Archive for the ‘greenhouse gas reduction’ Category
OR, WA, and BC Must Invest Beyond Gas
MEDIA CONTACT: Emily Moore, Director, Climate and Energy Program, Sightline Institute, emily@sightline.org
SEATTLE, WA – As public concern grows over the health dangers of gas appliances in homes and the impacts of climate-warming fuels on their economies, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia should look to a future energy system that is gas-free. To get there, leaders in the region should stop subsidizing the buildout of new gas pipe infrastructure and explore alternative energy systems like “GeoNetworks,” neighborhood-wide ground source heat pumps. That’s according to new analyses from the think tank Sightline Institute.
“Gas utilities continue to perversely incentivize building new gas infrastructure that will pollute our homes and climate for decades, and gas customers are paying for it—likely without knowing,” says Emily Moore, Director of Sightline’s Climate and Energy program and author of the articles. “Regulators should eliminate these subsidies and hold the gas industry accountable to realistic climate strategies, not the faux solutions they are peddling today, like hydrogen for home heating.”
Read Moore’s full analyses, coauthored with Sightline fellow Laura Feinstein:
- It’s time to stop subsidizing new gas pipes
- Is there a future for gas utilities? It could be heating and cooling your home (from the ground)
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Emily Moore, Director of Sightline Institute’s Climate and Energy program, leads Sightline’s work transitioning Cascadia away from fossil fuels and toward cleaner and greener energy sources. Emily holds her Master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and her Bachelor’s from Brown University. Find her latest research here, and follow her on Twitter at @_enmoore_.
Sightline Institute is an independent, nonprofit think tank providing leading original analysis of housing, democracy, forests, and energy policy in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, British Columbia, and beyond.
Partnership will expand area served by Richmond, BC clean energy system
It is not often these days that I post anything at all to this blog. Generally speaking the news – especially about the climate crisis – is pretty bad. So to get a Press Release about a good news story in the general vicinity – I no longer live in Richmond, but I do go there quite a bit – caught my attention. It is also a public private partnership that usually is a model that I am uncomfortable with, but even so here is the Canada News Wire release in full as received.
Canada Infrastructure Bank, Lulu Island Energy Company and Corix achieve financial close on $175 million district energy investment
RICHMOND, BC, Sept. 26, 2022 /CNW/ – The Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB), Lulu Island Energy Company (LIEC) and Corix Infrastructure Inc. (Corix) have achieved financial close on a district energy expansion project in the City of Richmond, British Columbia.
Under the agreement, the CIB will provide $175 million in financing for the LIEC City Centre District Energy Utility project. It will enable expansion to more than 170 new residential and mixed-use commercial development sites in the area by 2050, using low-carbon heat recovered from the Gilbert Road regional sewer system.
When complete, the project is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one million tonnes by 2050, with the amount of connected space to the district energy system increasing 10–fold to 50 million square feet.
The LIEC is a municipal corporation wholly owned by the City of Richmond. It was established to implement and operate district energy utility systems in Richmond’s City Centre area in British Columbia’s Metro Vancouver region.
The CIB financing will enable the district energy expansion which will drive economic benefits through new construction work and deliver an expanded sustainable energy network which will reduce the operating costs of property owners.
Corix will provide expertise in district energy management and be responsible for the design, construction, financing, operations and maintenance of the City Centre system. Corix has been LIEC’s partner since 2014 in the delivery of the Oval Village District Energy Utility under a previous agreement.
District energy systems leverage proven technology to create a long-term reliable, efficient and cost-effective energy distribution network. Through a system of underground pipes, energy stored in water from central energy plants is transported to buildings, alleviating the need for separate heating and cooling systems in connected buildings.
This financing will support the City of Richmond, an award-winning leader in district energy systems, in meeting its Community Energy and Emissions Plan (CEEP) 2050 goals to achieve a 50 per cent reduction in community GHG emissions by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050. The project also supports the City’s goal to provide low-carbon energy services to customers that is competitive with conventional heating and cooling costs.
