The first thing I want to say is that any discussion of saving the South March Highlands has to start by acknowledging that, indeed, some of it has been saved and placed in public ownership and that we might not even be discussing saving the rest of it if that
Continue readingTag: environment
Accidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Duncan Cameron points out how the Cons are copying the Republican economics that have led the U.S. to ruin: The Harper Conservatives model their economic policies on beliefs held dear by American Republicans: just lower taxes, and reduce government, and business will create
Continue readingArt Threat: Why is CBC running sexist Volkswagen ads?
A sexist Volkswagen ad speaks to the dangers of North America’s corporate car culture. (Illustration by Coco Riot.) Over recent weeks, viewing news updates at CBC online has become increasingly frustrating, due to a high-rotation, pre-roll spot given to an intensely sexist Volkswagen Canada ad for the 2012 Passat, which
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: Hope As A Gas
What if we could frack for natural gas without polluting the drinking water tables? I don’t think it’s as easy as this article suggests. Your only concern cannot be the material used to cause the fracturing, it has to be the fracturing itself. There are plenty of materials in our
Continue readingthe reeves report: Ontario’s Auditor General slams McGuinty for ‘hasty’ green energy investments
Ontario Auditor General Jim McCarter. Ontario’s Auditor General, Jim McCarter, released his Annual Report to the legislature earlier this morning, and the 460-page document has some troubling findings about the hasty way in which Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty approved green energy investments in his second term. “While this helped these
Continue readingThings Are Good: Help Santa Keep His Home This Christmas
The David Suzuki Foundation has launched a campaign to raise awareness of the lack of ice coverage at the North Pole. Where Will Santa Live? is a fun spin on a serious issue and looks like a good way to talk about ice coverage while keeping the conversation entertaining. “We’re
Continue readingthe reeves report: Environment Minister Peter Kent tells Durban that Canada will not renew Kyoto
An environmental protester at the Durban Conference mocks Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. According to CJOB in Manitoba, Canada’s Environment Minister Peter Kent has informed delegates at the Durban climate talks in South Africa that Canada will not renew its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol that would run from 2013
Continue reading350 or bust: COP17: Politicians, Get Your Head Out Of The Sands And Lead!
Our eyes on the ground of the Durban climate conference, Ani, updates us from Day 6 of COP17. To read more, visit Ani’s blog at YouthDelegateManitoba.wordpress.com: I could spend my time writing this blog about a draft text for the Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention, which has been circulated
Continue readingDude, Where’s Our Climate Policy?
The Durban Climate Conference hasn’t even begun yet and already Canada is getting flack for it’s poor reputation on the environment. What do you expect though from an environment minister who didn’t even know what Ozone was up until a week ago (let’s be fair, he’s only been on the job since
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Ottawa NDP Leadership Debate Thoughts
The debate was good. Exciting even. After several months of being forced to sate my political appetite on the Republican leadership contest, the NDP leadership debate in Ottawa provided a refreshing Canadian contrast. Overall there was far more homogeneity between positions than there was difference. The tone of the debate
Continue readingLeDaro: Harper government gets another “Fossil of the year award”
What can one say? Shame, shame! Our environment minister, Peter Kent, is a joke. Harper should move him to Senate like Mike Duffy. They will make a great pair. Read the story here.
Continue readingThe Happy Wanderer: Canada Moving Years Back!
With The Kyoto deadline at the end of the month Canada is in no way going to reach it’s target of 6% below 1990 levels. In fact in 2008 the only provinces who actually reduced their emissions below 1990 levels is Quebec and PEI. All the other provinces increased. I
Continue reading350 or bust: Tar Nation: Haunting Photos Reveal Rape of Canada’s Boreal Forest
Garth Lenz has spent the last 20 years photographing wilderness and indigenous peoples, focusing particularly on environmental issues, throughout Canada, the U.S., Chile, Ecuador, Borneo, and China. His photos have been published in numerous books, newspapers, and magazines including Time Magazine, B.B.C. Wildlife Magazine, The Guardian, The New York Times
Continue readingeaves.ca: Using Open Data to Map Vancouver’s Trees
This week, in preparation for the International Open Data Hackathon on Saturday, the Vancouver Parks Board shared one neighborhood of its tree inventory database (that I’ve uploaded to Buzzdata) so that we could at least see how it might be leveraged by citizens. What’s interesting is how valuable this data
Continue readingExcited Delirium: You Can’t Nationalize Carbon Costs
It’s stupid to think that a carbon tax would have any benefit for our economy or change habits.
Continue readingImpolitical: Canadians support carbon tax
That’s what a new Environics poll finds, well-timed as a backdrop for the Durban climate change conference: “Support for climate action still strong in Canada, poll finds.” See near the end, 57% of British Columbians support the carbon tax, where they actually have one, which is important. The poll finds
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: On climate, Canada is a rogue state
On Sunday, CTV leaked Canada’s intentions to pull out of the Kyoto treaty process on climate change. What is significant about Kyoto is that it is a legally binding international treaty, and one that puts the onus of emission reductions on the countries that have done the most to cause the
Continue readingGreening Economy Isn’t Just For Us, It’s For All
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization, in a statement made by Director-General Kandeh K. Yumkella today at the agencies biennial conference in Vienna, said something that I’m sure most right wingers will write off as just another attempt to poison business. Mr Yumkella pointed pointed out that talking about the green economy as
Continue readingDo We Need More Proof That Harper Doubts Global Warming?
First we had the cuts to ozone monitoring that saw the shuttering of 17 ozone monitoring stations across Canada. The reason? Ozone apparently wasn’t a concern anymore (see Canada’s newest Ozone hole here). Then we had the sudden (and somewhat expected) cut of 700 jobs from environment Canada (which included Meteorologists, scientists, chemists and
Continue readingThings Are Good: Organic Farming Better Than Factory Farming
There are still a lot of people who think that congenital factory farming is the most efficient way to produce crops, well those people get proven wrong – a lot! The good news is that organic farming is good for the crops, the planet, and the farmer’s profitability. Check it
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