I don’t think I want to bother hearing what they have to say.
Tag Archives: UofR
Jana Pruden #Minifie2020 Lecture
Live streamed at UR Journalism Facebook.
I’ll be tweeting during the lecture, stay tuned.
Trudeau Dodges and Weaves in Regina
#YQRtownhall
-A woman who has heard Conservative lies and believed them said he should be hung. He still answered her 3 hoaxes.
-A student who wanted to pin him down on his criticism of boom-bust towns and their infamous abuse of women, when apparently she finds the oil industry and all the people around it entirely delightful.
-A woman expressing solidarity with First Nations opposed to pipelines that will poison their land, water, and air, and put the PM in his place for dodging answering too.
Gwynne Dyer at University of Regina
I’ve been to two other Gwynne Dyer lectures at the U of R, and each time they are very interesting presentations of what has happened in the world. There is also a little predicting going on, so if you’re curious what could happen, settle in, and listen to it all.
Touted CCS Technology Not Working As Boasted About
SNC-Lavalin-built carbon capture facility has ‘serious design issues’: SaskPower
Despite conflicts, SaskPower gives SNC another multi-million dollar contract
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Mind you, the fact there’s legal action in the cards hasn’t stopped SaskPower from awarding the firm a $4 million portion of the $45-million Island Falls Powerhouse Concrete Rehabilitation project.
Nor did a September 2014 SaskPower carbon capture briefing note, obtained by the NDP, which says SNC “is more concerned about getting paid for the 6.5 million than fixing the deficiencies of our plant.”
It goes on to note “very poor to no support from SNC Lavalin,” and “serious design deficiencies” in the project.
SaskPower CEO Mike Marsh says “because there’s a contract dispute (with SNC) on one job, doesn’t mean we don’t use them on another job.”
I happen to work at the same university, the one primarily responsible for research that made Boundary Dam CCS possible:
Associate professor of marketing at the University of Regina, Lisa Watson, says “of course people are going to be upset” over the issues at Boundary Dam.
The bigger question, she says, is whether they should be.
The consumer push for more environmentally sustainable options and clean energy is a “major change” for government, she says, and perhaps people shouldn’t be upset when projects involving groundbreaking technology don’t go as planned.
Carbon capture has “huge potential, and if it was working properly, we’d be shouting from the rooftops,” she says, and “to not do it at all, I don’t think that’s the right thing.”
Premier Brad Wall touts Sask. carbon sequestration project
Some premiers are sitting out today’s climate change summit in Quebec City, but Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall is there, talking up the province’s efforts to capture and store carbon dioxide.
[…]
Wall told an audience that the world needs to follow Saskatchewan’s example if there are to be serious reductions in greenhouse emissions.
I tried to find Brad Wall on a rooftop shouting to people about it, instead there is video of him on Sun News TV boasting about it to Brian Lilley, and more than a smattering of articles on the Web boasting about it.
“YouTube’s great, you can learn anything on YouTube.” – Premier Wall
Boyd admits issues surrounding the plant have “a bit of a negative connotation,” adding “I think any time there’s losses, any time there’s problems, there’s certainly a degree of loss of confidence.”
On the other hand, he thinks taxpayers “would rather have SaskPower delivering power to them,” rather than the private power companies that operate in other jurisdictions.
Wow, neat way for Boyd to suggest the alternative to fixing SaskPower is only to ditch the Crown Corp and go with a rob-you-blind private power corporation instead. (The Saskatchewan Green Party is proposing converting SaskPower into a Crown Co-op instead.)
An aware commenter notes:
Myek O’Shea:
Holy spinning neckties Batman! Our loss of confidence is with Bill Boyd and those politicians that chose carbon sequestration over renewable energies. The Sask Party keeps green washing this sequestration turd as if we asked for it in the first place. Want to restore our confidence? Lets go 40% wind and solar by 2020. But on the other hand, maybe tax payers should waste their money on subsidizing the petroleum oligarchy. Oh and ‘groundbreaking’ here is a pun, nothing more.
There’s also the huge matter of SNC-Lavalin’s criminal charges. The Federal government stopped dealing with HP after a bribery conviction for that company.
More from Global News Regina.
“SaskPower says the project is now on target to be fully operational by the end of 2016.”
ADDED:
“Out of the more than 250 companies year to date on the World Bank’s running list of firms blacklisted from bidding on its global projects under its fraud and corruption policy, 117 are from Canada — with SNC-Lavalin and its affiliates representing 115 of those entries, the World Bank said. ”
ADDED: https://oursask.ca/2016/06/27/coal-vs-pixie-dust-saskatchewans-carbon-capture-and-storage-saga/
Who Gets The Hill – #UofR #elxn42 panel on Thursday
It was a real dog’s breakfast at this one, where everything from polls to strategic voting discussed frankly by 3 political experts from Regina. Actually it wasn’t a complete mess, it was a well organized event, but the dog’s breakfast thing will make sense if you watch it all.
France Has Law To Put Solar or Plants on Rooftops
I was impressed to learn that France had made new commercial buildings do this. I’ve felt badly that new buildings going up all over the University of Regina campus since I started paying attention to it in 1998, haven’t put a single solar panel up on them. There’s a building on Research Dr. with a round skylight that looks like a CD player, that would have been a perfect spot for some solar panels. At least the RIC building in 2006 had a partial green roof built onto its shady side.
Bob Rae in Regina about Honouring The Treaties
The Calder case about the Niska people. Argued no treaty so they had Aboriginal title to the BC land. Crown: settlement extinguished title.
Millions lived in North America hundreds of years ago, but settlers viewed it as empty.
By 1867, only 150000 indigenous people remained alive in Canada.
Our country must face and address tough issues at all levels of government.
Largest Aboriginal population is in Toronto says Bob Rae.
Dynamic in the country is changing. Assimilation and powerlessness have failed.
Churches given the job of “throwing kids into the deep end, seeing who could swim”. #residentialSchools “it’s not a pretty picture”
Dr. V. Shiva at the #UofR #EarthDemocracy
Dr. Shiva gave an interesting talk about how system we’ve built are being used to manipulate individuals in societies all around the world into valuing money over life.
2014 Stapleford Lecture on Senate Reform at #UofR
Part 1
I really have to disagree with Dr. Barnhart, who had the power to sign, or refuse to sign laws of Saskatchewan into effect while Lieutenant Governor, that he is a powerful person. Now his influence may be lessened, even to the point where Global TV won’t keep a promise to him, but he did get invited to to a prestigious lecture for the UofR too, didn’t he?
There’s a time to be modest, and a time to be real.
Part 2
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff 