On wild cards and delusions...

Another excellent piece from Tyler Hamilton in The Star:

Canada's oil and gas sector is a crucial engine of our economy and isn't going away, so any technologies that help reduce or capture emissions are both welcome and necessary.

But can these technologies help us right now, particularly to justify rapid expansion of oil-sands projects? And, taken alone, are they enough?

Don't bet on it. Climate expert James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, got it right earlier this month when he called the oil sands a climate-change "wild card" that shouldn't be played. "You just can't do it, that's what politicians and international leaders have got to understand."

Canada, however, is playing that card. It's gambling that technology will make sure the house wins.

But here's the rub: Prime Minister Stephen Harper is delusional if he believes that capturing carbon dioxide from coal plants and oil-sands operations and storing it underground is going to have a material impact on reducing greenhouse-gases over the next decade, let alone the next two decades.

Not because the technology doesn't work or isn't safe, which is still up for debate, but because it's too expensive and risky to deploy on the scale that's required.

The thing is, Harper isn't really delusional. He's just greenwashing, which according to Wikipedia occurs when "significantly more money or time has been spent advertising being green."

Compare that to Chantal Hebert's piece in the same edition (Oil sands exposé deserves more energetic response). It's hard to tell from her column if she thinks that Harper should actually do something about the environmental problems of the oil sands, or if they just need better PR!

Another story in the "foreign media" that Iggy probably won't read ...

Indigenous people to launch legal challenge against oil firms over Canada tar sand project | Environment | guardian.co.uk:

"British oil firms are facing a legal battle over exploitation of the huge Canadian tar sand fields with indigenous people who claim the industry is ruining their traditional lands.

The Co-operative Bank will announce today that it is to fund a legal challenge by the Beaver Lake Cree Nation, which claims the boom in tar sands extraction is destroying their hunting and fishing lands.

The court challenge calls for an injunction to stop more than 16,000 permits issued by the Alberta state government and, if successful, could dramatically reduce or even stop what has been described as a modern day 'gold rush' for the oil, spurred by the expectation of high long-term oil prices."

Apparently, we have a coalition government after all...

just not the one that we wanted!

"National Geographic is not going to teach me any lessons about the oilsands," he said.

Iggy is not making many friends with this position! Except among oil executives, I suppose.

If he doesn't like Nat. Geo., Iggy should try reading DeSmog blog.

Obama's 2009 "Economy/Planet Balance" Notion - Already Debunked by Gore in 2006

Here's a Table comparing part of Barack Obama's CBC News interview in February 2009 with what Al Gore had said of such notions in An Inconvenient Truth in back 2006:

Barack Obama in CBC News interview, Canada, 2009

Al Gore in the movie An Inconvenient Truth, 2006

"When asked if the future of oil produced from the oilsands hinged on a cap and trade policy, Obama suggested that technology would be the ultimate solution to creating clean energy. "'Canada, the United States, China, India, the European Union, all of us are going to have to work together in an effective way to figure out how do we balance the imperatives of economic growth with very real concerns about the effect we're having on our planet,' [Obama] said. "'We're not going to be able to deal with any of these issues in isolation. The more that we can develop technologies that tap alternative sources of energy but also contain the environmental damage of fossil fuels, the better off we're going to be.'" (Obama touts technology as solution to oilsands footprint, CBC News, February 17, 2009 [bolding added)

"In one of the funnier moments, Al [Gore] shows a graphic used by the government to support the idea that profit must have equal value to concerns about the planet. It’s a scale with gold bricks on one side and the earth on the other. Both in balance. Al is hilarious as he acknowledges that gold is very nice, hmm… yesm we like gold. Then he turns to contemplate the earth and looks genuinely puzzled. Earth… or… gold? Hmmm… which to pick? We laugh as we understand that there are people who don’t hesitate to go for the gold, let alone bother contemplating which has more value. But then the real Al breaks through to remind us that without a healthy planet…there will be no one to worry about gold. He quickly dispatches the fallacy that being concerned about the planet means losing profits. We are made aware that being focused on the profits will mean losing the planet." (An Inconvenient Truth - Review by Dianne Lawrence, Film Monthly, May 24, 2006)

Tar Sands Industry Promotes Bird Capture and Storage

EDMONTON, Alberta - Birds landing in the toxic tailing ponds of tar sands operations -- and needlessly causing the industry PR headaches -- will soon be just a bad memory. A consortium of oil companies has unveiled a technology to capture any birds who get too close to the toxic ponds, and store them safely in underground aviaries. Derived from work on carbon capture and storage (carbon sequestration), the new technology uses 10-ft. diameter air intakes scattered in and around the ponds, plus powerful vacuum pumps. Any birds in the vicinity are captured safely, and are piped down into underground aviaries.

