Saturday, August 25, 2007

The 11th Hour Trailer

A new movie on climate change was released this week called The 11th Hour. This film is produced and narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio and provides a quality follow up to An Inconvenient Truth. While An Inconvenient Truth focused on mostly the science of Global Warming, this new film seems to focus on both the effects of global warming as well as the solutions to reducing our emissions.
Regarding the effects of climate change, one item really stands out for me, and that is the advent of environmental refugees. The trailer notes that the UN has stated that by the middle of the century, there may be 150 Million displaced peoples due to changes in our climate. It's really hard to fathom how many people that is, but what I try to focus on is this: there will be areas which humans have lived since the dawn of civilization that will no longer be habitable due to humankind's influence. These areas will include some of the places that were first developed and are now some of the most densely populated.. The great river deltas of the world, such as the Ganges, the Yangtze, and the Nile, will be affected in similar ways to the largest delta in North America - the Mississippi (New Orleans).
What I like best about this new movie is the attention it seems to pay to emerging technologies and the dispelling of myths about the economic collapse and the puritan lifestyles required to address our addiction to fossil fuels. These emerging technologies and methods can provide opportunity, one that both Canada and Nova Scotia can play large role in. We are on the cusp of the cost effectiveness of zero emission technologies such as wind power. Decreasing fossil fuel supply and increasing the costs to emit pollution, along with inevitable inflation, show that the wide spread use of renewable and sustainable energy is unavoidable. This movie seems to remind us all that the solution is achievable. Lets hope Steven Harper and Rodney MacDonald get the message.

The trailer:

Thursday, August 23, 2007

"Canada's New Government" fails again

Once again, Steven Harper's Conservative government has acted against the wishes of the vast majority of Canadians by failing to issue a credible plan to meet Canada's international obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. In response to a Liberal private member's Bill calling for the government of Canada to table a credible plan to meet the Kyoto guidelines, the Conservatives issued a 37 page "excuse of why government is not willing to take appropriate action to help protect the future of Canadians and the planet", said the Climate Action Network. The Climate Action Network is a joint effort by major environmental and sustainability groups formed to provide a unified voice regarding climate change issues in Canada. The governments plan is still based on "intensity" targets (see GWB's Grand Plan - June 7th) rather than hard caps on emissions, and will leave Canada more than 30% above its Kyoto Targets. All three federal opposition parties voted in favour of this private members bill, (which represents more than 60% of the voting public), so Harper can hardly say that he is acting in the interests of the majority of Canadians. Harper claims to be protecting Canadians from economic collapse, however, he is really only protecting the unbridled pillaging of our natural resources by foreign companies (Alberta), and our burning of dirty fossil fuels from other countries (Nova Scotia).
See the press release from the Climate Action Network - here

In other news:
  • Arctic Sea Ice Shrinks to lowest area ever - article
  • Making Global Warming Profitable - stories of substantial economic success in countries that are aggressively reducing their GHG Emissions - article
  • Glace Bay Wind Farm Commissioned - Province's second larges wind farm is now online. Note comments from the Premier saying "The future of power is renewable energy", and that the Province has the policies in place for to create "green economy". How ensuring the profitability, monopoly status and marketshare of the Canada's 5th largest emitter creates a "green economy", I'm not quite sure. -article

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Natural Gas in Halifax

The Provincial Government has played a pivotal role in bringing Natural Gas to the Halifax peninsula, and helped the supplier, Heritage Gas secure an "anchor" client in Capital Health. This change will bring a reduction in GHG emissions, since natural gas does burn cleaner than the source it is replacing, heating oil, however, I would hardly agree with the statement from Heritage Gas that it is "environmentally friendly" nor do I think it is a wise investment for the future of Halifax.

Natural Gas gets off easy when it comes to fossil fuel's affect on the environment, even though it is a highly exhaustible source (just like oil) that still emits lots of GHG emissions. The Government press release noted that this conversion will reduce GHG Emissions by 20,000 tonnes, which is a good thing, but installing 4 utility scale wind turbines would have the same effect with much less cost.

