environment

Thursday March 23, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 23, 2023

Greenbelt Paper 

Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives will table a provincial budget Thursday that is expected to eclipse the $200-billion mark for first time in Ontario history.

April 29, 2022

Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy, who will unveil his fiscal blueprint at 4 p.m. in the Ontario legislature, said it would be “a plan that will support families, support workers, support businesses today while laying a strong fiscal foundation for future generations.”

It is expected to include new investments in health care — thanks to the recent federal infusion of additional transfer payments — as well for training and education programs.

On Wednesday, Bethlenfalvy said the budget would include some $780 million in tax breaks for manufacturers over the next three years to encourage companies to invest in new buildings, machinery and equipment. (The Toronto Star)

Meanwhile, Doug Ford says an environmental study the federal government is reportedly planning on launching shouldn’t slow down work to develop housing on lands the province recently removed from the Greenbelt.

Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has previously voiced concerns about Ford removing about 7,400 acres from 15 different areas in the protected Greenbelt lands, while adding more parcels elsewhere, in order to build 50,000 homes.

February 16, 2023

The Toronto Star reports today that Guilbeault is set to announce he is launching a study to assess the biodiversity, ecological connectivity and other natural features in Rouge National Urban Park, which is next to part of the Greenbelt lands earmarked for housing.

Ford says he was not given a head’s up on the announcement by Guilbeault’s office, but he is “not too concerned about it” because the park is adjacent to land set to be developed, not part of it.

Ontario’s auditor general is conducting a value-for-money audit of the financial and environmental implications of the Greenbelt development plans, which are part of the government’s efforts to get 1.5 million homes built in 10 years.

The province’s integrity commissioner is also investigating a complaint from the incoming NDP leader into what she calls the “curious timing of recent purchases of Greenbelt land by powerful landowners with donor and political ties to the Ontario PC Party.” (CTV) 

From sketch to finish, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro …

Tuesday March 21, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 21, 2023

The UN just released a landmark climate-change report. Here’s the grim timeline it gives us

November 18, 2022

By 2030, scientists warn, countries such as Canada must slash carbon emissions by almost half to prevent that fifth-grader from living out her old age in a world with increased floods, fires, crop failures, forced migration and infectious disease outbreaks, and to zero by 2050.

That was the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Synthesis Report.

Climate change may have once felt like something you had to squint deep into the future to see. Monday’s report shows that the choices we make now will profoundly alter the planet today’s children live in.

“Let’s hope we make the right choices, because the ones we make now and in the next few years will reverberate around the world for hundreds, even thousands of years,” Hoesung Lee, chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said Monday.

Alongside new, near-term targets, the report also reaffirmed the goal of net zero emissions by 2050, a goal enshrined in the Paris Agreement. But on Monday, UN Secretary General António Guterres suggested wealthy countries such as Canada need to reach net zero even sooner — by 2040.

September 20, 2022

“This can be done,” Guterres said. “Some have already set a target as early as 2035.

“In short, our world needs climate action on all fronts — everything, everywhere, all at once,” Guterres said at a news conference for the report’s release.

Federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault affirmed the conclusions of the IPCC report Monday afternoon, but did not say Canada would move to a net-zero 2040 target.

“This is a new request from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obviously one that we will study very carefully in Canada,” Guilbeault said. “It’s one thing to simply say, well, you know, we want to reach this goal, but we have to give ourselves the means to get there. We do that now in Canada for 2050.”

August 13, 2021

While Guterres referenced a science fiction movie in his remarks, the solutions to this crisis are both well understood, already in use and, in some cases, almost embarrassingly simple. Protecting intact forests, wetlands and other natural ecosystems would have massive payoffs. Solar and wind power are already contributing energy to power grids, even in fossil-fuel-friendly places such as Texas. Bike-riding made the list.

The report is the world’s most comprehensive assessment of the current state of climate change. The last synthesis report came out in 2014, and acted as both a major impetus and the scientific underpinning for the historic Paris Agreement, when nearly all the world’s governments agreed to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. That goal is necessary to keep the world within 1.5 degrees of warming, a critical guardrail that, if overshot, will lead to increasingly destructive planetary outcomes, some irreversible.

