Coming Soon to a Province Near You? Koch, Exxon Mobil Among Corporations Helping Write State Laws - Bloomberg

Circumvent lobbying rules? Write your own climate laws? And cheaply,  too -- the sums involved are peanuts to these companies.

Alas, so much for the birthplace of modern democracy. How long before we see this tactic in Canada too?

Koch, Exxon Mobil Among Corporations Helping Write State Laws - Bloomberg

(Via http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/07/exxon-koch.php)

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Nuclear Energy Causes Greenhouse Gas Emissions After All

Buried in the story that I mentioned in my previous post, there was another curious point:

"Saskatchewan's emissions grew 70 per cent — more than any other province —between 1990 and 2009, due to increases in the oil and gas industry as well as potash and uranium mining." [Source: CBC, with quote highlighted via Diigo.]
Refining, transporting, storing, reactor construction, equipment recycling and site decontamination would probably cause emissions too. So much for nuclear being "GHG free".

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Canada's greenhouse gas emissions dip - but not enough

Some good news for a change. Unlike temporary dips due to economic conditions, reductions due to less coal being used for electricity generation are a hopeful trend.

The larger picture is still grim and the task ahead is challenging:

"Canada is nowhere close to meeting that commitment. In 2009, Canada's emissions were 17 per cent or 100 megatonnes above its 1990 total of 590 megatonnes. Fossil fuel extraction and production, as well as the transportation industry, were responsible for 42 per cent and 45 per cent of that growth respectively.

"When mitigating factors such as land use and forestry are not taken into account, Canada's emissions grew by 24.1 per cent from 1990 to 2008.

"This puts Canadian emission growth first among G8 countries and sixth overall among the OECD members and "economies in transition" (mostly in Eastern Europe) that signed Kyoto.

"By contrast, U.S. emissions grew just 13.3 per cent during the same period and those of the European Union fell 11.3 per cent.

"Under the Copenhagen Accord, the 2009 successor to the Kyoto Protocol, Canada has committed to reducing emissions to 17 per cent below 2005 levels by the year 2020.

"So far, emissions have decreased 41 megatonnes or 5.7 per cent since 2005."

Canada's greenhouse gas emissions dip - Technology & Science - CBC News

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Climate change has doubled forest fires

"...it's already doubled in the last 40 years...and we've published work that shows this is directly due to human caused climate change,” says Dr. [Mike] Flannigan [Professor with the Department of Renewable Resources at the University of Alberta and Canadian Forest Service researcher]."

More: Forest fires and climate change - The Weather Network

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Baird's Cancun Position: "All Oars in Water -- Except for Canada's"

John Baird, notorious for his anti-Kyoto antics, is at it again. According to the Globe, the

"...Environment Minister says Canada will be pressing for an approach that leaves no one out, that demands all 'oars in the water'...."

But Canada is in no position to lecture anybody about "oars in water". Having promised to reduce carbon emissions in Kyoto and done nothing about it since then (actually increasing emissions significantly), Canada would have very little credibility when trying to convince other countries to "do as we say but not as we do".

Moreover, since the Industrial Revolution, the rich, industrialized countries like Canada have emitted most of the carbon. Much of it is still in the atmosphere, harming the climate. The fact that countries like China and India have become major emitters on an annual basis recently is not nearly as significant as Baird and Co. would have you think. Even setting aside their much lower emissions per capita, it would be many years before China's and India's share of the accumulating carbon in the air equals that of countries that had been at it for centuries. Confusing flows (annual emissions) with stocks (accumulated pollutants) is such a basic, blatant error that it is clearly nothing more than an excuse for further inaction.

Insisting on this unreasonable position is a sure way to sabotage progress at Cancun -- developing nations are already warning that the talks are in danger. Nothing would please the fossil fuel special interest groups than the collapse of negotiations for at least one more year. For the planet, on the other hand it is total accumulated carbon that matters.

Dr. James Hansen states that

"...we must reduce the [accumulated] CO2 in the atmosphere to 350 ppm in order to avoid disaster for coming generations.

"Humans have caused carbon dioxide to increase from 280 ppm in 1750 to 387 ppm in 2009. 387 ppm is already in the dangerous range. Such a reduction is still practical, but just barely [bolding in original]"

He also warns that

"Continued unfettered burning of all fossil fuels and other human-caused climate changes will cause the climate system to pass tipping points, such that we hand our children and grandchildren a dynamic situation that is out of their control.

"If we continue down this path, by the end of this century envision a future where:

• droughts, heat waves, and forest fires of unprecedented ferocity

• 20% of Earth’s species—about two million species—will be extinct or on the way to certain extinction

• a rapidly rising sea level, with more coming out of humanity’s control

• frontal (cyclonic) storms with hurricane-like winds, which, with rising seas and storm surges, will devastate thousands of coastal cities

But that does not have to be our future [bolding in original]."

We must act now. Obstructionism must not carry the day.

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