Mitchell Anderson – Olduvai.ca

Facebook’s reach is being used to create division, spread hate and harm democracy. And the corporation doesn’t care.

‘Almost three-billion people now see the world through the personalized and profit-driven filter of social media.’ Photo via Shutterstock.

In 1486, a German priest named Heinrich Kramer published a manual called Malleus Maleficarum or the Hammer of Witches. Kramer wrote the book as an act of revenge following his expulsion from Innsbruck by the local bishop after he tried — and failed — to convict a woman he was sexually obsessed by of satanic practices.

Eventually reaching 30,000 copies, Kramer’s book detailed the theory and practice of witch persecution that catalyzed a frenzy of female torture throughout Europe and claimed at least 40,000 victims. History teaches us that indulging petty ignorance can be decidedly deadly, a lesson we ignore at our peril.

Dangerously dumb ideas of course continue today. Thousands recently took to the streets in Montreal and Vancouver to oppose mask mandates that could save thousands of lives. Many also proudly pledged their support for Donald Trump or QAnon conspiracies about a secretive cabal of Satan-worshiping elites who for some reason harvest the blood of children.

The world has always had whack jobs. However, the multiplier of social media has made spreading outlandish ideas ever more dangerous, especially at a time when there are plenty of other very real problems that demand our attention and action.

Cities on the West Coast choke in smoke from historic wildfires driven by accelerating climate change. Increasing human encroachment into the natural world propelled this pandemic, and others. Democracy in the world’s largest economy apparently hangs in the balance.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Jason Kenney Ready to Bet Albertan Pensions on Failing Fossil Fuel Firms?

July 15, 2020

Is Jason Kenney Ready to Bet Albertan Pensions on Failing Fossil Fuel Firms?

The UCP government is moving to take control of citizens’ savings — and they should be very worried.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney may be eying up the retirement funds of public sector workers as a financial lifeline for companies in the oil patch. Photo via the Government of Alberta.

Cautious. Reliable. Boring. Those are words that are appropriately associated with pension fund management. However, pensions have recently become a hot button political issue in Alberta, for some ominous reasons.

As international investment dries up for the fossil fuel sector, evidence mounts that Premier Jason Kenney may be eying up the retirement funds of public sector workers as a financial lifeline for companies in the oil patch.

The United Conservative Party didn’t mention sweeping pension reform in its election platform, but it has been a curious legislative priority since they were swept to power last year.

Bill 22 forced the Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund to hand over its $18-billion pension fund to Alberta Investment Management Corp. — a Crown corporation that just lost $1.9 billion of the Alberta Heritage Trust Fund’s assets. This bill also prevents the numerous public pensions under AIMCo control from ever taking their investment business elsewhere, regardless of poor investment results.

Kenney has also proposed pulling out of the Canada Pension Plan after a vote under his new referendum-on-anything bill. AIMCo could then be in charge of over $260 billion entrusted for the financial futures of millions of Albertans.The Tyee is supported by readers like you Join us and grow independent media in Canada

Legal firewalls are often in place to prevent political meddling in public pension management. If a politician even attempts to contact a Canada Pension Plan board member, it is a reportable offence.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Governments Need to Face Reality — the Fossil Fuel Industry Is Collapsing

November 29, 2019

Governments Need to Face Reality — the Fossil Fuel Industry Is Collapsing

From Saudi Arabia to Alberta, the numbers are clear. But we still shovel taxpayers’ money at oil and gas companies.

Government still subsidizes the oil and gas industry, even as the Bank of Canada warns of investment risks. Photo by jasonwoodhead23, Creative Commons license CC BY 2.0.

While Canadian politicians keep up their parochial posturing, a global storm is brewing.

Around the world there is early evidence of a seismic shift. Capital is moving away from fossil fuels, and regions that have let their economies become dependent on oil revenues are showing signs of authoritarian abuses of power. (Sound familiar Alberta?)

Saudi Arabia, for example, planned to sell up to five per cent of state-owned oil company Aramco in what was supposed to be the largest IPO in history, raising $100 billion to improve services and diversify the economy.

Instead, the sale has been scaled back. Only 1.5 per cent of the company will be sold, and the share offering may only raise $25 billion — enough to cover the Saudi government deficit for about six months.

