One of the more ridiculous logical fallacies that climate change denialists use is that carbon dioxide can’t be pollution because it can also be breathed by plant life. It’s really sweet they care so much about plants’ respiration, but I’m a little more concerned with the survivability of humanity. (Never mind that most of these same people would probably soak dandelions with chemicals that would make your newborn’s toes curl.)

Why do I bring this up? Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) is hitting some tough times. Sadly, this is the “clean energy” technology that the one-basket University of Regina has most of its “clean energy” research eggs in.

Here’s why the oil industry isn’t bothering with CCS:

“Our decision was essentially based on the fact that we could not see a way to make the economics of our CCS project work as we originally intended,” said Don Wharton, vice-president of policy and sustainability at TransAlta.

He said markets for pure carbon didn’t develop as expected, and federal and provincial governments took no steps to recognize the value of reduced emissions by implementing a price on carbon, for example, or a cap-and-trade system.

In short, despite nearly $800 million in government subsidies, the company had no incentive to invest in CCS.

Let’s keep in mind that the Harper Cons haven’t merely poured hundreds of millions of dollars into CCS: they’ve done so to the exclusion of any other climate-change funding (since their initial period of poorly-feigned interest in the environment when Stephane Dion was Lib leader).

Six years later, and there’s no Made in Canada solution to climate change, as I predicted very easily. There are plenty of Made in America excuses, however. And as our society focuses on technologies that are designed to benefit the oil and coal industries, we shortchange innovation in renewable energy technology. The U of R has more than 12,000 students, yet it has one VAT windmill in testing mode on its 18 buildings, and zero production solar panels that I’m aware of. Yet it’s a world leader in CCS research. Could it be the Conservatives and Sask Party are content pretending that they are investing millions into Big Oil and Coal’s “clean energy,” while their investment will be totally useless to private [and crown] industry producing electricity?

Opportunity Cost; Opportunity, Lost. At least too much CO(2) means some healthy plants . . . somewhere. I guess human vegetables like to look out for their own kind.

I could run this old video of Peter Kent introducing a documentary where he calls global warming “the greatest threat to life on the planet” and warns that the devastating effects of climate change “will be seen in our children’s lifetime.

Or I could run this picture of him returning from the Durban conference yesterday, like some shabby Neville Chamberlain declaring “There will be peace grease in our time…”

After declaring that Kyoto is dead.

Claiming that we would have to pull every car off the road, or pay $14 billion to stay in the treaty. Which is totally absurd. But even if it was true would be less than we are going to pay for our shiny new prisons.

Or I could tell you how Stephen Harper refused to answer a question in the House of Commons today about whether he is a climate change denier.

Even though his record speaks for itself.

Or I could just run this video from these Taiwanese animators . . . .

Because the shame is going viral.

The shame of the Cons.

And the shame of us all . . .

Who didn’t see this coming? CP:

Statistics Canada is cutting five of its surveys after being told by the federal government to chop its budget by $7 million.

The surveys include environmental and business statistics, and are in addition to other belt-tightening at the troubled agency.

As Pogge blogged back in July:

“Harper does not like StatsCan, that’s what we kept hearing,” according to a longtime employee of the agency. “In particular, he does not like the analytical work we’ve done for years.” The Prime Minister thinks of it as fodder for critics.

Harper especially did not like StatsCan after its head statistician, Munir Sheikh, quit rather than be shanghaied into pretending to approve the government’s move to replace the long-form mandatory census with a voluntary survey.

Statscan has also been reporting a steady decrease in crime since 1991, which doesn’t exactly jibe with Harper’s “if you build them, they will come” bid to stock more prisons with more Canadians.

Luckily there’s no need for those Statscan environmental and business statistics now anyway since Harper will be getting his advice from the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, a Suncor-sponsored, Harper-appointed group of Export Development Canada guys, politicians, and corporate CEOs. They have just released Climate Prosperity, your guide to, as De Smog Blog puts it, “reframing climate change as a good thing for Canada’s economy.”

Sure, they tell us, there will be less skiing but we’ll have way more golfing and easier access to oil and gas in the far north. See? Business and environment stats rolled into one.

Actual scientists weigh in on Climate Prosperity:

“I was surprised they’d spent one and a half years working on it. It was a complete mess,” said John Stone of Ottawa’s Carleton University and a prominent member of the International Panel on Climate Change.

Danny Harvey of U of T: “It is full of bad science and utterly downplays the serious impacts of climate change.”

We will not be hearing criticism from any muzzled government-employed scientists, of course, as they must get cabinet minister approval before speaking in public about their own research.

There better damn well be some stink in the press about this further gutting of Statscan.

