmonton’s cold winters!), I carefully insulated my house and keep the household temperature to a minimum level, and I try to only buy locally produced goods. But try as I might, I am quite powerless to curb the emissions of the real polluters – the massive companies in the industrial sector and, particularly, the tar sands companies here in Alberta. These companies (including Suncor, Syncrude and Shell Canada, among others) are continually pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere on behalf of all Canadians, and they clearly are more interested in profiting from petroleum than making the world livable for future generations. You, on the other hand, are in a position of power, and as the old adage goes – with power comes responsibility. For this reason I plead with you to put through new, tougher legislation that will a) cause a swift shift to an economy based on sustainable energy resources, and b) drastically enforce the reduction of carbon emissions, effective immediately!

We don’t have time to waste, and this is easily proven by reviewing the facts that we continue to hear from highly regarded environmentalists and organizations:

• Bill McKibben, distinguished environmentalist, explained in December how the world reached a level of atmospheric homeostasis before the industrial revolution with carbon dioxide levels sitting at 275 parts per million. For the last few years we thought the upper limit was 450 parts per million before the damage becomes irreversible, but new studies show that 350 parts per million is a limit we would be wise not to surpass. TODAY WE’RE AT 383 PARTS PER MILLION!!!
• Bruce Cox, Executive Director at Greenpeace Canada, argued today that carbon sequestration won't work, that we need to focus on renewable energies, and that "the international consensus is that to avoid the worst excesses of climate change, global greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2015, then start falling".
• Matthew Bramley, Director of the Pembina Institute's climate change program, announced in May 2007 that "the government's national targets come up short against the science, leading countries' commitments, and our legal obligations under Kyoto," and further that your Turning the Corner Plan has "little chance of meeting the government's target of stopping the growth in Canada's greenhouse gas pollution by 2010-12," AND FURTHER, that your plan has "numerous loopholes and gaps that undermine the credibility of the government's target for 2020, which is to limit Canada's emissions to about 2% above the 1990 level."
• Recent studies by scientists show that the deadline for when we must reduce emissions is much sooner than previously anticipated, and that we must bring our emissions to ZERO in order to avert the devastation of climate change.

What have you done to address these serious, educated concerns - concerns which highlight that the government's current plan Turning the Corner - won't work?

Unfortunately, Turning the Corner, DOES WASTE TIME. It calls for 20% in reductions by 2020! This is too late Mr. Baird - and you know it! First off, there is no way that market mechanisms will see the reduction of 60 to 70% of emissions by 2050. You know this. Secondly, by 2050 - as you've seen above, every environmental organization out there says this is way too late! We need to turn the corner now, not 40 years from now!

If murder is the most serious of crimes, why do we allow the tar sands corporations to continually wreak havoc on the environment and increasingly pump carbon into our atmosphere? We know that these emissions will end up causing the deaths of millions of people - and YOU - Mr. Baird, will be held accountable. Do you want to end up as a defendant on the International Criminal Court twenty years from now, when the global consensus on carbon emissions finds that anyone in a position of power who serves to further enable climate change is criminally responsible (as suggested by David Suzuki)? I doubt you do, so act now to stop emissions (and protect yourself from future incarceration!)!

What ultimately bothers me most, Mr. Baird, is that since "Canada's New Government" has come to power, the amount of carbon we Canadians are pumping into the atmosphere has increased, and it is projected to continue to increase, as admitted by Stephen Harper himself! The IPCC predicts that because of totally lax laws on climate change (like those here in Canada), global CO2 emissions from energy use between 2000 and 2030 are projected to grow 40 to 110% over that period! This gives me and fellow citizens a feeling of shame for being Canadian. I was so ashamed when Canada was awarded the Fossil Award at the UN Climate Summit. Please act now to bring back Canada's international reputation!

Here's a direct quote from the International Panel on Climate Change's latest report: "Average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely the highest in at least the past 1300 years." Are you going to remember this in August, when the sweltering heat causes people to lock themselves in their damp basements or crank up their air conditioners (thereby wreaking havoc on the grid)?

The IPCC also provides a map of the world showing the most drastic increases in average temperature over the last 35 years. There is only one part of the Earth that has seen an average temperature increase as high as 3.5 degrees... guess where? It's a massive area that covers Canada's North West and most of Alaska. YES, we are experiencing harmful temperature increases here in Canada already!

