Climate Change, Carbon Taxes, Decarbonization and ENGOs – Page 45

Why Canada Needs Both Windmills And Pipelines – by Katrina Marsh (Huffington Post – April 28, 2016)

April 29, 2016

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/

“The choice between pipelines and wind turbines is a false one. We need both to reach our goal.” Prime Minister Trudeau’s comment — spoken just before last March’s First Ministers’ meeting on climate change — has echoed through ministers’ speeches and media interviews ever since. Mr. Trudeau and his cabinet are walking a fine line between the need to control greenhouse gas emissions on the one hand and the need for energy pipelines on the other.

Some people see a contradiction in this balancing act. The authors of the Leap Manifesto argue that growth in renewable energy technologies mean that there is “no longer an excuse for building new infrastructure projects that lock us into increased extraction decades into the future.”

Yet the truth is that Canadians will continue to rely on fossil fuels even as we develop alternatives. This is not an ideological position to be argued over, but a fact that must be recognized.

Sudbury forum: Lewis clan should be quiet – by Keith Lovely (Sudbury Star – April 29, 2016)

April 29, 2016

http://www.thesudburystar.com/

Keith Lovely of Coniston is a former executive with Local 6500 of the United Steelworkers in Sudbury.

I have been a member of the NDP since 1973. Since that time, I have worked in many elections and still give money to the party today. I am not a hit-and-miss member unlike some so-called spokespeople for the NDP who are continually in the news from Toronto criticizing the NDP even though they are not even members.

It has been my experience there have been times when (former Ontario NDP leader) Stephen Lewis from Toronto likes to tell us lowly people from the outlining areas what is good for us. I can recall in 1978, when USWA Local 6500 was on strike against Inco. The leadership in District 6 located in Toronto was against this strike. Inco had a large stockpile (of nickel); the membership in Sudbury was well aware of this, but voted to strike anyway.

Lo and behold, just a few weeks after the strike started, Stephen Lewis from his perch in Toronto wrote a scathing article in the Toronto Star calling members of the bargaining committee “Archie Bunkers” of the left and he criticized us for going on strike.

Kathleen Wynne’s monstrous new utility to make Ontarians drive, live and work ‘green’ – by Kevin Libin (Financial Post – April 29, 2016)

April 29, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

Things just got a whole lot brighter in Canada for the dismal electric-car business. Word has leaked that the country’s largest province is preparing to help buy a plug-in vehicle or hybrid for millions of families across the province — or will at least force those families to buy one.

The details of how Ontarians are getting all those green vehicles weren’t clear in the confidential draft version of the Wynne Liberals’ “Climate Change Action Plan” leaked to The Globe and Mail on Wednesday. But the goals are crystal clear: A promise to get 1.7 million low-emission cars on the roads in the next eight years, and pull seven million gas-powered cars off in the next 14.

That’s in addition to making sure 80 per cent of us ride transit or walk or bike to work, and ensuring the majority of the buildings in the province are “emissions-free” by 2050.

Coal’s demise threatens Appalachian miners, firms as production moves West – by Nathan Bomey (USA Today – April 20, 2016)

April 20, 2016

http://www.usatoday.com/

The crushing forces prevailing against the U.S. coal industry have triggered an unprecedented shakeout, sparking bankruptcies of the industry’s biggest players — such as last week’s collapse of Peabody Energy — and battering jobs in Appalachia even as mines in the west weather the fallout.

Peabody, the nation’s largest coal company, slid into Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week, just five years after its market value reached a high of $20 billion, as the oil and natural gas shale boom shifts the seat of power to miners in states such as Montana and Wyoming, where extracting coal is cheaper.

Peabody’s bankruptcy filing follows at least 50 in the industry over the last few years including Arch Coal in January and last year’s filings of Patriot Coal, Alpha Natural Resources and Walter Energy.

