Making News

A report by an advisory board to the government of Canada estimates that the effects of global warming will cost the country’s economy 5 billion Canadian dollars a year by 2020 and that those costs will rise substantially afterward.

Unlike earlier studies, the report does not examine the costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions; it looked at the economic consequences of global warming.

“The costs we could incur from climate change are the costs of continuously adjusting to changing conditions,” the advisory board, the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, said. “Although harder to calculate and less immediately apparent, they are real and significant and bear understanding.”
... Read more »

Canadians face a high economic cost from the impact of a warming global climate, and the country should act quickly to reduce the financial price by investing in adaptation measures, a federal advisory panel warns.

In a report released Thursday, the National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy forecasts that climate change will have a variety of increasingly harmful impacts, from flooding in low-lying coastal regions and threats to Canada’s timber supply, to health problems caused by worsening air quality.

“We are already affected by climate change and will be by the carbon already in the atmosphere, so we already face physical changes to our environment and economic costs as a result,” said David McLaughlin, chief executive at the roundtable.... Read more »

Hundreds of demonstrators are vowing a day of civil disobedience on Parliament Hill in a bid to counter the Harper government’s vigorous promotion of oil-sands exports to the United States.

Protesters are threatening to cross the RCMP’s security perimeter Monday and “sit down in a symbolic way to stand up against the Canadian tar sands,” echoing a series of protests in which 1,200 people were arrested in front of the White House last month.

“We have hundreds of people who have signed up to risk arrest,” said Clayton Thomas-Muller, a campaigner with the Indigenous Environmental Network.
... Read more »

We are living in a market economy, but that doesn't mean there aren't choices to be made.

We could be living in a smart market economy. One that invests in education and training, in innovation, in new ideas. That competes at the high end. That makes sure, in many ways, that it leaves no one behind. One that shares its benefits more equally – much more equally. There is much to say about that. We'll get to it.

And then there's the dumb market economy we're living in instead … increasingly, courtesy of the Harper government. Exhibit A: the Keystone XL pipeline.

If you haven't heard of this project, you should. It is, in many ways, the keystone to Stephen Harper's approach to the Canadian economy, and to what passes for environmental policy in this government.
... Read more »