February 27, 2007
Pipeline review panel told to block oilsands from using Mackenzie natural gas
By: BOB WEBER
Canadian Press
26-Feb-2007
EDMONTON (CP) - Environmentalists want Alberta's booming and greenhouse-gas-spewing oilsands blocked from using natural gas flowing through a proposed $7-billion pipeline from the Mackenzie delta.
"We have to interfere in the market," Stephen Hazell, director of the Sierra Club of Canada, said Monday as a panel reviewing the proposal's environmental effects took its hearings to Edmonton. "The government has got to get involved and start to ensure that relatively clean natural gas has got to be used in a way that helps Canada reduce its greenhouse gas emissions."
A coalition of environmental groups suggested in a submission to the panel that the impacts of the project and the oilsands should be considered together, especially as Canada struggles with a climate change strategy.
"The point is to look at the uses of gas, how they have an impact on the global atmosphere and what are the opportunities for maximizing a greenhouse gas reduction," said Julia Langer of the World Wildlife Fund, one of five groups at a news conference held before the hearings opened to the public.
"We're saying open it (the review) up a little bit wider than just the pipeline. Look at the possible end uses of the gas and assess them in the context of climate change."
Environmentalists have long claimed that a good portion of the natural gas that would fill the 1,200-kilometre pipeline proposed for the Mackenzie Valley in the Northwest Territories is destined for Alberta's oilsands. On Monday, Hazell pointed to a map by TransCanada Pipelines (TSX:TCA.PR.X) showing a long-planned spur line from the end of the Mackenzie line into the Fort McMurray area.
Low-carbon gas is burned at the oilsands to liquefy underground bitumen deposits so they can be pumped to the surface and turned into high-carbon oil, a process many compare to turning gold into lead.
Unfettered access to Mackenzie gas will only encourage the growth of what is already Canada's most rapidly increasing source of emissions, Hazell said.
The groups, which also included the Pembina Institute, Sierra Legal Defence Fund and the U.S.-based Natural Resources Defense Council, all say Mackenzie natural gas should instead be used for projects that reduce Canada's greenhouse emissions. One example would be using gas rather than coal to fire electricity plants.
"There's an opportunity for this pipeline to be a green pipeline," said Hazell.
The government should regulate how Mackenzie gas is used by controlling who can buy contracts for it out of the pipeline, he added.
"It's the obligation of the government to restrict contracting so that uses that are Kyoto-friendly should receive a contractual preference, perhaps mandated by law."
Telling producers who they can sell to would be a huge interference in the marketplace, said Pius Rolheiser, spokesman for Imperial Oil (TSX:IMO), the project's main proponent.
"That would certainly be an unprecedented manoeuvre," he said.
Although Rolheiser acknowledged the oilsands are likely to be good customers for Mackenzie gas, he dismissed any suggestion the two projects are linked. Both the oilsands and the pipeline would be viable even if the other didn't exist, he said.
"The only link between the two projects is that they happen to be taking place at the same time."
Rolheiser suggested the environmental groups are using the pipeline hearings to take a crack at the oilsands.
"This continuation is more about their concerns about oilsands projects than the (pipeline)."
Langer acknowledged that emphasizing the pipeline's climate change impact is at least in part an attempt to capitalize on growing public concern.
"It is a bit of a new world order and global warming was never on people's lips or headlines years ago when people were starting to draw their pipeline maps."
However, she pointed out the Edmonton portion of the hearings was always intended to consider the end uses for Mackenzie gas.
Fortis to acquire Terasen Gas for $3.7 billion
COMMENT: In 2005, Kinder Morgan acquired all of the assets of Terasen (formerly BC Gas) for Cdn$6.9 billion (US$5.6 billion). In January 2006, KM sold the water and utility services division of Terasen to CAI Capital Management Co. for Cdn$125 million. Now KM is selling the gas distribution utility including the Vancouver Island utility for Cdn$3.7 billion.
Kinder Morgan got out of this the strategically important components of Terasen, particularly Trans-Mountain Pipeline and the infrastructure bits that tap into the Alberta oilsands.
Fortis now becomes a privately-owned mirror of what BC Hydro once was. Before the gas division was hived off in 1989 to become BC Gas. With its electricity generation and distribution components (once West Kootenay Power and Light, built by Cominco to provide power to its Trail smelter) and its newly acquired gas distribution business, Fortis is now no incidental player in the BC energy economy, and provides gas to 95% of gas-users in the province.
Fortis buys Terasen's natural gas retailing
Derrick Penner, Vancouver Sun, 27-Feb-2007
Fortis News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
St. John's, NL (February 26, 2007):
FORTIS INC. TO ACQUIRE TERASEN GAS FOR $3.7 BILLION
Creates the Largest Investor-Owned Utility in Gas and Electric Distribution in Canada
Fortis Inc. (TSX:FTS) announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Terasen Inc. ("Terasen") from a wholly owned subsidiary of Kinder Morgan Inc. (NYSE:KMI), a U.S. energy transportation, storage and distribution company based in Houston, Texas, for a purchase price of $3.7 billion, including the assumption of approximately $2.3 billion of debt. Terasen (formerly BC Gas Inc.) is a holding company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, operating two lines of business: natural gas distribution and petroleum transportation. The purchase does not include the petroleum transportation assets of Kinder Morgan Canada (formerly Terasen Pipelines), which are comprised primarily of refined and crude oil pipelines.
The natural gas distribution business of Terasen, referred to as Terasen Gas, is one of the largest natural gas distribution utilities in Canada. Terasen Gas is the principal natural gas distribution utility in British Columbia, serving approximately 900,000 customers or 95% of natural gas customers in the province. Terasen Gas owns and operates 44,100 kilometres of natural gas distribution pipelines and 4,300 kilometres of natural gas transmission pipelines. Its service territory includes the populous lower mainland, Vancouver Island, and the southern interior of the province. As of September 30, 2006, Terasen Gas had an aggregate of $3.6 billion of assets, an aggregate rate base approaching $3.0 billion and approximately 1,200 employees. The Company is regulated by the British Columbia Utilities Commission.
"These are high-quality utility assets located in a region with strong economic growth," says Stan Marshall, President and Chief Executive Officer, Fortis Inc. "Through our FortisBC electric utility operations, we are very familiar with the regulatory environment and energy markets in British Columbia."
"Our expansion into the natural gas distribution business adds a third business segment and doubles the regulated rate base of Fortis to approximately $6.0 billion. The acquisition is expected to be immediately accretive to earnings per common share," explains Marshall.
Following the acquisition, the customer base of Fortis Inc. will almost double to approximately 1,900,000. Based on financial information as at September 30, 2006, following the acquisition, total assets of Fortis will increase by approximately 94% to $8.9 billion and regulated utility assets will comprise approximately 92% of total assets. Approximately 93% of these regulated assets will be located in Canada.
Terasen's subsidiary, Terasen Gas Inc., accounts for approximately 83% of the total assets being purchased. The remaining utilities are Terasen Gas (Vancouver Island) Inc. and Terasen Gas (Whistler) Inc. The unsecured long-term debt of Terasen Gas Inc. is rated 'A' by DBRS and 'A3' by Moody's.
"Terasen Gas is a well-run utility which will give Fortis a platform for further growth in the natural gas distribution business," says Marshall. "It will complement our electric utilities, providing value for our customers and shareholders," says Marshall.
"Terasen Gas will remain autonomous in the Fortis model. We welcome the employees of Terasen Gas to the Fortis Group and look forward to their continuing strong commitment to serving our customers," concludes Marshall.
The business operated by Terasen Gas is attractive to Fortis for the following reasons:
(i) Terasen Gas will significantly increase the earnings of Fortis from regulated utilities and be immediately accretive to earnings per common share of Fortis;
(ii) the regulated gas distribution business of Terasen Gas complements the regulated electric distribution business of Fortis; and
(iii) the service territory of Terasen Gas is experiencing strong economic growth and includes substantially all of the service territory of FortisBC Inc.
Fortis believes that the principal benefits of the acquisition are as follows:
(a) the purchase price represents approximately 1.2 times the approved rate base of Terasen Gas for 2007 and the acquisition is expected to be immediately accretive to earnings per share;
(b) the acquisition will increase the regulated rate base assets and utility earnings of Fortis. Similar to the electric distribution utilities of Fortis, Terasen Gas operates under principally cost-of-service regulation under which an appropriate return on capital is recovered in addition to prudently incurred operating and commodity costs;
(c) Terasen Gas has an attractive gas distribution franchise with a well-diversified, mature, principally residential, customer base. The acquisition is expected to improve the risk profile of Fortis by providing it with a more economically diverse portfolio of assets;
(d) following the acquisition, Fortis will be the largest investor-owned utility in gas and electric distribution in Canada with regulated electricity distribution utilities in five Canadian provinces and three Caribbean countries and regulated gas distribution utilities in British Columbia. Following the acquisition, a large proportion of the businesses of Fortis will serve the high-growth economies of western Canada; and
(e) Fortis believes the regulated gas distribution business of Terasen Gas are complementary to the Corporation's proven core competencies in managing regulated electric distribution utilities. The acquisition affords Fortis management an opportunity to deploy its regulatory, operating and financial management expertise to additional Canadian regulated utilities.
Fortis' approach to utility management is based on creating value for customers that ultimately translates into long-term value for shareholders. Fortis structures its operations as separate operating companies in each jurisdiction. Focused local management teams have the benefit of access to utility management experience and expertise of Fortis. The senior management team of Terasen Gas, which Fortis expects to retain, will add valuable operational expertise in natural gas distribution to existing expertise in the electric distribution operations of Fortis. This approach allows local managers to build relationships with, and be responsive to, both customers and regulators. Fortis recognizes that regulation is a key aspect of its core business and has developed a disciplined, cost-conscious asset investment and operating philosophy which is responsive to regulation.
The management of Fortis has substantial experience in integrating newly acquired enterprises into the Fortis Group. In 2004, Fortis acquired all of the issued and outstanding shares of FortisBC Inc. (formerly, Aquila Networks Canada (British Columbia) Ltd.) and FortisAlberta Inc. (formerly, Aquila Networks Canada (Alberta) Ltd.), and has successfully integrated these utilities into the Fortis Group.
The closing of the acquisition is subject to fulfillment of customary conditions including receipt of required regulatory approvals. The acquisition is expected to close in mid-2007. Fortis has obtained commitments from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce to provide the financing for the acquisition. The funding of the financing is subject to fulfillment of customary conditions. CIBC World Markets Inc. acted as exclusive financial advisor to Fortis on the acquisition.
Fortis is principally a diversified, international electric utility holding company with assets exceeding $5.4 billion and annual revenues of approximately $1.5 billion. Fortis has holdings in regulated electric distribution utilities in Alberta, British Columbia, Newfoundland, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Belize, Grand Cayman and the Turks and Caicos Islands. It has non-regulated generation operations in Belize, Ontario, Newfoundland, British Columbia and upper New York State. Fortis also has investments in real estate and hotels through its wholly owned non-utility subsidiary.
The Common Shares, First Preference Shares, Series C; First Preference Shares, Series E; and First Preference Shares, Series F of Fortis are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols FTS, FTS.PR.C, FTS.PR.E and FTS.PR.F, respectively. Fortis information can be accessed at www.fortisinc.com.
Teleconference Call
Fortis will host a conference call for investors and analysts at 5:30 p.m. Newfoundland time (4:00 p.m. Eastern) on February 26, 2007 to discuss this transaction. Analysts and investors can participate in the conference call by calling 416-340-2216 or 1-866-898-9626 (within North America) or 800-8989-6323 (outside North America). To listen to a postview of the conference call, which will be available until April 26, 2007, interested parties can call 416-695-5800 or 1-800-408-3053 (passcode is 3215471#). The archived conference call will be available at www.fortisinc.com within approximately 24 hours following the conference call.
Fortis includes forward-looking statements in media releases which reflect management's expectations regarding the Corporation's future growth, results of operations, performance and business prospects and opportunities. Wherever possible, words such as "anticipate", "believe", "expects", "intend" and similar expressions have been used to identify the forward-looking statements. These statements reflect management's current beliefs and are based on information currently available to the Corporation's management. Forward-looking statements involve significant risk, uncertainties and assumptions. Certain material factors or assumptions have been applied in drawing the conclusions contained in the forward-looking statements. These factors or assumptions are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties surrounding future expectations generally. Such risk factors or assumptions include, but are not limited to, regulation, energy prices, general economic conditions, weather, derivatives and hedging, capital resources, loss of service area, licences and permits, environment, insurance, labour relations, human resources and liquidity risk. Fortis cautions readers that a number of factors could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results discussed or implied in the forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully and undue reliance should not be placed on the forwardlooking statements. For additional information with respect to certain of these risks or factors, reference should be made to the Corporation's continuous disclosure materials filed from time to time with Canadian securities regulatory authorities. The Corporation disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forwardlooking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
- 30 -
For further information, please contact:
Mr. Barry Perry
Vice President Finance and Chief Financial Officer
Fortis Inc.
Telephone: 709.737.2800
Facsimile: 709.737.5307
Ms. Donna Hynes
Manager, Investor & Public Relations
Fortis Inc.
Telephone: 709.737.5323
Facsimile: 709.737.5307
Fortis buys Terasen's natural gas retailing
Kinder Morgan to keep pipelines
Derrick Penner
Vancouver Sun
February 27, 2007
Terasen Gas, B.C.'s biggest natural gas distributor, will be Canadian-owned again after a $3.7-billion deal between East Coast utility Fortis Inc. and Texas pipeline giant Kinder Morgan Inc.
In a statement released Monday, Fortis said it had reached an agreement with Kinder Morgan to purchase all of Terasen Gas's outstanding shares and assume $2.3 billion in Terasen debt as part of the deal. The transaction is expected to close by mid-year.
The sale comes just over a year after Kinder Morgan bought Terasen Inc., along with its oil pipeline division, for $6.9 billion. The oil pipelines, including the Trans Mountain Pipeline, are not part of Monday's deal.
The transaction diversifies Fortis, a major power producer in Atlantic Canada, into natural gas distribution, and gets Kinder Morgan out of the regulated, retail delivery of natural gas.
Terasen Gas is a "strong local distribution company," Kinder Morgan chairman Richard Kinder said in a news release, but "our core business continues to be building and operating pipelines and terminals."
Terasen spokeswoman Joyce Wagenaar said Fortis has promised a "seamless" transition in ownership and the company's 900,000 gas-utility customers should notice no difference in service.
Terasen's rates will continue to be regulated by the B.C. Utilities Commission, and Fortis has promised that it will retain the company's 1,200 employees and will remain an autonomous entity within Fortis.
Terasen operates 4,300 kilometres of natural gas transmission and 44,100 km of distribution pipelines.
Change in ownership of any regulated utility must be approved by the B.C. Utilities Commission.
However, commission secretary Robert Pellatt said the BCUC has not yet received an application so would not speculate on whether such a review would trigger a hearing.
The commission did not call a full oral hearing when Kinder Morgan bought Terasen.
Consumers have noticed little change in the year that Kinder Morgan has owned Terasen, according to Jim Quail, executive director of the B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre.
And because of the way it has been regulated, Quail doubts a change of headquarters from Houston to St. John's will make any more of a difference, though he believes a lot of consumers "will be pleased to have a Canadian company rather than an American company operating the utility."
St. John's, Newfoundland-based Fortis is a major electric-utility company with operations in Atlantic Canada, Ontario, Central America and the Caribbean. It broke into the B.C. and Alberta markets in 2004 by buying the American utility firm Aquila Inc. for $1.36 billion.
Fortis's B.C. operations deliver electricity as a regulated utility to 152,000 customers in the southern Interior.
This expansion will almost double Fortis's customer base to 1.9 million, CEO Stan Marshall said in a statement.
"These are high-quality assets located in a region with strong economic growth," Marshall added.
"Terasen Gas is a well run utility which will give Fortis a platform for further growth in the natural gas distribution business," and "complement our electric utilities, providing value for our customers and shareholders."
Fortis, with $1.5 billion in annual revenues, turned a $147.2-million profit at the end of 2006.
TERASEN ON THE BLOCK
Terasen Gas is being sold for $3.7 billion to Newfoundland-based Fortis Inc. barely a year after Kinder Morgan bought B.C.'s biggest gas utility as part of a bigger, $6.9-billion deal.
TERASEN GAS
48,400 km of transmission and distribution pipeline.
900,000 customers.
$3.6 billion in assets.
$3 billion rate-base.
FORTIS INC.
1.05 million electric-utility customers.
195 megawatts of generation in Fortis Generation.
$5.4 billion in assets.
$1.5 billion annual revenue.
Ran with fact box "Terasen on the Block", which has been appended to the end of the story.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007
February 25, 2007
Electricity Surplus? Depends on Independent Power Impacts
Columbia Basin Bulletin
February 22, 2007
Does the Pacific Northwest electric power system have a surplus supply of electricity for the next 10 years or does it currently have an electricity deficit the size of a nuclear power plant?
The answer depends on one key variable, officials from the Bonneville Power Administration said this week.
That variable is the more than 3,000 average megawatts of independent electric power generation sources that have been built in the Northwest but are not contractually committed to serve Northwest consumers.
Whether and when this generation or alternative sources are purchased by Northwest utilities will likely determine whether the Northwest experiences reliability or price volatility problems.
Supply and demand for electricity is a fundamental driver of potentially rapid increases in electricity prices as well as the possibility of blackouts. Such problems are more likely to occur during dry conditions in the hydro-rich Northwest when periods of extended hot or cold weather occur.
Independent power producers often are not connected to regional utilities through contracts, but rather, sell their energy into the power marketplace up and down the West Coast through short-term transactions with utilities and power marketers. Utilities, conversely, typically build generation or buy into long-term contracts to directly serve a dedicated customer base. These utilities may supplement their supplies with independent power when they hit periods of peak consumption or when their own plants are undergoing maintenance.
BPA's recently released 2006 Pacific Northwest Loads and Resources Study "White Book" and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council's Fifth Power Plan show modest regional power surpluses through 2016, but the forecasts assume the 3,360 average megawatts of generation from the region's independent power producers would be available to serve Northwest consumers under critical water conditions. This generation represents about 15 percent of the region's total power supply. Absent this supply, the near-term Northwest energy outlook would be about 1,300 average megawatts deficit.
"The bottom line is that the Northwest should not gamble on its energy future. Adequate power supplies are necessary to fuel the region's economy," said Steve Wright, BPA administrator. "Given the lead time needed to develop new energy infrastructure, now is the time to be making critical decisions about our electricity future."
Wright said if the region runs into a supply and demand crunch as it did in 2000 and 2001, it could force the Northwest to compete with other Western markets for independent generation supplies, resulting in price volatility.
Even if the power is available to the region, it would likely be costly, leading to higher rates for Northwest consumers.
Wright also noted that some regional utilities had difficulty meeting their consumer loads during the July 24, 2006, heat wave that hovered over the West Coast.
"We need an adequate energy infrastructure -- generation, energy efficiency and transmission lines -- to avoid another energy crisis in our region," said Wright.
BPA's portion of the regional electricity picture, is forecast to have energy shortfalls beginning in 2007 -- two year's earlier than BPA's last White Book forecast. During the next 10 years, the deficits will vary from a low of 24 average megawatts in 2007, to a high of 260 average megawatts in 2011 under critical water conditions. Load obligations -- or demand for electricity -- on the federal system over the next 10 years are forecast to vary from 8,151 to 8,467 average megawatts. The federal system comprises 31 federal dams and one nuclear plant.
"While regional forecasts display an electricity surplus, many individual utilities are looking at near-term deficits and consequently are considering or making power supply acquisitions," Wright said. "This apparent conundrum is explained by the existing generation that is not contractually committed to the Northwest."
BPA will adopt new policies this spring that will guide the agency in negotiating proposed new 20-year contracts. Current contracts expire in 2011.
"For the past few years, we have been working with our customers and other regional stakeholders to determine what role they would like BPA to play as supplies tighten," said Wright. "Do they want to rely on BPA to meet their load growth or will they arrange for their own power supplies? Regardless, we need to work swiftly to secure our region's energy future."
The White Book assumes continued electricity production from the lower Snake River dams. Removal of these dams would substantially exacerbate the supply and demand picture and result in significant cost and reliability challenges for Northwest ratepayers.
The 2006 White Book is available online at www.bpa.gov/power/whitebook2006
February 21, 2007
Simple fix offered for oil sands
Hike price of barrel by $1, study advises
BILL CURRY
Globe and Mail
21 February 2007
OTTAWA -- Adding just one extra dollar to the cost of producing a barrel of oil would raise enough money for energy companies to exploit Alberta's vast tar sands and still comply with Kyoto, a Commons committee was told yesterday.
