Environmental Issues

EnvironmentNewsPolitics

On Tuesday, the National Energy Board (NEB) announced the suspension of all their consultations on the Energy East Pipeline after opposition to both the pipeline and the assessment process hit a new high in Montreal.

The first of the three scheduled panel sessions in Montreal was aborted as soon as it started on Monday morning after protesters irrupted the proceedings in the Centre Mont-Royal.

A few people disrupted the assembly, brandishing banners and chanting for about thirty minutes before the police forcefully removed them. Three people were arrested. In a communiqué published later that night, the NEB called the incident “a violent disruption […] which threatened the security of everyone involved.”

Multiple activist groups, MNAs and Mayor Coderre himself have been asking for the National Energy Board assessment of Energy East to be suspended since concerns over the integrity of two commissioners have been raised. It was recently revealed that Lyne Mercier and Jacques Gauthier had secretly met with a TransCanada lobbyist – who happened to be none other than Ex-Premier Jean Charest- in early 2015.

The Front Commun Pour la Transition Énergétique (FCPTE) organized a “greeting committee” for the Montreal consultations on Monday. Environmentalists, but also some political representatives (namely from Québec Solidaire) were present.  Carole Dupuis, member of FCPTE and general coordinator of the Regroupement Vigilance hydrocarbures, described the protest as coloured and joyful.

In a short phone interview, Mrs Dupuis said that her organization had no plans to interrupt the session. According to her, the incident was the initiative of a lone individual that gathered spontaneous support:

“Actually a man ran to the front and then others joined him to chant slogans.”

After the no-go session of Monday, the NEB announced the postponement of the session scheduled Tuesday, citing security concerns. Finally, on Tuesday afternoon, they stated that all consultations are suspended until they decide what to do with the two commissioners who met with Charest:

“Given that two motions have been filed asking for the recusal of Panel Members, and given that the Board has invited written comments by September 7, 2016 on the these motions, the Board will not proceed with further Panel Sessions until it reaches a decision.”

What’s the problem with the National Energy Board?

A couple of days before the NEB arrived in Montreal, Coderre joined the calls for the suspension of the consultations. He said he was “ill at ease” with the fact that two of the three commissioners had met with Jean Charest.

Lyne Mercier and Jacques Gauthier, along with the director of the NEB, met with Charest while he was working for TransCanada, in January 2015.  The NEB first did not disclose that it had a meeting with a TransCanada lobbyist.

When it was discovered, they insisted that the subject of Energy East had not come up in the discussion. But thanks to the Access to Information Act, the National Observer got hold of some documents that proved the exact opposite. Handwritten notes from one of the participants included mentions such as “safety of the pipeline”,  “economy needs investment” and “what profits for Quebec?”.

The NEB apologized for lying but refused to remove Gauthier and Mercier from the Energy-East committee, until now. All appearance of partiality aside, the deficient French platform and the lack of accessibility of the NEB’s consultation have also been criticized.

Prior to 2012, the NEB had no experience whatsoever with public consultations. It’s only when the conservatives adopted a mammoth law abolishing the Canadian Environmental Assessment agency that the NEB’s role was redefined.

The National Energy Board is an independent federal organisation. Its purpose is to regulate the oil, gas and electricity projects that have international or inter-provincial reach. Although it often gets heaped with organisations like BAPE (Quebec’s Bureau of Environmental Public Hearings), its mandate is fundamentally different.

The NEB is foremost mandated to evaluate the safety and the practical aspects of the projects.

In 2014, it ruled that it did not have to consider upstream activities or downstream results in its assessment of a project. In other words, the consequences of EE on climate change, oil dependency or tar-sands development will not be examined by the NEB.

The Energy-East Pipeline: A Quick Rundown of the Facts

Energy-East pipeline is a TransCanada project destined to transport oil from Alberta to New Brunswick. The idea is to convert 3000 km of an old gas pipeline and extend it by 1600 km, to have a brand new 4600 kms of pipeline transporting 1.2 million oil barrels daily. It’s worth $15,7 Billion.

Eshko Timiou, Wiki creative commons
Eshko Timiou, Wiki creative commons

It will run through six provinces and under 860 watercourses, including the Outaouais River and the Saint-Lawrence River.

The divisive aspect of the pipeline climbed to new levels as other pipeline projects (namely Keystone XL) fell through, leaving EE as the last route to export Alberta’s massive oil production.

Supporters of the project argue that it would allow Alberta to boost up the exploitation of its tar sands and at the same time allow the rest of Canada to drastically reduce its oil imports from Europe, the Middle-East and Africa. TransCanada is also promising the creation of numerous – if temporary- jobs throughout the country.

 

Associated Minor Scandals

However, the oil travelling through the pipeline is not destined for Canadian consumption. Only a meager percentage of the product would be treated in Quebec’s refineries and the rest would be exported overseas from New Brunswick.

BAPE public consultations have also taught us that the oil will be extracted partly from Alberta’s tar-sands and partly from North Dakota. As Alexandre Shields once pointed out, Energy East will, to some extent serve to transport US oil to other US territories.

Environmental groups have raised red flags about the rivers affected by the pipeline’s trajectories. One of the primary sources of concern is the form of the oil in transition: a substance called dilbit. Dilbit is diluted bitumen that is easier to transport than crude oil, but it is very difficult to clean up in the event of a spill.

It is especially risky in rivers, where it rapidly sinks to the bottom before it can be recuperated. A detail that might be even more challenging in the often iced water of the Saint-Lawrence.

I personally believe this pipeline is an overall terrible idea and I could easily write another 6000 words about all the reasons why this project has been a complete trainwreck so far. Now I know this has been dragging on, so let’s take a moment to revisit some of TransCanada’s greatest moves:

  • Trying to build a port in an endangered species’ nursery
  • A leaked “press strategy” that erred somewhere in the area of barely-legal-and-definitely-unethical.
  • Refusing to comply with Quebec’s environmental law
  • Failing to provide proper documentation in French
  • Providing such unreadable gibberish in lieu of the documentation required by federal law that the NEB had to ask them to start over.
  • Responding that they will have something ready by 2018 when commissioners of the BAPE pointed out that they had no clear strategy in the case of an oil spill in the Saint-Lawrence.