Endorsements
We are proud to invest $175 million to help create a green energy network which will benefit businesses, institutions and residents of the City of Richmond for generations to come. Our investment will help Richmond meet its ambitious climate change goals and create spin off economic benefits in one of British Columbia’s largest cities.
Ehren Cory, CEO, Canada Infrastructure Bank
The benefits of this expansion will be realized not only by the residents and businesses connected to the utility, but the entire community as it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated one million tonnes when completed. District energy is a key pillar for achieving Richmond’s short- and long-term community greenhouse gas emission reduction goals as well as the delivery of efficient, sustainable and environmentally friendly energy for the community.
Mayor Malcolm Brodie, City of Richmond
We are thrilled to be building upon the success of the Oval Village District Energy Utility project and our partnership with Lulu Island Energy Company which has spanned nearly a decade. The closing of the City Centre District Energy Utility project marks a major achievement in demonstrating how Public Private Partnerships can be used as an effective tool in leveraging financing and transformational strategies to deliver affordable, low-carbon infrastructure for consumers.
Lisa Sparrow, President and CEO, Corix Group of Companies
Quick Facts
- The project is expected to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 34,000 tonnes per year, when compared to conventional heating and cooling systems used today.
- District energy is a component of the City of Richmond’s climate change strategy toward the Community Energy and Emissions Plan (CEEP).
- Corix is a leading provider of sustainable energy infrastructure solutions across Canada and the U.S.
- The CIB seeks to invest up to $5 billion into clean energy projects which are in the public interest and support Canadian sustainable economic growth.
- All CIB investments are subject to approval by its Board of Directors
Learn More:
Canada Infrastructure Bank
Lulu Island Energy Company
City of Richmond
Corix
SOURCE Canada Infrastructure Bank
© 2022 CNW Group Ltd, all rights reserved
© 2022 Groupe CNW Ltée, tous droits réservés
British Water
This morning I got an email from The Guardian, a British newspaper that I subscribe to. This is a lightly edited extract from their newsletter – about how they get “scoops”.
<blockquote>… reporter Sandra Laville came across something rather curious that made her think ‘that’s funny’. In her case, it was a statistic.
“I came across this figure that only 14 percent of waters in English rivers were of good ecological standard,” she recalls. “I thought ‘that’s really low’.”
She started asking questions – of officials, scientists at the Environment Agency, and crucially of campaigners determined to improve the quality of their local environment.
The big breakthrough came when she secured data from water companies on when and where sewage had been released into rivers. When she totted up the answers it came to a total of 1.5m hours of dumping in a single year.
“I remember swimming in the sea 25 years ago when there was a big scandal about sewage being poured into the ocean,” Sandra tells me. “I couldn’t believe this was happening in rivers too.”
The revelations have put pressure on the authorities to come clean on the locations and instances of sewage discharge; on the water companies to take action and invest; and on the regulator to ensure that everyone improves their game. “Nothing will change overnight – this is a massive underinvestment in infrastructure,” Sandra says. “But this has really exposed what they have been doing.”
</blockquote>
One of the leading reasons why I came to Canada was that I no longer wanted to be an Economic Adviser to the British Government. We were shared between the Department of Transport and the Department of the Environment, and I was going to be moved from looking at London Underground investments to Water Privatisation. And I did not want any part of it. In 1988 water in the UK was controlled by a network of Regional Water Authorities. They were very effective and a distinct improvement over the earlier patchwork quilt of Water Boards. In fact the reorganisation of those was also a significant factor in my earlier career at British Waterways Board in the early 1970s but that isn’t relevant.
Mostly I wanted to work on public transport issues. There did not seem to me to any justification for the privatisation of water. Indeed, it seemed to me that the only way it could be justified was that it would reduce “public spending” (i.e. using taxation revenues) and rely of private funding. For the private sector to make money they would need to find a way to create a profit margin in what was, at the time, absent as it was not needed by the public sector. It simply did not occur to me then that new water companies would seek to cut costs by dumping untreated wastewater in rivers and the sea – but that is what they have been doing.