The synthesis report released Monday concludes years of work by hundreds of scientists around the globe, and will set the stage for a different kind of momentous meeting later this year: a conference at which nations will assess their Paris commitment progress so far.

The actions pledged by nations so far are insufficient to keep the world within that guardrail, and would result in 2.8 degrees of warming by the end of the century, the UN’s initial assessment found. The world will gather again in Dubai starting in November to conclude that global “stocktake.” (The Toronto Star) 

From sketch to finish, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro …

 

Friday February 3, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 3, 2023

Federal Environment Minister might intervene in Ontario’s Greenbelt development plan

October 28, 2021

Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says he might try to stop some of the development that could result from Ontario’s plans to allow housing on once-protected Greenbelt lands, warning that the province’s move defies efforts to prepare for climate change.

The Minister made the remarks at a news conference in Toronto on Thursday, while responding to questions from the environment-focused online publication The Narwhal.

Mr. Guilbeault was taking aim at Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s move last month to remove 3,000 hectares from the Greenbelt – an 800,000-hectare protected area of farmland and countryside that arcs around the Greater Toronto Area – to allow developers to build 50,000 homes. The plan would also add 3,800 hectares elsewhere to the protected area. Mr. Ford had previously promised that he would not open the Greenbelt to development.

Mr. Guilbeault did not detail specifically what he is considering doing, but he said Ontario’s plan “flies in the face of everything we’re trying to do in terms of being better prepared for the impacts of climate change.”

The Narwhal says the Minister warned that the federal government “will be looking at the potential use of federal tools to stop some of these projects.”

November 9, 2022

Mr. Guilbeault suggested he could use federal species-at-risk legislation if any proposed development threatened the survival of vulnerable animal populations. The federal government did this in 2016, when it blocked a housing development in a Montreal suburb over concerns about western chorus frog habitat.

“You can imagine that if similar projects were to be proposed on lands that were part of the Greenbelt, then I have a legislative obligation to intervene,” Mr. Guilbeault said, according to the Narwhal.

He also mentioned Ottawa’s Impact Assessment Act, which is already being used to scrutinize Mr. Ford’s Highway 413, a proposed expressway that would carve through Greenbelt land.

The sharp federal criticism of the Ontario Premier emerged just days before a Feb. 7 meeting between Canada’s premiers and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to hash out a health care funding deal.

January 12, 2023

Mr. Guilbeault was speaking at an event marking $8-million in federal funding for nature conservation projects. He also had harsh words for the Ontario government’s plans to restrict the powers of the province’s local conservation authorities to intervene in ecologically sensitive development plans. He called the legislation “terrible” and said he was “saddened and shocked” by the changes.

Last month, Parks Canada said the opening of Greenbelt lands close to the Rouge National Urban Park, on the eastern flank of Toronto, could cause “irreversible harm” to the park’s wildlife and ecosystems. (The Globe & Mail) 

 

Saturday January 28, 2023

January 28, 2023

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday January 28, 2023

Developers who bought Ontario Greenbelt land linked to Ford government

YDF Merch

Since Ontario Premier Doug Ford was first elected four years ago, developers have paid tens of millions of dollars for a number of properties that include protected lands the province is now proposing to carve out of the Greenbelt.

Among those properties is a substantial piece of land lying largely in the Greenbelt that sold for $80-million in September, just weeks before the government revealed its new plan.

During the 2018 election campaign, Mr. Ford promised not to touch the Greenbelt – a vast arc of farmland, forests and wetlands across Southern Ontario. The pledge followed public uproar over a video that showed him saying he would allow housing development on a “big chunk” of the protected area. Again, in late 2020, he made a similar promise.

May 3, 2018

The Ford government reversed itself in November, announcing plans to remove 7,400 acres from the Greenbelt for the construction of at least 50,000 new homes. At the same time, land elsewhere would be added to the Greenbelt that, the government says, would result in a net increase of 2,000 acres.

The proposal to open up the Greenbelt to development has sparked protest from environmentalists, agriculture advocates and land-use experts, who argue that swapping one piece for another may be ineffective, because land has different environmental values, and that this also paves the way for other developers to push for their properties to be removed from the Greenbelt.

The proposed carve-outs of 15 areas of land include at least nine properties that were bought by developers for $10-million or more – transactions that topped $300-million in total – since the Progressive Conservatives took office in 2018, property records show.

