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Stop oilsands expansion, Canadian and U.S. researchers say
Group cites concerns about carbon pollution, environmental contamination, aboriginal rights
More than 100 Canadian and U.S. researchers are calling on Canada to end expansion of its oilsands, for 10 reasons that they describe as “grounded in science.”
“Based on evidence raised across our many disciplines, we offer a unified voice calling for a moratorium on new oilsands projects,” said a statement issued Wednesday by the group, led by academics at the University of Waterloo, Simon Fraser University and the University of Arizona.
The statement, signed by a range of researchers including biologists, political scientists, physicists, economists and geographers, including a Nobel Prize winner and several Order of Canada recipients, is being sent to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, MPs and the Canadian media.
The group says it has requested meetings with federal politicians to discuss the science behind their reasons in favour of the moratorium. Those include concerns about carbon emissions making climate change worse, hampering the shift to clean energy, environmental contamination, aboriginal rights, and potential effects on international policy. The researchers also cited evidence that stopping oilsands expansion won’t hurt the economy.
Marc Jaccard, a professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University who co-authored the statement, said the group is targeting the oilsands primarily because most of them are Canadian.
“So of course you try to clean up your own backyard before you start pointing your finger at others,” Jaccard said.
Carbon deal signed
He added that the scientists are not calling for existing oilsands projects to shut down — they just don’t want new ones to start up.
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Climate change will push Canadian business onside
Companies seem conservative today, but just watch when they reach the profitable tipping point
Until he lost his shirt in the Dirty Thirties, a relative of mine was an influential businessman in southern Saskatchewan. Among his interests was a livery stable, with a blacksmith, harnesses, buggy whips and everything you needed to keep horses on the road and in the field.
Horses are still with us, of course, but today it is hard to realize what an enormous industry they supported only a hundred years ago.
As skeptics scoff about Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s grudging concession on the G7 agreement to end the use of fossil fuels, I think it is useful to remember how quickly businesses can completely transform an economy once they get the bit between their teeth.
“If we can get companies putting their innovative genius to work on solving environmental problems, we’re going to find solutions that we can’t even imagine today,” says Stewart Elgie, a professor of law and economics at the University of Ottawa.
He is confident that when it comes to fighting climate change, business will pull its share of the load. But we have to get over a hump.
Horse sense
A hundred years ago, the saddlery and harness business had its own industrial journals, well worth perusing. United States Leather, making a product essential to harnesses, was one of the 12 founding companies in the Dow Jones Index.
An inspection of one of world’s biggest monthly harness trade magazines, produced in Walsall, England — a world hub of harness and saddle making — shows that to a large extent, the industry did not see the end coming.
“Whilst some commentators (quite correctly) predicted disaster for the saddlery and harness trade,” says a commentary published by Walsall Council, “others were more complacent, dismissing the motor car as an unreliable and expensive plaything which would never catch on.”
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Busting The “Canadian Bakken” Myth
Busting The “Canadian Bakken” Myth
The financial pages of Canadian newspapers have been full of headlines lately announcing the potential of two large shale oil fields in the Northwest Territories said to contain enough oil to rival the Bakken Formation of North Dakota and Montana.
The report by Canada’s National Energy Board (NEB) evaluated, for the first time, the volume of oil in place for the Canol and Bluefish shale formations, located in the territory’s Mackenzie Plain. It found the “thick and geographically extensive” Canol formation is expected to contain 145 billion barrels of oil, while the “much thinner” Bluefish shale contains 46 billion barrels.
Related: More OPEC Oil Coming When Iranian Sanctions Removed
The report did not estimate the amount of recoverable oil, but points out that even if one percent of the Canol resource could be recovered, that represents 1.45 billion barrels. The calculation immediately had reporters comparing Canol and Bluefish to the Bakken, where the latest USGS estimate shows 7.4 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil (this includes the Three Forks Formation underlying the Williston Basin straddling North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan and Manitoba).