One of the remarkable shifts in recent years has been the steady rejection of Hayek’s philosophy pursued by Margaret Thatcher and other right wing ideologues. Nearly every policy change introduced in the name conservatism has been shown to be fallacious. The claimed outcomes of better services at lower cost are never achieved in reality – though there has always been quite a bit of “clever” bookkeeping to make it look good. But it also seems that no matter how strong the evidence, when ostensibly left leaning, “progressive” parties get into power they fall into the same mire. Both BC NDP and federal Liberals are pursuing policies that are obviously designed to benefit the few over the broader public interest. This is most clearly true in the case of energy policies. Instead of picking the cleaner, more economically affordable renewable options, our governments are still choosing to support fossils – coal, oil and fracked gas. In transportation we still opt for more freeways and road expansions even though it is clear that this has never ever cured traffic congestion and can’t due to simple geometry. That we still have a mid twentieth century commitment to extending urban sprawl indefinitely which experience shows simply increases costs in general and “externalities” that we mostly try to ignore.
Today we heard the Throne Speech from Ottawa. What we needed to hear was that as a country we are going to change direction in view of the clear and present danger now posed by the climate crisis. For a long time governments at all levels have refused to face up to this challenge and pretend that business as usual can continue. We saw exactly that at COP26 in Glasgow. We got more of the same today from Justin Trudeau. The CG did not announce the end of fossil fuel subsidies and the cancellation of TMX. There was no mention of the export of US thermal coal through Canadian ports – which only happens because no local port community in the US will allow it. Canadian ports are only lightly managed – and that is a federal jurisdiction where local concerns account for nothing. There is a lot about cleaning up the most recent messes – but not very much about what needs to be done to cope with future issues which will inevitably be even worse, as the greenhouse gases that cause these disasters have already been emitted. Too many tipping points have already passed. Too little has been achieved through carbon capture and storage – except increasing the production of oil and gas. There are no offshore wind farms around here, very little geothermal power generation (despite huge potential) and not much in the way of energy storage or improvements to the grid to accommodate renewables. And there won’t be any time soon.
How bad does it have to get to see changes in policy? It has taken Britain 50 years to acknowledge that shutting down railway branch lines was short sighted and ineffective. The mess of water privatisation has also taken a similar amount of time to be acknowledged. In Canada our governments seem even more determined to refuse to change. But then we are still digging up asbestos to export – even though its use here is banned.(Even so, asbestos is still the number one cause of claims for worker compensation in BC.) We know what we are doing is not working. There was no major announcement about reductions of oil and gas extraction so now we know that big business is still calling the shots and humanity is doomed.
As Seth Klein just tweeted: “This #ThroneSpeech was an opportunity post-election, post-COP, post-floods to announce additional climate emergency initiatives & measures. The government took a pass. An exceptionally boring speech.”
Private Equity Exacerbates the Climate Crisis
The following is a Press Release from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project. If you are unfamiliar with Private Equity and how it works I suggest you read Cory Doctorow on the subject.
Pension Forum Investigates the Role Private Equity Plays in Exacerbating the Climate Crisis
The University of Washington’s Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies hosted a forum Wednesday that explored the relationship between pension funds and other institutional investors, the climate crisis, and the impacts on communities and the environment. Trustees and representatives of dozens of investors with more than $10 trillion in assets combined participated in the forum.
Moderated by Michael McCann, the University of Washington Gordon Hirabayashi Professor for the Advancement of Citizenship, panelists spoke of the growing urgency to interrogate the role private equity plays in exacerbating the climate crisis, often using pension fund capital.
Treasurer of the British Columbia Government and Service Employees’ Union Paul Finch said at the forum, “What doesn’t get measured doesn’t get managed. And we need to better understand what the risk is and we need better measurements of investment risk. We need less blind trust of investment agents. We need to appoint more critical thinkers to these pension boards who are equipped and educated with the tools to be able to understand the risks that exist.”
Panelist Sleydo’ (Molly Wickham) – Gidimt’en Checkpoint Spokesperson on Wet’suwet’en Territory, British Columbia, said, “Our resistance creates huge instability and risk to investors. We know that [KKR’s] Coastal Gas Link project has been delayed for at least one year and many seasons due to direct action and the requirement of added infrastructure throughout the pipeline route.
