Monthly Archives: November 2013

Activism, Audio, Ecocide ALert, Preventing Ecocide, solutions, Video

Take Action! Join thousands of Canadians in a movement to guarantee the right to a healthy environment

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With a country as beautiful as ours, it’s easy to see why our identity as Canadians is rooted in the landscape that surrounds us. But all of this beauty is under threat, and so is the health of our friends, families and communities.

Did you know Canadians don’t have a right to breathe clean air, drink clean water or eat clean food? Does this sound like your idea of Canada?

We think it’s time to finally make the image of Canada match the reality of Canada. That’s why we’re building a movement to see the right to a healthy environment become a fundamental Canadian right.

That’s what this is all about: creating something that is bigger than all of us so we can protect the one thing that matters most, the health of our communities and our children.

Right now, in hundreds of communities across our country, Canadians are coming together to protect the people and places we love. Will you join us?

Ecocide_Alert

 

 

 

 

You can take action now. Add your name to the list of thousands of Canadians who want to finally guarantee our right to a healthy environment.
Let’s get started.

P.S. CBC’s The Current, renowned environmental lawyer David Boyd introduced the idea of amending our Constitution to guarantee the right to a healthy environment for all Canadians. During his interview he described what this would mean and why we need to act now. Listen to it here.

Ecocide, Ecocide ALert, Politics

US Ranks 43rd in the World on Climate Policy (and Canada is Even Worse)

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by Chris Mooney, reposted from Mother Jones, Nov 20, 2013

North America's climate policy laggards, in 58th and 43rd place, respectively,
North America’s climate policy laggards, in 58th and 43rd place, respectively. SurangaSL/Shutterstock

Recently, there’s been some good news when it comes to US greenhouse gas emissions: They’re actually going down. The bad news, though, is that despite this progress, we still only rank 43rd in the world for the overall effectiveness of our climate policies.
That’s the upshot of a new report by the Climate Action Network Europe and Germanwatch, a public policy think tank with offices in Bonn and Berlin. The two groups release an annual Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) to assess how much individual countries are contributing to the global carbon problem, and how much they’re trying to do about it. The rankings include the globe’s 58 leading countries for greenhouse gas emissions—countries that, together, account for 90 percent of the globe’s carbon emissions from fossil energy use. Each country is assessed based its emissions trends, its energy efficiency, its progress on renewable energy, and its overall climate policies.

The US ranked 43rd last year and ranks 43rd this year as well, right between New Zealand and Croatia. We get particularly good marks for our 8-percent decrease in carbon emissions from energy sources in the last half decade, but we still fall well short of a stance that could be considered truly progressive or proactive on climate and energy. Still, if we want to gloat then it’s easy to compare ourselves to our northern neighbor, Canada, which was “the worst performer of all industrialised countries” and only fared better than Iran, Kazakhstan, and Saudi Arabia. (For more on Canada’s recent dismal climate performance see here.)

Here are the Climate Change Performance Index rankings for the top ten biggest emitters (most of which have declined in rank since last year):

CCPI ranking and data for the ten largest greenhouse gas emitting countries.

CCPI ranking and data for the ten largest greenhouse gas emitting countries. CAN Europe/Germanwatch

Based on the new report, here are some other surprising and intriguing facts about the nations of the world and how they’re performing in the uphill battle to save the globe from humans and their energy habits: MORE

 

Ecocide, Politics, Preventing Ecocide, Uncategorized

The Exclusion of Our Children and the Corporate Promotion of Ecocide

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Looking_for_a_solutionby Ron Hart

Corporations have no inherent need to protect our children, protect life, prevent ecocide, or support future humanity. The corporation’s sole legal interest is in maximizing shareholder profits.

In a remarkable 50,000-word statement, Pope Francis, protests that this political and economic system is not life-affirming; it is inherently sinful because it violates the biblical prohibition against killing.

“In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenceless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule. Such an economy kills… How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.”

The Pope observes that human beings are used and discarded as mere consumer goods in our throw-away culture. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new:

“Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the ‘exploited’ but the outcast, the ‘leftovers.’”

Among the leftovers in Canada are our children.