“Northwest Territories sitting on massive shale oil reserves on par with booming Bakken field in U.S.,” enthused the Financial Post. “NEB and GNWT study finds 200 billion barrels of oil in the Sahtu,” gushed CBC News, referring to a region of the sprawling territory that cuts across three provinces and touches the Arctic Ocean.
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Difficult to invest in green energy in Canada without Big Oil
Divestiture movement continues as organizations clean carbon holdings from portfolios
If you thought the divestiture movement was losing steam, Norway’s recent announcement shows there still is momentum around the world to stop investing in fossil fuels.
The country has confirmed that its hefty $900-billion government pension fund, considered the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, will purge some of its fossil fuel stocks.
Many other organizations have made similar moves in past years.
Concordia University in Montreal launched a $5-million fund dedicated to divestment, social and ethical investing. Stanford University in California pledged not to make direct investments in companies whose principal business is coal for energy. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund pledged to reduce investments in coal and the oilsands projects to less than one per cent of its portfolio.
But in Canada, divestiture may not be the best method of promoting renewable energy development.
Traditional oil, gas and coal companies are creating the majority of renewable energy in Alberta. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)
The reason is that, outside of government, it is the traditional oil and gas companies that are constructing much of the green energy projects in the country, such as wind, hydro and solar.
For instance, the largest wind and hydro projects in Alberta are owned in whole or in part by traditional oil, gas and coal companies.
- ANALYSIS: Big Oil to Rachel Notley: Bring on a carbon tax
- Alberta energy sector waits for policies from NDP
Capital Power is an example of a private sector company with a mixed bag of energy projects. It’s a leader in renewable energy development and uses fossil fuels too. The Edmonton-based company has more than 20 wind and solar power plants in North America. It also operates a coal mine as well as several coal- and natural gas-fired plants.
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OPEC oil glut is shattering Harper’s superpower dream
Producers’ brinksmanship has worked, and Canada is cutting production
In the battle to see who blinks first, OPEC hasn’t blinked. And it looks like it isn’t going to, as it meets this week in Vienna.
Six months ago the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, led by Saudi Arabia, announced it would keep pumping crude even though the world was swimming in the stuff.
While some analysts are predicting a surprise at this week’s meeting, most reports now say OPEC is not considering reining in production.
- Global glut grows to two million barrels a day as OPEC pumps more
- Canada’s crude production falls to nearly two-year lows, says Barclays
And whether or not OPEC continues to pump, there are new signs that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s dream for Canada as an “emerging energy superpower” may be in trouble.
A report this week from Barclays showed Canadian production tumbling. The global giants with a stake in Canada’s oil sands have stopped expansion plans and many have walked away.
Meanwhile, Alberta oil producers have threatened to put new developments on hold until they see whether Rachel Notley’s new NDP government gives them what they want.
Missing a crucial window
To add insult to injury, low prices have emboldened the “dirty oil” lobby. There are new reports this week that the New York oil hub is rejecting petroleum from Canada’s “tarsands.”
Alberta’s oilsands may still contain some of the world’s largest petroleum reserves, up there with Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, but there is an increasing danger that Canada has missed a crucial window to develop and extract those resources.
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Canada needs to confront its oilsands ‘challenge,’ German ambassador says
Observers say Canada and Japan are attempting to block ‘decarbonization’ pledge from G7 declaration
Germany’s ambassador to Canada says Ottawa’s new targets to cut carbon pollution mean it will have to tackle the problem of the oilsands.
In an interview with CBC News, Ambassador Werner Wnendt said he recognizes the oilsands are an asset for Canada.
- Analysis: How can Canada cut emissions 30% by 2030?
- Oilsands emissions will rise faster than ability to curb them, cabinet told
- Canada sets carbon emissions reduction target of 30% by 2030
“On the other side, this is a challenge. Of course we know that the oilsands and the production of oil in the oilsands does produce a lot of carbon and Canada needs to deal with it,” he said.
Germany is putting a top priority on climate change as it prepares to host the two-day G7 gathering in the Bavarian town of Schloss Elmau in June. Germany wants the world’s richest industrialized countries to send a clear message they’re not going shirk their responsibilities in tackling rising global carbon pollution.
