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- New Tsilhqot'in Tribal Park
- Pipelines Blatantly Unsafe
- Nuclear As Pollution Answer – Thorium Safer and Cleaner
- Canadian Environmental Bill Of Rights
- Manitoba Resumes Polar Bear Park Review
- New IPCC Report - Clear and Present Danger
- Republicans Push Obama To Veto Keystone XL Pipeline
- The Blue Dot Movement
- Ottawa Regulation: Kill Wild Fish Save Farms
- Stephen Harper Recognized As Climate Criminal
- B.C. Chiefs Stand Against FIPPA
- California Megadrought Continues
| New Tsilhqot'in Tribal Park | 24 November 14 |
A background technical report by biologist Wayne McCrory and traditional knowledge keepers Alice William and Linda Smith identified the largely-intact area as having such high ecological, cultural and heritage values that it warranted international recognition under the IUCN Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas and also ultimate protection by legislation in the same manner as our national and provincial parks, along the lines of the Stein Tribal Class “A” provincial park. The Tsilhqot’in communities, Yunesit’in and Xeni Gwet’in, chose to organize the creation of Dasiqox Tribal Park as a means to design an alternative plan, based on years of political and legal struggles, years of research on the importance of our unique ecosystem, and the constant threat of industrial logging and mining activities. These struggles were highlighted by the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision on June 26, 2014 that unanimously awarded Title to the Tsilhqot’in Nation.
View November 3, 2014 The Tyee article |
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| Pipelines Blatantly Unsafe | 24 November 14 |
The Canadian government is reducing the responsibility of energy companies in Canada. The liability cap was raised for all energy industry sectors – oil and nuclear capped at $1 Billion. But is capped. This means that without due recourse in the event of a spill or a nuclear meltdown – the energy industry now knows that any liability for any clean up after an accident will end at the $1 Billion mark. Where an oil spill or leak, or nuclear disaster is a multi years clean up process it means that provinces and municipalities will end up on the hook for clean up costs. Taxpayers will end up footing the bill and not the companies and the executives who are making the decisions and putting human life and whole ecosystems at risk. Bill C-22 is a further protection of the oil, gas and nuclear industries by the Harper government. The number of pipeline spills occurring every month and week in Canada, the current level of problems facing the Northern Gateway pipeline and the lack of compliance with preventative measures by the oil and gas industries, we are left wondering who is writing these bills.
View Bill C22 - Energy Safety and Security Act |
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| Nuclear As Pollution Answer – Thorium Safer and Cleaner | 24 November 14 |
The world will use up its budget to keep global warming below a level that averts the most severe climate change by 2040 as emissions from oil, natural gas and coal will rise about 20 percent, the Paris-based agency said in its annual World Energy Outlook report published today. Nuclear power has helped cut the equivalent of two years of emissions at current levels since 1971, it said. One of the three elements widely considered useful in the generation of nuclear energy, thorium is three to four times more plentiful than uranium and is widely distributed in nature. To use it in a nuclear reactor, thorium must absorb neutrons, a process that eventually converts it to an artificial isotope of uranium, uranium-233. In a Liquid-Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR, pronounced “lifter”), the reactor vessel contains two types of liquid-fluoride salts. One, the fuel salt, holds the fissile fuel (U-233) that sustains the nuclear reaction. The other, a blanket salt, has enough thorium to absorb about half of the neutrons from fission and produce more U-233. Thorium power generation benefits could be even greater if it is used in molten salt reactors (LFTRs), which can act as eco-cleaners to burn up old toxic waste. Radioactive fission products can also be re-added to the reactor for successive rounds of power generation, making energy generation cheaper. In the event of power-loss, a plug in the base of the reactor melts and the salts flow into a containment vessel to cool down, stopping the reaction and any radiation release.
