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Climate groups to Canada: Commit to Kyoto or stay home

Environment Minister Peter Kent refuses to say whether Canada has decided in advance of new international talks on climate change to withdraw its commitment to the Kyoto protocol.

“I'm neither confirming nor denying,” Mr. Kent told a news conference in Ottawa on Monday morning after news reports said the Conservative government, which has never embraced the agreement that was signed by its Liberal predecessors, would officially back away from the deal that it has ratified.

The Kyoto protocol was adopted at an international conference in Japan in 1997 and came into effect in 2005. It expires in 2012 and subsequent climate-change conferences in Copenhagen and Cancun, Mexico have failed to arrive at an agreement to replace it. So representatives of 195 countries are meeting in Durban, South Africa, this week to try to hammer out a global deal to reduce carbon emissions.
Politics and charity can mix

To hear Conservative Senator Nicole Eaton and others tell it, Canada has been invaded by foreign radicals who “are operating under the guise of charitable organizations in an effort to manipulate our policies for their own gain.”

The Senate has launched an inquiry into the issue. In late February, Eaton opened the debate with this flourish: “Honourable Senators, I rise today to open an inquiry that will reveal astounding information. It will make your blood boil and, hopefully, it will prompt us all to action.”
Durban climate summit was a pathetic exercise in deceit

It was an “emperor-has-no-clothes” moment. The 17-year-old youth delegate rose before the assembled participants at the Durban climate conference and looked them straight in the eye.

“I speak for more than half the world’s population,” declared Anjali Appadurai of Maine’s College of the Atlantic. “We are the silent majority. You’ve given us a seat in this hall, but our interests are not at the table. What does it take to get a stake in this game? Lobbyists? Corporate influence? Money?”

“You have been negotiating all of my life. In that time, you’ve failed to meet pledges, you’ve missed targets, and you’ve broken promises.”
Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol affects developing nations

By Alys Granados

Following negotiations at a United Nations climate change summit in Durban, South Africa, Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent announced Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 United Nations treaty requiring member nations to stabilize their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions below 1990 levels. The goal was to curb the effects of climate change and while the Liberal government ratified the treaty in 2002, it was clear that GHG reduction targets would not be met by the original 2012 deadline. Canada is now among the few developed nations not signed on to Protocol.
Wind Energy is Reliable

Dear Editor:

Adam Randell’s article “Blowing in the wind,” The Packet, May 3, 2012 offers some insight into how green sustainable energy production could look in the future. Todd Shirran’s initiative to build and operate a wind turbine deserves praise as a true, local initiative, green project.

Similarly efforts by the town of Bonavista to renew efforts to establish a wind farm on Burnt Ridge should be encouraged and promoted. What is required to make these projects financially successful is something known as Feed-in Tariff legislation. This enabling legislation, now in place in Ontario and Nova Scotia, permits governments to set rates for electricity production from renewable energy sources and requires utility operators to purchase the excess electricity at those rates which afford the producers a modest profit.
Green charities clash with Harper conservatives

OTTAWA -- The Conservatives have taken their battle with environmentalists to new levels of lunacy, some groups said Tuesday, after a Tory senator suggested they would accept funding from Al Qaeda.

"Let me ask you this, honourable senators: If environmentalists are willing to accept money from Martians, where would they draw the line on where they receive money from? Would they take money from Al Qaeda, the Hamas or the Taliban?," Senator Don Plett, the party's former president, asked in the Senate.

"It's jaw-droopingly bizarre," Devon Page, executive director of EcoJustice told The Huffington Post Canada late Tuesday.
Sierra Club Prairie Chapter statement on Keystone XL pipeline

Statement of the Sierra Club of Canada, Prairie Chapter, on the Keystone XL Pipeline.

In the days and weeks since August 20th, North Americans have been made aware of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, largely through very effective nonviolent protests in Washington D.C. The Sierra Club of Canada, Prairie Chapter wishes to express its solidarity with those who have participated in these protests drawing attention to the issues around the proposed pipeline.

While the Sierra Club does not participate directly in civil disobedience, we definitely applaud the use of both lawful protest and nonviolent civil disobedience in the best traditions of Gandhian nonviolence that have helped to raise the issue of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
Fired environmentalist sees conspiracy

A B.C. environmentalist claims in a sworn affidavit the Harper government labelled him and his organization, ForestEthics, an "enemy of the government of Canada" and an "enemy of the people of Canada" and threatened to pull the charitable status of its funder, the Tides Canada Foundation, because of ForestEthics' opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline and tanker project exporting tarsands oil to China.

Tides Canada is a major social-policy and environmental organization tackling poverty, climate change and social justice issues. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson is a former board member.

After his affidavit went public, Andrew Frank was fired as senior communications officer for ForestEthics, one of the nearly 40 environmental organizations Tides Canada supports.

Three days after Frank's affidavit and letter went online, his colleague, ForestEthics co-founder Valerie Langer, issued this statement:
Less Power to the People - energy awareness for the computer savvy

So, you use a computer - how else would you be looking at this website? Here are some tips from an engineer on how you can lessen your impact without missing out. (part 1 of 2)

Less Power to the People

by Jeff Alan

If you've purchased a computer power supply any time in recent years, you may have noticed a smattering of logos and numbers on the box. What's good to know?

80PLUS¹– This is a rating system for power supplies (PSUs) based on efficiency. In order to meet basic 80+, a power supply must be able to provide greater than 80% efficiency at a number of power loads. However, this does not say anything about efficiency when the system is idling. There are different levels, too (standard, bronze, silver, gold, platinum). Leading to...
Canadian Environmental Network blind-sided by elimination of core funding

The Canadian Environmental Network is reeling from the elimination of its core funding by Environment Canada, and last week the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency told the Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development that it’s bracing for a 43 per cent cut to its budget for 2012-2013. Green Party leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) says the government is waging war on the environment.

The Canadian Environmental Network, which has facilitated communication between the federal government and community-based environmental groups for over three decades, was notified that it would lose its core federal funding of $547,000 next year.

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