“We will never stand down and will continue to resist this project and others like it that do not gain consent from our people. It is a bad investment that will never see the returns that pensioners deserve.”
Participants discussed how labor unions, pension fund trustees, and Indigenous rights and grassroots organizations are working to encourage climate-safe investment practices and explore avenues for further collaboration.
Finch said, “What we found is that if people don’t have the tools to properly measure what’s happening in the markets, then they’re not able to make informed decisions in the best interest of their members or their beneficiaries. Across the board, the risks associated with these [fossil fuel] investments are not being properly analyzed or understood. Since divesting [from fossil fuels] our union has approximately earned, net of fees, 12.5 percent on the market, on average, every year.”
Even as the US has rejoined the Paris Agreement, and the Biden Administration is advocating for greater investment in clean energy infrastructure, and as publicly traded companies begin to commit to net-zero emissions, private equity firms – such as the Blackstone Group, KKR & Co., and the Carlyle Group – continue to acquire fossil fuel assets, contributing to the climate disaster we are experiencing.
Earlier this week, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a groundbreaking report that stated that in order to achieve a net zero energy system by 2050, from today, there should be “no investment in new fossil fuel supply projects, and no further final investment decisions for new unabated coal plants.”
Private Equity Stakeholder Project Climate Director Alyssa Giachino told forum attendees, “There is a universe of economic actors outside of the public markets – like private equity — that are finding buying opportunities in assets shed by publicly traded companies. Absent pressure and real accountability, private funds managers will continue to invest institutional investors’ capital in oil and gas despite the risks. The public needs real information to hold private equity accountable to the impacts they have already had on the environment and marginalized communities.”
Mitch Vogel, Trustee of the Illinois State Universities Retirement System and Eileen Moran, member of the Environmental Justice Working Group of the Professional Staff Congress – CUNY also participated on the panel.
You can watch the recording of the forum here.
Alberta might have one last oil boom.
Western Canada’s First Oil Well: Waterton Lakes, Alberta
“Will it make the same mistakes?”
The headline comes from The Globe and Mail.
The cause:
Analysts predict global oil demand could peak as soon as 2022. Even some big oil companies see peak demand by the 2030s.
But between then and now, in the mid-2020s, oil companies such as France’s Total forecast higher prices on a combination of steady demand and tighter supply.
This scenario, if it plays out, won’t mean $100 for a barrel of crude. But it would mean a profitable oil industry – and potentially quite profitable. Given that Alberta is among the biggest producers of oil in the world, this outlook could be very good news for the provincial treasury.
This annoyed me so much I found that I was writing a reply in my Plague Diary. Which will not be seen by anyone – at least not for a very long time. Perhaps they will have fun comparing the prediction with reality.
I cannot imagine that the provincial treasury will see all that much. Mostly because politicians do not have a long term focus. And this seems to apply in spades to Conservatives and Albertans. The early paragraphs of the editorial lists what happened in previous oil booms. My prediction is that while the mistakes may have some differences, the political instinct will be to devote any windfall to spending that will bring enough popularity to improve the chance of winning the next election. That is all the party in power thinks of. Yes, there are lots of good causes, and plenty of lobbyists. The ones that promise significant donations to party funds and other help to win elections will get the most favorable hearing. And the oil and gas lobby is still the biggest and most generous. While the statistics show Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction, at 16.12% of GDP, CAPP continues to claim “30% of all economic activity in the province” which is obviously not the case. But most Albertans and nearly all of the politicians probably don’t see it that way.
What has been happening is that the oil and gas sector has been largely bought up by foreign investors. Large multinationals, most of whose profits get squirrelled away in places where there are no taxes. There is a huge overhang of environmental damage, most of which will remain for the public purse to repair long after the end of the age of oil and gas. I doubt that much will be spent on this in the short term unless there is some major catastrophe to concentrate minds. Some inspiring folk are converting abandoned well sites to solar capture. But the amount of space that occupies compared to the huge swathes of wrecked boreal forest is tiny. And the first thing that a conservative thinks of when there is a “surplus” is tax cuts. Actually it is the only thing no matter what the state of the balance of revenues to spending – unless it is spending cuts to hurt those least capable of withstanding them.