John McMurtry, the author of The Cancer Stage of Capitalism writes,

“…we are apt to overlook the direct corporate invasion of the minds and bodies of children. As elsewhere, “giving them what they want” is the justification. And all the buttons are pushed to hook the young to addictive corporate products—child and adolescent fear of being left out, addictive desires for more sugar, salt and fat, primeval fascination with images of violence and destruction, craving for attention in stereotype forms, inertial boredom with no life function, the loss of social play areas by the great defunding, restless compulsion to distraction, and black-hole ego doubts. All the enticements to addictive and unhealthy products form a common pattern of child abuse, and it is far more life-disabling than any in the past. Beneath detection a pathogenic epidemic grows.”

In a world where 1.4 billion people live on $1.25 a day or less, 22,000 children die each day due to conditions of poverty.

A lack of social spending in Canada has resulted in more than one in seven children live in poverty. At 15.1 per cent, Canada’s child poverty rate is over four percentage points higher than the 17-country average of peer countries. Moreover, the rate in Canada is climbing dramatically, not declining.

In 2012, 38% of food bank users were children under the age of 18 (although they make up only 21% of the population). Aboriginal children who make up only 4% of the population, represented 11% of food bank users.

Corporate driven trade deals have hollowed out the Canadian economy and accelerated to race to the bottom. Canadian youth are being excluded from society.

Accumulated federal student-loan debt in Canada is now $15-billion and this doesn’t include an estimated $8-billion in obligations on lines of credit, credit cards, or provincial loan programs. Only one in two youth hold down a paying job; Toronto’s employed youth is 43.5%

While Canadian environmentalists have been warning that develop of the tar sands ecocide is a corporate an attack on future generations, the corporate threat on our children is here and now.

A free market “does not inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness. Corporatism results inevitably in Ecocide-an attack on life. In Canada, we have to start demanding the regulation of corporations. We need to quickly pass The Ecocide Act.

RELATED:

Pope Francis: Liberals love his ‘trickle-down’ takedown

 

Ecocide, Politics

Why Climate Pariahs Like Australia and Canada Matter

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Their alliance emerging from Warsaw is eroding global action, insider argues.

By Geoff Dembicki, reposted from TheTyee.ca, Nov 28, 2013

PMs Stephen Harper and Tony Abbott
Canadian PM Stephen Harper and Australian PM Tony Abbott share a penchant for climate ‘fossil’ awards, distaste for carbon taxing, shirts. Photo: Government of Canada.

Another year, another climate conference. Another round of name-calling, blame-pinning and hand-wringing. Another set of vaguely worded commitments. Another pledge to do better the next time around.

In case you missed them, two weeks of international climate talks in Warsaw wrapped up last week. And yes, there was little on the surface to distinguish their “blurry” outcome, in the words of Politico, from the negotiations of the year before, or the year before that, or the year…

But Warsaw also signalled a power shift with global implications, caused by an emerging alliance between two middle-power countries skeptical of the entire negotiation process: Canada and Australia. The alliance pushed the talks in a less constructive direction. It may even affect humankind’s chances of reaching an effective climate treaty two years from now, in Paris. Or so argues Erwin Jackson, of Australia’s Climate Institute, who’s worked on global warming for over 20 years.

“One of the reasons… why Warsaw was so difficult was that you saw Australia lining up more with Canada in terms of its domestic policies and also in the posture it was taking,” Jackson told The Tyee. The outcome at such talks is ultimately decided by the U.S., China and other major powers. But to push the negotiations in a positive direction, he said, “you need middle-power countries [like Canada and Australia] to come up with constructive proposals.” And in Warsaw we saw the exact opposite. MORE

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7 climate change offenders in Warsaw

Politics, Preventing Ecocide

Off-shore wind law suit against Ontario will proceed

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by MEREDITH JAMES, reposted from Environmental Law and Litigation, Nov 26, 2013

Trillium Power Wind Corporation’s planned off-shore wind farm in Lake Ontario was effectively cancelled by the provincial moratorium on off-shore wind development, openly adopted for political reasons. Trillium sued the Province for $2.25 billion in costs thrown away and loss of profit, under numerous causes of action. As we wrote earlier, the law suit was thrown out when the Province obtained a Rule 21 judgment, striking out the claim as disclosing no reasonable cause of action. Trillium appealed, and can now proceed to trial on the basis of one of its causes of action: misfeasance by the provincial government in public office.

