Canadian scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) call upon May to use her vote power and influence to help defeat Conservatives

Strategic voting is tough for party loyalists. Using your party to help defeat another, rather than use any gains in perception, strength, breadth and membership to continue building your own party - well that's a hard road to travel for many. But it might be the right road to travel for those in a position to really make a difference.

Three Canadian climate change scientists are asking Canadians to look within their hearts and consider smart strategic voting. This builds upon the momentum the popular movement Vote For Environment has achieved and which, I believe, offers real hope for our country. What makes Vote for Environment effective is that its an organized effort to maximize our power as individuals.

A list of ridings (PDF) where progressive / green oriented voters can really make a difference is attached to this post. (Source: voteforenvioronment.ca).

VICTORIA – Three senior Canadian members of the 2007 Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are calling on Elizabeth May to lead Greens to make the difference in more than 50 close ridings where the Conservatives are set to win with a fraction of the expected Green Party vote. The leading Canadian climate scientists making the call are Dr. Andrew Weaver from the University of Victoria, Dr. William Peltier from the University of Toronto and Dr. John Stone from Carleton University.

Riding projections on VoteForEnvironment.ca and seat models from various polling companies show that in the so-called 519 and 905 regions, and across southern BC the Green Party vote is many times greater than the Conservative margin of victory.

"We face a critical moment," said Dr. Andrew Weaver, a lead author of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winning IPCC report.

"It looks like the unprecedented desire to vote for the environment could result in a terrible three way split of environmental voters in key ridings. Elizabeth May and her appeal have an extraordinary opportunity to make the change the Green movement wants to see in our government. Ms. May and the Greens alone can help make the difference between the Harper majority that the climate scientists fear and a Liberal minority under which great progress can be made to fight climate change." More

Consider this: if Stephen Harper wins a majority, we shall likely see him at the helm of this country for at least four more years but more likely he'll strive to gain at least eight years with which he can fundamentally change the country. One of his goals is to cripple any real progress on the important issue of our generation, climate change. Another, perhaps less obvious goal but no less important to environmentalists, is that Harper is, and will continue to, permanently hobble the power of the federal government to enact new national programs.

In short, by continuing to slash taxes - whether it puts Canada ultimately in a deficit or not - Harper has made it nigh on impossible for the government to put any significant new program in place. There simply won't be the money, and it'll be extremely difficult to go to the public to ask for funds. Its Harper's strategic yet simple (all the most workable diabolical are simple) to destroy the power of federalism.

This is not an abstract problem green or progressive or indeed any voter can afford to dismiss. Weakening the authority of the federal government, whether by treaty or by reducing taxation revenue, helps Harper build a case for increased provincial autonomy. That sounds good as a sound bite but when one considers the deeper issues, its a terrible idea.

We live in one large but connected country. What Alberta or British Columbia or Nova Scotia does, affects others. Environmental issues do not halt at provincial boundaries. Harper wants a weaker federation so that provinces can be emboldened to cater to their own narrow interests while ignoring issues and concerns which are in fact national in scope - like climate change.

This stuff isn't sexy to talk about on the campaign trail, but its fundamentally important.

The bottom line is Harper doesn't believe the federal government should even exist beyond a very narrow definition. Its not merely that he doesn't like Ottawa but that he wished it didn't exist at all. He will concede that defence is a natural federal obligation. But if he could wheel back the hands of time, Canada would not have a national health care system. Canada would not sign on to international treaties such as Kyoto, which obligate the entire country to meet certain standards. Harper wants no national authority to have teeth to take on provinces when its required.

There certainly will never be a national pharmacare or real day care system under his watch, and by cutting government revenue to the bone, any future government will have to raise taxes in order to create such a program. As you've no doubt witnessed through this election, the very spectre - real or artificial - of raising taxes is enough to make a villain out of any politician.

There'll be no real movement on the environment if Harper stays in office, minority or not. For even with a minority government we've seen Harper slash taxes deeply and he won't stop until he hits bone. He's not doing it because its the best plan for the country, he's slashing taxes because it helps win elections so that he can finish the job of dismantling government. We'll be adding to the national debt soon and that will give Harper an excuse to start slashing program spending. What's he going to cut?

