April 13, 2016 - When Rachel Notley's NDP came to power last spring in Alberta, Gordon Laxer's book, After the Sands: Energy and Ecological Security for Canadians, on ecological renewal and Canadian petro-politics was already at the publisher. And so, he was given a week to do some major rewriting because he had not foreseen this political earthquake in the making.
That silly Leap Manifesto -- giving itself away right in the subtitle, which calls for "a Canada based on caring for the Earth and one another." No wonder it provoked fury and outrage.
Canada's big banks are cutting credit lines of struggling energy companies, heaping more financial strain on an industry battered by the collapse in oil prices.
Bank of Nova Scotia, Royal Bank of Canada and National Bank of Canada are among those reducing credit lines as the lenders complete their semi-annual review of borrowing limits in the hard-hit energy sector.
China is the low-carbon superpower and will be the ultimate enforcer of the COP21 climate deal in Paris.
Chinese scientists have published two alarming reports in a matter of weeks. Both conclude that the Himalayan glaciers and the Tibetan permafrost are succumbing to catastrophic climate change, threatening the water systems of the Yellow River, the Yangtze and the Mekong.
The story has an air of inevitability. A rise in online communication has led to a inexorable decline of mail. Our local post offices, squeezed by the digital era, will soon be quaint outposts of a bygone era. What’s left to do but end door-to-door mail delivery, lay off postal workers, and hand over what remains to private companies?
[Webpage: Note that this artticle refers to new investment.]
Wind and solar have grown seemingly unstoppable.
While two years of crashing prices for oil, natural gas, and coal triggered dramatic downsizing in those industries, renewables have been thriving. Clean energy investment broke new records in 2015 and is now seeing twice as much global funding as fossil fuels.
I was there the day it was sworn in, when thousands of people filled the legislative grounds. I was there when the first cabinet with full gender parity in Alberta’s history was sworn in. I cheered when - after years of an unfair tax system creating unequal burdens – the government raised corporate taxes. I cheered again when your government helped get the money out of politics.