* featured image from ÉcoQuébec’s twitter account: “greeting committee” for the NEB consultations on Monday

EnvironmentNewsPolitics

A panel of experts has been mandated to review Canada’s environmental assessment process. On Monday, Minister of the Environment Catherine McKenna presented the four members of the committee in charge of this effort to modernize our environmental laws.

The committee is tasked with producing a report “in early 2017.” To do so, they will “engage broadly with indigenous groups, the public and a wide range of stakeholders across Canada,” according to the government’s website.

Who is on This Committee?

The chairwoman of the committee is Johanne Gélinas, a leading consultant on environmental law. She was the Canadian Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development from 2000 to 2007 and also served ten years in the Environmental Public Hearings Office (better known as BAPE) in Quebec.

Also sitting on the Panel are René Pelletier, a lawyer from the Maliseet community who specializes in Aboriginal rights and environmental law, and Rod Northey, another prominent environmental lawyer. The last member is Doug Horswill, who previously served as Deputy Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources of BC and as chairman of two Mining Associations.

What Will Happen Now?

The committee presented by McKenna will get input from Canadian citizens and organizations during September. People can already communicate their opinions via the internet. Dates for in-person hearings should be decided shortly.

By early 2017, the panel will present a summary of the input received along with its conclusions and recommendations. The Ministry of Environment will then “consider” the recommendations and “identify the next step to improve federal environmental assessment processes.”

Promises, Promises…

This is a step towards making the process more “open, transparent and inclusive,” according to a press release from Minister McKenna.

The review of the environmental assessment process is one of the three parts of the Liberal plan to improve environmental regulations that was officially launched this summer. The two other parts are modernizing the National Energy Board and restoring the protections under the Fisheries Act and the Navigation Act that were lost under the Harper government.

The Liberal environmental platform is mostly defined by two key points repeated ad-nauseam since 2015: restoring the population’s trust in the environmental assessment process and insuring that their decisions are based on “evidence, facts and science” (because redundancy sounds much more inspiring).

During and since the elections, they have advertised their intention to involve the population, and especially the aboriginal communities, more directly in the approval of projects that could be dangerous to the environment.

Indeed, they have launched and publicized many public consultations. They also announced up to $223 000 of funding for Indigenous participation to Federal Government reviews of Environmental Assessment Processes and National Energy Board Modernization.

They will hear the opinion of Canadians and they will “consider it.”

Consultation after consultation, the government is working to make the population feel more involved and to restore their trust in the system. But is it working to insure that this trust is warranted? They have yet to take any concrete action to put science and research at the base of their policies on environmental issues.

* Featured image of Squamish River by James Wheeler via Flickr Creative Commons

EnvironmentNewsPolitics

Fort MacMurray and large swaths of Northern Alberta have been burning for a few days. Homes and communities have been destroyed and people have died, too.

This is a time for everyone in Canada and beyond to come together and try to stop the fires and assist those who have been forced to evacuate as much as they can. That has been happening. There have been stories circulating of everyone from the people of Lac Megantic, Quebec to recent Syrian refugees pitching in.

Politically, though, there has been a fire of a different sort. At first, there were those online suggesting that the fires were directly caused by the oil being pulled out of the ground, but when it was clear that the fires did not start at the extraction site and had no specific correlation to the most prominent industry in the region, those rumblings gave way to a political argument about whether or not the wildfires were the result of climate change.

Ottawa Weighs In

Green Party leader Elizabeth May fired the first shot, so to speak, when asked if the fires were linked to climate change:

“Of course. It’s due to global emissions. Scientists will say we know with a destabilized climate, with a higher average global temperature, we will see more frequent, more extreme weather events … due to an erratic climate, due to our addiction to fossil fuels.”

Later in the same day, she walked that statement back a bit, saying there was no specific correlation and that “no credible climate scientist would make this claim, and neither do I make this claim.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau got the question next and responded like this:

“It’s well-known that one of the consequences of climate change will be a greater prevalence of extreme weather events around the planet, however any time we try to make a political argument out of one particular disaster I think there is a bit of a shortcut that can sometimes not have the desired outcome.

Pointing at any one incident and saying, ‘Well this is because of that,’ is neither helpful nor entirely accurate. What we are focussed on right now on is giving the people of Fort McMurray, and across Alberta, the kind of support that they need.”

Now, I, for one, am loathe to agree with Trudeau anything, let alone on environmental issues. He is, after all, the one who seems to think pipelines will lead to our green future. I also believe that most of Alberta’s oil should stay in the ground. In fact, I experienced quite the dilemma a few paragraphs back in this article. I absolutely refuse to use the term “oil sands” but thought that “tar sands” was a little too hardcore a term to use for the “coming together” point I was trying to make.

That dilemma is nothing compared to the one faced by people whose homes have recently burned to the ground. In fact, not all of those fleeing the wildfires are oil company executives, very few are. These are workers, their families, activists opposed to pipelines, First Nations communities and others who, a week ago, were fighting against the destruction the oil industry would bring to their home, and now are fleeing from their home.

With that in mind, I have to agree with Justin Trudeau. This is not the right time to be talking climate change.

Put the Fires Out First

Are these fires the result of climate change? Maybe. Could they also have been caused by inconsiderate campers? Maybe. Are wildfires a natural occurrence in the area? Yes. Do these fires have no other explanation? Maybe. These are all good questions that can be answered later.

Right now shit is burning and stopping that and helping those affected has to be our first and only concern. There will be time to talk cause and assign blame later.