In a decision released on November 12, the Court of Appeal continued to dismiss most of Trillium’s claims. It was “plain and obvious, and beyond all reasonable doubt, that the appellant could not succeed in its claims for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, taking without compensation, negligent misrepresentation and negligence, and intentional infliction of economic harm.”

However, it found that the claim for misfeasance in public office should be allowed to proceed “but only on the narrower basis that Ontario’s conduct was specifically targeted to injure Trillium.” Trillium’s claim, as summarized by the Court (at para. 36):

As we read the statement of claim, the essence of Trillium’s complaint in support of the misfeasance in public office claim is two-fold. Trillium asserts that the Premier, his Ministers named above, and their staff acted in bad faith:

a) for purely political motives of electoral expediency in order to win more seats in the upcoming election, when they knew that their actions would harm Trillium; and,

b) in a way that specifically targeted Trillium by cancelling Ontario’s wind power projects in order to undercut Trillium’s pending financing and thereby place Trillium in a position where it would not have the resources to litigate against Ontario.

Trillium argued that these allegations fell within the Imperial Tobaccoqualification that a governmental decision is immune from suit, unless it is “taken in bad faith”. The Court of Appeal agreed in part (see paras. 42, 54-57):

We would set aside the dismissal of the claim for misfeasance in public office, but we would permit the action for misfeasance to continue based only upon the allegation that the Government’s decision to suspend or cancel the province’s wind power program was specifically targeted at Trillium in order to injure it by crippling its financial capacity. We would not permit it to continue in conjunction with what we would call the “political/electoral expediency” allegations.

…

[I]t is not “inconsistent with the obligations of office” for the Premier and his or her Ministers to respond to public pressure, even where that response is designed to shore up the government’s electoral base and win more seats in an election. Ministerial policy decisions made on the basis of “political expediency” are part and parcel of the policymaking process and, without more, there is nothing unlawful or in the nature of “bad faith” about a government taking into account public response to a policy matter and reacting accordingly. That is what governments do, in pursuit of their political and partisan goals in a democratic society. See Comeau’s Sea Foods Ltd. v. Canada (Minister of Fisheries & Oceans), [1997] 1 S.C.R. 12;Ontario Federation of Anglers & Hunters v. Ontario (Minister of Natural Resources), [2002] O.J. No. 1445 (C.A.); Equity Waste Management of Canada v. Halton Hills (Town) (1997), 35 O.R. (3d) 321 (C.A.).

Accordingly, it is only to the extent that Ontario’s decision was not made for political purposes, but was made with the specific intention of injuring the plaintiff, that the decision is subject to attack in tort. Political motivation for the decision may or may not become relevant – should Ontario choose to raise it by way of defence, for example – in determining what was, in fact, the real motivation for the decision. But the “political/electoral expediency” aspects of such a decision cannot, standing alone, provide a basis for a claim in tort for misfeasance in public office. Therefore, they are not properly a part of the allegations in the statement of claim in this case.[1]

It follows that Trillium should be entitled to proceed based on the allegations that the Government’s actions were specifically meant to injure the appellant. The appellant asserts that the Government’s actions were targeted to stop Trillium’s offshore wind project before Trillium’s financing was in place in order to deprive Trillium of the resources to contest the Government’s decision to cancel the wind projects in Ontario. Paragraphs 54 and 61 of the statement of claim (except for the reference to “confiscation”) are examples of this plea.

It cannot be said, at this stage of the proceedings, that it is “plain and obvious” that those allegations will not succeed at trial.

Trillium announced that it intends proceed with its $2.25 billion claim.

SOURCE

Activism, Politics, Preventing Ecocide

Increasing dependence on volatile resources creates risks

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by Sarah Dobson, Economist, Oilsands, reposted from the Pembina Institute, Nov 18, 2013

Sarah DobsonAny reader of this newspaper — or any consumer of Canadian business news, period — will be very familiar with the upside of oilsands development. We’ve all read about the tens of thousands of jobs, the billions of dollars in investments, and the taxes and royalties our governments depend on. To hear some tell it, the development around Fort McMurray saved us from recession and will make us a global energy superpower.

