Obama's Security Chief From Big Oil?

Which way will Obama go on energy policy? Many of us are anxious to see whether Bush’s replacement will bring real change to one of the most important files on the presidential desk.

Now comes news that Obama will name retired General James Jones to be his National Security Adviser.

This is not good news.

Jones is currently a director of Chevron Oil. He also heads of the Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy - a group lobbying on energy issues in DC and described by the Grist as “part of the Republican machine, dominated by -- and lobbying fiercely for the interests of -- Big Oil, Big Auto, Big Pharma, and other such Bigs.”

As their president, Jones has made a number of troubling blog postings calling for the repeal of restrictions of off-shore drilling, scaled up oil sands development, coal extraction, coal-to-liquids, nuclear energy, and waiving various environmental protections.

When he is National Security Adviser to Obama, Jones will be in a powerful position to make these environmental roll-backs happen.

Have a look at this recent post General Jones made on the importance of scaling up production of dirty oil from the Alberta tar sands:

“We must continue to invest jointly in the technologies that will allow us to use oil sands and oil shale in an environmentally responsible way. It is estimated that by 2030, production from Canadian oil sands will reach 3.6 million barrels a day. This represents a promising new source of energy at a time when many existing oil fields are in decline. An important step for the United States to take is the repeal of Section 526 of the Energy Independence and Security Act, which prevents the federal government from utilizing non-traditional fuel sources, such as oil shale, for its vehicles and aircrafts.”

General Jones goes on to tout the virtues of carbon capture and storage as a way to have our oily cake and eat it too:

“We must work together to increase investments in carbon capture and sequestration technologies to ensure its viability for harnessing the coal and oil sands that our countries have in abundance. Technologies such as carbon capture and sequestration offer the potential to meet energy demands while promoting environmental stewardship.”

This sunny evaluation is spite of a secret Alberta government memo showing that decision makers have known since at least the spring of 2008 that carbon capture at the tar sands on a meaningful scale remains impossible. This of course has not stopped politicians from telling the public exactly the opposite.

General Jones also holds forth on the a series of other issues that will be music to the ears of the oil, nuke and coal industries:

- Permanently end the moratorium on exploration and production of America’s oil and natural gas resources.

- Expand the federal Loan Guarantee Program to increase the construction of emission-free nuclear power plants.

- Increase federal investments in clean coal technology to $20 billion over ten years, with half coming from the federal government and half from the private sector through a small fee on fossil-based utilities.

Will Obama will bring “real change” to DC? We'll be watching closely.

DSCOVR Article in Nature

I was contacted this month by Nature – the most prestigious science journal in the world – about my latest posting on the Deep Space Climate Observatory.

It seems their editors were interested in the news I broke that the Air Force was considering launching this $100 million mothballed spacecraft – minus the Earth observing instruments.

Last week they published an 800 word article based on information I provided to them about this bizarre story.

Alas, my extensive research on the DSCOVR mission was not mentioned in the Nature article, but such is the lot of a blogger.

More importantly, the exposure provided by this piece in one of the premier journals in the world will hopefully light a fire under NASA to not to kill this vital mission.

According to Nature, NASA “is now in talks with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US Air Force about finally getting the probe off the ground. But the negotiations might mean that the spacecraft loses its Earth-observing instruments and instead goes into orbit with a remit to stare only at the Sun. An Earth-observing satellite that can see the whole planet is described as 'crucial' to climate research."

Lead researchers pull no punches when asked about the idiotic idea of blinding the spacecraft by removing the Earth observing instruments prior to launch.

“Stripping the two Earth-monitoring systems from DSCOVR to save money is an "appalling" idea, says Francisco Valero, the mission's principal investigator at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California.”

The piece goes on to describe the unique perspective that DSCOVR would provide researchers studying climate change.

“Satellites in low-Earth orbit make similar energy measurements but can observe only small sections of Earth at a time. DSCOVR would offer a "global, rather than myopic, perspective of the planet", Valero says. One of its Earth-monitoring instruments, a spectroradiometer, would indirectly measure variables such as ozone levels, aerosols, cloud thickness and water vapour. The other, a radiometer, would measure reflected and emitted radiation for the whole planet.”

However the clock is ticking on saving this mission from powerful people that want to destroy the spacecraft. Many scientists are starting to publicly voice their support for this critical mission and the data it would provide from vantage of Lagrangian point L1, one million miles away.

"In March 2008, the Ernst Strüngmann Foundation in Frankfurt, Germany, held an invitation-only forum for 44 top climate scientists. Many participants, none of whom was directly involved with DSCOVR, agreed that satellite observations of Earth from L-1 are essential for assessing changes in cloud cover and climate.”

I will continue to rake up more muck on this incredible story, and it seems like we are getting somewhere. My last posting on DSCOVR at Desmog Blog.com was read 32,000 times.

Putting Global Warming Laggards on Trial

Ballsy.

That is perhaps best word to describe a class action lawsuit filed this week in the International Criminal Court in The Hague in Holland against national governments refusing to act on reducing carbon emissions.

The suit was filed by climate activist Danny Bloom who is asking for "US$1 billion dollars in damages on behalf of future generations of human beings on Earth - if there are any"

No Joke

The lawsuit is specifically seeking damages from "all world leaders for intent to commit manslaughter against future generations of human beings by allowing murderous amounts of fossil fuels to be harvested, burned and sent into the atmosphere as CO2, causing possible apocalyptic harm to the Earth's ecosystem and the very future of the human species.

The point of the suit of course is not to wring money out of carbon emitters, but to embarrass the legions of laggard governments in advance of upcoming international climate negotiations next month in Poland.

According to Bloom, the legal action "is about trying to protect future generations of mankind, humankind, and a positive judgment in this case will help prod more people to take the issues of climate change and global warming more seriously. We fully intend to make all world leaders of today responsible for their actions in the present day and age."

This case is a legal long shot no doubt, but Bloom's team said ""it's up to the court to decide whether this case has any merit. We fully expect the court to agree to at least hear the case and make a responsible and measured decision later."

It would also be the first case of its kind to seek to act on behalf of future generations for the irresponsibility of their ancestors.

The need to put world leaders on the hot seat is very real. International climate talks like the one happening next month in Poland have happening for over a decade yet global emissions just keep climbing. A recent report showed that in spite of international commitments, carbon emissions of 40 industrialized countries rose by 2.3 percent between 2000 and 2006.

