Category Archives: Climate Change

Capitalists Working on Climate Change?

http://climaterealityproject.org/sites/climaterealityproject.org/themes/climate/images/climate-share-image.jpgAs you know, I’m not one to tout the marvels of capitalism, however there is this. Out of the 6 of the most hopeful climate stories of this year at the Climate Reality Project, is this one about businesses doing [if only slightly] more than greenwashing or PR sexied up as climate action.

My hashtag obsession for 2015 is #ClimateHope!

Business Trends Favor Climate Action

The US-China climate deal is also a giant boost for clean-energy markets. Having the world’s two largest economies competing to accelerate the adoption of no-carbon and low-carbon technologies will send one of the most powerful market signals we’ve ever seen.

The US added more solar capacity in the past two years than in the previous 30 years combined. A host of companies and even whole industries are providing the goods and services that deliver cleaner, more efficient power to consumers.

In Nevada, Tesla is building the world’s largest advanced automotive-battery factory. In New York, Solar City is building a massive solar-photovoltaic factory.

Meanwhile, market leaders such as Google and Walmart are making huge investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Amazon recently announced its plan to shift to 100 percent renewable energy for its cloud computing and other divisions. The clean energy future is now – making it easier for nations to commit to real emissions reduction.

Our Year in Climate Action | Climate Reality.

Shhh, The Bold Revolution Has Started

We live in tumultuous times:

  • Ferguson and other non-indictments of white police who murdered people of colour
  • ISIL and other extremism
  • Stephen Harper’s continued assault on democracy and embrace of soft fascism [has he had CRA audit YOUR favourite progressive group yet?]
  • Accusations against Jian Ghomeshi
  • Accusations against Bill Cosby
  • The epidemic of campus rape, and necessary reflection about why it has taken this long to take this seriously
  • Victoria’s Times-Colonist newspaper’s racist editorial cartoons, and necessary reflection about why it has taken this long to take this seriously
  • Pipelines, fracking, dirty energy, tankers
  • The destructive Site-C dam in BC going ahead instead of spending that $8 billion on greener, more responsible energy infrastructure like solar and wind power
  • Radio hosts joking about asking whether Justin Trudeau would fuck, kill or marry Rona Ambrose, the prime minister’s wife and a former governor general

But 2014 has been a time of boldness:

There is a bold civil revolution happening so far this decade.

There is a convergence of issues that revolve around equality and justice. Social movements come when many different demands coalesce. This has been a decade of coalescence.

Our job, everyone’s job, is to make 2015 the year when enough of these roads join together to rebuild a world that respect dignity, peace, equality and justice.

We have #ClimateHope, #BlackLivesMatter, #NoPipelines, #IdleNoMore, #StopHarper, #VAW, #MMIW and every other movement.

Our job is to help each other on every different road, to realize how all our roads are the same roads.

That’s what solidarity looks like. And together we build society. Separate, the 1% tears it down, rapes it and plunders the wealth of the commons.

Enough.

Roll up your sleeves. But, don’t forget to dance!

Why Are Capitalists So Lazy?

... Conservatism is So Counterintuitive and Ideologues are Lazy, Part 2Entrepreneurialism, innovation, competition, insight, optimization, excellence?

These are the self-satisfying hallmarks of our jackboot triumphal capitalism.

But what’s with the laziest of the lazy capitalists?

You know, the ones who run the fossil fuel sector. The science is in. They’re causing much of the climate change we’re seeing, except of course for the spoutings of the scientists they pay to say it’s just that the sun is, you know, hot.

But if capitalism is supposed to be this wealth of innovation and better mouse traps, why are these lazy folks sitting around STILL extracting oil, gas and coal from the ground for easy profit when they should show us how awesome they are by spending probably less than a decade converting everything to green energy and leaving the rest of the carbon in the ground.