The precarious balance in Saudi society is maintained through lavish government spending that has relied on oil prices of $85 a barrel to drive revenues. But Brent oil prices have not been at that level in the last five years. Saudi Arabia is running deficits of around $60 billion a year to maintain services — and head off unrest.

Former CIA director David Petraeus noted ominously, “It’s a fact that Saudi Arabia is gradually running out of money.”

Even though Aramco is the most profitable company on the planet, with proven reserves of 270 billion barrels of the world’s cheapest oil, private equity investors so far have taken a pass on the IPO. Oil is a cyclical business, but their reluctance is not due to downturn slump in the sector. The reasons investors snubbed the sale seem more existential.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Ghost Election Issue We Need to Get Real about: Personal Debt

October 15, 2019

The Ghost Election Issue We Need to Get Real about: Personal Debt

Canadians are so deep in the red it colours how we see vital issues.

‘Owing vast amounts of money seems now a defining Canadian characteristic and is increasingly enabled by indulgent political leaders.’ Photo via Shutterstock.

Today we manufacture armored vehicles for the brutal regime in Saudi Arabia while fretting about domestic job losses if we don’t.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer pledges to slash Canada’s already paltry foreign aid budget by 25 per cent in favour of consumer tax cuts.

Climate change is the defining issue of this century, yet Canada has the highest per capita carbon emissions in the G20 and is far from a global leader in fighting fossil fuels.

What happened to the storied Canadian character?

The reason Canada cannot act in a more moral manner might lie in ballooning amounts of household debt. Canadians now owe an eye-watering $2.2 trillion or 178 per cent of disposable income — a measure that has doubled in the last 20 years. Personal bills now amount to more than our entire GDP, making us the most indebted citizenry in the G20 and fourth highest in the world.

Over half of Canadians report they are only $200 per month away from insolvency.

How can you care about climate change or global stability when your credit cards are maxed out or you are dodging debt collectors? Owing vast amounts of money seems now a defining Canadian characteristic and is increasingly enabled by indulgent political leaders. Andrew Scheer and Canada’s conservatives are unapologetic in pandering to those who gorged on cheap credit.

The belated Conservative campaign platform pledges to cut infrastructure investment by $18 billion in favour of reduced taxes. Scheer’s simple message is parsed for those most myopically interested in their pocketbook: “If you pay income tax, you will pay less under my government.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Quit Chastising Brazil, Canada. You’re a Climate Killer, Too

August 30, 2019

Quit Chastising Brazil, Canada. You’re a Climate Killer, Too

Some want global intervention against ‘rogue’ climate states. That may not end so well for us.

‘Is it acceptable that a single government can unilaterally adopt environmental policies that put millions at risk?’ a recent Globe op-ed asked of Brazil. Uhhh… Photo of Amazon forest fires taken Aug. 26, 2019, by Leo Correa, AP Photo.

The two both ask and answer their own question in the Globe and Mail piece.

“Is it acceptable that a single government can unilaterally adopt environmental policies that put millions at risk?” they write. “It is urgent that the international community find ways to influence rogue states whose irresponsible policies accelerate global warming and undermine the collective effort to address the existential threat posed by climate change.”

It’s a comfortably sanctimonious argument, especially from inside the glass house of Canadian climate policy.

Admittedly Bolsonaro is an ogre whose popularity among Brazilians has plummeted since he was elected last year.

But Axworthy and Rock should be careful what they wish for — if the world really was empowered to intervene when rogue states ignore the climate crisis, would we get off easily?

Canada was recently ranked last of the G7 economies in terms of meaningful climate action — tied with the U.S. under Donald Trump. Of all the G20 countries, Canadians produce the most greenhouse gases per capita.

While the Justin Trudeau government touted its pledge of $15 million to fight Amazon wildfires on behalf of the planet, this represents only 0.5 per cent of the $3.3 billion in taxpayer subsidies that Canada shovels at the fossil fuel sector each year.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Accelerate New Oil Wells, Abandon the Old Ones, All the While Burning

May 30, 2019

Accelerate New Oil Wells, Abandon the Old Ones, All the While Burning

Alberta in a nutshell, under new leader Jason Kenney’s trajectory.