Australia’s Largest Mining Project Moves Forward, Despite Weak Demand for Coal – by Harry Pearl (Vice News – April 18, 2016)

April 19, 2016

https://news.vice.com/

When scientists from Australia’s Coral Bleaching Task Force conducted a series of aerial surveys of the Great Barrier Reef last month, they expected to find some damage from the world’s warming oceans around Lizard Island, north of Cooktown on Queensland’s northeast coast.

Instead they found a disaster of epic proportion. Ninety-five percent of more than 500 reefs stretching between Cairns and Papua New Guinea showed signs of bleaching — and some reefs appeared close to death.

The Great Barrier Reef had seen coral bleaching before, but this was the worst on record. Task force leader Terry Hughes, a professor of marine biology at James Cook University, described the group’s journey as the “saddest research trip of my life.”

Alberta’s coal-power phaseout will begin in 2018, industry association says – by Geoffrey Morgan (Financial Post – April 1, 2016)

April 1, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

CALGARY – The phase-out of coal-fired power generation in Alberta will begin in 2018, not the mandated 2030 deadline, the president of the Coal Association of Canada said Thursday.

Speaking at the launch of a campaign asking cabinet ministers to consider the impact of the policy on coal-mining communities, Robin Campbell said coal-fired power companies would either scale-back their electricity production or shut down their plants earlier than expected to avoid carbon levies.

“The real date will be 2018,” Campbell said, adding that the phase-out of coal is “going to hurt small towns that are built around these mines and these power plants.”

Clean, green and catastrophic – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – April 1, 2016)

April 1, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

Green and clean, that’s how politicians all over the world like to describe their national energy profiles. From Europe to North America to China, action plans and policies are in place, subsidies have been dispersed and new ideas are in constant production.

In Washington Thursday, Prime Minister Trudeau brought his Liberal green message to Washington, telling the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that green industries are the backbone of a strong economy.

Maybe it depends on what “backbone” means and on one’s definition of a “strong economy.” The latest news on green and clean energy fails to support the standard definitions of either concept.

While Trudeau got attention, it’s Obama who ran the climate change victory lap – by Claudia Cattaneo (Financial Post – March 11, 2016)

March 11, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau got his day in the Washington sun Thursday for supporting U.S. President Barack Obama’s climate change action. Make no mistake: While Trudeau got the attention, it’s Obama who got the victory lap.

He beat Canada on the Keystone XL debacle, which contributed to the containment of Canadian oil and gas industry growth, and wiped out seven years of frosty bilateral relations with former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper for the price of hosting a state visit with the new Liberal leader.

Under Obama’s watch, U.S. oil production soared, a ban on oil exports was lifted to allow U.S. oil to reach world markets and the U.S. liquefied natural gas industry beat Canadian projects to export markets.

Premiers ready to work with Trudeau on climate, but wary of carbon tax – by Ian Bailey and Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – March 4, 2016)

March 4, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

VANCOUVER — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won agreement from the premiers on a broad strategy to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and build Canada’s clean economy, but could not gather enough support for a national minimum carbon price.

In a first ministers’ summit on Thursday, the Prime Minister and premiers agreed that additional action is needed to meet and exceed Canada’s international commitment to reduce GHGs by 30 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.

The Vancouver summit fulfilled a Liberal election promise to hold a first ministers’ meeting on global warming within 90 days of the Paris climate conference, in which 196 countries concluded an agreement aimed at holding global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels to avert the worst impacts of climate change.

‘Canada failed terribly, the provinces failed terribly,’ Chiefs disappointed after climate talks with PM, Premiers – by Brandi Morin (APTN National News – March 3, 2016)

March 3, 2016

http://aptn.ca/news/

VANCOUVER — Athabasca Chipewyan Chief Allan Adams stormed out of the meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada’s premiers and Indigenous leaders on climate change in Vancouver Wednesday because he said it fell to shambles.

“I think Canada’s in a crisis and it ain’t going to get any better now. Canada failed terribly, the provinces failed terribly in regards to addressing this issue,” said an infuriated Adam.