And despite how there are pods of eco-entrepreneurs all over the place who want to build the post-carbon energy infrastructure and keep capitalism alive, it’s them, the lazy energy ones, and the politicians they fund who are doing it to us. They’re not innovative. They’re:

a.) lazy,

b.) psychopaths,

c.) not all that bright, or

d.) is it that they just believe in optimization and utilitarianism SO MUCH that the most efficient thing to do is get every last drop of dinosaur tears out of the ground because their processing, energy and transportation infrastructure is already in place and it would mean dismantling it to build the post-carbon energy infrastructure? And who cares about the ecological consequences.

Or is it

e.) All of the above?

Con MP Supports Action on Climate Change? What?

Conservative MP Michael Chong is calling on the federal government to take action in the wake of a startling new report on climate change.What?

What?

What?

What?

Could this be the end of the denial of science?

Chong for prime minister?

What?

“This most recent report concludes that the warming of the planet due to emissions is ‘clear’ and ‘unequivocal,'” Chong said. “The report also concludes that without urgent action to reduce emissions, by the end of this century there is a high risk of severe, widespread, and irreversible damage due to extreme heat waves, more intense weather events, mass extinctions, coastal flooding, and crop failures.”

Chong said scientists have done their work, now politicians must do theirs.

“As a Conservative, I believe that we have a moral obligation to conserve our environment, so I call upon this government to meet its commitment to reduce emissions and I call on all governments meeting next month in Lima, Peru, and next year in Paris, France, to work together toward a new global treaty to reduce emissions,” he said.

Michael Chong: ‘We Have A Moral Obligation To Conserve Our Environment’.

How the Corporate Media Misleads Us, Intentionally

So, here’s Forbes magazine telling us that the majority of scientists are skeptical about global warming.

Hmmm. Well that’s news, for sure.

Except it’s a lie.

As a phrase, I’d be somewhat more interested in “climate change” or “climate breakdown,” but that’s not all that significant compared to the MASSIVE LIE IN THEIR HEADLINE! <echo> <echo> <echo>: “Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis“.

Here’s what they don’t tell us:

The survey was of petroleum industry scientists and engineers.

Do you think there MAY be some bias here?

They even link to the study, but they don’t report the most important element that erodes most of its credibility: their horribly skewed sample. And if you can find any Forbes apology or retraction or clarification about this lying piece of spin, I’d love to see it, because I can’t find it.

Ladies and gentlemen, submitted for your approval, our friends, the corporate media:

<cue applause sign>

Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis

It is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.

via Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis – Forbes.

Climate Change Science Deniers, Ignorance and Media’s False Balance

Climate change deniers are science deniers.

That makes them either stupid, or so incredibly biased/conflicted that they are willing to ignore science and dodge accusations of their own stupidity to accomplish some other goal.

In BC we are producing oil, gas and coal and stunningly stupid rates, only to go up in the future.

Our corporate media is spewing this “false balance” at us. Journalists who deny the scientific truth of climate change should be fired. But corporate media want to keep them on.

We need to continually inoculate our against this wilful ignorance.

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The Big LNG Tax Regime Vomit Bucket

Cue sweet new day[tm] political campaign music, invoking images of a unicorn flying over our quaint village, then Robert Redford in voiceover:

“LNG will be a $ trillion sector, reaping billions in revenue for the province [due to some kind of gruelling tax regime] so we can become debt-free, and pay for the best public services in the solar system, and bring trade junkets to the Golden Temple of Amritsar thrice yearly!”

Cue Law and Order “Bum Bum” loop:

After months of delays, release the actual tax rates. [Place face in palm, in advance.]

  1. It will never be over 7%, because, shut up.
  2. It will be 1.5% until LNG plant startup costs are paid off; and if the company is any good, it will delay that break even for about 76 years.
  3. Once the mythical startup costs are recouped, taxes rocket up to 3.5%.
  4. Then they hit the stratosphere of 5%, after 23 years!
  5. But wait, there’s more!
  6. Sneak in a special 3% tax credit, making the gruelling tax regime look like this: -1.5% for a really long time, then +0.5%, then +2% in 23 years. But maybe the math is a bit off because it’s so hard working with numbers that are so small.
  7. Money shot.

Begin slow clap.

