Sierra Club Blog Posts
We win once in a while!
Submitted by John Bennett on Sat, 2012-09-08 02:59
A great Sierra Club environmental victory went largely unnoticed a couple of weeks ago. President Obama announced new fuel economy standards (an increase up to 54 miles per gallon) by 2025. As is generally the case, Canada will undoubtedly follow suit soon.
Working on both sides of the border, Sierra Club campaigners played a critical role in forming and executing a North American “clean car” strategy. It was brilliant, really. I'm proud to have been part of it.
It was a simple encirclement of Detroit. The car companies controlled the US Congress and Ottawa, but did they control sate and provincial governments? They certainly didn’t control California – always in the forefront of clean car regulations.... Read more »
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Arctic ice is in a death spiral and the implications are enormous
Submitted by Paul Beckwith on Fri, 2012-08-31 00:00
INTRODUCTORY CLIMATE BLOG
By John Bennett and Paul Beckwith
I'm sharing my space this week with climatologist Paul Beckwith because an enormous cyclone blew over the North Pole all this month - an event that has kept scientists around the world up at night.
It’s very rare for there to be such a storm in the summer. In the past a storm like this would arise in winter and blow snow around on top of a thick ice cover. This summer, over thinner ice, the wind creates large waves which, combined with warm temperatures of air and water, are causing havoc with a keystone of the global climate.... Read more »
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Arctic ice is in a death spiral and the implications are enormous
Submitted by John Bennett on Thu, 2012-08-30 04:10
By John Bennett and Paul Beckwith
I'm sharing my space this week with climatologist Paul Beckwith because an enormous cyclone blew over the North Pole all this month - an event that has kept scientists around the world up at night.
It’s very rare for there to be such a storm in the summer. In the past a storm like this would arise in winter and blow snow around on top of a thick ice cover. This summer, over thinner ice, the wind creates large waves which, combined with warm temperatures of air and water, are causing havoc with a keystone of the global climate.
Arctic ice physically reflects most of the incoming solar radiation harmlessly back into space, keeping the surface temperatures cold. When water replaces the melting ice it absorbs much, much more sunlight and thus increasingly heats up the ocean and atmosphere. This extra heat melts even more ice in a vicious heat amplifying feedback cycle.... Read more »
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Let’s study the health impact of the Tar Sands too!
Submitted by John Bennett on Sun, 2012-08-19 19:08
The federal government recently surprised many when Health Canada announced a $1.8 Million study on health impacts of living near wind turbines. Electricity generation and health are both largely provincial responsibilities - so this is major deviation by a government that has strictly avoided straying into areas of provincial jurisdiction.... Read more »
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Rather than a ‘Canadian Energy Plan’, an ‘Energy Plan for Canadians’
Submitted by John Bennett on Mon, 2012-07-23 17:04
A pan-Canadian Energy Plan is on the agenda of the Council of the Federation meeting this week in Halifax (July 25-27). It was going to be way-down on the priority list – that is, of course, before B.C. Premier Christy Clark announced her government’s new position on the Northern Gateway Pipeline (NGP) and news of the $15 Billion bid by the Chinese government to buy Nexen – a Canadian energy giant.... Read more »
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Politics, Science… Coincidence?
Submitted by John Bennett on Wed, 2012-07-11 15:33
There are many coincidences in life. Every day - in a world with billions of things happening - there are bound to be events that just seem to be related. There are also deliberate acts that seem to be coincidence.
As consumers of news it’s our job to read between the lines and decide for ourselves what’s coincidence and what’s deliberate.
Two things happened yesterday:
1) Hundreds of lab-coated scientists marched on Parliament Hill proclaiming the death of evidence (a nice play on the Death of Innocence because there really has been a change in Ottawa where facts and figures no longer play a role in policy formulation); and
2) The Harper government announced Health Canada would study the (already well-studied) health effects of living near wind turbines.... Read more »
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Times they are changing: Exxon acknowledges climate change?
Submitted by John Bennett on Thu, 2012-06-28 14:13
Finally an honest oil CEO speaks the truth on climate change. According to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, climate change is happening, but who cares - we can adapt. So fears about climate change, drilling, and energy dependence are overblown.
He said the oil industry’s biggest challenge is "taking an illiterate public and try to help them understand why we can manage these risks." That would be me and you.
... Read more »
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#BlackOutSpeakOut - A response to Harper's war on nature & democracy
Submitted by John Bennett on Sun, 2012-05-06 17:32
The federal government’s war on nature and democracy means “Silence is no longer an option” for Canadians. So I’m urging you to join with Sierra Club Canada and the country’s leading environmental organizations in a national campaign to force the government to restore the environmental protection and democratic participation. The campaign aims to force the Harper government to retreat and restore the environmental protection and democratic participation it recently gutted.... Read more »
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Peter Kent is a big fat liar! Response to “money laundering” allegations
Submitted by John Bennett on Sun, 2012-05-06 00:40
This week Federal Environment Minister Peter Kent has made repeated allegations that environmental groups are “laundering money”. This is a serious charge because according to the federal government’s own website: Money laundering is the process used to disguise the source of money or assets derived from criminal activity.
This is beyond anything in my experience and is absolutely irresponsible. A cabinet minister is going around spouting serious allegations without proof and the media is repeating them without doing anything to investigate the validity of his statements.... Read more »
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Melbourne ISTSDay Report
Submitted by Derek Leahy on Sun, 2012-05-06 00:00
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - Slowly but surely the photos from International Stop the Tar Sands Day 2012 are creeping in. Since I had about a 10 hour head start on most ISTSDay events I had time to write this article about ISTSDay in Melbourne. The article has been published on line in DEMOTIX:
http://www.demotix.com/news/1194823/connecting-dots-climate-change-melbo...
The full text of the article is below. More photos of us and our 2 meter tall climate dot are in the DEMOTIX article or on facebook. I will have more May 5th tales for you in the coming days.
Enjoy!
Derek
MELBOURNE - 05/05/2012
... Read more »
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