Monthly Archives: June 2010

Suzuki’s bottom line

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Especially during the ongoing global economic crisis, politicians and industries have been very effective at using the argument that we must ‘balance’ environmental protection with economic growth in order to avoid increased regulation of profitable but damaging industries like the oil sands or offshore oil and gas exploitation. In a sign of just how effective this strategy has been, leading Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki is launching a new series, entitled The Bottom Line, which intends to focus on precisely this. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Suzuki expresses his frustration with how ineffective the environmental movement has been, and how effectively blocked it has been by appeals to the importance of continued economic growth.

There are certainly strong counterarguments to the claim that we should privilege the economy completely over the environment. Most fundamentally, doing so puts us in a parasitic situation, in relation to future generations. We more irreplaceable natural capital we suck out of the Earth, the less of a solid base they will have upon which to meet their needs and sustain their civilization. There are also strong arguments that only consider those alive right now; you just need to count the suffering of those dying from air pollution as well as the jobs and government revenues created by the coal mining companies and power plants generating those toxins.

The ‘balance’ argument is an insidious one, because it seems common sense and reasonable, and also because it suggests a false dynamic. Specifically, it suggests that we are already making major economic sacrifices for the sake of environmental protection. That can certainly be questioned. Even looking only at tangible benefits to those alive now, the kind of environmental regulations we have in place are easily justified in economic terms. We were hardly in a position of making special environmental sacrifices, before the crisis in the global economic system forced us to reluctantly think about the cash in our wallets again.

Hopefully, Suzuki will be able to spread some of those messages in an effective way.

Now on Twitter

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In the ongoing quest for eyeballs, there is now a new way to follow updates from BuryCoal.com:

http://www.twitter.com/burycoal/

The feed will be updated when new content goes onto the site, for the benefit of readers who prefer to keep track of things that way. It won’t necessarily be every post that goes there, but I am hoping it will be a way to spread awareness of some more interesting or important ones.

RSS

By default, WordPress creates Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds that can be checked in an automated way using tools like BlogLines or Google Reader. BuryCoal has feeds for posts and comments.

Facebook

There is also a Facebook page.

The illusion of profit

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In Europe, thieves sometimes steal slabs of lead that have been used as roofing material on buildings like churches. When they do so, it is obvious that the act causes net economic losses for society. The thieves get the scrap metal value of the lead (minus their expenses) while the church needs to pay the cost of replacement lead, the price of installation, and any damages arising directly from the robbery or from their subsequent lack of a roof.

When climate change is taken into account, fossil fuel extraction has a similar dynamic to such robberies. The profits of oil, gas, and coal companies are large and immediately visible, but the wider costs to society still exceed them. They include everything from the people sickened and killed by air pollution to the land and species that will be lost to climate change.

The general public still seems to be a long way off from recognizing this. No doubt, that is partly on account of how they recognize the many useful and pleasant things fossil fuels allow us to do. Ultimately, moving beyond fossil fuels is a choice primarily motivated by concern for future generations. They are the ones who will need to deal with the downpour, after we have stripped away the roof.

Peabody CEO on coal demand

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Gregory Boyce – chairman and CEO of Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company – has been saying some disturbing things to his investors. A recent Manhattan meeting was described in a press release:

Boyce observed that coal has been the world’s fastest-growing fuel this past decade, with demand growing at nearly twice the rate of natural gas and hydro power and more than four times faster than global oil consumption. “It’s stunning that any mature commodity could expand nearly 50 percent in a decade and speaks to the strong appetite for the products we fuel, as well as coal’s abundance and stable cost,” he said. Coal demand is also expected to grow faster than other fuels in coming decades.

Asia-Pacific nations are leading a historic global build-out in coal-fueled electricity generation. More than 94 gigawatts of new generation are expected to come on line in 2010, representing 375 million tonnes of coal consumption per year. If growth continues at the current pace, generators would add another 1 billion tonnes of new coal demand every three years.

For the sake of the natural world and future generations of humans, it is imperative that those projections prove to be badly off, and quickly. The world contains a very dangerous amount of coal, and burning it all is not compatible with maintaining a habitable planet for those who will come after.

It is for their sake that taking on powerful actors like Peabody Energy has become so necessary and important.

Science never stops

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I have written before about how climate change deniers never retract an argument, no matter how thoroughly debunked and discredited it has become. By contrast, climate scientists admit their mistakes, which can make them seem less credible than the hyper-confident advocates of inaction.