The simple solution -- too simple, according to Conservative MPs -- was put forward by the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based environmental policy group that has worked directly with industry on tar sands projects that reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases.
The institute's climate change expert, Matthew Bramley, who has a doctorate in theoretical chemistry from the University of Cambridge, took aim at the Conservative government's assertions that it is too late for Canada to meet its 2012 Kyoto Protocol targets without triggering economic collapse.
Dr. Bramley said the ability of the industry and the Canadian economy to absorb the significant fluctuations in the price of oil in recent years indicates an extra dollar in price would hardly be noticed.
"The very straightforward calculations that I've put forward [show] the oil sands producers can immediately take responsibility for a Kyoto-level target of emissions reductions," Dr. Bramley told MPs.
It currently costs about $25 for industry to produce a barrel of oil from Alberta's oil sands and the market price for oil is more than $50 a barrel. Adding $1 to production costs would raise $750-million annually from industry that could be spent on technology that reduces emissions, he said.
The two other major industrial sectors -- power generation and manufacturing -- could also comply with Kyoto with relatively little pain, the environmentalist argued.
Even if power companies passed on the entire cost of complying with Kyoto, power bills would not increase more than 10 per cent, according to Dr. Bramley's study.
Those estimates contrast dramatically with the 40- to 60-per-cent increases predicted by ex-environment minister Rona Ambrose.
"There's been a lot of scaremongering and misinformation going on," said Dr. Bramley, noting that the government's projections don't account for other ways for companies to comply with Kyoto, such as investments in new technology.
The optimism of environmental groups about industry's ability to comply with Kyoto was not shared by the oil sands representative appearing alongside Dr. Bramley. Announcing short-term hard targets like Kyoto risks scaring away investment in the oil sands, warned Gordon Lambert, a vice-president for Suncor Energy Inc.
The two men were testifying before the Commons committee studying the government's proposed climate-change legislation.
DOWNLOAD REPORT:
http://www.pembina.org/pdf/publications/Blueprint_royalties_150dpi.pdf
An Ill Wind off Cape Cod blows into BC
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote An Ill Wind Off Cape Cod, an Op-Ed in the New York Times, in December 2005. He was opposing the Cape Wind proposal in Nantucket Sound. It's an interesting read from a person who has done good environmental work. He says, "be wary of energy companies that are trying to privatize the commons." He also cites other critics who say, "the whirling turbines could every year kill thousands of migrating songbirds and sea ducks."
This Op-Ed caused Jack Coleman, an advocate for Cape Wind, and a blogger, to respond with RFK Jr. on Cape Wind - so much for Nantucket Sound as "pristine jewel". Also an interesting read.
Cape Wind is inching its way through the regulatory process in Massachusetts and the challenges from its opponents.
How does all this tie to local energy projects?
In May 2005 an article appeared in Cape Cod Today entitled Cape Wind and Nai Kun Wind Development to develop 1,100 mega watts of wind power. It says that Cape Wind and Nai Kun Wind Development formed a "collaboration agreement" to facilitate their two offshore wind projects. NaiKun is proposing a massive multi-phase 1750 megawatt wind project in Hecate Strait. The first phase is likely to be bid into BC Hydro's next Call for Power. Would that be an energy company privatizing the commons?
In my article Rivers of Riches in the January-February 2007 issue of Watershed Sentinel, I am concerned about the privatization of water rights for small hydro power generation. The case study is Plutonic Corp. and two hydro projects at the head of Toba Inlet, not far from Headwall Canyon. It's a place Robert Kennedy visited in 2000, with Eric Heitz of Earth River Expeditions and a National Geographic film crew. Kennedy says that he worked with Heitz “to save the Headwall Canyon, in British Columbia.” BC to RJK Jr.: better get back up there.
Privatizing the commons for energy projects is happening bit-by-bit, stream-by-stream in BC. We will need to grapple with the issue with the NaiKun project, as it will be the first offshore instance. No CO2. No fossil fuels. At least some aspects of it we can support.
An Ill Wind Off Cape Cod
By ROBERT F. KENNEDY Jr.
Op-Ed Contributor
New York Times
December 16, 2005
AS an environmentalist, I support wind power, including wind power on the high seas. I am also involved in siting wind farms in appropriate landscapes, of which there are many. But I do believe that some places should be off limits to any sort of industrial development. I wouldn't build a wind farm in Yosemite National Park. Nor would I build one on Nantucket Sound, which is exactly what the company Energy Management is trying to do with its Cape Wind project.
Environmental groups have been enticed by Cape Wind, but they should be wary of lending support to energy companies that are trying to privatize the commons - in this case 24 square miles of a heavily used waterway. And because offshore wind costs twice as much as gas-fired electricity and significantly more than onshore wind, the project is financially feasible only because the federal and state governments have promised $241 million in subsidies.
Cape Wind's proposal involves construction of 130 giant turbines whose windmill arms will reach 417 feet above the water and be visible for up to 26 miles. These turbines are less than six miles from shore and would be seen from Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Hundreds of flashing lights to warn airplanes away from the turbines will steal the stars and nighttime views. The noise of the turbines will be audible onshore. A transformer substation rising 100 feet above the sound would house giant helicopter pads and 40,000 gallons of potentially hazardous oil.
According to the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the project will damage the views from 16 historic sites and lighthouses on the cape and nearby islands. The Humane Society estimates the whirling turbines could every year kill thousands of migrating songbirds and sea ducks.
Nantucket Sound is among the most densely traveled boating corridors in the Atlantic. The turbines will be perilously close to the main navigation channels for cargo ships, ferries and fishing boats. The risk of collisions with the towers would increase during the fogs and storms for which the area is famous. That is why the Steamship Authority and Hy-Line Cruises, which transport millions of passengers to and from the cape and islands every year, oppose the project. Thousands of small businesses, including marina owners, hotels, motels, whale watching tours and charter fishing operations will also be hurt. The Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University in Boston estimates a loss of up to 2,533 jobs because of the loss of tourism - and over a billion dollars to the local economy.
Nantucket Sound is a critical fishing ground for the commercial fishing families of Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod. Hundreds of fishermen work Horseshoe Shoal, where the Cape Wind project would be built, and make half their annual income from the catch. The risks that their gear will become fouled in the spider web of cables between the 130 towers will largely preclude fishing in the area, destroying family-owned businesses that enrich the palate, economy and culture of Cape Cod.
Many environmental groups support the Cape Wind project, and that's unfortunate because making enemies of fishermen and marina owners is bad environmental strategy in the long run. Cape Cod's traditional-gear commercial fishing families and its recreational anglers and marina owners have all been important allies for environmentalists in our battles for clean water.
There are those who argue that unlike our great Western national parks, Cape Cod is far from pristine, and that Cape Wind's turbines won't be a significant blot. I invite these critics to see the pods of humpback, minke, pilot, finback and right whales off Nantucket, to marvel at the thousands of harbor and gray seals lolling on the bars off Monomoy and Horseshoe Shoal, to chase the dark clouds of terns and shorebirds descending over the thick menhaden schools exploding over acre-sized feeding frenzies of striped bass, bluefish and bonita.
I urge them to come diving on some of the hundreds of historic wrecks in this "graveyard of the Atlantic," and to visit the endless dune-covered beaches of Cape Cod, our fishing villages immersed in history and beauty, or to spend an afternoon netting blue crabs or mucking clams, quahogs and scallops by the bushel on tidal mud flats - some of the reasons my uncle, John F. Kennedy, authorized the creation of the Cape Cod National Seashore in 1961, and why Nantucket Sound is under consideration as a national marine sanctuary, a designation that would prohibit commercial electrical generation.
All of us need periodically to experience wilderness to renew our spirits and reconnect ourselves to the common history of our nation, humanity and to God. The worst trap that environmentalists can fall into is the conviction that the only wilderness worth preserving is in the Rocky Mountains or Alaska. To the contrary, our most important wildernesses are those that are closest to our densest population centers, like Nantucket Sound.
There are many alternatives that would achieve the same benefits as Cape Wind without destroying this national treasure. Deep water technology is rapidly evolving, promising huge bounties of wind energy with fewer environmental and economic consequences. Scotland is preparing to build wind turbines in the Moray Firth more than 12 miles offshore. Germany is considering placing turbines as far as 27 miles off its northern shores.
If Cape Wind were to place its project further offshore, it could build not just 130, but thousands of windmills - where they can make a real difference in the battle against global warming without endangering the birds or impoverishing the experience of millions of tourists and residents and fishing families who rely on the sound's unspoiled bounties.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an environmental lawyer and professor at Pace University Law School.
RFK Jr. on Cape Wind - so much for Nantucket Sound as "pristine jewel"
Jack Coleman
Wind Farmer's Almanac
December 16, 2005
Yet another shift in tactics by Cape Wind's opponents, as seen in this op-ed piece by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in today's New York Times.
"As an environmentalist, I support wind power, including wind power on the high seas," Kennedy writes. "I am also involved in siting wind farms in appropriate landscapes ..." - an allusion to his brother Joe's involvement in a land-based wind farm along the US-Canadian border? - " ... of which there are many."
"But I do believe that some places should be off limits to any sort of industrial development," Kennedy writes. "I wouldn't build a wind farm in Yosemite National Park" (actually, that would be illegal, unlike what Cape Wind proposes). "Nor would I build one on Nantucket Sound, which is exactly what the company Energy Management is trying to do with its Cape Wind project."
Only two paragraphs in, how does Kennedy describe Nantucket Sound - as a "heavily used waterway." Got that? Not this "pristine jewel" or "cherished national treasure" or any of the overwrought labels routinely trotted out by opponents.
Kennedy elaborates on this - he goes on to describe Nantucket Sound as "among the most densely traveled boating corridors in the Atlantic." As such, Cape Wind's turbines would come "perilously close to the main navigation channels for cargo ships, ferries and fishing boats."
The project would also come "perilously close" to the Kennedy compound, although no mention of this is made in the column. Perhaps Kennedy, shown above in a photo I took during the Soundkeeper sail organized by the Alliance last August, assumes it is universally known and needs no elaboration. I beg to differ - that his extended family would be abutters could hardly be more relevant.
Further on, Kennedy claims that "Nantucket Sound is under consideration as a national marine sanctuary, a designation that would prohibit commercial electrical generation." Talk about a stretch - two earlier proposals were both shelved more than 20 years ago and the main proponent of the third proposal, Congressman Bill Delahunt, has not even filed a bill, amendment or budget rider since announcing three years ago - this month - that he would pursue the designation.
Cape Wind and Nai Kun Wind Development to develop 1,100 mega watts of wind power
Cape Cod Today
May 4, 2005
Cape Wind and Nai Kun Wind Development to develop 1,100 mega watts of wind powerCape Wind Associates, LLC of Yarmouth and Nai Kun Wind Development Inc. of British Columbia announced today the formation of a collaboration agreement designed to facilitate the development of two major North American offshore wind energy projects.
Together Nai Kun [1] and Cape Wind [2] will comprise over 1,100 mega watts of generating capacity and are the leading offshore renewable energy development projects in North America.
The Nai Kun project will benefit British Columbia both environmentally and economically and reduce British Columbia's and Canada's greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 800,000 tons per year.
This is a significant contribution to climate change reduction and will help B.C. and Canada demonstrate global leadership in renewable energy technology under the Kyoto accord.
Secondly, the project will require significant construction, operation and maintenance . It is estimated that the project will produce approximately 2,300 person-years of direct employment in B.C. during the four-year construction period and approximately forty on-going direct jobs in wind farm operation and maintenance.
The full 700MW project will generate enough electricity to supply approximately 240,000 houses. In twelve hours one turbine would produce enough energy, on average, to supply a household for a whole year.
Offshore Wind Developers Sign Collaboration AgreementThe collaboration agreement initially provides for joint procurement of foundations, towers, turbines and blades for both projects.
In addition, inter-turbine cabling and under-sea transmission cabling will also be procured jointly.
The companies will pool skills and experience on other aspects of the projects, such as maintenance regimes, marine service vessels and best practices. "We are delighted to work together with Nai Kun Wind Development, the other major offshore wind development in North America," said Jim Gordon, President of Cape Wind. "We feel certain the two projects will compliment one another. The joint procurement effort and the pooling of knowledge and experience should assure the lowest possible prices for both projects and accelerate this important new renewable energy source."
"Both projects are at similar stages, in terms of permits and wind studies, said Michael C. Burns, President of Nai Kun Wind Development. "We expect both projects would be built in roughly the same time frame and this collaboration agreement will facilitate the development and procurement processes."
February 18, 2007
Over a barrel
Andrew Nikiforuk
Canadian Business magazine
February 12, 2007
Within 10 years, Alberta's tarsands could become the single largest source of new oil in the world. Given rising political unrest or aggressive state capitalism in Russia, Nigeria, Venezuela and the Middle East, the tarsands have simply become the globe's safest oil investment. Even a U.S. congressional committee recently called the oilsands "a new force in the world oil market" and concluded that they offered two investment rarities: large volumes and "secure access."
Boasting reserves (174-billion barrels) second only in size to Saudi Arabia, the tarsands have placed Canada in the remarkable position of holding nearly 60% of the investable oil reserves in the world. This explains why Imperial, ExxonMobil, Shell, Total and other energy multinationals have committed nearly $100 billion in a feverish rush to build as many as 51 projects in the sands over the next decade. Not surprisingly, stocks in 10 major firms with key tarsand investments gained a whopping 370% in value between July 2003 and April 2006. "In the big picture, deepwater oil and the oilsands are the only game left in town," says CIBC chief economist Jeffrey Rubin.
As a consequence, this powerful industry now produces nearly half of the nation's oil supply, provides the U.S. with nearly 16% of its oil imports--and will soon crown Canada as the world's fifth- or even fourth-largest oil producer. In the process, the tarsands will generate nearly $51 billion in income for the federal government and $44 billion for the province of Alberta between 2000 and 2020. No wonder Prime Minister Stephen Harper happily refers to Canada as an "energy superpower" and U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Badham contentedly reports that "the hour of the oilsands has come."
But how long will that hour last? Certainly, the world's largest capital project will not only alter the course of Canada's economy, but will dominate business news for years to come. And yet, as global interest in the resource heightens, investors and taxpayers alike have begun to ask hard questions about costs, carbon emissions, infrastructure and other hidden liabilities. The following key issues may dramatically alter or slow the pace and scale of the tarsands.
The World's Most Expensive Oil
Although industry marketers prefer the term oilsands, bitumen is not oil. This heavy, viscous hydrocarbon, which according to the Book of Genesis helped glue the Tower of Babel together, is really tar trapped in sand and clay. As a heavy chain of carbon-rich atoms that are high in sulphur content, bitumen takes a lot of money and energy to upgrade to synthetic oil. In fact, raw bitumen can't even be moved in pipelines without using expensive light oils as a transport fuel. "You know you are at the bottom of the ninth when you have to schlep a tonne of sand to get a barrel of oil," says the CIBC's Rubin.
The cost of extracting the gooey stuff continues to unsettle rational economic minds. Neil Carmata, Petro-Canada's senior vice-president for oilsands, recently opined that the price tag for an open pit mine plus an upgrader climbed from $25,000 to between $90,000 and $110,000 per barrel in the past decade. Given that investors used to spend no more than $1,000 on infrastructure to remove a barrel of conventional oil a day, Houston-based energy investment banker Matthew Simmons of Simmons & Co. International observes that "energy's pricing committee" has truly flunked in the tarsands.
Chronic labour shortages combined with persistent government failure to sequence projects, has led to staggering cost overruns. When Shell Canada admitted last July that its $7.3-billion expansion plans for its Athabasca project (it currently produces 155,000 barrels a day) could swell to $12.8 billion, U.S. energy analyst Bob Gillon of John S. Herold, Inc. responded with a "My Lord in Heaven....we are getting these things back to where the economics...are going to get skinny in a hurry." Estimates for Petro-Canada's Fort Hill's project--a planned 170,000-barrel-a-day mine plus an upgrader--now range as high as $19 billion. Given that the richest tarsands leases are already being exploited, the Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada, a Calgary-based research group, warned last year that declining quality of the resource means "capital intensity is likely to continue to increase."
Yet cost overruns (like carbon intensity) define the character of unconventional oil. Rubin even advises investors to get used to persistent markups. He argues that the development of non-conventional oil just means spending more money. (Gulf of Mexico drilling comes with 400% increases, for example.) "What investors have to remember is that in a world of depleting conventional supply, higher costs and delays simply equate to higher crude prices," he says.
The Infrastructure Deficit
The Alberta government has approved one tarsands project after another with nary a thought about public infrastructure in the past decade. As a result, the city of Fort McMurray and the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (RMWB) face an alarming $1.9-billion infrastructure deficit. The region not only reports a dangerously critical shortage of health care and police services, but also unaffordable housing, rampant social problems and water-treatment woes. Rents are so high that most hospital staff require subsidized housing. "Our quality of life is deteriorating," Bill Newell, RMWB regional manager, reported to the oilsands Multi-stakeholder Committee, a government-appointed group examining policy options for the oilsands, last fall. While former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed calls the social chaos "a mess," John Lau, CEO of Husky Energy Inc., has repeatedly warned that the infrastructure deficit has become an impediment to further investment. "The government has not really put a thinking cap on how and what they are going to do," Lau told the Calgary Herald.
Short of a moratorium, a recession or staggered project approvals, the region's infrastructure crisis will simply accelerate. After approving another $4-billion project last December, Alberta's Energy and Utilities Board, the industry regulator and the government of Canada warned that "growing demands and the absence of sustainable long-term solutions must weigh more heavily" in future decision-making.
Reclamation Liabilities
The tarsands lie in deep and shallow deposits underneath roughly 23% of the province of Alberta. About 20% of these reserves (3,000 square kilometres, or three times the size of New York City) can be strip-mined with shovels and trucks, but the vast majority of deposits require thermal operations that drill and inject steam or heated solvents deep into the ground. The area currently leased for underground operations will create "an industrial sacrifice zone the size of Vancouver Island," according to the Pembina Institute, a Calgary-based energy watchdog.
To build a strip mine, a company must cut down hundreds of thousands of trees, uproot wildlife, change entire watersheds and drain fens and bogs. According to Alberta law, these industrial wastelands and accompanying tailings dams must be reclaimed or restored into some semblance of the original forest. But it's a policy fraught with uncertainties, unknowns and growing risks.
Although mining operations have already disturbed 42,000 hectares of land and have been active for 30 years, not one hectare has been certified as restored to its original state by the Alberta government. Incredibly, the province hasn't updated its oilsand reclamation graphs since 2003, and says its guidelines and policies are still "currently under development and review."
Nor can companies talk about reclamation without employing Orwellian rhetoric. Chris Jones, the chief operating officer of Albian Sands Energy Inc., owner of the 155,000-barrels-per-day Muskeg River Mine north of Fort McMurray, told a public meeting last year that his firm hoped to restore its moonscape to "maintenance-free, self-sustaining ecosystems with a capability that is equivalent to pre-development conditions. This does not mean that every hectare will be identical to pre-disturbance conditions."
The fact remains that no one has ever remade a boreal forest before. Even the National Energy Board doesn't know "if land reclamation methods currently employed will be successful." A 2003 scientific workshop on "Creating Wetlands in the Oilsands," held in Fort McMurray by a largely industry-based stakeholder group (the Cumulative Environmental Management Association) complained that this "entire mining process" was being allowed "to proceed with little real knowledge...of how it will be reclaimed." Alberta's Mining Liability Management Program remains a draft document, and criteria for managing mine waste still haven't been established. Last November, Alberta's Energy and Utility Board (AEUB) acknowledged that the current security program for toxic tarsands waste "does not require a deposit or the posting of security with respect to total project liabilities and that work is underway to address shortcomings of the existing program." (For more than $100-billion worth of investments, the Alberta government holds only $356 million in reclamation bonds.) The AEUB, in a joint review panel with the government of Canada, also described reclamation as a "key regional issue with uncertainties that require adaptive management for resolution." In plain English, tarsands reclamation is one big experiment, with no guarantee of success.
Production Hype
Just about everybody, from Uncle Sam to the Chinese, has bet on the tarsands to offset conventional declines. On its energy website, the Alberta government even highlights an optimistic Time magazine article boasting that the oilsands "could satisfy the world's demand for petroleum for the next century." Cold reality, however, does not support such claims.
Consider a series of popular production forecasts now being seriously hampered by the region's infrastructure backlog. Canada's National Energy Board predicts that oilsands production could jump from 1.1 million barrels a day to three million barrels a day by 2015. Prime Minister Harper is even more bullish and predicts "nearly four million" by 2015, while some Alberta groups are talking about three times that amount--or 12-million-a-day output by 2030. Both the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Canadian Energy Research Institute believe four million barrels a day might be possible by 2020 if environmental and labour challenges don't tar up the works. That's still only 4% of the world's forecasted oil supply in 2025.