I know that as the Minister of the Environment in a country which holds the second largest proven oil reserves in the world, your job is not easy: You have the difficult task of making sure the environment is a priority when all the others are blinded by the dollar signs that mar their vision of the tar sands. But by virtue of your position, this must be your fight.

If I may ask you to engage in this thought exercise – How do you want Canadians to remember your work as a member of Parliament, fifty years from now? Do you want to be remembered as a Minister who was tough on climate change? Do you want to be remembered as the first politician who stood up to the corporations which continued to pour carbon dioxide into our atmosphere without concern? Do you want to be remembered as the famed politician who turned the tide on carbon emissions – the one who was directly responsible for enacting strong legislation which actually saw the amount of carbon emissions decrease nation-wide? Do you want to be remembered as the first politician to truly comprehend that economic growth is meaningless unless there is a sustainable world to live in! I ask you this because at this rate, Mr. Baird, you will not be remembered this way! At this rate you will be remembered as the Minister who wasted billions of dollars and years of precious time trying to sequester carbon, as the one who found every possible way to appease big oil while forgetting to invest in renewable energies, as the environment minister who forgot to implement a carbon tax when the budget was passed, like the province of British Colombia smartly did earlier this year.

Fifty years from now, I want to look back to the year 2008 and think of Mr. Baird as the one who actually made it happen. And that's my plea, Mr. Baird.... please, make it happen.

[Report] The IPCC Predicts Doom

Here is the copy and pasted text of Article 3.3.1 of the International Panel on Climate Change's latest report on global warming (warning: get your Prozac ready):

3.3.1 Impacts on systems and sectors

Ecosystems

The resilience of many ecosystems is likely to be exceeded this
century by an unprecedented combination of climate change,
associated disturbances (e.g. flooding, drought, wildfire, insects,
ocean acidification) and other global change drivers (e.g. landuse
change, pollution, fragmentation of natural systems, overexploitation
of resources).


Over the course of this century, net carbon uptake by terrestrial
ecosystems is likely to peak before mid-century and then weaken
or even reverse, thus amplifying climate change.


Approximately 20 to 30% of plant and animal species assessed
so far are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases
in global average temperature exceed 1.5 to 2.5°C (medium confidence).


For increases in global average temperature exceeding 1.5 to
2.5°C and in concomitant atmospheric CO2 concentrations, there
are projected to be major changes in ecosystem structure and
function, species’ ecological interactions and shifts in species’
geographical ranges, with predominantly negative consequences
for biodiversity and ecosystem goods and services, e.g. water
and food supply.

Food

Crop productivity is projected to increase slightly at mid- to
high latitudes for local mean temperature increases of up to 1
to 3°C depending on the crop, and then decrease beyond that in
some regions (medium confidence).


At lower latitudes, especially in seasonally dry and tropical
regions, crop productivity is projected to decrease for even small
local temperature increases (1 to 2°C), which would increase
the risk of hunger (medium confidence).


Globally, the potential for food production is projected to increase
with increases in local average temperature over a range
of 1 to 3°C, but above this it is projected to decrease (medium
confidence).

Coasts

Coasts are projected to be exposed to increasing risks, including
coastal erosion, due to climate change and sea level rise.
The effect will be exacerbated by increasing human-induced
pressures on coastal areas (very high confidence).


By the 2080s, many millions more people than today are projected
to experience floods every year due to sea level rise. The
numbers affected will be largest in the densely populated and
low-lying megadeltas of Asia and Africa while small islands
are especially vulnerable (very high confidence).

Industry, settlements and society

The most vulnerable industries, settlements and societies are
generally those in coastal and river flood plains, those whose
economies are closely linked with climate-sensitive resources
and those in areas prone to extreme weather events, especially
where rapid urbanisation is occurring.


Poor communities can be especially vulnerable, in particular
those concentrated in high-risk areas.

Health

The health status of millions of people is projected to be affected
through, for example, increases in malnutrition; increased
deaths, diseases and injury due to extreme weather events; increased
burden of diarrhoeal diseases; increased frequency of
cardio-respiratory diseases due to higher concentrations of
ground-level ozone in urban areas related to climate change;
and the altered spatial distribution of some infectious diseases.


Climate change is projected to bring some benefits in temperate
areas, such as fewer deaths from cold exposure, and some
mixed effects such as changes in range and transmission potential
of malaria in Africa. Overall it is expected that benefits will
be outweighed by the negative health effects of rising temperatures,
especially in developing countries.