That said, those countries that signed Kyoto saw their overall emissions fall by 17% below 1990. The disgraceful outlier among those nations is Canada, whose emissions ballooned by over 20% in spite of having ratifying Kyoto.

Canada's Prime Minister Harper has called Kyoto a "mistake" and he seems openly contemptuous of such international efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. Mr. Harper is of course not alone in the responsibility for Canada' terrible climate change record. The Canadian public recently handed him another mandate in a general election.

Back to Mr. Bloom. His lawsuit seems directly targeted towards such irresponsible nations like Canada that have refused to take this issue seriously. If he wins, Bloom is planning to donate the $1 billion in damages to the Nobel winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Godspeed Mr. Bloom.

Bad News for Big Oil

Oil industry insiders are sweating bullets over whether the incoming Obama Administration will be keen to buy “dirty oil” from Alberta tar sands. The early news for them is not good.

The president-elect last week sent Jason Grumet, a policy adviser mentioned for a possible energy post, to an environmental conference in Washington to offer reassurances that there would be swift movement on climate change legislation. Observers feel this is an early sign that Obama is taking a hard line on carbon.

"The whole transition team felt it important to be here," Grumet said. "I think it is going to be a very very busy 2009, and I think we are going to need all of you to be on top of your game."

Grumet is also no fan of the filthy oil coming from the tar sands. In June, he told reporters, "The amount of energy that you have to use to get that [tar sands] oil out of the ground is such that it actually creates a much greater impact on climate change."

"We [Obama's team] are going to support resources... that meet our long-term obligations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. And I think it's an open question as to whether or not the Canadian resources are going to meet those tests," said Grumet.

You can almost feel posteriors puckering across the Alberta oil patch. After all, what good is the world’s largest capital project, if the US doesn’t want to buy what it produces?

So far over $200 billion has been sunk into this bitumen boondoggle. Flagging oil prices, a slowing economy and now a new Administration committed to a green energy future all add up to bad news for big oil.

No surprise then that Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper virtually lunged at the newly elected Obama with a protect-the-oil-sands-plan almost before the victory confetti had hit the ground in Chicago.

According to analyst Gwen Dyer, “Harper's strategy is transparent. He wants a climate-change pact with the United States in which Alberta's "dirty oil" is exempted from controls on the grounds that it contributes to that other American national goal, "energy independence."

Dyer points out that the boogieman of an oil embargo of the kind that traumatized the US in 1973 has long since become a red herring. Why? Because since ’73 oil-exporting nations such as Saudi Arabia have become as addicted to selling the west their oil as we have become at buying it.

Saudi Arabia seen its population triple in the last thirty five years. Even with this massive increase in people, their per capita GDP has also risen by a stunning 556% between 1973 and 2006. Yet as of 2007, non-oil manufacturing contributed a mere 10% to Saudi Arabian GDP and less than 6% of total employment. If America has an oil monkey on its back, so do the Saudis.

Real “energy independence” has much more to do with reducing carbon emissions and avoiding shoveling billions of dollars into someone else's economy. Canada would of course enjoy the US pouring all that cash into our coffers instead, but that will not help the American trade balance much more than buying Saudi crude.

According to Dyer, “Stephen Harper is appealing to the stupid version of the energy independence policy: Maybe the Ay-rabs won't sell you their oil, but the Canadians always will. It will be instructive to see if Obama falls for it.”

Who would have thought that Canada could only be dragged into global moral alignment by Uncle Sam on the most important issue of the 21st century? Roll over Pierre.

Canada's Ethical Deficit

I have president envy. Here in Canada we are stuck with Prime Minister Steven Harper – a leader so un-inspirational he could be mistaken for Mr. Rogers on sedatives. The United States on the other hand now has a president-elect who has electrified the world.

But this envy is not merely about charisma. The United States seems well on the road to finally getting serious about climate change. Canada under Harper now has perhaps the worst climate policy of any country in the developed world. In fact, had John McCain prevailed instead, Canada would still be trailing the US in carbon reduction targets.

Worse still, Mr. Harper is trying to drag the US down with us. Just this week, Harper proposed to Obama that Canada and the US enter into a climate agreement that would guarantee the continued pell-mell development of the Alberta tar sands. To Obama’s credit, and our shame, the US very likely won’t collude with us to the detriment of our the planet’s atmosphere.

During the campaign, Obama’s team was highly critical of the US’s continued reliance on “dirty oil”. That is a widely perceived to be a code word for oil originating from the Alberta tar sands.

So energy intensive are these very low-grade deposits that 700 million cubic of relatively clean natural gas are burnt each day just to extract tar from rock. This is enough to heat more than 3.7 million Canadian homes.

It is not just the massive emissions resulting from separating tar from sand. The only reason you produce oil is to refine it and burn it in vehicles. This precludes the very oversold concept of “carbon capture”, unless of course you trail a very long hose behind your car.

Production and downstream emissions for Alberta synthetic crude are 638 kg carbon dioxide per barrel – much higher than conventional oil.

Based on extractable reserves of 175 billion barrels, the oil sands will eventually contribute an incredible 112 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the planet’s atmosphere – equivalent to all fossil fuel and industrial emissions worldwide combined over a period of more than four years.

Released all at once, these emissions would single handedly bump atmospheric CO2 concentrations close to 400 ppm. This is perilously close to potential catastrophic tipping points identified by the scientific community. It’s hard to imagine meaningful emissions targets that would not limit the development of the Alberta oil sands.

Back to Barack. He has committed the United States to a U-turn on climate policy, including strict carbon caps. That of course would be a disaster for oil-addled Alberta – Harper’s political power base. After all, what good is the world’s largest capital project, if our biggest trading partner doesn’t want to buy what it produces?

Watching the US for the last eight years has been like watching an old friend with a drinking problem. Just as Uncle Sam seems ready to sober up, Canada is trying to hand him another bottle.

Expect to see Harper try to take our country and the US even farther on the wrong side of history. Expect the US to say no.

My Crappy Country

The “smug” is officially off being Canadian. With the stunning victory of Barak Obama this week, the well-worn pastime of self-righteously comparing ourselves to US may be coming to an end. Perhaps this is a good time to reflect on exactly how progressive our own country is.

Most of Canada cheered when Obama prevailed but the fact is that even if John McCain had been elected president, the United States would now have far more ambitious carbon reduction goals than Canada.