According to Adam the meeting didn’t include any talks of taking care of mother earth, instead the focus was placed on economic development and transitioning to a green economy.

Talking climate is cheap. Action is expensive – by Jeffrey Simpson (Globe and Mail – March 3, 2016)

March 3, 2016

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the premiers gather on March 3 in Vancouver, they need to get their heads around some inconvenient truths.

They understand, correctly, one inconvenient truth: that global warming is happening and needs, over the long-term, to be combatted. The other inconvenient truths they have yet to acknowledge freely, let alone confront.

Greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change have risen in Canada since the 2008-2009 recession. They are rising with sufficient speed that to keep them level will require a huge effort, to say nothing of what would be required to reduce them drastically to meet the emission-reduction goal the Trudeau government set for Canada at the Paris climate conference in December.

The great [Ontario] green carbon tax grab – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – February 25, 2016)

February 25, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

Touted by economists as a wondrous market mechanism that will deliver Canada from the evils of climate change, carbon pricing is emerging out of the political swamps as a regulatory nightmare. It is also shaping up as the Great Canadian Carbon Tax Grab.

In advance of a first ministers’ meeting next week with Prime Minister Trudeau in Vancouver to begin setting national carbon objectives, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne announced that – just as consumers are beginning to benefit from lower oil prices – her province’s cap-and-trade version of a carbon tax will add 4.3 cents to the price of a litre of gasoline. Natural gas prices will also go up $60 a year per household.

More fiscal details are to come in a budget Thursday, but a Globe and Mail report says the government will ultimately collect $1.3 billion a year in fresh revenue from its cap-and-trade taxes on gasoline and natural gas.

Green Illusions – Why Wind and Solar Power Cannot Displace Coal – by John Petersen (InvestorIntel.com – February 22, 2016)

February 22, 2016

http://investorintel.com/

We live in a crazy mixed-up world where half-truths abound as politicians, stock promoters, forecasters and advocates of all stripes blithely ignore the vulgar exigencies of objective truth when it comes to the energy supplies that make our industrialized economies and comfortable lives possible. It’s a golden age of green illusions, a/k/a alternative energy fairy tales.

Since this series of articles will focus on the contrast between objective truths and green illusions, I can’t think of a better way to kick it off than a quote from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass:

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said, “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

Naomi Klein stars in ‘This Misrepresents Everything’ – by Peter Foster (National Post – February 18, 2016)

February 18, 2016

http://business.financialpost.com/

Apart from the stock shots of effluent pipes and belching smokestacks, Naomi Klein’s idea of objectivity about the Alberta oilsands is to find a worker prepared to blow his nose on a banknote in a Fort McMurray bar.

Scenes like this make Klein’s documentary This Changes Everything, which will air on CBC on Thursday night, not just intellectually vacuous but downright objectionable.

The guy using the currency as nasal tissue might well now be out of a job, not just because of the oil price collapse, but because of the prominent role played by Klein in killing the Keystone XL pipeline and thus draining billions from the Alberta economy.

Another Ontario green energy blow-up – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – February 16, 2016)

February 16, 2016

http://www.financialpost.com/index.html

Debris from the exploding Ontario Liberal green energy rocket continues to land on the hapless citizens of the province. Gas plant scandals, soaring power rates, declining electricity output, massive subsidies to money-losing wind and solar, non-stop bafflegab from government ministers: when will it stop? Not now, and maybe never.

Details of the latest meteorite-sized chunk of the Dalton McGuinty/Kathleen Wynne green power blow-up are on display at the blog of energy consultant Tom Adams, who formerly served on the Ontario Independent Electricity Market Operator board of directors and the Ontario Centre for Excellence for Energy board of management

Adams picks up a story that made brief headlines in late 2012 when Windstream Energy, a U.S. company, filed a NAFTA complaint claiming $475 million in damages.