June 2007
Monthly Archive
June 28, 2007
Russia says it has first dibs on the North Pole.
Moscow claims it has found a geological shelf that establishes its claim to much of the central area of the Arctic. The new areas claimed are shown in grey above on a map obtained from The New York Times.
Banking on the Lomonosov Ridge, Russia is claiming an additional 460,000 square miles of territory in the central Arctic.
Canada and Denmark have joined forces to claim that the Lomonosov Ridge isn’t actually part of the Siberian continental shelf at all but forms part of the Canada-Greenland shelf.
Who cares? Canada, Denmark and Russia certainly do because at stake are potential shipping routes, mineral beds and fishing zones once global warming clears out the ice pack.
June 28, 2007
The United Nations jabbed its big, multinational finger in the eye of the British Columbia and Vancouver city governments by shining a spotlight on Van’s infamous slum, the “Downtown Eastside.”
“It’s one of the worst areas of urban blight that I’ve ever seen and I’ve travelled all over the world,” said Patricia Leidl, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Population Fund.
The mayor’s office defended Vancouver by changing the subject to something, anything else – such as how nice the other neighbourhoods are. Ms. Leidl replied that that’s precisely her point.
They just don’t get it. Of course while we’re shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars to host the 2010 Winter Olympics while griping that we can’t afford healthcare costs, sometimes a few thousand homeless junkies just get overlooked.
June 27, 2007
Depending on who you listen to either half the world’s population now lives in cities or it will by next year. Was a time when the planet’s population was predominantly rural and agricultural by vocation but that has been giving way to urbanization for a long time.
What may surprise you is that the pace of this urban migration is only expected to speed up. The United Nations warns that our already congested cities will likely double in population by 2030. What’s being predicted is a planet of slums. From The Independent:
“‘The growth of cities will be the single largest influence on development in the 21st century,’ the report states. It maintains that over the next 30 years, the population of African and Asian cities will double, adding 1.7 billion people – more than the current populations of the US and China combined.
“In this new world the majority of theurban poor will be under 25, unemployed and vulnerable to fundamentalism, Christian and Islamic.
“Mike Davis, a population expert, described this emerging underclass in his recent work Planet of Slums as: ‘A billion-strong global proletariat ejected from the formal economy, with Islam and Pentecostalism as songs for the dispossessed.’
“George Martine, a demographer and the author of today’s report, said: “The urbanisation is jolting mentalities and subjecting them to new influences. This is a historical situation. And now one of the ways for people to reorganise themselves in this urban world is to associate themselves with new or strong, fundamentalist religion.”
Some highlights of the UN report:
* By 2008, more than half of the world’s current 6.7billion population will live in cities.
* By 2030, the urban population will have risen to 5 billion, 60 per cent of the world’s population.
* Half of the world’s urban population is currently under 25. By 2030, young people will make up the vast majority of the 5 billion urban dwellers.
* Between 2000 and 2030, Asia’s urban population will increase from 1.3 billion to 2.64 billion. Africa’s population will rise from 294 million to 742 million, Latin America and the Caribbean from 394 million to 609million.
* Mega-cities do not have a monopoly on population growth. More than half of the urban world lives in cities with a population of less than 500,000.
June 27, 2007
The environmental community is pretty much resigned to having to wait until George w. Bush clears out of the White House before getting a US administration really committed to tackling global warming. Right now a Democratic candidate seems most likely to become the next US president and they all seem to get the GHG issue, right? Sorry, but no.
Take the Democratic frontrunners, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Surely they’re green, right? There are some indications they’re not. From The American Prospect:
“Last week, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton showed that despite efforts to build support with progressives suspicious of their close ties to corporate America, when it comes to real decisions and real votes, big business will often come first. This was reaffirmed when the two senators voted for an amendment to the energy bill offered by Montana Democrat Jon Tester that would have provided $200 million in grants and $10 billion in taxpayer loans for projects to turn regular old solid, black coal into new, shiny liquid coal to power cars and trucks. The coal companies love the idea, because replacing even 10 percent of gasoline with liquid coal would spur a 43 percent increase in coal mining, according to environmental groups. And proponents have tried to put coal liquefaction in the politically appealing framework of “energy independence” — helping reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
“Alas, there are a few problems. At the top of the list is the fact that turning solid coal into liquid fuel requires massive inputs of energy. Indeed, liquid coal currently produces double the greenhouse gas emissions that regular gasoline does.
“… liquid coal backers had been peddling the argument that, with enough taxpayer subsidies, they could capture much of that dangerous carbon dioxide and bury it deep underground, keeping it safely out of the atmosphere for decades. “
“To answer critics who doubted the carbon sequestration promises, “[Montana Democrat Jon]Tester (a liquid coal backer) proposed his amendment requiring that any project that received taxpayer support had to produce at least 20 percent less global warming pollution than gasoline over the lifetime of the product, and initially capture at least 85 percent of the carbon dioxide.
