Category Archives: Environment

Climate change: what G7 leaders could have said – but didn’t

Extinction Rebellion Big Heads pose as G7 leaders, St Ives, Cornwall, Britain, 13 June 2021. Extinction Rebellion have described the last day of the G7 event as an “All hands on deck day” calling on everybody who can, to stand up and take action on climate change. Britain is hosting the G7 summit in Cornwall in from 11 to 13 June 2021. EPA-EFE/JON ROWLEY

Myles Allen, University of Oxford

The four-day G7 summit in Cornwall ended with little cause for celebration from anyone worried about climate change. Most of the pledges that emerged were relatively old news, with the UK repeating its promise of £500 million for ocean conservation efforts and the group reaffirming its commitment to end support for coal production abroad.

The leaders of (supposedly) the world’s richest democracies failed again to agree to new funding to help poorer parts of the world invest in green technology and adapt to extreme weather.

But more interesting than these pledges and non-pledges were the things that weren’t mentioned at all. One of the greatest unmentionables at climate summit after climate summit is just how badly we keep track of contributions to global warming.

It’s the elephant in the room at any gathering where the leaders of rich countries discuss climate change: historical responsibility. Everyone knows that G7 nations have contributed disproportionately to the global warming that has already happened. But exactly how much more?

If you search online for which country has caused most global warming, you find a list of how much countries emit each year. Delve deeper, and the next thing you find is how much they have reduced their emissions since 1990. This flatters mature economies, whose emissions are declining. But for carbon dioxide – the effects of which last almost indefinitely (and to an only slightly lesser degree, nitrous oxide, a byproduct of fertiliser production and use) – it’s accumulated emissions over time that determine a country’s contribution to global warming, not emissions in any given year.

A graph comparing cumulative emissions from G7 nations with India and China. — Cumulative CO₂ emissions indicate national contributions to CO₂-induced warming. Contributions to total human-induced warming are needed to track progress on Paris goals.
Hannah Ritchie and Max Roser/Our World in Data

Focusing on current emissions is particularly kind to the G7’s host. The UK’s emissions have declined sharply since 1990, but the country did start belching carbon dioxide out of its dark satanic mills almost 100 years before the rest of the world caught on. A tonne of carbon dioxide emitted by an English cotton mill in 1800 is having exactly the same impact on global temperature today as a tonne of carbon dioxide emitted by a Vietnamese power station in 2021.

Brazil promoted an effort to quantify country-level contributions to global warming in the 2000s, but it was quietly allowed to die. At present, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the main forum for international climate action, only requires countries to report their contributions to emissions, not warming. And everyone else, from corporations to personal carbon footprint calculators, follows suit.

“Isn’t that the same thing?” you might ask. Sadly, no. The method the UNFCCC has settled on to report emissions reflects their effect on the balance between the energy the Earth absorbs from the Sun and the energy it emits back into space over the 100 years after the date of the emission. This is somewhat related to their effect on global temperature, but it is a very long way from the same thing.

For emissions that accumulate in the atmosphere over decades to centuries, like carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, the distinction doesn’t matter. But for methane, and a host of other climate pollutants that persist from only a few days to a couple of decades, it matters a lot. Any country contemplating setting up a fracking industry (notorious for leaking methane) can be quietly confident that it will be 100 years before the warming effect of their fugitive methane emissions will be accurately reflected in their reports to the UNFCCC.

Landing the plane with one eye shut

In the Paris Agreement, the world set itself a very ambitious goal. The headline goal is not about emissions, but to limit the rise in global average temperature to “well below 2°C”, pursuing efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C if possible.

That’s a good thing. By and large, the effects of climate change depend on how much we warm the planet overall, not warming by any given date, or the rate of emissions and warming at any given time, and certainly not planetary energy imbalance summed over an arbitrary time horizon. But right now, it is impossible to take stock of progress towards this temperature goal because countries, in their plans for 2030 and beyond, only report aggregate emissions using this rather odd accounting system that doesn’t reflect the effect of these emissions on global temperature.

