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  • Climate change to cost Canada billions: panel

    OTTAWA - Climate change will cause damage in Canada equivalent to around 1 percent of GDP in 2050 as rising temperatures kill off forests, flood low-lying areas and cause more illnesses, an official panel said on Thursday.

    The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy said Canada's Conservative government - criticized by green activists for not doing enough to fight global warming - should take measures to mitigate the effects of climate change, which most scientists blame on greenhouse gas emissions.

    DOWNLOAD THE REPORT

    The north of Canada, the world's second largest country, is warming up at a much faster pace than the rest of the Earth.

  • Windmill foes are full of hot air

    When not-in-my-backyard groups fight to kill a garbage dump or a gravel pit, it is at least possible to see where they are coming from. When they kill something like an offshore wind farm, designed expressly to help the environment, things are getting weird.

    Last week, the government of Ontario quietly announced it was placing a moratorium on building wind farms in the Great Lakes. Well-organized residents groups have campaigned tirelessly against the idea. The transparently political decision, taken just months before a provincial election, douses Toronto Hydro’s hopes of erecting a complex of wind turbines off the Scarborough Bluffs.

    Environment Minister John Wilkinson insists the decision was motivated purely by concern for the health of Ontarians. Unlike most wind farms around the world, he said on CBC Radio, Ontario’s would be built not in the sea but in fresh water lakes. What if they affected our drinking water?

  • Province's draft plan for Lower Athabasca falls short

    Over the last six weeks, Albertans have had a rare opportunity to shape the environmental management of the oilsands by commenting on the provincial government's draft plan for the Lower Athabasca region.

    The plan is an important first step, as Albertans have consistently demanded improvements in oilsands environmental management. But as that window of opportunity closes, the question is whether the province will take the public's input into account by making much-needed improvements to the draft plan before it goes to cabinet next month.

    While it is now widely acknowledged that Alberta needs a plan to guide oilsands development, it is clear the current draft won't meet the provincial government's own vision for the plan, which is in part to ensure that the "region's air, water, land and biodiversity support healthy ecosystems and world-class conservation areas."

  • Foes of Northern Gateway pipeline fear revocation of charitable status

    Environmentalists are fearful that the Conservative government is planning to limit their advocacy role after Prime Minister Stephen Harper complained that groups flush with “foreign money” are undermining a controversial pipeline review.

    Mr. Harper and Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver stoked activists’ fears in recent days by lashing out at environmental groups that have taken money from U.S. donors to build opposition to the $6.6-billion Northern Gateway pipeline that would carry oil-sands bitumen to the British Columbia coast.

    The Conservative-dominated Commons finance committee is set to begin a review of the charity sector, and several activists say government MPs have told business groups that the committee will look at the environmental sector’s transparency, its advocacy role and the flow of funds from outside the country.

  • EU to tackle Canadian tar sands in new law -sources

    * EU trade and climate chiefs to tackle Canadian tar sands

    * EU sets aside worries that Canada will scrap trade deal

    * Documents show EU believes it would win any WTO challenge

    By Pete Harrison and Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck BRUSSELS, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Europe's trade and climate chiefs are preparing to take a stand against imports of oil from Canada's polluting tar sands, despite fears the move might wreck a multi-billion dollar trade deal, according to EU sources and documents.

    European Union sources said this week that Canada had threatened to pull out of trade talks because of the clash, but Ottawa has denied that.

    Read the entire article at the link below.

  • Pipeline critics hit back after Oliver warns of 'radicals'

    Canada's natural resources minister has entered the fray over the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline with a controversial public letter accusing "radical" environmentalists of trying to delay the project and undermine the country's economic interests.

    In an open letter released on the eve of the first public hearing on the proposal, Joe Oliver says environmentalists and other "radical" groups are trying to hijack the regulatory process.

    More than 4,300 groups and individuals have signed up to speak at the regulatory panel hearings, which begin Tuesday in Kitimat, B.C.

    "Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth," Oliver wrote in the letter. "No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams."

  • New York's Little Revolution - H2O protection & fracking

    From YesMagazine.org

    How the state’s fight for clean water is reshaping its political landscape.

    by Ellen Cantarow

  • Four more Ontario coal fired plants shut down

    Under attack for soaring hydro bills, the Ontario government struck back Friday by announcing the shutdown of four more coal-fired energy generating units.

    Speaking from the Ontario Lung Association headquarters in Toronto, Energy Minister Brad Duguid said two of eight coal-fired units at the Nanticoke station and two of four at the Lambton plant have closed. Shutting them down is the pollution-clearing equivalent of removing up to 2 million cars from the road.

    Read the whole story here

  • Carson takes leave of absence from oilsands advisory panel

    Bruce Carson has taken a leave of absence but did not resign from a provincial government advisory panel for Alberta’s oilsands in light of an RCMP investigation into the business dealings of the former senior advisor to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

     

    “Mr. Carson contacted Alberta Environment and said he would be comfortable with any decisions the minister made in regards to Mr. Carson’s participation on our panel,” said ministry spokeswoman Erin Carrier.

    Environment Minister Rob Renner on Thursday “took (Carson) up on his offer of a leave of absence on the Alberta advisory panel. As events unfold, Mr. Carson’s further participation on the panel will be re-evaluated,” she said.

  • Protests against controversial pipeline project will heat up this summer
    A number of Hollywood celebrities and high-profile Canadians will gather in Washington D.C. this August for a series of protests against the Keystone XL Pipeline project.

    A vote on the multi-billion dollar 2,700-km pipeline that would ship Alberta oilsands crude to the U.S. Gulf Coast is expected this fall.

    The executive director of Sierra Club Canada says a revolution is needed to stop the project.

    John Bennett says it's great to see the likes of Hollywood actor Danny Glover and Canadian Scientists David Suzuki promising to take part.

    In an open letter published Thursday, the pipeline is being described as, "a horror that would light the fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent."

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