Our country seems well on the road to becoming a politically compromised petro-state and now trails the developed world in dealing with the greatest issue to face humanity

A recent report from the Conference Board of Canada shows that Canada now has among the worst environmental records of 17 of our major trading partners, ranking only slightly above Australia and the US.

These are only the latest in a series of shameful embarrassments on the world stage that would make Pierre Trudeau spin in his crypt.

Consider Canada’s outrageous flogging of cancer causing asbestos to the poorest countries in the world. The Canadian Medical Association Journal recently compared Canada’s aggressive promotion of our asbestos industry to the “international arms trade”.

Last week Ottawa succeeded in preventing Canadian asbestos from being included in the Rotterdam Convention. This agreement would merely require informing impoverished nations of the well-known human health risks of using this deadly substance.

Rather than defending this heinous position to international community, the Canadian government instead cut a quiet deal behind closed doors with such moral luminaries as Zimbabwe and Russia.

Our country is also become closely aligned with the worst of George Bush’s foreign policy. We have spent close to $20 billion intervening in impoverished Afghanistan, but less than 10% of this was aid. The vast majority of there has instead been on aggressive counter-insurgency.

This, while our military allies are plainly stating that international troops are now "part of the problem, not part of the solution".

Meanwhile, a humanitarian crisis unfolds largely unnoticed in the Congo that may rival the Holocaust in loss of human life.

The UN is pleading for peacekeepers, a vocation that was invented by Canadians. Yet in 2006, the number of Canadian peacekeepers worldwide could fit on a school bus. The genocide in Rwanda only fifteen years ago is apparently ancient history.

Canada’s perennial inability or unwillingness to deal with aboriginal living conditions, homelessness, child poverty, world poverty or universal day care speak volumes about what kind of country we have become.

While many Canadians enjoy absolving themselves by instead slagging Stephen Harper, at least he is honest in his disdain for such apparently naïve causes as environmental protection and peacekeeping.

More Canadians voted for his party than any other, and he won the election fair and square on a clear campaign of lower taxes and cheaper fuel. Had he also thrown in free cable, a grateful nation might well have handed him a majority.

The political Left in Canada remains far more committed to partisan gains than egalitarian principles. The provincial NDP’s brazen opposition to the BC carbon tax is a sickening case in point. Jack Layton successfully fear-mongered the proposed Liberal carbon tax in apparent collusion with the Tories.

Both parties maintained that this was an untried experiment though both knew very well that such taxes had been successfully employed in Europe for almost twenty years.

Sweden brought in a carbon tax seventeen years ago and has reduced absolute carbon emissions by 9% below 1990 levels while their economy grew by 44%. Here in the bumpkin backwater of Canada, emissions have ballooned by over 20% with no end (or concern) in sight.

Meanwhile the Green Party succeeded in wasting almost one million progressive votes and have ambitious plans for even more counter-productive lunacy.

For their part, the Liberals immediately threw the hapless Stephane Dion under the bus, and new leadership contenders are rapidly distancing themselves from the political plutonium of meaningful environmental policy.

Even with such stark choices in the last federal election, less than 60% of eligible Canadian voters bothered to exercise their democratic rights that many Canadian veterans gave their lives for. This is the worst voter turn out since confederation.

Electoral reform is one potential route out of this morass but that issue seems dead as a doornail in our jerkwater country.

Every other developed nation in the world besides Canada, the US and the UK have rejected the ancient first past the post system that was a museum piece when we inherited it from the British 150 years ago.

Provincial referenda on electoral reform have failed so far in BC, PEI, and most recently in Ontario where more than 60% of the public rejected the idea with the strident support of such supposedly progressive newspapers as the Toronto Star.

I do not enjoy writing these words but they are true. These and other issues have pushed me in sad transition from proud Canadian to someone who is increasingly ashamed of my country. The fact is that our international reputation was forged over 40 years ago and very little has happened since.

We can of course do much better but for the time being, and foreseeable future, we have chosen not to. It is not surprising that no leader remotely approaching the stature of Obama or Trudeau has appeared on the Canadian landscape. They would wither in the stripmall worldview that has become our new Canadian character.

Is our country capable of picking up the inspirational gauntlet that has been cast down by our southern neighbours? I sincerely doubt it, but would be delighted to be proven wrong.

Big Brother Spies on Climate Activists

How crazy is the so-called “climate debate”? Consider the bizarre case of three young climate activists who were just informed by local police that they were under surveillance for over a year on suspicion of “involvement in terrorism”.

Between March 2005 and May 2006, three representatives of Chesapeake Climate Action Network were apparently being spied on due to their non-violent efforts to raise awareness about climate change.

All three received letters from the Maryland State Police this October blandly stating that there was “no evidence whatsoever of any involvement in violent crime” and they had the option to view the files once, without a camera or lawyer present, before the surveillance records were destroyed.

Obviously, the three young activists were none too pleased to learn that Big Brother was picking through their underwear drawer due to their opposition to Big Oil.

Mike Tidwell, the founder of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network said in his blog “since 2001, I have devoted my life entirely to the peaceful promotion of windmills and solar panels to solve global warming. Apparently not everyone liked my work, however.”

Josh Tulkin is another one of the “gang of three”, who has since moved on to work for another climate action organization.

He provided a video statement and said for the record, “I won’t be intimidated. Like so many young people, I understand that global warming will have severe impacts on my future, and we are working together to address this problem. I am proud of the action of my peers, and we should be supported, not suspected.”

Most disturbingly, this bizarre action against non-violent activists appears to be politically motivated. The letter provided to all three says they are being informed of the program only due to review and change of heart initiated at the governor’s office. Specifically the letter states:

On July 31, 2008, at the request of Governor Martin O'Malley, former Attorney General Stephen H Sachs agreed to conduct an independent review of an intelligence-gathering operation undertaken by the Maryland State Police from March 2005 to May 2006.

Mr. Sachs' report was released on October1, 2008. His report made several recommendations for action by the Maryland State Police, among which was to contact all individuals who are presently described in the MSP's Case Explorer database program as being “suspected of involvement in terrorism but as to whom MSP has no evidence whatsoever of any involvement in violent crime." Additionally, the report recommended that MSP provide these individuals the opportunity to review the relevant Case Explorer entries before purging these entries. I agreed to this recommendation.