By the mid-term of the century we should come to a point where economic growth can work without the emission of carbon– Werner Wnendt, Germany’s ambassador to Canada
“The signal is that the leading countries in the G7 group do take this very seriously, that they are ambitious in their own targets and they are ready also to support countries that need to be supported financially.” Wnendt said.
The leaders of the seven industrialized countries are being told to be prepared to discuss their new national carbon-cutting goals in preparation for the crucial UN climate conference in Paris at the end of the year.
Canada announced its target for greenhouse gas emissions earlier this month, setting a goal of a 30 per cent reduction below 2005 levels by 2030.
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How Canada Can End Mass Surveillance
How Canada Can End Mass Surveillance
Third chapter in OpenMedia’s crowd-sourced privacy plan.
Some may remember East Germany’s Stasi spy agency, or reference China’s extensive Internet censorship. But few would express fear that western democratic governments like the U.S., Britain, and Canada were engaged in the mass surveillance of law-abiding citizens.
That all changed in June 2013 when Edward Snowden, a contractor at the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), blew the whistle on the spying activities of the NSA and its Five Eyes partners in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K. Since then, we’ve seen a long stream of revelations about how Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE) is engaged in extensive spying on private online activities.
To give just a few examples, we learned that CSE spied on law-abiding Canadians using the free Wi-Fi at Pearson airport, and monitored their movements for weeks afterward. We learned that CSE is monitoring an astonishing 15 million file downloads a day, with Canadian Internet addresses among the targets.
Even emails Canadians send to the government or their local MP are monitored — up to 400,000 a day according to CBC News. Just last week we discovered CSE targets widely-used mobile web browsers and app stores. Many of these activities are not authorized by a judge, but by secret ministerial directives like the ones MP Peter MacKay signed in 2011.
CSE is not the only part of the government engaged in mass surveillance. Late last year, the feds sought contractors to build a new monitoring system that will collect and analyze what Canadians say on Facebook and other social media sites. As a result, the fear of getting caught in the government’s dragnet surveillance is one more and more Canadians may soon face.
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Free speech on the run, even in the home of the brave
You can offend, sure, and the courts will protect you, but there are consequences
Legally protected speech, no matter how offensive, is a glorious and uniquely American invention, a gift to the marketplace of ideas and an example to the world.
Coming from a journalist — me — that statement should not be even mildly controversial.
Increasingly, though, such a statement is being reviled even here in the U.S. as archaic, revanchist, bigoted, paternalistic, reactionary, sexist, probably tinged with racism or just out of tune with modern thought.
That would be no surprise in Canada or European nations where the impulse to regulate real or imagined insult, using hate speech laws, human rights commissions and the like, can trump free speech.
But in today’s America, the domain of constitutionally protected expression, anti-free-speech forces are stepping up co-ordinated attacks.
- New anti-terror bill could put chill on free speech
- Opinion: Want to protect freedom of expression? Strengthen hate speech laws
Most of these freelance censors seem to be politically left of centre, and range from the “social justice warriors” to — and I’m ashamed to say this — many in the mainstream media, which once celebrated the right to offend established norms and ideas.
There are bags of examples in a new book by Kirsten Powers, the columnist and longtime Democratic Party operative, titled The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech.
Powers argues that left-of-centre activists (she calls them the “illiberal left”) are leading a “forced march towards conformity,” striving to control and punish anyone who disagrees with the groupthink in which they wallow with such certainty.
The academic and writer Fredrik DeBoer has called it the “We Are All Already Decided” phenomenon.
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Economic inequality: 10 reasons why we can’t beat it
Even the OECD says inequality is bad. But making it go away is much tougher
It almost feels like an old story. Ever since the economy crashed in 2008 a growing chorus of voices has warned that inequality was wiping out the middle class and damaging society.
This week the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the rich countries` think-tank, made headlines for declaring that growing inequality is not only bad for social cohesion, but is actually cutting points off economic growth.
- Precarious jobs holding back young workers, OECD finds
- Canadian cities unlikely to mimic L.A. on minimum wage
If we all agree, why is it such an intractable problem? The story is complex, but here are just a few reasons why inequality is so hard to fix.
