Climate Change, Carbon Taxes, Decarbonization and ENGOs – Page 31

German experts meet to discuss country’s exit from coal use (Tampa Bay Times – June 26, 2018)

June 26, 2018

http://www.tampabay.com/

Associated Press – BERLIN (AP) — Representatives from German industry, environmental groups and unions met Tuesday in Berlin to discuss how and when the country can stop using coal to generate electricity.

Climate scientists have called for Germany to do more to curb its greenhouse gas emissions, which have stagnated for about a decade. This month, the government was forced to admit it will miss its short-term climate goal by a wide mark .

Coal-fired power plants are a major source of carbon emissions that drive climate change. While Germany has ramped up production of renewable energy, it still depends on coal for over a third of its electricity.

Sudbury Accent: Northern Ontario being strangled [Part 1 of 5] – by Stan Sudol (Sudbury Star – June 2, 2018)

December 1, 2018June 7, 2018

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

On June 7, the people of Ontario will be going to the polls in one of the most pivotal elections in the province’s history. While Northern Ontario – north of the French and Mattawa rivers, as I have never recognized the Parry Sound and Muskoka ridings as being part of the North – encompasses roughly 90 per cent of the province’s land mass, its population has been steadily declining to slightly over five per cent of Ontario’s total.

Unfortunately, our impact on provincial policies is almost negligible.

A buck a beer, cheaper gas, tax breaks combined with unaffordable infrastructure and social commitments, twinning the trans-Canada in Northern Ontario, buying back Hydro One and jumping on a bulldozer to start building the road into the Ring of Fire are part of a bevy of mostly worthy but unsustainable promises Conservative Doug Ford, Liberal Kathleen Wynne and NDP Andrea Horwath have made.

However, I seldom hear any actual policy initiatives to grow the economy and create wealth so we can afford all these election initiatives and perhaps, just perhaps, put a little money on our provincial debt, which has more than doubled during the past 15 years under the McGuinty/Wynne Liberal era, from about $138 billion in 2003-04 to $325 billion today and growing.

Trans Mountain is the cost of Corporate Canada surrendering to green enemies – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – May 30, 2018)

May 30, 2018

http://business.financialpost.com/

With the pipeline fiasco, Canada has now come face to face with the ultimate and disastrous consequences of the grand coalition that has seized control of national policy-making.

The Trudeau government’s desperate decision to ultimately purchase the Trans Mountain pipeline — for the alleged “fair price” of $4.5 billion — is the logical outcome of an incoherent governance regime controlled by a triumvirate of social, political and economic institutions.

The institutional troika is made up of green activists, pandering politicians and capitulating corporations. All are jointly and severally responsible for creating the current legal and economic crisis over Canada’s energy and resource developments, with many more crises to come.

Trudeau and Co. losing the fight on carbon taxes – by Lorrie Goldstein (Toronto Sun – May 16, 2018)

May 18, 2018

http://torontosun.com/

As polling across Canada shows support for carbon pricing plummeting now that it’s a reality as opposed to an idea, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must be wondering what went wrong? Ditto Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Last year, with great, self-congratulatory fanfare, she imposed a cap and trade scheme, another name for a carbon tax, on Ontarians. That’s one reason she’s poised to lose her job in the province’s June 7 election, her Liberal government trailing both the Progressive Conservatives and NDP in the polls.

An Ipsos/Global poll released Monday found more than seven in 10 eligible Ontario voters — 72% — believe carbon taxes are just an excuse by government to grab more money from them, with 68% calling them mere symbolism.

Time for a serious look at Ottawa audits of anti-oil ‘charities’ – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – May 16, 2018)

May 17, 2018

http://business.financialpost.com/

Canada’s charitable regime is in need of comprehensive review and reform

For more than a decade Vivian Krause, a Vancouver researcher and writer with more determination than the Winnipeg Jets, has been following and documenting the activities of charities that fund opposition to Canada’s oil industry.

Krause has dug into the corners of the so-called charitable activities of a collection of powerful political organizations, funded by U.S. foundations, whose objectives include, among other things, “shutting down” Canada’s oilsands.

