Karen Mahon was interviewed on The Current (Friday September 30, 2016 ) and was very critical of the LNG pipeline approval:

Environmentalist Karen Mahon tells The Current's Friday host Laura Lynch she's disappointed in the Liberals' LNG decision because this sends the wrong message to the rest of the world.

"We have alternatives...

Read more

The third essay in a series by Bill Henderson

This third essay on my new metaphor for effectively treating climate change is about climate change being potentially fatal for all we know and love, potentially fatal for civilization as we know it, maybe even for humanity itself. Do we need to consider a major disruption in our society and economy for effective treatment of what could be a fatal disease?

Cancer, without...

Read more

The second in a series by Bill Henderson

Stop supporting fake mitigation. Let’s remove the Golden Straitjacket and start the regulated fossil-fuel wind-down.

I watch foreign tourists in awe on the ferry and see it through their eyes. Our country works. Hey, not perfectly… the ferry is almost always a little late because of the volumes; the bus is often crowded. I have been stuck on the Lions Gate bridge behind an accident (people were kind, considerate). If you escape...

Read more

The first in a series by Bill Henderson

An open letter to Pam Goldsmith-Jones, MP

Hello again Ms. Goldsmith-Jones,

At a climate meeting you arranged at Gibsons Yacht Club before the election I said I thought you were in what Kari Norgaard describes as implicatory denial: climate change itself is not denied but "the psychological, political and moral imperatives that conventionally follow". And then...

Read more

The Liberal climate-change scheme is sly politics but on its own, won’t do much.

Justin Trudeau has abandoned the illusion that logic alone will persuade all provinces to get onside with fighting climate change. That’s the upside of his pledge to have Ottawa impose a national carbon price.

The downside is that the price he set is too low to be effective.

In announcing Ottawa’s unilateral decision on Monday, Trudeau signalled that, on the climate change file at least, his quixotic attempts to achieve federal-provincial...

Read more

Global warming is the most significant environmental issue of our time, yet public response in Western nations has been meager. Why have so few taken any action?

In "Living in Denial," sociologist Kari Norgaard searches for answers to this question, drawing on interviews and ethnographic data from her study of "Bygdaby," the fictional name of an actual rural community in western Norway, during the unusually warm winter of 2000-2001.

In 2000-2001 the first snowfall came to Bygdaby two months later than usual; ice fishing was impossible; and the ski industry had to invest...

Read more

An Ontario court has dismissed a set of appeals from four families which sought to have provincial legislation related to the approvals of large-scale wind farms declared unconstitutional.

In a decision released on Monday, a panel of three Divisional Court judges ruled against the claims of the families who were concerned about the potential health effects of living as close as 500 metres to the turbines.

Read more

Global impact

Climate change has a lot of effects that will hurt you and your family and friends. It is not something that affects people in developing countries such as Bangladesh although they will be seriously affected and many will have to leave their homes and even country. There will be many climate refugees.

Health effects

Heat stroke, severe smog, tropical diseases such as malaria moving northward, will threaten the lives and health of children, the elderly, and those with allergies, and asthma.

Weather and insurance

Storms are expected to...

Read more

OTTAWA — Canada’s annual heat-trapping greenhouse gases continue to level off or decline in most sectors of the economy, outside of Alberta’s oilpatch, says the latest annual inventory report submitted by the Harper government to the United Nations.

The submission, which covers annual emissions across the Canadian economy from 2011, revealed a 0.14 per cent increase in emissions to about 702 million tonnes. But the levels remain about five per cent below 2005 levels, due to structural changes in the Canadian economy that is moving from producing goods to...

Read more

Climate change skeptics, from the ultra-conservative think tanks to oil company executives, have spent years attacking climate change scientists and politicians who dared to believe that man-made carbon-dioxide emissions were accelerating global warming. The scientists were pilloried if they got the slightest thing wrong. Guess what? The scientists did get one huge thing wrong – they vastly underestimated the rate of the Arctic ice melt.

The economic effects are still largely unknown, but evidence is building that it will not be sweet. Makes you wonder why so much energy and...

Read more

Others have eloquently addressed the environmental damage that will be caused by continued extraction from the tar sands. I will not repeat them here, although I believe they are very serious. However, the effects of most of these issues are limited geographically and demographically, whereas the other consequence -- climate change -- is global. I submit the comments that follow to explain why I believe the approval of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline would increase Canada’s already excessive contribution to global climate change.

Canadian Interfaith...

Read more

GERALD CAPLAN Published Friday, Aug. 10, 2012
 

I don't know about you but I can no longer read reports, books or news stories about the devastation being wrought by global warming. How can it help me to learn even more about the apparent apocalypse that has begun to blight my granddaughter's future when those with the power to tackle the crisis refuse to do so? It's an Alice-in-Wonderland world where mighty multi-national corporations and the politicians who represent them neither see nor hear the evidence that civilization as we know it is under siege - from us.

...

Read more

From Greenpeace's 2009 report "HFCs: A growing threat to the climate" (PDF)

As governments grapple with the urgent task of drastically cutting greenhouse gas emissions to avert dangerous climate change, there is a group of little-known but very powerful greenhouse gases which, if left unchecked, could hinder all of our efforts to tackle the issue.
We use these chemicals in our everyday lives for...
Read more

In a just published paper, Andrew Weaver and Neil Swart emphasize the damage that coal (and unconventional gas) contribute to climate change (in addition to other environmental damage such as destruction of Boreal forest, mountain-top removal.)

They estimated the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from the Alberta tar sands. Here are some selected quotes from the  Commentary (emphasis mine):

"If the entire Alberta oil-sand resource (that is, oil-in-place) were to be used, the associated carbon dioxide emissions would induce a...

Read more

All I can see is smouldering ruins and children crying and a few adults wandering around in a daze.

I went up to a young girl, about ten years old I guess.  "What happened?"

Between sobs, she told me her story.

"Daddy was making fish and chips for dinner. The phone rang and he answered it. He forgot about the hot fat on the stove and it caught fire. He ran to the stove and tried to put out the fire but the cupboard beside the stove was burning. He called 911.

“Five firemen with their chief arrived...

Read more

According to a recent newsletter from Bill McKibben:

"A series of newspaper accounts and email leaks have made it clear that the pipeline is as filthy politically as it is environmentally. In particular: the State Department environmental review was rigged.

"Transcanada was allowed to suggest a list of companies to conduct the review, and the state department helpfully selected the number one choice on their list, a firm called Cardno-Entrix...

Read more