“Environmental blah blah” is how retiring NDP MLA Corky Evans describes the privatization of B.C.’s waterways under the guise of addressing climate change. So-called “green” run of river hydro projects, also known as independent power projects or IPPs, divert water into a pipe several kilometres long and then into a turbine before returning it to the same watercourse downstream.

Among the over 500 streams and rivers staked by private companies so far, the Plutonic Power and General Electric Bute Inlet Project plans to divert and dam 17 streams and rivers, while constructing 445 kilometres of transmission lines, 314 kilometres of roads, and 104 bridges. Across the inlet from me, the Sea-to-Sky corridor has stakes for 110 streams and rivers.

How did this happen? The 2002 B.C. Energy Plan forbade our formerly very profitable Crown corporation B.C. Hydro from producing new sources of hydroelectricity. Further, BC Hydro will now be forced to buy energy from the new private producers at $120 megawatts per hour for which they will receive $60 in the market. Well, you know Gordo and privatization: BC Rail, BC Ferries, healthcare.

What about local opposition? Silenced in June 2006 when Campbell passed Bill 30 to retroactively abolish local zoning authority over them.

Who supports the run of river projects? You mean apart from speculators and Liberal-led astroturf orgs like BC Citizens For Green Energy? Well, there’s David Suzuki, economist Mark Jaccard, and environmental activist Tzeporah Berman who started the foundation PowerUp Canada just to promote them.

And why are we doing this again? To sell our “green” energy to the US. says Berman, through what Gordo referred to at the last PNWER summit as “electric transmission corridors.”

Coincidentally, Suzuki, Jaccard, and Berman all made media headlines in the last few days criticizing the NDP for not supporting Gordo’s “gas tax.” Not that they support Gordo, they say, just “his environmental leadership.” That would be the Gordo who gutted the BC Environment ministry and supports fish farms, the Gordo of Gateway Pacific and twin Enbridge pipelines from the Alberta tar sands to Kitimat, the Gordo of expanding the oil and gas industry in the north and building more roads and bridges instead of light rail and public transit, the Gordo of offshore drilling and renewed tanker routes . . . that Gordo.

I am interested in two things in this election: environmental stewardship and increased regulation of the finance industry. Canadian financial institutions may have escaped the worst of the crash, but a thorough review of our regulatory landscape is needed right now if we are to maintain economic stability. Getting a loan doesn’t need to become difficult, but neither should credit be available to people who cannot demonstrate an obvious ability to pay back in a reasonable period of time (unless it’s a student loan). Yes, more regulation will cool our economy, like the carbon tax will, but I’d rather have a sustainable way of life for generations than be on a big party boat headed toward the falls.

We can look at bailouts of American and British financial institutions as one of the biggest shifts of wealth in human history: from the poor (taxpayers) to the rich (stockholders and the managers who have been fired — with millions of dollars of severance packages — after screwing up the global economy). Sometimes it feels like multinational corporations run the world, but every country still has the power to regulate and legislate. All over the world, politicians have been asleep at the wheel and it’s time for ours to wake up, fast, before you and I are bailing out Canadian criminal moneylenders.

Meanwhile, folks, spend your money on paying down your debt and installing a solar panel and woodburning stove. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: things are going to get tougher and tougher until we have no choice but to live more frugally and locally.

Speaking of which, we need breaks for people who would be badly hurt by the carbon tax: farmers and people in the north who depend on diesel for heat. The work of farmers is a public service masquerading as a profit enterprise and they can’t take another hit. And it’s cold in the north. There are no trees and no coal plants. Taxing northerners would be an extra hardship that they should not bear — northern life is tough enough. And they might want to think about how to wean themselves off fossil fuels.

By the way, check out the Canada Health Consumer Index posted on the CBC website and note that the information was generated by Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a think tank based out of Winnipeg. They have a interesting take on things that seems to favour adjusting society to welcome globalization (yikes), and “empowerment” of Aboriginals (which seems to mean cancelling their special rights and demand they adopt the European way of life or die). They also have a video for sale questioning the role of human activity in global warming.

Need to know more? I do. Like, for instance, why the f*ck CBC is giving these idiots air time without pointing out clearly who they are.

- Eleanor Claire

This is what the Liberal green home incentive that Stephane Dion proposes feels like to me. He is correct that most of us can reduce our energy consumption by up to 40 per cent. He is also correct that most of us are hesitant to invest in “greening” our homes because of the initial investment. So offering us up to $10,000 in interest-free loans is a fabulous incentive. We get the capital costs taken care of up front, we add value to our homes and we start realizing the benefits of those savings immediately while we pay back the loan with no interest added. Figure in the benefit to the environment and it’s a sensible, sweet deal.