View November 12, 2014 Bloomberg article |
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| Canadian Environmental Bill Of Rights | 14 November 14 |
They reason that as fundamental as the right to food, shelter or freedom from discrimination is the right of all members of society to live in a safe physical environment in which the continued diversity of non-human life is also ensured. The most recent opinion polls in this country confirm the increasing commitment of Canadians to the well-being of their natural environment. An environmental bill of rights would be a law seeking to remove obstacles that prevent individuals and public interest groups from participating in the environmental decision-making process and litigating issues of environmental degradation. It would also enshrine the right to a healthy environment. Environmental rights legislation has been enacted in a number of North American jurisdictions, most recently the Northwest Territories. The Environmental Rights Act passed by the Territorial Assembly on 6 November 1990 gives individuals the right to clean air, water and soil, and the power to sue polluters if the government fails to act. More than 130 countries across the world already recognize the right to a healthy environment in their constitutions. The NDP have tabled a bill in the House of Commons while the Suzuki Foundation and Ecojustice campaign for this right.
View October 30, 2014 Eco Justice article |
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| Manitoba Resumes Polar Bear Park Review | 14 November 14 |
To date there is no specific information as to which lands in the three million hectare designation would be protected from development. Manitoba Hydro dams, a railway system, town sites, roads and various corridors already exist within the planning boundaries. The October 28 letter refers to ‘legal protection for specific areas.’ Manitoba CWS’s own ecological methods verify that isolated protected areas are not sustainable and can actually put species and ecosystems at risk if ecological standards regarding representation and size are not upheld. Currently Manitoba is far behind in its commitments to represent each natural region with sustainable and permanent protected areas, which can be designated under different laws or Acts. All protected areas include protection of the land under one Act, and removal of crown mineral rights under the Mines Act. Manitoba Parks still have resource management, recreation management and access zones, which are not protected lands. Recently Chitek Lake Park was made permanent, after being protected for 15 years. This kind of step does not actually increase the protected lands in Manitoba.
View Proposed Polar Bear Park |
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| New IPCC Report - Clear and Present Danger | 14 November 14 |
The reports demonstrate that “we have the means to limit climate change,” said Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC, in a statement. “The solutions are many and allow for continued economic and human development. All we need is the will to change, which we trust will be motivated by knowledge and an understanding of the science of climate change.” The results offer up a stark choice. Unless we quickly curtail our fossil fuel dependence, we face "further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems." “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal,” the report concludes.
View Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability |
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| Republicans Push Obama To Veto Keystone XL Pipeline | 14 November 14 |
"Understand what this project is: It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else. It doesn't have an impact on US gas prices," Obama said recently, according to ABC News. "If my Republican friends really want to focus on what's good for the American people in terms of job creation and lower energy costs, we should be engaging in a conversation about what are we doing to produce even more home grown energy? I'm happy to have that conversation." With Congress voting to approve the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline, will the tarsands bitumen pipeline make as much a difference as lobbyists expect. Since June, crude oil selling prices have declined by 28 percent, pushing the price that oil from new wells in Canada may command below what the expected cost will be to produce it. Tarsands bitumen extracted from Alberta, which the proposed pipeline would carry to Nebraska, en route to refineries on the Gulf Coast, will cost between $85 and $110 to produce. This depends on which drilling technology is used, according to a report in July 2014 by the Canadian Energy Research Institute, a nonprofit whose work is often cited by Keystone proponents. West Texas Intermediate crude oil currently trades at $76.67.