At a recent Boston meeting on peak oil, Dave Hughes, a Calgary-based energy specialist with Natural Resources Canada, argued that none of these forecasts will live up to the hype due to the complex and energy-draining process of turning tar into oil. He defined the big stumbling block as a delivery problem. While noting that the oilsands are a "Great White Hope of a panacea to support business as usual," he added that "forecasts do not live up to the hype."
Given existing investment levels of $90 billion, Hughes told Canadian Business that he'd be very surprised if oilsands production could exceed 2.8 million barrels a day. To reach four million barrels a day would likely require an additional $110 billion in investment. "The oilsands should be viewed as a marginal interim supply that serves as a bridge to prepare for a less energy-intensive future," warns Hughes.
Since 1850, the world's population has increased fivefold, while per-capita energy use has increased eight times, says Hughes. The world now uses 43 times the energy used in 1850, and nearly 90% of it comes from non-renewable sources, such as oil, gas, coal and uranium. "Those levels can't continue," says Hughes.
Even the U.S. Congress has its doubts. In its 2006 report on the tarsands, chaired by Jim Saxton (Republican, New Jersey), it acknowledged that the resource can't be developed rapidly enough to achieve real energy independence for North America. Just to replace Persian Gulf imports alone would require sucking up all of Canada's projected crude production by 2016: 3.8 million barrels. "North American energy independence thus would require a dramatic ramp-up in oilsands production far beyond any of the current projections," concluded the report. Yet last January, an oilsands Experts Group Workshop directed by Natural Resources Canada and the U.S. Department of Energy supported a "fivefold expansion" of the oilsands within a "relatively short time."
The Royalty Ruckus
Ever since oil prices catapulted beyond US$50 a barrel, oil-producing nations have either raised their royalties or nationalized the resource. But not Alberta. In 1996, the provincial government introduced a standard 1% royalty regime that predictably resulted in an explosion of industry investment and corresponding infrastructure woes. The bargain-basement royalty regime, which has been roundly criticized by citizens but defended by industry, remains at 1% until a project has recovered the cost of construction. Cost overruns also delay any increases.
Even the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, a defender of low royalties, ranks the tarsands regime in competitiveness as 79th out of 324 world royalty regimes. (In contrast, Alberta's conventional oil royalties rank somewhere between 209 and 258 out of 324.) The CIBC's Rubin doesn't think Alberta's royalty giveaway can last much longer. He points out that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez "had a similar subsidy for the Orinoco tarsands," but quickly abandoned it given the economics of oil prices.
Alberta's current payout also applies to bitumen rather than upgraded oil. The general price for bitumen (a product with an ill-defined market value) is generally half of that posted for West Texas Intermediate, a fact most Albertans don't recognize. "Small wonder we are seeing so many oilsands companies proposing upgraders," Ian Urquhart, a University of Alberta political scientist, noted at a public meeting on the tarsands last year. "They will pay royalties on bitumen and then sell the final product at roughly twice the price."
Although Alberta's generous royalty system has increased corporate income at an annualized rate of 42% between 1999 and 2006 for a total increase of 440%, it has not enriched provincial coffers. According to the Pembina Institute, Alberta tarsand royalties declined by 32% between 1996 and 2005.
Alberta's new premier, Ed Stelmach, has promised a full and transparent review of the outdated royalty regime this year. And few doubt that the province will eventually insist on a higher and fairer share of tarsands wealth. "But even with a more aggressive royalty structure, Alberta remains company-friendly," says Rubin. "The companies have no other place to go."
The Natural Gas Pit
At one time, the oilpatch used one barrel of conventional oil to find 100 more--a tidy energy profit ratio. The tarsands, a thoroughly unconventional product, make a mockery of such accounting and boast a net energy intensity two to three times that of conventional heavy oil. As a consequence, it now takes the energy equivalent of one barrel of oil to create two barrels of oil from the tarsands.
Much of this energy comes from natural gas, a relatively clean fuel used to steam up the tar or upgrade the carbon-heavy pitch into a marketable product. According to a 2005 report by the Pembina Institute, the industry daily consumes more than half a billion cubic feet of natural gas, or "enough to heat 3.2 million Canadian homes per day." (In 2006, industry consumption actually surpassed a billion cubic feet daily and partly accounted for falling gas exports to the U.S.) By 2012, the tarsands will burn enough natural gas each day to heat every home in Canada.
Given that experts say Canada has only a nine-year supply of proven natural gas reserves left (undiscovered and unconventional reserves might extend that timeline, but with large environmental costs), former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed has described the natural gas addiction in the tarsands as a waste of a "valuable resource." Houston investment banker Simmons, author of Twilight In The Desert (a look at Saudi Arabia's dwindling oil reserves) is even more blunt: "If I were a Canadian, I'd make it illegal to use precious natural gas and potable freshwater to turn gold into lead in the tarsands." His recommendations for policy-makers are equally stark: go slow, charge for water, cap tarsands production and "find some other way to produce this atrocious resource other than using scarce natural gas....To get more addicted to the tarsands doesn't make any sense to me."
Although alternative sources of energy are being developed (such as burning bitumen or coke to create gas as a fuel source), most are more carbon-intensive, with the exception of nuclear energy. To replace natural gas use in the tarsands with nuclear power would require nearly a decade of planning, hellish political controversy and as many as 16 Candu 6 reactors. Yet Gary Lewis, a tarsands engineer and member of Fort McMurray-based Environmentalists for Nuclear Power, argues that such a change would "reduce CO¸ emissions in accordance with Kyoto and not harm gas and oil production in Alberta."
The Water Wall
The tarsands drink water unlike any other petroleum resource in the world. It currently takes two to five barrels of water to wash two tonnes of sand and clay in order to make one barrel of oil. Each year the industry withdraws enough water from the Athabasca River to service two cities the size of Calgary. That consumption could soon double, with significant consequences for the entire Mackenzie River Basin, a region already experiencing accelerated drying from climate change. Shell's Albian Sands project, for example, needs 55 million cubic metres of water every year--the equivalent of about 30,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools--and will "contribute to reductions in available fish habitat," according to the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Even the National Energy Board, an agency not know for its environmental rhetoric, has repeatedly warned that the limited amount of water available in the Athabasca River "could be a constraint on future expansion plans." After seven years of study, the Alberta government has failed to establish how much water the threatened river needs to support fish.
Nearly 90% of the water withdrawn from the Athabasca River ends up in toxic tailings ponds the size of small lakes in Ontario's cottage country. These toxic lakes currently cover 50 square kilometres of forest and could fill Lake Erie up to a depth of 20 centimetres in toxic waste. Until China completes its Three Gorges dam in 2008, the world's largest dam (in volume) will remain Syncrude's Tailing Dam, the U.S. Department of the Interior reports. It holds 540 million cubic metres of water, heavy metals, bitumen and sand. It's also an 18-kilometre-long holding tank for such fish killers as naphthenic acids and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The National Energy Board calls the management of these toxic lakes "daunting," while the Alberta Chamber of Resources, a group representing mining and logging interests, has concluded that "current practices for long-term storage of 'fluid' fine tailings pose a risk to the oilsands industry." Even the business-friendly Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada calls the large tailings ponds "a major concern for the long-term protection of the Athabasca River and downstream water users." Aboriginal groups representing scores of First Nations communities downstream have repeatedly called for a moratorium on further water withdrawals.
The Carbon Cauldron
A variety of analysts and critics have called climate change a pirate ship in the fog for the tarsands industry. In 2000, the tarsands produced 23 megatonnes of greenhouse-gas emissions. (The mines smoked out 80 pounds of carbon per barrel, while underground thermal operations produced up to 160 pounds per barrel.) By 2015, the industry will likely produce 108 megatonnes. According to the Pembina Institute, the oilsands currently represent the fastest-growing point source of carbon emissions in Canada. By 2020, emissions could rise as high as 141 megatonnes. "I think the CO¸ issue will be the real issue for these guys at the end of the day," says CIBC chief economist Rubin.
Thanks partly to rapid tarsands development, Canada has the third-most-energy-intensive and fourth-most-carbon-intensive economy in the 25-member Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In 2006, the environment commissioner, in the office of the auditor general, found widespread confusion, uncertainty and "inadequate leadership, planning and performance" in Canada's climate-change response. The program to reduce pollution among 700 companies, including tarsands operators, the so-called Large Final Emitters System, has so far failed to reduce overall emissions let alone report in a "real, measurable and verifiable" manner, said the environment commissioner. As she noted, Canada's carbon clouds are 26.6 larger than than they were in 1990, and fall way below Kyoto targets. Even the U.S. Energy Information Administration concluded in its "2006 Country Analysis Brief" that Canada's carbon-loving ways are a political liability and have "led to serious environmental concerns, primarily regarding air pollution and climate change."
Oil exports driven by tarsands production have also played a major role in rising carbon levels, Environment Canada reports. Between 1990 and 2004, oil exports grew by 513%--or almost 10 times the rate of growth of oil production. As a result, the amount of carbon due to net oil or gas exports grew from 22 megatonnes in 1990 to 48 megatonnes in 2004.
Alex Farrell, an energy expert at the University of California in Berkeley, notes that the transition from conventional sources to increasingly lower-grade products such as what is produced from the tarsands ultimately comes with "increased risks of environmental damage, as well as other risks." Farrell calculates the tarsands produce anywhere between 30% to 70% more carbon emissions than conventional oil. In the absence of any policy to control those emissions, he says, petroleum buyers may soon ask: "Are we responsible for those emissions, and do we want to buy that fuel?" In fact, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the trend-setting state of California, is already demanding low-carbon fuels.
For the world's newly emerging low-carbon marketplace, tarsands companies plan to bury carbon in old oilfields, as well as trade emission credits overseas. Shell's Albian Sands project has already announced that it will reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2010. Nuclear power is also seen as a carbon-reducing tool. But in a carbon-restrained world, Rubin, like other analysts, asks who will profit most: "The shareholders of tarsand companies or the owners of emission credits?"
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/
February 17, 2007
The New Climate Almanac
Globe and Mail Update
17-Feb-2007
Internet Links
Climate change: Globe stories, photos, interactive graphics and maps, audio clips, discussions, and more
The implications of climate change can be overwhelming. They touch every field, from science to economics to culture. Our New Climate Almanac 2007 breaks down the complexity with a concise miscellany of the latest ideas, facts and predictions.
ACID SEAS
Pumping carbon dioxide into the air changes the climate, but that's hardly the end of the story. Eventually, about half of the gas is absorbed by the oceans (since burning fossil fuels began in earnest, roughly the weight of 140 million Volkswagen Beetles), and it makes the water more acidic. This is not a good idea for creatures that depend on shells, which an acid bath could start to dissolve. And Britain's Royal Society has issued a report predicting that, even if emissions are reduced, coral may become a rare commodity. — Martin Mittelstaedt
AL GORE EFFECT, THE
According to urbandictionary.com, this is "the phenomenon that leads to unseasonably cold temperatures, driving rain, hail, or snow whenever Al Gore visits an area to discuss global warming." It was spotted in New York City in 2004 and again in Australia last November, when his arrival there on his "Inconvenient Truth" tour was marked by an unexpected late-winter snowstorm.
It happened in Canada this year, sort of, when tickets to a Feb. 21 speech by Mr. Gore at the University of Toronto went on sale — on the coldest Feb. 7 on record for downtown Toronto. — Peter Scowen
ASSISTED MIGRATION
When the Earth shifted from icy to tropical periods in the past, fossil records show that species shifted too. Today, climate change is moving the butterflies of Europe northward — as well as holly plants in Britain.
But what happens to those that can't move, or that find major cities or highways block their way? Enter assisted migration, a sort of emergency-relief service that springs species from global warming danger zones.
Such an interventionist approach is not without controversy, however. The key issue: how to deal with naturally invasive species that reproduce quickly and can adapt easily to a new environment. Moving beavers is out, for instance, since they drastically alter their surroundings.
"If you aren't careful," Jessica Hellman says, "you could release a species that could do more harm than good."
The researcher at the University of Notre Dame, who started thinking about assisted migration while she was doing work on endangered species on Vancouver Island, is about publish a paper framing the debate in the journal Conservation Biology. — Anne McIlroy
BEHIND THE CARBON CURTAIN
By mid-afternoon most days, the giant traffic circle serving Belorusskaya railway station in central Moscow is hopelessly gridlocked, and the number of luxury cars trapped with all the aging Lada clunkers is growing steadily. Despite President Vladimir Putin's stated commitment to Kyoto, environmental issues barely impinge on the public consciousness.
Mark Ames, an American who has lived in Moscow since 1993, says Russians either don't connect what spews out their tailpipes with the fact that December was the warmest in recent memory, or to them "it's like global warming is a tragic fate" because "they learn from a young age they have no effect on anything."
This indifference has global consequences. According to Greenpeace Russia, worldwide carbon-dioxide emissions would be slashed by 3 per cent if Soviet-era, gas-fired power plants were brought up to European standards.
China's contribution to global warming is also a big worry — but few outsiders realize just how much the world's most populous nation is a victim of the changing climate. Virtually all of its glaciers show signs of substantial melting, which will increase the risk of floods and, in the long term, could reduce its water supply dramatically. According to one report, major crops such as rice, wheat and corn could be reduced by 37 per cent in this century.
Experts predict the Yellow River will be severely affected, and last year the mighty Yangtze was at its lowest level in 140 years.
As well, heat could make it easier for infectious diseases to spread, and rising sea levels will heighten the risk of coastal flooding. — Paul Tadich and Geoffrey York
BIG APPLE, DUNKING OF THE
If sea levels continue to rise as predicted, the Big Apple will be 50 centimetres closer to getting dunked by 2050. Much of New York City is only three metres above sea level, so it is susceptible to storm surges — walls of water pushed onto land when low pressure and high winds converge. In December, 1992, a fierce Nor'easter delivered a 2.3-metre storm surge, flooding the city's tunnels and subways. A nine-metre surge could flood parts of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and Manhattan; waste-treatment plants would back up and fragile ecosystems would be decimated.
Malcolm Bowman, head of the Storm Surge Research Group at Stony Brook University, is recommending that the city adapt to long-term climate change by installing flood barriers at strategic points — the Verrazano Narrows, Throgs Neck and the Arthur Kill — to save lives and millions of dollars.
Worldwide, these barriers are becoming commonplace. The Thames River Barrier has protected London from flooding since 1984. Italy plans to complete the installation of a series of inflatable pontoons to protect the Venice Lagoon by 2011. But in New York, Prof. Bowman doesn't expect construction to begin soon
"I think it will take a catastrophe," he says. "People will drown and Wall Street will flood." — Hannah Hoag
BOREAL BONFIRE
If you turn up the thermostat, it stands to reason that wood will catch fire.
In fact, the boreal forest, the world's most important carbon saver, is already getting smoked, says Mike Flannigan, a senior research scientist with the Canadian Forest Service.
In the 1970s, about a million hectares of Canadian forest burned annually. By 2000, the national total reached a high of three million hectares, or an area half the size of Nova Scotia. By the end of this century, Canada could lose twice that — equivalent to all of Nova Scotia — every year.
This gathering inferno will have dire consequences for the $40-billion forest industry, as well as a surprising environmental impact. For instance, boreal peat bogs contain 15 times more mercury than forest soils do, so intense blazes could release extremely high amounts of the neurotoxin into the atmosphere.
And, of course, burning forests no longer serve as carbon savers. In the past 40 years, forest fires have released carbon equal to 20 per cent of the nation's fossil-fuel pollution. — Andrew Nikiforuk
CALLED IT
The weather was a hobby for the British steam engineer who gets the credit for first linking smokestacks to warmer winters — in 1938. Guy Stewart Callendar fastidiously tracked temperatures in his spare time, and his numbers showed that the world had been heating up for the previous four decades. His theory, based on the research of earlier scientists who had been ignored, argued that human CO2 production was making the temperatures rise. His claims were pooh-poohed: "The idea that a man's actions could influence so vast a complex," he wrote, "is very repugnant to some." — Erin Anderssen
CARBON CREDIT CARDS
Small plastic cards have become an inextricable part of our lives — bank cards, credit cards, loyalty cards, air-miles cards. Within the decade, Brits (and then, perhaps, others) may be swiping one more card — a carbon credit card — to purchase airline tickets or gasoline, or to pay an energy bill. Each citizen would receive a carbon allowance to use or to sell to others; the national carbon allotment would drop annually, reducing emissions over time. "It gives carbon a currency and stimulates carbon consciousness," says Simon Roberts, chief executive for the Centre for Sustainable Energy, which carried out a feasibility study for the British government. — Hannah Hoag
CARBON-CREDIT SPECULATION
Speculators who have no clue about life on the farm can nonetheless make a profit or lose a bundle from investing in futures contracts that promise delivery of frozen pork bellies at some later date. In the same way, the Chicago Climate Exchange is building toward the day when investors will be able to buy and sell greenhouse-gas-emissions credits, as part of an effort to establish a market that would finance the most efficient reductions.
At the three-year-old Chicago exchange, members ranging from Ford Motor Co. to Manitoba Hydro pledge in a voluntary but legally binding contract to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases by a certain amount over a period of years. They can choose to reduce their own emissions or to purchase credits from other members who have exceeded their own targets. Or else they buy from so-called aggregators, who amass credits from individuals or companies that have cut emissions.
One dairy farmer from Minnesota, for example, earned $10,000 by selling credits that he earned by capturing methane from an animal-waste lagoon.
In Canada, the Montreal Exchange is hoping to mimic the success in Chicago, but is still waiting for federal rules that might encourage a market to develop. — Shawn McCarthy
CLIMATE PORN
The language sometimes used to describe global warming is tantamount to "climate porn," according to two linguistic experts in Britain. Gill Ereaut and Nat Segnit were hired by the Institute for Public Policy Research to study how climate change is being communicated and discussed. They say advocates and the media are adopting tones familiar from disaster movies, and are depicting climate change "as awesome, terrible, immense and beyond control." This may be "secretly thrilling," they say, but ineffective, since it leaves people feeling that there is nothing that they can do. — Anne McIlroy
CLIMATE REFUGEES
As the climate changes, so will the world and, for many people, not for the better. It won't be long before "environmental refugees" outnumber those displaced by war and genocide — scientists predict that by 2050 as many as 200 million people will be displaced. Long-term, scientists are concerned about the potential for coastal flooding of densely populated regions, such as New York and Bangladesh. Meanwhile, the sea is creeping up on low-lying islands, especially in the South Pacific.
"Tuvalu will suffer in the future, but very slowly," says Brian Cannon, a former resident of the island now living in Vancouver. The Tuvaluan government is trying to plan for an evacuation, but as yet they have not secured a home for the 11,000 islanders.
But more immediate is the threat of droughts, which could turn huge tracts of the Earth into desert. "Desertification is one of the greatest environmental threats we face today," says Zafar Adeel, director of the International Network on Water, Environment and Health at the United Nations University in Hamilton. "Currently, 100 to 200 million people are affected by desertification, and about 2.1 billion people are at risk."
He says sub-Saharan Africa and central Asia, such as "the five 'Stans,'." will suffer some of the worst effects from climate change, and they lack the resources and infrastructure to cope. Water shortages are guaranteed to spark violent conflicts around the world, similar to the drought-related violence in Darfur, Dr. Adeel says.
"Addressing desertification is one of the most effective ways to deal with climate change — you get the biggest bang for your buck. Unfortunately," Dr. Adeel adds, "there is a lack of understanding on the part of policy-makers." At the last meeting of its international contributors, the UN's land-degradation convention had its budget cut 15 per cent. — Zoe Cormier
COOKING THE CARBON BOOKS
Carbon offsets have become a booming industry — but the concept isn't without controversy. Offsets let companies and individuals counter their CO2 emissions by buying credits from projects such as wind farms and tree-planting companies, which cut the amount of dioxide in the atmosphere, in order to become "carbon neutral."
But environmental groups such as Carbon Trade Watch say offsetting is little more than a licence to keep polluting. And some offsetting projects may do more harm than good. In 2002, the popular band Coldplay said it would offset the environmental costs of putting out its second album by planting 10,000 mango trees in southern India. Journalists discovered last year that almost half the trees had died. Some offsetting projects in developing countries have caused forced resettlements and old-growth forests to be cut.
Last month, Britain launched an inquiry, aiming to be the first country to establish offsetting standards. Closer to home, Vancouver City Savings Credit Union said it plans to go carbon-neutral by 2010 — and that it will buy only credits that are Canadian and transparent and meet the credit union's criteria for lower emissions.
