[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.

[Equation] Lakes of Tar = Death

[Photo caption: View of Syncrude plant and tailing "pond" in Northern Alberta. Not long ago this land was covered in ancient forests that acted as an important lung for the planet]

It's as simple as adding things together. What do you expect to occur when you bulldoze miles upon miles of previously untouched forest, then dig out a series of gigantic holes, and fill them with toxic, sludgy, tar-filled waste-water? To top it off, these massive carcinogenic lakes (which are visible from space) happen to be located within the migratory path of many species of bird and other wildlife, and just happen to be a couple of kilometers upstream from human-inhabited areas.

If the answer isn't obvious to you yet, you may want to revisit your basic arithmetic skills. The answer is "death". You get "death" when you build man-made lakes of carcinogenic sludge. It's that simple.

Hence my lack of surprise when I woke up to today's news. A flock of some 500 ducks, en route to its summer habitat, was flying by Fort McMurray, when it located a series of lakes - which seemed perfect for a rest. These were not the first birds to think it might make a good rest stop, but they were the first (at least that we know of) to have NOT been properly warned ahead of time that these were not real lakes of fresh water, but rather that they were the carcinogenic lakes of tar-water mentioned above. In fact, most days there are birds of various species trying to make a stop in the famous "tailings ponds" of Northern Alberta - the liquid waste product of copious amounts of water used to produce crude oil - but - the companies which produce these toxic seas employ a number of sophisticated tactics to convince birds to stay away from them. They use scarecrows, for example, and large air canons (which are loud enough to scare the shit out of any animal).

For some reason, however, these ducks were not given the air canon warnings, nor did the scarecrows seem to do their job. So all 500 of them landed in one of Syncrude's tailings ponds.

Well they're dead now - at least the majority of them are. If any survived, they are now covered in sticky tar and are no longer capable of using their wings. And if they manage to get rehabilitated by rescue workers, maybe - just maybe - they will continue to thrive, only to get struck with cancer at a later date, having been exposed to extremely dangerous contaminants... just like the people of Fort Chipewyan.

What's that? Are you saying the people of Fort Chipewyan have been struck with cancer, having been exposed to dangerous contaminants from the oil sands?

YES. THE PEOPLE OF FORT CHIPEWYAN, and other communities located on the Athabasca River, downstream from Fort McMurray, ARE DYING FROM CANCER AT ABNORMALLY HIGH RATES!!!

This is why a Doctor by the name of John O'Connor, some 7 years ago, reported with grave concern that a number of people had acquired cholangiocarcinoma - a rare form of cancer that usually impacts less than 1 in 100,000 people. Yet here were up to 5 people with it, in a population of 1200!!! Medically speaking, this is extreme cause for alarm. Yet as many of you reading this will know, O'Connor raised the issue publicly, and was then fired by Health Canada for causing unnecessary public panic.

Now, I have not been to Fort Chip myself, but I was at an event regarding the Tar Sands here in Edmonton that was attended by a number of Fort Chip residents. I WILL BE FOREVER HAUNTED by the appeal by one of them - a woman in her 40s: Addressing the audience with tears pouring down her cheeks, she PLEADED with us to do whatever we could to stop the death of her community. She listed case after case, person after person, with the familiarity of their first names - her friends and family members who had either died or will soon die of cancer. Her sadness turned to anger... "this is not normal" she screamed at us, referring to attempts by our provincial and federal governments to shrug off the public health disaster as a typical health issue that is unrelated to the tar sands operations.

The extremely powerful PR assault led by the oil industry and the provincial and federal government is winning. They have managed to block the story of genocide in Fort Chip from filtering into the everyday car driver's head. They have somehow managed to convince us that slowing tar sands production will mean economic collapse - despite the clear warnings by economists that climate change will more likely wreak global economic havoc. And perhaps this is what makes the story of the ducks all the more bitter for me. Part of the story is that this "duck disaster" comes just as Stelmach's PR squad is returning from an international propaganda tour - the goal of which was to convince elites around the world that the tar sands operations are sophisticated, GREEN, oil-exploitation procedures - where EVERY CARE is taken to ensure the environmental, climatological and ecological sustainability of the land. Not only do the deaths of these birds prove the sheer absurdity of Stelmach's lies, they also demonstrate the simplicity of the equation of death involved in the tar sands gigaproject. We must hold Stelmach accountable for his crimes. Let us never forget the deaths that have been a direct result of this, either animal or human!