In an upcoming article I'll demonstrate how his aggressive tax give-away is likely to push Canada into the largest annual deficit seen in over a decade.

Greens and NDP are not the only ones who have had to wrestle with these questions. I'm sure Liberals have at times thrown their votes elsewhere to stop an unworthy candidate or party. I've voted strategically myself. As a Progressive Conservative (readers will understand my emphasis has always been on progressive) I have voted strategically more often than not. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I voted against the Conservatives in the last two elections even through I was an member of the Conservative Party, however unenthusiastic. Why? I could no longer support a weak local candidate, one I knew had no chance of a) winning or b) standing up to Stephen Harper any more than I would cast a vote for Stephen Harper directly myself.

But this is not news. My lack of enthusiasm for the new more muscular Conservative Party was not because it did not measure up to expectations. The party, led by Harper, has met and exceeded my darkest expectations. At the time of the merger it was more than clear that the resulting party would be the Reform / Canadian Alliance, just with a new name. That first impression is exactly what we have today - a western rump protest party which doesn't truly believe in a strong united Canada is actually now a national party running the country, only the party's brain trust remains indifferent to whether Canada ends up being 10 little "canadas" or 1 big one. Incroyable!

For those who live in a riding on the edge, and who, like me, are concerned that any more time Harper spends in office is like a death sentence not only for the environment but for all social issues and future national aspirations, then I urge you to think carefully about voting strategically and encouraging your friends and neighbours to help in this great effort to take back our country from the most destructive prime minister it has ever seen.

The Conservatives need to go to the penalty box for bad environmental, bad fiscal, bad social, and bad federal behaviour. Lets do one better and eject them from the game!

Please consider strategic voting if it makes sense for your riding. You can determine if your riding is in play by consulting the Vote for Environment web site.

The author is a former Progressive Conservative former Conservative that has never voted for Stephen Harper directly or indirectly in his life. Progressive Conservatives fought for years against Stephen Harper and his Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance Party. Some still do.

Yes, its true, Nude Election '08 has claimed yet another NDP candidate: Skinny-dipper Julian West (Saanich-Gulf Islands) has gone beyond making apologies for his past lack of common sense and has resigned, making him the third in a week to quit the NDP campaign. One can't help but wonder about the man's sense of morality, given he asked minor girls to use their face paints on his nude form, "all over".

This resignation brings an interesting dynamic to the Saanich-Gulf Islands race where the incumbent, Conservative MP and Natural Resources minister Gary Lunn, faces off against Liberal candidate Briony Penn, well known to the area as an environmental activist and former Green Party supporter. The NDP vacuum might allow a real race against Lunn, an outcome I would welcome, although it does seem likely that vote splitting between the Green and Liberal candidate is likely to ensure an anti-environment Lunn is re-elected.

Lady Godiva

Although her moral compass is not in question, Penn is no stranger to public nudity herself, having taken on the starring role as Lady Godiva for a protest against Vancouver-based corporate logging interests. No minors nor horses were harmed in the event.

Of greater importance than the forgettable Mr. West's political future, for those who have not followed Conservative MP Gary Lunn's career, know that he is in favour of opening up B.C.'s west coast for oil and gas exploration and has been consistently opposed to progressive environmental measures and the fight against climate change.

Priddle Panel: Not Found

The last significant read of the public apettite for off-shore drilling was done by a NRCan (Natural Resources Canada) Public Review Panel - the "Priddle Panel" - in 2004 under the direction of then minister (Liberal) John Efford.

Panel Chair Ron Priddle was at the time a director of Talisman Energy, while another panel member, Don Scott, was a former mayor of Prince Rupert who had lobbied to have the moratorium lifted. The third member of the panel, Diane Valiela, is a lawyer currently working for B.C. firm Lawson Lundell in areas including energy law. Valiela had been a member of the National Energy Board, a tribunal principally concerned with approving requests from industry.

In short, this was not an unbiased panel but a panel with a mission, one which the Gorden Campbell-led provincial government happened to share: lift the moratorium.

Despite the obvious pro-exploration bias of the panel the report was forced to note that the public at large was not behind them. Public support strongly favoured (75%) retaining a continued moratorium or ban on offshore drilling. I'd like to link directly to the NRCan website to provide a copy of the panel report but, tellingly, since Lunn took over the NRCan ministry that link no longer works. Interestingly, there is a still-working link to the table of contents of the report, but no working link to the panel report itself.

One well-established rule of publishing on the internet - particularly for public bodies such as government - is that links should remain viable forever. This tenet doesn't trouble Stephen Harper's version of democracy, because transparency is clearly not a Conservative Party virtue.

Yet its worse than that. Not only does the link fail to function but the NRCan web site search facility fails to turn up any reference to the Priddle Panel, which is odd since almost 4,000 submissions were made to the panel; the process took months to complete; and the cost involved real taxpayer dollars. Question: Has Lunn or any of his staff ordered that the document be taken off-line or otherwise hidden from view? If so, when was this order made and why?

Search results for "priddle"

Frankly I'm surprised at how difficult it was to locate a copy of this report. Here permanently attached to this post for posterity is the report as well as a first nations specific study and a 2004 review of moratoria status. Interesting reading:

The end of the petroleum age is a notion which might have been laughed at fifty years ago but which is looking increasingly close on the horizon--for those who are paying attention. At the same time, climate change as a result of the burning of fossil fuels is an issue which, despite the best efforts of politicians like George Bush and Stephen Harper to deny and ignore, has garnered global attention and concern from every day citizens of the planet.

The conjoined issues of climate change and energy scarcity have created an environment where politicians can ram through bad policy.

We shall increasingly hear that nuclear power is the only way to meet green house gas reduction obligations while at the same time power our energy-hungry lives.

There has been precious little public discussion on the role of nuclear energy going forward, despite a clear acceleration of the nuclear industry's agenda by politicians in Canada, the United States, and Australia.

There are vast sums of money at stake: Canada is the world's largest producer of uranium, followed by Australia. The United States, China, and France are the worlds largest present-day or near-future consumers of uranium.

Vested business and military interests exist in both producer and consumer states, but particularly so here in Canada. We have AECL pushing for reactor sales; our world-leading uranium deposits eyed hungrily by miners; and the worlds largest nuclear consumer - the United States - directly across our borders.

In Stephen Harper, the U.S. has found a Prime Minister who quite happily will work on their behalf to create a policy and political under which an acceleration of nuclear-related exports can occur.

Canadians largely live under a cloud of illusion when it comes to our participation in the nuclear arms industry. Our uranium has ended up in U.S. nuclear weapons, by proxy or in actuality, it matters not. While our politicians have in the past called for a re-thinking of NATO nuclear policy, we've never backed up our policy with principled action.

Former foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy in his 1998 speech to NATO quoted a poll showing 93 percent of Canadians wanted Canada to take a leading role in the elimination of nuclear weapons. [1]

Yet it was Canadian nuclear technology that led to India becoming a nuclear power; our uranium finds its way, directly or by proxy, into the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Liberal governments allowed the transport of plutonium into our country for experimental test burns, despite prior recommendations from House of Commons committees that such a program was unfeasible. [2]

Given our historical inability to match our citizens' desires with working policy, what confidence should we have that the current government will do any better? In fact there is every reason to believe, and evidence to prove, that Stephen Harper will increase Canada's role on the nuclear stage, without having consulted parliament or Canadians at large.

Imagine a world where the most productive farmland (total output) in the world – North America – is a barren wasteland – and you’ll be imagining what this U.S. government report imagines will happen if we do not bring greenhouse gas emissions under control and effect reductions.

Complete with pretty charts, its a must-read.

Last year, Ipsos Reid asked Conservatives in B.C. their top priority for finding new energy; 53 per cent supported wind and solar, 30 per cent said pursue more efficiency and only 11 per cent chose going after new oil sources, like the tar sands. The same poll found 71.7 per cent of Conservative voters wanted a ban on oil tankers close to shore. David Beers, ‘Tankers on the B.C. coast are getting too close for comfort’ – The Globe and Mail April 28 2007

So why isn’t Stephen Harper listening? Does father really know better?

