Economic Review, Bottom of the Barrel, and Carbon Offsets

I have some national perspective items that I'd like to bring to everyone's attention. I have a few Nova Scotian items that I wont get to this morning, but will hopefully pass on this evening.

First, an economic study of the the federal Conservatives environmental plan. The report is from Marc Jaccard of Simon Fraser University and the conservative CD Howe Institute. Mr. Jaccard has been hailed by none other than the Federal Environment Minister John Baird, as "one of the best economists in Canada" and was actually commissioned by Baird to write this report. The report details that the government as little chance of meeting its own 2020 targets (which are much more lenient than the Kyoto standards) and that emissions would not be likely to drop below current levels. Jaccard also had two very important statements. Firstly:
"no policy to curb greenhouse emissions will succeed unless it places a price on carbon emissions, either through a carbon tax or a strict economy-wide cap on carbon emissions"
Secondly, Jaccard mentioned that if Canada is going to reduce their emissions at all, they need to focus on programs and not targets, because these politicians wont be around when their target dates come around. Remember the 2050 target from the G8??

Here is the article: http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/841236.html


Moving on, here is an interesting analysis of the Oil Sands, from a US environmental group that as pledged to start fighting more development. The group calls the oil from the Alberta development "bottom of the barrel" and noted that oil from this type of extraction causes three times the carbon emissions in production as conventional oil.
Scary stuff. here is the article:
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Business/840196.html

Finally, an article about Carbon Offsetting. This is the practise of purchasing "offsets" to help retract carbon from the atmosphere to offset emissions from individuals or companies. Fully offsetting ones carbon emissions allows one to go "carbon neutral". In this article, the merits of this practise are discussed. Personally, I don't necessary think that carbon offsets are bad, but, I think they should be the last resort. An example would be Jacques Whitford, the Halifax NS based engineering firm that announced recently that they would soon be carbon neutral. They are trying to replace inefficient building systems and travel practises, and using offsets to offset the remaining. Hopefully, technology will advance to a point where companies can achieve "zero emission" status, rather than "carbon neutral". here is the article http://www.herald.ns.ca/NovaScotia/840974.html

anyway, that's all for now..

Dan