Who should pay for climate disasters?

The weird weather that all but wiped out this year’s apple crop is a disaster for local farmers and a setback for those of us who try to support them by buying local fruit whenever possible. But when are we going to start really sharing the pain of climate change and doing something serious about it?

In the last 100 months, we’ve had 17 rain storms severe enough to flood homes in Hamilton. Nearly half of those storms have been only supposed to occur once every 50 years. Most of the costs have been borne by those whose properties and possessions have been flooded.

It’s good to see local councillors seeking more information about flood dangers arising from more development of rural Stoney Creek, but it should be obvious by now that paving over agricultural land and natural areas will inevitably make things worse.

Beyond our community, the damages from extreme weather are far more severe. In the couple of weeks alone, 350 homes were destroyed in the Colorado wildfires and more than 40,000 people evacuated, while18 people were killed and two million left without electricity on the east coast as the United States suffered through a massive heat wave that set or tied over 2,100 high temperatures records.

Overseas flooding and drought clearly connected with climate change are killing tens of thousands every year according to the United Nations.

Everyone knows this is the ugly face of global climate change, but incredibly, the media barely mention this – apparently frightened that some Conservative ideologue will denounce them. Instead, the weather forecasters talk about the “new normal” and the “unusually warm winter/spring/summer.”

And our politicians aren’t much better – especially the bunch in charge in Ottawa who only seem to work for the big oil companies, and who ‘combat’ climate change by firing or silencing the federal scientists gathering evidence about it.

So have we decided – without any official admitting it – that we’re not going to do anything and just hope that it won’t get really bad?

The fossil fuel corporations make billions digging out tar sands, coal, natural gas and other causes of the problem, but no one dares demand that they at least be forced to pay the bills generated by their mad rush for profits. On the contrary, the Harper government continues to provide over a billion dollars a year in subsidies, and eliminates any environmental laws that might slow them down.

There’s a rumour out there that humans are the most intelligent species on the planet.

Too bad.

Hamilton 350 Blog

How do we stop Bill C-38?

 

Tar sands pipeline through Hamilton

Hamilton is being tossed into the middle of the latest tar sands battle, as Canada’s largest pipeline company shifts its attention to Ontario in response to the growing opposition to the proposed Northern Gateway route through British Columbia. The first step is a proposal to reverse the flows in the Enbridge Inc pipeline from Hamilton to Sarnia so it can carry diluted tar sands bitumen (dilbit) toward the east coast, and the hearing on that application opens this week in London.

The village of Westover in Flamborough is the hub of several Enbridge pipelines including line 9 which connects Sarnia to Montreal, the parallel line 7 between Westover and Sarnia, line 10 from Westover to New York State, and line 11 from Westover to the ExxonMobil refinery in Nanticoke. The portion of line 9 between Westover and Sarnia is the focus of the National Energy Board (NEB) hearings scheduled for May 23-25 in London’s Hilton Hotel.

That 37-year old pipeline currently carries imported crude oil west to Sarnia. Enbridge is seeking permission to reverse that flow in a move widely reported to be part of a strategy to ship tar sands products to Portland Maine for export to global markets. In a potentially related move, Enbridge is also seeking to double the capacity of a pipeline running across Michigan into Sarnia – the same line that ruptured in 2010, dumping more than 800,000 gallons of dilbit into the Kalamazoo River and costing the company over $700 million. 

The implications of routing the highly corrosive “dilbit” through Ontario has caught the attention of the London Free Press which announced Friday that “Enbridge pipeline battle comes close to home” and noted the Westover-Sarnia pipe goes under the city’s Thames River. It is also being challenged by Environmental Defence, the Pembina Institute and Equiterre, as well as a Cambridge community newspaper.

If approved, Enbridge says line 9 will transport between 50,000 and 90,000 barrels per day, but acknowledges that it is capable of carrying “beyond 150,000 bpd”. The flow reversal will mean higher pressures in the pipeline and some modifications to the Westover hub and a nearby densitometer located close to the intersection of Kirkwall Road and the 6th Concession of Flamborough.

An environmental assessment document submitted by Enbridge notes the presence of two environmentally significant areas and a provincially significant wetland near the Westover installations, as well as portions of both Spencer Creek and Fairchild Creek. However, crossings of major rivers such as the Thames, Grand and St Clair are likely of greater concern, as well as the prospect of tar sands refining in Ontario near the Great Lakes such as at the Nanticoke facility of ExxonMobil.

National and international attention has been focused on two other proposed routes for export of dilbit – the Keystone XL pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico, and the Northern Gateway pipeline across Alberta and northern BC to Kitimat on the Pacific coast. Both have generated massive opposition – with the Keystone XL blocked at least temporarily by environmental concerns in the United States, and the Northern Gateway facing unequivocal refusals by multiple First Nations to allow use of their lands.

