Justin Trudeau bet the farm on bitumen when he bought the Trans Mountain pipeline. Cutting a treasury cheque for $4.5 billion to the former owner, Kinder Morgan, and facing another $7 billion to complete the pipeline expansion, the Trans Mountain is a 40-60 year proposition for breaking even. Visions of
Continue readingTag: Carbon Bubble
The Disaffected Lib: "Iceberg, Dead Ahead!" Trudeau’s Multi-Billion Dollar Pipeline Blunder.
The J. Trudeau Memorial Pipeline could be transformed into a multi-million dollar blunder, swept away by a bursting carbon bubble. We’ve been warned about the carbon bubble for years, well before prime minister Slick was first elected to Parliament. We’ve been warned by successive governors of the Bank of England
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Faint Hope
These days good news on climate change is hard to find. Yet recent progress by major emitters, specifically China, give hope that the world might just meet the Paris Climate Summit goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius by 2100. Over the past half-century, growth in the global
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: While the Getting’s Good
The Bank of England’s warning is pretty clear – beware the Carbon Bubble. The bank is urging major insurance companies, top tier investors, to divest from fossil fuels, get out while the getting’s good. Insurance companies could suffer a “huge hit” if their investments in fossil fuel companies are rendered
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Is It Time to Nationalize Fossil Fuels?
There are times when governments must intercede to protect their citizens against significant threats and dangers. Fossil fuels present a significant threat and danger to life of all forms around the world. We know if we are to have any reasonable prospect of limiting global warming to no more than
Continue readingAre we gambling our economy on the tar sands?
Depending heavily for jobs, profits and taxes on our most rapidly increasing source of greenhouse gas emissions is environmental folly. It may mean more economic prosperity in the short term, but by contributing to global warming, it will undermine economic prosperity, and a lot else, in the long term. It
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: What’s the risk? Climate activism aiming at supply and demand
One way to think about climate activism is to see if it focuses on the supply of or demand for fossil fuels – pipelines or cars, hydrocarbons or carbon emissions. This distinction is not a new one, is doubtless very simplistic and has often been used to chastise activists. Here,
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Dear President Obama: In Canada climate change affects none of our decisions
Friday, February 21, 2014 When U.S. President Obama met with Prime Minister Harper earlier this week, he highlighted the importance of considering climate change in key energy decisions, like the Keystone XL, but was polite enough not to highlight that Canadian energy decisions do their best to ignore climate change.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: If This is Fact, We Need to Rethink Our Bitumen Policy, Pipelines Included.
Word is coming out of the discovery of a truly massive, shale oil field in Australia that’s expected to produce from 233 upwards to 400-billion barrels of crude oil. That’s crude oil, not bitumen. Even at the lowest range, 233-billion barrels considerably exceeds Canada’s 175-billion barrel petro-reserves, most of which
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Nick Stern’s Carbon Bubble Warning
Nick Stern is the latest voice to warn of the Carbon Bubble that threatens to plunge world markets into yet another financial crisis. The former World Bank chief economist, currently I.G. Patel professor of economics at the London School of Economics, has joined with the Carbon Tracker thinktank to release
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive | News & Analysis: Fossil fuel divestment necessary to avoid “carbon bubble”, says study
By: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives | Press Release: OTTAWA – Canada’s economy is experiencing a “carbon bubble” that could have significant consequences for Canada’s financial markets and pension funds, according to a new study released March 26 by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Between two-thirds and four-fifths of known
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Riding the Petro-Tiger
I don’t think even Sideshow Steve Harper believes the fable of Canada’s energy superpowerdom any more. My guess is that he knows full well that the federal government is riding a tiger and Steve doesn’t want to be the prime minister who has to step off. I suspect bitumen is
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Power of the Carbon Bubble
The Carbon Bubble has arrived. It has finally emerged as a subject for consideration and debate. Hardly a day goes by that there isn’t some discussion of the Carbon Bubble. In case you’re not familiar with it, the Carbon Bubble arises out of the calculation, based on pure physics, of
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