Reducing the taxes to compete with other producing jurisdictions is called the race to the bottom. But the spin doctors call it:

A necessary response to changing market conditions

via Smyth: Turns out the LNG bonanza promised by the Liberals won’t be as spectacular.

Then, stick the spin doctors in a room with a case of Red Bull and a Bellini machine to produce the winning defensive attack:

Suggest with your crafty rhetoric that opposing the LNG tax regime is like killing babies.

De Jong suggested the New Democrats would have strangled the LNG baby in its cradle if they had won the election.

via Smyth: Turns out the LNG bonanza promised by the Liberals won’t be as spectacular.

It’s Miller Time.

Transportation After Fossil Fuels: A Decade Away?

Once upon a time, I rode the maglev at the Japan pavilion at Expo 86.

Since then, I’ve come to see that that was the Commodore Vic 20 of high speed travel. What’s the new standard? ET3.

So if you’ve been having a hard time imagining a post-carbon transportation system that would run on the electricity we’d glean from the wind and the sun, and cost about as much as one year of Air Canada’s gross revenue [$12.4 billion in 2013], start grinning when you read the quote at the bottom.

We could even fund it federally with a 5-year dedicated 1% increase in revenue from corporate taxes. The federal government 2012-13 $256 billion budget earned 13.6% of revenue from corporations [and 49% from personal income tax!!!]. This is not brain surgery, folks.

The Hyperloop has been vaguely described by Musk as a “cross between a Concorde, a rail gun, and an air hockey table.” A better description might be an elevated tube system with a magnetic levitation system similar to high-speed bullet trains. The kicker would be the enclosed tube, which would provide a nearly friction-less surface for individual capsules to travel in.

ET3′s Hyperloop-like project already has a number of schematics and plans already in place. They claim an automobile-sized, six-passenger capsule constructed for “outer space” travel conditions could easily reach speeds of 4,000 miles per hour on longer journeys across the country or across continents. In theory, this elevated tube system could be built for a tenth of the cost of high-speed rail and a quarter the cost of a freeway. The projected cost for a passenger to travel from Los Angeles to New York is $100.

LA To NYC In Under An Hour, Hyperloop System Will Let You Travel At 4,000 MPH | Industry Tap.

Transit Should Be Free; Until Then…

$1/day is a good start to get there.

  1. It’s good for the environment.
  2. It reduces commuter stress.
  3. It forces governments to increase progressive taxation to cover infrastructure costs.
  4. It uses BC’s cheap hydro electricity.
  5. It combats rampant zombie consumerism.
  6. The post-secondary UPass system has improved commuting incredibly.

So $1/day is a good start to get there:

Mayoral candidate Meena Wong of COPE launched another populist proposal Wednesday, calling for a universal transit program that would cost each of Vancouver’s citizens $1 per day.

People Should Stop Attacking The Margaret Wente

It doesn’t matter that she hasn’t read Naomi Klein’s new book about climate change.

It doesn’t matter because the internet of things.

It doesn’t matter because most of what’s important in the world is in the comment section of news stories, not the stories themselves. We all know journalists are biased anyways.

She is a public intellectual and deserving of respect. Maybe you’re all just jealous. Or lazy.

Look, it’s easy:

Stephen Harper wrote a book about hockey in Canada, A Greater Game. It’s a sociological book about hockey’s place in our culture. It doesn’t matter that Stephen Harper doesn’t believe in sociology. In his book he talks glowingly about French Canadian hockey stars so he can improve the party’s chances in Quebec in the next election. He also talks about how important it is to privatize the CBC by making sure they didn’t bid on renewing the theme song to Hockey Night in Canada, and then didn’t bid to keep the entire Hockey Night in Canada franchise. So now Rogers runs hockey in Canada. He described why that was really important. He ended his book with a review of the great young NHL prospects from his riding in Calgary-Nose Creek.

So if you get over your laziness and jealousy of Margaret Wente, go to WordPress.com and start your own blog, you too can contribute meaningfully to the national discourse instead of wasting so much time attacking the National Post‘s greatest columnist.