In their new book, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway bring up a related issue:

Doubt-mongering also works because we think science is about facts – cold, hard, definite facts. If someone tells us that things are uncertain, we think that means that the science is muddled. This is a mistake. There are always uncertainties in any live science, because science is a process of discovery. Scientists do not sit still once a question is answered; they immediately formulate the next one. If you ask them what they are doing, they won’t tell you about the work they finished last week or last year, and certainly not what they did last decade. They will tell you about the new and uncertain things they are working on now. Yes, we know that smoking causes cancer, but we still don’t fully understand the mechanism by which that happens. Yes, we know that smokers die early, but if a particular smoker dies early, we may not be able to say with certainty how much smoking contributed to that early death. And so on.

There is much that is laudable about the way scientists communicate their ideas – cautiously, with reference to evidence, and so on – but it is also easy to see how public relations people looking to discredit scientific conclusions can use quirks in scientific communication to their advantage.

Thankfully, it does seem that climate scientists are becoming more savvy about media relations, and are increasingly making the point that choosing to do nothing while even more evidence is accumulated is a reckless strategy. We cannot wait for all aspects of the science to be settled; rather, we need to start taking precautionary action now, before the worst impacts of climate change become measurable.

A case in point is Canadian climatologist Andrew Weaver’s libel suit against The National Post, which alleges that they misrepresented his views, in the wake of the University of East Anglia email scandal. The paper misinterpreted his criticisms of elements of the IPCC process as evidence that he had rejected the key elements of climate science. It is good to see him being active in pointing out that miscategorization.

Join the Toxic Tour of Toronto!

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Tomorrow (June 23rd), as part of the build-up to the days of action against the G8/G20 meetings, there will be a toxic tour of Toronto’s principal polluters and climate criminals.The tour begins at 11am in Alexandra Park, Toronto and will visit the home offices of many firms currently engaged in the unsustainable extraction of resources, as well as crimes against workers, local populations, and indigenous groups. Participants are encourage to dress up – some ideas suggested are executives with blood on their hands, corporate zombies, people covered in Tar Sands bitumen, etc. Fake blood and bitumen will even be provided!

Citing from the event promotional materials, the toxic tour will concentrate on four main themes:

  1. The extractive industry is violating human rights and the rights of mother earth. The federal government supports these companies even as human rights workers are killed, local peoples poisoned, and entire communities displaced. From the tar sands in northern Alberta to gold mines in Papua New Guinea to copper mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Canadian companies are exploiting indigenous and poor communities alike, violating their right to self-determination, poisoning their lands, manipulating any leadership that they can access, and often supporting brutal military and security operations.
  2. The extractive industry is exacerbating the climate crisis. The tar sands gigaproject is the most destructive industrial project on earth and will be the leading contributor to climate change in Canada, making it impossible for our country to meet its international climate commitments. The climate crisis has been caused by the industrialization of developed countries like Canada, while disproportionately affecting indigenous peoples and the global south who are faced with sea-level rise, drought, permafrost melt, desertification, melting glaciers, and increased extreme weather events. These and other problems brought on by the climate crisis have destroyed the livelihoods of millions who are dying and being displaced from their homes.
  3. The education system is taken over by corporate interests. The University of Toronto, Canada´s largest academic institution, is taken over by corporations, many of which are linked to the extractive industry. This corporate influence stifles open, honest, and critical debate in our institutions of higher learning and demonstrates how a wealthy few can dominate and shape the way people think. As an academic institution that strives to create the ‘leaders of tomorrow,’ we must challenge the notion that corporate greed and exploitation has any place in our education system.
  4. The Canadian economy is dependent on exploiting marginalized peoples and the environment. Harper would not be at the G8 if it wasn’t for exploiting the resources and people of countries that the G8 is purposely shutting out of discussions. Solutions, however, are there — but the Harper government refuses to give people the ability to determine the future of their own lives and livelihoods.

Climate Action Camp – This August in Dunham, Quebec

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Readers in Eastern Canada might consider attending or visiting this Climate Action Camp which runs this August from the 7th to the 23rd (with the 18th to 22nd specified as “Convergence Days”). According to Wikipedia, Climate Action Camps are:

campaign gatherings (similar to peace camps) that take place to draw attention to, and act as a base for direct action against, major carbon emitters, as well as to develop ways to create a zero-carbon society. Camps are run on broadly anarchist principles – free to attend, supported by donations and with input from everyone in the community for the day-to-day operation of the camp.

This camp will concentrate on opposing the Trailbreaker project, an Enbridge pipeline which would carry Tar Sands bitumen between Alberta and the Eastern Seaboard.

Pipelines – the weak point of Oil Sands Expansion

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In order for the Albertan Oil Sands to fulfill a plan to expand to five times their current size, increased capacity for exporting Tar Sands oil must be secured. The primary way export capacity is to be increased is through the construction of pipelines. Pipelines, however, are (comparatively) easy to stop through community mobilizations because they harm communities immediately through leaks and produce few jobs, in addition to their role in the overall climate crisis.