"Nothing seems to keep migratory birds away from the ponds for long, not even air canons and animatronic falcons," said William Nilly, an industry spokesperson. "With bird capture and storage, the problem individuals are captured and taken out of the game permanently, before they can get into the ponds and onto web video sites. In the long run, bird populations who pass over the ponds do not produce offspring in the wild, which prevents new generations of birds from moving along the same route and landing in the ponds."

In response to howls of protest from Greenpeace and the Boreal Songbird Initiative over the announcement, Mr. Nilly later clarified that the capture and storage technology will be developed further:

"Next year, we will have more powerful vacuum pumps. Any bird-lovers or tree-huggers in the vicinity of our ponds will be transported into the new underground habitat together with the birds, so that they can continue to enjoy the birds in safety, away from our operations. We regret that cell phone do not work underground, and internet connections cannot be installed to protect the birds' privacy".

[Important Notice]

Secret advice to politicians: oilsands emissions hard to scrub

Now, here's a big surprise:

Secret advice to politicians: oilsands emissions hard to scrub

CBC News has obtained a government document that says reducing greenhouse gases from Western Canada's oilsands will be much more difficult than some politicians and the industry suggest.

The ministerial briefing notes, initially marked "Secret," say that just a small percentage of the carbon dioxide released in mining the sands and producing fuel from them can be captured.

globeandmail: Oil sands will pollute Great Lakes, report warns

globeandmail.com: Oil sands will pollute Great Lakes, report warns:

"In a new report, the University of Toronto's Munk Centre says the massive refinery expansions needed to process tar sands crude, and the new pipeline networks for transporting the fuel, amount to a “pollution delivery system” connecting Alberta to the Great Lakes region of Canada and the U.S.

It warns that the refineries will be using the Great Lakes “as a cheap supply” source for their copious water needs and the area's air “as a pollution dump.”"

NOT A Green Federal Budget

The CBC has a good summary of reactions to yesterday's Canadian Federal Budget from environmental groups and others, including Green Party leader Elizabeth May: 'Green' budget falls short for environmental groups. As expected, throwing a few goodies at the problem simply does not cut it. The lackluster green car rebate/gas guzzler levy (more here and here), reviving a few Liberal programs in reduced form -- without a plan on how to actually implement the Kyoto Protocol -- without even mentioning Kyoto by name -- is not nearly enough.

Tax subsidies for the Oil Sands would be phased out -- but not until 2015.

"They're going to continue to subsidize the big oil and gas companies at the same level as today for another three years," said NDP Leader Jack Layton. "That's billions of dollars shoveled into the bottom lines of Exxon and such companies while they continue to pollute."

The absurdity of helping the world's wealthiest -- and most polluting -- corporations to destroy the planet to the tune of $1.4 billion per year is apparently not enough for this Government to end it immediately.

Spending most of the water strategy budget on Coast Guard ships does little to address the looming water quality and shortage issues of the 21st century -- which would be made worse by lack of action on Climate Change.

The list goes on and on.

For more opposition reaction, see Bloc to support budget; Liberals, NDP say no.

Elizabeth May summed it up best:

"We're just losing time and we can't afford to lose time."

Beyond these criticisms, there is no National Transit Strategy, and no linking of infrastructure spending to success in curbing urban sprawl.

In general, the Conservative Government has no vision on how to transition Canada to a sustainable economy based on renewable energy. Thirty-four years after the publication of the Canada as a Conserver Society by the Science Council of Canada (in 1973!), the federal budget does not even try to make environmental and social costs part of the economic bottom line. This unscientific approach amounts to economic and ecological negligence, almost guaranteeing the continuation of "uneconomic growth" (some of these issues are also covered in the interview with David Suzuki on the Treehugger Radio podcast).

Writing about the Conserver Society idea in the Canadian Encyclopedia, Dixon Thompson notes:

"As we move to the 21st century... capitalism has begun to look beyond its own horizons and has seen the profitability of conservationism blooming on the hillsides. Advanced conserver societies may thus have better prospects for the future."