Of course we all know what works and what doesn’t. Conservatives are not persuaded by evidence, they like stories, and they love the old stories. They keep on doing what they have always done even though the outcome is always the same too.
If oil prices rise so too will oil and gas production. Right now there is a glut and the places to store the surplus are at capacity. Note too that the higher prices are predicted by an oil company. Not exactly an unbiased source.
But we also know that Canada has not a hope of meeting its commitments to reduce ghg emissions – mostly because the Canadian government spends far more on propping up a dying industry instead of promoting the green alternative. “As part of its COVID-19 response, Canada’s government is spending $1.7 billion to clean up “orphan” and inactive oil and gas wells in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. Industry should be footing the bill…” (source: Suzuki ibid)
Many other governments are doing far more than Canada to promote sensible investments in renewables – and they are seeing good rates of return on those investments as well as moving in the right direction. I do not see a Jason Kenney government following that path – but maybe that will not survive long enough to see the predicted boom times.
More likely the predicted boom is unjustified optimism. Or downright lies – which is what I think that CAPP claim is.
An Expected Disappointment
Today I signed two petitions. One to divest the Canada Pension Plan from fossil fuels, the other a letter to the Environment Minister to require an environmental assessment of a massive coal mine expansion proposed for Alberta.
Then a news release arrived which I am copying in full below from Environmental Defence Canada which deplores the latest shortfall in the Trudeau government’s lacklustre efforts to meet the challenges of climate change and recovery from the Covid shut down. There has already been a reckoning of how little has been done for a Green New Deal type recovery here and how much thrown at the fossil fuel corporations, (“Canada has funnelled at least $11.86 BILLION to fossils in recent months, while directing only $222.78 million to clean energy”) so this latest failure to perform comes as no surprise. But it still makes me angry.
Environment and Climate Change Canada released their much-anticipated Strategic Assessment of Climate Change today. Copied below (and linked here) is our press release with our reaction. Please don’t hesitate to reach out for further clarification or questions.
For Immediate Release: July 16, 2020
NEWS RELEASE: Federal government fails to deliver on promise to align infrastructure reviews with climate commitments
Just months after surprising withdrawal of Teck’s tar sands mine application, government wastes best chance to reconcile project decisions with commitment to become net-zero by 2050
Ottawa, Ont. – Today, the government missed the opportunity to implement a critical tool to achieving our climate targets: a climate test on new infrastructure. Public policy experts had hoped that with the introduction of the new Impact Assessment Act (Bill C-69), which requires that project reviews consider whether the impacts help or hinder Canada in achieving its climate commitments, Canada could get on track to doing its part to ensure a climate-safe future. The policy announced today falls short of ensuring this will happen
“The government has just made it harder for Canada to get on the right pathway to reach our target of becoming net-neutral by 2050,” said Julia Levin, Climate and Energy Program Manager at Environmental Defence. “It is inconsistent to commit to a green recovery and serious climate action while simultaneously failing to put into place a mechanism to ensure that only projects that are consistent with those goals are built. When it comes to addressing the climate emergency – especially when we’re not on track to meet our targets – we need to be using every tool in the toolbox.”
Environmental assessments in Canada have long failed to ensure that project approvals are consistent with a climate-safe future. Global fossil fuel companies are planning to produce about 120% more fossil fuels by 2030 than would be consistent with keeping warming to less than 1.5 degree Celsius – and 85% of that expansion is slated to come from the United States and Canada. The announced policy, known formally as the , won’t curtail this emissions growth.
“The point of conducting thorough environmental assessments is to ensure we have the best information available to make decisions that are good for people in Canada,” said Levin. “Instead, the government has created a policy full of loopholes that polluters can exploit. How can we make responsible decisions as a country if we’re not even willing to ensure we have all the right information?”