When a spree killer is chasing you down the hall, you don’t stop running, turn around and pontificate on the lack of gun control or our failing mental health system, you get the hell out of there and hope the killer is stopped before he gets to you. If you survive, there will be plenty of time to talk about and hopefully stop the root causes of what happened.

Right now, metaphorically, we’re still running down the hall. The fires are still raging and we need to stop them and find a way out.

It’s fine to criticize the government at a time like this, but only on things they aren’t doing or could be doing better to deal with and hopefully end the situation (like not letting the Russians help). Linking the disaster to climate change at this point isn’t one of them.

I know that I may be annoying some people whom I otherwise agree with and may agree with on this issue, except that I don’t think this is the right time to be on a soapbox about it. I don’t really care, because, here in Montreal, I still have a roof over my head, which is more than some in Alberta, Manitoba and now Ontario can say.

When your soapbox is burning, run away.

News

This week will go down in history as the week in which our Canadian government discovered the solution to climate change: an increase in CO2 emissions will save the planet! The brilliant idea  is that the growth of the oil and gas sector will pay for our Green Transition. 

Climate Change shenanigans were all a problem of perspective. For so many years we were just looking at it the wrong way. It’s now obvious that the biggest polluters in the world were just asking for a concrete way to contribute and a listening ear.

Thankfully our new prime minister was capable of enlightening us all, and bridging public and private interests together. After all, it’s a known fact that problems are always best resolved by the initiative and the savvy of the private sector.

Case in point, one of the biggest problems multinational Canadian mining and energy corporations were confronted with was named Berta Cáceres, a renowned political leader and Honduran environmental activist. Her struggle to uphold indigenous rights, to put a hold on the destruction and pillage of Honduras, was put to a brutal end this week.

In this case the ingenuity, the constant push for innovation, private initiative and all those buzzwords at the heart of what makes the private sector the most competent problem solver, were missing. Apparently within the entrepreneurial world , simplicity is virtue: hire a bunch of thugs to ransack the person’s house, use the centuries old technique of cold steal and assassinate a dissenting voice in cold blood. Problem solved.

Although the death of Berta Cáceres, her activism and the struggle she ultimately gave her life for, unfolded thousands of kilometers from Canada, her death couldn’t be closer to home. The implications of her life struggle and its brutal end weigh heavily on the Canadian government and Canadian foreign policy.

Her blood indelibly stains Canada’s conscience, like the deaths of so many other activists killed in the name of private interests. First of all, it was Canadian corporate interests that she was at odds with and campaigned against.

The role of the previous Harper administration in the Honduran coup which ousted Manuel Zelaya, who was in favor of redrawing jurisdiction around foreign mining interests in the country, is unclear. One thing is certain, though: Canadian multinational companies have benefited the most from the trade deal that was signed between the military junta and the Canadian government in 2014.

Careces’s death and struggle sheds light on the unbearable lightness and lethal naïvité manifest in the idea that Climate Change is merely a “scientific” problem. This enables the idea that with the right equations, calculations, mechanisms put forward by the private sector the question of Climate Change will be resolved.

The abstraction of the talk about climate change revolving around targets and fancy conferences, with standing ovations, blueprints filled with buzzwords like “incentives” and “corporate solutions” and “private sector initiatives” omits the most important factor of climate change: its inherent violence. Climate change when disembedded from the social and geopolitical factors is seen at a fraction of its face value, as a scientific phenomenon, at best an environmental process, but not as a whole, as an environmental process that enables and fosters a social and geopolitical process.

The violent death of Berta Careces and the 100 plus deaths of environmental activists in Latin America, Africa and Asia are the figurative manifestations of the violence inherent to Climate Change. We know that indigenous communities and populations within the “global south” will be tenfold affected by the disasters brought about by environmental deregulation. It is also embodied by large scale violence employed in the commodification of resources and diverse natural environments.

Yet the discourse of Trudeau & co, of the COP 21 and similar conferences, sanitizes the horrific violence that is at the heart of Climate Change. It creates an unintelligible discourse that silences and ostracizes the voices of those most affected by it.

This “scientific” discourse that sees Climate Change merely as a warming of few degrees here and there, a rise in sea levels, a destruction of ecosystems, doesn’t take notice of the underlying social-historical structures, systemic racism and neocolonialism that make the bed for Climate Change as an environmental phenomenon to exist.

Without tackling the power structures that feed-off Climate Change: neocolonialism, racism, imperialism, there will be no solution.

The vision Trudeau champions, that the private sector offers the best solution to climate change, is the direct cause of Berta Cáceres’ death and the death of several hundred environmental activists and entire communities throughout the globe.

Justice for Berta Cáceres! protest in Washington, DC (image by Slowking4 via WikiMedia Commons)
Justice for Berta Cáceres! protest in Washington, DC (image by Slowking4 via WikiMedia Commons)

The private sector solution to Climate Change is that of giving a price to nature. The idea is as simple as it is flawed: a price tag to everything in nature, to the natural beauty of beach, the existence of species, the natural habitat of an indigenous community, will somehow help to preserve it.

This opens the door to the commodification of nature which allows for speculation, the creation of derivatives and other innovative financial products. Ultimately the usefulness, the value, of a given ecosystem or a species or the livelihood of a community, of a culture will be determined by how it fairs on the stock exchange.

This idea of “price tagging” nature coexists alongside two other private sector innovations: cap and trade, which relies on the dispossession on a massive scale of communities within the global south to function and the continued pillage of resources to satisfy the cult of perpetual and masturbatory growth.

As long as the cult of growth is upheld, so will the constant commodification of all living things, the massive disenfranchisement and continued violence, the continued mobilization of neocolonial, racist and imperialist attitudes and ideologies be upheld as well. A poignant example is the racist rhetoric used by the “decayists” of pseudo-intellectual European right, towards Syrian refugees.

In Disaster Apartheid: A World of Green Zones and Red Zones, the last chapter of The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein refers to the idea that the neoliberal shock doctrine is reshaping the world in its image, dicing up the world into Green Zones (reference to the Green Zone in Baghdad) and Red Zones. There’s a relationship of domination between these zones; for Green Zones to exist there must be Red Zones.