"There's a lack of information" about overseas projects, says Amanda Pitre-Hayes, the senior sustainability-programs manager at Vancity. "We want to bring in local verifiers, who help us understand the full impact that our investment is having." — Tavia Grant
CRADLE TO CRADLE DESIGN
Imagine if the byproducts of buildings and industrial processes were beneficial fuels instead of pollution and garbage. That's the idea behind Cradle to Cradle, a philosophy developed by green-architecture guru William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart that's about more than simply reducing environmental harm. The pair advocate moving from our current "cradle to grave" patterns, where resources are used up and products ultimately get buried in a dump, to regenerative architecture and materials that mimic nature, where the waste of one organism provides fuel for another. One example is a solar-powered building with a green roof that purifies air and water while serving its inhabitants. Another is organic, compostable textiles that enrich the earth when they're thrown away. As McDonough likes to say, "Waste equals food." — Tim McKeough
CULTURAL CLIMATE
"We hear about climate change, but we don't think it really affects us," says Linda Mackay, founder of the Polar Artists Group. "There is an urgency to show how fragile the Arctic is." And that is the mission of climate art.
During the International Polar Year (March, 2007, to March, 2008), artists and scientists will collaborate to promote awareness of the polar regions and record the effects of climate change. The PAG is one of several international artists' groups that are patrolling the globe and documenting global warming using paint, photography, sound and installation art.
For four years, the Cape Farewell Project has invited artists to the High Arctic. Many of these works have been compiled in a book, Burning Ice: Art & Climate Change. And in San Francisco, climate-art activists tacked a seven-metre "waterline" around the Aquarium of the Bay — one of the many buildings near the city's famed Fisherman's Wharf — with emergency tape printed with blue waves. "Art can bring those future consequences into today's world," says the Sierra Club's Eric Antebi, who organized the event in partnership with the San Francisco environment department. — Hannah Hoag
DESMOGGING THE BLOGOSPHERE
There are those who call global warming a big hoax, which so irked Vancouver public-relations consultant Jim Hoggan that he decided to fight back. Believing that those denying the existence of climate change were using unscrupulous PR tactics to confuse and befog the public, he founded DeSmogBlog to turn the tables.
So, www.desmogblog.com keeps a running list of prominent skeptics, or "deniers," and puts their credentials under a microscope. Who uses the site? Mr. Hoggan says the most frequent hits come from Calgary, Ottawa and Washington, D.C. — Martin Mittelstaedt
ECO-TOON AGIT-PROP
Does the best hope of saving the Earth rest in hands of sixth-graders? Environmental groups are relying on kids to unleash what advertisers call the "nag factor" — only instead of badgering their parents for iPods and Game Boys, they will bug them to turn down the thermostat.
Kids are the perfect way to influence energy-guzzling adults — they're idealistic, they watch heaps of television and they whine. They'll watch the DVD of The Hedge, with its not-so-subtle attack on urban sprawl, 10 times in a weekend. They'll drag their moms and dads to the theatre to sympathize with the plight of the dancing penguins in the movie Happy Feet.
Maria Ellingson is a campaign director at the Alliance to Save Energy in the U.S., which has developed a multimedia marketing strategy around the Energy Hog, a villainous pig that gleefully invades wasteful homes. In an online game, kids can defeat the Hog and his gang by clicking off lights; the website urges them to get their dads to insulate the attic. "Kids like feeling like they're smarter than their parents," Ms. Ellingson says.
But creating the next generation of conservationists is not without controversy. This month, Scholastic announced plans to publish a kids' book on climate change written by the producer of Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth. The conservative World Ahead Publishing immediately launched an open call for manuscripts to "debunk the fabrication, hysteria and anti-growth agenda propagated by the far left." In the politics of climate change, even sixth graders can be pawns. — Erin Anderssen
EMPTY RICE BOWLS
Because of global warming, the food supply for more than half of the world's population could be in jeopardy. Shallow waters such as rice paddies heat up quickly, and that can stunt the growth of the plant. According to Kenneth Cassman, director of the Nebraska Center for Energy Sciences Research, an increase of just one degree in nighttime summer temperatures could lead to a 10-per-cent drop in rice yield. Scientists around the world are scrambling to breed new rice varieties better able to cope with the effects of climate change, including heat waves, droughts and floods. Meanwhile, anybody want a Wheat Krispie square? — Zoe Cormier
FLY THE FRIENDLY SEAS
Marine shipping burns up 5.5 million barrels of oil a day, 80 per cent of it high-emission heavy fuel oil. So German company SkySails is turning back the clock with its "towing kite system." An enormous, precision-guided sail unfurls once a vessel reaches cruising speed, leveraging wind power to cut fuel consumption (and greenhouse-gas emissions) by half.
If the kite really catches on, the company reckons it could reduce carbon emissions by 146 million tons a year. — Chris Turner
GEO-ENGINEERING
If it gets really hot, we can always build a volcano. Or at least mimic the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. In 1991 it spewed so much sulphur into the atmosphere that the Earth cooled 0.5 degrees in a year.
That's because sulphur particles act like tiny mirrors, deflecting light and heat back into space. Which is why Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen has proposed scattering the particles in the upper atmosphere — either with artillery guns or a fleet of high-altitude balloons — at a cost of $25-billion to $50-billion (U.S).
In case global warming hits faster and harder than expected (by the end of this century, temperatures could rise 1.7 to 4 degrees over 1980 levels), scientists have pitched other large-scale engineering schemes to deflect sunlight as well.
These include deploying silver balloons in the upper atmosphere, sending 55,000 mirrors, each bigger than Manhattan, into space or pumping CO2 deep into the ocean.
Or perhaps John Bennett at the Sierra Club has it right: It may be easier just to burn less oil, coal and gas. — Anne McIlroy
GREENING OF GREENLAND, THE
As global warming takes hold, the world's largest island could start living up to its name.
When settled by Erik the Red around 980, the southern fringes were indeed green, although it is often claimed the name was just false advertising to lure more colonists from Iceland.
Today, the place is 85 per cent covered by ice, more than three kilometres thick in places, but the Norse farmed there with some success for more than four centuries before mysteriously disappearing during the Little Ice Age, a long cold spell that began in the 1500s.
The island has about 60 farmers, and climate change has them grinning. Temperatures have risen only about one degree, but the growing season is two weeks longer. Not enough to make it the Vineland of yore, but maybe enough to add apples, broccoli and strawberries to the potatoes being grown. — Martin Mittelstaedt
GREENWASHING
A recent Hummer commercial depicts an assembly line running to the soundtrack of trilling birds and crickets, a mechanical arm inserting bolts in time with the chirping of a tree frog. The environment has become the auto and oil industries' version of the "scantily clad beer babe," says Chris MacDonald, a business-ethics professor at Saint Mary's University.
The term "greenwashing" was coined in the 1990s to describe misleading eco-friendly advertising by corporations with poor environmental records. So a car company might boast about producing a handful of hybrid SUVs. An oil company might runs TV ads with vistas of windmills twisting in corn fields.
Expect the green-is-good sales pitch to become more prominent in advertising campaigns as concerns about climate change grow among consumers.
Companies obviously think that it works, Dr. MacDonald says, and in some cases it might be a first step to better environmental practices. "But if you're turning over a new leaf," he says, "you might want to turn it over, before you brag about it." — Erin Anderssen
GROW YOUR OWN HOME
A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a tree house for grownups — a proper home constructed almost entirely from living trees and plants.
The "Fab Tree Hab" uses an ancient gardening technique called pleaching — where live tree branches are woven together to form lattice structures — to literally grow a building from the ground up.
"This stuff has been around for centuries," says Mitchell Joachim, one of the architects behind the project. "Our only contribution that's really innovative is adding an element of computation to it."
The technology in question is called rapid prototyping. This allows computer users to print digital designs as three-dimensional forms — which then become templates that guide growing trees into a desired base shape. Soil, vines and other plants can then be woven into the framework to create exterior walls. Clay and straw composites are used to finish the interior.
While such biotecture may seem far-fetched, the team says the tools to build a tree house already exist. And Mr. Joachim has an idea for its initial real-world application: a carport. "It could protect your Hummer or SUV," he says, "and account for the damage it's doing to the environment." — Tim McKeough
HIP SUSTAINABILITY
If you ask Graham Hill, the Canadian founder of treehugger.com, sustainability issues have long suffered from an image problem. "The green movement was represented by the hippies," he says. "The hippies are great, but they're a really small part of the market. If green living is going to be big — and it needs to be big and mainstream — it has to be really compelling."
As a result, Hill and his ironically named blog are leading the charge to make sustainability hip, along with similar websites like inhabitat.com and worldchanging.com. "I figured there was a lot of cool green stuff out there, and thought that if you could aggregate it, you could really help people visualize a green future," he says.
A look at the data indicates that his approach is working. Technorati recently ranked Treehugger as the 50th most popular blog on the web (out of more than 60 million). In January alone, the site was visited by more than a million unique users. Hill even turned up in a photo spread in Vanity Fair's green issue last year. Still, he's staying focussed on his original objective. "At the end of the day, it's about environmental content," he says, "not gadgets or celebrity or sex." — Tim McKeough
HOT PROPERTIES
Forget any midday suntanning on the Mediterranean coast. In fact, forget walking in the midday sun along the luxury shoreline — worst-case scenarios predict scorching temperatures, water shortages and jellyfish invasions. For the perfect tan a century from now, you might be better off spreading your blanket atop the cliffs of Dover.
Of course, predicting what regions will be good and bad bets for investment and travel in a hotter future is not so simple. Hadi Dowlatabadi, an environmental professor at the University of British Columbia, points out that rich countries will adapt better than poor ones. The mansions will always fare better than the slums, regardless of how low they sit at sea level.
But it's a good bet that coveted coastal property will become more risky and expensive, as insurance costs rise and infrastructure needs upgrading. In Richmond, B.C., residents may need dikes within several decades, and Vancouver may be searching for a new airport. On Prince Edward Island, live inland. On the East Coast, they had better brace for a swell of hurricanes, and you may want to avoid Florida entirely. And as for the vacation home, best not to buy one that requires a flight on an airplane; those CO2 taxes might break the bank. — Erin Anderssen
HOUSES OF HORRORS
Buildings, not the cars in their parking lots, are the largest contributors to global warming. That puts architects and their clients on the hot seat for the devastation of the environment — and has pushed sustainable design to the forefront at the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada.
According to RAIC president Vivian Manasc, an Edmonton-based architect who is an authority on green design, whether you are "building buildings, operating buildings, heating them, cooling them, making the materials that go into them, or demolishing them," the built environment accounts for 48 per cent of greenhouse-gas emissions.
Still, that urgent reality didn't stop the government from cutting the Commercial Building Incentive Program last month — the only federally sponsored program to fund energy-performance innovations in commercial design.
In response, Ms. Manasc is pushing for an immediate goods and services tax rebate for building owners who can demonstrate a 50-per-cent energy reduction below current energy codes. She would also like to see changes to the building codes themselves, but she warns that this process could take 10 years — providing too little too late for the environment.
There is currently $35-billlion to $40-billion in building projects on the boards or under construction, including hospitals, schools, housing projects and multi-family residential units. — Lisa Rochon
HYPER-EVOLUTION, POTENTIAL OF
Will global warming speed the pace of evolution as plants and animals adapt to a hotter world? Scientists such as Andrew McAdamÖ, a Canadian researcher at Michigan State University, say they don't know the answer to that question — but there is evidence that changes are already occurring.
A 10-year study he and his colleagues did near Kluane Lake reveals that, because of rising temperatures, red squirrels are now having babies in late April instead of mid-May. The change is at least in part genetic — the offspring of mothers who gave birth earlier in the season have daughters who do the same — making this the first mammal to evolve in response to climate change.
However, even if this doesn't prove the tipping point for hyper-evolution, prepare yourself for a weedier world. Weeds (as well as pests) may be able to adapt more quickly to a changing environment because they often have shorter life cycles and can go through many generations in rapid time. — Anne McIlroy
IMAGINING THE AFTERMATH
For climate-change science fiction, 2004 was a bumper-crop year: Michael Crichton's skeptical State of Fear, a novel about a global-warming conspiracy, and Roland Emmerich's abrupt-climate-change movie The Day After Tomorrow were crowd-pleasers, though scientists criticized the science in each as faulty at best, misleading at worst.
Climate fiction isn't a new phenomenon, says James Gunn, an author and director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas. It began to make its mark in the 1920s, when Will F. Jenkins wrote Mad Planet under the pen name Murray Leinster: The book imagines an Earth with elevated carbon-dioxide levels where vegetation grows to such heights that it overpowers humans.
Anna Kavan (Ice, 1967), Ernest Callenbach (Ecotopia, 1975), J.G. Ballard (The Drowned World, 1962), Bruce Sterling (Heavy Weather, 1995), Ronald Wright (A Scientific Romance, 1997), Norman Spinrad (Greenhouse Summer, 1999) and Mark Tushingham (Hotter than Hell, 2006) followed with novels that describe the social consequences of a frozen/wet/hot Earth.
Mr. Tushingham, who is also an Ottawa environmental scientist, says he aimed for accuracy, but the story is about the human implications of climate change. "Hopefully it is just a work of fiction," he says. — Hannah Hoag
JESUS LOVES CARBON REDUCTION
The latest push for action on climate change in the U.S. is not coming from any of the usual suspects. Religious groups across the country have taken on the issue as their own, particularly some camps of evangelical Christians. "The Republican Party is 40 per cent evangelical, so we have the capacity to move policy-makers who have until now resisted any action," says Rev. Richard Cizik, a vice-president of the National Association of Evangelicals.
In perhaps the first coalition of its kind, the NAE and other evangelical organizations have teamed with scientists to collectively lobby Washington on climate change. One key selling point will ring a bell for other evangelicals: "Climate change is a sanctity-of-life issue," Mr. Cizik says. "We have taken seriously the consequences of taking unborn human life — we need to be just as serious about taking advantage of this Earth."
The crisis, he says, is not simply an environmental and humanitarian concern — it is also a spiritual one. "If we, the evangelical Christians, are willing to stand by and witness the destruction of creation, then something about our own capacity to see the truth has become deadened. We dare not tempt the Lord." — Zoe Cormier
JESUS LOVES GLOBAL WARMING
Though some Christians say they must act as stewards of the Earth and prevent climate change, not all of the faithful think alike. In a school district in Seattle, controversy erupted recently over the screening of the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth in a seventh-grade science class.
Some parents objected to the film's message, with one outraged father dismissing it as "propagandist" and demanding a "balance" of alternative viewpoints. And just what alternatives would he like his daughter's class to hear? A warming planet, he suggested to the local school board, is "one of the signs" of the imminent return of Jesus Christ on Judgment Day. Such objections led, briefly, to a local ban on the film.
The incident also triggered a flood of calls and e-mails from across the country, accusing the school board of scientific ignorance. Eugenie Scott, director of the California-based National Center for Science Education — a veteran of the ongoing battles over evolution in U.S. schools, says the argument feels familiar: Public understanding of science is at risk, she says, "when ideological views are given preference over the empirical data." — Dan Falk
KYOTO, MY OWN PRIVATE
Just by breathing, the average person emits one kilogram of carbon dioxide a day. A round-trip flight from Vancouver to Toronto can release 0.73 tonnes of the greenhouse gas per person, according to websites such as www.climatecare.org.
But some people are doing more than just estimating their carbon footprints. In the past year, a small but growing number of Britons have formed "carbon rationing action groups" (CRAGs), whose members agree on an annual emissions target, or "carbon ration." Most groups are going for 4.5 tonnes per person a year, compared with the national average of five tonnes. Then they record household energy use, and private car and plane travel. At the end of the year, anyone over the limit pays into the CRAG "carbon fund" — usually 4 or 5 pence (9 to 11 cents) per extra kilogram.
Making lifestyle changes can be tough. "We're already seeing Kyoto-type negotiations in miniature in the groups," CRAG member Andy Ross tells The London Observer. "It underlines how difficult it will be [for countries] to cut emissions if we can't get 10 people to agree across a table." — Michael Kesterton
LAST-CHANCE TOURISM
The thawing of Canada's Arctic has contributed to a mini-boom in tourism in Nunavut and Nunavik (Quebec's Arctic region), as curious travellers rush to see the north before it changes. Cruise North, a three-year-old, Inuit-held company, runs 10 summer cruises on the 122-passenger ship Lyubov Orlova in the Eastern Arctic. It expects demand to double this season.
"Bookings have been very strong and there is certainly an element of curiosity and concern for the environment on the part of most of our guests," Cruise North president Dugald Wells says. "People call us and ask if the polar bears are okay, and if they will see any on their cruise. They will see bears for sure, but we don't know how healthy their population will be in the future."
What they may not see is sea ice. "Up until five years ago, there was always sea ice at the entrance to Cumberland Sound as late as early August," he says. "Now, it's gone by the time we cruise through there the first week of that month."
A popular trip to Baffin Island last year was themed "Polar Bears on Thin Ice," and was led by environmental activist and Inuit leader Sheila Watt-Cloutier. In 2008, Cruise North will host a 12-day expedition by an international group of environmental activists and scientists as part of a 15-month project called Polar Catalyst. — Laszlo Buhasz
MICRO-ECO-NOMICS
Harish Hande emerged from graduate school in India eager to test his doctoral dissertation's hypothesis. So he founded a company to bring non-polluting solar power to the tiny villages of the southern state of Karnataka.
"SELCO basically started with three myths," Mr. Hande says. "The three myths being that poor people cannot afford technology, poor people cannot maintain technology, and you cannot run a social venture commercially."
To get the first of Karnataka's rural banks to help with the financing, Mr. Hande literally had to camp out on the front stoop until the manager caved. A decade later, with 23 branch offices, 140 employees and more than 30,000 small-scale photovoltaic panels installed, the company has debunked all three myths, using ultra-flexible microcredit financing to bring sustainable light and power to pre-industrial villages.
Now, kids can study in the evening and entrepreneurial women can run their sewing machines; some customers have even turned themselves into tiny independent electric companies, selling the energy they produce to neighbours. — Chris Turner
MOULDY HISTORY
It's not just the polar bears and butterflies that are at risk in a warmer world, but Mauritanian mosques, Spanish churches and the graveyards of Arctic whalers. Besides threatening the world's natural wonders, climate change threatens to flood, rot and erode away some of its most significant history. Termites, lichens and moulds may spread and thrive in new regions, eating away at old timbers and masking stone buildings and prehistoric paintings. Creeping deserts, rising sea levels and melting permafrost also put artifacts at risk.
"We need to be able to understand what impact climate change will have on cultural heritage so we can make the right decisions," says May Cassar, director of the Centre for Sustainable Heritage at University College London and a partner in the Noah's Ark Project, which has produced a series of maps that lay out the hazards to cultural heritage in various climate scenarios. "But we have to look beyond Europe and do the same for the other regions of the world."
Still, the conservation community is beginning to recognize that some historical buildings and sites may be history, Ms. Cassar admits. "We may have to leave some sites to their fate." — Hannah Hoag
NEGAWATTS
For years, Rocky Mountain Institute guru Amory Lovins preached the benefits of "negawatts" — how investing in energy efficiency is not only environmentally sound but economically smart.
Once seen as something of a counter-culture figure, Mr. Lovins has gone mainstream of late, winning contracts to advise companies such as Wal-Mart and San Diego Gas & Electric on how to reduce energy demand and lower their greenhouse-gas emissions.
He persuaded Wal-Mart to invest in more efficient trucks, so that by 2015 the world's largest retailer will have a fleet that consumes half the fuel the current one does, saving $300-million (U.S.) a year.
Unlike many environmentalists, Mr. Lovins argues that market economics, not government fiat, will lead society to a more sustainable path. "Decisive evidence will emerge that stabilizing the Earth's climate is not costly, but profitable," he wrote recently in The Economist, "because saving fuel costs less than buying it." — Shawn McCarthy
NOT-SO PERMAFROST
One of climate change's big nightmares is the melting of the permafrost, the vast polar expanse of ever-frozen ground. The thaw has already caused houses to collapse in some Arctic areas and introduced the North to the "drunken forest" of toppling trees. But what makes the melt truly scary is the vast quantity of methane (natural gas) that is trapped in the permafrost's icy depths.
Methane packs an extra wallop when it comes to global warming. Each molecule is more than 20 times as powerful a warming gas as carbon dioxide, and there is so much of the stuff, it could rival the impact of man-made greenhouse gases. It could even trigger such a vicious circle — warming that melts more frost and releases more gas — that reducing man-made emissions altogether could fail to stem the tide.
