The anti-environment offensive by Canada’s fossil fuel industry and its flacks in government is radically shifting the political landscape of the country. Each day, it seems, brings some new announcement and outrage being committed against Earth and the humans. More pipelines to be built, and more leaks and cover-ups of existing oil and tar sands facilities that poison the land and water.
Ottawa has turned down the proposed New Prosperity mine in the B.C. Interior, marking the second time the federal government has rejected the project and rebuffing a last-ditch lobbying effort from B.C. to see it go ahead. In a statement Wednesday, federal Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq said she had concluded the mine is likely to cause “significant adverse environmental effects that cannot be mitigated” and that the government had determined those effects “are not justified in the circumstances,” thereby ruling out the project.
Ten million scallops that have died in the waters near Qualicum Beach due to rising ocean acidity are the latest victims in a series of marine die-offs that have plagued the West Coast for a decade. Human-caused carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere are being absorbed by the ocean and may have pushed local waters through a “tipping point” of acidity beyond which shellfish cannot survive, according to Chris Harley, a marine ecologist at the University of B.C. Rising ocean acidity is a global phenomenon, made worse by higher natural acidity in local waters, Harley said.
One glaring problem with the provincial government’s strategy to turn B.C. into a LNG-exporting juggernaut is that it scuttles any chance B.C. has to be a climate-change leader. But equally problematic is how our government’s economically dubious fixation with liquefied natural gas exports jeopardizes our irreplaceable water resources. In Alberta as well as numerous U.S. states where natural gas companies operate, there is a growing public backlash against industry operations.
In a growing shift that is likely to upset many environmentalists about the future of the tar sands, political groups are increasingly signalling their support for the sector if it means Alberta's oil can be refined into gasoline in Canada, rather than for raw bitumen export.
An internationally renowned environmental economist is criticizing the federal government for failing to consider climate change while reviewing pipeline applications, such as Kinder Morgan’s bid to twin the Trans Mountain line. SFU professor and climate change expert Mark Jaccard blasted the government’s absence of consideration for climate change, despite Canada’s promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to help stop the planet’s temperature from rising by two degrees Celsius.
We have known not to expect much from the Green Party's Andrew Weaver in terms of an appropriate political response to the climate crisis based on his very flawed political and economic analysis. As a climate scientist and member of the IPCC, one would expect to see from him principled opposition to all fossil fuel development in light of the catastrophic implications of climate change.
B.C.’s only Green MLA doesn’t think that a new oil refinery on the West Coast is a bad idea. To the contrary, Andrew Weaver is convinced that the brainchild of newspaper publisher David Black makes sense. “Do I think David Black’s proposal has merit? I do. I think it’s being proposed for the right reasons,” Weaver told the Straight in a phone interview.
VANCOUVER - Civil liberties advocates in British Columbia have filed complaints against CSIS and the RCMP over allegations the agencies snooped on opponents of the Northern Gateway pipeline.
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association's complaints allege the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, needlessly monitored First Nations and environmental groups and then passed along information to the National Energy Board and energy companies.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — British Columbia Premier Christy Clark plugged her vision for an economy fuelled by liquefied natural gas during a speech Thursday to California's senate. Clark told senators that exporting LNG, which she described as the cleanest fossil fuel, to Asia would create jobs, investment opportunities and eliminate the debt in her province. She said the LNG industry will be the biggest step B.C. has taken to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and growing its economy responsibly.