Premier Jason Kenney does not seem to realize he’s overseeing an unfolding environmental and economic catastrophe in Alberta. Photo: Government of Alberta Flickr.

The urgency to expedite new petroleum projects stands in stark contrast to the utter disinterest in cleaning up the old ones. Alberta is perhaps unique in the world in having no mandatory timelines for reclaiming oil and gas wells. There are about 300,000 conventional oil and gas wells in the province, all of which eventually require cleanup. Over half, or 167,000, are listed as inactive or abandoned. The oldest dates back to 1918. What’s the rush?

The Alberta government says this collective liability is a mere $18.5 billion. Internal figures from the regulator analyzed by the Alberta Liabilities Disclosure Project instead peg the cleanup bill at up to $70 billion. This snapshot does not of course include the almost 3,000 additional drilling permits to be dispensed this year by the regulator’s expedited algorithm.

At the current leisurely reclamation rate it could take 126 years to deal with the methane-leaking mess already created. Yet somehow there is an assumption that the oil and gas industry is going to be around more than a century from now to settle up, even though almost 80 per cent of Alberta’s conventional crude reserves have already been extracted. Not to worry — Alberta regulators have ensured that industry posted funds to cover 0.3 per cent of cleanup costs.

The massive taxpayer exposure from abandoned wells pales in comparison to even larger liabilities accumulated from decades of lightly regulated bitumen mining. According to other internal figures from the Alberta Energy Regulator, reclaiming tailings ponds now covering 88 square kilometres and counting could cost a further $130 billion, assuming such a thing was even technically possible.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Wildly Underestimated Oilsands Emissions Latest Blow to Alberta’s Dubious Climate Claims

May 3, 2019

Wildly Underestimated Oilsands Emissions Latest Blow to Alberta’s Dubious Climate Claims

As disaster looms, petro province lets industry call the shots.

‘Whether or not the rest of the oil patch has as wretched a record of accuracy remains to be seen, but the missing 17 megatonnes thus far unearthed are enormous — equivalent to the entire carbon output of Toronto or Seattle.’ Photo by jasonwoodhead23, Creative Commons licensed.

Trust us. That has long been the message from the oil sector to the Alberta public, which seems to have little choice in the matter.

In a bizarre arrangement, the Alberta oil patch pays for its own oversight through the Alberta Energy Regulator — a regulatory body 100-per-cent funded by the fossil fuel sector. What could go wrong?

The latest boondoggle was revealed by an Environment Canada studypublished in the prestigious journal Nature Communications. It showed the methodology that energy companies have used for years to calculate carbon dioxide and methane emissions from oilsands surface mining operations underestimated contributions to global warming by a whopping 64 per cent.

This eye-popping number was the result of airborne sampling over four of the largest bitumen mines in 2013 to test the accuracy of the industry’s self-reporting methods. The company figures are based on “bottom-up” calculations using the measured amount of fuels consumed in their operations. The “top-down” sampling by Environment Canada was based on actual measurements of carbon dioxide levels collected over these projects.

Emission measurements are complicated, and there are bound to be some differences in results.

However, the results from Environment Canada’s airborne testing were not even close. Suncor’s Millennium and North Steepbank mines had emissions 13 per cent higher than the company had reported. Two bitumen mines operated by Canadian Natural Resources were both about 36 per cent higher. And emissions from Syncrude’s Mildred Lake mine were 125 per cent higher — more than double — the level the industry reported.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Alberta Is Playing a Dangerous Game with Pipeline Ad Campaign

January 27, 2019

Alberta Is Playing a Dangerous Game with Pipeline Ad Campaign

The anti-BC PR blitz fuels the anger of right-wing groups like the ‘yellow vests.’

Alberta’s ad campaign, with its complaint of being ‘held hostage,’ risks unleashing destructive forces.

A Tyee investigation revealed the expensive details of Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s national public relations effort to scapegoat British Columbia, including dubious claims of pipeline benefits translated into Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Filipino and Punjabi.

Not merely cynical and inaccurate, the campaign to portray Albertans as victims also risks emboldening a growing number of extremist elements hijacking “yellow vest” protests.

Alberta government spin doctors apparently decided on a simplistic strategy of framing any opposition to Trans Mountain as “B.C. against Canada.”