As advanced by Environmental Defence and allies, a strong climate test would:
- ensure that Canada’s new infrastructure be compatible with a low carbon future;
- discourage investment in projects that would become stranded assets as world markets increasingly move away from oil and gas;
- provide a clear and accountable set of climate guidelines for companies, communities, review panels and the public;
- account for the significant downstream emissions from oil, natural gas and coal that is mined in Canada but exported to other countries, thereby recognizing the global nature of climate change and Canada’s contribution to it. Research shows that the total amount of greenhouse emissions from Canada’s exports of fossil fuels is greater than all emissions that occur within Canada
Though an improvement from the draft version of the policy – now project proponents will need to submit net-zero emission plans for projects that go beyond 2050 – the policy released today does not ensure any of the above goals. It punts requirements for emissions reductions well into the future rather than ensuring Canada is on the right path to do its fair share over the next decade to avoid catastrophic climate change.
As a result, Canadians should not expect that future assessments will do a better job of ensuring new projects are consistent with international climate commitments. Projects currently being considered include a proposed LNG pipeline in Quebec (Gazoduq) – which in conjunction with the Énergie Saguenay LNG plant would produce 7.8 million tons of greenhouse gas annually – and the huge expansion of a tar sands mine by Suncor Energy which would produce another 3 million tons of carbon pollution each year.
“Just a few months ago, Teck Resources made the surprising decision to withdraw their own application for a new tar sands mine. Their reason? A lack of a framework that reconciles oil and gas development decisions with climate action,” added Levin. “And yet the government seems not to have learned its lesson and has declined to show bold leadership. Canadians needed this policy to guide industry towards projects that are compatible with a safe and healthy future. Instead, communities will be forced to continue fighting to ensure that life cycle greenhouse gas emissions are adequately included in the impact reviews of new projects.”
Canada continues to lag behind on real climate leadership. The plan unveiled in the United States by the Biden-Bernie Sanders Unity Task Force includes a commitment to implementing a climate test.
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Julia Levin
Climate & Energy Program Manager
Pronouns: she/her
Climate strikers “naive and unrealistic”
No, they are not. They are also on to you. They know what “gaslighting” means.
The headline comes from a Canadian Press story that was published by the National Observer – and others.
“The strikes themselves are not offering any answers. The strikes are not addressing the question of how we reduce carbon demand.”
Actually if Hal Kvisle was paying attention and not indulging in the usual shenanigans, he would be surprised by how well informed some of these young people are. For the last thirty years or so the fossil fuel industry has been spinning the story that not only was there reasonable doubt about climate change and its cause (when there was none) but also that it was essential to expand production in order to meet both rising demand and build the hardware for the eventual transition. This lost us a great opportunity to get ahead of the game. In the same period not only were greenhouse gas emissions expanding exponentially, but the earth’s ability to absorb that carbon was being exhausted. Some oil companies not only knew that to be true but also started down the path of getting ahead of the competition. BP even tried to convince its customers that the letters now stood for “Beyond Petroleum”. Not that that lasted long.
We have always known that we were being profligate and wasteful with energy, and there were already moves under way to cut that waste – especially in the public sector. BC faced a bit of a challenge since nearly all of our electricity came from existing hydro – which meant its cost to consumers was low, and the ghg emissions had already largely occurred during the construction phase. But even so, people knew about air pollution, and wanted something done about that including closing the last gas fired power station. We also knew that building complete communities in a compact urban region with increased transportation choice was key to better air quality and overall well being – we called it “liveability” back then.
In BC the revenues from oil and gas extraction fell precipitously even as production accelerated. The BC Liberals poured money into the sector by cutting taxes and royalties. In Canada, the extraction of the tar sands was only feasible because it was supported by federal and provincial subsidies, again started by the Liberal government. There is also a direct line between politicians supporting oil and gas and contributions from fossil fuel corporations to party funds for elections and propaganda. The lying from the corporations was long, loud and shameless. As was the greed of the elected officials who still promote them.
We know for a certainty that cutting government subsidies to fossil fuels will bring about significant change in short order. It is simply false to claim that there is need for a longer term transition since so many examples of successful transition are already evident. Solar panels and wind turbines are already more financially viable than fossil power for electricity generation. China is producing far more electric cars and buses than North America – and also building high speed electric railways and urban rapid transit systems. We could have been doing the same over the same period: it was not as if the technologies were not well understood and readily available. Instead we built even more freeways, and bought much bigger cars – and trucks – for personal transportation building our way to ever more automobile reliance, personal indebtedness and ill health as a consequence. There is nothing new about this understanding. What is new is that the children are now pointing out – loudly and with increasing credibility – how irresponsible politicians and corporate management have been, and how change must now happen faster, sooner and with much less attention paid to the personal fortune building of both.