The most important pipeline for Tar Sands expansion and its role in the perpetuation of an oil based economy is the Trailbreaker. This pipeline, which is actually a project to convert sections of existing pipeline and build additional pumping stations to allow for transportation of the oil sands product, will run from Alberta to Chicago, back into Canada through the Great Lakes region, over the island of Montreal, and finally down into Maine terminating at the port of Portland. From Portland, Maine, the product will be loaded onto ships bound for the Gulf of Mexico, specifically the coast of Texas. The reason for this is to exploit the excess capacity of refineries built near US offshore oil in the Gulf of Mexico – capacity which is no longer in use due to decreased production from rigs in the Gulf.

The Trailbreaker project is currently shelved, however, due to the world economic downturn and difficulties with the construction of a pumping station in Dunham, Quebec. In 2009, Dunham elected a mayor who ran on a campaign opposing the pipeline. It is surprisingly easy for communities to band together and oppose the construction of oil pipelines – all pipelines leak (the question is when and how often), and when they leak they cause local environmental catastrophes. Unlike home grown opposition to windfarms, this is a NIMBY-ism which conforms with the interests of the species. Folks from Vancouver might remember the 2007 spill in Burnaby, B.C. – that was from a pipeline shipping 350 barrels per day. Burnaby, B.C. is therefore a good region in which to mobilize support against the proposed Northern Gateway Expansion which would increase that flow to 700,000 barrels per day.

Cochabambma – a People’s Process to address the Climate Crisis

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After the failure at Copenhagen to breach the gap between scientific necessity and political will, more than 35 thousand people gathered in Cochabamba, Bolivia, to develop a civil-society based consensus on how to deal with the climate crisis. Seventeen working groups dealt with topics such as “Structural Causes”, “Adaptation” and “Climate Debt“. The final result of the conference was the “Cochabamba People’s Agreement”, which differs considerably in content and character from climate agreements made between states.

The People’s Agreement calls for (among other things):

  • “The protection and recognition of the rights and needs of forced climate migrants.”
  • “The promotion of the establishment of an International Climate and Environmental Justice Tribunal.”
  • “The consideration of a World Referendum on Climate Change that allows the people to decide what will be done about this issue, which is of vital importance to the future of humanity and Mother Earth.”
  • “A 50% reduction of domestic greenhouse gas emissions by developed countries for the period 2013-2017 under the Kyoto Protocol, domestically and without reliance on market mechanisms.”

One good thing about the Cochabamba proposal is the stress on what action is immediately required, or at least on action required in the near future. In the long term both developed and under developed nations must transition to Carbon Neutrality – but it certainly makes moral and pragmatic sense to cut emissions in the first world now, and allow the under developed world to transition to carbon neutrality over a longer period. It’s also relevant to start talking about the rights of climate migrants – the sooner we do this, the better change we have of avoiding a future which too much resembles Children of Men.

However, I think the single most important thing included in the Cochabamba proposal which is often missing from the mainstream discourse on climate change is the rights of indigenous peoples:

“The implementation of measures for recognizing the rights of Indigenous peoples must be secured in accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and applicable universal human rights instruments and agreements. This includes respect for the knowledge and rights of indigenous peoples; their rights to lands, territories and resources, and their full and effective participation, with their free, prior and informed consent.”

It’s difficult to over-stress the importance of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. If Canada were to sign this declaration, this would make it much more difficult to expand oil sands production – both because companies would be forced to respect Aboriginal title to the land under which which the oil sands are extracted, and also because it would allow many nations to block the pipelines required for Oil Sands expansion.

What I like most about the Cochabamba proposal is the emphasis on the importance of civil society rather than current failing political structures. This is manifested in their recommendation of a world referendum:

“The consideration of a World Referendum on Climate Change that allows the people to decide what will be done about this issue, which is of vital importance to the future of humanity and Mother Earth.”

Such a referendum is certainly “politically impossible”. However, even it’s recommendation for consideration stresses the divide between the interest of the people of the world, and the interests on which world leaders currently act on. The recognition of this difference is recognition of the hypocrisy of the current system of national and international governance – a hypocrisy we likely can no longer afford.

Pessimism about renewables

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Over on my blog, I have written a post that may be of interest to BuryCoal readers. Specifically, it is a response to the argument that society cannot depend on renewable forms of energy for the bulk of our needs because we get such a small proportion of our current needs from such sources, and there are problems with variability.

In brief, this argument is based on muddled reasoning, saying: “This is hard, therefore we cannot do it.” In reality, moving to renewables is necessary, and humanity will either accomplish it or find itself reduced to a pre-industrial mode of life.