The behind-the-scenes brain trust also arrived at two other Orwellian platitudes: “It’s senseless to pit the environment against the economy,” and, “This is a good thing” — a slogan that might be dreamed up if Martha Stewart worked for Burson-Marsteller.

It’s not often that the roof is lifted off the sausage-making factory to reveal the political abattoir in operation. Such as they are, the arguments advanced in the national misinformation onslaught include such untruths as mythicalAsian markets, how expanding exports of unprocessed bitumen are somehow good for meeting our climate goals, and the biggest nose-stretcher of all: how much the absence of a pipeline is costing Canadians. Alberta first claimed it was losing $4 million a day in revenue. That became $40 million a day for all Canadians. Wait! Now it’s $80 million. Isn’t all mathematics really just a matter of opinion?

Government-funded ad campaigns are conveniently unencumbered by the same standards of advertising accuracy required by the private sector — a loophole used to great effect by the authors behind this effort.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Year the Oil Bubble Burst

April 4, 2016

The Year the Oil Bubble Burst

As companies are forced to slash value of reserves, industry faces a grim new future.

The days of artificially inflated oil prices might be over forever. Teardrop image via Shutterstock.

Are we witnessing the beginning of the end for the oil industry? It’s reporting season in the financial world and like it or not, fossil fuel companies are being forced to erase billions from their balance sheets to reflect devalued or worthless oil reserves.

Let’s start with the big picture. Global oil reserves are estimated at 1.7 trillion barrels.

Energy companies treat their share of these reserves as the equivalent of money in the bank and report them as assets.

Back in 2014, oil was worth about $110 per barrel. Now it hovers around $40. That means that about $120 trillion in global assets have just disappeared, at least until oil prices rise again.

And that’s not likely to happen anytime soon — or perhaps ever. Much ink has been spilled trying to explain the reasons for the global price collapse. The short answer is that Saudi Arabia is weary of cutting production to prop up prices and ceding market share to new entrants like U.S. shale gas and Alberta oilsands.

Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said as much to a horrified meeting of U.S. petroleum executives in Texas in February. Keeping prices artificially high by limiting oil production has just allowed competitors to bring higher-cost gas and oil to market, he said. “Cutting low cost production to subsidize higher cost supplies only delays an inevitable reckoning,” he said. Low prices mean “inefficient, uneconomic producers” will shut down, he predicted.

Is anyone going to cut production to prop up prices? Saudi Arabia’s arch-enemy Iran, free from years of sanctions, calledthe prospect “ridiculous.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Psst, Trudeau: IMF Now Pegs Our Fossil Fuel Subsidies at $46 Billion

February 1, 2016

Psst, Trudeau: IMF Now Pegs Our Fossil Fuel Subsidies at $46 Billion

Fastest way to transition Canada to a green economy? Quit the giveaways.

According to IMF economists, Canadian carbon-based fuels should be taxed an additional $17.2 billion annually to compensate for climate change. Oil photo via Shutterstock.

Justin Trudeau has a problem. How can Canada meet our international climate commitments so recently inked in Paris with an increasingly empty economic larder? The International Monetary Fund may have the answer. Last summer, the IMF updated its global report on energy subsidies and found that Canada provides a whopping $46.4 billion in subsidies to the energy sector in either direct support or uncollected taxes on externalized costs.

Globally, this figure balloons to US$5.3 trillion or 6.5 per cent of the world’s GDP. To put that enormous sum in perspective, the global giveaway to the energy sector amounts to 40 timesmore money than is contributed in aid to the world’s poorest people.

To be clear, the IMF is including all untaxed externalized costs of energy use under their definition of subsidies. The figures flagged for Canada still include $1.4 billion in direct “pre-tax” subsidies — the kind of direct public giveaways that Trudeau campaigned to eliminate. The remaining $44.6 billion is in the form of externalized costs to society from dirty and dangerous fossil fuels — things like air pollution, traffic congestion and climate change.

I realize that the folks at the Fraser Institute might get rankled by such a broad definition of subsidies by those pinkos at the IMF, and in fact they already have. But as they say in business, there’s no free lunch, so why should all taxpayers have to pick up the tab for very real costs resulting from our ongoing addiction to fossil fuels?

Let’s get down to brass tacks. How much money is being left on the table in favour of the fossil fuel sector?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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