If rich countries like the G7 are serious about stopping global warming, a good start might be clarifying who and what is causing it. There is no prospect of the UNFCCC changing its accounting system, but it does allow countries to report additional information if they deem it relevant.

And what could be more relevant than actual contributions to global warming? At COP26, the Glasgow climate conference in November 2021, the G7 nations could step up and declare they will henceforth report, in addition to their emissions, how much warming they have caused already, how much they continue to cause, and how much they propose to cause in future.

All the information exists. Warming contributions can be calculated using precisely the same formulae used for the UNFCCC’s own emissions reporting. It is simply a matter of putting the numbers out there and encouraging everyone else to do the same.

This isn’t just about outing the guilty rich. Acknowledging what is causing warming should focus minds on what it will take to stop it. And if we add up the G7’s planned contributions to future warming – never mind the contributions from China, India and the rest – it will soon become clear that we don’t just need to stop causing global warming as soon as possible, but we also need to be able to reverse it by taking carbon dioxide back out of the atmosphere and storing it, safely and permanently, somewhere else. Which is another topic they prefer to avoid at climate summits.

Myles Allen, Professor of Geosystem Science, Director of Oxford Net Zero, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Alberta Government’s Objections No Longer Matter after IEO Roadmap, ‘Cataclysmic’ Week for Oil

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Alberta’s predictably hostile, defensive reaction to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) landmark Net Zero by 2050 roadmap shows it no longer matters what the Kenney government or its fossil industry allies think about the drive to decarbonize the global economy and hold average global warming to 1.5°C.

The IEA’s call for no future investment in new fossil infrastructure was reinforced scarcely a week later, when three of the world’s biggest oil companies faced deeply humbling challenges from the courts and their own shareholders.

The combined impact is crystal clear: If Alberta’s own policy-makers don’t move to diversify the province’s economy and plan for a managed fossil fuel decline, financial and other institutions that make future project development possible will make the decision for them.

Oil Demand to Fall 75%

One pivotal paragraph in the IEA’s 224-page report heralds an unfamiliar, new world for Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador, and any other jurisdiction that has centred its economy on oil, gas and coal.

“Beyond projects already committed as of 2021, there are no new oil and gas fields approved for development in our pathway, and no new coal mines or mine extensions are required,” the IEA writes. “The unwavering policy focus on climate change in the net-zero pathway results in a sharp decline in fossil fuel demand, meaning that the focus for oil and gas producers switches entirely to output—and emissions reductions—from the operation of existing assets.”

Continuing to pour money into “junk investments” in oil and gas could throw countries off their carbon reduction targets, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told Sky News.

And that’s just the beginning. The IEA scenario has all coal- and oil-fired power plants phased out by 2040—just around the corner for an industry whose multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects are built and financed to last decades. The only exceptions will be facilities that can take on the added cost of carbon-capture technologies that are as yet expensive and unreliable.

Related — The Slow Painful Death of Fossil Fuel

The report shows oil demand falling 75% between 2020 and 2050, to 24 million barrels per day, with OPEC nations providing 52% of a “much-reduced global oil supply” and production becoming “increasingly concentrated in a small number of low-cost producers.” Gas demand is expected to fall 55%.

With Alberta well-recognized as an expensive producer, “this will have a significant impact on the price and therefore production levels of oil and gas,” said Pembina Institute Alberta Director Chris Severson-Baker. And “purchasers of oil and gas products will increasingly direct their spending to oil and gas produced with the lowest upstream emissions.”

A ‘Cataclysmic Day’ for Oil and Gas Companies

The fossil fuel industry and its political allies could have been forgiven for imagining the worst was behind them once the IEA had issued its report. That was before a flurry of court and shareholder decisions on May 26 that The Guardian declared a “cataclysmic day” for oil and gas companies.