Of course, the whiners in BC — where, compared to the prairies, they hardly need much heat — are the first to dive into the bitch fest. Will they take a double hit due to their new 2.3 per cent carbon tax on oil consumption? Not if Dion negotiates successfully with the provinces. And, um, not if they start taking the bus and turning down the heat.

In any case, it’s an investment in the future and a guaranteed cost savings that will pay off for as long your house stands, which is a helluva lot more benefit for a helluva a lot longer than Harper is promising.

- Eleanor Claire

Here’s the deal: these guys are in it for the money. So, how do you continue to make money if you can’t sell gas? You make sure that the mechanism that powers the car breaks down at just that profitable sweet spot where customers aren’t so pissed off that they quit purchasing your product and you still get to pocket a good profit.

The auto makers’ secret weapon is the lithium-ion battery: Zero emission (directly from the car, don’t think about the coal-powered electricity plant), but the battery is going to wear out in two or three years. Two to three years and we are back on the hook for another $10K? Aw, c’mon!

Unfortunately, keeping stupid consumers on the hook is not a new strategy. Industry can make a light bulb that won’t wear out for years and years, but we keep purchasing the ones that wear out.

But maybe we won’t be as stupid as we have been. A quick web search indicates that a California company, zevcat.com, is going to start to sell air-powered vehicles built by MDI, a Luxembourg company, in the next few years. If you have any shares in Nissan, you might want to dump ‘em when you read this: Compressed air vehicles are cheaper, go farther on a “tank,” and can be “refilled” in two or three minutes (as opposed to the five hours required for battery-powered vehicles). They go a maximum speed of 68 mph, which is not as fast as the battery-powered ones, but they cost way less: $15K to $20K for the car as opposed to $50K. In a pinch, you could probably refill with a foot pump. Imagine that: a car that goes on and on, powered by “air stations” that I would imagine could give away the air for free (making their money on snacks and coffee). Heck, maybe the air stations could be totally off the grid: run the whole shebang on solar.

Boy, that would be great. I gave up my car last year and I am not even slightly annoyed by taking the bus or riding my bike. In fact, riding my bicycle to work and back means that I have a slight chance of maintaining a reasonable ass size well into old age. (Also a reasonable ass shape, the importance of which can be reinforced with a stroll through any mall parking lot.) But every now and then I have to carry far too much, or travel far too long, for a bike to be reasonable. I would probably not purchase a $50K car at this point, addicted as I am to the convenience and stresslessness of public transit and biking, but I can absolutely imagine spending $20K on a vehicle that will take me anywhere I want to go while setting me free from the carbon-based corporations.

That will be a great day. I look forward to it — and I am going to wait to get one of those rather than spend thousands on an already-available Zenn that won’t go fast enough, takes four hours to recharge, and for a battery that is going to crap out in three to five years. But Zenn Canada deserves recognition if only for the fact that they have put pressure on Ottawa to license electric vehicles. Apparently, even though Zenn has met all requirements for low-speed vehicles, Ottawa is “reviewing the requirements.”

What requirements? That it goes fast enough? Gee, how many lives could be saved by not being able to speed? Safety? Oh, please. If we license motorcycles for the street and allow people to put their kids on ATVs, we can license electric vehicles. So what is it? A sudden drop in revenues related to oil production? Listen, Ottawa, you guys had better start planning for it because the world is going to drive electric vehicles powered by wind and sun, and that’s going to shut down those filthy tar sands. Wrap your heads around it, boys and girls. And do it fast because Canada isn’t going to be able to sustain its activities as a carbon criminal very much longer.

What do we know about Stephen Harper? Well, we know that he likes secrets. He does not like to share information. What do we hear from Ottawa? Nuthin except a river of official propaganda. His latest move is to make the job of journalists harder by closing down access to an information registry that users say helped hold the government accountable.

According to the CBC, “The Coordination of Access to Information Requests System, or CAIRS, is an electronic list of nearly every access to information request filed to federal departments and agencies.

“Originally created in 1989, it was used as an internal tool to keep track of requests and co-ordinate the government’s response between agencies to potentially sensitive information released.

“Now, users mine the database to do statistical studies, fine tune phrasing on new requests and discover obscure documents — often using the information against the government.”

But not any more. Apparently Harper believes that the role of journalists is merely to forward his propaganda to you and me. What he might not realize is that those Canadian journalists who remain will be all that more dedicated to bringing him down.

After all, tattling on bad guys is good sport. I like it, and I do it as often as I can. For instance, the latest national fuss is over a handful of ducks that did not survive landing in a tailings pond in the tar sands. But I told you, not to mention a canvasser from the NDP, all about what’s being done to northern Alberta a few blog posts ago. Here, courtesy the Sierra Club, is what it looks like these days:

And this is what that area used to look like:

Tattling on the people who are responsible for this, including Mr. Harper, is a pleasure.

