For anyone interested in the tar sands “debate” – and this should include all of us as it is really a debate about our collective energy future – you will want to keep an eye on a new investigative reporting series being produced by The Tyee. Under the general heading
Continue readingTag: energy
Things Are Good: Renewable Energy Boosts Profits for UK Farmers
Farmers in the UK have benefited from complimenting their growing of crops with renewable energy production. Some farmers have installed wind turbines and others solar, but the result is the same: farmers can keep farming and profit from energy production. Renewable energy is promising to overtake rural tourism as a
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: A Green Industrial Revolution
Today the CCPA released a new big picture report by myself and student researcher Amanda Card calling for a Green Industrial Revolution. The report builds on work done for the BC-focused Climate Justice Project, bringing to bear a national analysis of green and not-so-green jobs. We take a close look
Continue readingCanadian Trends: Modern capitalists hate capitalism
You can sum up any current financial news in to a few categories. You’ll either find yourself reading about: A solution proposed by those responsible for the problem that when tried didn’t work. An expensive summit or meeting attended by those responsible for the problem to discuss a solution which won’t work.
Continue readingCanadian Trends: Reality Check
Don’t worry! A solution is coming I just can’t tell you what it is. Energy and economics have much in common, in fact economics is just a system to organize the exchange of energy in the form of trade. Today however I discovered another commonality between the two: analysts of
Continue readingCanadian Trends: This presentation is essential reading in understanding what is to come
(If some of the slides are blank either zoom in one level or fullscreen the presentation) The End Game
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Screw the needy, our money goes elswhere
“…complicit in a complex web of legal, administrative and political strategies designed to forward a multi-billion dollar infrastructure development program to enrich the largest most profitable companies on earth at the expense of our Province’s autonomy, economy and environment…” Does this describe BC’s Liberal government serving the people who elected
Continue readingThings Are Good: Germany Achieves 50% of Power Consumption from Renewable Sources
Germany continues to show the rest of the industrialized world how to be economical successful thanks to sound energy policy. This past week the country achieved a symbolic victory in their campaign to be a more efficient country and had 50% of the energy consumed come from renewable energy sources.
Continue readingPeace, order and good government, eh?: And this is where we juxtapose
Gwyn Morgan in the Globe and Mail a month ago: Germany has given away $130-billion, mostly to solar-power companies. Yet solar power makes up a minuscule 0.3 per cent of German power supply, while doing almost nothing toward the original objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Reported by Reuters yesterday
Continue readingCanadian Trends: Splitting Economic Hairs
Well it looks like you can all relax. It would appear that I had it all wrong. Apparently Canada doesn’t have a debt problem: The agency said a 40 per cent drop in prices or rising interest rates would put pressure on Canadian households, but not have a large impact
Continue readingearthgauge: Fossil fuel subsidies vs renewables: WTF?
Check out this article from the Guardian. We all know that the fossil fuel industries continue to be subsidized but did you have any idea of just how much money the oil, gas and coal industries are receiving from governments the world over? It’s a lot. In fact, the International
Continue readingCanadian Trends: The inevitable result of increased complexity and profit
Chinese fake parts ‘used in U.S. military equipment’ As real profit margins sink and the full effect of peak oil kicks in, these are the sorts of stories there will be an increasing amount of. The only way to maintain the illusion of growth is constant “cost cutting”, and fake
Continue readingThings Are Good: Vermont Says Frack No
Vermont has decided to ban freaking in the state! This follows Quebec’s ban on the ridiculously dangerous way to get oil. This is a big deal,” Gov. Peter Shumlin said Wednesday. “This bill will ensure that we do not inject chemicals into groundwater in a desperate pursuit for energy.” Shumlin
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Freedom Train 2012 Taking Enbridge opposition Canada-wide
Thursday, May 17, 2012 The cross-Canada railway has always been a powerful symbol. Over the years it has been celebrated as a “nation-building” exercise by some, while it is remembered as a source of deep injustice by others. Chinese and Indigenous labourers worked to build the tracks in dangerous conditions
Continue readingearthgauge: New details of Canadian government’s tar sands cheerleading campaign
This article is not new but I felt it was important to mention it given the shocking length to which our federal government is willing to go to lobby on behalf of the tar sands. As you likely know, the European Union has proposed classifying crude produced from Alberta’s tar
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: FreedomWorks Creates Error-Filled Site To Accuse EPA Of "Killing Jobs"
EPA Kills Jobs Facebook Ad.jpg FreedomWorks, the sister organization to the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity (AFP), has launched a new website and advertising campaign to convince American voters that the Obama administration and the EPA are out to destroy American jobs. FreedomWorks has been instrumental in creating the Tea Party in
Continue readingNorthern Insight: $1.28 billion over the next four years
GOVERNMENT ENERGY POLICY AND ELECTRICITY GENERATION COSTS A. Dix: My question is to the Minister of Energy. The government’s energy policy has stripped away B.C. Hydro’s ability to capitalize on the high water flow as we’re experiencing this spring. As a result, our public utilities are being forced, as a
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Vancouver joins local governments opposed to increase in oil pipelines and tankers
Monday, May 14, 2012 West Coast Environmental Law applauds two of Vancouver’s elected bodies – Vancouver City Council and the Vancouver Parks Board – for passing resolutions to take a formal position on the proposed Kinder Morgan oil pipeline expansion project, and associated oil tanker traffic. West Coast Environmental Law,
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Energy McCarthyism
The high-and-mighty virtiol which greeted Tom Mulcair’s comments last week about the downside of oil-powered currency appreciation is lamentable (repeating the over-the-top reaction to Dalton McGuinty’s similar comments a few weeks ago). Mulcair made two modest and empirically substantiated statements: the loonie is sky-high as a result of the oil
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Taxpayers carry financial risks for IPPs
In Kleptocracy: rule by thieves, I repeated news that BC Hydro spent $676 million with private power producers. Through idiocy or corruption, the public utility has been forced to buy electricity it did not and does not need, some of it at prices five times market. Taxpayers’ irrecoverable losses could
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