The latter route would cross more than 1000 lakes and rivers on the way to Kitimat, but the use of supertankers to carry the bitumen to China and other markets is particularly controversial. Their passageway would be through the Great Bear Rainforest and other narrow and often storm-wracked coastal waters, and the memory (and the on-going ecological effects) of the disastrous Exxon Valdez crash in 1989 loom large in the debate.

Alberta media, on the other hand, are pointing out that the pipeline connections to the east coast of the continent are already in place and thus could prove easier for Enbridge to win the required approvals. That approval process is also about to get much easier as the federal government pushes through an omnibus budget implementation bill that transfers final decision making from the NEB to the Harper cabinet.

The omnibus bill – labelled the Environmental Destruction Act by Green Party leader Elizabeth May – will change more than 70 pieces of legislation in a single swoop, including a complete re-write of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act that makes all assessments an option of the federal Minister of the Environment. The bill also eliminates habitat protection features of the Fisheries Act, shifts the start of the old age pension to age 67, rewrites unemployment insurance rules, and eliminates long-standing institutions such as the National Council on Welfare and the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

Hamliton 350 Blog

Bill C-38, putting Profit before the Environment

Clarifying the deliberately confusing Bill C-38

- Elizabeth May

As a long-time environmental lawyer who has watched, and in some cases, played a role in the development of Canada’s environmental laws, I am devastated at the cynical, manipulative and undemocratic way the Harper Conservatives are weakening or destroying those crucial laws.

The Conservatives have hidden their destructive, anti-nature, health, and even jobs agenda in the 425-page Bill C-38, the Budget Implementation Bill. Due to their imposition of time allocation on the Bill’s various stages through the House of Commons, I haven’t been able to speak during Second Reading, although I have been able to ask questions and make comments. That’s why I decided to hold a press conference Thursday morning, May 10, to itemize the various bills, regulations, policies and programs that will be affected.

Bill C-38 Changes Clearing the Way for Resource Extraction:

Canadian Environmental Assessment Act – “Environmental effects” under the new CEAA will be limited to effects on fish, aquatic species under the Species at Risk Act, migratory birds. A broader view of impacts is limited to: federal lands, Aboriginal peoples, and changes to the environment “directly linked or necessarily incidental” to federal approval.

Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency – The Agency will have 45 days after receiving an application to decide if an assessment is required. Environmental Assessments are no longer required for projects involving federal money. The Minister is given wide discretion to decide. New “substitution” rules allow Ottawa to download EAs to the provinces; “comprehensive” studies are eliminated. Cabinet will be able to over-rule decisions. A retroactive section sets the clock at July 2010 for existing projects.

Canadian Environmental Protection Act – The present one-year limit to permits for disposing waste at sea can now be renewed four times. The 3 and 5 year time limits protecting Species at Risk from industrial harm will now be open-ended.

Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act – This legislation, which required government accountability and results reporting on climate change policies, is being repealed.

Fisheries Act – Fish habitat provisions will be changed to protect only fish of “commercial, Aboriginal, and recreational” value and even those habitat protections are weakened. The new provisions create an incentive to drain a lake and kill all the fish, if not in a fishery, in order to fill a dry hole with mining tailings.

Navigable Waters Protection Act – Pipelines and power lines will be exempt from the provisions of this Act. Also, the National Energy Board absorbs the Navigable Waters Protection Act (NWPA) whenever a pipeline crosses navigable waters. The NWPA is amended to say a pipeline is not a “work” within that Act.

National Energy Board Act – NEB reviews will be limited to two years – and then its decisions can be reversed by the Cabinet, including the present Northern Gateway Pipeline review.

Species at Risk Act – This is being amended to exempt the National Energy Board from having to impose conditions to protect critical habitat on projects it approves. Also, companies won’t have to renew permits on projects threatening critical habitat.

Parks Canada Agency Act – Reporting requirements are being reduced, including the annual report. 638 of the nearly 3000 Parks Canada workers will be cut. Environmental monitoring and ecological restoration in the Gulf Islands National Park are being cut.

Canadian Oil and Gas Operations Act – This will be changed to exempt pipelines from the Navigational Waters Act. Coasting Trade Act – This will be changed to promote seismic testing allowing increased off-shore drilling.

Nuclear Safety Control Act – Environmental Assessments will be moved to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which is a licensing body not an assessing body – so there is a built-in conflict.

Canada Seeds Act – This is being revamped so the job of inspecting seed crops is transferred from Canadian Food Inspection Agency inspectors to “authorized service providers” the private sector.