For Canada and the rest of the “global north” to theorize a way to salvage the capitalist system and the cult of growth, many more Berta Cáceres’ must die. For the corporate Green Transition to work, the disenfranchisement of First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities within Canada must continue, the denial of their rights to auto-determination must be upheld.

Cáceres’ blood wasn’t shed in vain. Like the hundreds of environmental activists that have died before her, Cáceres knew that within the struggle against Climate Change exists the extraordinary potential to dissolve the toxic power structures, the structures of domination, of oppression, that are the biggest polluters in the history of humanity.

* Featured image: GoldmanPrize.org

CultureEnvironmentFood & DrunkNewsPolitics

We tend not to see food security in the headlines. Yet sustainable food systems underlie nearly every hot issue—from economy to foreign policy to health. Save for passing mentions at rhetoric-heavy Climate Change conferences, food systems remain in the shadows when it comes to everyday news.

Yet to many food advocates, researchers, farmers and workers, two hard numbers remain the serious fixation.

The first is 2050. The once far-flung year is suddenly within view.

The next is 9, or rather, 9 with 9 zeroes. That’s the number—9 billion—we’ll need to feed in 2050.

Far from some sci-fi fantasy, this is the massive problem at the core of humanity’s other crises.

You’ll hear from the UN that we produce enough food to feed every mouth. You might have heard that the waste, corruption, national squabbles and inefficient distribution systems our largest barriers to this goal.

Yet in the shadows, huge things have been happening. Here are three random food stories you should watch. Not only do I predict that each will grow immensely, creating huge waves when they do, they’re each connected to several other issues, representing the importance of food when it comes to climate, politics or economy.

Turbo Urban Growing & Open Source Planting

With the swell of urban populations and energy crises, urban veg growing has become something of the designer issue. Though many individuals boast of their container veg, few organizations have truly cracked the field wide open. In the end, urban food production, nice as it makes us feel, must increase its scale and efficiency hundreds of times to really be a factor in feeding urban populations.

In a recent Wired piece, one such game changing startup is mentioned. PlantLab has developed methods to (purportedly) increase production efficiency by 4000% while using 90% less water (which is the other big problem facing urban growing).

…it’s holding as proprietary secrets methods claimed to be 40 times more productive, using 90 per cent less water, for growing food that is ten times more nutritious.

Huge developments. Keep your eye out. Though the MIT folk who have been working on this issue say that the other thing to watch out for is the “joining up” of these solutions, in the open source fashion that created the Internet. If this type of cooperation happens, we could see disruption on the same scale.

“What we need,” they say, “is an open, joined-up approach to solving a significant global problem.”

Fish Farming Explosion

GMO salmon
Genetically modified salmon, made by AquaBounty, is one huge upcoming driver of fishfarming growth, not even accounted for in the massive growth mentioned in the article

The story that’s been passing us by lies underwater. Once again, while overfishing was the big issue of the end of the 20th century, the inefficiency of meat is the big issue of the 21st so far. Yet meanwhile, the FAO (UN Food & Agriculture Organization) has been tracking the rise of fish farming. Fish farming is simply the production of fish in controlled environments, the way agriculture did to plants and animals. Once the stuff of negative stories (ie salmon, etc.), fish farming is now simply the status quo.

It will be huge going forward. It’s the fastest growing food sector. Just pause and take that in. Considering this fact, when’s the last time you heard stories on fish farming?

Furthermore, next time you bite into some fish, consider that there’s more chance it’s farmed than caught by fishermen, even the trawler-types. The FAO tells us that it makes up

More than half the fish consumed in the world now comes from aquaculture, outpacing fish caught in the open ocean.

Furthermore, it’s made over 90 million tonnes in the past decades, making it the fastest growing food sector.

Veggie Cheerleading Has Sunk Us

We’re still eating too much meat. Yet the social factor of being omnivore might be destroying real progress. The food movement and social politics have led more and more in the US, say various new studies, to claim we’re curbing our meat eating.

In reality, we’ve hardly changed our meat consumption since the “food movement” and folk such as Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman made us aware of the wider impacts of eating meat, both ethically and environmentally. Here’s one quote from one researcher on National Public Radio:

In a nutshell, Americans’ meat-eating habits haven’t shifted much. “There’s no significant change in the number of times per week people eat meat in the last few years,” Mike Taylor, chief medical officer for Truven, tells us.

If anything, the social factor — and I don’t hold the ‘food movement’ blameless here — has led us to become “veggie cheerleaders.”

One more quote from researcher Roni Neff:

“We are still seeing a lot of people saying they are eating less meat, and a lot who want to eat less meat.”

I’d like to think that’s good.Though I fear it’s worse.

For if we “feel good” we usually don’t change. This is worth watching, given our rate of meat consumption is becoming less and less sustainable, certainly in light of 2050’s population numbers.

CultureEnvironmentNews

Now that world leaders and their negotiators have left Paris following the climate change pow-wow, the focus now shifts to the work needed to make a paper agreement hold together in practice.

Greenhouse gasses, overflowing landfills and destructive chemical waste pollute our atmosphere at unsustainable rates. That is clear. But while we put this pressure on governments and corporations to clean this up, shouldn’t we also ask ourselves what we can do, as individuals, to reduce our destructive environmental impact on the planet?

But I can’t point my finger at anyone else before shining the mirror on my own lifestyle. What I saw in reflection, was a small scale environmental disaster.

Facing this need to turn a new and greener leaf, I was inspired by a UK-based blogger, Joanna Yarrow, author of Beyond Green and the eye-catching philosophy on living an environmentally sustainable lifestyle.

“Sustainable living is a bit like teenage sex. Few are doing it, and fewer are doing it properly.”