Readers of this page will be familiar with Krause’s work. The Girl Who Played with Tax Data lists more than a dozen of her FP Comment reports going back to 2010. Others followed.

‘Carbon bomb’: Clive Palmer seeks nod for mine twice the size of Adani’s – by Peter Hannam (Canberra Times – May 17, 2018)

May 17, 2018

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/

Mining billionaire Clive Palmer is seeking approval to develop a Queensland coal mine twice the size of the controversial Carmichael project – but has done so by drawing heavily on environmental work done by other mines proposed for the region.

The federal environment department told Fairfax Media it will decide by Monday whether the Alpha North mine proposed by Mr Palmer’s Waratah Coal company will require “detailed assessment under national environmental law,” according to a spokeswoman.

The monster mine planned for the Galilee Basin, abuts Adani’s Carmichael mine, and is separate from a proposal by Mr Palmer to develop the China First mine, also in the region.

Large expanse of boreal forest straddling Ontario and Manitoba gets World Heritage recommendation – by Gloria Galloway (Globe and Mail – May 16, 2018)

May 17, 2018

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A massive tract of boreal forest straddling the Ontario and Manitoba borders that has been home to the Anishinaabe people for 6,000 years has received the two key recommendations it needs to become Canada’s first mixed cultural and natural UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Pimachiowin Aki, which means the Land That Gives Life in Anishinaabemowin, covers 29,040 square kilometres (almost the size of Vancouver Island) of mostly untouched wilderness and is home to one of the largest herds of caribou south of Hudson Bay as well as many other species of mammals, birds, insects and fish.

A World Heritage mixed designation is a declaration that an area is so important to the world, both culturally and ecologically, that it must be protected. There is another such site in Mexico but none in Canada or the continental United States.

The case for nixing carbon taxes – by David Black (Globe and Mail – May 15, 2018)

May 15, 2018

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

David Black is the chairman of Black Press Ltd. and founder of Kitimat Clean.

Our country must focus on three vital things: develop more good jobs, because many are disappearing; build new businesses that can be taxed, rather than increase the burden on existing taxpayers; and improve our physical environment while we do this.

One obvious way to achieve this is to encourage “value-add” in the oil industry. Instead of exporting our crude oil to other countries, let’s process it here.

Refineries can be built along British Columbia’s coast employing large numbers of workers in good-paying jobs for decades and generating massive new taxes for our governments. (It is uneconomic to build export refineries in Alberta, which is why there are none there. All export refineries in the world are built on the ocean.)

Even environmentalists tell Trudeau his ethanol plan is terrible – by Lawrence Solomon (Financial Post – May 11, 2018)

May 11, 2018

http://business.financialpost.com/

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to replace fossil fuels with ethanol and other low-carbon fuels through a “clean fuel standard” — expected to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 30 million tonnes a year by 2030 — faces mounting opposition, especially from a powerful lobby south of the border.

No, not from U.S. President Donald Trump or the Republicans. At least, not yet — officially they’re pretty much in sync with Trudeau on this one, largely because the U.S. is a big exporter of ethanol to Canada.

The fierce opposition comes chiefly from the U.S. environmental lobby, which has awakened to one of the most colossal environmental mistakes in its history: the ethanol mandate, part of America’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which effectively mandates that 10 per cent of gasoline at the pump consists of ethanol.

What do the Liberals know about carbon tax that they won’t tell us? – by John Robson (National Post – May 9, 2018)

May 9, 2018

http://nationalpost.com/

The federal government seems to be saying even less than they know about carbon taxes. Which can’t be easy.

It’s a signature policy they insist will work. But they are exploiting a hard-won reputation for cluelessness on key promises from electoral reform to marijuana legalization to convince us they have no idea how this one would function either.

For instance, on April 30, Finance Minister Bill Morneau flatly refused to tell the Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women whether the government had even done a gender-based analysis on the carbon tax. Or, more precisely, he flatly refused to acknowledge that Conservative MP Michelle Rempel kept asking him that question.