You are one of the individuals whose name was placed in the Case Explorer system under this designation. Accordingly, I am writing to you to provide the opportunity for you to review the relevant entries before the Maryland State Police begins to purge these entries. Please contact the Maryland State Police, Homeland Security and Investigation Bureau to make arrangements to review the entries.

As the current Superintendent of the MSP, I am looking forward to purging these entries, putting into place policies and supervision that will prevent against this kind of operation in the future and moving beyond these issues to continue the necessary work of the Maryland State Police.

The Maryland State police and Homeland Security might want to note the scientific community has warned that climate change is a “far greater threat to the world than international terrorism”. Just a thought.

Eco-bunk Exposed

Why bother doing something when you can just say you did it? That seems to be the cynical sentiment driving a lucrative growth industry: corporate green washing.

Consumers are increasingly demanding that companies demonstrate their commitment to the environment through responsible practices. Many of these companies are instead providing PR spin and phony labeling in an effort to keep doing what they have been doing while improving their corporate image.

While this might buy them some time in the short term, the public is peeling back the green veil on eco-bunk. Have a look at this insightful article by Fred Pearce in the Guardian on the Great Green Swindle.

Pearce details how many companies are investing in image instead of action, and being exposed as a result.

In August, an ad industry's watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority, rapped oil company Shell's knuckles for trying to claim, in an advertisement in the Financial Times, that its $10bn investment in sucking tar sands out of the Canadian midwest was a contribution to a sustainable energy future… Overall, the emissions from mining, refining and burning tar sands are between three and 10 times greater than for conventional oil. Shell's sleight of hand was to use the much-abused word "sustainability" to imply a green agenda when what it was really on about was keeping a sustainable flow of fuel out of its forecourt pumps. The ASA cried foul.

It seems the audacity of some companies knows no bounds. The oil sands are so obscenely unsustainable that they consume enough relatively clean natural gas every day to heat over three million Canadian homes. Environmental Defence published a 131 page report on the tar sands cheerfully called “The Most Destructive Project on Earth”.

If the tar sands are “sustainable”, then the word clearly has lost all meaning in the English language and should be expunged from dictionaries the world over.

How about this corporate nose-stretcher: Manchester airport apparently pledged to make the facility carbon-neutral, with one small caveat: the target does not include the 200,000-plus flights into and out of the airport each year.

The sustainable development organization, Forum for the Future conducted an audit on the airport and observed that this claim "jars somewhat". The British have always had a gift for understatement.

Here’s another knee-slapper exposed by Pearce. The City of London Corporation launched a City Climate Pledge, under which local banks would pledge to "measure and monitor" their carbon footprint. But companies simply have to fill out a form detailing their CO2 plans and they can use the pledge logo. "Companies using the logo will be recognized as exemplar sustainable businesses [able to] attract consumers who are becoming more discerning about the credentials of businesses they deal with," says the flyer.

Not bad for just filling out a form. Especially as there doesn't seem to be any follow-up or auditing process involved.

Thankfully this effort by the Guardian to expose green washing is not merely a one-off. They are launching a regular column where their readers can help with the daunting task of tracking the torrent of eco-bunk the public is exposed to.

According to Pearce, “How many more green scams, cons and generous slices of wishful thinking are out there? We want to name and shame them before the whole green movement gets a bad reputation.” Well said, Mr. Pearce.

Readers are invited to send vent their spleens in the direction of: greenwash@guardian.co.uk

Bad News for the Arctic

There’s big trouble at the top of the world according to a report released this month by US government scientists.

The annual Arctic Report Card is produced annually by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and this year the state of the climate in the arctic got an alarming F.

“Changes in the Arctic show a domino effect from multiple causes more clearly than in other regions,” said James Overland, an oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle and a lead author of the report. “It’s a sensitive system and often reflects changes in relatively fast and dramatic ways.”

The arctic is at the leading edge of global climate change and researchers are already dramatic changes in this sensitive ecosystem. According to NOAA:

“Autumn air temperatures, which are at a record 5 degrees C (9 degrees F) above normal, because of the major loss of sea ice in recent years. The loss of sea ice allows more solar heating of the ocean. That warming of the air and ocean affects land and marine life, and reduces the amount of winter sea ice that lasts into the following summer. The year 2007 was the warmest on record for the Arctic, continuing a general Arctic-wide warming trend that began in the mid-1960s.”

The arctic report card focuses on six areas including Arctic atmosphere, sea ice, biology, ocean, land and Greenland. This year, three of the six including atmosphere, sea ice, and Greenland were coded red meaning that observed changes are almost certainly due to climate change.

The remaining three (biology, ocean, land) were coded yellow, meaning that signals were mixed. The 2007 report card had two red and four yellow.

The relentless march upwards of arctic air temperatures is obvious in this graph of surface air temperature anomalies since 1900.

Arctic sea ice reached its second lowest minimum in recorded history this year, second only to last year. You don't have to be a researcher to see the freefall of ice extent since 1957.

Greenland lost an incredible 100 cubic kilometers of ice last year. To get an idea of what that looks like, have a look at the retreat of the Ilulissat glacier since 1850.

According to the authors, “there continues to be widespread and, in some cases, dramatic evidence of an overall warming of the Arctic system.”

Scientists are often not the greatest communicators in the world but this report speaks loud and clear about the frightening changes that are happening at the top of the world.

Europe Leads - North America Dawdles

Which is more important: climate change or the global economic crisis? The answer for Europe is both.

So important is tacking global warming in Europe that leaders have pledged to stick with their carbon cutting agendas, even while dealing with the greatest economic crisis since the great depression.

European Commission president José Manuel Barroso, stated for the record that "We're not going to let up in the battle against climate change and there's no question of picking between the financial crisis and climate change. The two go together."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy concurred: "The deadline on climate change is so important that we cannot use the financial and economic crisis as a pretext for dropping it".

In the UK, they even upped the ante on carbon cuts. Climate Change and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the current 60% target of carbon cuts by 2050 would be replaced by a higher goal of 80%.

He added, “In our view it would be quite wrong to row back and those who say we should, misunderstand the relationship between the economic and environmental tasks we face."

Here in North America, it is a different story. The Canadian election saw little talk of dealing with climate change since stock markets tanked in the final week of the campaign. South of the border, election talk is almost entirely dominated by the economy.