But the melt will cause problems well before that happens. In fact, it could make the long-awaited Mackenzie Valley Pipeline the first mega-project stymied by climate change.
The 1,220-kilometre natural-gas pipeline from Inuvik to Alberta would run through a region that has warmed on average 2.5 degrees since the 1970s. Carleton University geographer Christopher Burn says the impact has been measured 15 metres underground and about 2,000 landslides have occurred in recent years. "If the ice melts and hill slopes lose their strength, the soil may slide down and damage the pipeline."
Even worse, the melting permafrost, combined with rising sea levels and increased coastal storms, in time could submerge the low-lying gas fields supplying the pipeline. An Environment Canada official recently told a public meeting that the climate "poses a serious threat" to the project, and there is now talk of bringing out the gas on giant air ships similar to the ill-fated Hindenberg. — Martin Mittelstaedt, Andrew Nikiforuk
ONE THAT GOT AWAY, THE
Rising temperatures are stretching the fishing season, but that's not welcome news to Canada's ice anglers. They shun open water — and consider hooking trout on a frozen lake or river a social event as much as a sport.
For example, the community that pops up along the Kennebecasis River in Rothesay, N.B., takes great pride in the construction of about 70 wooden ice shacks. The one-room structures are warmed with everything from wood stoves to generators, making it comfortable for fishers to wander from bobhouse to bobhouse sharing tall tales and a few drinks.
However, warmer winters are cutting the time for friendly get-togethers from 10 weeks to as few as six, according to Lloyd Hofford, past president of the Renforth Ice-Fishing Association. The 75-year-old notes that he once could have his shanty on seven-inch ice in the early new year. Now, he's lucky if the surface support is strong enough by the end of January. "In the last three years, it's way late," he says.
Of course, Mr. Hofford and his buddies could gather on the shore and cast lines. But their bonhomie — not to mention their beer — might be a bit chilled in the open air. — Charles Mandel
PAINT-ON SOLAR
For decades, policy-makers have dismissed solar energy, with its rigid, fragile and costly silicon panels, as impractical. But a new generation of scientists is working toward solar cells that are light, flexible and cheap. At the front of the pack is University of Toronto engineer Ted Sargent, who has invented "liquid" solar cells that could be painted onto a portable electronic device or the roof of a building.
Traditional solar cells catch only visible light, but Dr. Sargent's material captures the half of the sun's rays that are infrared. "Even if we could convert only 1 per cent of the sun's infrared power reaching the Earth into useful energy," he says, "we'd still be able to power the Earth's present-day energy needs 50 times over."
Of course, Silicon Valley is the capital of high-tech Next Big Things, and since last spring, a new solar approach has been attracting the kind of interest not seen since the dotcom boom.
Called "thin-film solar," it consists of microscopic photovoltaic cells that are "printed" on sheets of metal a hundred times thinner than conventional silicon cells — so thin they one day may come pre-installed in windows. The cells are set to enter the market in the next couple of years, at a fifth to a tenth the cost of current solar-energy technologies. The early leader appears to be a Valley company called Nanosolar, with seed capital courtesy of Google's founders and a manufacturing plant to open this year in a former Cisco Systems facility in San Jose. "New technology is going to make a difference in solar," founder Martin Roscheisen said, "and that's what we do best here." — Zoe Cormier and Chris Turner
PEE PRINT
Call it an incommodious truth: It turns out that powdering our proverbial noses has a disquieting impact on the environment. Urine is composed of water, salts and proteins. This means that before wastewater is released into a river or lake, chemical nutrients (about 50 to 80 per cent of which come from pee) must be stripped away by a sewage-treatment plant — a process that uses 11.5 watts of power per person. While this is the equivalent of running just two nightlights per person, picture an entire city burning tiny beacons of excess.
But we don't have to flush away energy. Jac Wilsenach, a researcher at the Delft University of Technology, says separating even half of our urine from the sewage stream would save about 25 per cent of the energy used at purification plants. Once urine has been separated (and treated), it can be recycled into fertilizer.
All of which makes a powerful sell for "green latrines" such as the No Mix toilet — currently being tested in Germany, Austria, Sweden and Switzerland. These feature two pipes: One to collect pee and another to collect other waste.
The only downside? To use this johnny, men have to sit down to urinate. (And to some who live with them, even that may be a bonus.) — Julie Traves
PESTS AND PARASITES, THE RISE OF
Insects love the warmth, especially when it allows them to conquer new territory. Witness the dreaded B.C. pine beetle, which has moved steadily north as warmer winters have failed to hit the minus 40 needed to keep it in check. Even so, scientists felt the beetle's inability to fly much higher than the trees it eats would keep it from crossing the Rockies.
Then, while checking out some new radar gear, Peter Jackson, a meteorologist with the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, noticed an echo coming from a "cloud" where there shouldn't have been one. He wondered whether he was seeing something unheard of: a high-altitude swarm of beetles.
An expert in wind flow, he suspected that beetles might be riding updrafts high enough to catch a ride across the mountains. To test his theory, he attached a net to a small plane that flew into the source of the radar echo. When it landed, dozens of beetles were in the net; they had been caught 850 metres above the treetops — 300 metres higher than the CN Tower. Although spread over a vast area, there were millions up there — all heading east. To help Alberta forestry officials prepare a suitable welcome, Mr. Jackson has projected the routes the beetles are taking and where they're likely to land.
Another lover of warm weather is the parasitic lung worm. Not long ago, it had to develop for two years before it could make life miserable for the North's musk-ox. But rising temperatures have cut that time in half, says University of Calgary parasite expert Susan Kutz.
According to University of Alberta biologist Andy Derocher, an explosion of pathogens could well be climate change's biggest "wild card." — Mark Hume and Andrew Nikiforuk
PORTENTS IN THE STARS
Does the zodiac predict climate change? Last year, Indian astrologers warned that Mercury's transit across the sun on Nov. 9 could mean bad news. One forecaster told The Times of India: "Mercury does not work alone. ..... Since Oct. 22, it has been conjoined with Venus, Moon, Mars and Jupiter. The world will therefore face a lot of bad weather, strong winds, global warming and several earthquakes."
South African astrologer Mahesh Bang said the lingering effect of six planets in Libra last October will disrupt the Earth's plates this year, causing the worst catastrophes the planet has ever experienced. Climate change will be intensified, he said, when Saturn enters Leo on July 15. — Michael Kesterton
PUTTING OUT THE STARS
Scientists fear that astronomy with Earth-based telescopes will be almost impossible by 2050, as global warming causes a dramatic increase in cloud cover.
Aircraft condensation trails (contrails) and smog clouds already hamper observations, says Gerry Gilmore, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge.
For years, researchers have charted the growth of air travel and tried to predict its effects; their study last year showed the scale of the problem.
Contrails and global warming feed off each other, Prof. Gilmore says. "Contrails increase global warming and global warming helps larger contrails form." Contrails look wispy and flimsy, "but they can last quite a long time actually — up to a couple of days."
Astronomers can't control the future of cheap airplane transport or of climate change, Prof. Gilmore says. But he warns that you can have cheap holiday flights to popular destinations, or you can have astronomy — but you probably can't have both. — Michael Kesterton
QUARRY FACTOR, THE
Concrete is not only paving over paradise, the process required to make it is dramatically warming the globe.
About 20 billion tons of concrete — made from cement combined with sand, gravel and water — are used every year to construct everything from schools to bridges. The rub: Cement's base paste of limestone and calcium must be heated at 1,500 degrees.
According to Franz-Josef Ulm, an engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this extreme temperature releases roughly two billion tons of carbon dioxide a year. Or the equivalent of driving a car eight trillion kilometres. But changing the way concrete is mixed is tricky. "It is the material most used on this planet, but probably the least known," says Prof. Ulm, who likens the complex, highly dense way in which cement is packed to that of human bone.
So, he and nuclear physicists at MIT are studying the nanoparticles of cement instead of the material itself. Their ambition is to change its geological DNA (possibly replacing calcium with magnesium) to avoid the need to heat cement's base so much.
If this sustainable cement reduces current CO2 emissions by even 20 per cent, Prof. Ulm says, it could meet half of the Kyoto targets. — Lisa Rochon
REEFER MADNESS
Between limestone mining, dynamite fishing and clumsy tourists, we have already lost about a quarter of all coral reefs worldwide. And about half of the remaining reefs are threatened by human activity. But the biggest threat isn't drills, explosives or cruise ships — it's carbon dioxide.
For one thing, corals simply can't take the rising heat that comes from CO2 emissions. Water that is even a bit too warm will cause coral to "bleach," changing it from a vibrant rainbow to a ghostly sea of white. In 1998, one of the hottest years on record, 16 per cent of all reefs bleached. This year is predicted to be even worse. And there's the "acid seas" problem — the extra carbon dioxide being absorbed by the ocean makes it difficult for corals to build their limestone skeletons.
Little surprise, then, that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change thinks Australia's Great Barrier Reef could be "functionally extinct" by 2030. Dire news, since 4,000 species of fish live in a typical reef, along with other organisms.
But there is still hope. Brian Huse, head of the Coral Reef AllianceÖ, says that establishing about 3,500 conservation areas to keep reefs free from pollution reef conservation areas could save them from extinction. "A healthy reef," Mr. Huse says, "is more resilient to the effects of increased temperature." — Zoe Cormier
RENEWABLE REGULATION
There's surely nothing less remarkable than senior bureaucrats who tout the policies of their governments. And so there was Astrid Klug of Germany's Environment Ministry, dutifully informing a crowd of energy mandarins in Mexico City last February that her administration had set "ambitious goals" for its renewable-energy industries, to be enabled by "effective" and "cost-efficient" legislation.
The surprise, though, was that Ms. Klug hinted (modestly) that those goals might be exceeded. For example, drawing 20 per cent of Germany's electricity from renewable sources by 2020 — why not make it 25 per cent? The rate was already 10 per cent, 2006 was shaping up to be a record year, and the country clearly will surpass its 2010 target of 12.5 per cent.
Ms. Klug can afford to boast. Germany's pioneering Renewable Energy Sources Act (best known by its German-language acronym, EEG) has vaulted the country to the front of the renewable ranks in nearly every sector. By obliging German electrical-grid operators to buy power from renewable sources at far above market rates, the EEG has spurred explosive growth since it was passed in 2000 — particularly in solar power, which received an even greater subsidy in a 2004 amendment to the act.
Germany's installed photovoltaic capacity spiked almost 400 per cent from 2003 to the end of 2005, and since Ms. Klug's speech, the three largest solar power plants on the planet have come online — generating power by the megawatt out of all that hot air. — Chris Turner
SEABIRD EMPTY-NEST SYNDROME
The trend is unmistakable. From penguin colonies in Antarctica to auklet rookeries near Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, seabird populations have declined as the temperature of the Pacific has risen.
The ocean's temperature changes whenever El Nino, a warm water current that usually resides off South America, pushes north. In El Nino years, the sea surface warms, cold water upsurges that usually drive nutrients to the surface decline, and plankton production drops. That loss of a link in the food chain soon sparks a crash in seabird populations.
In the spring of 2005, biologists were given a shocking reminder of how closely linked all these factors are. On Triangle Island off the northern tip of Vancouver Island, on Tatoosh Island off the coast of Washington State and on the Farallon Islands west of San Francisco, the ocean warmed, plankton blooms failed to appear and seabirds experienced the most severe nesting failures ever witnessed.
One bad breeding season doesn't spell the end of a colony, but biologists are worried that global warming has started a trend: As surface temperatures go up, bird populations go down. Historically, El Nino has been cyclical, arriving every two to seven years. But global warming could change that and heat the North Pacific permanently. — Mark Hume
SECULAR RAPTURE, THE
If climate change did not exist, we might have to invent it: Humans like to have an apocalypse looming. Since the Second World War, a chorus line of apocalyptic threats has strutted across the stage of global awareness — domino-style communism, nuclear annihilation, the spread of AIDS, millennialism, global terrorism and now climate change.
Each bears all the trademarks of the granddaddy of apocalypses, the one in the Book of Revelation. The New Standard Bible Dictionary defines that apocalypse as the uncovering of the "inner and hidden arrangements of the universe [and] the method and original conditions of the creation, but pre-eminently the future of the world and the destinies of God's people" — exactly what the scientists who study million-year old ice cores have been trying to figure out.
The standard human response in each case has been the same — panic that our survival is threatened, and a blind refusal to believe that our survival is threatened. Ditto the eventual solutions, which always reach beyond mere reason and technology to embrace "respect for creation, the unity of nature, sharing, moderation, compassion [and] holiness," as Ron Graham lists in 1990's God's Dominion, one of the first books to describe environmentalism as a religious impulse, a way of restoring moral order in a world rendered godless by science.
But two details make the climate-change Judgment Day different —quite apart from its scientific inevitability. Most apocalyptic panics have been orchestrated by political elites to control the masses. The atom bomb and Joe McCarthy's Red Scare justified U.S. imperialism; the threat of AIDS is still used to control sexual activity. But the growing awareness of climate change, Mr. Graham says today, "if anything, is not convenient to the elites, to industry and governments, but is instead a populist, grassroots movement."
The second quirk is that science and technology are both the cause of the problem and our best route to correcting it. "What's interesting about global warming," Mr. Graham suggests, "is that science has come along and attached itself to the spiritualism of the new age, and the notion of Gaia, whereas before that, science had been lagging."
You might even say that science has seen the light. — Ian Brown
SOLAR SUBURBIA
With its starter-home pricing, standard floor plans and free picket fences, the 52-house Drake Landing development near Okotoks looks like just another bedroom community for Calgary, booming 18 kilometres to the north. However, the two-car garages are crowned with solar-thermal panels. They capture the heat of southern Alberta's 300-plus days of sunshine, which is then stored in 144 glycol-filled boreholes and distributed as needed to heat every house in the neighbourhood. No furnaces, no emissions — the average household's largest energy demand deleted from the climate-change equation.
There's nothing new about the technology — but as the first of its kind in North America, Drake Landing is both a landmark and a bit of an experiment.
The municipality has been pursuing a "Sustainable Okotoks" growth strategy since the mid-1990s. The scheme began with careful water management and has turned the town into something of a solar-energy hub.
"We very much want to become a solar-demonstration community of excellence, with a concentration of different solar applications that could then lead to economic spinoffs," says Okotoks municipal manager Rick Quail. "We don't want to be a bedroom community." — Chris Turner
SUSTAINABLE SPORTS CAR, THE
"Right now, the general perception is that electric cars are slow, ugly, glorified golf carts," says Darryl Siry, vice-president of marketing at Tesla Motors. But that's about to change. The Silicon Valley startup is introducing a fully electric roadster that can go head-to-head with a Lamborghini Murcielago, accelerating from zero to 60 in about four seconds. Yet the Tesla Roadster is a zero-emissions vehicle that delivers extremely high energy efficiency. When you're done joyriding, just drive it home and plug it in to recharge the batteries. The company is taking orders now — prices start at $93,000 (U.S.) — and expects to deliver its first cars to buyers later this year. — Tim McKeough
TAR-SAND TRAP
Before long, the tar sands of northern Alberta will produce more greenhouse pollution than many countries do. To squeeze just one barrel of oil from the sands, two tonnes of dirt must be dug up and "upgraded," a process that requires two to three times the energy needed to produce a barrel of conventional oil. The result: 30 to 70 per cent more CO2 emissions, says energy expert Alex Farrell of the University of California at Berkeley.
In 2003, the tar sands produced 25 megatonnes of carbon dioxide, and the Pembina Institute, an Alberta-based energy watchdog, calculates the project could saturate the skies with 113 to 142 megatonnes by 2020.
What does this mean? Based on 2000 emissions data, collected by the U.S.-based World Resources Institute, the tar sands could soon match the CO2 output of the Czech Republic, while producing twice as much as Peru, three times as much as Qatar and 10 times as much as Costa Rica. Last year, Canada's Environment Commissioner warned that tar-sands pollution "could counter efforts to reduce emissions in other areas of society." — Andrew Nikiforuk
THE TROUBLE WITH CATS
Q: How are a poor rural labourer and a Royal Bengal tiger alike?
A: Both inhabit the world's largest delta — the Sundarbans, where the mighty Ganges and two other big rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal — and soon both will be looking for new homes.
Amod Mandal has already lost four houses to a rising sea level being blamed on climate change, and No.5 is about to follow suit. "I was a rich farmer," he says, looking out at the water where his yard used to be. "But now all the island's agricultural land has vanished."
He lives on Ghoramara, an island that has given up more than two-thirds of its original 90 square kilometres, and scientists at Calcutta's Jadavpur University say the entire delta, 25,000 square kilometres of mangrove swamp on India's border with Bangladesh, is under threat.
With the sea rising 3.14 millimetres a year (more than half again the global average), "the Sundarbans appear to be a lost cause," Jadavpur oceanographer Sugata Hazra explains. "In the next two decades ..... more than 200,000 people will lose their homes."
As will at least 400 of the Royal Bengals, and it is feared that, as the big cats are flooded out of their remote reserves, they will flee north into the very same region the "climate refugees" will occupy.
Which is a problem because these tigers are especially nasty — they're the only unrepentant man-eaters still on the loose. — Umarah Jamali
UNBUCKLING THE WHEAT BELT
The growing season is already 10 to 15 days longer on the Prairies than it used to be, and that may just be the beginni ng.opopspanfontp
In its report, Can Wheat Beat The Heat?, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research forecasts that within 50 years wheat will grow as far as north as 65 degrees latitude, from Ketchikan in Alaska to Cape Harrison in Labrador.
Meanwhile, much of the U.S. wheat belt will dry up. But temperature isn't everything in farming. "They paint a pretty picture," Saskatchewan Research Council climatologist Elaine Wheaton says of the group's optimism, "but forgot about the Canadian Shield and soil capability." — Andrew Nikiforuk
VERBAL ABUSE
"Global warming" — we might be talking about hugging the Earth, not destroying it. That's one reason why it took the public so long to get worried, says George Lakoff, a linguistics professor at Berkeley: The name didn't scare us enough.
"If you mention 'global warming'," he says, "some people will say, 'Hey, that's good. It's cold up here'."
Language is a persuasive tool: Governments, for instance, took to using the term "climate change" — a benign phrase suggesting a gradual and neutral shift. Most significantly for politicians, observes Gurprit Kindra, a marketing professor at the University of Ottawa, it makes no reference to cause and effect. "It is a term that denies any responsibility."
The language is getting stronger. Many European countries, leading support for the Kyoto accord, have now named it "climate chaos," bringing up images of sudden tidal waves and mass panic (a tone some critics call "climate porn"). Or they will say "climate crisis," to emphasize that we'd better act now before it gets worse.
It's a marketing nightmare: How do you distill a complex subject into one perfect, catchy, action-inspiring phrase? "It's hard to do it in a sound bite," Dr. Lakoff says. "You need at least five sentences." — Erin Anderssen
VIDEO VIGILANTES
Rising global temperatures, hurricanes, and testy world leaders are just a few of the things you have to juggle when you gamble with the world's climate. Two board games let you carry out negotiations in the comfort of your living room.
Antarctica: Global WARming presents a dystopic vision of the future. Glaciers and ice sheets have melted, causing sea levels to rise by 80 meters. The only safe place in this waterlogged world is Antarctica, which you must capture. "The game is based on Risk, but we chose the global warming theme because the land reduction was quite dramatic and could spark this mass movement," says Frank Zuuring, president of Savita Games. In Keep Cool, things don't have to get that bad. Klaus Eisenack and his co-developer Gerhard Petschel-Held, both from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, interviewed politicians, economists, and climate scientists and boiled down their knowledge to develop the rules. The aim of the Diplomacy-like game is to meet individual secret economic or political targets. Players' choices can bring them closer to victory — or to the planet's collapse. A dirty power station is cheap, but its emissions increase the risk of environmental disaster. The pair hoped the game would communicate the risks of climate change to the public. "When climate exceeds a global mean temperature every player loses," says Eisenack. — Hannah Hoag
WEATHER-PROOFING THE NATION
Climate change is battering Canada's $5-trillion worth of critical infrastructure with more floods, hail, ice, heat waves and windstorms than it has ever known.
Global losses from wicked weather are rising rapidly (to more than $40-billion a year), and Canada's "vulnerability to extreme events is becoming high" as well, says Environment Canada climatologist Heather Auld.
True volatility obviously exacts a heavy toll on bridges, roads and buildings that haven't been designed for flash floods or a regular onslaught of hurricane-force winds.
But subtle changes are also shortening the lifespan of Canada's aging infrastructure — just the increased freezing and thawing as winter warms up can weaken concrete and pavement.
Given the billions at stake, Ms. Auld says, "insurance companies and municipalities are watching the weather like hawks." But thinking will have to change radically if the updating is to be done in time.
