science

Harper Government In Stark Contrast To President Obama on Climate Policy

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CCL on carbon fee and div

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This exchange took place in the Canadian House of Commons yesterday:

Mr. Bruce Hyer (Thunder Bay—Superior North, GP):
Mr. Speaker, two of Canada’s greatest challenges are rising CO2 and growing poverty. The Conservative government has not addressed either one.
Proposed by the Citizens Climate Lobby, carbon fee and dividend would address both by setting a fee on carbon to curb our petrol addictions and putting that money straight back into the pockets of each and every Canadian.

Will the Minister of Finance please consider carbon fee and dividend?

Response:
Mr. Colin Carrie (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to say that our approach is working. Thanks to our actions, carbon emissions will go down close to 130 megatonnes from what they would have been under the Liberals.
What does the other parties want? They want a $20-billion carbon tax. Let us look at what this would do to hard-working Canadian families. This would be a tax on electricity, transportation, heating for their homes, clothes, groceries, and the list goes on. Canadians do not want more taxes. They do not want a $20-billion carbon tax.

We are going to continue with our approach.

The Canadian federal government seems intent on maintaining the status quo, and claiming to take action on climate change with sector-by-sector regulation which doesn’t even apply to the oil and gas industry.

As a Canadian and a mother concerned about climate change, I don’t find your regurgitated talking points reassuring, Mr. Carrie.  Canada can do better.

inaction is expensive*

Here’s what President Obama said in an interview with Thomas Friedman on Showtime’s Years Of Living Dangerously segment that aired yesterday:

The way we’ve solved previous pollution problems like acid rain was we said, “we’re gonna charge you if you’re releasing this stuff into the atmosphere. We’re gonna let you figure it out, but we’re gonna to tell you that you can’t keep dumping it out in the atmosphere and making everybody else pay for it.” So if there is one thing I would like to see, it’d be for us to be able to price the cost of carbon emissions.

Here’s a clip of part of the interview:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/-cnjdqZi52s]

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Mr Carrie and his leader might want to pay attention to what the President of the United States of America says about climate change. Stephen Harper and his government have always linked Canada’s policy to that of the U.S. – at least as long as the U.S. wasn’t taking a leadership role. It seems the U.S. is changing its tune but Mr. Harper’s still singing from the old songbook.

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image from I Heart Climate Scientists
image from I Heart Climate Scientists

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Links:

‘Science Is Science’: Obama Embraces Price On Carbon, Leaving Fossil Fuels In The Ground

Canada “more frank” about climate change, Harper says

Hansard transcript from House of Commons, June 9, 2014

Hurricane Sandy Reminds Us We’re All Paying The Price For Politically-Created Climate Of Doubt

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Image credit: Earth – The Operator’s Manual

The PBS Frontline program “Climate of Doubt” masterfully exposed the strategies and tactics that climate denialists have used to delay, if not undermine meaningful action in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change in the US. Perhaps the #1 strategy they have pursued involves denying the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming.

The number one strategy this shadowy, well-financed group has pursued involves denying the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming.  As Myron Ebell of the right-wing think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) put it,

“We felt that if you concede the science is settled and that there’s a consensus…the moral high ground has been ceded to the alarmists.”

Republican Congressman from Wisconsin and climate denialist James Sensenbrenner explained the importance of the public awareness of the scientific consensus:

JOHN HOCKENBERRY:Do you think this will ever be settled scientifically, if 97 percent consensus doesn’t settle it for you?

Rep. JAMES SENSENBRENNER:Well, I — you know, I think that it’s up to the scientists and their supporters to convince the public that this is the right thing to do. And the supporters of that side of the argument in the Congress have been a huge flop.

Driving the climate denialism movement are some of the same people who over the last four decades have greatly benefited from the reversal of the “New Deal” and astronomically rising economic inequality. Thanks to what political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson describe as “Winner-Take-All Politics” financial markets were deregulated leading to the Great Recession of 2007/2008, while environmental deregulation and inaction on climate science led to aggravated droughts and hurricanes, which climate scientists like NASA’s James Hansen has been warning of for many years:
“My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather. In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.” Dr. James Hansen, Washington Post, Aug. 3, 2012
I don’t know about you, but I’m really hoping that Fred Singer, Myron Ebell, and James Sensenbrenner, and James Inhofe and the rest of the “free-market conservatives” all have sea-front homes on the U.S. East Coast. What complete a**h%%*&s!!
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source: 350.org

We Are Star Dust, We Are Golden

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Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked by a reader of TIME magazine, “What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?” This is his answer:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D05ej8u-gU&feature=player_embedded#!]

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Joni Mitchell put it this way:

I came upon a child of god
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me
I’m going on down to yasgurs farm
I’m going to join in a rock n roll band
I’m going to camp out on the land
I’m going to try an’ get my soul free
We are stardust
We are golden
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aOGnVKWbwc]

Climate Change: Lines of Evidence

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The National Academies, America’s preeminent independent scientific advisory body, has produced a series of videos about the science of climate change. This one,the second in the series, explains how scientists have arrived at the current state of knowledge about recent climate change and its causes.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IuVzcp39rs&list=PL38EB9C0BC54A9EE2&index=2&feature=plpp_video]

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National Academies.org

Climate Change Study Forces Skeptical Scientists To Change Minds

We’re All Climate Change Idiots

COP 17 in Durban – Day 1

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Today is the first day of the U.N. climate talks in Durban South Africa. As I wrote earlier, many people’s expectations (including mine) for a meaningful and binding international climate treaty coming out of these 10 days is low. It seems, sadly, that unbridled capitalism will triumph over humanity’s need for clean water, clean air, and a stable climate. The Alberta-based Pembina Institute put it this way:

Comparing the frustratingly slow pace of international negotiations on climate change against the ever-increasing urgency of climate-change science, it is hard to be optimistic. The level of ambition currently being demonstrated puts the world on track for irreversible and catastrophic climate change.

I recently heard someone say “Power is power.” Imagine if we lived in a world where everyone, whether they are an African living in remotest Sudan or a Pakistani in the highest Karakoram mountain or a New Yorker in Manhattan, could put up a solar panel or wind turbine to run their laptop or power their schools. Citizens of the world could get around without lining the pockets of Big Oil and Gas, as they rely on electric cars, or e-bikes, or accessible public transport. Parents wouldn’t need to be the gate-keepers of toxins to protect their children from poisons in the food they eat or the air they breathe, as sustainability becomes the norm in agriculture and industry as well as transportation, and clean water and air become the standard around the world rather than the exception.

The fossil fuel industry recognized several decades ago, before most environmentalists and certainly before most politicians (who still don’t get it), that a fundamental paradigm shift is required to address the climate crisis, and this shift threatens these corporations’ bottom line. They are fighting for their lives, and fighting dirty; and they don’t care about the lives of the most vulnerable or about our children’s future.

Christiana Figueres, who replaced Yvo de Boer as head of the U.N. climate secretariat in 2010, said Sunday the stakes for the COP17 negotiations are high, underscored by new scientific studies. Figueres said under discussion at COP17 was: “nothing short of the most compelling energy, industrial, behavioral revolution that humanity has ever seen.”

As investigative reporter William Marsden said on CBC Radio’s The Current this morning, it’s time to bring the science to the table, and let the science, not politics and the fossil fuel industry, dictate what should be done. Yet the industrialized nations, the big emitters, have been increasingly ignoring the science and muzzling scientists. In its 2011 World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Association has said that the world is at risk of being locked into an ‘insecure, inefficient and high-carbon energy system’ that will lead to average temperature increases of 3.5 C, and called for immediate action because if the world’s energy infrastructure isn’t changed by 2017 CO2 emissions will be locked in and catastrophic climate change will be set in motion.