“Faced with the possibility that they might actually have to live up to their promises, the Coal to Liquids Coalition (an unholy alliance between the coal industry and some elements of the AFL-CIO) suddenly changed its tune. In an about-face, the members opposed Tester’s amendment, despite the subsidies windfall it promised. Rather than touting their ability to make liquid coal clean as they had in their Senate testimony, industry officials now said it would be unfair to require them to live up to the environmental standards they themselves had promoted.
“Imposing an unrealistic standard that specifically requires both a 20 percent lifecycle reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and an 85 percent capture of greenhouse gas emissions would all but end any chance America has of using CTL fuels to reverse our growing reliance on foreign energy,” the Coal to Liquids coalition wrote to New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman.
“This was an admission that all their grand promises about the potential of “clean” coal — including their testimony to the Finance subcommittee — were just plain lies. Even with $10 billion in low-interest taxpayer loans, and $200 million in subsidies, they doubt their own ability to actually make coal clean. The switcharoo didn’t bother pro-coal Republicans, however, who followed in lockstep with the industry and voted against the Tester amendment.
“In contrast, all the other major Democratic presidential candidates are on record opposing liquid coal subsidies. A spokesman for John Edwards, for example, explained the candidate’s opposition to liquid coal: “He believes that federal resources should support research into clean renewable energy.” This is an important point. The cost of reducing greenhouse gases from carbon-rich coal will always greatly exceed that of producing that energy from sources that are clean to start with, like wind and solar power.
June 27, 2007
Every good lawyer knows never to ask a question unless you already know the answer. Ignore that rule and you’re apt to get an answer you don’t want to hear.
It’s a lesson that’s been lost on our EnviroMin George w. Baird. A while back he asked for advice on how to cut greenhouse gas emissions in Canada by 50 to 70% by 2050 and advice he got in the form of a report from Environment Canada.
From The Globe & Mail:
“The slower Canada is to put a price tag on greenhouse gas emissions, the greater the damage to the economy will be, a report commissioned by Environment Canada will say Wednesday.
“But if Ottawa acts now to put a price on emissions – either through a cap-and-trade system, a carbon tax, or a combination of both – the long-term costs will be manageable, says the paper by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.”
Caps? Carbon taxes? Say it ain’t so, Johnny boy!
“‘If the government neglects to clearly communicate the [greenhouse gas] price schedule well in advance, it risks causing serious economic dislocation … because society’s capital stocks will not be well prepared,’ the report warns.
“Done right, however, the costs over the long term will be small. If the government gives clear signals about how emissions will be priced, and how that price will rise over the long term, then companies and consumers alike can make environmentally sound investment decisions.
“For example, Ontario and Alberta both need to make multibillion-dollar investments in energy infrastructure in the next few years. If they know what kind of environmental rules Ottawa will impose, they can invest accordingly. But if Ottawa dithers, and the provinces make inappropriate investments, the cost to fix those decisions after the fact will be enormous. Much of the country’s machinery and equipment will roll over in the next 15 years, and so time is of the essence, the report warns.
“But the price of carbon, whether it is arrived at through a market-oriented cap-and-trade system or through government-imposed rules, is probably going to have to rise to levels higher than most businesses expect, the report shows.
“‘On the basis of current technologies, it requires quite a price shock to lower greenhouse gas emissions,’ said Don Drummond, chief economist of Toronto-Dominion Bank, who has been doing similar research himself. ‘The sooner we get going, the better.'”
The report puts Baird and Harper on the edge of a precipice, right where they don’t want to be. Do they take the leap, do they dither and stall for time or do they turn and run for cover?
What I don’t understand about this report is that it seems to adress GHG reductions only from the perspective of the industrial sector. When it comes to 70% GHG reductions, we can’t get there from here. Industrial restraint is only one part of the solution just as industrial activity is but one part of the problem.
While carbon caps and taxes for the business sector are probably a good place to start, the government can’t succeed without addressing all contributing sources of GHG emissions, the fossil fuel problem, alternate energy and energy conservation issues. That means you and me but especially you. Don’t think I don’t know you drive a Hummer.
My guess? The report will be allowed to gather dust. Harpo will say we can’t do it unless the rest of the major emitters join in. That means China and India as well as the US. Asia, of course, has already made it clear they expect us, the biggest emitters (historically and on a per-capita scale) to act first.
No, I think the advice is strong but the political courage is weak.
June 27, 2007
Poor Old Steve. When he jello-wrestled Peter MacKay into submission and a merger between the PCs and Alliance, Harper was adamant that “progressive” have no place in the new party’s name. No sir, none of that Red Tory stuff for Harpo. He was going to lead a party and a nation along the path of Republicanism.
Global warming? A “socialist scheme” over “so-called greenhouse gases.” Afghanistan? “Stay the course” and never “cut and run.” On policy after policy, value upon value, Harpo quested to steer Canada to the far right.
And then he hit a wall. Thanks to the sponsorship scandal from the Chretien years, Stevie was able to squeak past Paul Martin and into power. The Liberals, or at least public anger at the Liberals, put Steve in power. It wasn’t Harpo’s doing at all.
Harpo took the reins of power like a real manly man and set about to steer our collective wagon onto his path until the wheels fell off. He began to realize that the Canadian people didn’t want to go down his road and weren’t going to put up with it.
