Tag Archives: environment

“An appealing concept”

Posted on by John Klein

Does the north of Canada need improved transportation? Yes.
Is this need being exploited by those who want a pipeline to “tidewater”? Yes.
Will constructing it ensure Canada exceeds our promised and required emissions limit? Yes.
Will that limit being crossed result in the likely destruction of our society? Yes, confirmed the UN study by thousands of scientists.

So Minister Garneau, a guy smart enough to be an astronaut and a cabinet minister, thinks that installing the conditions for the destruction of our society is “an appealing concept” no doubt about it.

We’re not going to avoid this problem, we have to begin planning with the avoidance of more emissions long term, and the medium term too. What’s the use of building something that we have to tear down in the same generation, like a disposable sports stadium, or a mobile home?

Hursh Lights A Match

Posted on by John Klein

And the fields are dry.

“As a farmer in southwest Saskatchewan, this isn’t a great year. It’s been dry and hot. Crop yields as well as prices are down. Many of my neighbours have had their crops destroyed by vicious hailstorms.”

Hursh has made it clear. Yes, it’s clear that he’s “a climate change denier, a stooge of big oil and big agriculture”.
“…the weather has not become unsuitable for agriculture.” Until it isn’t, and we’ve hit tipping points that have blasted methane out of the permafrost, and our ice caps can’t reflect enough heat, and our oceans have acidified past livable conditions, and our coastal cities are destroyed by flooding. It’s frustrating that the Leader-Post lets such a poorly considered editorial meet its pages. It doesn’t meet the most basic levels of logical thought.

I used to have respect for Hursh’s long agricultural journalism career, but now he’s spouting nonsense that will finish the industry if too many listen to his trap of apathy and ignorance.

“I could blame it on global warming or climate change, but it’s really no different than many of the years faced by my father or his father before that.”
Except it is different, and he’s not listening to scientists telling him it is.

“If some of the climate change models are correct, and that’s a big if (sic), there will be winners and losers when it comes to agriculture. Many of these models show Canada as a big benefactor.”

What the hell is that? He thinks there are models that don’t show Canada being hurt from Halifax, Victoria, and Vancouver being destroyed by flooding, and crops not made less viable with extreme droughts and rain spells? Remember 20 years ago, when the Deniers were ranting about growing crops further north (where there’s no topsoil to speak of) if Canada warmed up? Some of the more out-of-touch ones still bring up that lark. The Regina daily paper does its readers no favours by printing such equivalent wishful thinking (if you can call parroting Denislist memes “thinking”).

“That’s their business, not Canada’s”

Posted on by John Klein

Is Jim Carr, Minister of Screwing Up Industry talking about Bombardier or Kinder Morgan?

It’s a trick question, he said that about both. Last year McParland wrote the following hilarity that he got so very wrong:

The most ludicrous assertion offered in the wake of TransCanada’s announcement was Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr’s claim that it was solely a “business decision” that had nothing to do with the government. Yes, the decision was made on a business basis, but in the face of a regulatory and approval process put in place by a government more devoted to favoured voting groups than to the development and expansion of one of Canada’s most crucial economic interests. 

The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is more concerned about Quebec, environmentalists and Indigenous communities than it is about the potential fallout of lost investment and a moribund energy industry.

Don’t slap your knee too hard, you might bruise it, especially after you consider that Trudeau has committed no less than $4,500,000,000 of our taxes to Kinder Morgan so they get bonuses, which are a “business decision” according to Minister of Screwing Up Industry Carr. After the TMX is twinned, we’re on the hook for $15Bil. Oh goody.

The bonuses would give Kinder Morgan Canada president Ian Anderson and Trans Mountain vice president David Safari $1.5 million each in extra pay if they remain in their jobs until July 2020.

Would someone like to share how big the bonuses are for Bombardier executives after the federal bail-outs for their industry? Or, how big were they for General Motors after the 2008 financial crisis and their bail-out?

An official familiar with the GM deal told National Observer that the paymaster would have prevented the type of bonuses offered by Kinder Morgan. The source, who asked not to be identified, said that the paymaster also made it more challenging to recruit and retain top executive talent.

The Canadian government sold its shares in GM in 2015, before a general election, allowing then-finance minister Joe Oliver to balance the federal budget with proceeds from the sale. But taxpayers lost $3.5 billion on the bailout, the Globe and Mailreported in 2015.

Oh, so the Minister of Screwing Up Industry could have stopped the Kinder Morgan bonuses if he wanted to or cared about managing our gift to KM responsibly.

Up Is Down In Moe Town

Posted on by John Klein

SaskPower’s 2016-17 annual report, released last summer, states, “We will see our emissions profile rise slightly until 2020.”

Husky Might Be Fined

Posted on by John Klein

Husky has only been charged now by the Crown, for a spill nearly 2 years ago. Federal charges may be pending too. The provincial charges carry a possible fine of only $1M. Great deal for an oil company, to operate and ruin the water supply of Saskatchewan’s 3 largest city and many other people too.

A report from the province is being delayed until after a possible appeal, making it many years since the spill until others can learn important details and possibly solutions.

Here’s a blog post from way back about the spill.

Don’t Make It Sound Like There’s More Than One Thing

Posted on by John Klein

“recognize its own climate change efforts, such as carbon capture and storage. ”
Effort, not “efforts”. There’s only been one effort made, and arguably the CCS project increases emissions since it’s an Enhanced Oil Recovery project that enables Cenovus to extract more oil which will be burned. Whether the net CO2 from CCS is a reduction or an increase has not been officially confirmed, probably because it is an increase in pollution overall.

The federal Ministry of the Environment sent Manitoba a letter in December giving it until the end of February to sign on, or else lose its share of a $1.4-billion clean energy fund.

The fund is only available to provinces that ratified the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change, which Manitoba and Saskatchewan refused to sign in December 2016.

The Premier and Environment Ministers are arrogant, stubborn, anti-science mutton heads. How else can anyone sum it up better than that?

Layin’ Pipe

Posted on by John Klein