Where are the parents, who should be in the streets demanding our governments take the science seriously and protect our children’s future?  It’s time for parents and grandparents, as well as young people, to get noisy and get active. Otherwise, we’re facing mutually assured destruction.

Suggestions For Immediate Actions:

The Council of Canadians has an action for Canadians to send a message to the European Union to uphold the Fuel Quality Directive (FQD) which labels tar sands oil as a high carbon, and encourages suppliers to reduce emissions and promotes the use of cleaner fuels over dirty fuels. For details on how to send a message of support for this clean fuel policy, go to the Council’s Action Alert page.

Join Citizens Climate Lobby, a nonprofit non-partisan international group focused on creating the political will for a sustainable climate and empowering individuals to have breakthroughs in exercising their personal and political power. Dr. James Hansen said at the Keystone XL Pipeline protests:

“Most impressive is the work of the Citizens Climate Lobby, a relatively new,  fast growing, nonpartisan, nonprofit group with 35 chapters across the United States and Canada. If you want to join the fight to save the planet, to save creation for your grandchildren, there is no more effective step you could take than becoming an active member of this group.”

CCL has introductory calls on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of every month, contact me at 350orbust@gmail.com or email ccl@citizensclimatelobby.org. Or check out their websites:

Citizens Climate Lobby International

Citizens Climate Lobby Canada

Whatever you chose to do, the important thing is to do something. For those of us who have a future generation depending on us, doing nothing isn’t an option any more.

Climate Science 101

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In this video Bill Nye, the Science Guy, explains the fundamentals of climate science, which have been understood by scientists for decades. Just like the tobacco lobby did with the clear evidence linking smoking with health effects, the petroleum industry has been trying to cast doubt on the science of climate change. The tobacco lobby managed to delay government action for the sake of public health on their industry for 3 decades – how long will the petroleum lobby be successful in their campaign? If they manage to delay action for 3 decades, we will have lost the window to take effective action on climate change. It’s time to stop the debate and the denial, and move on to solutions. Take the time today to write or phone at least one (more is better!) of your elected officials to let them know you’re concerned about climate change, and you want them to take action.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/28991442]

More links:

Parliament of Canada – contact info for Senators and MPs

Best Ontario Election website

Climate Reality Project.org

Is The Kremlin Now In Charge? Harper Government Silencing Canadian Artists And Scientists

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The Harper Government is sending out a clear message at home and abroad that if your politics are not correct your art shouldn’t be shown, and if your findings are inconvenient your science doesn’t matter.

Art by Franke James

A recent Vancouver Sun discussed the silencing of Fisheries Department scientist Kristi Miller. Miller heads a $6-million salmon-genetics project at the federal Pacific Biological Station on Vancouver Island whose breakthrough research into the deaths of West Coast salmon was published in the top scientific journal Science last year. The study suggests the possibility of a mysterious virus killing huge numbers of Fraser River salmon before they reach their spawning grounds. According to The Sun:

The documents show the Privy Council Office, which supports the Prime Minister’s Office, stopped Kristi Miller from talking about one of the most significant discoveries to come out of a federal fisheries lab in years.

...Miller is still not allowed to speak publicly about her discovery, and the Privy Council Office and Fisheries Department defend the way she has been silenced.

But observers say it is indefensible and more evidence of the way the government is undermining its scientists.

“There is no question in my mind it’s muzzling,” said Jeffrey Hutchings, a senior fisheries scientist at Halifax’s Dalhousie University.

“When the lead author of a paper in Science is not permitted to speak about her work, that is suppression,” he said. “There is simply no ifs, ands or buts about that.”

In a similar chilling manner, the Harper Government has recently lead a campaign to silence award-winning artist and author Franke James. James was asked by an international non-profit, Nektarina Nonprofit, which educates, connects and inspires people to care about their communities and their environment, to mount a series of art exhibitions in Europe. As Nektarina’s website states:

The uniqueness of her artwork is in combining science, art and storytelling, creating powerful and thought-provoking visual essays. Franke does not preach, she tells a story, educates and explains, leaving it to the viewers to make their own choices and decisions.