The people of Halifax and Nova Scotia must also stop to think if this is a wise investment economically. The price of natural gas is still highly volatile, and most of the worlds reserves have been found and are being extracted. Even our own offshore reserves are in decline. NS has done well exporting natural gas to New England, and why have we mostly exported it?? because it is more expensive than our current sources. Rather than exclusively being a seller of a limited resource with large price fluctuations, our provincial government and Heritage Gas are spending millions of dollars making the people of Nova Scotia buyers of it has well. The price of natural gas has come down over the past two years, but it only takes a basic understanding of supply and demand to realize that when supply is limited, price will go up. Where does Premier MacDonald and Minister Dooks think the price of natural gas will be in 10 years? or 25 years? It is increasingly expensive to run our health care system due to shifting demographics, and yet our government is investing millions to guarantee that the costs of operating our health care facilities will continue to increase. Not only will the price continue to increase, but the price of natural gas is actually more volatile than the oil it is replacing. All it would take is one big storm or one terrorist attack, and it could mean drastic increases in the cost to Nova Scotians to run our hospitals overnight.

In order to be truly environmentally friendly, and economically wise, the government needs to support using renewable energy sources to power our businesses, institutions and residences. Energy Minister Bill Dooks said in the government's press release "Nova Scotia has tremendous natural-gas potential -- we've got it, let's use it". Why doesn't "we've got it, let's use it" apply to renewable sources?? Not only do we have a far greater resource potential than natural gas in both wind and tidal , it doesn't require millions of millions of dollars of government infrastructure subsidization to succeed. All it needs is the opportunity to compete.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Cape Wind on the Daily Show

I hear Anne Murray has a place in Nantucket...

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Premiers meeting on GHG Emissions

Well, I can manage to type with two hands again, which allows me to comment on the recent Council of the Federation meetings in NB. The Premiers of the Provinces and Territories were meeting over the past few days, and the major topic of discussion was GHG Emissions. While almost every province was in favour of a Cap and Trade system, none of the Premiers was able to stand up to Alberta to sign a country wide agreement to Cap and Trade emissions. So the greatest environmental pillaging our county has ever seen will continue, unfettered still. Alberta has a yearly surplus of over $8Billion, population growth that can't be handled, and crumbling infrastructure, yet they can't see the benefit of investing in clean technology, or in their future. They have even recently decided to impose a cap on wind energy production, yet they won't put a cap on oil sands development. What the powers that be in Alberta, along with our Calgarian Prime Minister, fail to realize that forcing companies to reduce their emissions by putting a dollar value on those emissions will only encourage innovation and establish an industry of carbon sequestration and diversion that could apply its trade all over the world. The technology has already been established to pump CO2 into the ground, and it can even be used to force more of their precious oil out of the ground, and implementing would barely make a dent in the oil companies record breaking profits.

Closer to home, Premier MacDonald said that many of the Premiers were asking about his Environmental Goals and Sustainability Act that states that NS will reduce our GHG emissions by 10% below 1990 levels by 2020. He also stated that "the province needs to move forward more quickly on determining specific plans on reducing emissions ... but we should have an added urgency based on what other provinces are doing". Very true. Nova Scotia needs a government who can make the tough decisions in the short term so that the province will benefit long after they are out of office. We have heard enough talk, when the governments sits in the Fall, the people of Nova Scotia will be looking for action.

Solar growth in rainy Germany

From a province that is just catching up, to a country that has been doing it right for years. In Germany, it's not particularly sunny or windy, yet it is by far the worlds leader in renewable energy. (it's actually somewhat sunnier and much windier here in NS). What have they done to encourage this amazing growth despite not having the best of resources? a Feed-in-Tariff. As I've said before, a Feed-in-Tariff requires the utility to pay a guaranteed rate for a particular type of renewable power. In the example in the following story from the G&M about the solar industry, that rate is a whopping 49cent/kWh. Now a similar rate in NS wouldn't be that high, even for solar, because our overall electricity rates are much lower. In Ontario it's 42cents for solar and 11 for wind. With the abundance of wind we have in this province guaranteeing 9cents would work far better than the current lowest-price tendering methods of NS Power. Not only would it encourage more renewable growth, but it would also allow smaller groups and even individuals to participate, unlike only the biggest companies with the deepest pockets under our current system.
Despite all these numbers, the thing that must be taken from this article is the fact that the power to make huge progress in reducing our GHG emissions, and increasing renewable energies, is in the hands of our government. When Premier MacDonald is looking for "specific plans" he doesn't have to reinvent the wheel, he just has to take advise from those who do it best.
Here is the article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070731.IBSOLAR31/TPStory/Business