In the space of 24 hours, a court in The Hague ordered Royal Dutch Shell—whose greenhouse-gas emissions would make it the world’s fourth-biggest carbon polluter if it were a country—to boost its 2030 emissions-reduction target from 20 to 45%. Hedge fund Engine No. 1 won two seats on the ExxonMobil board with a challenge to the company’s shoddy response to the climate crisis. And shareholders representing 61% of Chevron stock instructed the company to address the downstream Scope 3 emissions that result when customers use its product as directed.

“Game-changer is an overused metaphor, but surely this is one,” said U.S. Environmental Defense Fund president Fred Krupp.

“This will be seen in retrospect as the day when everything changed for Big Oil,”

“This will be seen in retrospect as the day when everything changed for Big Oil,” Andrew Logan, senior director, oil and gas at shareholder advocacy non-profit Ceres, told the Financial Times. “How the industry chooses to respond to this clear signal will determine which companies thrive through the coming transition and which wither.”

“It wasn’t just a bad day for Big Oil. It was a great day for life on Earth,” added U.S. climate journalist Emily Atkin. “It offered proof that fossil fuel CEOs aren’t the sole deciders of who gets to live and thrive on future planet Earth.”

Speaking with the New York Times, University of Alberta energy and environmental economist Andrew Leach said the legal and shareholder action raised a provocative question for the Alberta industry: “What does my business model look like in a net-zero world? That’s where things get really complex.”

A ‘Stunning Evolution’

But even before last week’s news, the IEA’s new roadmap marked a stunning evolution for an international agency formed in 1974 to protect the interests of oil-consuming countries. Fossil fuel companies could routinely count on IEA analysis to justify their often fevered claims that oil and gas demand will continue growing through 2040 or beyond.

Until now, the IEA’s fossil-fuel-friendly analysis has had a severe, damaging impact on international climate action. In the five years since the Paris Agreement was signed, 60 of the world’s biggest banks invested US$3.8 trillion in new fossil fuel projects—largely because the IEA told them they could.

While the Paris-based agency styled its annual World Energy Outlook (WEO) as the “gold standard of energy analysis,” IEA watchers said the agency’s work was giving cover and legitimacy to new fossil fuel infrastructure. IEA analysts steadfastly maintained the WEO was a projection, not a prediction. And they cast the Sustainable Development Scenario (SDS), a secondary energy projection recently added to the agency’s annual outlook, as being compliant with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

But “if you look at oil and gas company annual reports, you’ll see constant references to IEA scenarios, including references to the SDS, claiming that even in the IEA’s climate scenario, we need to keep investing in new oil and gas fields,” Oil Change International analyst Kelly Trout said in an interview. Now “there will be a shift. If companies are serious about 1.5°, they’d better adjust their plans to the IEA’s new scenario that actually aligns with that.”

The New ‘Gold standard’

Just as important as the IEA’s top-line conclusion—and just as challenging for Alberta’s vision of a fossil fuel future—was a tectonic change in the agency’s modelling approach.

“This is a backcast, not a forecast, and that’s a major shift,” Corporate Knights Research Director Ralph Torrie said in an interview. Typically, forecasters start with historical fossil fuel consumption and investment trends, project them into the future, and decide how far they dare bend the curve. This time, the IEA’s analysts situated themselves in 2050, cast their minds back to today, and asked themselves what could realistically be done to get from here to there.

“Asking what has to happen to stay within 1.5°C is a real game-changer,” Torrie said. “That question makes a world of difference in where you end up, because now you have no choice but to push really hard on anything that will help you get to 1.5.”

Which means that, after steadily relying on the IEA’s analysis to justify a carbon-intensive industrial strategy that subjects their province to dizzying economic booms and busts, Alberta politicians suddenly had to react to an agency intent on tackling a crisis even more dangerous to humanity than the COVID-19 pandemic.

They didn’t take it well.

Fair-Weather Friends

Sonya Savage, Minister of Energy and Deputy House Leader

The IEA’s net-zero roadmap is “unreasonable,” “unfeasible,” and “driven by activists,” Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage, a former pipeline executive, said in a statement.