However, since May 2011, the Canadian Government has been using underhanded, behind-the-scenes tactics to get my “What can one person do?” art show in Europe cancelled. As Franke explains:

The goal of the ambitious show, organized by Nektarina Non Profit, is to raise environmental awareness with youth, and inspire teens to make their own climate change art. The show has the support of the Ministry of Culture in Latvia and the Croatian Agency for Environment. It’s a huge honor for me — but I can also see that it’s a direct result of the visual essays I’ve written, and the green conscience workshops I’ve done with students in Canada and the USA.

But apparently, Franke has ignited the Harper Government’s fury by telling the truth about Canada’s footdragging on climate action. And having the audacity to advocate pollution taxes and tougher environmental policies on Alberta’s Tar Sands – recommendations which are in line with many respected environmental NGO’s including the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation. Nektarina Non-Profit has issued this statement about the concerted effort the Harper Government, through its Canadian embassies, have been making to shut down James’ art exhibit:

When Nektarina decided to present Franke’s artwork in a series  of exhibitions in Europe and Central Asia, we felt confident of the support of Canada – Franke’s homeland.  Regrettably, the Canadian Government has since declined support for the project, verbally explaining that “She (Franke James) speaks against the Canadian Government”. Nektarina Non Profit was deeply surprised and disappointed by the reaction of official Canada, yet we decided to carry on with the project.Nektarina Non Profit believes that it is the right of every person – artists and intellectuals in particular – to freely express their opinion and to be able to pose the question about their government’s accountability on specific decisions.  This is all the more important when such governmental decisions potentially impact the welfare of a large demographic, natural resources or both.

In the past few months we have encountered many difficulties in organizing the exhibitions, usually connected to interventions of the Canadian Government or institutions under Canadian governmental control.  We continued to look for ways to collaborate with the home land of the artist, although at times we felt patronized and even intimidated, as a small NGO trying to reach an understanding with a powerful state.

This was most surprising given Canada´s reputation over many decades as a leader in promoting democratic freedoms, the right of free expression and also supporting the international community (through its role as a peace keeper and in many other ways).  It is clear that Canada has a difficult position to resolve in relation to its narrower national interests (in particular the exploitation of natural resources) and its wider responsibility in the international community.  We will continue to try to reach out to Canadian society and we feel sure that the positions taken do not reflect the attitudes of Canadian society as a whole and we are confident that we have many friends in the country.

To help make Franke’s powerful “What Can One Person Do?” exhibit a reality, please consider donating $5 or more to Nektarina Non-Profit (the corporate sponsor cancelled after pressure from the Harper Government). Click here to donate on-line. And here’s a challenge from me –  I’ll match every $5 that one of you, my blog readers, donates (you let me know in the comment section or by email at 350orbust@gmail.com).  Let’s see what we can do!

To read more about the anti-democratic, bullying actions of the Harper Government, as well as more ideas for taking action, go to Franke James’ blog.

More links:

Nektarina Non-Profit

My Green Conscience

Franke James Needs YOUR Support

Feds Silence scientist over West Coast Salmon Study

Another Canadian Muzzled By Harper


Stephen Hawking: Human-Caused Climate Change Dire Threat To Future Of World

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Renowned theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking has stated that climate change stands alongside the use of nuclear weapons as one of the greatest threats posed to the future of the world. Speaking at the Royal Society in London in 2007, Professor Hawking said that we stand on the precipice of a second nuclear age and a period of exceptional climate change, both of which could destroy the planet as we know it. In his remarks, Hawking stated:

“As we stand at the brink of a second nuclear age and a period of unprecedented climate change, scientists have a special responsibility, once again, to inform the public and to advise leaders about the perils that humanity faces…As scientists, we understand the dangers of nuclear weapons and their devastating effects, and we are learning how human activities and technologies are affecting climate systems in ways that may forever change life on Earth…

Lord Rees of Ludlow, president of the Royal Society, speaking at the same meeting, said humankind’s collective impacts on the biosphere, climate and oceans were unprecedented. These environmentally-driven threats ­ ‘threats without enemies’ ­ should loom as large in the political perspective as did the East-West political divide during the Cold War era.