The U of A isn’t ‘brave’ for honouring Suzuki. Just the opposite – by Rex Murphy (National Post – May 5, 2018)

May 7, 2018

http://nationalpost.com/

At the deep centre of conventional wisdom no concept is more hallowed, more warmly cradled in the blanket-robes of political correctness than the Green dogma of global warming. For millions upon millions it is grant-subsidized Holy Writ.

Governments fatten its evangelists with unheralded largesse. Its advocate-missionaries are legion, gathering in ritual conclave every year in rich, well-lit capitals to renew their fervour and refresh their zeal.

Rio, Geneva, Copenhagen, Rome are their jet-set Stations of the Cross, the United Nations their cathedral home, its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change a new curia stuffed with failed weathermen, cranky researchers, the blazing-eyed mystics of Gaia, all duly attended by a docile, uninquisitive, co-opted press corps. Honours drop on its prophet-priests as do “the gentle rains from heaven.”

The War on Coal Is Making the World’s Top Mine Owners a Lot Richer – by Thomas Biesheuvel and Thomas Wilson (Bloomberg News – May 2, 2018)

May 2, 2018

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The world’s war on coal is making its biggest producers a lot richer, at least for now. Anglo American Plc, Glencore Plc and BHP Billiton Ltd. are generating the highest profits in years from their coal mines. Income for the 37 coal producers tracked in a Bloomberg Intelligence index was the highest in six years.

It all comes down to the simplest equation in business: supply and demand. With governments from Asia to Europe setting stricter pollution limits as the climate change debate intensifies, output of the planet’s dirtiest fuel is dropping.

Some of the more significant declines are occurring in China, the top mine operator, and financing for new supplies is drying up. That’s creating a windfall for the producers who remain.

Is David Suzuki a science denier? – by Margaret Wente (Globe and Mail – May 1, 2018)

May 1, 2018

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Folks in the oil patch are mad as hornets over the University of Alberta’s decision to give an honorary degree to David Suzuki in June. Big donors are threatening to cancel cheques and pull the plug on future contributions.

A petition calling for the university to change its mind has garnered 14,000 signatures. Even the deans of business and engineering have issued anguished letters of apology to distance themselves from the decision.

Are they being too thin-skinned? I don’t think so. The U of A has just given them the middle finger. Mr. Suzuki has compared making a living in the oil sands to profiting off the slave trade.

How Oman’s Rocks Could Help Save the Planet – by Henry Fountain (New York Times – April 26, 2018)

April 27, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/

IBRA, Oman — In the arid vastness of this corner of the Arabian Peninsula, out where goats and the occasional camel roam, rocks form the backdrop practically every way you look.

But the stark outcrops and craggy ridges are more than just scenery. Some of these rocks are hard at work, naturally reacting with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and turning it into stone. Veins of white carbonate minerals run through slabs of dark rock like fat marbling a steak. Carbonate surrounds pebbles and cobbles, turning ordinary gravel into natural mosaics.

Even pooled spring water that has bubbled up through the rocks reacts with CO2 to produce an ice-like crust of carbonate that, if broken, re-forms within days.

Are solar and wind finally cheaper than fossil fuels? Not a chance – by Lawrence Solomon (Financial Post – April 27, 2018)

April 27, 2018

http://business.financialpost.com/

“’Spectacular’ drop in renewable energy costs leads to record global boost,” The Guardian headline reported last year. “Clean Energy Is About to Become Cheaper Than Coal,” pronounced MIT’s Technology Review. “The cost of installing solar energy is going to plummet again,” echoed Grist, the environmental journal.

Other sources declare that renewables are not only getting cheaper, they have already become cheaper than conventional power. The climate-crusading DeSmogBlog reports that “Falling Costs of Renewable Power Make (B.C.’s) Site C Dam Obsolete” and that “Coal Just Became Uneconomic in Canada.”

It implores us to discover “What Canada Can Learn From Germany’s Renewable Revolution,” as does Energy Post, an authoritative European journal, which described “The spectacular success of the German Energiewende (energy transition).”