Newly elected Prime Minister Stephen Harper successfully campaigned on a pro-carbon platform of making burning fossil fuels even cheaper. While carbon taxes ore old hat elsewhere in the world, here in Canada Harper managed to portray the idea as “crazy”, “insane”, and something that would “screw everyone across the country” and “wreck” the economy.

It is if North America exists in a transatlantic time machine – back in time that is. While Canadians like to believe that we are a progressive country, we are rapidly lapsing into a political backwater in comparison to many more progressive nations on the other side of the ocean.

Regardless of who wins the US presidential election in November, Canada under Stephen Harper will have a far less credible climate policy than virtually any developed country in the world. Even John McCain is calling for far more stringent carbon cuts than Canada under Harper.

Canada is no longer a world leader - we are a world laggard. Look to Europe to courageous leadership on climate change – expect more platitudes and inaction here at home.

Stephen Harper’s Right Hand Man Helped Organize Anti-Kyoto Astroturf Group

A good indicator of a man's character is the company he keeps. So lets have a closer look at the all-powerful staff in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Office.

The top of the Harper food chain is Guy Giorno, appointed Chief of Staff in the PMO this summer when Ian Brodie was forced to resign after he was caught leading information to the media that seriously impacted the U.S. nomination race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton - part of the so-called NAFTA-gate.

Giorno is a Toronto-based lawyer, corporate lobbyist and chief of staff to then-Ontario premier Mike Harris during the so-called “common sense revolution”.

Giorno was also a vocal opponent of the Kyoto protocol – to the point that he was a key member of an anti-kyoto front group group called Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions (CCRES).

According to Source Watch, CCRES was set up by National Public Relations - Canada’s largest public relations firm - when Giorno worked for them.

National Public Relations is also the Canadian affiliate of the often controversial international firm Burson-Marsteller.

In classic Astroturf fashion, CCRES members are a who’s who of industries that would be affected by mandatory CO2 emission reductions. They include:

Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
Canadian Energy Pipeline Association
Petroleum Services Association of Canada
Propane Gas Association of Canada
Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors
Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association
Alberta Chamber of Resources
Alberta Chambers of Commerce
The Cement Association of Canada
Canadian Council of Chief Executives

Giorno organized a wine and shrimp fete in 2002 to allow CCRES members to lobby top-level Ontario cabinet ministers in an effort to oppose action on climate change.

The As Harper’s chief of staff, Giorno is now one of the most powerful people in the country, from which position it must be considerably easier to represent industries that are hostile to climate change regulation.

Keeping in mind the unfolding economic mess south of the border, it is also interesting that Giorno is an enthusiastic fan of the policies that have failed so miserably in the US.

Ten years after the disastrous reign of Mike Harris in Ontario, Giorno wrote in the National Post, “Despite the caterwauling about the severity of its agenda, the Harris government's spending cuts were too timid.”

Having lived in Ontario in 1990’s, I can assure you that statement is enough to make George Bush blush.

Harper to Crack Down on Eco-Criminals? Arrest Yourself!

Prime Minster Harper tried to “green” his reputation as a law-and-order tough guy this week by pledging to crack down on polluters and those that flaunt environmental regulations.

I have one piece of advice for Mr. Harper to prove to Canadians he is serious about this important initiative: Turn yourself in.

When it comes to flouting our international environmental commitments - as well as our domestic laws and regulations - the Harper government is seemingly beyond rehabilitation.

Lets have a look at a small selection from their rap sheet:

Endangered Species
Stephen Harper ignored legal obligations under Canada’s Species at Risk Act for preparing recovery plans for over 105 endangered species including the critically threatened Northern spotted owl, whooping crane, swift fox and Vancouver Island marmot.

Minister of Environment Rona Ambrose was later sued by five prominent environmental groups for failing to list the spotted owl as an endangered species. Ms. Ambrose opined that she did not believe the bird faced an “imminent” threat to its survival, even though only 17 owls remain in the wild.

“If the Species at Risk Act doesn’t apply to 17 birds, when will it ever apply?” asked Devon Page, a lawyer for EcoJustice Canada.

Pollution
The Harper government suppressed the release of an international investigation that the federal government is systematically ignoring its own laws regarding habitat protection and water pollution.

At issue was the allegation that Canada was ignoring the illegal destruction of some 45,000 migratory bird nests annually through clear-cut logging in the boreal forest, and the massive release of toxic effluent from pulp mills into Canada’s lakes, rivers and streams.

If Mr. Harper is doing such great job enforcing our environmental laws, what does he have to hide?

Climate Change
Harper ignored Canada’s binding international obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, throwing in the towel without even trying.

Not satisfied with flouting international law, the Harper government also violated our own Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act , passed by the Canadian parliament and becoming law on June 22, 2007.

This act requires that Canada develop and execute a plan to reduce carbon emissions as per our obligations under Kyoto. Several environmental groups sue the Harper government in federal court for defying the will of parliament.

"This government has broken the law and, as Canadian citizens, we have both a moral and legal imperative to insist on enforcement of our own laws on climate action,” said Beatrice Olivastri, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Canada who filed the suit.

Oil Sands
In March 2008, a coalition of environmental groups successfully argues in federal court that the environmental assessment for the massive $8 billion Kearl tar sands expansion was woefully inadequate.

Remarkably the federal and provincial governments had concluded that the project would cause “ no significant environmental impacts” even though it would strip mine 200 square kilometers of boreal forest and dig up enough bitumen to dump 3.7 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere every year – the equivalent of 800,000 passenger vehicles.

The response from the Harper government to the court’s decision ? His cabinet overrode the judge and re-issued the necessary permits within four weeks. So much for respect for our legal system or environmental laws.

Mr. Harpers’ record on the environment is frankly laughable. For him to now portray himself as some kind of green law-and-order sheriff is even more ludicrous.

Stephen Harper is no environmental tough guy. He is a dangerous offender.

Hyperbole and The Myth of the Fiscal Conservative

The Liberals released their 76-page platform this week, including the proposed carbon tax, to predictable ridicule from the Conservatives. Prime Minister Harper ranted against the idea of taxing carbon as “crazy”, “insane”, and something that would “screw everyone across the country” and “wreck” the economy. The Tory leader went on to trash the Liberal plan as “a work of political and economic incompetence”.

Wow Stephen. Calm down.