1. Equality where?
While inequality within rich countries has been getting worse, many point out that global inequality has been shrinking.
Countries like the U.S. and Canada used to consume a majority of the world’s wealth. As the rich and middle class in places like China and India get a bigger piece of the action, some argue that morally, increasing global equality outweighs a relative decline in wealth by some people in the rich world.
2. Free trade and globalization
The push to create open trade between countries means that the low- and unskilled workers of rich countries are increasingly competing directly with workers in China, Bangladesh, Vietnam and India. Even within North America, industrial jobs often move to where wages are lowest, meaning middle class industrial jobs disappear.
3. Automation
Even in developing countries, manufacturers are replacing jobs withrobots and automation. Here in North America, computerized processes are already taking jobs done by factory workers, clerical workers and even professionals as clever software learns to search legal titles and write simple news stories.
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Spy agencies target mobile phones, app stores to implant spyware
Users of millions of smartphones put at risk by certain mobile browser gaps, Snowden file shows
Canada and its spying partners exploited weaknesses in one of the world’s most popular mobile browsers and planned to hack into smartphones via links to Google and Samsung app stores, a top secret document obtained by CBC News shows.
Electronic intelligence agencies began targeting UC Browser — a massively popular app in China and India with growing use in North America — in late 2011 after discovering it leaked revealing details about its half-billion users.
Their goal, in tapping into UC Browser and also looking for larger app store vulnerabilities, was to collect data on suspected terrorists and other intelligence targets — and, in some cases, implant spyware on targeted smartphones.
The 2012 document shows that the surveillance agencies exploited the weaknesses in certain mobile apps in pursuit of their national security interests, but it appears they didn’t alert the companies or the public to these weaknesses. That potentially put millions of users in danger of their data being accessed by other governments’ agencies, hackers or criminals.
“All of this is being done in the name of providing safety and yet … Canadians or people around the world are put at risk,” says the University of Ottawa’s Michael Geist, one of Canada’s foremost experts on internet law.
CBC News analysed the top secret document in collaboration with U.S. news site The Intercept, a website that is devoted in part to reporting on the classified documents leaked by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The so-called Five Eyes intelligence alliance — the spy group comprising Canada, the U.S., Britain, Australia and New Zealand — specifically sought ways to find and hijack data links to servers used by Google and Samsung’s mobile app stores, according to the document obtained by Snowden.
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Rising carbon emissions from oilsands a ‘unique’ challenge, federal cabinet told
Canada may need international emissions credits to offset increasing emissions from oilsands
Greenhouse gas emissions from increasing oilsands production will rise faster than Canada’s ability to curb them, the federal government was warned before new emissions reduction targets were announced last week.
Cabinet documents obtained by CBC News reveal the thinking behind the scenes as the cabinet members mulled over various proposals for Canada’s target to cut its greenhouse emissions by 2030.
- Canada sets carbon emissions reduction target of 30% by 2030
- The House: Wynne calling for more than Ottawa’s ‘nebulous’ targets
- How Canada’s provinces are tackling greenhouse gas emissions
The documents marked “secret” also suggest Canada should try to negotiate new North American-wide rules to reduce oil and gas emissions in lockstep with the U.S. and Mexico.
And they advise cabinet to follow Alberta’s lead when it comes to adopting a national plan to cut emissions — though that advice came a week before the provincial NDP’s surprise victory in Alberta’s May 5 election.
‘Increasing [oilsands] production is expected to outpace improvements in emissions intensity.’— Document to federal cabinet
Last Friday, federal Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq announced Canada would cut its emissions by 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
The target is Canada’s required contribution to a new global climate change agreement and has to be submitted to the G7 meeting in early June and filed with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Aglukkaq said Canada will meet its target by bringing in regulations to reduce methane that leaks from industrial processes and pipelines and by cutting emissions from the chemical and fertilizer industry and natural-gas fired electricity. All these align Canada with U.S. plans for the same sectors.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Police asked telcos for client data in over 80% of criminal probes
Ottawa also sought legal advice on telco’s transparency reports
Canadian police seek online and phone data from telecommunications companies in almost every criminal investigation, according to a briefing note to the federal minister for public safety, obtained by CBC News.