The notion that the IEA, with a solid complement of former fossil fuel industry staffers on its roster, is “driven by activists” would no doubt come as news to Alok Sharma. He’s the minister in British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government who’s set to chair this year’s United Nations climate change conference, COP26. The Net Zero by 2050 roadmap was commissioned by the COP presidency.

And just last year, Savage was happy enough to amplify the IEA’s findings, citing the WEO as “proof” that the world’s energy markets will continue to demand oil “decades” into the future.

It remains to be seen how quickly the IEA’s new analysis and the reactions to the court and shareholder action will filter through the global finance and investment community. But the message is crystal clear.

“Finance institutions can no longer justify lending, underwriting, insuring or investing in coal, gas, or oil expansion projects, or the infrastructure that facilitates that expansion,” Adam Scott, director of Toronto-based Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health, said in an interview. “This isn’t an optional pathway. It’s a roadmap showing the direction we must take in order to prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis from becoming reality.”

As that realization dawns, Savage, Kenney and their colleagues will, of course, still be free to stand their ground. But no one will believe them. And sooner or later, oilpatch voters will begin to notice the rest of the world prospering from the shift to a decarbonized future and ask why their province is being left behind.

This article by The Energy Mix publisher Mitchell Beer first appeared on Policy Options and is republished here under a Creative Commons licence.

We Must Stop Playing Nice With The Fossils Before It’s Too Late

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By Seth Klein, @SethDKlein –
May 23, 2021

The fossil fuel industry has spread its tentacles into every aspect of our lives. Evidence of its power and influence is everywhere—our governments, institutions, banks, boardrooms, and of course our personal lives. At the same time, we understand that the use of fossil fuels has brought us to the brink of an unprecedented existential threat—the climate crisis. And the enemy is the fossil fuel industry. In the following piece, Seth Klein, author of A Good War, says we must stop playing nice with the fossils. Before it’s too late.

Stop Playing Nice

In the face of the climate emergency, this is the time of our Phony War. Most of us know the battle for our lives must soon get underway, and most of our leaders — in government and industry — are now talking tough on climate. But in deeds, they aren’t there yet.

(The reference to ‘Phony War’ is from Klein’s A Good War – Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency. He writes that historians have come to refer to the first year of the Second World War as “The Phony War” because not much was happening. Countries were training and preparing to act. “No one knew quite how and when to get things started…Everybody knew it was coming.” This is where we are now with the climate war — Editor’s note.)

Canada’s National Observer columnist Seth Klein explains

how fossil fuel companies are blocking or delaying necessary climate action, and what government can do about it.

Fossils are stalling meaningful action

Among the many barriers we face to a genuine climate emergency plan is a fossil fuel industry that has insidiously used its economic and political power to stall meaningful action. If this story has a villain, it is the oil and gas corporations and their leaders (not their workers) who outright lied for decades about the truth of climate change, and more recently have done everything in their power to systematically delay and divert the need for climate action. The fossil fuel industry, in pursuit of its financial self-interest and preservation, has become expert at preying on our fears, misgivings and desires.

Allow me to add into evidence some recent examples of the “natural” gas industry making mischief with needed climate action. To appreciate why what I’m about to share is so enraging, a little context: Many do not understand that the natural gas we burn in our homes and buildings (for heat, hot water and stoves) is a major source of greenhouse gases (GHGs), accounting for roughly 12 per cent of Canada’s GHG emissions.

Consequently, fuel-switching our buildings to electricity — mainly by means of high-efficiency electric heat pumps and induction electric stoves — represents a vital and urgent piece of decarbonizing our society and driving down GHG emissions. But natural gas utilities are employing a bag of tricks to slow the move to electrify our buildings.

