Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Dan Gardner draws some parallels between the Cons’ attacks on Europe and the well-worn (and entirely false) Reagan-era “welfare queen” line of spin. But I wonder whether the Cons are making matters somewhat more difficult for themselves by trying to negotiate a free
Continue readingTag: environment
DeSmogBlog: Rio-Inspired Optimism (If Not Optimism About Rio)
Rio de janeiro.jpg If the goal was to get the world focused on sustainable development, then this definitely counts as terrible timing. With global leaders pressured by the unending European debt saga—which most recently has engulfed Spain, the euro zone’s fourth largest economy—it’s not surprising that environmental concerns aren’t exactly at
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: 3 oil spills in the span of 1 month…
Remember when Alberta Premier Alison Redford said, “It is unfortunate when these events happen. We are fortunate in this province that they don’t happen very often, and we can have some confidence that when they do happen, we have plans in place to deal with them.”? They don’t happen very
Continue readingDrive-by Planet: Rio+20: ‘Fossil of the Day’ award for obstructionist Canada
At the Durban Climate Change Conference last year and now at the Earth Summit in Rio, Canada has been handed “Fossil of the Day” awards in recognition of its burgeoning reputation as a global leader in environmental obstructionism – not to mention its active role as trasher of environmental protections.
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: The Red Deer River Oil Spill — Update #10
This is Update #10 of the Red Deer River Oil Spill… Plains Midstream Canada continues to blog its cleanup efforts surrounding the Rangeland Pipeline System failure near Sundre, Alberta. [ Web Updates ] A third boom is now being used on the at Gleniffer Reservoir. [ Article ] If you raise cattle
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: The Red Deer River Oil Spill — Update #9
This is Update #9 of the Red Deer River Oil Spill… Plains Midstream Canada continues to blog its cleanup efforts surrounding the Rangeland Pipeline System failure near Sundre, Alberta. [ Web Updates ] Greenpeace Canada was denied the space to place an ad on a Pattison Outdoor billboard in downtown Edmonton,
Continue readingCanadian Trends: One big idea: Banking Oversight? Please.
Emerging from their resort world leaders have come up with one idea that just might work. Banking Oversight. No seriously, this is what they are spending money coming up with. Click the link, see for yourself. Of course their brand of banking oversight is new. It’s nothing like the banking
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Roy Romanow rightly notes that Canada’s federal government needs to take a lead role in building our public health care system, rather than abandoning the field to the province. – Now that the Cons’ budget has raised the question of whether we
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: What’s Old is Two Faced Again
Made In Canada hypocrisy. There’s nothing more Canadian than the Conservative Party serving up the opposite of what it said it would do earlier. You can set your watch to the opposite of whatever time they tell you it is, so long as you wait a few weeks or a
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: The Red Deer River Oil Spill — Update #8
This is Update #8 of the Red Deer River Oil Spill… Plains Midstream Canada continues to blog its cleanup efforts surrounding the Rangeland Pipeline System failure near Sundre, Alberta. [ Web Updates ] People with homes on Gleniffer Lake say Plains Midstream Canada is still not able to say for sure
Continue readingCanadian Trends: So is "Ethical Oil" still ethical?
We’ve gotten several damning analysis of our real stance on human rights in the last few years. The list grows today with Canada being added to the Human Rights Watch List. Canada will be put in the company of some of the world’s worst abusers of human rights tomorrow when
Continue readingThings Are Good: Australia Creates Largest Network of Marine Parks
Australia has taken a step in the right direction when it comes to protecting their natural environment. The country has announced that they’ll be creating the largest network of protected marine areas in the world. Fishing and drilling for non-renewable resources has been been banned inside the network. The announcement
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Tom Korski nicely captures the essence of the Cons’ omnibus attack on the environment (along with anything that stands in the way of a cheap and dirty buck): C-38 is a gift for oil and gas lobbyists. It repeals 20 years of environmental
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Media Helps Sell The Myth Of “Job Killing Regulations”
unemployment-numbers.jpg Repeat something often enough, and it becomes true. That phrase has been a common theme among think tanks and politicians for decades. And sadly, there is a lot of truth behind that statement. But the claim itself relies on the belief that people will not seek out the truth
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Une artiste qui dérange
Harper government targeted artist for her green conscience, internal documents reveal, Vancouver Observer, June 12, 2012 “Franke James, a Canadian artist and environmental advocate blacklisted by the Harper government, has obtained internal documents indicating Canadian officials worked behind the scenes to discredit her work. “An internal Department of Foreign Affairs
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Nature’s Environment Is Man
Facing an unprecedented environmental crisis a world summit like no other was called. “We have to do something, we can’t let our environment just die.” A member of the Dirt delegation said with the driest of throats. Other representatives of the world’s nature lined the large circular table. Tree’s foreign
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Bruce Johnstone and the Star-Phoenix editorial board both join the voices decrying the Cons’ decision to throw parliamentary democracy under their omnibus budget bill. And Gerald Caplan points out the Harper Cons’ more general tendency to silence dissenting views: (T)here’s little doubt the
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: The Red Deer River Oil Spill — Update #7
This is Update #7 of the Red Deer River Oil Spill… Plains Midstream Canada continues to blog its cleanup efforts surrounding the Rangeland Pipeline System failure near Sundre, Alberta. [ Web Updates ] Red Deer River oil spill cleanup activities were suspended because of heavy rain, high winds and lightning. [ Article
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Cheap and dirty
Yesterday, I columnized about what seemed to be fairly unobjectionable purposes of environmental assessments: The most recent spill into the Red Deer River paired a high-volume pipeline with a pristine area where a tributary feeds into multiple sources of drinking water. And in a proper assessment process, that combination would
Continue reading350 or bust: Happy Planet, Happy People: A Radical Idea Whose Time Has Come
How much happiness do we get for our planet plundering? Is it possible to rethink the status quo at this point in human history, especially considering the alternative? * The Happy Planet Index (HPI) is the leading global measure of sustainable well-being. The HPI measures what matters: the extent to
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