Michel Girard of the Canadian Standards Association says engineers, contractors and governments need revised building codes and road designs to prepare for the weather of the future — but the national data needed to create those standards aren't available yet.
Quebec has taken the lead, he says, by preventing new development in high-risk areas along the St. Lawrence, and by announcing plans to expand the province's culverts over the next several years.
But the Far North worries him most: With the melting permafrost, airport runways are sinking, and housing, which is already below standards in many communities, must be adapted to the changing weather.
"It's not acceptable," he says. "If we have new information, we need to use it." — Andrew Nikiforuk and Erin Anderssen
YEAR-ROUND ISOLATION
Last May, the largest helicopter in the world, a Russian Mi26, flew to Yellowknife to airlift a piece of heavy equipment to the Diavik diamond mine.
The winter road the mine was depending on wasn't solid, says company spokesman Tom Hoefer — the lake ice too thin for trucks to safely carry the "shovel" (which looks sort of like a backhoe, only much larger).
Instead, workers had to cut the 500-tonne piece of machinery into small pieces to fit into the helicopter and then reassemble it at the mine. Diavik also had to fly in fuel, cement and other heavy items it normally would have trucked in. The cost: millions of dollars.
This winter is colder, so frozen highways are open across the North. But climate change could mean hardship for many in isolated Northern communities.
When the swamps and lakes don't ice up, residents of places such as Garden Hill First Nation in Manitoba can pay $16 for a four-litre jug of milk and double the normal price for gas. A single green pepper can go for $13. — Anne McIlroy
ZERO HOUR FOR THE AMAZON
For decades, people have wrung their hands over deforestation in the Amazon. Now, scientists fear that climate change alone may turn the massive rain forest into a baking desert. If droughts and forest fires intensify and the rain forest shrinks, it creates less rain, leading to more droughts and fires, and so on, in a vicious cycle. Just as in the boreal forests, the Amazon's burning trees will release stored carbon into the air, further speeding global warming. If the entire Amazon went up in smoke — which may happen within decades — it would release 100 billion tonnes of carbon, says Daniel Nepstad, who studies rain-forest droughts and fires. (Humans currently release about six billion tonnes a year by burning fossil fuels.)
"This," Dr. Nepstad says, "really is frightening." — Zoe Cormier
ALMANAC CONTRIBUTORS
Erin Anderssen and Ian Brown are Globe and Mail feature writers.
Laszlo Buhasz is The Globe's assistant travel editor.
Zoe Cormier and Dan Falk are Toronto science writers.
Tavia Grant is a reporter with the Report on Business.
Hannah Hoag is a science writer in Montreal.
Umarah Jamali is a freelance writer in New Delhi.
Mark Hume is a Globe reporter in Vancouver.
Michael Kesterton writes Social Studies for the Facts and Arguments page.
Charles Mandel is a writer living in Rothesay, N.B.
Shawn McCarthy is The Globe's energy reporter and Anne McIlroy is its science reporter, both based in Ottawa.
Tim McKeough is a Canadian writer living in New York.
Martin Mittelstaedt is The Globe and Mail's environment reporter.
Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning science writer in Calgary.
Lisa Rochon writes on architecture for The Globe.
Peter Scowen is the paper's deputy features editor.
Paul Tadich is a Canadian writer in Moscow.
Julie Traves is a Focus editor.
Calgary-based writer Chris Turner's next book is titled The Geography of Hope.
Geoffrey York is the paper's correspondent in Beijing.
The Politics Of Climate Change A Growing Concern For Oilpatch
By Paul Wells
Nickle's Daily Oil Bulletin
16 February 2007
When you are caught directly in the crosshairs of the most pressing political issue of the day, it is not a time to blink. Such is the case with the oilpatch as it continues to stare down the latest threat to its bottom line: climate change and the resulting uncertainty over whether the federal government will impose harsh new environmental rules on the energy sector.
"We are not afraid of the substance of the issue. In fact, we've taken this on, we're up to the challenge," said Pierre Alvarez, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP).
But confronting the issue is one thing, Alvarez added. Dealing with the politics that many industry officials fear will result in government offering up the petroleum industry as fodder for political gain, is quite another. "Where our concern lies is that when you see these issues become as political as they have, when they get used for political purpose, then it gets awkward," he said.
"You start seeing east-west issues start to get played out, you see rural-urban issues play out, you see partisan issues in Parliament play out. For an industry this big and spending this much capital, that poses a far greater risk of prompting an unfortunate outcome than the issue itself," Alvarez added. "We feel very confident that with the right circumstances, the right policy, the application of technology, we will continue to improve (environmental performance)."
The energy industry has been pushing for so-called intensity targets that would be applied across all industries and a focus on technology to reduce emissions.
Canada's House of Commons passed a bill on Wednesday designed to force the minority Conservative government to achieve the steep cuts in greenhouse (GHG) gas emissions required by the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. The bill would require the government to prepare a plan within 60 days that describes the measures Canada will take to meet its Kyoto obligations to reduce greenhouse gases to six per cent below 1990 levels by 2012.
All three opposition parties support Liberal Pablo Rodriguez's bill. After passage in the House, it has to go to the Senate, where a Liberal majority should ensure its passage.
A day prior, the industry faced another political hardball, as British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell announced that the province will build on its reputation for environmental stewardship by establishing targets, actions and processes aimed at reducing B.C.'s GHG by at least 33% below current levels by 2020. That target will place emissions 10% below 1990 levels.
As momentum, public opinion and political posturing leans ever increasingly toward the tougher environmental legislation that is in all likelihood mere months away, the oil and gas industry feels it has been painted as the problem child of the issue. And for good reason, said Dave Russum, manager of geoscience for AJM Petroleum Consultants.
"Certainly, the oil and gas industry is a very natural target. It's a high profile industry, it's perceived to be very wealthy, it's based in Western Canada -- there are a lot of issues there that would make it an attractive target in the political process," Russum said.
"Clearly, the industry has to be part of the solution. Whether it should take a disproportionately high hit compared to other parts of industry and the population of Canada may be unfair," he added. "But I think the reality is going to be that the majority of the population and the majority of politicians are going to see the oil and gas industry as very much fair game."
Russum said that those pointing fingers at the petroleum sector should also consider the industry's contribution to the country's overall GHG emissions. To make his point, Russum compared the GHG output of oilsands activities to the overall emissions growth in Canada since 1990.
Russum said he utilized data from an Environment Canada study published in 2004 and which looked at trends from 1990 to 2004.
"For example, (Canada's overall) GHG emissions in 2004 were 758 million tonnes compared to 599 million tonnes in 1990 -- that's a growth of 159 million tonnes in emissions," he explained. "By my calculations, if we were to just say that in 2004 we were producing about one million bbls per day of oil from the tar sands from in situ methods, that looks like it liberates about 75 kilograms of CO2 per bbl, on average, so one million bbls would amount to 75,000 tonnes of CO2 per day, which would equate to about 27.5 million tonnes per year."
Given the calculated annual amount, Russum said even if the oilsands were issued a complete cease and desist edict, the resulting reduction in GHG emissions would be a relative drop in the bucket compared to the national increase since 1990. "If we were to shut down all our activity in both mining and in situ extraction, that 27.5 million tonnes per year is only about 17% of the growth of greenhouse gasses in Canada since 1990," he said. "Other things we are doing in Canada are responsible for the other 83% of the growth in GHG emissions in the country."
Alvarez, who along with other petroleum industry heavyweights met with Northern Affairs Minister Jim Prentice, Environment Minister John Baird and Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn in Calgary to further discuss issues surrounding the pending Clean Air Act, said the oil and gas sector is not deviating from its stance on any new legislation and its feasible targets.
"We've been very clear about some of the things we think are important - not buying hot air, not being forced into a domestic emission trading systems, the need to focus on technology. We've been heard and I guess we'll find out whether and how much our proposals have been picked up by the government," CAPP's Alvarez said.
John Dielwart, president and CEO of ARC Energy Trust, said the energy industry is prepared to do "our fair share" in reducing GHG emissions, but warns that if targets sector are too onerous, it won't just be the oilpatch that suffers the consequences.
"Where we draw the line is that don't expect the energy industry to pick up a disproportionate load relative to the rest of the economy. The message we continue to send is yes, emissions are in fact growing in the energy industry but emission intensity is in fact declining and therefore we are doing some very good things and seeing significant improvements in emission intensity," Dielwart said.
Gord Lambert, vice-president of sustainable development for Suncor Energy Inc., believes the oil and gas industry is better positioned than many in tackling the challenge of reducing impact on the environment.
"I think it's important to recognize where the oil industry is starting from as public engagement increases. We are one of the most heavily regulated industries in Canada in regard to environmental performance," he said. "The industry itself has simply built in environment as a core element of how to conduct our business activities."
Lambert admits the industry can certainly do more, and technology is the key to achieving better environmental performance in the sector.
Saying that innovation and technology should be the "key emphasis" in reducing the sector's environmental footprint going forward, Lambert said it's vital that industry and government are on the same page.
"It's going to be the commitments of both levels of government to work with our company and other companies to ensure the pace of technology development and innovation is increased and that the risks involved in deploying new technologies are addressed," he said.
"Secondly, over time, there is significant scope to reduce both the energy and emission intensity of the oilsands operations with the use of gasification and carbon sequestration technologies as well as the potential use of nuclear power as a heat source."
Bill Gunter, director of the Alberta Research Council and a participant in developing a federally-sponsored carbon capture roadmap, recently estimated that as much as 30 million tonnes of CO2 a year could be removed from Canada's fossil fuels by 2030 through the use of capture and clean coal technologies.
About 100 million tonnes of CO2 a year are now emitted through the production and processing of oil and gas in Canada and that's expected to grow to beyond 130 million tonnes in the next decade. And, according to Dr. David Keith of the University of Calgary's Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy, that should be reason enough to ensure CO2 capture and storage is part of any GHG reduction solution.
"The world will eventually regulate emissions in a serious way. As the U.S. inches ever closer to strong national regulations, there will be pressure on Alberta as a very rich, very high emissions province to act quickly. CO2 capture and storage can play a vital role in allowing Alberta to meet the climate challenge with reasonable costs," Keith said.
AJM's Russum agrees that the increased focus on climate change and the new legislation that will result "will create incentive" to sequester CO2, but adds that even with all parties on board, it will "take considerable time" to occur.
"That type of situation has to be a huge public relations approach from this industry, assuming we really are serious about looking at these issues and understanding what it would take to get a sizeable CO2 collection/distribution system that would get the CO2 to the place where it could be effectively used in the reservoirs," Russum said. "Again, it's a relatively long-term solution, but we have to start taking those steps now."
ARC's Dielwart agrees there are many hurdles that would have to be overcome for CO2 sequestration to become a logistical reality.
"It's not as simple as saying let's reduce emissions, because once you do take the CO2 out, you have to do something with it. Until you get an opportunity to develop an end use for this stuff -- and in Alberta we do have end-use opportunities with re-injection into mature oil fields for enhanced oil recovery -- but these things don't just happen, there's quite a lot of lead-in time involved," he said.
"No matter how much you want to reduce emissions rapidly, you've got to be able to connect all the dots and get infrastructure, get end users and get emitters capturing, Dielwart added. "It's not as simple as saying we're going to meet the Kyoto objective by 2010, or something like that. There are physical limitations."
February 16, 2007
Harper now says he will 'respect' Kyoto bill
Harper now says he will 'respect' Kyoto bill
Bill Curry, Globe and Mail, 15-Feb-2007
Harper does it my way
Nigel Hannaford, Calgary Herald, 17-Feb-2007
Dion stripped of his environmental edge
Liberal leader will pay dearly if he wins next election and can't deliver on costly, divisive promises
Chantal Hébert, The Star, Toronto, 16-Feb-2007
Harper seems unwilling to find solutions
Linda McQuaig, The Star, Toronto, 16-Feb-2007
Harper now says he will 'respect' Kyoto bill
PM criticizes Dion for not offering plan
BILL CURRY
Globe and Mail
15-Feb-2007
OTTAWA — The Conservative government said yesterday it would produce a plan to comply with Kyoto if forced to, a dramatic shift from the previous day when it dismissed legislation passed by opposition MPs that would require Canada to meet the protocol's targets for reducing greenhouse gases.
The legislation, introduced by a Liberal MP, calls on the government to present a plan to Parliament within 60 days outlining how Canada will meet its Kyoto targets. It must still be approved by the Liberal-dominated Senate.
"If and when that becomes law, the government would respect it," Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons. "I would point out that the bill has no plan of action in it. The bill gives the government no authority to spend any money to actually have a plan of action."
The Prime Minister also chastised Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion for supporting the bill without also putting forward a plan to achieve the targets of a 6-per-cent emissions drop from 1990 levels by 2012.
"I guess this is what the Leader of the Liberal Party has come to. He failed so badly on his own plan, he is now asking us to produce one for him," he said.
The Prime Minister's change in tone drew cautious praise from NDP Leader Jack Layton.
"Finally, for the first time today, we got some indication that he might actually be prepared to respect our Kyoto obligations," he said yesterday.
"We've been demanding this since day one and it looks as though perhaps a corner has begun to be turned," Mr. Layton continued.
"We'll have to see in the budget. We'll have to see in the actions that he takes whether he's serious," he said.
The government and opposition have been deadlocked over Kyoto, with the opposition saying the targets are within reach and the government warning it is too late to comply without triggering economic havoc.
But there are signs the government is shifting its position so that Canada would meet its Kyoto targets, but later than the 2012 deadline.
Environment Minister John Baird noted recently that the B.C. government's plan for meeting Kyoto uses 2020 as a target date. He has asked his department to estimate how much it would cost Canada to continue into Kyoto's second, post-2012 phase, having not met the targets in the first phase.
The protocol allows countries to fall short of the targets provided they accept tougher targets than others in the second round. However, talks on a post-2012 phase are stalled.
Mr. Harper has supported calls for an emergency meeting on the issue and has said the Group of Eight is well placed to spur those discussions.
The NDP has been urging the government to consider that scenario and has suggested that may be acceptable if there are clear signs of serious effort toward the Kyoto targets.
The Conservatives will need the support of at least one opposition party to avoid being defeated over next month's budget, which is expected to include several spending announcements dealing with climate change and the environment.
Mr. Dion rejected the Prime Minister's suggestions that his party does not have a plan to meet Kyoto.
"We had a plan in April, 2005, as you know and the cost was there. It was over eight budgets, $10-billion," he said.
"The Prime Minister destroyed the plan of April, 2005. We waste a year. He cuts and he slashed billions of dollars. The only leader of a developed country who did it. So he must now come with a comprehensive plan to honour our international commitment under the Kyoto Protocol."
Former environment commissioner Johanne Gélinas concluded in a report in September that it was "difficult to say" whether Mr. Dion's plan would have been enough for Canada to meet its Kyoto obligations.
Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe said Quebec is now on track to meet Kyoto and the costs for the rest of the country should be borne by industry.
"I think the oil companies, as an example, have enough money to pay for what they are responsible for," he said.
"I think the question is more importantly how much it will cost if we don't face Kyoto. That would be the question."
Greener pastures
Outlined below are the strategies each party has created to address climate change.
The Conservative plan
Total Cost: Will be revealed in next month's budget.
Environment Minister John Baird has said meeting Kyoto's 2012 targets at this point would cause "economic collapse" because the Liberals allowed emissions to rise too high.
Mandatory regulations will soon be announced requiring reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions from all industry, including the automotive sector.
The budget is expected to include a host of environmental initiatives. The Prime Minister has already announced a $1.5-billion EcoTrust to finance large projects in the provinces that reduce greenhouse gases.
An EcoEnergy Renewable Initiative, worth $1.5-billion over 10 years, was announced to encourage more renewable power production.
Budget 2006 contained tax credits amounting to two months of free bus passes for citizens who buy passes each month.
The Liberal plan
Stéphane Dion said yesterday he stands by his 2005 Project Green plan for honouring Canada's Kyoto commitments, but will be updating it shortly.
Total Cost: $10-billion
Key elements include the following:
Large Final Emitter System: Regulations would set maximum emission levels for each industrial facility in the country. Companies that are under the target could sell emission credits to companies that are over the target, creating a financial incentive to reduce emissions.
Partnership Fund: Between $2-billion and $3-billion to finance projects jointly with the provinces to reduce greenhouse gases.
Climate Fund: Between $4-billion and $5-billion for technology that reduces greenhouse gases and to buy foreign and domestic emission credits.
Automobile Industry: A voluntary agreement with the auto industry to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 5.3 megatonnes.
Renewable Energy: $1.8-billion over 15 years to encourage more wind and renewable power.
The New Democratic plan
Total Cost: $15.1-billion (net cost of $6.7-billion over seven years after cancelling the capital cost allowance for the oil sands)
The plan is divided into five parts:
A greener homes strategy, including energy retrofit projects: $1.3-billion over seven years.
A greener communities strategy, including reductions in landfill emissions and funds for municipal projects: $5.4-billion over seven years.
A greener transportation strategy, including GST rebates on the purchase of low-emission cars: $2.8-billion over seven years.
A greener industry strategy, including caps on industrial emissions and an end to oil-sands subsidies: saving $8.4-billion over seven years.
A greener Canada and the world, including incentives for renewable power and earning Kyoto credits through investments in the developing world that reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: $5.6-billion over five years.
Harper does it my way
Nigel Hannaford
Calgary Herald
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Time for a Conservative reality check here in Cowtown. Maybe Stephen sounds suspiciously green about the oilsands these days, and maybe he's getting ready to re-jig equalization so that when he pulls the handle, all Quebec's oranges line up. (Maybe. We'll find out in the budget).
Or perhaps you hold income trust units.
For any of those reasons, you're really not happy. All those Reform party gatherings in cold church basements, arguing policy and points of order in the hope of fixing Canada's problems, for this sellout?
But, if you're mad with Stephen, would you really rather have Stephane?
No, you wouldn't.
To your immediate concerns, Liberal opposition Leader Stephane Dion favours carbon taxes, so you'd be paying more for gas and Ottawa would collect the revenues.
They'd be no less likely to end up over the Ottawa River, because Dion is trying to rebuild the Liberal brand in Quebec.
As for income trusts, Dion consulted what he called the "big brains," and agreed that yes, income trusts should be taxed. Just not so much.
Happier now?
Meanwhile, you'd be back to the Liberal flavour of government. This is what you didn't like all along, and where Harper is still your friend.
I'm not talking about Liberal graft and their cosy web of dudes on the make. Any government in office long enough attracts people who want to see what their country can do for them, not the other way around.
One day, the Conservatives will have to worry about it, too.
Rather, it's a matter of corporate culture. Zeitgeist. Shared assumptions, doing what comes naturally, the way a liberal turns to government if there's a problem when, for a conservative, it's often government that's the problem.
That's why liberals build bureaucracies with other people's money, and conservatives don't care to.
Liberals believe in doing good to you, even if it means an end-run around Parliament.
That's why they set up a racket called the Court Challenges Program, through which the government paid people to sue it, thereby allowing sympathetic judges to make decisions about society that would never get a majority in the House of Commons. (Feminists and the gay lobby were among the users.)
Sometimes, they rewrote laws to say what they thought they should say -- this school of thought believes law is a "living tree." So it may be, but it is for MPs to prune, not judges who never answer to the people.
This Conservative government dumped the program, and is also looking at who gets to recommend prospective judges.
There is a committee to do this, and the Liberals have had it their way for years.
The result, judges who buy into the agenda. This Conservative government aims to see a different kind of judge appointed -- those more inclined to interpret the law as it is written.
It is likely to be a long haul. Harper has made about 50 judicial appointments, almost all of which were a product of a process that began when the Liberals were in power. (So much for Liberal accusations that he's stacking the bench).
For those of you who support the military, Harper showed where he stood with his visit to Canadian troops in Afghanistan.
His government has also made some big-budget buys for the air force.
He's also doing what he can on Senate reform. The Liberals have agreed to term limits, for instance. Now, it's just a matter of what the limit will be.
On national security, do you want the Dion approach -- which would allow two contentious but useful provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act to expire after five years, as scheduled -- just so that he can have a different position than Harper?
The politics of this country have been shaped for decades by a few simple facts: 1) The votes are in central Canada; you can have all the West, and all the East, but you still need Ontario or Quebec to make a majority.
And, 2) like it or not, the party of government needs support from Quebec.
Harper does what he has to do to hang on.
And, when he does it too much, he needs western Tories to yell, and hand him an excuse to give the eastern left for coming back to what he really thinks.
So go ahead, yell. But, don't kid yourself.
This is a Conservative government, that does conservative things.