No one can deny that oilsands development has brought significant economic benefit. But increased dependence on a volatile natural resource sector carries some risks to Canada as well.

In a report published this month in partnership with Equiterre, a Quebec-based environmental organization, we explored some of the economic risks linked to rapid and growing oilsands development.

For example, resources have proven to be a particularly volatile source of revenues for Alberta’s government. Over the past 10 years, according to the C.D. Howe Institute, the volatility of Alberta’s government revenues was twice that of B.C., Saskatchewan or Ontario. Budget 2013 in Alberta provided a perfect illustration of this phenomenon: despite record levels of bitumen production, the province rolled out an austerity budget due to a $6.2 billion overestimate of the resource revenues it would collect.

 

In a country that is prone to regional tensions, the uneven distribution of oilsands benefits also carries some risk. A study by the Canadian Energy Research Institute suggests that Alberta will realize 94 per cent of the GDP benefit of oilsands development, and retain 86 per cent of the jobs associated with oilsands investments and operations. The same analysis suggests that the United States will enjoy twice the benefits that Canadians outside of Alberta will see.

The equalization system and labour mobility add some complexity to the question of the geographical distribution of oilsands benefits. But with governments in B.C., and now in Ontario and Quebec as well, raising questions about the risks and rewards of potential oilsands pipelines crossing their jurisdictions, the concentration of oilsands benefits in Alberta is already a bit of a political football. If production grows as rapidly as the industry envisions, those tensions will almost certainly become more acute.

Some of the same regional considerations come to the fore in discussions of the impact our strong loonie has on Canada’s manufacturers. While there is healthy debate about the causes and strength of the effect, it’s clear that our currency tracks commodity prices closely. It’s also indisputable that a higher dollar creates one more hurdle for Canada’s manufacturing sector — a sector more concentrated in some regions than others — at a time when it’s already facing challenges.

Perhaps most significant of all, our report examined the risk to oilsands expansion plans — and the economic benefits expected to accompany that development — associated with tackling climate change. If the world takes action to avoid dangerous global warming, demand for fossil fuels will fall from today’s levels. For example, the International Energy Agency’s analysis shows that in a scenario where the world’s governments cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to 2°C (the threshold governments have deemed to be “dangerous” climate change) global demand for oil peaks in 2020.

When you’re thinking about building a new oilsands facility, 2020 is just around the corner. Not surprisingly, oilsands production grows far more slowly in the IEA’s low-carbon forecast than in the ones published by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

We’re getting a preview of the impact of climate policies on oilsands development today thanks to the European Union’s proposed fuel quality directive, which seeks to reduce the carbon footprint of the fuels burned in the EU. Concerned about its impact on future market demand for oilsands, the federal and Alberta governments have lobbied hard against this measure.

If stronger climate policies and lower oil demand are the way of the future — and given the risks posed by global warming, we have to hope that they are — then going all-in on the oilsands becomes a risky bet for Canada.

We believe the goal that matters in resource development is optimizing long-term benefits for Albertans and Canadians, while managing that development in a manner that protects the environment.

A stronger emphasis on clean energy would bolster Canada’s resilience, providing a foundation that lets us prosper in a low-carbon future just as we do in today’s high-carbon economy. Thus, our report recommends that governments adopt effective policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to their environmental benefits, these policies would spur clean energy development in Canada, thus reducing the risks to our economy if the world’s demand for oil falls in the years ahead.

To better manage the risks posed by rapid oilsands development, we also recommended that our governments save more of the wealth that our one-time resources generate and consider the full economic picture — costs as well as benefits — when making decisions about new oilsands projects.

The ribbon that ties all our recommendations together is a desire for decision makers to take a longer-term perspective about both the upsides and downsides of oilsands development on Canada. We don’t believe it is controversial to ask to look at both sides of the ledger.

Unfortunately, Alberta’s government chose to dismiss our analysis when it was released last week. According to Energy Minister Ken Hughes, “to argue that the benefits are not distributed across the country I think is naive, ill-informed and does not reflect the facts.”

Maybe it is naïve to believe we can have a comprehensive conversation in Canada about our energy future. Or to hope that our politicians will rise to the challenge that climate change poses to all of us.