The board of directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said the threat of nuclear apocalypse was now almost matched by the environmental threats posed by climate change:

“As in past deliberations, we have examined other human-made threats to civilisation. We have concluded the dangers posed by climate change are nearly as dire as those posed by nuclear weapons. The effects may be less dramatic in the short term than the destruction that could be wrought by nuclear explosions, but over the next three to four decades climate change could cause drastic harm.”

Read the full article here.

More links:

Hawking warns: We Must Recognize The Catastrophic Dangers of Climate Change

Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: How Skepticism Became Denial (subscription required to read full article)

Wrecking This Place Down: How Do We Protect Our Children In An Age of Environmental Crisis?

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Sandra Steingraber is a mother, a biologist, a cancer-survivor, and the author of several books on the dangers we are facing from the environmental toxins that surround us. Her most recent book, “Raising Elijah: Protecting Our Children in An Age Of Environmental Crisis” is a call to action – Steingraber says it’s time for parents to protect our children from harm and to plan for their future.

“When the air, food and water surrounding my kids is filled with toxic chemicals and I can’t prevent them from entering the bodies of my kids, I’m really not their protector anymore. And when climate change threatens to destabilize the planetary ecology on which my children’s future depends, I can’t plan for their future.”

Steingraber puts out a call for parents to become fossil fuel abolitionists, in the same way that abolitionists called for the end to slavery during 19th Century America. Although fossil fuels drive our economy in much the same way that slavery drove the economy at that time, it’s time for parents to actively fight for the greater good of society. Our children are part of the ecosystem of the planet, and if we continue down the path of fossil fuel addiction, their well-being will be sacrificed on the altar of the economy.  No responsible parent would willingly choose to put the profits of the oil, coal, and gas companies ahead of their children’s future.

Psychologists have identified “Well-Informed Futility Syndrome”, when people are presented with the facts of a large, multi-faceted problem like climate change and rather than being moved to action they feel intolerable guilt and fear that cause either a paralysis of action or a denial of the problem. The way out of Well-Informed Futility Syndrome, it turns out, is not to ask people to make small inconsequential changes, but to present a solution that is as big as the problem.  In terms of the climate crisis, this requires admission of the fact that “business as usual” can’t continue, and we need a whole new redesign of the way we as a society do things. Steingraber says it’s time to call on parents to be heroes, starting with forceful engagement in the climate debate. She deliberately doesn’t provide a blueprint for how to respond because everyone’s skill set and temperament are different. Instead, she poses the question to each parent out there: “What response to this crisis do your temperament and skill set provide?” It is time to for each of us to speak out of identities that we already have.

My experience, two years after being moved to action on this issue precisely for the reasons that Steingraber identifies – to protect my children from harm and plan for their future – is that action is so much more fulfilling and life-giving than sitting on the sidelines with overwhelming fear and guilt. And, as Steingraber points out, it is parents responding to a threat that gives children hope, even if the threat is large.

One of the ways I’ve responded to the climate crisis is by becoming involved in Citizens Climate Lobby, whose purpose is to create the political will for a stable climate and to empower individuals to have breakthroughs in exercising their personal and political power. To learn more about CCL, feel free to contact me at 350orbust@gmail.com, or check out these links:

Citizens Climate Lobby

Citizens Climate Lobby (Canada)

To listen to a half hour interview with Ms. Steingraber on CBC Radio’s The Current last Friday, click here.

Here is a trailer for a documentary based on a previous book of Steingraber’s, Living Downstream:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2UsmBqYpwo]

More links:

Living Downstream

Sandra Steingraber.com