Canada

Neither can we

I mentioned in a previous post that Canadians might be facing an election soon over the Conservative government's budget. That turned out not to happen (all three opposition parties had to oppose it, and only two did).

Instead, something much more interesting may happen: The three opposition parties have finalized their much-improved version of a Clean Air Act, with hard targets on CO2 emissions and penalties for those who don't make the necessary cuts. This leaves the government in an uncomfortable position: either accept a bill that they hate, or call an election over it.

Edwards, Canada, and now South Africa

Former Senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) -- now a presidential hopeful -- has just published his latest energy plan. One important plank of that plan foresees the nation producing (not just consuming, which would allow for imports) 65 billion gallons a year of ethanol by 2025. ("I'll meet your bid for 2030, Barack, and raise it by five billion!")

If the 51 cents a gallon volumetric ethanol excise tax credit (VEETC) is extended beyond the end of 2010 -- as most commentators and even the USDA expect will happen -- here's what the cumulative cost to the U.S. Treasury would be from 2007 through 2025, assuming straight-line growth:

Almost $350 billion (=$0.51 x 19 x [7+(65-7)/2]).

Canada needs help saving it

I don’t usually pass these things along, but this email caught my eye: —– With last week’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report concluding that humans are significantly increasing global warming, we’re all looking for some global warming news with a glimmer of hope and potential. To our North, Canada is on the brink of […]

Grains become fuel at the world’s first cellulosic ethanol demo plant

Our plant supplants your plant: a real-life cellulosic ethanol refinery. Photo: Iogen Sometimes it seems virtually anything can be made into fuel. As though, if we had the right technology, we could throw together old T-shirts, bumper stickers, and pine cones to make a magical elixir to run the millions of cars on North America’s […]

Calls the Mounties — someone’s enjoying locally raised meat in rural Ontario

A couple of weeks ago in my Victual Reality column I wondered why more farm areas don't focus on growing food for local consumption, since the global commodity market had proven such an economic disaster.

I acknowledged one key problem: the collapse of local food infrastructure after 50 years of investments in stuff like grain elevators and train systems designed to haul food far, far away.

I forgot to add a factor I mentioned in an earlier column: federal regulations, designed with mega-producers in mind, are a crushing weight on small-scale artisanal operators.

Together, these two factors can deal a death blow to people's extraordinary efforts to rebuild local food networks.

An email I received yesterday from the Community Food Security Coalition's excellent listserv illustrates these points to maddening effect.

In B.C., a landmark rainforest-protection agreement was just the beginning

It took 10 years of work to protect British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest. Photos: Gregory Dicum The Great Bear Rainforest, stretching from Vancouver Island to the Alaska Panhandle on the wild, rugged coast of British Columbia, is that rarest of things: an unvarnished environmental victory. But as the groundbreaking agreement signed to protect it comes […]

Tar sands fever

Via GCC, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has announced that by 2020, Canada will be producing almost 5 million barrels of oil, almost all of that being from tar sands.

This explains, in large part, why Canada has opted for empty symbolism: We've hitched our wagon to the tar sands, come hell and high water. I'm actually pretty sympathetic to our new Conservative government, who at least made their disdain for Kyoto honestly known. The previous Liberals were happily pursuing the same policies while pretending to care about Kyoto.

What will a conservative Canada look like?

While we were busy fretting about eco-terrorists, Canada went and had itself an e-lection.

Newly elected Conservative PM Stephen Harper is a likely Bush ally, says CNN, and aims to "move beyond the Kyoto debate by establishing different environmental controls." Meanwhile, the BBC doesn't pussyfoot: "[he] is known to be hostile to gay marriage and the Kyoto Protocol on climate change."

Sigh. On the other hand, the CBC reports that Harper "believe[s] it's better to light one candle than to promise a million light bulbs." So maybe he's into conservation after all.

Why the Montreal climate summit was too painful to watch

I’ve been to climate meetings in locales that stretch from Kyoto to The Hague, Mexico City to the Maldives. It would have been awfully easy to get in the old hybrid and drive two hours north to Montreal for the big climate-change confab that wrapped up this weekend — if nothing else, it’s a city […]