After hearing of those poor dead ducks, a friend of mine asked in desperation - "what will it take for the government to realize it has to stop the tar sands"? Our country is so racist towards first nations people that it seems the death of a native community will not halt tar sands expansion. I highly doubt the bird story will do anything either, other than arouse more temporary anger. But within the increased production intended by the Stelmach Conservatives lies their own demise. This provincial government, already the greatest emitter of carbon emissions in the country (thanks to oil production), has already begun to drive itself into a dark tunnel of history. Alberta oil is so dirty that even American politicians are threatening to stop buying it, given the horrendous environmental and climactic impacts of converting bitumen into crude oil (California already has a law to forbid the buying of Alberta oil). So to answer the question "what will it take"? I think it will take one of two things: Either a) it will take unprecedented amounts of environmental destruction and climactic trauma for to the point that it's no longer worth it to feed gas into their SUV so they can drive to the store to buy their things - because the things won't be there anymore (or at least they'll be totally unafordable). In this scenario it will take economic collapse - which already seems pending, or b) it will take smart citizens to foresee this industrial collapse before it happens, and start acting NOW to reduce the amount of harm we will face as a civilization from global warming and the economic meltdown it will throw upon the world. Which doomsday scenario do you choose?

[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).

[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.

[Comment] Ecosocialism

There's a name for those of us who see the destruction of our planet as a byproduct of capitalism, those of us who see the ties between climate change and our global political economy, those of us who are both staunch environmentalists and Marxists: We are Ecosocialists. Ecosocialism sees the coming together of left and green perspectives into a unified ideology. There is an interesting article about the challenges to ecosocialists in the Canadian Dimension. Read it Here. The following is my response to that article:

By far our biggest challenge as ecosocialists is reconciling the interests of labour with those of the environment - particularly within the industrial sector.

Whether it be the tar sands or the automobile industry, we’re talking about tens of thousands of workers, many of whom are members of our most effective unions, who are involved in industries which are killing our planet.

Your answer of insisting “upon comprehensive retraining programs and fully subsidized relocation programs — at full union pay, with no loss of benefits or pensions” is one that I support and often tout myself, though we have to admit to ourselves that this is an incredibly idealistic (and complex) solution!

As an environmentalist (living in Alberta) I want to see the tar sands shut down entirely - forget trying to make oil extraction practices more “green”! As an environmentalist I have trouble condoning any automotive industry no matter how “green” it could become (it’s the very idea of our society being centered around small individual travel pods that I’m opposed to - a societal structure that breeds hyperindividualist, consumerist suburban lifestyles).

Yet as a socialist I feel equally troubled about the repercussions of shutting down these industries which employ thousands of every day Canadians. And yet, if we call for these industries to go, we must have an honest and concrete answer for our brothers and sisters in the workforce.

Where are we going to relocate these workers? Do they even want to relocate? Even if their unions are successful in forcing their employers to adopt “green” production methods, will they be green enough? These are the hardest questions facing the ecosocialist movement in my opinion…

At heart we’re talking about ending the era of the industrial revolution. This is a huge task - we’re talking about a state-society structure that has been consolidating some form of consensus since the advent of the steam engine (both in capitalist countries and in the former Soviet Union). It’s going to take time (perhaps too much time) to confront this issue given the massive amount of change required.

My answer lies in localism. We need to make communities more sustainable and self sufficient. If we can work towards these goals, we’d be setting ourselves up for positive change:
- Each community should strive to produce as much food as it requires.
- Each community should strive to provide enough jobs for its citizens.
- Each community should strive to produce all of the energy it requires, and try to offset the amount of CO2 it produces in the process.

Complement these three daunting goals with a solid public transit infrastructure, including low emissions transportations linking communities (like efficient trains) and clean energy sources, and a REDUCTION IN CONSUMPTION, and voila, things will start looking up.

I know, it’s all talk, but let’s keep talking about this and work out some concrete answers!

[Shaming] The stats are in...

Well, the stats are in folks. A study published by Martin Turcotte at Statistics Canada revealed that, after comparing all major cities in the country, Edmonton has the highest percentage of people who use a car to get around the city. Congratulations, Edmonton. You must be so proud to have this fact distinguish your city.

