In one year California was able to increase power output from solar panels installed on roofs from 1,000 MW to over 2,000 MW. This is impressive and hopefully this trend continues in the very sunny and warm state! To put this in perspective, it took California over 30 years to
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Politics, Re-Spun: More Clever Climate Change Awareness Actions!
…Burning oil caused the melting in the first place… A week ago [was it that long?] two climate change activists pulled a Yes Men on our greatest employee, Mr. Stephen Harper. But last summer, you may not have seen an equally clever, but more hi-tech, stunt by Greenpeace’s Save the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Yesterday’s Climate Justice Protest #SpinAlert
Sean Devlin, of ShitHarperDid.ca, had the temerity to interact with our employee, Mr. Stephen Harper. Yesterday, we saw a new level of action against climate destruction policy. In the style of co-conspirator Brigette DePape, two protesters crashed Harper’s contemptuous public appearance. Harper holds the media and the general public of
Continue readingNorthern Insight: War on coastal communities
Christy Clark’s Liberals seem dedicated to punishing residents of BC coastal communities, probably because all ferry dependent communities failed to return Liberal candidates in the last election. A few days ago, BC Ferries announced: “Due to current world fuel market conditions that influence the prices that BC Ferries must pay
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Three New Year’s resolutions for the Earth
Monday, January 6, 2014 The beginning of the year is a good time for planning, setting goals. And with 2014 shaping up to be an important year for environmentally minded Canadians, here, briefly, are our top 3 resolutions for the coming year. The beginning of the year is a good
Continue readingEclectic Lip: December: a podcast premiere
The nice folks at http://www.thisweekinenergy.tv/ (TWiE) invited me to guest on their podcast on their late November episode, Good News, Bad News, Ugly News. While most of their guests are leading experts in their fields, and I’m just a talkative and reasonably-knowledgeable former fuel cell engineer, I heeded Gore Vidal’s
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: A Key Union Priority for 2014
Naomi Klein urges unions to join climate change fight Many groups are calling for significant and sufficient action to address climate change, which is fantastic. But unions have not been loud enough. This is significant because they often have more money than many other progressive groups to fight for the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The Ultimate New Year’s Resolution
It’s mostly us. Many of us have heard of the idea of planning policy to consider effects seven generations downline. We’re pretty smart. It shouldn’t be that hard. But we have many incentives to think short term. Sometimes so short that we are ignorantly and apathetically victimizing our descendants. But
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Enbridge: What Now? We Escalate Our Fight
Some breaking news occurred yesterday, the Joint Review Panel of the National Energy Board approved the Enbridge pipeline, but with 209 conditions. To quote a teenager from 1994: “Big whoop.” Also, big whoop goes out to the awesome pictures of soon to be decimated pristine wilderness on the report cover.
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: West Coast and others pledge to hold the wall of opposition to Enbridge
Wednesday, December 18, 2013 On Thursday, December 5, 2013, members of the Yinka Dene Alliance, a group of six First Nations in northern BC who have banned the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines from their territories, held an anniversary celebration for the Save the Fraser Declaration in Vancouver. The anniversary consisted
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Fried Squirrels
It’s a crisp, foggy November Saturday morning in the south side of the city. Seventeen people sit in the large open area at the back end of an organic fair trade coffee shop run by a workers’ co-op inspired by the Mondragon movement in Spain. Meet-ups like this are quite
Continue readingThings Are Good: In Plant Photosynthesis, Scientists See Clues for Improving Solar Energy Cells
Solar cells optimized to suit local light conditions, or made more efficient by using a broader part of the solar spectrum, are among the imaginative applications foreseen from ground-breaking new insights into plant photosynthesis pioneered in Canada. Indeed new, more fully detailed knowledge of how plants and other living organisms
Continue readingPembina praises Ontario’s new energy plan
The Pembina Institute, one of the country’s leading environmental advocacy organizations, has good things to say about Ontario’s new long-term energy plan. In a press release this week, the Institute praised the province for wisely investing in conservation. According to Tim Weis, Pembina’s director of renewable energy and efficiency policy,
Continue readingThings Are Good: Nifty Looking Glow in the Dark Paths
Saving energy is always a good thing, and sometimes that means turning out the streetlights. As a result, pathways go unlit and this can be problematic for cyclists and pedestrians. Enter a new surface treatment that glows in the dark for free night time illumination known as Starpath. Seeing that
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: In Ottawa, Hundreds Demand Action To “Defend Our Climate”, Communities
More than 150 protesters gathered on Parliament Hill today as part of the Canada-wide “Defend Our Climate, Defend Our Communities” national day of action against climate change and tar sands expansion. The post In Ottawa, Hundreds Demand Action To “Defend Our Climate”, Communities appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Subsidies for some, higher fees for others
Despite claims that natural gas will last almost forever and drop massive wealth into BC’s treasury, I’ve demonstrated here, with numbers taken from finance ministry documents, that natural gas production contributes little to BC’s public treasury through royalties. The amount that might otherwise be payable for current production is reduced
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Should industry frack with our water?
Thursday, November 14, 2013 Hydraulic fracturing – which uses and pollutes a whole lot of water – should be a major discussion point within the public consultations on a new Water Sustainabilty Act (taking place until this Friday, November 15th). BC’s Environment Minister, Mary Polak, has argued that the provincial
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: Why not a McQuaig vs. Mulcair debate on natural resource development?
As I predicted back in September, the Mulcair NDP has wasted no time in demonstrating that the “Love is better than anger” NDP is long gone, as Mulcair candidates in the by-elections (particularly Toronto Centre) have spared no opportunity in launching angry attacks on the third-party Liberals. Mulcair’s candidate in
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: BC is (still) Not for Sale
Thursday, November 7, 2013 Media headlines are trumpeting this week’s agreement between Premiers Christy Clark and Alison Redford regarding tar sands infrastructure in BC. In our opinion, however, this agreement brings the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipeline proposals no closer to reality. Media headlines are trumpeting this week’s agreement between
Continue readingEclectic Lip: The quest for the golden meme
Golden mean image sourced here. It’s been a pretty good month, in terms of writing. Over at GreenCarReports, I had my piece on September EV sales in Canada, a Canadian Thanksgiving-centric story riffing on the country’s nationwide EV charging network, and discussed what our EV drivers do, to get through
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