Erik BJORGAN for Parliament

The numbers say it all: Canada is a climate-change miscreant

by Jeffrey Simpson,

When the Harper government has something it wants everybody to know, it sends the Prime Minister to make an “announcement,” gathers a gaggle of ministers to nod their heads at the words of their sage boss, issues press releases and, if necessary, buys newspaper and television advertising to trumpet itself.

When, however, the news is bad, well, standard procedure is either not to release the information at all, or to post it on a website without
telling anyone, hoping the news will pass unnoticed.

Such was the case this week when quietly, of course, Environment Canada posted on its website the embarrassing news about the government’s expensive and largely futile measures to combat greenhouse gas emissions.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/the-numbers-say-it-all-canada-is-a-climate-change-miscreant/article1591592/

Tories rewriting safety regs with no input from their own expert panel, says member.

By Mitchell Anderson

http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/05/31/OilSpillPrevention/index.html

‘Green-energy’ project to burn railway ties stymied by Kamloops protesters

With financial backing of Canadian government and U.S. Department of Energy, businessman was feeling pretty optimistic.

Robert Matas
Globe and Mail

Manitoba businessman Kim Sigurdson was thrilled when Canadian Pacific Railway signed a contract to provide millions of old railway ties to his company for an innovative green project that would convert biomass into energy, heat and employment.

With the financial backing of the Canadian government and the U.S. Department of Energy, he was feeling pretty optimistic about the future of his company, Aboriginal Cogeneration Corporation. He obtained a permit from the B.C. Environment Ministry to move ahead with the project in Kamloops. It was exactly the kind of green business that the British Columbia government is trying to encourage.

But then the critics began to speak out, turning his first attempt to
develop a site for the project into an abysmal failure.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/green-energy-project-to-burn-railway-ties-stymied-by-kamloops-protesters/article1511364

Scientist didn’t fake data, report says

Mike De Souza
Canwest News Service

An academic inquiry into the so-called “climategate” e-mail scandal has concluded that a well-known U.S. scientist did not directly or indirectly falsify data in his research.

Report:
http://www.research.psu.edu/orp/Findings_Mann_Inquiry.pdf

The review, by a panel of senior administrators at Pennsylvania State University, found no evidence that climatologist Michael Mann had manipulated research that indicates humans are causing global warming.

However, the panel has recommended further review on questions about whether his conduct had undermined public confidence in his findings as a scientist.

http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/story.html?id=b940becf-3434-4391-9f80-ec3a19485b4f

For Immediate Release

LUMBY — Effective today, Huguette Allen resigns as Okanagan-Shuswap Green Party candidate. Allen was nominated candidate in March 2007 and ran federally in 2008 and again provincially in 2009, both times increasing the Green vote by 400%. Read the rest of this entry »

The economics of sequestration are expensive on a per-tonne basis. A tax would catch producers and consumers, a long-standing demand of producers in the oil and gas industry. It would give price certainty to companies. It would be much easier to keep the revenues in Alberta and other fossil-fuel provinces. It would be so much simpler to administer.

Jeffrey Simpson
Globe and Mail

Quebec is expected to receive somewhat more than $8.5-billion in equalization payments next year, up from about $8.3-billion this year. The payments will represent about 11 per cent of the government’s total revenues.

A big chunk of those payments come from the richest province, Alberta. So one would have thought that gratitude, if nothing else, might be extended from Quebec (and other equalization-receiving provinces, including Ontario) to Alberta.

No, a little Alberta-bashing apparently sells in la belle province, especially over the environment. Alberta has an environmental challenge, all right, because its greenhouse emissions are the highest in Canada, and Canada’s overall record is among the very worst in the world.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/albertans-agree-a-carbon-tax-was-the-best-solution/article1441309/