Energy

JAMES E. HANSEN, Seattle Post Intelligencer, February 16, 2009 - President Barack Obama has committed to fight global warming. In just his first few weeks in office, he already has taken steps to move the U.S. in a direction that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The most important step so far is the indication that tailpipe emissions will be regulated as needed for improved fuel efficiency. Similar steps will be needed to improve energy efficiencies in buildings and homes.

In my opinion, and in the view of most economists, those steps must be accompanied by a rising price on carbon emissions if we hope to stabilize atmospheric composition. Incentives must be provided for economic development that steadily replaces outdated fossil fuel-based energy infrastructure. Such transformation is needed if we are to preserve for future generations the remarkable planet we inherited from our elders.

Ottawa, ON – On the eve of President Obama’s first foreign visit to Canada, a group of over 50 prominent Canadians have signed an open letter telling Obama that the tar sands don’t fit in the new energy economy.

“In your discussions with the Canadian government, we encourage you to raise concerns over the environmental and social problems associated with tar sands production and make no exemption for the tar sands in any binational agreement addressing climate change” says the open letter.

Actress Neve Campbell, authors Ann-Marie MacDonald and Farley Mowat, musicians Anton Kuerti and Jim Creeggan of the Barenaked Ladies, athletes Adam Kreek (Olympic Gold Medalist) and Andrew Ference (Boston Bruins defenceman), and political leaders Jack Layton of the NDP and Elizabeth May of the Green Party, are just a few of the many prominent Canadians to sign the letter.

January 15, The Economist - Look west from the office towers of the energy companies that dominate Calgary, and the view is spectacular: rolling prairies rise to tree-clad foothills, with the jagged, snow-capped peaks of the Rockies on the horizon. Looking down, however, is more unsettling. The city is dotted with motionless construction cranes poised over the pits of abandoned projects. A five-year energy boom here in the administrative heart of Canada’s oil patch and in the tar sands far to the north has ended. The only debate is how painful and persistent the bust will be—not just for the biggest city in Canada’s richest province, Alberta, but for the whole country.

WASHINGTON, May 8, 2008, NRDC Press Release – Today, the Natural Resources Defense Council and 26 other U.S.

Andrew Nikiforuk, The Globe and Mail, Report on Business Magazine, March 28, 2008 - Here in Canada, we tend to think that while water scarcity, drying rivers and toxic lakes may be huge global problems, they really only affect places like China and the Middle East.

While Brazil's leadership on biofuels - particularly sugarcane-based ethanol - has been held as a global model for sustainable biomass production, a new report from the Oakland Institute and Terra de Direitos describes the opposition that biofuels face from the Brazilian social movements and civil society.

Watershed, a documentary by Lauren Rosenfeld, intimately captures agrarian life in the heart of the Andes Mountains and portrays the struggle of a Chilean farming community to preserve its culture, land, and water rights.

Canada is currently the most vulnerable country in the industrial world to short-term oil supply crises, and we need to establish strategic petroleum reserves to remedy the problem. This is the key finding of a report released today by Polaris Institute and Alberta’s Parkland Institute.

Archie McLean, September 20, 2007, The Edmonton Journal - Critics who say Premier Ed Stelmach and his government lack the political guts to make changes to the province's royalty regime will be in for a "surprise," Stelmach said Wednesday.

Land that was once used to grow food is increasingly being turned over to biofuels. This may help us to fight global warming - but it is driving up food prices throughout the world and making life increasingly hard in developing countries. Add in water shortages, natural disasters and an ever-rising population, and what you have is a recipe for disaster. John Vidal reports