Climate Change

The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects world coal demand to reach 6,350 mtoe in 2040, but it expects the growth rate to drop to 0.5 percent annually, principally because of weaker demand in countries that belong to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

SEATTLE — As the waters of the Pacific warm, methane that was trapped in crystalline form beneath the seabed is being released. And fast.

New modeling suggests that 4 million tons of this potent greenhouse gas have escaped since 1970 from the ocean depths off Washington’s coast.

From deforestation, toxic pollution, to greenhouse gas emissions, there is no doubt that tar sands development has been and will be an immensely destructive force, first for the communities who are already living within its reach, but ultimately, through its impacts on global climate, for the planet as a whole.

We are now officially in arm’s reach of “dangerous” levels of global warming.

United Nations negotiators are meeting this week in Peru to forge a much-anticipated draft agreement to curb global climate change. They’re brimming with optimism after the recent climate agreement between the U.S. and China, which had eluded negotiators for years.

. . .With the little slice of intellectual history as background, let me advance what might sound like a technologically determinist proposition regarding present day forces of energy extraction and production: humanity has perhaps 20 years, maybe less, to move off fossil fuels and onto renewable sources or it will ruin all prospects for a decent future. 

"To actually inspire people to save the climate, there has to be a social justice element. ‘If the transition is not socio-ecological, it will be nothing at all’. Since inequality destroys a sense of collectivism – ‘we’re all in this together’ – the climate fight has to be a radical one."

MONTRÉAL — Two years ago student leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois rose to fame by becoming the face of Quebec’s so-called Maple Spring. He turned the episode that spelled the beginning of the end of premier Jean Charest’s tenure into a book titledTenir tête.

Last week, the book won the Governor General’s 2014 French-language non-fiction prize. On Sunday, Nadeau-Dubois revealed that he was giving his $25,000 prize to a citizens’ coalition devoted to blocking TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline.

“It’s like we’ve forgotten who we are,” the hero of Interstellar complains. “Explorers, pioneers, not caretakers … We’re not meant to save the world. We’re meant to leave it.” It could be the epigraph of our age.

Don’t get me wrong. Interstellar is a magnificent film, true to the richest traditions of science fiction, visually and auditorally astounding. See past the necessary silliness and you will find a moving exploration of parenthood, separation and ageing. It is also a classic exposition of two of the great themes of our age: technological optimism and political defeatism.

In short, so long as we live under capitalism, today, tomorrow, next year and every year thereafter, economic growth will always be the overriding priority till we barrel right off the cliff to collapse..... Given the multiple existential threats to our very survival, you might expect that our leading environmental thinkers and activists would be looking into those "radical" solutions, and especially be thinking "beyond capitalism." Don't hold your breath.

It was a typical northern Ontario day on the shores of Shoal Lake, when I really got it.

I was a month into a photography project to highlight the voices of people along the proposed Energy East pipeline route. I was interviewing Chief Fawn Wapioke of Shoal Lake 39. We had retreated from the mosquitos outside to a couch in the living room.