In the U.S., 65 financial companies and investment groups representing USD $4 trillion have just called for:

• "Long-term greenhouse gas reductions by 2050, in line with the 60 to 90 percent cuts below 1990 levels that are urgently needed to avoid worst case scenarios — including 'mandatory market-based solutions, such as a cap-and-trade system, that establish an economy-wide carbon price, allow for flexibility and encourage innovation.'

• "Realignment of U.S. energy and transportation policies to promote research, development, and deployment of new and existing clean technologies at the scale required.

• "Clear guidance from the SEC [U.S. Securities Exchange Commission] on what companies should disclose to investors relative to climate change."

(Sources: Wired Blogs - Autopia; Boston Globe).

One of these days, Canadian businesses will wake up, too. If the message comes from a business lobby, perhaps the Conservative Government would start to listen.

More realistically, it would take an election to displace the Conservatives before we see real progress.

This is where the parochialism of the Bloc Québécois endangers us all: their own web site links to a brochure [PDF] titled "Save Kyoto" that opposes the oil-sands subsidy (on p. 1), and says says (on p. 2):

"If nothing is done to combat climate change, future generations may well end up living on an uninhabitable planet where natural disasters are the rule rather than the exception.

"Kyoto is an all-round winner for Quebec. We need it to save the planet and allow our children to continue to live comfortable lives.

[...]

"Each barrel of oil that Quebec doesn’t consume enriches us and helps reduce pollution.

"Kyoto is necessary for the environment and essential for Quebec’s economy."

[...]

[Bolding added.]

Yet somehow, just increasing federal transfers to Quebec, without even a mention of Kyoto, has made this budget good for Quebec in the Bloc's view. They will support this budget, and let this Government stand.

"Après moi, le déluge" -- literally, and by their own admission.

[Important Notice]

Canadian climate change news...

I woke up to the following news stories this morning:

Stephane Dion says carbon tax not under consideration after all (Canada Press)

A day after Liberal Leader Stephane Dion said the Liberals would consider a carbon tax, his office denied it is under consideration.

But if not a carbon tax, then what? Meanwhile, Kenneth Green, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute is quoted as saying

the best way to reduce emissions is to put a carbon tax in place. “Use some of the carbon tax revenue to pay for carbon reduction and invest it in new technologies. Use the carbon tax to offset income tax and corporate tax. Tax the bad and not the good.”

(From Kyoto Bill could have crucial impact on Nisku industrial area, CNews)

Wow - I never thought I'd be saying this, but maybe M. Dion should get together with the AEI people!

And in other news:

Report calls on Ottawa to end oil sands subsidies (CTV)

This story reports that the House of Commons natural resources committee is recommending dropping subsidies to oil sands projects, and that this is being considered for the next budget. (Hooray!)

Tories still planning "intensity" targets

The Tories are still planning to bamboozle us with "intensity targets", according to a draft climate change plan obtained by the Globe and Mail. The article says:

The leaked government documents were analyzed for The Globe by two environmentalists: Louise Comeau of the Sage Foundation, who provided policy advice to the Liberal government for Mr. Dion's 2005 plan, and Matthew Bramley of the Pembina Institute, who recently released a proposal that would see oil sands companies comply with Kyoto by adding about $1 to the production cost of each barrel of oil.

"The federal government's proposal for industry regulation on greenhouse gases is a fraud," Ms. Comeau said. "Fabricating numbers so the current government's intensity approach looks better than the last government's intensity approach is no more acceptable today than it was two years ago. Intensity targets are dishonest. The time to regulate real reductions is now."

Now compare this approach, with what top scientists say is really needed:

Governments must pour tens of billions of dollars more than they are into clean energy research and enforce sharp rollback's in fossil fuel emissions if the world is to head off the worst of climate change, an expert scientific panel told the United Nations on Tuesday.

They said global carbon dioxide emissions should be levelled off by 2015-2020, and then cut back to less than one-third that level by 2100 - via a vast transformation of global energy systems toward greater efficiency and away from fossil fuels and toward biofuels, solar and wind energy and other renewable sources of energy.

That changeover would be spurred by heavy "carbon taxes" or "cap-and-trade" systems, whereby industries' emissions are capped by governments, and more efficient companies can sell unused allowances to less efficient ones.

Obviously, intensity targets will not achieve this, and Baird has rejected both a carbon tax and an emissions trading system.

All Harper cares about is getting re-elected with a majority. So, they'll try to "greenwash" us with a plan that does nothing, and then buy our votes with our own money (i.e. more tax cuts). The question is - are we dumb enough to fall for it?