Political campaigns to block electrification

Two weeks ago, E&E News exposed leaked documents that revealed many of North America’s major gas companies have been scheming to block electrification. Specifically, Eversource Energy, New England’s largest utility, in an industry presentation in March divulged it is the co-lead convener of an alliance with the straight-shooting name, “Consortium to Combat Electrification.” According to one of the leaked slides (shown here), the consortium, established in August 2020 and housed within the Washington, D.C.-based “Energy Solutions Centre,” includes 15 utilities, including two Canadian members:

Enbridge (the largest gas provider in Canada, servicing mainly Ontario and Quebec)
and FortisBC (British Columbia’s principal gas distributor, serving about 95 per cent of gas users in the province). As B.C. is my home, I’m going to pick on FortisBC for much of this piece, but consider them illustrative.

In a second leaked slide, the consortium notes: “Natural gas (fossil fuel) in for fight of its life.” They are right about that. Hopefully, anyway. But they have no intention of going quietly into the night. Rather, consortium members are exhorted: “Everyone needs to contact legislators in favour of NG (natural gas),” and “Renewable Natural Gas is coming (likely will save NG business).” The slide says partners “have to continue to work together to grow this market.” The messages here cannot be accused of subtlety. They rightly see efforts, particularly at the municipal level, to ban or phase out the use of natural gas in buildings as an existential threat. “The fear of losing market share to non-fossil alternatives terrifies the gas companies,” Greenpeace climate campaigner Keith Stewart wrote in a post about the revelation, “but it should delight the rest of us.”

FortisBC was quick to issue a media release stating the presentation “does not accurately reflect our position on electrification. As a utility with both gas and electric infrastructure, FortisBC sees an important role for both the gas and electric systems to deliver lower-carbon energy to British Columbians. We believe a cleaner future is not an either/or scenario when it comes to energy — it’s ‘all of the above.’ We see gas and electric infrastructures as complementary…” Many of the other consortium members issued similar disclaimers.

Among the many barriers we face to a genuine #ClimateEmergency plan is a fossil fuel industry that has insidiously used its economic and political power to stall meaningful action, writes columnist @SethDKlein. #ClimateAction – retweeted by Keith Stewart

But as Stewart notes, the consortium’s PowerPoint presentation “says all the usually quiet bits out loud.” As he told me, “It’s always fascinating to compare the political strategy documents of these companies with what they tell the public. We should not be extending them the benefit of the doubt on any of their green claims.”

FortisBC and Enbridge are regulated monopolies — they are the only companies equipped to deliver gas within their jurisdictions, and as such, we effectively grant them a licence to print money. The gas distribution system in B.C. used to be a Crown corporation until it was privatized in the mid-1980s (Fortis acquired the company from a previous private firm in 2007), which means a good chunk of the core infrastructure was publicly built.

Adding to the frustration, ratepayers in Ontario, Quebec and B.C. are effectively paying for these campaigns to block electrification through their utility bills, whether they like it or not. Heck, we all effectively subsidize this mischief, as contributions to consortiums such as this and related political lobbying efforts are considered a pre-tax business expense, notwithstanding that the lobbying and advertising campaigns seek to block and weaken society’s climate policies.

Exhibit B: Thinking of leaving gas? Think again

Last year, my family made the big switch. We abandoned our gas-fuelled space and water heating, installed an electric heat-pump system, swapped the gas stove for induction electric, and with great pleasure shut down the gas line to our home and cancelled our account with FortisBC. It was a complicated undertaking requiring research and perseverance, and even after provincial and municipal rebates, still expensive. But once done, it felt great — like we’d made an important change that was healthier for our family and better for the planet. And we’d done what the B.C. government wants people to do — fuel-switching is central to the province meeting its CleanBC climate plan target.

But then, a few months later, we received the letter below from FortisBC. Well, the red ink text we added, in an irate effort to “fix” the letter and share it — widely — on social media.

Seth Klein, @SethDKlein

Seth Klein is an adjunct professor with Simon Fraser University’s urban studies program and the former B.C. director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. His book A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency (ECW Press) was published in September.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Stopping the ‘rain of death’ on Canada’s forests

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Image credit: Francis Eatherington/Flickr

Joyce Nelson May 28, 2021

First Nations in Ontario call it the “rain of death.” They are referring to the aerial spraying of the herbicide glyphosate — Bayer-Monsanto’s Roundup and similar products — on forest lands without their consent.