Critically important will be factors that directly shape the health
of populations such as education, health care, public health initiatives,
and infrastructure and economic development.

Water

Water impacts are key for all sectors and regions. These are
discussed below in the Box ‘Climate change and water’.

Climate change is expected to exacerbate current stresses on water resources from population growth and economic and land-use change, including urbanisation. On a regional scale, mountain snow pack, glaciers and small ice caps play a crucial role in freshwater availability. Widespread mass losses from glaciers and reductions in snow cover over recent decades are projected to accelerate throughout the 21st century, reducing water availability, hydropower potential, and changing seasonality of flows in regions supplied by meltwater from major mountain ranges (e.g. Hindu-Kush, Himalaya, Andes), where more than one-sixth of the world population currently
lives.

Changes in precipitation (Figure 3.3) and temperature (Figure 3.2) lead to changes in runoff (Figure 3.5) and water availability. Runoff is projected with high confidence to increase by 10 to 40% by mid-century at higher latitudes and in some wet tropical areas, including populous areas in East and South-East Asia, and decrease by 10 to 30% over some dry regions at mid-latitudes and dry tropics, due to decreases in rainfall and higher rates of evapotranspiration. There is also high confidence that many semi-arid areas (e.g. the Mediterranean Basin, western United States, southern Africa and north-eastern Brazil) will suffer a decrease in water resources
due to climate change. Drought-affected areas are projected to increase in extent, with the potential for adverse impacts on multiple sectors, e.g. agriculture, water supply, energy production and health. Regionally, large increases in irrigation water demand as
a result of climate changes are projected.

The negative impacts of climate change on freshwater systems outweigh its benefits (high confidence). Areas in which runoff is projected to decline face a reduction in the value of the services provided by water resources (very high confidence). The beneficial impacts of increased annual runoff in some areas are likely to be tempered by negative effects of increased precipitation variability and seasonal runoff shifts on water supply, water quality and flood risk.

Available research suggests a significant future increase in heavy rainfall events in many regions, including some in which the mean rainfall is projected to decrease. The resulting increased flood risk poses challenges to society, physical infrastructure and water quality. It is likely that up to 20% of the world population will live in areas where river flood potential could increase by the 2080s. Increases in the frequency and severity of floods and droughts are projected to adversely affect sustainable development. Increased temperatures will further affect the physical, chemical and biological properties of freshwater lakes and rivers, with predominantly adverse impacts on
many individual freshwater species, community composition and water quality. In coastal areas, sea level rise will exacerbate water resource constraints due to increased salinisation of groundwater supplies.

[Good News Bad News] Carbon Tax

Some semi-good news for once: The British Colombia government passed what in this day and age should be seen as very progressive legislation to combat carbon emissions. The main idea of it is this: start taxing carbon emissions - any fuel that pumps carbon into the atmosphere is going to be taxed at a rate of $10 for every tonne of CO2 that it puts into the atmosphere, starting this summer. That rate goes up $5 per year until it reaches $30 per tonne in 4 years. Although the revenue generated for the province is going to be massive and could be used to fund new green technology, research and infrastructure... the BC government is going to give tax cuts to its citizens to help compensate for the extra expense. I'm not sure what I think about this latter part of the deal. It has received criticism for particularly targeting average families instead of the big polluters - a criticism I agree with. However, such critics need to understand that lower income families usually consume less energy and hopefully won't be as hard hit as the typical upper middle class family who wastes tonnes (pun intended) on heating over-sized homes that are miles away from where they work. On the other hand, the whole idea is that the extra expense for using carbon is supposed to make using carbon less affordable, but if you're just putting the money back in people's pockets in the form of income redistribution then it sort of counteracts the purpose of a tax in the first place. Either way, it's a start, and only proves that we need to work on this much more. READ ABOUT THIS HERE.

In other news, Alberta's Tory government is still destroying our planet, despite a very strong letter it received recently (which was signed by a number of oil sands companies!) which asks the government to put a moratorium on granting access to mine for oil in the Fort Mac area. The letter's signatories (amongst whom surprisingly includes Petro Canada, Suncor & Shell Canada - along with the Pembina Institute and Environment Canada) are asking the provincial government to "freeze land lease licences until 2011 in three areas around Fort McMurray that have not yet been developed." Is that too much to ask? Consider how the mere extraction process up there already accounts for more than a third of the province's carbon emissions (and Alberta is already one of the most - if not the most - culpable CO2 emitters)! READ ABOUT THIS HERE.