Or is it because he has outstanding IOUs and is beholden to key oil and gas patch supporters of various Conservative MP’s, cabinet ministers, and Harper himself, including former EnCana president and CEO Gwyn Morgan.

Oil Tankers in B.C. coastal waters?

IOU or not, EnCana is directly woven into this story. Under Morgan’s leadership, the company initiated a move which would see the coastal B.C. town of Kitimat have its port turned into an import terminal for certain oil liquids that are used in the Alberta tar sands extraction process – liquids which are in extremely short supply due to the phenomenal growth of that particular environmental disaster.

To get the stuff to its destination, a pipeline would need to be built across British Columbia to northern Alberta, and that project alone is one for concern as any pipeline built to Alberta will have a twin returning back to B.C. carrying import liquids to the tar sands and tar sands extracts for export to the U.S. west coast or Asia.

Enbridge is planning to build two pipelines in a single corridor — one to transport over 400,000 barrels of petroleum per day from Alberta to the B.C. coast, and the other to carry over 150,000 barrels of condensate (a by-product of gas production, which is used to thin oil for easier transport by pipeline) per day from the coast to Alberta. From the new tanker terminal in Kitimat, oil would then be shipped to refineries in California, China and other Asia Pacific markets.

The Gateway Pipeline would be the largest petroleum pipeline development in North America in more than 50 years, and one of the largest private infrastructure investments in B.C.’s history. All told, the pipeline would increase Canada’s trade opportunities and enhance B.C.’s reputation as an international gateway. Anna Grimes, Vancouver Board of Trade June 27 2006

In short, Kitimat will become something akin to the Valdez Alaska Oil Terminal which is operated by the Alyeska Pipeline Service Company.

SNC-Lavalin, a Canadian engineering firm active in oil and gas pipeline and infrastructure projects, has done millions of dollars of work for Alyeska (a pipeline and port operator) and has been involved in billions of dollars of pipeline construction in North American and around the world. Gwyn Morgan is on the board of directors of SNC-Lavalin.

LNG import terminals: ticking time bombs

Kitimat may not only have to contend with oil condensates and bitumen or synthetic crude traveling in and out of its port—there are companies (Galveston LNG, Kitimat LNG) right now trying to get approval to build a time-bomb of a facility, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) re-gassification import terminal, at Kitimat, for the sole purpose of shipping natural gas imported from overseas to the United States. And of course, another petro-fuel terminal, means more pipelines.

Calgary-based Galveston LNG is hopeful of receiving regulatory approval by late May for the “loop” pipeline that would supply substantial volumes of regasified gas to consumers in Alberta, according to a senior company official. “The pipeline will have an initial potential to supply 500 million cubic feet per day,” said Thom Dawson, senior vice-president of Galveston. “Depending on the gas sales and purchase agreements, it can go up to 1.7 billion cubic feet per day.” Estimated to cost $1 billion, the project will entail the construction of a roughly 300— kilometre, 36-inch-diameter pipeline from Kitimat in B.C. to Station Four, north of Sumas, a compressor station and isolation valves. The facility will be built on a 50:50 partnership between Kitimat LNG, wholly-owned by Galveston, and Vancouver-based Pacific Northern Gas Ltd. Both firms have formed Pacific Trail Pipelines Ltd. Partnership to develop a natural gas transmission line. Week in Review, April 3–9, www.albertaoilmagazine.com

If the gas is destined for the U.S., why build the plant in Canada you ask?

There are a number of reasons ranging from location to world wide shipping lines, to the EnCana/Enbridge desire to establish an oil and condensate export/import terminal, but frequently overlooked as a significant factor to the current attractiveness of Canada for such projects is that political activism here isn’t as effective, and there are governments in B.C., Alberta, and Ottawa who are so pro oil and gas development they breath butane instead of oxygen. Harper made his intentions clear last fall at a dinner meeting of the Economic Club of New York when he labelled Canada as an emerging energy “superpower”.