Read about the study here.

Now, even though I bike everywhere (followed by walking, then public transit as my preferred methods of getting around), I too am one of the Edmontonians who should accept part of the blame. The key thing to note here is the unsustainable layout of our cities. And as a citizen of Edmonton, I have played a role in allowing the growth of urban sprawl backed by an incredibly deficient public transit infrastructure. When are we going to realize that it is just plain stupid to build rows upon rows of suburban houses that are miles away from the city core where most of these homeowners work, let along miles away from the grocery store!?

Zoning laws should incorporate a clause that requires housing developers to PROVE that easy and accessible public transit will be available to connect people's homes to the places they work and shop and entertain themselves.

Instead of double-door garages and driveways marking the front view of new homes, we should be seeing garden plots and transit stops.

Instead of columns of large individualized houses that require tons of energy to heat, we should build low-rise townhouses which make use of communal heating systems as well as photovoltaic and wind power generators to lower power usage from the grid.

With peak oil either just around the corner or even potentially already behind us, the only way to interpret these new stats is this: The Canadian polity, as a whole, is either totally apathetic and ignorant about climate change OR we are totally incapable of transforming our intentions for change into action. Considering the amount of dialogue regarding global warming, I don't think the it is the former. In other words, we need to work on ACTION.

ACTION, ACTION, ACTION! We need to take on the "suck it up" attitude and stop driving. I did it, and I've been surprised at the multitude of factors that have come into play - all of which have me feeling better about my individual impact on the environment. According to Statscan, transportation accounts for 30.1% of our Greenhouse Gas emissions (see the chart below). With this in mind, driving less CAN HAVE A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON CLIMATE CHANGE. So pickup a bike, or take out those old walking shoes, or take a pair of scissors to your driver's license after buying a bus pas... do something to start ACTING on global warming!

[Notes from a Pedaler] Bicycle Revolution

In the spirit of RTS (Reclaim The Streets) parades, most cities host weekly or monthly critical mass bike rallies. These rallies are a conglomeration of environmentalists, health conscious folk and community-oriented activists who see the great potential that bicycles have in confronting some of our biggest societal problems: Global warming, obesity, pandemic cardiovascular disease, smog and pollution-related respiratory diseases, daily urban traffic, oil-related resource wars, and even the growing close-minded coldness of car-reliant suburban neighbourhoods. Indeed, it is time for a bicycle revolution. Let us take a loose handle bar to our cars and... [click on link below to expand to full post] convert them into stationary flower pots, and ride our bikes a little more often.

Bicycles have so much to offer: They are easy to build (and rebuild) and relatively cheap compared to other forms of transportation; They don’t contribute to global warming in any significant way and don’t add to city smog; They’re quick and easy to commandeer; They make you feel good about yourself and contribute to your cardio health. Really, the bicycle is an incredible invention: Two wheels, a seat, a few gears, and voilà, you can get from point “a” to point “b” quickly and easily. As an added plus, there is the sense of accomplishment of having used your own humanpower to hurdle your body through time and space. No emissions, no smelly car odors, no nagging children in the back seat. Bikes are more compact and can get you through tight spaces and around tight corners, across grass and other places that cars and public transport are confined too – and you can get away with cruising through stop signs without having to come to a complete stop . Bicycles lead to healthier lifestyles as they promote physical activity and get people outside breathing fresh flowing air. With so much to offer, why wouldn’t you want to ride your bike?

Ever since I decided that I would try use my bike as much as possible I’ve felt better and better about my life in so many ways. I encourage you to challenge yourself to ride your bike all year long, even through the winter, and see if you feel the benefits of quick and easy, low cost, healthy and environmentally-friendly transportation.