And official Ottawa is in shock.
nhannaford@theherald.canwest.com
© The Calgary Herald 2007
Dion stripped of his environmental edge
Liberal leader will pay dearly if he wins next election and can't deliver on costly, divisive promises
Chantal Hébert
February 16, 2007
The Star, Toronto
Over a period of little less than three months, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion has turned his green armour into a straitjacket.
Now that he has led the opposition parties into passing a bill forcing the Conservatives to implement the Kyoto Protocol, the worst thing that could happen to him would be to win a snap election this spring and then be forced to live by the terms of Bill C-288.
A Liberal government would face two stark choices:
- Preside over a major federal-provincial crisis that would make the occasional Ottawa-Quebec blowouts sound like Chinese New Year firecrackers.
- Own up to the fact that the bill the party sponsored is a legislative sham, on par with the 1993 Liberal promises to eliminate the GST and renegotiate NAFTA.
It is one thing to want, as do a majority of Canadians, the federal government to act in the spirit of Kyoto; it is another to pretend that any regime can live up to the letter of the accord without making some highly divisive and costly choices.
There is a widespread consensus – stretching way beyond Conservative ranks – that Canada cannot even come close to meeting its Kyoto greenhouse emission reduction objectives in time for the 2012 deadline without launching a major offensive against the energy industries of provinces such as Alberta, and/or inflicting a crippling hit to the already flagging auto industry in Ontario, and/or diverting a debilitating amount of federal resources to a single cause.
And that, in turn, means the other parties have Dion exactly where they want him, stripped of his environmental edge in the lead-up to a possible election.
Nothing now distinguishes the Liberal bottom line on climate change from that of the NDP, the Bloc Québécois and the Green party.
Dion is as saddled to the moribund Kyoto battlehorse as Gilles Duceppe, Jack Layton and Elizabeth May. More so than any of them though, he could be crushed under its weight in the next election.
Among the opposition leaders, only Dion, who sat for a decade in government, stands to be called to account for how far behind Canada has fallen on the road to Kyoto.
Bill C-288 ensures that the lacklustre Liberal performance on Kyoto will be as much a part of the picture of the next campaign as the Conservatives' belated conversion to a greener agenda.
Because Dion alone among the opposition leaders can realistically aspire to become prime minister, it is also on him that the onus of squaring what has now become a less than virtuous circle will fall in the next campaign.
That will be particularly hard in some sections of Western Canada and it won't be easy anywhere else.
Liberal economic and social promises will have to be tailored to Dion's professed commitment on Kyoto or else risk failing the test of fiscal responsibility.
The Liberal climate-change agenda will also be measured against the green makeover of the government.
By backing Kyoto to the hilt, Dion may have tilted the balance of credibility to Harper's advantage. The Conservatives could be one environmental package away from wrestling the upper hand from the Liberals. Such a package is expected to come at the end of March.
Last fall, the government's first green plan failed to meet the minimal test of expectations.
Back then, the government left its flank wide open on climate change.
This time, Harper knows that anything less than a substantial step in the right direction will not pass muster.
The government's upcoming environmental package is part of a set of blocks the Conservatives are putting in place with an eye to an election.
The re-election of federalist Quebec Premier Jean Charest next month is another big piece of their puzzle.
Conservative numbers are improving in Ontario; satisfaction with the government is up in Quebec.
If all his blocks fall in place, Harper could emerge from next month's budget with enough momentum to win another election.
Does that mean a spring federal vote is inevitable? Not necessarily.
It is still far from clear that an election over the first half of this year would yield the majority Harper is striving for.
Part of the current Conservative election sabre-rattling is undoubtedly designed to force the opposition to think twice about bringing down the government.
The Bloc Québécois, for one, may do just that if its Parti Québécois ally goes down to defeat in Quebec next month.
Chantal Hébert's national affairs column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Harper seems unwilling to find solutions
Linda McQuaig
The Star, Toronto
Feb 16, 2007
A government reveals a lot about itself by what it says it can't do. The Harper government, for instance, insists that Canada can't possibly meet its Kyoto targets on greenhouse gas emissions.
Interestingly, there's no such defeatism on the Conservative benches over Afghanistan.
Indeed, when it comes to the Afghan war, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is full of bravado and fighting spirit, despite the most dismal prospects for victory in that war – as a report by a Canadian Senate committee spelled out this week.
No matter how hopeless the situation in Afghanistan, Harper vows that Canada will be there, as a "country that leads, not that just follows."
Yet in the battle against climate change – a far more important battle, by any reasonable measure – Canada, under the Conservatives, doesn't lead or follow. It doesn't even bother to show up.
This week, it voted against an opposition bill requiring Ottawa to meet our obligations under Kyoto, which we ratified in 2002.
The dispirited approach to Kyoto reveals the shallowness of Harper's recent conversion to the environmental cause in the wake of the sudden emergence of the issue as the top concern of Canadians.
Of course, we all know that Harper spent years in the trenches of the global warming battle – fighting on the wrong side, along with oil companies and a tiny gang of academic climate-change deniers.
But there's been surprisingly little chortling recently as the Prime Minister, somehow managing a straight face, now insists that "the science is clear that these changes are occurring, they're serious and we must act."
Such a late acceptance of what the scientific world has been loudly trumpeting for more than a decade would still be welcome, if it seemed genuine. Personally, I'd be more inclined to buy a used car from this Prime Minister than to trust his commitment to saving the planet.
So far, the government has been frantically reinstating Liberal programs cancelled earlier this year.
But even these would have only limited impact in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, according to Stephen Hazell, executive director of Sierra Club of Canada.
Harper likes to imply that actually meeting Kyoto targets would require unbearable sacrifices by Canadians.
He recently suggested we'd have to live in unheated homes all winter.
He seems to be trying to keep the focus away from reasonable and promising solutions, like clamping down on large industrial emitters, an approach called for in the opposition bill rejected by the Conservatives.
Above all, Harper seems keen to avoid clamping down on the oil sands.
Indeed, Harper's weak embrace of the environmental cause is perhaps best revealed by his refusal to end a special federal subsidy enjoyed by oil sands developers, a constituency that Harper has long been close to.
Under the Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance, oil-sands developers are allowed to deduct 100 per cent of their capital costs immediately – a tax perk that far exceeds the generosity of the 25 per cent deduction available to companies investing in conventional oil projects.
The allowance, introduced in 1996, was justified as a way to stimulate investment in the oil sands at a time when the potential of the resource hadn't yet been proven, and low world oil prices made development costs seem prohibitive.
There was also less awareness of climate change back then; Kyoto wasn't even signed until the following year.
But what may have seemed reasonable 11 years ago is downright perverse today, with oil-sands development overstimulated and now the fastest-growing source of our greenhouse gases.
The special tax treatment certainly flies in the face of any notion that the government is serious about reducing Canada's emissions.
It would be equivalent to Ottawa offering subsidies to the Taliban while vowing it is committed to victory in Afghanistan.
To make things more perverse, the companies benefiting from the special tax incentive are among the most profitable in Canada, including Husky, Imperial, Shell and Suncor.
In 2005, the oil and gas industry achieved operating profits of $30 billion – a 50 per cent increase over the previous year, according to the Alberta-based Pembina Institute.
It's hardly a sector that needs extra help from Canadian taxpayers.
In fact, oil-sands producers could easily afford to pay the additional $1 on each barrel of oil which the Pembina Institute estimates would cover the cost of serious emission reduction.
No wonder Harper is convinced we can't meet our Kyoto targets: He's planning to keep on giving special incentives to our biggest emitters.
Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based author and commentator. lmcquaig@sympatico.ca.
February 15, 2007
The Hockey Pond
Media Release - For Immediate Release
High quality MPEG2 video available
Kyoto Anniversary - Canada delaying the Kyoto game
Video shows hockey player canoeing across Guelph Lake, Ontario in January
(February 15, 2007) One month ago, Arni Mikelsons tried to play hockey on Guelph Lake. But what is usually frozen in mid-January was open water. Arni videoed his attempt, which can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvWjnKaaybM, to tell the tale of that day. What you will see is Arni, his dog, and a demonstration of how to paddle a canoe with a hockey stick.
"It's not right to have open water in my hockey pond," said Arni Mikelsons. "While governments bicker, deny and continue to study future options, global warming is already affecting the lives of Canadians. I want action by my government. Cut the brawling and delays. Honour Canada's Kyoto Promise."
"Tomorrow is the anniversary of Canada's Kyoto Promise, and ordinary Canadians, keen for true action, are tired of the political rhetoric," said Friends of the Earth CEO Beatrice Olivastri after she received a copy of the video. "Prime Minister Harper needs to understand that we have played through regulation time without setting any goals. Now is the time to regulate polluters, before we're facing 'sudden death.'"
A group of NHLers have declared February 16th "Save Hockey Day" across North America.
To challenge Prime Minister Stephan Harper to Save Canada's Hockey Ponds, visit www.foecanada.org.
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For more information, to arrange an interview with Arni Mikelsons or Ms. Olivastri, or for a high quality MPEG2 version of the video, contact:
Jonathan Laderoute, (ECO media releations), 416-972-7401, laderoutej(at)huffstrategy.com
Beatrice Olivastri, Chief Executive Officer, Friends of the Earth-Canada, cell (613) 724-8690
Friends of the Earth-Canada is a voice for the environment, nationally and internationally, working with others to inspire the renewal of our communities and the earth through research, education and advocacy. Visit www.foecanada.org .
February 14, 2007
Opposition forces through Kyoto bill
constitutional battle may loom
By Alexander Panetta
Canadian Press
14-Feb-2007
OTTAWA (CP) - Opposition parties have forced through legislation requiring the Conservative government to respect Canada's commitments under the Kyoto accord, setting the stage for what could be a constitutional quagmire.
MPs voted 161-113 in favour of the Liberal bill Wednesday in a battle pitting the minority Tories against the opposition, the Senate, and the country's legal community.
The government has hinted strongly that it will simply ignore Bill C-288 - even if it is approved by the Senate and becomes law, as expected.
But constitutional experts have said the government has no choice but to respect laws passed in Parliament, and they've warned that lawsuits lie ahead if it fails to do so.
The Liberals have charged that, in a parliamentary democracy, a government's open defiance of the law is comparable to a "coup d'etat."
The Tories, meanwhile, have suggested they would be willing to face lawsuits or a non-confidence motion.
The bill, which is expected to receive the swift approval of the Senate, gives the government 60 days to table a detailed plan for meeting the Kyoto targets.
It also compels the government to set fines or jail terms for businesses and industries that over-pollute.
The Conservatives have rejected the Kyoto targets - a six per cent drop from 1990 levels - calling them unattainable and dangerous to the economy.
Several Tories suggested the minority government might simply ignore the bill if it becomes law.
"It's just a mischief bill," said Mark Warawa, parliamentary secretary to the environment minister.
"It shows what the Liberals have always done: just empty rhetoric, empty bills that won't actually achieve anything.
"We're not going back to that. This government is moving forward with real concrete action to clean up the environment."
One government official suggested that if the opposition is unhappy with their law being ignored, they can bring down the government and trigger an election.
The Liberals waded cautiously into the electoral sabre-rattling when asked if they might table a non-confidence motion, depending on the fate of the bill.
"We're not there yet. We'll see," said the Liberals' deputy leader, Michael Ignatieff. "It's altogether impossible. I'm not ruling anything out."
The Tories have announced that they will spend $1.5 billion to support provincial green initiatives, and have also offered tax credits for public transit users and created renewable fuels initiatives.
The move comes after they killed a host of pro-Kyoto initiatives created by the previous Liberal government - which failed to halt a steep climb in carbon emissions.
Several constitutional experts have said the Conservatives must respect the law.
In interviews last week, university law professors Ned Franks, Patrick Monahan and Stewart Elgie all agreed that the government has no choice but to follow the law.
Adding his voice to the list Wednesday was Errol Mendes of the University of Ottawa.
"If the bill passes. . . it will be a binding legal obligation on the part of the government," Mendes told CTV. "There could be very serious legal consequences."
Copyright © 2007 Canadian Press
Gov't release: new water standards for coalbed methane
COMMENT: Will there be a steady stream of such announcements through the week, or month? Why would an announcement like this come from the Premier's office?
And did you notice? They're using the term coalbed methane again. Have they abandoned years of attempts to rebrand the stuff as coalbed gas or natural gas from coal?
An injection requirement is probably good and it's a long time coming. The previous guidelines for produced water were a joke - there was no requirement, and streams were just as vulnerable after the guideline as before it.
But it's only part of what makes coalbed methane development so undesireable wherever it is proposed. The hundreds of wells, roads, pipes and other infrastructure required for coalbed methane remains. The fact of no local economic benefit remains.
In just about every area of BC where coalbed methane potential exists, the impacts on agriculture and tourism of coalbed methane development are ignored in the government's aggressive promotion.
On Vancouver Island in particular, impacts on aquifers and watersheds are already of serious local concern in just about every watershed from Campbell River south. The massive removel of groundwater required by any coalbed methane project would further imperil already dangerously compromised watersheds.
Telkwa and Vancouver Island also have coalbed methane potential in vulnerable salmon habitat - a value which must not be put at greater risk than it already is, especially not in the interests of the destructive extraction of a marginal resource.
How can production of coalbed methane reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the province, as Campbell says it will? It's stupid logic, like suggesting that smoking filtered cigarettes is the right way to address the health problems of smoking unfiltered cigarettes.
What might be most telling about Campbell's involvement in coalbed methane, and choosing today to make this announcement, is what it says about the consistency and/or sincerity of the government with its climate change agenda. One day after the Big Green Throne Speech, he's promoting coalbed methane and production of even more fossil fuels.
NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
2007EMPR0007-000130
Feb. 14, 2007
Office of the Premier
Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources
ENHANCED STANDARDS ANNOUNCED FOR COALBED METHANE
VICTORIA - British Columbia will meet or beat best practices in North
America for commercially viable coalbed methane production and will be
the first jurisdiction in Canada, if not North America, to require no
surface discharge of "produced water" from coalbed methane, Premier
Gordon Campbell announced today on CKNW's Bill Good Show.
"Our province has enormous potential for the development of low carbon,
coalbed methane production that will reduce overall greenhouse gas
emissions on the Pacific Coast," said Premier Campbell. "However, our
government is aware of the legitimate concerns that British Columbians
have about how this resource is developed and we are determined to make
B.C.'s coalbed methane production the most environmentally responsible
in North America."
Today's announcement is another component of the Province's forthcoming
energy plan and builds on the announcements in yesterday's throne
speech.
The new leading standards include:
* Companies will not be allowed to surface discharge produced water. Any
re-injected produced water must be injected well below any domestic
water aquifer.
* Companies must use the most advanced technology and practices that are
commercially viable to minimize land and aesthetic disturbances.
* Companies must fully engage local communities and First Nations in all
stages of development.
Coalbed methane is a natural gas found underground between coal seams.
While the gas itself is clean, extraction may result in what is known by
industry as produced water. This produced water may contain high saline
and sodium content, making it unsuitable for agriculture or domestic
use.
There are currently no commercially producing coalbed methane gas wells
in B.C., however it has been identified as a potentially viable clean
energy source for the province. There are currently 134 test wells
throughout the B.C.
Campbell also announced that, as of today, all new electricity
generation projects in the province will have zero net greenhouse gas
emissions.
"This reinforces the high environmental standards already required for
the oil and gas industry," said Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources
Minister Richard Neufeld. "British Columbians are telling us we must do
more as a government and as individuals. We will act to stem the growth
of global warming and minimize the impacts already unleashed by
establishing targets and actions and by working with our national and
international neighbours."
This builds on other climate change actions announced in yesterday's
throne speech:
* Effective immediately, B.C. will become the first jurisdiction in
North America, if not the world, to require 100 per cent carbon
sequestration for any coal-fired electricity project.
* The Climate Action Team will be asked to identify practicable options
and actions for making the government of B.C. carbon neutral by 2010.
* The new energy plan will require British Columbia to be electricity
self-sufficient by 2016.
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Media
contact:
Mike Morton
Press Secretary
Office of the Premier
250 213-8218
For more information on government services or to subscribe to the
Province's news feeds using RSS, visit the Province's website at
www.gov.bc.ca.
http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2005-2009/2007EMPR0007-000130.pdf
February 11, 2007
NEB OKs TransCanada pipeline conversion for Keystone project
DAVID EBNER
Globe and Mail
10-Feb-2007
TransCanada Corp. vaulted ahead yesterday in the race to build a new pipeline to handle additional oil sands output as it received a key regulatory approval for its proposed $2.1-billion (U.S.) Keystone pipeline.
The National Energy Board approved TransCanada's request to use a natural gas pipeline in Saskatchewan and Manitoba as part of Keystone, converting the gas link into an oil connection in an overall plan to carry crude to southern Illinois. The energy regulator said the decision was in the "public interest."
With an approval in hand, TransCanada extends its lead over rival Enbridge Inc. to build the first new pipeline to carry expected increased oil sands production.
The gas line conversion proposal was controversial among Calgary energy companies, with EnCana Corp. and Shell Canada Ltd. opposing the move, defending their interests as shippers on the gas line.
Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and Suncor Energy Inc. said the new oil line was crucial. Suncor said that if Keystone isn't ready in late 2009, as planned, "Western Canadian crude oil will be stranded in Canada" in 2010.
TransCanada also needs a general approval for the project but that is considered less contentious.
TCPL Keystone Facilities Transfer MH-1-2006
09-Feb-2007 NEB approves Keystone Facilities Transfer
NEB registry for MH-1-2006
Other NEB activities with respect to various oilsands takeaway pipeline proposals:
TCPL Keystone OH-1-2007
This is the construction project, not the transfer portion referred to in this story. The project consists of 864 kilometres of existing gas transmission pipeline and the construction of approximately 371 km of new pipeline.
29-Jan-2007 Hearing Order, Schedule and Draft List of Issues
23-Feb-2007 Intervenor Application Deadline
04-Jun-2007 Oral Hearing
NEB Registry for OH-1-2007
Enbridge Gateway
18-Dec-2006 NEB advises Minister that project is on hold
27-Nov-2006 Enbridge advises NEB that project is on hold
NEB Registry for Preliminary Information Package
Enbridge Southern Lights Condensate Pipeline
15-Nov-2006 Enbridge files preliminary information package to take an existing oil pipeline out of southbound service and reverse it to transport 180,000 bpd of diluent from Chicago IL to Edmonton AB.
NEB registry for Preliminary Information Package
Enbridge Alberta Clipper
24-Oct-2006 Enbridge files preliminary information package for 1070 km new oil pipeline from Hardisty AB to US border at Gretna MB. Capacity 450,000 bpd.
NEB registry for Preliminary Information Package
Terasen Trans Mountain Expansion Projects (TMX)
TMX Anchor Loop OH-1-2006
26-Oct-2006 NEB approval of OH-1-2006
17-Feb-2006 Terasen (Trans Mountain) applied to add looping and pumps to existing Trans Mountain pipeline between Hinton AB and Rearguard BC
NEB registry for OH-1-2006
TMX Pump Station Expansion
09-Nov-2005 NEB approves application
07-May-2005 Terasen (Trans Mountain) applied to add twelve new pump stations and modify a number of existing pump stations on its Trans Mountain oil pipeline between Edmonton AB and Burnaby BC. This would add 35,000 bpd to bring pipeline capacity to 260,000 bpd.
NEB registry for Pump Station Expansion project
February 02, 2007
IPCC report confirms global warming
Damning report seeks to end debate over global warming
Lewis Smith, The Times, London, 03-Feb-2007
New fears on climate raise heat on leaders
Anthony Browne, Tom Baldwin and Mark Henderson, The Times, London, 03-Feb-2007
Science Panel Says Global Warming Is ‘Unequivocal’
By Elisabeth Rosenthal and Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times, 03-Feb-2007
Damning report seeks to end debate over global warming
Lewis Smith
The Times, London
03-Feb-2007
- Mankind to blame for temperature rise
- World 'has decade to prevent disasters'
Global warming is caused by mankind, is here to stay and is getting worse, leading climate scientists have concluded.
In a bleak report to world leaders aimed at assessing the impact and extent of climate change, 2,500 scientists from 113 countries said that the evidence of worsening global warming was overwhelming.
So strong is the evidence linking the warming climate to human actions that only the most irresponsible world leaders can ignore or deny global warming and its causes, a senior UN official said at the launch of the report.
Achim Steiner, the executive director of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), said that the authoritative report should remove any doubt over whether man-made climate change was taking place. “February 2 will perhaps one day be remembered as the day the question mark was removed,” he said. “Anyone who would continue to risk inaction will one day in the history books be considered irresponsible.”
David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, was equally certain that the “debate over the science of climate change is well and truly over” and called for immediate international action to address the problem.