Besides the fact the carbon taxes have been widely used throughout the world without the sky falling, or that independent economists have reviewed the Liberal plan and found it sound , perhaps now is as good a time as any to step back and ask the simple question: who has a better record of managing the economy, liberals or conservatives?

Lets start with the royalty of conservative movement: Ronald Reagan. Was the Gipper a restrained fiscal conservative? That’s certainly the mythology.

Yet by the end of Reagan's second term the national debt ballooned by more than 15% as a percent of GDP and totaled $2.6 trillion. Between 1980 and 1990, the national deficit had tripled to $220 billion. When he left office, the country owed more to foreigners than it was owed, and the United States moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor nation.

Then there is George W. Bush, who inherited a $128 billion surplus in 2001 and yet has so far ran up the national debt by a whopping $2.78 trillion - not including of course the recent bailout of Wall Street on his watch that will cost the taxpayers an additional $700 billion.

The scale of this disaster is only now coming into grim focus and will no doubt hobble the economy of the US for generations into the future. Besides his obvious incompetence, Bush’s contribution to crushing national debt was fueled mainly by tax cuts and military spending.

Here in Canada, Brain Mulroney spent taxpayer’s money like a drunken sailor, racking up a $42 billion deficit in his last year in office. During his tenure the national debt ballooned by $338 billion, an increase of 200%.

Even Margaret Thatcher was appalled, stating “As leader of the Progressive Conservatives I thought [Mulroney] put too much emphasis on the adjective and not enough on the noun."

The fact is that so-called fiscal conservatives on both sides of the border have a shameful record of managing the economy, and typically tear through taxpayer’s money like bingo winner on a bender.

Which brings us to Stephen Harper. When he became Prime Minster less than two years ago he inherited a surplus of $12 billion. In that short time, Canada has already fallen into deficit territory.

This ends an eleven-year streak of budget surpluses posted by their predecessors, the Liberal Party, whose fiscal discipline in the 1990’s finally tackled the deficit, delivering budgetary surpluses every year from 1997.

Like Bush and Reagan, Harper undermined previous surpluses primarily through ill-advised tax cuts and ballooning military spending.

Harper’s cuts to the GST reduced income from that tax by 21% and likely cost the federal treasury over $14 billion up till the end of 2007. While Harper is trained as an economist, his colleagues were almost unanimous in calling the GST cuts a dumb idea. "Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid," was the analysis from Christopher Ragan, a McGill University economist.

Incredibly, the tax cuts brought by Harper have cost more than all federal transfer payments for health and social programs combined. In other words, if Harper had not slashed government revenues, the federal government could have doubled its support for healthcare, post-secondary education, and social assistance.

At the same time, Harper committed Canada to spend an additional $15 billion on the military, which later became $50 billion . Some predict the actual amount may be closer to $100 billion . Who knows? Harper isn’t telling. Incidentally, Canada now has the worst performing economy in the G7.

Ideologues will no doubt dispute the fact that “fiscal conservatives” like Mr. Harper have a serious credibility problem when it comes to managing the economy. These holdouts are either be blind to history, or willfully misrepresenting the facts. Sadly, shrill hyperbole often substitutes for meaningful analysis south of the border.

Keep that in mind when Harper rants against a carbon tax with terms like “crazy”, “insane” or saying it will “screw everybody” or “wreck” the economy.

Canadians are not stupid, and we expect more from our leaders than hyperbolic fear mongering - especially on an issue as important as climate change.

Harper's Climate Snow Job

Mr. Harper’s credibility on the climate file hit a new low recently when he claimed with a straight face that the Liberal’s proposed carbon tax would “wreck” the economy.

Perhaps the Prime Minster should look at some of the other economies around the world that are apparently doing well in spite of being saddled with such a radical and un-tested policy..

The Swedes clearly don’t appreciate that their economy is in peril due to the carbon tax that they brought in seventeen years ago. Admittedly, it is a dog eat dog world and perhaps Mr. Harper is hoping that Sweden will unwittingly sabotage their economy with this reckless policy that has resulted in them being ranked #4 in the world in competitiveness.

Strangely, this un-tried experiment has also reduced their carbon emissions by 9% below 1990 levels, while their economy grew by 44%.

Since we are part of the Commonwealth, it might be courteous if Harper passed his unique insights on to the United Kingdom. They probably don't know that their economy is going down the tubes due to a carbon tax they introduced in 1993. This rash adventure has lowered their per capita carbon emissions to less than half of Canada’s.

Likewise, The Netherlands, Norway and Finland are apparently in danger of economic collapse due their taxes on carbon that were brought in over ten years ago. All have per capita carbon emissions far below Canada.

The simple fact is that carbon taxes have successfully been implemented all around the world and have consistently reduced emissions while stimulating a shift away from the carbon economy. Meanwhile here in Canada, we are spewing out more climate altering-carbon per person than almost any country on Earth.

It is not that Canadians don’t want to pitch in on this planetary emergency. A poll from last year showed that two thirds of Canadians believed that climate change was a “very serious ” problem – a level of concern second only to France.

Canadians have also not been moved from this opinion by rising fuel prices. A poll from only two months ago shows that Canadians are still demanding aggressive action on climate change – even after being hit by ballooning energy prices.

Our Prime Minster is simply out of touch with the core Canadian value of respecting the environment. Harper’s fear mongering around a carbon tax is the latest in a long record of disgraceful inaction on dealing with the most pressing environmental problem, climate change.

While the rest of the world is discouraging carbon consumption by sensibly raising the price of dumping climate altering chemicals into the atmosphere, Harper is making it even cheaper. This month he proposed to slash excise taxes on diesel fuel. Burn, baby, burn.

Then of course there is the well-established costs of doing nothing on climate change. Nicholas Stern , the former Chief Economist of the World Bank reported that unmitigated climate change could cost the world economy 20% of global GDP. Lord Stern warned:

"Our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century”

Progressive countries the world over must be shaking their heads wondering what happened to Canada’s hard-won reputation of being on the right side of history.

The world is moving to solve this critical issue yet Canada remains a big part of the problem - and that problem is Stephen Harper.

Harper vs. the World

Prime Minister Stephen Harper showed off his strong leadership this week by refusing to follow other party leaders in offsetting the carbon emissions from his campaign air travel.

Why should he? Mr. Harper has always been completely disdainful of “so-called ” green house gases. He shouldn’t have to kowtow to such politically correct posturing by his opponents by even feigning to care about global warming.