Sustainable living revolves around a few simple principles, according to my research. Consume less, and waste less stuff. Consume less energy and other non-renewable resources. Reduce our environmental footprint in ways that may seem indirect, such as paying attention to the way we travel and the way our food travels to us.

With that as my inspiration, I tried to kickstart a new way of life that is kinder to the planet, albeit in an incremental way. Many advise trying out these drastic changes for the manageable period of one week. That’s hardly enough effort to reverse the impact of years of damage to the environment, but enough time to test some new waters.

The water that that would be poured over my enthusiasm on day one was cold. Starting the week with a cold shower made me realize that it might be a better to attempt the energy conservation part of my plan closer to summer. Still, I knew that I would still have to cut down on the leisurely long hot showers that I normally enjoyed, drastically limiting my shower time to a maximum two minutes and reducing the eight litres of water that this part of our morning routine dumps down the drain every minute.

As for eating, I was prepared for how this passion in my life would be affected more than anything else during the week. If only keeping a keener eye for locally produced products was the only issue I’d face, I could easily breeze through this. Discovering Montreal’s burgeoning organic food market, which makes better tasting food more widely available was a bonus. But organic food, which is produced without dangerous by-products which are washed back into the water table, was also more demanding on my strict budget. So I’d have to find other ways to reduce my food budget.

Image: archinect.com
Image: archinect.com

Reducing the consumption of meat not only saves money, but it brings reported health benefits and is more sustainable for the planet due to the way that the production of meat devours more of the earth’s scarce land and resources. But cutting out meat ‘cold turkey’ was a drastic move for a carnivore like me so I found ways to merely reduce my meat intake and some delicious ways to replace it a couple of times a week.

Certainly my fast food habit had to be broken, if only to conserve the mountains of paper, cardboard and plastic produced by the fast food chains which are the biggest contributor to street litter, according to one study, and is not always successfully recycled.

Another form of recycling is a boon to those of us who hate shopping: Use it pp, Wear it out, make it do or do say anti-consumption groups who believe that most of us are buying stuff we don’t actually need. The impulse shopping habit absorbs precious resources by producing products to fill demand for new stuff while filling landfills with older stuff that’s often still usable.

I spent some of that shopping time at home mending, repairing, and patching up things I would have replaced instead, like replacing my old pair of jeans with a new pair that would probably look just as worn out and patched up.

Fruitful explorations of Montreal’s second hand stores, like Notre Dame West’s Salvation Army, turned up lots of gems among the junk, including furniture and house wares that often look as good as new, with the most significant difference being the price tag.

Avoiding these shopping trips also allows us to cut down on the use of a car for short local trips. I rekindled my latent passion for bicycle riding while visiting second hand stores. The bargain bike I picked up for $50 only needed some air and the tightening of a few bolts to get on the road. But the onset of winter is not great timing for a rider to get back on a bike. The late onset of the snow has been a blessing, but an Opus card might still soon come in handy.

But back at home there were a few things to sort out to make a more sustainable home that will last beyond this week. Turning down the thermostat one barely noticeable degree in winter saves lots of energy and more money than you might think, according to Hydro Quebec.

An audit of my water use showed that one flush of my toilet whirls more water down my toilet drain than many families in some parts of the world use in one day. I discovered the handy online tip of filling a plastic container with water and placing it in the toilet which tricks it into thinking it is full, saving some 1325 litres a year, according to the New York Times.

Useful tricks like these, along with understanding the benefits of buying less and thinking more about what I eat were all part of a very interesting experiment. But would the benefits weigh up against the inconveniences well enough to make this new lifestyle permanent?

The effect on my budget was probably neutral. The food bills went up, but utilities bills, when they arrive, should shrink. Time and money was better spent away from the mall, and I noticed my garbage containers are less than half full. But some changes were easier to implement than others. Cold showers and veggie food come quickly to mind.

Perhaps the greatest ongoing effect of the week was the level of consciousness brought to the impact of almost everything that I do, and how that is related to a sustainable future on this planet. Even if my contribution is only a little bit for a little time. That’s a little bit that helps.

* Featured image by Andrew Seaman (Flickr/Creative Commons)

NewsPolitics

On June 17, after years of resistance from environmental groups, citizens, and opposition parties, the Conservative government signed and approved the Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline. The pipeline, which stretches across Alberta and British Columbia, has been in the works for the last few years, despite many Indigenous communities and Canadian scientists coming out to oppose the plans Enbridge has lain out. The fact that the government is ignoring these communities, sadly, should surprise no one.

The pipeline, which is $7.9 billion dollar project, will see the shipment of crude oil to Asian markets. The Toronto Star remarks will put Canada on the path to becoming a “global petropower,” something the big business loving Conservatives no doubt envision for Canada’s future.

However this is just another example of the voices of citizens being lost in the government quest to appease big business. The pipeline’s approval will affect all peoples in Canada, especially those who reside in the affected areas. We all know too well the devastating effects of oil spills. Look no further than the 2010 BP oil spill to see the devastation caused. Since the newly greenlit project was proposed, there has been fierce opposition from environmental groups as well as ordinary citizens who fear the damage the pipeline could have on one of the most beautiful areas of the country.

northern-gateway-pipeline-map

The coverage on the pipeline appears to be generally focused on these environmental concerns, which are extremely important, and the approval signifies a total disregard for environmental issues by the federal government. However, something that also should not be overlooked is that it’s also, not so shockingly, another example of this government’s continued role in colonialism across this country.

Harper’s Conservatives, with the approval of the pipeline, are continuing to drive home the message that Indigenous peoples in Canada are to be ignored. The Northern Gateway pipeline will cross large amounts of unceded territory, without the consent of many of communities that reside on the land.

While it should be noted that agreements do currently exist between Enbridge and around 60 per cent of the Indigenous groups who will see the pipeline cut through their land, this still means there are groups that have not agreed and will therefore have to face the pipeline crossing through and destroying their land, without their consent.