Agriculture Affected – Under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act, publicly owned grasslands have acted as community pastures under federal management, leasing grazing rights to farmers so they could devote their good land to crops, not livestock. This will end. Also, the Centre for Plant Health in Sidney, BC, an important site for quarantine and virus-testing on plant stock strategically located across the Salish Sea to protect BC’s primary agricultural regions, will be moved to the heart of BC’s fruit and wine industries.

National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy – The NRTEE brought industry leaders, environmentalists, First Nations, labour, and policy makers together to provide non-partisan research and advice on federal policies. Its demise will leave a policy vacuum in relation to Canada’s economic development.

More Attacks on Environmental Groups – The charities sections now preclude gifts which may result in political activity. The $8 million new money to harass charities is unjustified.

Water Programs – Environment Canada is cutting several water-related programs and others will be cut severely, including some aimed at promoting or monitoring water-use efficiency.

Wastewater Survey – The Municipal Water and Wastewater Survey, the only national study of water consumption habits, is being cut after being in place since 1983.

Monitoring Effluent – Environment Canada’s Environmental Effects Monitoring Program, a systematic method for measuring the quality of effluent discharge, including from mines and pulp mills, will be cut by 20 percent.

In spite of the fact that most Canadians have no idea how seriously Bill C-38 will affect their lives, the Senate is beginning hearings so that Conservative Senators can vote on it as soon as possible. This railroading version of democracy is tragic for Canada.

The Green Party of Canada is launching its C-38: Environment Devastation Act campaign to engage Canadians in having their C-38 concerns heard. Please visit budgetdevastation.ca for more information.

Elizabeth May is the Leader of the Green Party of Canada and Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

Hamilton 350 Blog

Connect the Dots

Climate change action starts at home

Global Day of Action
When: Saturday, May 5, at 1 and 3 p.m.
Where: King and James streets at 1 p.m. and Dundas Driving Park at 3 p.m.
Why: To “connect the dots” around climate change and its impacts locally. Bring a black umbrella to the King and James gathering if you have one.

Hamiltonians need to “connect the dots” between the odd shifts in weather they are seeing locally and the global impacts of climate change, environmental leaders say. A meeting at City Hall Thursday organized by seven groups emphasized the need for municipal action to address concerns around climate change. The news conference was held to advance Saturday’s Global Day of Action, which is being hosted by the Hamilton 350 Committee

In the past eight years, there have been 17 rainstorms that flooded homes in Hamilton and at least six of them were only supposed to come once every 50 to 100 years, said Don McLean, co-ordinator of the local 350 committee. “The very strange weather that we’ve had in the last two or three months, the winter that didn’t happen ... clearly the kinds of impacts it’s going to have on food production have to make it more and more urgent we do something,” McLean said.

The 350 Committee is part of a global campaign for the maximum safe level of carbon dioxide — 350 parts per million — in the global atmosphere. Right now, it’s sitting at 394 parts per million. “We’re at a point where you have almost unanimous agreement from climate scientists that this is occurring … Let’s pull up our pants and get the job done,” said Pete Wobschall, executive director of Green Venture.

Lynda Lukasik, the executive director of Environment Hamilton, said she wanted to see city council and the province take a vocal stance against Ottawa’s pipeline projects and approaches to energy resources. Lukasik’s basement was flooded in the storm of July 2009 that swamped the Red Hill Valley Parkway. She said some of her neighbours told her they had never had a flooding issue like that before. “As it starts to hit people personally more and more … it has made people reflect and think.”

Councillor Brian McHattie, who chairs the Hamilton Conservation Authority board, noted that the predicted rise in temperature in the Hamilton area by 2050 is 2.6 C.

The increase in rainfall over the past four decades was 26 millimetres, McHattie said.

dawong@thespec.com
905-526-2468 | @WongatTheSpec

Hamilton 350 Blog

The Great Bear Rainforest

The War in the Woods

More than six years after a historic agreement to save the Great Bear Rainforest, the promise of protection remains unmet.

A Forest like No Other

The dense web of natural life found in the Great Bear Rainforest has earned it the deserving nickname, "Canada's Amazon." 

A Double Threat

The proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline puts the unique ecosystem of the Great Bear Rainforest, and the communities that rely on it, at risk.

Journey into the Great Bear 

20-min video

Hamilton 350 Blog

Sinking of the RMS Titanic

April 15, 1912

The RMS Titanic sank.

One hundred years later,
we should reflect on this tragic disaster.

Why did the Titanic meet its fate?

The answer is a simple one – arrogance.

And yet we repeat the same mistake.

We are all on our Titanic.

We sail full steam ahead in uncharted waters,
ignoring the signs of danger ahead.

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How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
 - Jared Diamond