But, really—who’s being naïve in this conversation?
See more – and much better – photos
Breastfeeding and environment act on climate at birth
I did not write that headline. It comes from a Press Release in my inbox from The Quebec Breastfeeding Movement . I clicked on the Google translation which I am pasting below – with some amendments to the English. I did look for a suitable illustration as none were provided but all I could find were those from sources which require a paid license for use.
This is not something that I expect the mainstream media here will cover, but it makes a good case. I have long been an advocate for breast feeding and divested from Nestlé in part due to my disgust at the misinformation in their advertising in third world countries, where mixing formula with local water creates a health risk as well as being very expensive.
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Canada is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world and three times faster than the United States. Breastfeeding has a positive impact on climate change, protects the environment and saves resources. Include it in strategies to reduce greenhouse gases is easy, profitable and socially acceptable.
Breastfeeding is the most environmentally friendly way to feed a baby: no packaging, no waste, no preservative additives, no transport. Its environmental impact is more tangible in industrialized countries than in developing ones. Increasing breastfeeding rates not only reduces the production of infant formula – a highly processed food – but it also reduces drug consumption through its impact on health.
“Many women breastfeed less than they wanted to at the outset,” says Raphaelle Petitjean, contract coordinator of the Quebec Breastfeeding Movement (QAM). The presence of supportive breastfeeding environment has a positive influence on the decision to breastfeed and facilitates further supporting breastfeeding women by concrete measures. “Breastfeeding is an individual decision, but establishing a supportive environment is a company responsibility,” says Marie-Eve Desforges, responsible for external affairs of the QAM.
In this election year, let us unite our voices to recall that breastfeeding is also an environmental issue.
About
The Quebec Breastfeeding Movement is an independent community organization whose mission is to contribute to making a supportive breastfeeding environment, in the context of optimal development of young children as well as the well-being of women, families and society . These environments must respect all women and all families.
The Last Post
I am going to add a link into the next paragraph, which will take you to an essay in Huffington Post. And then once that article opens up – if you decide to click that link, there is another link to “a long form essay “Facing Extinction“” if you prefer that. But the point of this first paragraph is to explain why I am posting this at all. I have been consciously backing off from the position I have been taking here for the last ten to fifteen years. At first it was more about “what do I do with myself in the absence of worthwhile employment?” Then it was about having solved the immediate issues of how I survive without a large salary every month (not that I ever thought I had a large salary) what do I do about the place I find myself. I long ago recognised that I would not be able to save the world. It turned out that it was immensely difficult to even make the small part of it that I occupied reasonably tolerable. It did not help either that some of the thoughts that had occurred to me actually got implemented. Not that I am about to claim credit for them – or anything. Other people think similar thoughts at the same time, is all. I just thought that I could keep on doing the same sort of policy analysis that I used to do for the government for the people who get governed. Until that seemed futile too. And boring and repetitive. I long ago stopped going on protests. I have stopped supporting political parties – and everyday, without fail, I get another confirmation that was a Good Choice.
So as I read this article, I kept finding myself in agreement. It is better than anything I could write – and there isn’t anything I feel the need to cavil about. And I have stopped myself from thinking that this is all too hard to face up to. It is not as if we have any choice at all. Except you – you who have stuck with me this far – you who still show up on the “like” list. You can stop reading this now. That’s ok. Don’t worry about it. You do not have to face extinction right now, if you don’t want to. But for those of you who are wondering why this post was an even an idea in the first place this is the link. I have checked it by sending it by email to someone else and confirmed that it works.
This is not a matter for comment or discussion. I am going to close comments for this post, and won’t be looking for any feedback. Please take the advice of the author of the article.
Good bye. And thanks for all the fish.