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While the continued ignorance of Indigenous populations across the country is hardly new news (one only needs to look at the total lack of action over missing and murdered Indigenous women to see the level of government concern for Indigenous rights), the Northern Gateway pipeline is yet another case that cannot be ignored.

However the fight is far from over. Five lawsuits are currently on the table against the pipeline,  and three of the five come from First Nations groups in British Columbia. The pipeline project also is not scheduled, according to accounts, to begin construction until 16 months from now – a great deal of time that could see growing opposition.

Canadians should make their voices heard about the pipeline through whatever means are at their disposal. Over the next few weeks it can be guaranteed that there will be demonstrations against the project in cities across the country for people to make their voices heard. If you are more of an armchair activist, you should also be in contact with your MP – there will be an election in 2015, and no doubt the pipeline will become an election issue. The NDP and Liberals are currently claiming that they will fight the issue in parliament.

With support from wider swaths of the Canadian public, there is the chance that the pipeline could be halted. This is something that would be beneficial to all Canadians, especially those who will watch their land be destroyed if the pipeline comes into fruition.

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Socially and politically conscious Montreal rapper Jay Manafest has released a new video for his song Gas Lands. The song is a lyrical attack on the Harper regime working for big oil and suppressing legitimate protest.

The video contains powerful images of environmental destruction, police attacks and resistance. It is also raising money for the legal defence fund established to support the latest round of Mi’kmaq activists arrested in Elsipogtog. You can donate through jaymanafest.com

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This week, the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada is partnering with the University of Alberta to host a two-day conference titled PetroCultures: Oil, Energy and Canada’s Future.

On Thursday and Friday, academics, industry, journalists and activists will gather to discuss and debate the social, cultural and political implications of Canada’s most controversial natural resource. Équiterre’s Steven Guilbeault will precede Sun New’s Ezra Levant while former Oilsands Developers Group Chair Ken Chapman will speak alongside lawyer Katherine Koostachin, specialist in Aboriginal, environmental and natural resource law.

The safety, health and environmental concerns surrounding the extraction and transportation of oil and gas has made for some bleak headlines these past few months. The Keystone XL pipeline project and the Lac Mégantic train disaster show the perils of having to move immense amounts of energy resources. Alberta’s landscape can attest to this and now we’re even talking about a Quebec petrol manifesto.

Conflicts over energy sources are of course not new; my generation grew up with wars being fought over the stuff. But with environmental disasters not only stemming from the production but also the use of fossil fuels, the repercussions go beyond our borders and are no longer a cause célèbre only for the left.

Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III, one of the US’s top military officers, believes that climate change in the Asian-Pacific region poses the biggest long-term security threat to the area. Similarly, experts believe that sustained droughts exacerbated the underlying problems leading to Syria’s bloody civil-war.

Canada is not there yet, but our energy consumption and production habits are rightfully at the center of ongoing social debates.

Petrocultures 2014: Oil, Energy, and Canada’s Future runs Thursday and Friday at the McGill Faculty Club (3450 McTavish). For tickets and other information, see the Facebook event page or visit petrocultures.com

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This week some political and economic heavyweights (B. Landry, M. Jérôme-Forget, J. Facal among others) came out with a pro-petrol manifesto titled Manifeste pour tirer profit collectivement de notre pétrole a distinctly Quebec version of the GOP’s Drill Baby Drill. Quebec needs money and we can get some by digging some homegrown oil, so this group claims. And when I say digging, I mean fracking.

And while the public is being subjected to this soft-ball persuasion, the Association pétrolière et gazière du Québec is actively lobbying the government to make sure it has a safe and well remunerated place in Quebec’s energy future.* Meanwhile, Petrolia (one of the major benefactors of this project) is trying to block municipalities from legislating against oil projects. Petrolia claims only the Province has that right.

The group behind the manifesto has been rebuffed in today’s Le Devoir by retired professor, engineer and geologist Marc Durand. Durand attacks their shoddy logic, limp sources, and their utter failure to grasp the economics behind the hypothetical venture.

Though brief, their argument is that oil exploration would enrich Quebec’s economic situation by “l’amélioration de notre balance commerciale” and by creating jobs. Note, that they did not say that Quebec would enrich its coffers by being in charge of the whole operation. Likely because the rights to the lands have already been sold to private petroleum companies.

The deal would see Hydro-Quebec profiting only after 10 million barrels of oil have been produced. And though there is said to be 30-40 billion barrels-worth underground, according to Durand, only about 1,2% of those could be extracted by wells. The monetary figures, as economic windfall for the state are all of a sudden much less rosy.

Even the document the Manifeste cites to argue for a positive commercial export/import rate in Quebec advances domestic oil exploration as the last and most controversial remedy. In fact, this HSBC document seems to advocate for a reduction in consumption (gasp) as an avenue to fix our commercial deficit.

As such, even if their manifesto opens with the good-old quiet revolution prayer and a nod to Hydro-Quebec, this venture is the antithesis of an economically (not to mention ecologically) sound projet de société.

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* From the Registre des lobbyistes: Représenter les intérêts des membres de l’Association pétrolière et gazière du Québec auprès des différents titulaires de charge publique relativement à l’élaboration et la modification de dispositions législatives et réglementaires et orientations reliées aux hydrocarbures. Les représentations de l’Association visent notamment les amendements projetés à la Loi sur les mines et ses règlements, la nouvelle loi sur les hydrocarbures que projette d’adopter le gouvernement du Québec et la nouvelle stratégie énergétique du Québec, de sorte que ces dispositions législatives et réglementaires et orientations prévoient un régime de redevances compétitif pour les entreprises exploitant des hydrocarbures au Québec et des modalités favorisant le développement sécuritaire de l’industrie des hydrocarbures au Québec, dans le respect de l’environnement, et que les hydrocarbures occupent une place plus importante dans la nouvelle stratégie énergétique du Québec.