Also, join in on a bike rally, or start a bike gang (with real bikes). Here are critical mass websites from Toronto and Vancouver:

(Toronto) http://www.cmtoronto.ca/
(vancouver) http://www.bikesexual.org/cm/home.htm

[Part One] Political Economy of Global Warming

Towards the end of 2006, the frenzy of global warming seemed to be at an all time high. This was when Al Gore's movie was becoming ever popular, and campaigns to save the polar bears were growing on campuses across North America, and when the scientific community finally agreed unanimously that climate change was not just a figment of our imaginations. This media proliferation of doomsday scenarios was all fine and dandy in my opinion, because, one would hope, it might provoke action and change. But as the "solutions" to global warming were contemplated in parliament, it struck me that we were continually failing to see the link between our POLITICAL ECONOMIC STRUCTURE and our society's overconsumption of fossil fuels. So I wrote this two part diatribe on the Political Economy of Global Warming. (I also attached a photo of the latest craze: Hummer Limos, which in my opinion are a physical embodiment of our society's consumption disease)

A Political Economy of Global Warming

Part One: The Banality of Individualist Solutions

It’s Christmas Eve, 2006, and there is no snow to speak of. Pretty soon we will all be dreaming of the white Christmases we used to have – forever gone. The experts have commented in droves, and the facts are indisputable – the world is experiencing global warming. As former American Vice-President, Al Gore, makes painfully clear in his popular climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth, the average global temperature is increasing year by year. Hurricanes and typhoons are more plentiful and more deadly. Rains, hail, tornadoes, floods and heat waves are more erratic and more dangerous. The destruction of the Earth’s environment, it turns out, is the closest thing we’ve ever had to genuine threat of apocalypse (far more realistic a threat than the “Millennium glitch” of New Years 2000). Unfortunately, try as they might, the majority of Canadians will not be able to significantly contribute to climate change solutions - until it is far too late. There are a number of reasons why this is so, all of which demonstrate a severe problem with the way our neoliberal society overemphasizes individualism.

The sad truth is that most people in Canada stand to benefit – in the short run – from warmer temperatures. Let’s face it – unless you are an outdoor winter sports enthusiast (hockey doesn't count here - it's an indoor sport for the most part these days), warmer winters are not as loathsome as people lead on. Sure, the fact that this is going to be the warmest winter in recorded history is a scary thought, but only when we internalize the higher temperatures within the context of apocalyptic climate change. On a day-to-day basis though, warmer temperatures will have relatively little impact on the individual Canadian. Warmer winters will mean that more “snowbirds” will spend their winters here, that more time can be spent outside, that less driveways will have to be shoveled, that cars will actually start in the morning, and that hairdos won’t get mucked-up by wearing toques! No more senseless shivering, no more replacing your supply of mitts and scarves every fall. In other words, from an individual standpoint, the short-term benefits of climate change in Canada will translate into day-to-day apathy about this issue.

But that's just the surface of our problem. The irony is that as neoliberal policies promote the mantra of hyper-individualism in our society, the more everyday Canadians will contribute to carbon emissions, which will only exacerbate the problem of global warming in the long run. This has to do with the relative wealth of Canada within the world system. Canadians have gotten so used to buying their way out of discomfort. As climate change brings extreme weather patterns and disasters such as floods and heat-waves, most individuals will respond with their wallets. This, in turn, will likely contribute to further carbon emissions, because the production of goods is inextricably linked to energy use. A classic example is the typical Canadian summer heat wave: Canadians are so accustomed to turning on their personal air conditioners (which most people in the world can’t afford), that in the summer of 2003 electricity usage surged so high in Southeastern Ontario that a massive power outage swept across the entire region. The unfortunate event was highly indicative of the paradox of individualism: On a personal level, each individual felt the need to create their own bubble of cool weather, while the cumulative effect of these millions of personalized climates ultimately yielded the dysfunction of all air-conditioners. This is the individualist response to climate change in a nutshell.

It goes to show that the global warming problem is a one of overconsumption – relating in particular to an industrial sector completely reliant on fossil fuels. Thus we can not even begin to confront the global warming issue unless we curb our consumption in general. Here's another example of the "buying our way out of global warming paradox": A typical environmentally conscious "green" individual may very likely go out and buy a new hybrid vehicle, replacing an older gas guzzler, in order to "do their part" for climate change. But this individual usually fails to calculate the enormous amount of energy required to produce that new car (and consequently the amount of emissions, pollution and toxins that are being added to our planet for each new purchase). Unless that person plans to use the new hybrid vehicle A LOT (which will expend yet more energy), the net emissions will likely NOT be a reduction, but an increase in total emissions in comparison to just keeping the gas guzzler. Instead of buying new cars, we should be trying to consume less by using larger, public forms of transit (triple-checked for efficiency) that significantly reduce the net emissions per person. This is why we need a communitarian approach to climate change, not an individual consumerist one, since the problem affects all of humanity.

