Water for Coal Developments: Where Will It Come From?
Water in the South Saskatchewan River Basin (SSRB) – and especially within the Oldman River Basin – is in short supply.
Tag Archives: environment
Nakoda Nation, Alberta: 1988, Engineer reported hundreds of drinking water wells contaminated with sour gas on Stoney Reserve west of Calgary. H2S is deadly, damages the brain even at low levels. AER blamed nature and if not nature, then bacteria. Same blame game polka after frac’ing contaminated drinking water wells with gas at Ponoka, Wetaskiwin, Spirit River, Rockyford, Rosebud, Redland, etc.
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Nasty! In 1988, Alberta’s energy regulator, the ERCB (later became EUB; then back to ERCB after EUB was caught breaking the law, lying and spying on innocent Albertans; now AER) and reporter Mark Lowey did not publicly report that Stoney is riddled with industry’s sour gas and processing (including by Pan Canadian, that became Encana and is now Ovintiv), and had been for about 10 years before the sour gas contaminated drinking water complaints began in 1981.
Why did AER, already back in 1988, blame nature, and if not nature, then bacteria, without any investigation or testing?
Same fake news spewed 15 years later by Darren Barter when AER was EUB. He too was reported blaming nature/bacteria in a newspaper (without the regulator doing any investigating or testing, not even after a municipal water tower blew up seriously injuring a water manager) for the life-threatening levels of gas found in Rosebud’s drinking water supply after Encana/Ovintiv illegally repeatedly frac’d the community’s drinking water aquifers.
“Only renewable hydrogen is truly emissions-free, and as such, renewable hydrogen aligns with the deep decarbonization required to tackle climate change,” the groups state. “However, the oil and gas sector is pushing for governments to invest in fossil fuel-derived hydrogen as a way to search for a new market for their products as the world transitions away from fossil fuels,” with one government official citing hydrogen as a possible “net-zero moonshot” for the fossil sector.
That kind of talk, along with the latest draft executive summary of the upcoming federal hydrogen strategy, have the groups “deeply concerned that the government is caving to the demands of the industry rather than identifying what is in the Canadian economy’s best interest,” even as European planners identify renewable hydrogen as the “only sustainable hydrogen source,” the letter states.
COVID-19 recovery is an opportunity to tackle worsening climate crisis: New report
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Courtney Howard, University of Calgary
We are at a moment of overlapping planetary health emergencies: COVID-19 and climate change. Both have their origins at the intersection of humanity and the rest of the natural world, both exacerbate pre-existing health inequities and both have the ability to bring health systems and economies to their knees.
The health impacts of COVID-19 are well-known — those of climate change less so. A new report by the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, an international collaboration among 38 leading academic institutions and U.N. agencies, shows that as the globe warms humans are experiencing increasing heat emergencies, wildfires, severe weather, trouble with food yields and potential for novel infectious diseases.
We need to “multisolve” — manage COVID-19 and climate change at the same time, looking for the sweet spots where a single measure can deliver the triple-win of improving public health, contributing to a sustainable economy and reducing the drivers of future crises.
The Canadian policy brief associated with the Lancet report has suggestions for doing just that.
Protect our homes
The report shows a record 2,700 heat-related deaths occurred among people over the age of 65 in Canada in 2018. Globally, the last two decades have seen a 59 per cent increase in heat-related mortality in older people.
The economic costs are also growing: work hours lost due to extreme heat exposure were 81 per cent higher in 2015-19 compared to 1990-94. Immediate action is required.
Many Canadians have had their living circumstances made precarious through COVID-19. In its fall budget update, the federal government announced $1 billion in funding, through the Rapid Housing Initiative, to be used for the construction of modular housing and affordable housing units.
All of the projects funded through this and other federal construction and retrofit programs should be evaluated for their location relative to flood-prone areas, their ability to ensure adequate ventilation and air filtration to cope with heat emergencies and wildfire smoke, and their alignment with our goal of living in a net-zero nation by 2050.
Clean the air
We must also clear the air of the pollution we can control. The Lancet report shows that in 2018 there were 7,200 premature deaths in Canada related to fine particulate air pollution from human-caused sources. This is four times higher than the number of deaths from transport accidents.