He has never allowed himself to be bullied by those eggheads at the IPCC , whose latest synthesis report was summed up by the New York Times : “that reductions in greenhouse gasses had to start immediately to avert a global climate disaster”

What does the largest peer-review exercise in the history of science have to tell someone like Harper, who instead relies on good old fashion common sense?

As Harper pointed out in a fundraising letter , this “controversial theory ” of climate change is based on “tentative and contradictory scientific evidence" and focuses on carbon dioxide, which is "essential to life."

He went on to point out the Kyoto Accord is “essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations”.

That’s the kind of courageous talk we want from our Prime Minister, and we should be proud that he represents Canada to the world. Not since the days of Pierre Trudeau has a Canadian leader make such a splash on the world stage.

According to the Canadian Press at the Kampala climate negotiations last year, “some foreign diplomats were so disgusted that they sought out Canadian journalists to tell them what their country was doing behind closed doors...One called the Harper approach a perfect recipe for making sure nothing happens.”

But who cares what the world thinks of Canada? Certainly not a strong leader like Harper. He had the guts to cause German Chancellor Angela Merkel to fume that, “Of course we are not happy at this point that Canada has abandoned Kyoto's goals.”

Nor has he has ever pandered to special interests like the David Suzuki who said, "Stephen Harper not only opposes Kyoto, but he refutes the science. He’s back in the dinosaur era. Harper is just totally out of it."

And it’s not just Suzuki. These “special interests” are increasingly the Canadian public. A poll last year found that Canadians were more concerned about climate change than any other developed country except France. Two thirds of Canadians felt that climate change was a “very serious problem”.

Another poll released just this summer showed that even after ballooning energy costs, Canadians are still demanding action from the politicians on climate change. It takes a strong leader like Harper to completely ignore the know-nothings in the scientific community, our trading partners, or the voting public.

As far as the carbon offsets for his plane, Harper should be commended burning as much jet fuel as he can. After all he is only supporting our oil and gas industry. He showed his loyalty for the oil patch by flying from Ottawa to Quebec City to Vancouver - all in one day!

Now that’s leadership.

Cheap Diesel Bad for Economy (and Planet)

How do you win an election? Roll out the pork of course. And so Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper announces a proposed tax cut on diesel fuel, even if it will dig Canada even deeper into an economic and climate hole.

Canada already emits more carbon per capita than almost any other country on Earth. Our total carbon emissions are number seven worldwide – more than the United Kingdom, which has almost twice our population. Harper’s solution: make fuel even cheaper.

While this might play well in an election campaign it is the exactly the wrong direction to be taking our nation and our economy.

First of all the 2% reduction in excise tax would only reduce the cost of filling up a 100 litre fuel tank by less than $3.00. The Globe and Mail today estimated that the proposed cut would save consumers 1/3 of a cent on a loaf of bread. Yet this gimmick will cost the Canadian taxpayer over $600 million annually.

Harper himself agrees this is a dumb idea. In May of this year he told the St. Catherines Standard "The ability of governments to affect the prices of gasoline per se is so small that it's not worth doing."

What a difference an election makes... Can someone say "flip flop"?

Such pandering need not make sense. It is about Harper getting a majority. That quest has already cost the country dearly.

Canada’s surplus has shrunk by 88% since 2000-01. In fact, Canada has already fallen into deficit territory this year. In April and May of 2008, Canada had a deficit of $517 million, compared to a surplus of $2.78 billion in the same two months of 2007. This ends an eleven-year streak of budget surpluses posted largely by the Tory's predecessors.

Harper’s cuts to the GST reduced revenues from that tax by 21% and cost the federal treasury over $14 billion up till the end of 2007.

While Harper is trained as an economist , his colleagues were almost unanimous in calling the GST cuts a dumb idea.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid," said Christopher Ragan, a McGill University economist who favours the Conservatives.

"I believe it's a poor idea," said economist Mike Veal of McMaster University in Hamilton. He said most economists would choose an income tax cut.

Incredibly, the Tory tax cuts combined have cost more than all federal transfer payments for health and social programs combined. In other words, if Harper had not brought in these cuts, the federal government could have doubled its support for healthcare, post-secondary education, and social assistance.

By the way, Canada now has the worst performing economy in the G7.

So here we go again. The Conservative party is not only undoing almost two decades of work to bring our deficit under control, they are undermining the ability of Canada to move towards a green economy.

For a so-called laissez faire economist, Harper is instead meddling in the marketplace and hitching our wagon to a dying horse.

Oil prices have ballooned an incredible 500% since 2002. This is a worldwide phenomenon and well outside the control of a middle power like Canada.

This sea change in the global economy is already transforming the behavior of consumers. SUV sales have dropped 27% in 2008. Transit ridership jumped 5.2% in the second quarter of 2008. The world is rapidly moving away from an oil economy. Countries that choose to ignore this, do so at their peril.

Yet Harper’s prescription for our oil addiction is like handing a bottle of booze to an alcoholic. It might be popular in the short-term but its only going to make the problem worse, and delay necessary changes in Canada’s economy to compete in the 21st century.

We have a long way to go to transforming ourselves into a low carbon country. For the sake of our planet, and our pocketbook, the sooner we get going the better. Stephen Harper is clearly the wrong man for the job.

This ran on desmogblog.com on Sept 10, 2008

Exxon's Greenwash

ExxonMobil recently launched a new ad campaign that is a significant flip-flop from their years of denial that climate change is not a problem. Perhaps this as good time as any to review some of Exxon's past conduct around climate change.

ExxonMobil has provided $23 million to the "climate denial industry" since 1998. They were implicated by the Union of Concerned scientists of funding a Big Tobacco-style PR campaign to misinform the public on climate science.

Exxon's conduct was so appalling that in 2006, the Royal Society in the UK asked in writing that the energy giant stop funding climate change deniers.

Greenpeace released a leaked email in 2003 alleging that the Exxon-supported Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) was colluding with White House to discredit the EPA's efforts to deal with climate change.

Specifically, this email indicated that someone in the White House had contacted the CEI to ask for "help". Myron Ebell of the CEI suggested in this memo that they might sue the EPA and call for the resignation of then EPA Chief Christie Whitman. The CEI has received over $2 million in funding from ExxonMobil since 1998.