This has been going on for 45 years, in line with the commercial forest industry’s practice of clear-cutting, followed by replanting for monocultures.

The purpose of the glyphosate is to wipe out the so-called “weed” species that start regrowing after clearcutting. Those species include aspen, alder, birch, oak, maple, willow and other broad-leaf plants and shrubs — which are considered of less commercial value than needle-leaf softwoods like lodgepole pine and Douglas fir, the “money trees.”

Forester and forest ecologist Herb Hammond told me by email that these so-called “weed” species “are vital for biological diversity, building soil nutrient capital, slowing the spread of wildfire, and [they are] superior to conifers in sequestering and storing carbon — an important forest assist in this climate change world.”

The aerial spraying has been going on for so long that observers on the ground can no longer doubt the widespread damage to animals, plants, fish, insects and soil, and likely to the humans who live in the region. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”

Getting the run-around

Members of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) Elders of the North Shore of Lake Huron have taken the lead in defying aerial spraying. Formed in 2014, the TEK Elders group is composed of elders from 21 bands in the area. They state that aerial spraying infringes on the Robinson Huron Treaty of 1850, which guarantees their rights to hunt, fish, gather berries, and use plant medicines in traditional territories. The Constitution Act of 1982 reaffirmed those rights.

They have been joined in opposition to aerial spraying by Nishnawbe Aski Nation (representing 49 First Nations in Ontario), Mushkegowuk Council, the North Shore Tribal Council, and Anishnaabe chiefs of the upper Great Lakes.

But for years they have been given the bureaucratic run-around.

As Sue Chiblow, a Garden River First Nation councillor assisting the TEK Elders, told APTN News in March of 2019:

“We went to the Ministry of Natural Resources and they said,’well no, we just issued the license so that’s not our problem; it’s Health Canada’s problem. …So we went to Health Canada and they said, ‘we don’t actually do the spraying; we’re just saying that it’s OK and it’s up to the companies to use or not use it.'”

In 2017, Health Canada decided to re-register (i.e. re-authorize) the use of glyphosate for another 15 years, indicating that it is safe when used as directed. That decision has prompted more opposition to glyphosate.

Pest Management Regulatory Agency

Within Health Canada, the body that does the review and re-registering of pesticides like glyphosate is the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA).

Some will recall that starting in 2012, former prime minister Stephen Harper waged a devastating war on science, pitched as a way to bring down the deficit. In the process, Harper axed (or slashed to the bone) dozens of federal environmental programs and fired or transferred more than 5,000 federal scientists. As well, thousands of unionized support staff were cut from federal departments.

As of July 2014, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada — the union representing government scientists and other federal and provincial government employees — reported that just under 100 Pest Management Regulatory Agency jobs had been affected by the drastic budgetary cuts, and most of those were biologists, now gone from the agency.

A mere three years later, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency released its re-evaluation of glyphosate in April 2017, which failed to take into account any impacts on human health — including evidence submitted by the David Suzuki Foundation, Environmental Defence Canada, Friends of the Earth, Safe Food Matters, and the WHO’s conclusion that glyphposate is probably carcinogenic to humans.

In June 2017, Safe Food Matters and others filed notice of objections and asked the federal minister of health to establish an independent panel to review the agency’s re-registration decision. The minister rejected that request.

In February 2019, Safe Food Matters filed an application for judicial review of the PMRA’s rejection of its notice of objections. The Federal Court dismissed the application.

Meanwhile, a new study, reported by Earth Island Journal, showed that glyphosate exposure “increases cancer risk by up to 41 per cent.”

Safe Food Matters filed an appeal of the Federal Court’s ruling on March 13, 2020.

On October 21, 2020, the David Suzuki Foundation, Environmental Defence Canada, and Friends of the Earth Canada, represented by Ecojustice lawyers, decided to intervene in the case.