Unfortunately, even a nationally oriented response to climate change here in Canada is unlikely to yield successful results. This is because the same conundrum of individual self-interest that exists in the domestic setting is also prevalent in the world system of nation states. Again, while climate change will effect the entire world, it has been shown that global warming will be much more devastating in the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer. This is why stories of floods and hurricanes and earthquakes and tsunamis are growing and becoming increasingly deadly in the "Global South". Yet here in Canada (and the rest of the "Global North" for that matter), the number of warm months will only serve to extend our agricultural seasons and even allow new species of flora to thrive in our continent. Olive trees in Ontario are no longer a pipe dream. The impending desertification of the Earth will have horrific consequences for the tropical regions of the Earth, but not for Canada (at least not for another few decades). It's true that the summers here will also be warmer, and heat waves may yield potentially deathly hot temperatures, but these heat waves will likely only last a few days, and furthermore, Canadians historically don’t tend to care too much about heat waves because they have their personalized air conditioners to cool off (which as explained above, only adds to the problem).***

This brings us to the main reason why most Canadians won’t do anything about global warming: They are rich. They can buy their way out of nature’s wrath: for now. North Americans are relatively some of the richest people on the planet. They have cars and they have travel agents. They have air conditioners and they have furnaces. They have steady access to food and they have health care, and they have insurance. And if all else fails, they have powerful militaries to coerce other countries into giving them valuable resources. Let us put it this way: If they are too cold, they can use their money to make their private climate-spaces. If they are too warm, they can equally create or travel to colder spaces. If there are hurricanes, they can afford to get out of harms way days in advance. If there are tornadoes, they can hide in the bunkers that they can afford to build, and they can rebuild their houses if they get destroyed. If there are floods, they can escape, or move elsewhere. And they can always fall back on insurance claims. In other words, while rising sea levels will sink both the the Maldives and Manhattan, most Maldivians will end up living in refugee camps in India, while most Manhattanites can easily avoid the impending floods by moving to their cottages in New York state's interior.

If most Canadians can't do anything significant about global warming, then we are faced with two options. Either a) we accept our doomed fate and seize the day while we still can, or b) we force Canadians to stop contributing to global warming, NOW. Some readers may be of the inclination that we just seize the day and prepare for the impending weather chaos. Others, like myself, feel the only responsible option is to act now, and to stop this cycle before it reaches the threshold of no return. But it won’t be easy. We can all watch Al Gore’s film and sit around depressed for a few days, we can forward the dismal facts to others and remind people to stop idling their cars, we can start riding our bikes or taking the bus and leaving the car at home a little more; We can even take Al Gore’s advice and use new energy-efficient lightbulbs; we can re-use and recycle, and try to take the train instead of short haul flights. Yet while we should do all these things, the fact is that they really won’t make enough of a difference.

The REAL inconvenient truth about climate change is that our well-meaning individuals are failing to see the heart of the problem: Our political economic structure. Again, the real nemesis is basic way we have organized our economy to completely rely on using our own personal wealth to satiate our every personal desire. What we really need is a new social understanding, new laws, new property relations and modes of production that are less focussed on individual consumption and economic growth. This kind of talk makes stock brokers and their political cronies very nervous. It makes them feel threatened and they start to lash back at the public with corporate tax cuts and investment incentives and the securitization of our state to protect the interests and property of the economic elite. But we as a public have no choice but to call for change, massive revolutionary changes to the political and economic structure of our society. We are already one step closer to this, given our societal understanding of the threat of climate change.

Finally, if I may end with a quick caveat, I use the term "rich Canadians" in an accusatory tone, because, as a white middle-class male with Canadian and American citizenship, I am one of them. As a member of this community I feel it is my responsibility to put forth an argument for change, as WE are the ones who are wreaking havoc on this planet. Let us unite together to stop this nonsense now.


*** I realize that many Canadians from the middle and lower classes don't have air conditioners and can't afford them. So my comment about Canadians "not caring about heat waves because they all have air conditioners" should be read as a sarcastic remark about individualist attitudes of those who only look out for themselves. Ironically, it is the poor in Canada who will be less able to cope with severe weather caused by climate change, rather than the rich folk who contribute the vast majority of emissions.