In 2007, the Exxon-funded Amercian Enterprise Institute (AEI) offered scientists and economists $10,000 each to undermine the findings of the latest IPCC report. AEI asked for "articles that emphasize the shortcomings" of the IPCC report, which "is widely regarded as the most comprehensive review yet of climate change science."

Leading sciensts were not amused. "It's a desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to distort science for their own political aims," said David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Former head of Exxon Mobil Lee Raymond remains vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.

The energy giant finally stopped shoveling money to a number of the most odious climate change deniers and think tanks in 2007.

Of course Exxon can afford to spread a little money around. In the first three months of this year, they raked in a staggering $10.89 billion in profit. This is second highest quarterly profit in US corporate history – second only to the $11.66 billion Exxon earned in the previous quarter.

As for their record on renewables, Exxon shamefully lags far behind other energy companies. Shell Oil has invested over $1 billion in renewable energy technologies since 2000. BP, is now known as "beyond petroleum", and has invested over $1.5 billion in renewable energy, and is slated to spend another $8 billion over the next decade.

And Exxon? They have chosen to invest less that 4% of that amount - $300 million over the next ten years researching potential energy sources – many not related to renewables. Compare that to the $47 billion they spent between 2003 and 2006 developing dirty fuels such as oil and gas.

As for their new ad campaign, we at Desmog Blog can only look on with amusement as the company that has consistently apposed progress or even discussion about climate change, attempts to slip into a new public persona with all the dignity of an elephant trying to slip into a bikini.

This was published on Desmog Blog on June 13, 2008

Burn, Baby Burn

Feel like you’re doing your part for climate change? Changed your light bulbs? Riding your bike? Like many British Columbians, you are probably pitching in to try to reduce our collective carbon footprint.

Now if we could only get the natural-gas industry to stop dumping 1.8 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year due to gas flaring, we might be getting somewhere.

It is a little-known fact that the B.C. sector of this industry “flares”, or needlessly burns off, about 960 million cubic metres of natural gas every year. That remarkable waste of finite and relatively clean fuel is enough to heat more than 300,000 Canadian homes annually.

According to Steve Simons, corporate-affairs director of B.C.’s Oil and Gas Commission, B.C. flares about 2.9 percent of annual production, which in 2007 was about 33.1 billion cubic metres of gas.

That means the B.C. gas industry flares almost one billion cubic metres of gas annually, producing about 1.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. This is approximately 2.8 percent of the total carbon emissions for the entire province.

Although British Columbia did manage to reduce flaring by 11 percent between 1996 and 2006, across its eastern border the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board managed to reduce gas flaring by 72 percent between 1996 and 2004.

So why do companies burn off the very resource they are drilling for? According to Lee Shanks, spokesperson for the Oil and Gas Commission, companies flare gas mainly to release pressure in their systems. “It’s sort of like a tea kettle; it’s to let the pressure off.” Gas is also flared during well testing and maintenance.

Shanks pointed out that the commission has just released new guidelines aiming to reduce gas flaring by 50 percent by 2011. The B.C. government also committed in the 2007 throne speech to eliminating gas flaring by 2016. However, the fact that Victoria made that commitment indicates that this type of waste is entirely avoidable.

Worldwide, this wasteful practice remains a huge problem. According to the World Bank, about 100 billion cubic metres of natural gas are burned off or vented every year—the equivalent of all the annual gas consumption in England, France, and Germany combined. It is also an enormous waste of money. Gas flaring squanders about $31 billion in natural gas annually.

Here in B.C., wasted gas was worth almost $300 million in 2007. The B.C. government would also have collected more than $49 million in additional gas royalties had that
public resource not been squandered or if royalties were charged on gas flaring. Even under the new guidelines to reduce flaring, royalties are not charged for wasted gas.

We should also not forget the human-health impacts of burning off unwanted and often unrefined gas in the atmosphere. Incomplete combustion from flaring can release many known carcinogens, such as benzene, toluene, xylene, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

The B.C. office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a September 2007 report on this issue called Foot Off the Gas: Regulating B.C.’s Oil and Gas Industry As If the Environment Mattered.

According to its author (and occasional Straight contributor), Ben Parfitt, flaring is symptomatic of a wasteful industry mindset fostered by a long history of government subsidies to encourage growth. B.C. gas production has increased by more than 40 percent during the past 10 years, a pace he feels cannot be maintained.

“We need to be very focused on the fact that the resource being exploited is finite, that it might only have a shelf life of only 17 years or so if we see a doubling of gas production,” Parfitt said in an interview. “Therefore we need to be doing everything we can to ensure that we get fair dollar value for the gas being pulled from the ground and that we don’t waste it.”

Parfitt and the CCPA feel that immediately charging industry a royalty on every unit of gas that is flared would be a step in the right direction. “That would send a message right away to industry that they need to find a way to end those practices,” Parfitt said.

Ending subsidies to this already lucrative industry would be another positive move. Every year, the B.C. taxpayers shovel about $260 million to the oil-and-gas sector. Much of this largess is to encourage questionable practices, such as developing marginal deposits or drilling muskeg-damaging wells in the summer when the ground is not frozen.

Is Victoria moving to reduce these subsidies? No. In fact, in the most recent budget, they are slated to increase by 24 percent in 2008-09, to $327 million.

Although the government should be commended for significant changes, such as introducing a carbon tax, their continued coddling of the natural-gas sector only undermines efforts to reduce our carbon footprint. We should note that the carbon tax is a retail tax that only applies to you and me. Flared gas is not taxed for carbon emissions. Neither is the entire industry.

To put this issue in perspective, lets have a closer look at the total carbon emissions resulting from gas flaring in BC. 1.8 million tonnes of CO2 is quite a bit. What would the rest of us have to do to pick up the slack for the BC gas sector needlessly wasting all that gas? I did that math for you. The options are endless.

- We would have to replace approximately forty million conventional light bulbs with compact fluorescents.

- 1.2 million people would have to quit eating meat and become vegans.

= 440,000 people would have to give up their cars.

= 20 million additional people could take up recycling.

- 8 million households could wash their clothes only in cold water.

- 13 million households would have to switch to low flow showerheads.

Rather than go to all that trouble, maybe it would be simpler to bring in meaningful regulation to force gas companies to stop squandering a public resource, and using the atmosphere as a free dumping ground for CO2.

This piece was pubished in the Georgia Straight on June 5, 2008