November 23, 2022

At least four developers who bought the properties the government is now proposing to remove from the Greenbelt have either donated to the PC Party, hired conservative lobbyists, or both.

The government defended the decision to open up parcels of Greenbelt land to development but did not address questions related to the developers.

Among the sales in the Greenbelt parcels up for potential development, the most recent occurred in mid-September, about six weeks before the government’s announcement.

On Sept. 15, a company controlled by developer Michael Rice bought the 280-hectare property in the Township of King for $80-million. The real estate agent who sold the property promoted it as a “prime land-banking opportunity,” referring to the practice of holding undeveloped land for future opportunities.

The property had previously traded hands in 2000 – before the Greenbelt protections were put in place – for about $9.3-million.

October 27, 2011

Mr. Rice’s development company, Rice Group, hired Frank Klees, a former Ontario PC cabinet minister, between 2019-20 to lobby the government “on the economic development opportunities represented by a number of the client’s emerging projects,” the lobbyist registry says. The contract predated Mr. Rice’s purchase of the land in King Township. Mr. Klees did not return an e-mail seeking comment.

In addition, provincial records also show that a person with the name Michael Rice has donated more than $10,500 to the PC Party since 2018. This individual also donated money to the Liberals in 2018. As well, three donors with the same names as Rice Group executives have given the PC Party thousands of dollars since 2018.

Mr. Rice did not respond to e-mails requesting comment. (The Globe and Mail) 

From sketch to finish, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro …

 

Saturday December 17, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday December 17, 2022

Why is COP15 important?

The definition of “biodiversity” is: “The variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem.” Biodiversity encompasses all aspects of life — genes, species and ecosystems — and it is currently in imminent danger. That means we are too.

December 10, 2022

The COP15 UN biodiversity conference runs from Dec. 7 to 19 in Montreal with 196 counties trying to agree on a plan to stop biodiversity loss and help restore nature because our fate as the human race is inextricably linked to the rest of nature. The plan is to protect at least 30 per cent of our lands and oceans by 2030 and the biodiversity that we depend on to survive.

Elizabeth Mrema, UN biodiversity head, has described the conference as “calling for ambitious outcomes.”

“Clearly the world is crying out for change, watching our governments seek to heal our relationships with nature,” she says.

The 2022 WWF Living Planet Report warned that global wildlife populations declined by 70 per cent from 1970 to 2022. This accelerating loss of nature has already impacted human well-being and economies. Healthy ecosystems also play indispensable roles in tackling climate change, and the loss of biodiversity weakens our resilience to that change. We are stripping our planet so aggressively and unsustainably that the resources we depend on will soon be extinct.

The 2022 Global Biodiversity Framework’s four goals focus on conservation, sustainable use of biodiversity, fair benefit-sharing, and “resource mobilization” (more funding). The targets cover expanding protected areas (like the Greenbelt that Premier Ford will destroy with his outdated Bill 23 legislation), reducing pollution to ensure food production is healthy and sustainable and phasing out billions of dollars of public subsidies that harm nature. That’s why Bill 23 is a direct contradiction to COP15 and needs to be repealed.

November 23, 2022

Bill 23 will harm the Greenbelt, create more biodiversity loss, increase urban sprawl and emissions that will also affect Peterborough. It will also pollute prime agricultural land that was protected for growing local food and poison the soil and crops that grows there.

So, when Dave Smith says that Bill 23 will not affect Peterborough, he is wrong because this legislation will harm our environment and human health by allowing municipalities to move away from environmental protection and build big carbon footprint housing developments on protected land near protected waterways, wetlands and forests.

It’s hard work to balance the environment with the economy. That’s why we need politicians and governments who can do both because they are both connected to each other. By passing Bill 23, the Ford government has shown it doesn’t know how to make this connection work for the common good. It’s a fine balance, but a balance crucial to the health and survival of our biodiverse human race. (The Peterborough Examiner) 

From sketch to finish, see the current way Graeme completes an editorial cartoon using an iPencil, the Procreate app, and a couple of cheats on an iPad Pro … These sped up clips are posted to encourage others to be creative, to take advantage of the technology many of us already have and to use it to produce satire. Comfort the afflicted. Afflict the comforted.