I attended the huge Forward on Climate rally in Washington D.C. last week and tomorrow I’ll be playing speeches from the rally by Van Jones of Rebuild the Dream, Bill McKibben of 350.org, Michael Brune, executive director of the U.S. Sierra Club, and Jacquie Thomas of the Saik’uz First Nation
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Eclectic Lip: Steven Chu’s “Time to Fix the Wiring” at four years
Former US Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s recent resignation — his farewell letter is here — is no doubt celebrated in the fuel cell quarters as passionately (or more so) than it is mourned in the rest of cleantech. Early in his term, Chu infamously argued (infamously, at least, to fuel
Continue readingEarthgauge Radio: Keystone XL: Massive Civil Disobedience is Next
Check out my latest article for the Common Sense Canadian on the massive climate change rally last weekend in Washington D.C. Here’s the link: http://thecanadian.org/item/1950-keystone-xl-massive-civil-disobedience-is-next-mark-brooks I am pleased to be acting as an Ottawa correspondent for the excellent online publication The Common Sense Canadian, British Columbia’s premier environmental news journal.
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: Elephant in the room: Hudak continues to flip-flop on power plants
The literal elephant in that picture is from a PC photo op stunt done in Mississauga on September 28th, in an attempt to attack the Liberals over the power plant issue. The bigger elephant though, are the numerous statements made by Hudak and local Mississauga Conservatives in favour of scrapping
Continue readingEarthgauge Radio: Will John Kerry reject Keystone XL?
A very interesting post today by Joe Romm at ThinkProgress.org. Based on the recent comments of the new U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, Romm is speculating that Kerry “shows no sign whatsoever of backing down from the moral urgency that has made him a true climate champion.” Click the
Continue readingEarthgauge Radio: How do you know you live in a petro state?
From Andrew Nikiforuk in today’s Tyee. The full article, called ‘Why can’t Alberta break even?‘, is worth a read. How do you know when you live in petro state? Here are some key signs: When your government pays 30 per cent of its road, education, and hospital bills with finite
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Prosperity Fund ignores coal, oil and climate change
Monday, February 18, 2013 In its Throne Speech (on Monday, February 12th, 2013), the BC government unveiled its promise for a Prosperity Fund – a fund that promises to channel revenues from natural gas exports to a designated fund to benefit future British Columbians. It’s an idea that the environmental
Continue readingThings Are Good: Canada Can Easily Have a Low Carbon Economy
Even though Canada has the tar sands it is still possible for the Canadian economy to lower it’s carbon output. According to some recent research into the matter by The David Suzuki Foundation, Canada can compete better with existing low-carbon economies by focusing on being more environmentally friendly and using
Continue readingEclectic Lip: Our Renewable Future part 1: clearing “myth”conceptions
With Obama talking the talk on climate action in his State of the Union address yesterday, now seems a good time to start compiling a planned set of blog entries about renewable energy. Many many others have done so online already (as evidenced by the fact I’m linking to them!)
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Is Christy Clark Lying to Us About the LNG Tax Windfall?
I don’t know. Do you? No. And, it seems, we won’t be permitted to determine if the BC Liberal government is lying to us about their future vision of rolling in billions in fresh new LNG tax money because the supporting reports won’t be released. So much for accountability and open
Continue readingThings Are Good: LED Street Lights Save Los Angeles Millions
Four years ago Los Angeles decided to change its street lighting to LEDs and the results have come in and the savings are phenomenal. They have converted a little over half of all their street lights and are already saving $5,325,793 annually in lighting costs. It’s worth noting that LEDs
Continue readingThings Are Good: France Wants Lights to be Turned Off
France has passed a law that will make it illegal to keep lights turned on over night in non-residental buildings. Starting in July the lights need to be out an hour after the last employee leaves. This is a great way to save energy while reducing light pollution. The move,
Continue readingEarthgauge Radio: EG Radio January 31 2013: Obama and climate change | Lisa Friedman | Idle No More
Download: earthgauge-podcast-jan31-2013.mp3 This week on Earthgauge Radio, we’re talking about President Obama’s new commitment to climate change, the growing problem of environmental “refugees”, and the environmental dimensions of the Idle No More aboriginal movement. We have 3 interviews on today’s show: Lisa Friedman, Deputy Editor of ClimateWire Stephen Hazell, environmental lawyer
Continue readingEarthgauge Radio: China is burning almost as much coal as the rest of the world combined
Time Magazine published a sobering article recently that provides some idea of the daunting challenge facing activists around the world who are trying to build a movement to confront the worsening problem of climate change. As the chart from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (above) indicates, coal consumption in China is now
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Ontario Phases Out Coal, First in North America to Do So
A decade ago, Ontario fired 25 percent of its grid from coal. Now Canada’s most populous province will phase out its entire coal fleet by the end of the year to become the first jurisdiction in North America to do so. RELATED: Ontario’s Next Premier: Andrea Horwath Ontario New Democrats
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: The case of the tankers and the missing insurance money
Thursday, January 24, 2013 Kinder Morgan’s proposal to expand its oil pipeline from Alberta’s Tarsands to Burnaby will dramatically increase the number of oil tankers passing through the Salish Sea, and increase the likelihood of a spill. But if and when there is a spill, the insurance funds available –
Continue readingEarthgauge Radio: Earthgauge Radio January 24: Richard Heinberg on energy, climate change and the fragile world economy
Download: earthgauge-podcast-jan24-20132.mp3 This week on Earthgauge Radio, we launch a new series in which we will feature leading, influential thinkers who can provide some big picture context to the issues that we discuss on this program such as climate change, energy, economics, ethics, sustainability and development. We will kick off this
Continue readingEarthgauge Radio: Richard Heinberg on Earthgauge Radio this week
This Thursday on Earthgauge Radio, we’ll be featuring a speech by the influential author Richard Heinberg from the Bioneers Conference back in November. Heinberg is a senior Fellow-in-Residence at Post Carbon Institute and is best known as a leading educator on Peak Oil—the point at which we reach maximum global oil production—and the
Continue readingEclectic Lip: Alberta oil selling at 50% discount to world price…
…which explains why the Canadian government is Hell-and-High-Water-bent on building a pipeline, any pipeline, anywhere. First, the stats Over the past few months, new stories have noted that Canada’s oil sector isn’t getting full price for its heavy oil — in large part because American pipelines are well-supplied with newly-flowing
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: A Not-So-Public Hearing
Yesterday I gave my testimony to the Joint Review Panel for the Northern Gateway Pipeline Project. Protesters in Vancouver January 2013 Some might argue it was an exercise in futility because ultimately Bill C-38 gives decision-making power for these projects to Cabinet. Perhaps. Yet yesterday on the fourth floor of
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