Suddenly Steve had to reverse course and lighten the load. He couldn’t quite shake his megalomaniacal grip on his own party and his caucus but he quickly began to jettison his vaunted principles, his purported integrity.
Instead of fighting Canadians’ mild socialistic tendencies, Steve began to go along. The gun registry? My goodness, it’s still here. Global warming? A socialist plot no longer. Even his most delicious red meat issue, Afghanistan, has gone by the boards. No more “stay the course” or pledges not to “cut and run” but, instead, a meek plea for consensus. Can’t we all just get along?
How the mighty has been humbled. It’s almost as though Stevie had a visit one night in his dreams, a visit from the ghost of Progressive conservatism. Something sure scared the hell out of him. Now he looks like nothing so much as a pretender to the old PC throne.
June 27, 2007
For 35-years Freedom House has been keeping an eye on, well on freedom or the state of freedom around the world.
Lately the results of their studies haven’t been good as made clear in Freedom House’s report on the state of the Rule of Law in today’s world:
“A global decline in the rule of law, particularly in Africa and Asia, was a major political development in 2006, data released today by Freedom House indicated.
“According to the
subcategory findings from Freedom in the World 2007, the most notable change in freedom in 2006 was global deterioration in judicial independence, due process rights, protection from torture, and freedom from war and insurgencies. These declines occurred in geographically and culturally diverse countries such as Chad, South Africa, Somalia and Ethiopia, as well as Afghanistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
“These subcategory developments point to broader worrying trends noted by Freedom in the World 2007 that threaten the stability of new democracies and provide obstacles to political reform in societies under authoritarian rule. According to the survey, the percentage of countries designated as Free has failed to increase for nearly a decade, suggesting an ongoing “freedom stagnation.”
June 27, 2007
America’s youth may get the picture but a surprising percentage of average Americans remain thoroughly confused about 9/11 and their president’s war on terror.
A Newsweek poll of 1,000 adults, the magazine’s first ever “What You Need to Know Poll” came up with some pretty disappointing results:
“Even today, more than four years into the war in Iraq, as many as four in 10 Americans (41 percent) still believe Saddam Hussein’s regime was directly involved in financing, planning or carrying out the terrorist attacks on 9/11, even though no evidence has surfaced to support a connection. A majority of Americans were similarly unable to pick Saudi Arabia in a multiple-choice question about the country where most of the 9/11 hijackers were born. Just 43 percent got it right—and a full 20 percent thought most came from Iraq.”
I guess there must be a lot more Dittoheads than I thought.
June 27, 2007
It seems America’s young people aren’t as gullible or easily intimidated as their elders. A NY Times/CBS News/MTV polls finds Americans in the 17-29 age group leaning decidedly left. From the New York Times:
“Young Americans are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage, according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll. The poll also found that they are more likely to say the war in Iraq is heading to a successful conclusion.
“…more Americans ages 17 to 29 than four years ago are paying attention to the presidential race. But they appeared to be really familiar with only two of the candidates, Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
“They have continued a long-term drift away from the Republicans. And although they are just as worried as the general population about the outlook for the country and think their generation is likely to be worse off than that of their parents, they retain a belief that their votes can make a difference, the poll found.”
“By a 52 to 36 majority, young Americans say that Democrats, rather than Republicans, come closer to sharing their moral values, while 58 percent said they had a favorable view of the Democratic Party, and 38 percent said they had a favorable view of Republicans.
“The survey also found that 42 percent of young Americans thought it was likely or very likely that the nation would reinstate a military draft over the next few years — and two-thirds said they thought the Republican Party was more likely to do so. And 87 percent of respondents said they opposed a draft.
“But when it came to the war, young Americans were more optimistic about the outcome than was the population as whole. Fifty-one percent said the United States was very or somewhat likely to succeed in Iraq, compared with 45 percent among all adults. Contrary to conventional wisdom, younger Americans have historically been more likely than the population as a whole to be supportive of what a president is doing in a time of war, as they were in Korea and Vietnam, polls have shown.”
June 27, 2007
The American media have finally thrown in the towel on the Iraq war debate. The Project for Excellence in Journalism or Journalism.org has found that media coverage of the subject has collapsed:
“News about the Iraq war last week also confirmed a recent pattern in the coverage. Given the significant U.S. military offensive and the announcement that 14 U.S. troops had died in a two-day period, events in Iraq constituted the second-biggest story. With a number of stories focused on care given to wounded veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan, the impact of the war at home was also a top-10 story last week (eighth at 2%).
“At the same time, the Iraq policy debate—the Washington-based battle over war strategy—generated only 1% of last week’s coverage and failed to make the top-10 story list. Those findings are indicative of a trend in recent weeks in which coverage of the political debate over the war has diminished substantially.
“For the first three months of this year, PEJ found that the policy debate was the leading news subject by a large margin, accounting for 12% of all the coverage.”
The group expects interest in Iraq policy to be dormant through the summer but surge again in September when US Commander, General Petraeus is scheduled to deliver his state-of-the-war report.
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