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This past Saturday, Greenpeace Canada held vigils in Toronto and Montreal in order to draw attention to the fact that two Canadians, Alexandre Paul and Paul Ruzycki, are rotting in a Russian jail cell awaiting their show trial for protesting against drilling for oil in the Arctic by Gazprom, Russia’s massive transnational energy corporation. The charges against them you ask? PIRACY!!!

That’s right. According to the authoritarian logic of the Putin regime, these eco-activists’ peaceful protest was actually an act of criminality and violence against the state of Russia on the high seas. And they are no less guilty then such memorable pirates as Captain Blackbeard or the Somalis behind the hijacking of Maersk Alabama.

Piracy under international law (unlike so much else in that area) is one of the oldest and most well-defined crimes. Basically the International Convention on the Law of the Sea holds that piracy is act of robbery or criminal violence, at sea, land or air. Seeing as none of these folks were armed, it’s hard to understand where the Russian authorities are coming from in this case. Conversely, the Russian commandos that seized their ship (the Arctic Sunrise) and captured the crew, were armed to the teeth.

Meanwhile, the Australian Liberal Government (actually they’re conservatives, how confusing is that?) has publicly denounced the detention of their nationals by the Russian government on the pretext of piracy. Their foreign minister has already registered her concern with her Russian counterpart about the treatment of their nationals who were involved in the incident. Greenpeace claims that Colin Russel is stuck in a cell 23 hours a day and has not been able to contact his wife or family, in violation of his human rights.

In Ottawa, however, barely a word about the matter from Stephen Harper and our Foreign Minister John Baird, beyond the standard promise, by a flak for the Foreign Affairs Department, of “consular services” for our Canadians being detained indefinitely by a judicial system that notoriously disregards universally recognized principles of international law and basic human rights. Don’t take my word for it, just watch the HBO documentary on the Kafkaesque trial of Pussy Riot (Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer).

I guess this is yet another example of Harper’s indifference towards anyone who doesn’t share his well-documented love affair with the oil industry (ironically, Russia is Canada’s rival in extracting oil and gas reserves in the Arctic sea) even when the people in question are Canadian citizens with rights he is sworn to protect.

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The tragedy of Lac Mégantic is now moving into its legal phase, as tragedies in our society invariably seem to do. The death toll stands at 50 people but more are expected as the search for the missing continues. One thing is certain though: the law suits are sure to fly thick and fast, and the potential targets run the gamut from the Feds, for their lack of oversight of the rail industry, to the now infamous rail company’s engineer responsible for setting the breaks that failed thus causing the disaster (unless you want to be more conspiratorial than me, and consider the possibility of foul play as a cause).

The civil law suits based on the liability of Rail World Inc. is now accepted by everyone including its grandfatherly CEO Ed Burkhart who said at a recent press conference from the town “We’re acknowledging liability. We’re not standing around saying we don’t have responsibility.” That means it’s no longer a question of whether monetary compensation will be paid to the victims of the train wreck, but how large a payout they can expect from the courts.

When the dust settles on this one I wouldn’t be surprised if we see damages similar to that which were paid by BP after the Deep Water Horizon. The oil company was forced to pay 42 billion in reparations including 4 billion in fines for various kinds of negligence, including criminal, which it committed.

BP had been found guilty of cutting costs at the expense of safety on its offshore oil rig, in much the same way that Rail World Inc is facing accusations today of neglecting safety in favour of greater profits in its oil shipping business. Another similarity with the Gulf catastrophe is the charges of criminal negligence against the companies involved. BP was actually found guilty not only of criminal stupidity under US law but also of involuntary homicide or manslaughter for the deaths of 11 roughnecks who were killed in the explosion.

But what about proving that the employees of the Rail World Inc., and by extension the corporation that hired them, were guilty of criminal behaviour?

Let’s begin with the definition of criminal negligence in Canada: “ Everyone is criminally negligent who in doing anything or omitting to do anything, that it is his (please note the sexist language) duty to do, shows wanton or reckless disregard for the lives of others.” It should be understood that this is quite unique, in that the law says an individual is still guilty of a crime even if they have done nothing and had the best intentions.

The precedents of Canadian law tell us a couple of key things about the criminal liability of corporations that are responsible, directly or indirectly, for death and destruction in cases like this one. First of all, the whole corporate structure (from secretaries to CEOs), not just individual employees, can be implicated in criminal negligence.

Secondly, no matter how much the company denies it, they are obligated to take all necessary measures required by law to ensure the safety of their employees and the general public. Any failure to do this could constitute criminal negligence.

The threshold that needs to be met for this “reckless disregard for the lives of others” to be established in court is tricky to do, to say the least. If past cases are any guide, the judge hearing this case will probably use the standard known as the “reasonable person” to decide the matter.

What does that mean in practice? In this instance, do the actions of engineer who set the breaks on the runaway train reflect what an average person would consider common sense? For that matter, did the company’s rules and practices on securing a train carrying explosive materials?

You see the problem. Unless the engineer was high on crack when he checked the train’s breaks or the company’s polices were written by a 10 year old, this is basically a subjective judgement that more often than not depends on a judge’s whims.

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* This post originally appeared on QuietMike.org, republished with permission from the author

It’s amazing how Canadians elect politicians who refuse to analyze the country’s problems, but that’s what we did when we handed Stephen Harper and his Tories a majority government. The Conservatives try and pride themselves as being the party of action (just look at those tiresome action plan ads), but the Conservative Party of Canada could better be described as the party of reaction.

Every so called action they’ve taken in the past two years has been a quick, but simple reaction to an otherwise complicated problem. Not once have they stopped to analyze the situation in order to address the core of an issue.

Last week, following the arrests of two terrorist suspects, newly elected Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau said “There is no question that this happened because there is someone who feels completely excluded, completely at war with innocents, at war with a society. Our approach has to be, where do those tensions come from?”

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Trudeau’s comments were perfectly reasonable. We shouldn’t be satisfied by humbly thwarting a terrorist attack, we need to get to the crux of why they want to attack us in the first place. The best way to fight terrorism is through understanding their motives. If we merely cut off the head of the hydra, more heads will keep taking its place.