The Kitimat LNG project last year received one of several approvals needed befpre it can proceed. Its interesting that any project destined to increase Canada’s share of world wide greenhouse gas emissions (natural gas is a euphemistic alternative name for methane which molecule for molecule has ten times the climate change impact of carbon dioxide – CO2 – and, when used as a fuel, produces significant amounts of CO2 emissions) could receive a positive environmental assessment. Did that assessment consider the GHG component? While John Baird and his predecessor Rona Ambrose try to look green, out the back door their ministry has been approving projects like Emerson’s gateway-linked expansion of Delta Port despite community opposition which submitted environmental assessments of their own that countered the official government story.

What can be done?

Whether we choose to be aware or admit it or not, the fact is that dependence on fossil fuels has much to do with the state of the planet in ecological, political, and military terms. We are all willing or unwilling or uninformed accomplices. Particularly in North America, which has the lions share of world wealth, consumes more than 1/4 of the annual energy production of the entire planet, yet has barely more than 4 percent of the globe’s population, we have a lot to answer for. But our current political leadership only wants to to more of the same, and in fact wants to ramp it up.

What can be done? Take personal responsibility first for your own role, but don’t stop there.

Activism works. Common sense and public outcry resulted in California refusing to authorize exactly such a plant that international mining giant BHP Billiton wanted to build, although a number of other companies continue to lobby various west coast states for permission to proceed. A map showing proposed projects in BC south to California is available here .(PDF)

California activists have had some success but their terminator governor continues to say he supports LNG terminal projects despite his own government pulling the plug on two projects. See: http://www.coastaladvocates.com/ and http://www.lngwatch.com/

Lack of public awareness and action has resulted in a natural salmon fishery that is on its way to being as dead as the east coast cod waters. We can’t allow the prevailing culture of business at any cost to the environment and people continue to drive us into a future that looks more and more like a Mad Max rerun.

The advertisement also promotes a fallacy – that Canada must import its fuel, and that bio-fuels would allow Canada to “grow its own” fuels and end the so-called foreign fuel reliance. Nothing could be further from the truth.

While certain regions of the country do in fact import fuel from the U.S., this is only because supply lines in certain parts of the country make it more efficient and less costly to do so.

In fact, Canada is by far a net petroleum fuel exporter. The U.S. on the other hand is a net petroleum importer and has been since the 70’s.

Ethanol fuels are actually more costly to transport than petroleum fuels. Due to the corrosive nature of ethanol, it can’t be shipped over long distances via pipeline (an extremely efficient method), so most transport is via truck and train, both of which are far less efficient than pipeline transport.

The commercial avoids discussing such troubling facts.

Bottom line: the CFRA commercial is spin aimed at promoting their industrial agenda, helping sell policy changes that will benefit ADM and its ilk, and as a by product helping to remake Harper as the next “greenest” prime minister. Anyone who has watched Harper and his behaviour over the years knows otherwise… but that constitutes a minority of Canadian voters.

Plugging ethanol is a vote buying grab and little more.

If the so-called ecoENERGY policies were to have meaning, they would first look at reduction of consumption (requiring civic re-engineering and retooling of the personal and corporate fleet of vehicles in the country). A green renewable energy policy wouldn’t be sold to corn and wheat producers (vote buying) but would first identify holistic use of biosource—its entirely possible to design an ethanol program which pollutes as much as fossil fuels in the growing, refining and waste disposal stages. Instead the government is plugging the every-grower for herself strategy.

Secondly, burning ethanol blended fuels is not “clean” and not necessarily “cleaner”. Witness some politicians in California, driven by necessity and unburdened by personal political IOU‘s to the corn belt of the U.S., who are trying to limit the use of ethanol.

Why? Because ethanol blends are believed to be increasing ozone and smog in California’s already smog choked cities.