He said that there was only a short time left — as little as ten years, according to some scientists — to act to stop runaway temperature rises that will bring a host of natural disasters. Presidents, prime ministers and heads of government treasuries must, he urged, ensure that there is “international political commitment to avoid dangerous climate change”.
The Summary for Policy-makers report was one of a series to be issued this year as part of the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It showed that since the third assessment, carried out in 2001, there has been a deterioration.
The IPCC is regarded as the authoritative voice on the science of global warming, chiefly because its procedures lend themselves to thoroughness and conservatism. Its reports are produced by researchers with acknowledged expertise who have to convince thousands of their peers that their opinions are backed by rigorous evidence. It was established by the UN in 1988, and produces reports every five to six years.
Rajendra Pachauri, the panel chairman, introduced the report, which he said revealed that mankind was having a dramatic impact on the world’s climate: “We are in a sense doing things that haven’t happened in 650,000 years.”
If governments continue to allow unfettered use of fossil fuels, temperatures are estimated to rise by at least 2.4C (4.3F) and perhaps as high as 6.4C. A 4C average rise is the most likely, the report concluded. Six years ago the predictions were for a 1.4C to 5.8C rise, with 3C the most likely, and the report pointed to rising carbon dioxide emissions since 2001 as the cause of the increase.
Even in the most optimistic scenario considered, in which the global economy reduces reliance on heavy industry and rejects fossil fuels in favour of renewable energy, current carbon emissions mean that the world is likely to undergo a 1.8C temperature rise.
The prediction makes the European Union’s target of limiting the rise to 2C even more challenging, and suggests that the 2-3C limit proposed in the Stern report last year will be harder to achieve than was thought.
Scientists agreed that they could say with “very high confidence” that human activities since the Industrial Revolution had warmed the world. Most 20th-century temperature rises were, they said, “very likely” to have been caused by mankind, a strengthening of confidence since 2001 when they said that it was likely.
They concluded: “Global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased markedly as a result of human activities since 1750 and now far exceed pre-industrial values.
“The global increases in carbon dioxide concentration are due primarily to fossil-fuel use and land-use change, while those of methane and nitrous oxide are primarily due to agriculture. Continued greenhouse-gas emissions at or above current rates would cause further warming and induce many changes in the global climate system during the 21st century that would very likely be larger than those observed during the 20th.”
Susan Soloman, who jointly led the scientists, said of greenhouse gases: “We have a strong confidence that these things are driving climate change to a substantial degree. There can be no question that greenhouse gases are dominated by human activity.” The report identified effects that have already been observed, including reduction of ice cover, ocean temperature rises and increased sea levels, and more extreme weather such as droughts and heat waves. For the first time the IPCC identified hurricane intensity as having worsened.
Global warming will cause the effects to increase in frequency and strength. By the end of the century, the scientists said, Arctic ice is likely to have disappeared and summer heatwaves in Europe will be common. The report addressed the issue of solar radiation, which has been cited by sceptics about manmade climate change as the likely cause of global warming. The scientists dismissed it as anything but a minor possible contributor.
Despite the White House’s reluctance to take action against climate change, the US sent a delegation to the IPCC and approved the report.
Icy danger
An image of two polar bears apparently stranded on melting ice off Alaska was used around the world yesterday to illustrate the dangers of climate change. These bears, however, were photographed in 2004, late in the summer when the ice melts naturally, and are thought to have swum safely to another ice floe. Disappearing sea ice is the bears’ greatest threat, and the IPCC predicts that it could disappear by the end of the century. However, as such strong swimmers, it is almost impossible for polar bears to be stranded on a breakaway ice floe. It is far more likely that this pair were just taking a breather. [see NY Times article, below]
New fears on climate raise heat on leaders
Anthony Browne, Tom Baldwin and Mark Henderson
The Times, London
03-Feb-2007
- Man is very likely to blame for global change
- Temperature forecast to rise by 4C by 2100
Britain is to spearhead a new drive against climate change by bypassing President Bush and urging US states to join directly with Europe’s own carbon trading scheme.
David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, and MPs will travel to America in a fortnight for talks with states and the Democratic-controlled Senate which back limits on US greenhouse gas emissions. The Government hopes that nine northeastern states and California can eventually join the European Union’s carbon trading scheme in the first step towards a global scheme. The schemes are likely to prove far more effective by working together.
The developments came as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its bleakest and most confident assessment yet of the science behind global warming. Its report, prepared by more than 2,500 scientists from 113 countries, predicted that average temperatures are likely to rise by 4C by the end of the century, and said human activities were “very likely” responsible.
Carbon trading schemes, pioneered in the EU, enable polluters to buy and sell emission permits, creating financial incentives to reduce production of greenhouse gases. The trip comes after a UN report published yesterday that confirmed that climate change was almost certainly man-made, and was likely to be far worse than previously thought. The Government said that, in the wake of the report, it would step up international efforts to reach a new global agreement on combating climate change, which would include both the US and developing countries such as India and China.
Ministers are also set to launch a campaign in Britain to encourage people to do more to reduce their own carbon emissions, including a new “carbon calculator” so that individuals can work out how much they are personally responsible for.
Mr Miliband told The Times last night: “The science is moving faster than the politics now. In 2007 we need significant progress at the international level. The UK is showing leadership with its Climate Change Bill, the EU is showing leadership and we hope that other legislatures across the world will take similar action.”
California and the nine northeastern states, frustrated by President Bush’s lack of action, have already set up their own carbon trading schemes. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor of California, and George Pataki, Governor of New York, announced they would like to see ways to link up with the EU trading schemes. Despite good-will on both sides, the issue is fraught with difficulties, with the European Commission still having to resolve various legal issues.
Although there are signs that Mr Bush himself is finally beginning to shift ground, recognising climate change as a “serious problem” in his State of the Union speech last month, he still opposes capping carbon emissions. Mr Miliband will address the Washington Legislators Forum, which has been convened to take advantage of the opportunity created by the Democratic takeover of Congress last month.
Stephen Byers, the former Trade Secretary, will lead a discussion on how US states that have already set limits on greenhouse gases could be invited into the EU scheme. He said last night: “Some of the proposals will bypass the White House, others will engage with sympathetic Republicans. We are seeking to put pressure on President Bush.”
Science Panel Says Global Warming Is ‘Unequivocal’
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL and ANDREW C. REVKIN
New York Times
03-Feb-2007
Dan Crosbie/Canadian Ice Service
Polar bears on chunks of glacial ice in the Bering Sea in 2004. Much
higher temperatures are forecast for the Arctic, climate scientists say.
PARIS, Feb. 2 — In a grim and powerful assessment of the future of the planet, the leading international network of climate scientists has concluded for the first time that global warming is “unequivocal” and that human activity is the main driver, “very likely” causing most of the rise in temperatures since 1950.
They said the world was in for centuries of climbing temperatures, rising seas and shifting weather patterns — unavoidable results of the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere.
But their report, released here on Friday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said warming and its harmful consequences could be substantially blunted by prompt action.
While the report provided scant new evidence of a climate apocalypse now, and while it expressly avoided recommending courses of action, officials from the United Nations agencies that created the panel in 1988 said it spoke of the urgent need to limit looming and momentous risks.
“In our daily lives we all respond urgently to dangers that are much less likely than climate change to affect the future of our children,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, which administers the panel along with the World Meteorological Organization.
“Feb. 2 will be remembered as the date when uncertainty was removed as to whether humans had anything to do with climate change on this planet,” he went on. “The evidence is on the table.”
The report is the panel’s fourth assessment since 1990 on the causes and consequences of climate change, but it is the first in which the group asserts with near certainty — more than 90 percent confidence — that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from human activities have been the main causes of warming in the past half century.
In its last report, in 2001, the panel, consisting of hundreds of scientists and reviewers, said the confidence level for its projections was “likely,” or 66 to 90 percent. That level has now been raised to “very likely,” better than 90 percent. Both reports are online at www.ipcc.ch.
The Bush administration, which until recently avoided directly accepting that humans were warming the planet in potentially harmful ways, embraced the findings, which had been approved by representatives from the United States and 112 other countries on Thursday night.
Administration officials asserted Friday that the United States had played a leading role in studying and combating climate change, in part by an investment of an average of almost $5 billion a year for the past six years in research and tax incentives for new technologies.
At the same time, Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman rejected the idea of unilateral limits on emissions. “We are a small contributor to the overall, when you look at the rest of the world, so it’s really got to be a global solution,” he said.
The United States, with about 5 percent of the world’s population, contributes about a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions, more than any other country.
Democratic lawmakers quickly fired off a round of news releases using the report to bolster a fresh flock of proposed bills aimed at cutting emissions of greenhouse gases. Senator James M. Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who has called the idea of dangerous human-driven warming a hoax, issued a news release headed “Corruption of Science” that rejected the report as “a political document.”
The new report says the global climate is likely to warm 3.5 to 8 degrees Fahrenheit if carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere reach twice the levels of 1750, before the Industrial Revolution.
Many energy and environment experts see such a doubling, or worse, as a foregone conclusion after 2050 unless there is a prompt and sustained shift away from the 20th-century pattern of unfettered burning of coal and oil, the main sources of carbon dioxide, and an aggressive expansion of nonpolluting sources of energy.
And the report says there is a more than a 1-in-10 chance of much greater warming, a risk that many experts say is far too high to ignore.
Even a level of warming that falls in the middle of the group’s range of projections would be likely to cause significant stress to ecosystems, according to many climate experts and biologists. And it would alter longstanding climate patterns that shape water supplies and agricultural production.
Moreover, the warming has set in motion a rise in global sea levels, the report says. It forecasts a rise of 7 to 23 inches by 2100 and concludes that seas will continue to rise for at least 1,000 years to come. By comparison, seas rose about 6 to 9 inches in the 20th century.
John P. Holdren, an energy and climate expert at Harvard, said the report “powerfully underscores the need for a massive effort to slow the pace of global climatic disruption before intolerable consequences become inevitable.”
“Since 2001, there has been a torrent of new scientific evidence on the magnitude, human origins and growing impacts of the climatic changes that are under way,” said Mr. Holdren, who is the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “In overwhelming proportions, this evidence has been in the direction of showing faster change, more danger and greater confidence about the dominant role of fossil-fuel burning and tropical deforestation in causing the changes that are being observed.”
The conclusions came after a three-year review of hundreds of studies of past climate shifts; observations of retreating ice, warming and rising seas, and other changes around the planet; and a greatly expanded suite of supercomputer simulations used to test how the earth will respond to a growing blanket of gases that hold heat in the atmosphere.
The section released Friday was a 20-page summary for policymakers, which was approved early in the morning by teams of officials from more than 100 countries after three days and nights of wrangling over wording with the lead authors, all of whom are scientists.
It described far-flung ramifications for both humans and nature.
“It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent,” said the summary.
Generally, the scientists said, more precipitation will fall at higher latitudes, which are also likely to see lengthened growing seasons. Semi-arid subtropical regions, already chronically plagued by drought, could have a further 20 percent drop in rainfall under the panel’s midrange outlook for increases in the greenhouse gases.
The summary added a new chemical consequence of the buildup of carbon dioxide to the list of mainly climatic and biological effects foreseen in its previous reports: a drop in the pH of seawater as oceans absorb billions of tons of carbon dioxide, which forms carbonic acid when partly dissolved. The ocean would stay alkaline, but marine biologists have said that a change in the direction of acidity could imperil some kinds of corals and plankton.
The report essentially caps a half-century-long effort to discern whether humans, through the buildup of carbon dioxide and other gases released mainly by burning fuels and forests, could influence the earth’s climate system in potentially momentous ways.
The group operates under the aegis of the United Nations and was chartered in 1988 — a year of record heat, burning forests and the first big headlines about global warming — to provide regular reviews of climate science to governments to inform policy choices.
Government officials are involved in shaping the summary of each report, but the scientist-authors, who are unpaid, have the final say over the thousands of pages in four underlying technical reports that will be completed and published later this year.
Big questions remain about the speed and extent of some impending changes, both because of uncertainty about future population and pollution trends and the complex interrelationships of the greenhouse emissions, clouds, dusty kinds of pollution, the oceans and earth’s veneer of life, which both emits and soaks up carbon dioxide and other such gases.
But a broad array of scientists, including authors of the report and independent experts, said the latest analysis was the most sobering view yet of a century of transition — after thousands of years of relatively stable climate conditions — to a new norm of continual change.
Should greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere at even a moderate pace, average temperatures by the end of the century could match those last seen 125,000 years ago, in the previous warm spell between ice ages, the report said.
At that time, the panel said, sea levels were 12 to 20 feet higher than they are now. Much of that extra water is now trapped in the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, which are eroding in some places.
The panel said there was no solid scientific understanding of how rapidly the vast stores of ice in polar regions will melt, so their estimates on new sea levels were based mainly on how much the warmed oceans will expand, and not on contributions from the melting of ice now on land.
Other scientists have recently reported evidence that the glaciers and ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctic could flow seaward far more quickly than estimated in the past, and they have proposed that the risks to coastal areas could be much more imminent. But the climate change panel is forbidden by its charter to enter into speculation, and so could not include such possible instabilities in its assessment.
Michel Jarraud, the secretary general of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization, said the lack of clarity should offer no one comfort. “The speed with which melting ice sheets are raising sea levels is uncertain, but the report makes clear that sea levels will rise inexorably over the coming centuries,” he said. “It is a question of when and how much, and not if.”
The warming and other climate changes will be highly variable around the world, with the Arctic in particular seeing much higher temperatures, said Susan Solomon, the co-leader of the team writing the summary and the section of the panel’s report on basic science. She is an atmospheric scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The kinds of vulnerabilities are very much dependent on where you are, Dr. Solomon said in a telephone interview. “If you’re living in parts of the tropics and they’re getting drier and you’re a farmer, there are some very acute issues associated with even small changes in rainfall — changes we’re already seeing are significant,” she said. “If you are an Inuit and you’re seeing your sea ice retreating already, that’s affecting your life style and culture.”
The 20-page summary is a sketch of the findings that are most germane to the public and world leaders.
The full report, thousands of pages of technical background, will be released in four sections through the year — the first on basic science, then sections on impacts and options for limiting emissions and limiting inevitable harms, and finally a synthesis of all of the findings near year’s end.
In a news conference in Paris, Dr. Solomon declined to provide her own views on how society should respond to the momentous changes projected in the study.
“I honestly believe that it would be a much better service for me to keep my personal opinions separate than what I can actually offer the world as a scientist,” she said. “My stepson, who is 29, has an utterly different view of risks than I do. People are going to have to make their own judgments.”
Some authors of the report said that no one could honestly point to any remaining uncertainties as justification for further delay.
“Policy makers paid us to do good science, and now we have very high scientific confidence in this work — this is real, this is real, this is real,” said Richard B. Alley, one of the lead authors and a professor at Pennsylvania State University. “So now act, the ball’s back in your court.”
Elisabeth Rosenthal reported from Paris, and Andrew C. Revkin from New York. Felicity Barringer contributed reporting from Washington.
Crude oil lingers from Exxon Valdez spill
RACHEL D'ORO
Associated Press
Globe and Mail
02-Feb-2007
Bill Scheer, of Valdez, Alaska, is covered in
crude oil while working on a beach fouled by the
spill of the tanker Exxon Valdez at Prince William
Sound, on April 13, 1989. (John Gaps III/AP Photo)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Lingering crude from the nation's largest oil spill has weathered only slightly in some places almost 18 years after the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground and fouled hundreds of miles of Alaska shoreline, a new federal U.S. study released Wednesday concludes.
The estimated 85 tons of oil remaining at Prince William Sound is declining about 4 per cent a year and likely even slower in the Gulf of Alaska, according to research chemist Jeffrey Short of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
At that rate of decline, oil could persist for decades below the surface of some beaches, Mr. Short and colleagues said in their report.
The study is to be published in the Feb. 15 edition of Environmental Science & Technology, the journal of the American Chemical Society.
“Such persistence can pose a contact hazard to inter-tidally foraging sea otters, sea ducks, and shorebirds, create a chronic source of low-level contamination, discourage subsistence in a region where use is heavy, and degrade the wilderness character of protected lands,” researchers wrote in their conclusion.
The study was partially funded by the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council, which was formed by federal mandate after the Exxon Valdez spill to monitor industry operations. Researchers, however, said their findings and conclusions were not influenced by that sponsorship.
Exxon Mobil Corp. spokesman Mark Boudreaux said the Irving, Texas-based company's Valdez team planned to closely review the findings.
“Based on our initial review of the report, there is nothing newsworthy or significant in the report that has not already been addressed,” he said. “The existence of some small amounts of residual oil in Prince William Sound on about two-tenths of 1 per cent of the shore of the sound is not a surprise, is not disputed and was fully anticipated.”
Mr. Boudreaux said Exxon has supported more than 350 independent studies whose scientists have found no evidence of significant long-term impact from the spill.
The Exxon Valdez ran aground March 24, 1989, emptying 41 million litres of crude oil into Prince William Sound. The spill contaminated more than 1900 kilometres of shoreline and killed hundreds of thousands of seabirds and marine animals.
Short and the other researchers looked at subsurface oil from 10 randomly selected beaches in the spill area. Data from the study was collected in 2005 and compared with samples taken from the same beaches for a 2001 study.
Earlier research from other spills showed that oil could hold toxins for years if embedded in oxygen-depleted sediments where minimal weather-caused disintegration occurs, according to the new report. In the Valdez spill study, researchers found that thick, emulsified oil — called “oil mousse” — resists weathering and thus can be preserved in oxygen-containing sediments.
“Our results show it's not changing much,” Mr. Short said. “What's left is going to be there a long time.”
Exxon estimates it has paid $3-billion (U.S.) in cleanup costs, government settlements, fines and compensation. But it still has not paid an unresolved punitive damage judgment, originally set for $5-billion by a federal jury in 1994.
The case has since bounced between the federal court and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In December, the appeals court ruled that the oil giant must pay $2.5-billion to compensate thousands of fishermen and others affected by the spill.
Earlier this month, Exxon asked the court to reconsider its decision.
John Devens, executive director of the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens' Advisory Council, said Exxon's prolonged stalling were unconscionable considering the social, economic and environmental damages.
“It's very difficult to understand why Exxon isn't a better industrial citizen,” Mr. Devens said.
Monuments Go Dark For Climate Change
Associated Press
February 1, 2007
PARIS - The Eiffel Tower's 20,000 sparkling bulbs went dark for five minutes Thursday night and the lights went out at the Colosseum in Rome and the Greek parliament in Athens in a demonstration of concern about climate change across the European continent.
Environmental activists timed the lights-out protest before the release Friday of a major climate change report that will warn of a worsening threat from global warming.
The City of Light dimmed between 7:55 p.m. and 8 p.m. when lights were switched off at the Eiffel Tower as well as the Paris' Hilton, where many of the scientists and officials from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are staying as they work on the climate change report. The hotel even switched off its electric revolving front door.
The scientists' long-awaited report says global warming is "very likely" man-made, the most powerful language ever used on the issue by the world's leading climate scientists, delegates who have seen the report said Thursday.
And the document, the most authoritative science on the issue, says the disturbing signs are already visible in rising seas, killer heat waves, worsening droughts and stronger hurricanes.
The protest extended to the southeastern city of Grenoble where a campaign rally organized by French Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal went ahead in the dark after organizers pulled the plug on lights in the meeting hall. The hall's microphones and speakers worked during the blackout.
Royal, a former environment minister, has pledged to make the fight against climate change her top ecological priority if elected in France's April-May elections.
Individuals also heeded the lights-out call by France's Alliance for the Planet which organized the demonstration.
"I think it's an important gesture," said Chantal Bericault, who said she turned off all electrical appliances in her apartment in the chic 8th district of the French capital.
Bericault, a jewelry store owner, said she had even braved her building's stairs in the dark.
Some experts frowned on the lights-out, saying it could consume more energy than it conserves because of a power spike when people turn the lights back on. They warned it could possibly cause brownouts or even blackouts, though no problems were immediately reported.
Several European cities staged symbolic blackouts along with Paris.
Authorities in Rome switched off the lights at two of the Italian capital's most popular monuments, the Colosseum and the Capitol.
In Spain, Madrid's city hall turned off one of the capital's most emblematic monuments, the Puerta de Alcala arch. In the southern city of Seville, local authorities did the same with the famous Giralda Tower, and the Mediterranean city of Valencia also turned out lights at some landmark buildings.
In the Greek capital, Athens, lights illuminating several public buildings -- including the parliament, city hall, and Foreign Ministry -- were temporarily turned off.
Copyright © 2007 KABC-TV and The Associated Press.