The scale of the practice suggested in the memo indicates it has become routine for officers to tap into private internet activity.
“Canadian police estimate that at least one form of lawful access request is made by government agencies to TSPs [telecom service providers] in about 80-95 per cent of all investigations today,” states the Sept. 26, 2014 memo addressed to Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, released under the Access to Information Act.
- RCMP telecom subscriber data requests poorly tracked, says privacy czar
- RCMP drops some internet-related probes following Supreme Court ruling
Lawful access includes police asking telecommunications companies to install wiretaps, give access to emails or texts, and hand over identifiers like the name or address of a customer.
Tamir Israel, a lawyer specializing in internet and technology law, says the figure is likely so high because until a Supreme Court decision last June, police didn’t need a warrant to obtain subscriber information such as the name and address associated with an IP address.
“When a tool is unregulated in this way, it becomes a matter of standard practice,” said Israel, a lawyer with the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa. “No assessment is made as to the invasiveness of the tool, whether it’s justified in a particular context or not. It’s easy to do. It’s low cost, so you just do it.”
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NEW CANADIAN COUNTERTERRORISM LAW THREATENS ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS
NEW CANADIAN COUNTERTERRORISM LAW THREATENS ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS
Geraldine Thomas-Flurer, who campaigns for environmental protection on behalf of indigenous First Nations in Canada, wasn’t surprised when, in 2012, she found out that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been keeping tabs on her. The Toronto Star that year obtained documents showing that federal police had monitored private meetings held between her coalition and local environmental groups.
Now she just laughs when asked whether she’s comforted by assurances from government officials that new surveillance and policing powers outlined under a proposed Canadian Anti-Terror Law wouldn’t be aimed at peaceful protesters.
The passage of the terrorism bill would represent a new “open season on First Nations who are speaking out,” she says.
Across Canada, police surveillance and intervention have long been a reality for groups working to stop development of fossil fuel extraction, including pipeline construction and fracking. The sense that somebody’s watching is part of the price Thomas-Flurer, of the Saik’uz nation, has paid for coordinating the Yinka Dene Alliance, a coalition of six First Nations in British Columbia that have banned the passage of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline through their territory.
The coalition is part of a movement that has slowed the development of the pipeline, which would carry more than 500,000 barrels per day of crude from landlocked Alberta’s oil sands to a port on Canada’s west coast, so much so that a recent CBC News article questioned whether the project was “being quietly shelved.”
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Canadian police say Valentine’s Day mass shooting plot foiled
Canadian police say Valentine’s Day mass shooting plot foiled
TORONTO (Reuters) – Canadian police said on Friday they foiled a plot in which at least two people allegedly planned to commit a mass shooting in the East Coast province of Nova Scotia on Valentine’s Day.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said in a statement the plot involved a 19-year-old man from Timberlea, Nova Scotia, and a 23-year-old woman from Geneva, Illinois.
Police said they obtained information that suggested the two had access to firearms and intended to go to a public venue in the Halifax, Nova Scotia, region on Feb. 14 to kill people, and then themselves.
The police statement did not suggest a possible motive, but officers told a media briefing they would not characterize it as a “terrorist event.”
“I would classify it as a group of individuals that had some beliefs and were willing to carry out violent acts against citizens, but there’s nothing in the investigation to classify it as a terrorist attack,” said Nova Scotia RCMP Commanding Officer Brian Brennan, according to CBC News.
“I can tell you that it’s not culturally based.”
Evidence suggested two other Nova Scotia males, aged 20 and 17, were involved, though their role is still to be determined, police said.
Police said they found the 19-year-old male dead at a residence early on Friday and the 20-year-old male and 23-year-old female were arrested at the Halifax airport. The 17-year-old male was arrested elsewhere.
“We believe we have apprehended all known individuals in this matter and eliminated the threat. We are not seeking any further suspects at this time,” the statement said.