Book Review: Civilization Critical by Darrin Qualman
This book was not sent to me by a publisher, nor promoted by a PR firm. It was given to me, by a friend, who in turn had bought it – and three copies more – from his friend, the author, who used to be director of research for Canada’s National Farmer’s Union. Actually that in itself makes for a Good Story, but not one that I am going to get into now.
The book sets out in very readable form exactly how humanity has gotten itself into its current pickle. He is also pretty good at describing the sort of changes we are going to need to make, if we are to avoid imminent disaster – though this section is much shorter than the earlier history. So he is very good indeed on why we need to change, and probably says enough about what needs to be done. Sadly there is not much about exactly how we ought to do that. On present trends, we appear to be doomed by a combination of utter idiocy and selfishness on the part of most of the elite and a sense of helplessness for the rest of us.
You can read more about the book on the publisher’s web page but I will just use a short quote here
In this sweeping work, Qualman reinterprets and re-explains the problems we face today, and charts a clear, hopeful path into the future.
By page count, he uses 250 pages on stating the problem and around 10 on what to do. From the book:
We must make different choices [from business as usual].
We must transform our civilization and its systems of production and consumption.
It is not that I disagree with him. I think he is right. What I find frustrating is his assertion “Solutions surround us.” That may also be true but I do think that they need a bit more elaboration.
I do have to say this book is very well written. When I started reading it I found it necessary to share excerpts with my long suffering partner. A bit like how I cannot enjoy a visit to an art gallery without someone to nudge at the good bits. He has a very good turn of phrase. Whatever else I want you to take from this review is that reading this book was a pleasure, not a chore. I am glad I read it and learned a lot from it. What it did not give me, and maybe this is being unreasonable, is what am I supposed to do about it.
In an earlier article on this blog I made a similar response to Greta Thunberg, who suggests that we need to start building the cathedral even if we don’t know what it is going to look like, but actually we do know. We have known for at least twenty years – which is when this issue first came across my desk – and actually the fossil fuel industries knew that at least twenty years earlier, but decided to obfuscate just as the tobacco industry had done for so long.
In terms of my professional practice, the easiest solutions to identify are what did we do before the cars created all these problems. We seemed to be doing pretty well with electric trains and trams – supplemented by bicycles. Living in compact, complete communities. With an overwhelming need to access better technology for things like eliminating drafts, improving home comfort and cutting down on physical exertion to achieve anything at all. Compare, for instance, the physical labour of plastering a lath wall with installing drywall.
In the US the Green New Deal seems best bet for now. In Canada …
For us, here and now, we have some difficult choices. It may well be that we will indeed see a Green Wave in the upcoming federal election. It seems clear that Scheer is determined to keep on going as we are. He will definitely not be one of the people to read this book. What is critical is that the other parties – who like to see themselves as “progressive” but tend to fall back on “campaign from the left, govern on the right” (both Liberals and NDP are doing this now) – need to embrace change not as “nice to have” but essential to the continued existence of life on earth beyond the 21st century. The Green Party’s effort is pretty good – but perhaps Not Good Enough.
The sad truth – much more than inconvenient – is that the greenhouse gas that has already been emitted way beyond anything seen when there has been life on earth is going to be around for a while. The tipping points are already whizzing past us just like deadlines. Even if we could stop dead and leave it in the ground from tomorrow that will not be nearly enough, and carbon capture and storage will always be promising. It has not delivered anything significant yet – nor will it, in time. And the current occupiers of the decision making seats are happy to announce yet further depletion of forests (boreal and old growth coastal rainforest) on which our future depends.
When the people we choose at the ballot boxes are so ready to abandon their undertakings in the name of “we are better than the alternative” I do not know how to advise you. Reading this book will only help convince you that we need to act more boldly and sooner. I am not sure how we are going to do that but it does not seem to me to really be advanced much by chucking milkshakes at them. However much they deserve it.
Civilization Critical
Energy, Food, Nature, and the Future
By Darrin Qualman
Published by Fernwood Publishing 2019
ISBN: 9781773630861
April 2019
360 Pages
For sale worldwide
EPUB
ISBN: 9781773630878
May 2019
For sale worldwide
Kindle
ISBN: 9781773630885
May 2019
For sale worldwide
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