Canada climate-change hoax of the week

By Colby Cosh - Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 9:43 AM - 74 Comments

Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t the one by the Yes Men.

Well, that's inconvenient (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 6:44 PM - 4 Comments

Various jurisdictions have their doubts about the Harper’s government’s environmental agenda.

The numbers won’t add up in the Harper government’s proposed climate-change plan unless it fixes flaws that jeopardize the plan’s credibility, say some of North America’s largest provincial and state governments.

The Western Climate Initiative — a coalition of governments that includes Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba and California — says a draft version of a federal “offsets” system for rewarding green practices must be revised to prevent businesses from profiting from actions that don’t actually reduce the amount of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere…

The Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental research group, said the proposed system would result in fictional emissions reductions in the same way that lax financial-accounting rules have created fictional profits. ”If the loopholes aren’t closed, actual emissions are likely to be millions of tonnes higher than the nominal level of a future regulated emissions cap,” said Matthew Bramley, director of Pembina’s climate-change policy.

Obama's Green Dream Team and what it means for Alberta's oil

By Alex Shimo - Thursday, December 11, 2008 at 5:59 PM - 14 Comments

Obama announced his energy team yesterday, nominating Nobel physicist Steven Chu to head the Department of Energy. This is an important victory for science and environmentalists, since it is the first time a scientist is heading a major executive branch department since the 1970s, according to Marc Ambinder, political columnist at The Atlantic Monthly. Chu has an impressive resume - he’s a Nobel Prize winning physicist and he’s been the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory since 2004, where he has pushed aggressively for research into solar power, biofuels, and other alternative energy as a way to combat global warming. Obama also gave former EPA administrator Carol Brower a new White House position overseeing environmental, energy, and climate policies. Lisa Jackson of New Jersey to be his Environmental Protection Agency head and Nancy Sutley, deputy mayor of Los Angeles, will lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

What does this mean for Canada? The tar sands and its growing emissions will likely come under more intense scrutiny. Continue…