As the groups explained:

“Under the Pest Control Products Act, Canadians have the right to request reviews of decisions made by the PMRA to ensure accountability and transparency. [We are] intervening in this case to ensure that this right continues to protect the health of Canadians and the environment. Canadians should be able to depend on the PMRA to use the precautionary nature of the Pest Control Products Act to take swift action to restrict the use of harmful pesticides, like glyphosate. Unfortunately, in this instance, they have not applied this precautionary approach. When, like with the re-registration of glyphosate, the PMRA fails to act with appropriate precaution, the right to request reviews of decisions gives Canadians an important tool to hold the PMRA accountable and to protect our health and environment. Unfortunately, the Federal Court’s decision seriously limited the scope of that tool — making it effectively impossible to use.”

A date for the appeal has not yet been set.

Recently, however, another anti-glyphosate ally has come forward.

Private member’s bill

On April 15, Green Party MP Jenica Atwin introduced Bill C-285, a private member’s bill that would impose a nationwide ban on the use of glyphosate on forests and fields. Atwin told Parliament:

“Rather than allowing toxic chemicals to be sprayed in Canada until they are proven harmful, we should be exercising greater precaution: banning products until they can be deemed safe. Canadians have the right to breathe clean air, drink safe water, and harvest healthy foods from the land.”

Tens of thousands of people in New Brunswick have opposed aerial spraying of glyphosate for decades.

As Susan O’Donnell wrote for NB Media Co-op, Atwin’s bill proposes two changes:

“First, to make it illegal to ‘manufacture, possess, handle, store, transport, import, distribute or use glyphosate as a pest control product,’ and second, to cancel the registration of glyphosate under the Pest Control Products Act.”

Nova Scotia and Quebec have stopped aerial spraying of glyphosate, while Quebec stopped the use of chemical herbicides on Crown forest land in 2001. Instead, crews are hired to manually remove competing plants. In B.C., however, forest companies are obligated to spray by provincial government regulation. In Ontario, companies cite Health Canada’s approval.

Indigenous knowledge

Meanwhile, the TEK Elders and other Indigenous groups have been partnering with universities and academics to question and update the science on glyphosate. As Sue Chiblow told me during a phone interview, “there is a huge lack of science on glyphosate,” compared to what Indigenous people have observed in their forest ecosystems.

In November 2019, a two-day workshop titled “Guardians in a Changing World” was hosted by Magnetawan First Nation in partnership with Mount Allison University, York University, and the University of British Columbia Okanagan.

Some four dozen primarily Indigenous participants discussed their concerns and observations about the use of glyphosate in forestry, identifying five key issues:

plant biodiversity and health;
animal biodiversity and health;
movement through the environment and persistence;
human safety and well-being;
and awareness and transparency among the public, government, and industry.

In their follow-up report, scientists Heather Patterson, Ella Bowles and Jesse N. Popp attempted to match these concerns and observations with the existing scientific literature on glyphosate. They found some large gaps in western science.

As Sue Chiblow told me, “we have to wait for the science to catch up with us.”

Some 20 countries have pending legislation to ban glyphosate, and at least four — Austria, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam — have already done so. Canada needs to join them to stop the “rain of death.”

Canadian freelance writer Joyce Nelson is the author of seven books. She can be reached via www.joycenelson.ca

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

There’s an Avalanche of Climate Bullshit Coming at Us

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“So it’s goodbye climate deniers, hello – and you’ll pardon me for being blunt here – climate bullshitters,” wrote Damian Carrington, the Guardian’s Environment Editor in a recent opinion piece. According to the latest NDC Report (Nationally Determined Contributions) were “on track for emissions to be just 0.5% below 2010 levels“ when what is really needed is a 45% reduction. “We are at the point where everyone agrees something must be done, but many are making only vague, distant promises of ineffective action,” writes Carrington. It’s time to counteract the climate bullshit coming at us.

Reality Check

Need-to-Know 1: We already have too much fossil-fuel burning infrastructure in place to stay below 2C according to the latest science.