Finally, in what is likely to become a news story of yet another example of our federal (Conservative) government ignoring good advice, the upcoming federal budget will likely not include a carbon tax, let alone a nationally sanctioned cap and trade system, despite a recent press conference by one of Canada's most renowned environmentalists - David Suzuki. Suzuki suggested that the time is nigh for the federal government to get green legislation down on paper. If only they could pass legislation similar to that in BC, Suzuki says that the Feds could earn up to an extra $100 billion by 2020, which could then be "used to lower personal income tax for Canadians [or]... be put into renewable energy, home energy efficiency improvements, and public transportation." Most likely, however, Suzuki's plea will fall on deaf ears. READ ABOUT THIS HERE.

[Letter] We need to act NOW

The following is a letter I wrote to the Member of Parliament for my riding in Edmonton.

Dear Mr. Jaffer,

It is with extreme frustration that I write to you today. For years now there has been a global consensus on the crucial need to curb our carbon emissions. Yet today, not only has Canada seemingly DONE NOTHING to confront the issue, but we are actually moving in the wrong direction (at least according to a number of prominent environmental organizations – such as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the David Suzuki Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund and the Pembina Institute)!

Hence my dismay this morning when ...[click on link below to expand to full post] I heard on the news that all ten tar sands companies that were recently assessed by the Pembina Institute and the World Wildlife Fund ALL failed miserably in their performance. THEY ALL FAILED, Jaffer! And we both know that it’s not just the companies to blame! Rob Powell of the World Wildlife Fund confirmed this: “The government has taken rather a laissez-faire approach to regulating this industry, relying too heavily on voluntary efforts by the company. And in many cases, the companies haven't chosen to do those things. They haven't established targets for reducing their emissions, for example."

We know that the climate change crisis is one that can’t be left solely to corporations enacting sound environmental practices - the politico-economic structure we have here in Canada has absolutely no incentives for companies to act as stewards of the environment. But not only do we need to create incentives, at this point we will need to FORCE companies and individuals to stop killing our planet. Why should we not consider such devastation as a crime? We need climate change legislation, not just economic incentives.

I know things move slowly in our Canadian parliament - I was originally from Ottawa and I saw the snail pace of politics when I lived there. However, we have no time to waste. As a recent article by Bill McKibben explains, the world reached a level of homeostasis before the industrial revolution with atmospheric carbon dioxide levels sitting at 275 parts per million. For the last few years we thought the upper limit was 450 parts per million before the damage becomes irreversible, but new studies show that 350 parts per million is a limit we would be wise not to surpass. Well, guess what we’re at today Rahim? WE’RE AT 383 PARTS PER MILLION!!! We need to stop now, there’s no time for pussyfooting around here - we seriously need to curb emissions.

We need to stop focusing so much on what China’s emissions are, or what the US has to say. Canada needs to set the global example by curbing our emissions NOW, and if that is to be our goal, we need powerful environmental legislation NOW. Mr. Jaffer, don’t you want Canada to be an example? Aren’t you embarrassed that we were singled out as an international pariah of climate change when we were awarded the Fossil Award by the global community at the UN Climate Summit last November?

Mr. Jaffer, I know that on a personal level, you are a genuinely good, thoughtful and caring person. I know this because I have met you and I used to work for your wonderful family at the Artisan Bakery. I know that if it was up to you, and you had a snap-of-the-finger solution available, you wouldn’t even think twice about it. I also know it’s not easy to be a politician in this era – especially due to the climate change issue. But won’t you admit, once you step back and look at the big picture objectively, that we’re failing miserably when it comes to climate change? If you could take a minute to imagine you were just an everyday citizen like me who had to rate our federal government’s actions on global warming – wouldn’t you also be extremely frustrated and angry that it appears that absolutely nothing concrete has been done, and that the rest of the world thinks we're setting back progress?

Well, luckily you are in a special position: you are in a position of power, and you have some sway – at least much more than the rest of us! But with that power comes responsibility, as you know. And so it is with this in mind that I ask you, I plead you, PLEASE- let’s get going here! We need to act now!

Sincerely,
One of your constituents