[The] switch to ethanol-blended gasoline is considered one of the main culprits in increased ozone. Since ethanol’s volatility increases smog, particularly in the summer, I believe we need to look carefully at its impact on air quality. Senator Diane Feinstein, Western Farm Press

However the U.S. federal government has been an impediment. Bush controls that government, and keeps shovelling out hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to corn growers in the so-called “red states”, for its this block of farm votes the Republican Party must rely upon to avoid annihilation in the 2008 U.S. presidential, House and Senate races.

Here in Canada we have similar challenges. No one is willing to do the right thing for people and planet. Its only your vote that counts, and as we’ve seen here locally, your vote matters not one bit only seconds after its cast and counted.

Wouldn’t it be nice if facts, not corporate or political agenda, dominated our
discussions?

1c Increase: Ice-free sea absorbs ?more heat and accelerates global warming; fresh water lost from a third of the world’s surface; low-lying coastlines flooded. Chance of avoiding one degree of global warming: zero.

2c Increase: Europeans dying of heatstroke; forests ravaged by fire; stressed plants beginning to emit carbon rather than absorbing it; a third of all species face extinction. Chance of avoiding two degrees of global warming: 93%, but only if emissions of greenhouse gases are reduced by 60% over the next 10 years.

3c Increase: Carbon release from vegetation and soils ?speeds global warming; death of the Amazon rainforest; super-hurricanes hit coastal cities; starvation in Africa. Chance of avoiding three degrees of global warming: poor if the rise reaches two degrees and triggers carbon-cycle feedbacks from soils and plants.

4c Increase: Runaway thaw of permafrost makes global warming unstoppable; much of Britain made uninhabitable by severe flooding; Mediterranean region abandoned. Chance of avoiding four degrees of global warming: poor if the rise reaches three degrees and triggers a runaway thaw of permafrost.

5c Increase: Methane from ocean floor accelerates global warming; ice gone from both poles; humans migrate in search of food and try vainly to live like animals off the land. Chance of avoiding five degrees of global warming: negligible if the rise reaches four degrees and releases trapped methane from the sea bed.

6c Increase: Life on Earth ends with apocalyptic storms, flash floods, hydrogen sulphide gas and methane fireballs racing across the globe with the power of atomic bombs; only fungi survive. Chance of avoiding six degrees of global warming: zero if the rise passes five degrees, by which time all feedbacks will be running out of control.

Excerpt from Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, by Mark Lynas

On Mike Duffy live this afternoon a ridiculous performance by Madhav Khandekar, a former meteorologist and member of the FOS scientific advisory board. He as much as said that climate change is bogus, and even if it were real, we should look forward to it. Nice performance Madhav, perhaps you could audition for a job as the press secretary for David Emerson or Wajid Khan?

FOS: Funded by the oil and gas industry, apparently through a back-door scheme. According to desmogblog.com, the University of Calgary link likely points to a long time Stephen Harper confidant, Prof. Dr. Barry Cooper.

Harper, and Day before him, and Preston Manning before Day, have been denying climate change for over a decade and have done everything in their power to prevent substantive political progress on this issue. I see no reason to believe they’ve changed their spots overnight, particularly when ideological soul-mates like the folks at the Fraser Institute are still lobbying for the “do nothing” approach favoured by the oil and gas sector and big industrial concerns.

I think that we’ve got to drink the water that comes out of our taps, and if we don’t trust it, we ought to be raising hell about that.”

Hear, hear!

Idea of the day: The Grouse Grind should be declared a NO BOTTLED WATER ZONE. Last time we hiked up we saw dozens of discarded store-bought water bottles littering the trail and hillside. Apparently the fitness fanatics could care less about the environment, as they zip up the hill, zoned out in their “me-first-and-only” attitudes.

(UK Green Party) Microsoft Vista: upgrades create ecological nightmare

There will be thousands of tonnes of dumped monitors, video cards and whole computers that are perfectly capable of running Vista – except for the fact they lack the paranoid lock down mechanisms Vista forces you to use. That’s an offensive cost to the environment.

Future archaeologists will be able to identify a ‘Vista Upgrade Layer’ when they go through our landfill sites.

There are actually some Conservatives who place environmental issues at the top of their policy lists. Sadly the current Minister of Environment isn’t one of them.

Meant every word.