environment

Friday July 20, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday July 20, 2018

Premier Doug Ford says he’ll join Saskatchewan’s lawsuit challenging carbon tax

July 18, 2014

Ontario will join Saskatchewan’s court case challenging the federal government’s right to impose a carbon tax on provinces.

Premier Doug Ford made the announcement Thursday alongside Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe at the Council of the Federation meeting of all 13 provincial and territorial leaders.

After a one-on-one meeting with Moe Wednesday night, Ford said the two premiers are on “exactly the same page.” He said Ontario will use “every tool at our disposal” to support Saskatchewan in its appeal of Ottawa’s carbon plan.

“Our provinces are strongest when we stand together and this will show unity and will send a clear message to the federal government,” said Ford, whose Progressive Conservative government has budgeted $30 million for the legal fight.

Amid growing discontent with the federal government’s plan to impose a carbon tax on provinces that do not come up with a carbon-pricing system it approves of, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet the premiers later this year to discuss the issue, sources told the Star.

On Thursday, a spokesperson for federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said Ontario is “willing to spend $30 million of taxpayer money on fighting climate leadership.

“The minister is disappointed to see the new government in Ontario has no plan to help families, schools and businesses reduce emissions, save money and create good jobs. Climate change doesn’t stop with a change in government,” said Caroline Thériault. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

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Tuesday April 24, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 24, 2018

‘We need to rethink the entire plastics industry’: Why banning plastic straws isn’t enough

Britain announced this week that it plans to ban the sale of single-use plastic straws, as support for similar bans grows in Canada and around the world.

March 6, 2015

Advocates say such straw bans should help reduce plastic pollution that harms wildlife and ecosystems, but we need to monitor the effects of such policies. And they say bans may not be feasible for most of the plastics in our lives, so broader changes to the way we produce, consume and dispose of plastics are needed to make a real difference.

Jennifer Provencher, a postdoctoral researcher at Acadia University who studies the ingestion of plastic pollution by wildlife, said Britain’s ban is “an incredibly important step towards minimizing and using plastics more responsibly.”

She noted that single-use plastic items like straws and stir sticks are generally used only for a few minutes before they’re discarded, but can persist in the environment for centuries because plastics don’t typically decompose within a human lifetime.

Scientists estimate we’ve made 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic since the 1950s and 6.3 billion tonnes have already become waste.

More than 330,000 pieces of plastic and foam waste were picked off 2,800 kilometres of Canada’s shoreline by volunteers during beach cleanup events last year, including 17,654 straws — the ninth most common item found during cleanups supported by Ocean Wise and WWF-Canada. Worldwide, 409,087 straws and stirrers were picked up in beach cleanups around the world in 2017, the Ocean Conservancy reports.

Because of their small size, disposable straws are rarely recycled and often end up in the environment.

There, they can cause serious injuries to animals, as shown in a 2015 video that shows a straw being pulled out of a sea turtle’s nostril — the graphic, viral video has been viewed more than 21 million times. (Source: CBC) 

 

Thursday April 5, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 5, 2018

Rolling back vehicle emission standards in U.S. will affect Canada

March 8, 2017

Canada will have to decide what to do in light of the U.S. decision to ease emissions standards for cars and trucks. In 2014, Canada and the United States jointly adopted rules to radically increase fuel efficiency of the vehicles destined to be sold between 2022 and 2025.

On April 2, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said a timeline that was put in place by the previous Obama administration set standards too high and it will be changed. At the same time, the state of California has the right and is expected to keep to the tougher standards.

November 23, 2016

This will oblige the Canadian government to decide which stand to take.  Looser standards would make it more difficult for both countries to meet commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as promised in the 2015 Paris Agreement to fight climate change. But they would reduce the need for car makers to produce more electric vehicles easing pressure on them.

Canada’s environment minister has in the past said that reducing gasoline consumption is a key element in efforts to reduce this country’s emissions by 30 per cent from 2005 levels by the year 2030. (Source: CBC News) 

Published in the Welland Tribune

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Thursday January 25, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday January 25, 2018

Climate researchers press Trudeau to renew Canadian Arctic research program

The Canadian government should renew funding for a soon-to-end Arctic climate and atmospheric research program, a group of more than 250 international climate scientists is arguing in an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“There is a crisis looming for Canadian climate and atmospheric research that will be felt far beyond Canada’s borders,” the letter states. Extending funding for the 6-year-old Climate Change and Atmospheric Research (CCAR) program, which is set to end this year, would help maintain the country’s scientific and political leadership in the field, the authors say.

CCAR, launched in 2012, provides CA$7 million per year for seven research networks studying the physical processes underlying climate and atmospheric behavior. Among other activities, the networks monitor and model tiny particles known as aerosols, biogeochemical trace elements in the Arctic Ocean, and atmospheric temperatures in the high Arctic.

So far, the Trudeau government has been mostly silent on CCAR’s future, frustrating scientists concerned about the program’s fate. It has given one part of the program a temporary reprieve; In November 2017, the government announced CA$1.6 million in funding for the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory, located on the remote Ellesmere Island in Canada, to keep it running until 2019. (Source: ScienceMag) 

 

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Tuesday December 5, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday December 5, 2017

Justin Trudeau’s great expectations clash with reality in China

Charles Dickens wrote a classic when he penned Great Expectations. Political leaders, on the other hand, make the classic mistake whenever they create expectations they don’t meet.

November 14, 2017

Justin Trudeau was no exception Monday as he left the Great Hall of the People in Beijing without an expected announcement that Canada and China would begin formal free trade negotiations.

Not that it was the prime minister’s fault.

His trade minister, François-Philippe Champagne, insisted during an interview Sunday with CBC Radio’s The House that issues remained to be worked out. And Canadian officials made the point to reporters in an off-the-record briefing before the trip.

June 17, 2017

It’s just that few people were buying the line.

Most business leaders, diplomats and political pundits thought this week’s trip to China — with its high-level meetings between Trudeau and the top two Chinese leaders, with its stated focus on trade, closer ties and shared prosperity — would produce an announcement that after four rounds of exploratory talks and months of efforts, Canada and China would finally make a commitment.

September 2, 2016

“Prime ministers usually don’t go on trips like that without something to announce,” said John Manley, the CEO of the Business Council of Canada, who was one of the few people cautioning Trudeau to proceed slowly after being the sole holdout two weeks earlier in signing an agreement in principle with Japan and the other members of Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The two sides have been engaged in exploratory talks for a year. China made it clear it was ready to take the next step, to try and forge its first agreement in North America, and its first with a member of the G7 group of industrialized nations. (Continued: CBC) 

 

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