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
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Northern 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
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Chapter from Heller’s Catch-22 ?
A comment that speaks for itself from the article Kleptocracy – rule by thieves: “I installed a 10 kW wind turbine on my Okanagan property 3 years ago, buying into the BC government’s Live Smart/Green program. Imagine my surprise–as an independent power producer–when I was ineligible for the B.C. “incentive”
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Hypocrisy revealed
Federal Conservatives complain that environmental charities use money from outside Canada to campaign for effective regulation of energy industries. Contradicting the rhetoric, CRA records show that environmental groups are not the leading recipients of foreign sourced funding. Tories have been silent about the biggest recipients of alien contributions. However, egregious
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Kleptocracy: rule by thieves
BC Liberals claim to be the “free enterprise” party of British Columbia but scams in play at BC Hydro are not examples of free enterprise. These are old fashion economic frauds committed by amoral thieves who have been enabled and protected by docile and dishonest politicians. There have been a
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: We Must Force the Politicians to Go Post-Carbon
We need to leave the tarsands oil in the ground. We need an increasing carbon tax. We need to stop subsidizing carbon energy producers. We need public money invested in post-carbon energy. We need to do it now. I say all this, as does this NASA physicist: The science of
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Growing discomfort
This week, we learned that Stephen Harper, in Nixonian tradition, is using federal tax authorities to harass political opponents. From The Globe and Mail: “Tides Canada is having its charitable status audited by the Canada Revenue Agency in the midst of an attack by Conservative politicians who have branded it
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: When the Landman is forced to pay legal costs
Thursday, May 10, 2012 In northeastern BC, the “Landman” is a representative of an oil and gas company, who shows up at your door when the company wants to drill an oil or gas well on your property. Unfortunately, you don’t have a lot of say in it. Even the
Continue readingThings Are Good: Empire State Building Gets a Green Overall
The Empire State Building in New York has received a green overall that has cut 20% of the building’s energy consumption and will save the owners a ton of cash. The renovations are part of a $500 million rehab plan for the building. The building’s owners, Malkin Holdings LLC, filed
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Canada’s Oil: For Sale to the Highest Bidder
Want to know why Canada’s currency is sky-high despite our sluggish recovery, our large and persistent current account deficit, and our lousy export performance? Check out this fascinating story in Friday’s National Post, by Yadullah Hussain, on why Canada’s oil reserves are such a uniquely hot commodity in the eyes
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Special treatment for oil industry means poor environmental laws
Thursday, May 3, 2012 The roll-back of Canada’s environmental laws – legal environmental protection that Canadians have worked for decades to put in place – give the oil and gas industry a host of changes that they've been asking for for years. While other industries will benefit, It may be
Continue readingPolitics and Entertainment: J.K. Galbraith: Inequality and Instability
An analysis of the economic and political context prior to the initiation of the should-have-been-expected recession in 2008, in which the global community continues to find itself and will continue to do so for quite some time. A no growth, residual* global economy is the best we can expect until a
Continue readingEnvironmental Law Alert Blog: Who is silenced under Canada’s new environmental assessment act?
Friday, April 27, 2012 With the release of the proposed new Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012, we can say a bit more about the possible impact of changes to environmental assessment on the right of the public to participate in assessments. Our initial analysis of Bill C-38 suggests that there
Continue readingCanadian Trends: The Great Canadian Divide: our road to failure
Canada is divided, perhaps more than the heyday of the Quebec separatist movement. There’s a divide between generations thanks to the budget and there’s a divide between eastern and western Canada and the economic differences and difficulties each is facing. In many ways Canada is itself a mini-Europe; we are
Continue readingCanadian Trends: ‘Ethical Oil’s predecessor died today
Before ‘Ethical Oil’ there was ‘Carbon Capture’. For years CCS technology was the standard response to environmental criticism of oilsands development. Of course it was a flawed public relations strategy as the $2billion price tag tended to steal the spotlight. In a less publicized annoucement today, Alberta’s Pioneer Carbon Capture
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: New Poll: American Voters Very Concerned About Global Warming Pollution, Support Taxing Dirty Energy
global climate change.jpg A new poll released today shows that American voters take global warming pollution very seriously and want to see action from government and the private sector to curb emissions and support clean energy solutions. The new Yale-GMU survey found that 76% of Americans believe that regulating CO2 emissions
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Deconstructing the Wildrose Effect
So what happened in Alberta’s election yesterday, other than people telling pollsters that they want change, then chickening out when it came time to mark an X. The Politics, Re-spun crew deconstructs the Wildrose effect here: Are you surprised that the Wildrose Party did not win? No. Discontent polls well,
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Oil Price-Loonie Transmission Mechanism
The most interesting comments from Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney last week, in releasing the Bank’s semi-annual Monetary Policy Report, dealt with the relationship between the price of oil and the Canadian currency. The Globe and Mail reported Carney as publicly questioning why currency traders automatically presume such a
Continue readingThings Are Good: Japan’s Largest Solar Power Plant: 70MW
Japan is about to build a new solar power plant and it’ll their largest one to date. The country is trying to improve their power grid and make it more sustainable after the nuclear disaster last year. Great to see progress! The new plant, which will be called the Kagoshima
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Independent MLA’s speak out
FORT ST. JOHN – Independent B.C. MLAs Bob Simpson and Vicki Huntington’s visit to the Peace allowed them to see the region’s natural resource face to face, resulting in questions and concerns they plan to bring to the provincial government’s attention. “I raised this issue in the legislature, [and] a
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