Still, we believe the goal that matters in resource development is optimizing long-term benefits for Albertans and Canadians, while managing that development in a manner that protects the environment. The simple conclusion of our analysis is the maximum pace of development in the oilsands is unlikely to correspond to that optimal benefit, nor does it represent the minimum level of risk. And we think that’s a discussion worth having.

Sarah Dobson is a resource economist with the Pembina Institute, a national non-partisan clean energy think-tank, and lead author of the report Booms, busts and bitumen: the economic implications of Canadian oilsands development.

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Ecocide ALert, Preventing Ecocide, Remediation and Restitution

Pembina Institute: Let’s make oilsands development responsible

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Tailings lakes currently cover 176 square kilometres of Northern Alberta (1.5 times the size of Vancouver) and are expected to continue growing as new mines are developed.

by Jennifer Grant, Oilsands Director, reposted from the Pembina Institute, Nov 27, 2013

Jennifer Grant

The federal government is spending two years and $24 million in taxpayer dollars on an ad campaign to cast the oilsands industry as a world leader in “responsible resource development.” It’s a storyline echoed by oilsands proponents, who assert — as Margaret Wente did earlier this week — that oilsands production is governed by “some of the most stringent environmental regulations on the planet.”

Even if that were true — and unfortunately, it’s not — regulations can only save the day if they are enforced. Take a closer look at environmental management in the oilsands, and you’ll find too many cases where existing regulations are brushed off by oilsands operators, government agencies, or both.

Consider the management of tailings waste, a byproduct of oilsands mining. Tailings lakes currently cover 176 square kilometres of Northern Alberta (1.5 times the size of Vancouver) and are expected to continue growing as new mines are developed.

Recognizing this growing problem, in 2009 the government of Alberta introduced new requirements for cleaning up this toxic waste. It was a necessary and positive step, and an opportunity to show critics that the province was serious about improving environmental performance in the oilsands.

But since then, not a single oilsands company has met those provincial requirements — and the government backed down, saying it “does not believe that it would be appropriate to enforce compliance measures at this time.”

So even when rules exist, there is no guarantee they will be enforced.

This approach doesn’t just apply to tailings; a recent independent study found that Alberta enforces fewer than one per cent of potential environmental infractions committed by oilsands companies.

Alberta’s long-awaited wetlands policy is another example. Released this summer after seven years in the making, the policy exempts 195 oilsands projects from having to comply with the provincial rules. The Alberta government apparently felt it would be “onerous” and costly to ask companies to meet the new standards, despite an anticipated seven cents-a-barrel price tag. In a region dominated by wetlands — which are notoriously difficult, if not impossible, to reclaim once damaged — exempting oilsands companies from meeting laws designed to protect this fragile ecosystem seems completely counterintuitive.

Then there are the cases where no rules exist.

Denying these challenges, delaying regulation, and cutting industry slack in meeting existing rules isn’t helping sell the world on the responsible development story.

According to Environment Canada’s latest data, oilsands emissions are projected to triple between 2005 and 2020, in the process wiping out all emission reductions expected from other sectors. This growth in oilsands emissions is the biggest barrier to meeting Canada’s international climate commitments — not to mention earning the social licence needed to get oilsands to market.

Yet Ottawa continues to put off releasing regulations that would address this issue. After two years of closed-door negotiations with the industry and Alberta, the federal government has yet to publish even the outlines of a proposal to curb emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector.

So where does this leave us?

The challenges associated with improving environmental performance in the oilsands are significant, ranging from climate impacts to air quality issues, serious groundwater risks, dwindling caribou herds, First Nations legal challenges andfailed regulatory processes.

Denying these challenges, delaying regulation, and cutting industry slack in meeting existing rules isn’t helping sell the world on the responsible development story.

Canada needs an oilsands debate that moves beyond who is ideologically for or against the industry, to one that takes a good hard look at the impacts of production today, and considers how much production may be too much.

Making responsible development a reality requires acknowledging where existing policies and practices are falling short, and embracing solutions. Enforcing existing rules and putting in place new ones that effectively raise the bar for environmental leadership seems a reasonable place to start. SOURCE

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