Blackout Speak Out Against Attack on Environment and Democracy

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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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