Prime Minister Harper and the Conservatives weren’t having any of this. Harper said “This is not a time to commit sociology, if I can use an expression.” That statement was dumbed down even further a few days later when Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre said that “the root causes of terrorism is terrorists.” Poilievre even repeated the declaration to make it abundantly clear that this is what the party believes.

At the time, I remember thinking to myself that it was as if George Bush’s brain had somehow been embedded into Poilievre’s skull. I realized soon after that this kind of nonsense was nothing new, their conservative views were just never explained so bluntly before.

No one has ever accused the Conservatives of being the party of intellectuals, but taking a look at their policy decisions over the last few years, one has to wonder if they think at all. They rule in the present without consideration for our future; you would think they don’t plan on staying in power for long.

They believe the root cause of crime is criminals. Instead of investing in crime’s source, such as poverty and drug addiction, the Tories decided to dish out harsher sentences to criminals and drug offenders. It won’t be long until we need more prisons.

They believe the root cause of global warming is the globe. The earth is warming itself so why try and fight it.

Instead of investing in green energy and technology, Harper gutted Canada’s environmental assessment laws, expanded oil sands development and now plans are in the works to have an equal sized mining project near Thunder Bay. The media has already taken to calling it “Tar Sands 2.0”

They believe the root cause of unemployment is unemployment. With the jobless rate still hovering around 7.5%, the Conservative government decided to revamp the unemployment system. Under the new rules, even seasonal workers will have to prove they are actively looking for work. Forcing seasonal laborers to take menial jobs a few months in the summer or winter will take jobs away from students trying to pay for school.

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Harper and his pet Pierre

I’m sure there are other tautologies I could find to illustrate my point, but you get the idea. Quick fixes and short sighted thinking is no way to run a government.

It’s why they try and silence everyone from scientists to members of their own party. God forbid the word should get out about how thoughtless and unproductive their policies really are. I always thought Conservatives wanted a smaller government not a more foolish one.

Future generations are going to have to live with this government’s decisions, making statements a five year old child can make and holding to them doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

The root cause of the Conservative Party of Canada has clearly become stupidity.

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Not since Confederation has a nation-building project determined so much of Canada’s future, divided Canadians and equaled the endeavor of CP Rail, than Alberta pipelines. Several projects have been proposed but nothing perhaps more politically contentious than the Keystone XL, which would run pipelines from Alberta to parts of central United States. While Northern Gateway would transport bitumen from Bruderheim, Alberta to Kitimat, British Columbia and then ship it to Asian markets.

Canadians must decide whether it would be better off becoming gas station of the world or global leaders combating climate change. Petroleum is a dangerous market and there are potential socio-economic and environmental risks facing Canadians. Outside factors are influencing whether Canada takes on those risks.

Despite some financialists, think-tanks and environmental expert warnings, PM Stephen Harper has vowed continuing support for Canada’s future in crude oil. Consequently, Conservatives have enforced gag orders on climate change scientists from speaking to the media and further removed environmental protections through Bill C-45, opposed by Idle No More.

Harper would ensure risks of environmental catastrophes from pipeline projects including clear-cut forests, depleted wildlife and risks of oil spillage into nearby bodies of water, poisoning communities. Even the most optimistic pipeline job projections, according to Cornell University, appear to be pipedreams. 85 to 90% of the people hired to do the work would be non-local and predominately temporary workers.

Oil venture in Canada is also up against time and technology. There is the impending deadline of Congress facing President Barrack Obama on whether to approve Keystone. If Obama rejects the deal, Canada would scrap Endbridge. There is also the rapid pace of American petroleum technology innovations.

Obama will likely announce a national synthetic oil technology policy. Synthetic oil is a greener, cheaper technology which could be harnessed in the United States. Its production utilizes a combination of non-food crops, natural gas and coal. The result of which is a much more sleeker and finer product.

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Princeton University concluded it could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% if non-food crops are used to produce that fuel. A national program would require further assessments and thereby extend Keystone’s deadline further down the road, effectively putting Alberta’s already uncertain future in the cruder, harsher tar sand oil in the stone ages with the dinosaurs.

This is the likely reason why Obama neglected to mention Keystone in his State of the Union address. Instead, the president emphasized cutting climate change, harkening back to his 2008 campaign promise to achieve American energy independence within ten years. All signs appear to point in this direction with John Kerry’s appointment to Secretary of State, Kerry being the most outspoken Democrat on tackling climate change.

Should American backing fall through, Alberta should not rely on its Chinese state-owned oil partner, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), to be its safety net. A Chinese ambassador to Canada has revealed that Beijing would not wait on Canada if Alberta-BC issues are not resolved in a timely manner.

Alberta oil is only lucrative to Chinese investors so long as it will have pipeline clients. Alberta currently trades at a $40 discount per barrel of oil to the US. Since there are no pipelines to cancel out high transport costs to distant clients this is done to maintain interest. This means negative dividend returns for Alberta.

Currently, Premier Alison Redford’s government is bleeding $6 billion. China is only willing to cover the cost of cargo shipments to keep Alberta oil afloat until Canada could find other larger markets to invest in pipelines. BC’s blockade of Alberta’s Gateway deal would deny access to Asian markets. A ThreeHundredEight poll suggests a BC NDP victory this May with leader Adrian Dix promising to kill Northern Gateway. Northern Gateway is expected to be complete by 2017 or 2019.

Although Canada may be a politically stable source of oil, China could secure its oil supply by other means. China could diversify its clients while further weaning itself off of dirty oil towards sustainable energies. Unlike Washington, Beijing is not beholden to whomever it does business with. This ensures China’s access to petroleum could come from multiple markets.

Bottom line, Canadians could see themselves sitting on surplus black gold sold at red dot prices. In the end, Canada could be left holding the bag. Not quite the Dutch Disease prophesy, but still a crude awakening for Canadians.