The largest portion, found by the Lancet to be over 30 per cent, was due to emissions from households, such as burning fuel for heating. That means that energy efficient retrofits can save lives!
Read more:
Canada’s new climate plan: Q&A about Bill C-12
Pollution from cars, trucks and other transport was shown in the report to be responsible for 17 per cent of deaths due to fine particulates in 2018. It is also responsible for 30 per cent of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. Investments in zero-emission vehicle infrastructure and collective transport, such as electric vehicle charging stations and electric buses are huge wins for health.
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Active transport investments have the added benefit of increasing physical activity, which reduces chronic disease. A recent study showed that compared to those who commute by private motorized vehicles, all-cause mortality was reduced by 20 per cent in those who cycle, and 10 per cent in rail commuters, with walk commuting associated with a seven per cent lower incidence of cancer. In the United Kingdom, investments in cycling infrastructure have been found to deliver about five British pounds of health and social benefits for every pound invested
Read more:
10 tips for coping with wildfire smoke, from a public health expert
Build resilience
Finally, we need to increase the resilience of health systems. In addition to ensuring health-care structures are prepared for floods and fires in terms of siting, adequate ventilation systems, and more, we must take another look at supply chains.
We learned through the pandemic that producing personal protective equipment (PPE) at home helps to ensure its availability in the face of supply chain disruption. We’ve also seen the disadvantages of not having the ability to produce the leading COVID-19 vaccines at home.
With climate set to drive further health-related emergencies as well as economic crises a shift from a culture of efficiency to one of resiliency is required. We could decrease our healthcare-related footprint and reduce the risk of supply disruption by switching to reusable medical supplies such as gowns and blood pressure cuffs.
The proposed national formulary, a good first step towards a pharmacare system, can also serve as a list of essential medicines considered for domestic production. Co-ordinated work between the public and the private sector, potentially including the creation of new crown corporations, could help ensure supply of critical items, as it did during the Second World War.
Read more:
7 lessons Canada should use from WW2 to fight the climate emergency
A hinge moment
Canada is now full of armchair epidemiologists, but few of us could draw an approximation of the country’s projected warming curve. A leap in understanding is required: this forecast must inform planning in all sectors.
Canada is warming at about double the global rate. Under all feasible emission scenarios it will be about 1.8C warmer than a 1986-2005 baseline by the time today’s newborns are in their twenties, rising to 6C by the time they are in their 60s if we do not urgently decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
As the Lancet report says, unless immediate action is taken this will threaten not only lives and livelihoods, but also compromise the hospitals and clinics we depend on.
COVID-19 is a hinge moment in human society — a time to pause, to reset. Although health workers have been appropriately lauded through this pandemic for the care they are providing, it is becoming clear that from wearing masks to retrofitting our homes, we all share the responsibility, and the honour, of saving lives.
Courtney Howard, Clinical associate professor, Department of Family Medicine, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Canada’s Big Chances to Address Environmental Racism
The UN report’s first recommendation is to recognize the right to a healthy environment. This was recommended by the House of Commons environment committee in 2017 as part of a suite of measures to strengthen the outdated Canadian Environmental Protection Act. This right is recognized in more than 150 countries and has proven to produce better environmental outcomes.
So far, the Trudeau government has declined to recognize this right, despite more than 100 MPs from all parties pledging their support and Liberal Party of Canada members voting for it to be a policy priority. While the federal government has committed to “modernizing” CEPA, there is no guarantee that this right will be recognized.
The report also recommends implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which includes the recognition of Indigenous legal systems and free, prior and informed consent for resource projects on Indigenous land. We call on Trudeau to act swiftly to introduce UNDRIP legislation, as committed to in the recent speech from the throne and during the 2015 election.
Finally, Liberal MP Lenore Zann has put forward Bill C-230, which calls for the development of a strategy to redress environmental racism. It is expected to proceed to second reading in early December. This bill could serve to establish an environmental justice framework, as recommended in the UN report, and stimulate solutions to environmental racism across Canada. However, as a private member’s bill, it faces an uphill battle and needs support.
Source: Canada’s Big Chances to Address Environmental Racism | The Tyee