View Oil Change International A Vote for KXL = Climate Denial page |
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| The Blue Dot Movement | 31 October 14 |
The ultimate goal of Suzuki’s Blue Dot Tour is for Canadians to support the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms including the right to live in a healthy environment. According to Suzuki, Canada is falling behind the rest of the developed world as, unlike most other wealthy industrialized nations, it does not yet include the right to a healthy environment in its charter. “To me, the concept of sustainability is the long-term commitment of society to ensure that no generation suffers a decrease in opportunity or fulfillment of basic needs. There can be no need greater for any of us than a healthy environment,” Suzuki said. “Recognition in the charter is the final step in protecting the right to clean air, fresh water, and healthy food for all Canadians. This ensures that we all benefit from a healthy environment, world-class standards, and a say in the decisions that affect out health,”
View David Suzuki biography |
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| Ottawa Regulation: Kill Wild Fish Save Farms | 31 October 14 |
The proposed regulation would have re-assigned a DFO regulatory priority, the conservation and protection of the wild fishery to another agency, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, by allowing the President to decide to authorize deposit of deleterious substances outside aquaculture facilities. This will kill wild fish. The open-pen net aquaculture salmon industry profits from use of a common resource, the ocean, without having to compensate for impacts, including disease and parasite outbreaks, pollution of ocean floor, displacement and killing of other creatures and loss of livelihoods dependent on healthy wild populations environment. Farmed salmon are also fed wild fish, ground up and compressed into food pellets. However, these pellets are soaked with fish oil causing farmed salmon to be much fatter than wild salmon. You can recognize farmed salmon by the solid white bars of fat that streak through the flesh of farmed salmon. Many toxins bind to fat, so the more fat in a product the greater the potential for bioaccumulated toxins.
View October 22, 2014 Conservation Council of New Brunswick article |
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| Stephen Harper Recognized As Climate Criminal | 31 October 14 |
Canada is the only nation to sign on to the Kyoto Treaty and then to publicly abandon it. Under the Kyoto Treaty Canada was supposed to have lowered emissions 6 percent between 1990 and 2012, but instead emissions have risen 26 percent since 1990. The United States (which never ratified Kyoto), has seen emissions rise by 16 percent in the same period, 10 percent less Canada. "Despite the growing climate crisis, the Harper Government is doing everything in its power to sabotage global problem-solving efforts," argued Mike Hudema, Climate and Energy campaigner with Greenpeace, Canada in a press release;"By endangering and blocking progress on an international climate agreement and prioritizing the tar sands over the health of people on this planet Harper is further jeopardizing the lives of millions that will die or become displaced due to the climate crisis."
View October 27, 2014 MTL Blog article |
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| B.C. Chiefs Stand Against FIPPA | 31 October 14 |
“This is a truly sad day for Canada,” says Brenda Sayers, representative of Hupacasath First Nation. “Hupacasath First Nation is deeply disappointed that the Federal Government would ratify the Canada-China FIPA while the case is still before the Federal Court of Appeal and the decision is reserved. This decision is an injustice and an affront to our time honored judicial heritage and shows no respect for the judicial process. The people of Canada should be alarmed that our constitutional rights have been stolen from our hands.” Brenda Sayers, stated, “This deal will pave the way for a massive natural resource buyout and allow foreign corporations to sue the Canadian government in secret tribunals, restricting Canadians from making democratic decisions about our economy, environment and energy.” Steven Tatoosh, Chief Councillor of Hupacasath, added “...he Government of Canada breached its fiduciary duty to consult First Nations on our respective constitutionally-enshrined and judicially-recognized Aboriginal Title, Rights and Treaty Rights.” Canadian trade agreements require discussion and a vote in the House of Commons plus a ratification by the provinces.
View October 16, 2014 Union of BC Indian Chiefs open letter |
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| California Megadrought Continues | 31 October 14 |
"The system that we have was designed back in the 1930s through 1950s to meet population and land use needs of the time," says Doug Parker, director of the California Institute for Water Resources in Oakland. "Now things have changed in the state and that system really hasn't evolved to keep up with the times in California," he says. California’s three-year drought comes into sharp focus in Tulare County, the dairy and citrus heart of the state’s vast agricultural belt, where more than 500 wells have dried up. Across California water shortages are getting worse. In just a month, the Water Resource Board’s list of communities at risk of running out of water in 60 days has grown from 8 to 12.
View California Department of Water Resources Daily Reservoir Storage Summary |
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