Need-to-Know 2: Companies continue to build more and countries are counting on increased production of coal, oil, and gas.

Need-to-Know 3: Climate impacts are already hitting hard. Around the world more damaging downpours that wipe out farmers’ crops and storms and hurricanes are stronger. Hotter temperatures are fuelling wildfires and causing crippling heat waves, where our kids can’t play outside. Sea levels are rising, which will flood tens of millions of homes.

Need-to-Know 4: There’s an avalanche of climate bullshit—doublespeak, half-truths, misinformation, political spin—roaring towards us.

Avalanche of Climate Bullshit

A Tar sands executive was just named a “climate champion” for a UN climate conference, COP 26 in Glasgow; as was a vice-president from Royal Bank of Canada, the fifth largest funder of coal in the world.
Shell’s CEO: “You need our help on climate change” meanwhile continuing to fund anti-climate lobbying.
Ongoing lucrative pay and share options have created an incentive for oil company executives to resist climate action.
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continues to say climate is an “existential threat” but invested in billions to build the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline.
Offsets — Countries and Companies say they will offset their emissions by planting trees: Nestlé’s goal of offsetting 13m tonnes of CO2 a year would require 4.4m hectares of land a year. We need another planet at that rate.
Countries continue to subsidize fossil fuels despite a decade of promising to eliminate these.

Language Tricks and Propaganda

Here’s some of the language tricks and propaganda being used by those who want to delay meaningful action while claiming otherwise — also known as predatory delay:

“We are all to blame for climate change.” — Both fossil fuel industry and governments use this while blocking or failing to provide us with actual alternatives. But sure, blame the victims.

“We need responsible oil and gas development to create jobs and wealth to pay for the transition to a sustainable future.” — Can’t solve a problem by making it worse. As we have seen with the pandemic, there is plenty of money when governments’ decide its necessary.

“We can have a healthy environment and a healthy economy.” — Sounds good right? Except a healthy environment is essential for human survival, it is not a nice-to-have bonus.

Framing climate change as a risk somewhere in the far future when it is our reality today.

Framing oil and gas industry as vital to the ‘national interest’ or fate of the nation when the industry’s primary purpose is to enrich shareholders regardless of their nationality.

Invoking the sanctity of the rule of law when people oppose further expansion of fossil fuel production and are labelled terrorists.

Framing environmentalism as a political ideology rather than a universal desire for self-preservation and to protect our one and only home.

There is growing acceptance we’re in a climate emergency but less awareness of the urgency. And even less understanding of sweeping changes that are needed. Even political and corporate leaders who truly understand the nature of our emergency are failing to act appropriately. I suspect they believe taking the required climate action to stay around 1.5C would lead to considerable public backlash. They’re probably right. However that backlash could be muted through smart, equitable transition planning and honest leadership.

We have turned the corner on climate change. Governments and companies have started to set emission reduction targets for 2030. Those targets aren’t yet good enough, nor are we acting on those weak targets with the required speed. Emissions in 2021 are very likely to be close to the highest ever and that’s with much less air travel.

Meanwhile scientists and others increasingly warn we are facing a ghastly future sooner than later unless we make those sweeping changes.

New Rules for the Climate Emergency

Reward climate-safe behaviour.
Punish climate transgressors.
Publicly praise those who are trying to protect the environment.
Name and Shame hazardous climate behaviour.
If a decision to take action does not really cut carbon NOW then it’s Climate BS.

Speaking of world leaders in her Earth Day 2021 video and the shortcomings of their climate proposals thus far, Thunberg said, “Let’s call out their bullshit,” because the gap between what their rhetoric and what’s actually needed is “the biggest elephant there’s even been in any room.”

⚠️This is an emergency alert for the general public⚠️#MindTheGap #LeadersClimateSummit #EarthDay #NoMoreEmptySummits pic.twitter.com/e1z1A783I2

— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) April 22, 2021

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Steve MacLellan

Ramble On

Category Archives: Environment

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