Unfathomable amounts of water are used in tar sands processes. This previously clean water is made unfathomably dirty, and is pumped back into a gigantic natural pipeline (Athabasca River to the Slave River via Lake Athabasca to the Mackenzie to the Arctic Ocean, which is connected, by the way to the world’s oceans).

Is transforming the world into a toxic waste dump okay with us? Apparently the PM thinks so. In fact, the only reason Harper wants to assert Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic is to grab the oil, and make things even worse. I used to think Canadian sovereignty of the Arctic was important. Now I think the Europeans are better equipped to protect it, as Canada has become a environmental hooligan.

It is difficult to focus on the tedious housekeeping of running a democracy when corporate criminals bulldoze the northern forest and obliterate perhaps our best chance at surviving global warming. Does nobody comprehend that we need vast expanses of trees to absorb carbon dioxide? Does anybody wonder if we even have the right to use all the carbon fuel, or perhaps that our children and grandchildren might need a bit for their essential functions? This is supposedly the function of democracy: to make wise, coordinated decisions and administer them fairly even if it means that a few rich people don’t get richer or, god forbid, take the bus.

But Canadians are doing nothing — not even those things we are capable of doing. Can we save the rainforest? Realistically, no. Can we inhibit the exponential use of carbon-based fuels in China and India? Again, not a chance. However, the power to insist on environmental responsibility in the tar sands lies entirely with us. Holding gigantic energy companies’ feet to the fire is something we can do, ought to do, and are simply not doing.

Even those provinces with the gonads to take a stand are taking a step backward. PEI, once a leader in refusing to create refuse, now allows non-refillable containers. Shame. But not nearly as shameful as the arseholes who dumped oil off the Newfoundland coast. A bit of social action might be in order: I suggest that we write to the Mediterranean Shipping Company to let them know what we think.

Here’s what I wrote:

“Dumping oil off our coast is easy. So is finding a list of your customers and staging a direct action campaign to stop companies from doing business with you. I think your clients may find it easier to hire another shipping company than lose customers all over the world.

“You might want to apologize quickly and publicly, and you might want to spend a lot of money cleaning up the mess you made. You might want to do this quickly, as we all have Facebook and can easily suggest to our friends all over the world that we must not buy from your customers. Up to you.”

Actually, I think I’ll tell my friends all over the world regardless. Sometimes being a tattletale is just plain fun.

I am not a fan of Stephen Harper by any measure but we have to acknowledge that he conducted himself fairly well this week. He did not shy from telling Canadians that economic times are going to get tougher. He commended Manley’s report on Afghanistan without leaping to agree with it, asserting to Canadians that he would do the right thing.

I have no confidence, though, that Harper has a comprehensive understanding of how tough the tough times ahead are going to be. I would prefer that he warn Canadians that we have to completely reorder our society and economy in order to survive a post-carbon world. He has not done that and he should, even if it draws boos and boo-hoos from the business community.

How tough will things get? Those of us old enough to have heard Depression stories from our grandparents and parents would do well to remember them in detail. We can find indicators in those stories of what we might expect. My grandmother did not taste milk for ten years, sewed all the family’s clothes and sent her son, my father, to hunt meat for the evening meal. My father remembers being rationed two shotguns shells into his 10-year-old palm and being told to “make them count.” The occasional roast of beef was made to last all week from a glory of a Sunday meal through sandwiches and hearty soup. My grandfather was sometimes paid for his work as a mechanic in bags of potatoes because few in the neighbourhood had any money to spare. In the last years of her life, my grandmother still washed plastic bags and hung them to dry on the clothesline. She never learned to drive because she would never own a car.

That is the kind of lifestyle we have to get ready for. Earlier this week I mentioned to family members that they might want to sell their expensive cars now, while they were still worth something, especially if they were still paying for them. I was laughed down. I don’t think they’ll be laughing a few years from now.

We have to keep in mind that our current lifestyle is not typical in history or currently on the planet. The Depression occurred in living memory and is far more typical of human lifestyle than the we one we enjoy now. In fact, our current affluence happens only rarely and usually right before a significant political or economic crisis. To survive, we will have to accept a radically different lifestyle. If we don’t do this together, in an orderly way with supportive public policy, we will still live a radically different lifestyle but likely in an atmosphere of panic and chaos.

Harper did make one wrong step this week. Bouncing the torture controversy back to the Canadian military despite energetic criticism from the opposition was Harper’s mistake of the week. He should demand a full investigation into the controversy surrounding Canada’s transfer of detainees into the hands of Afghan torturers, even as Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Liberties Union ramp up their lawsuits against the federal government. There are two problems with this situation. First, the Canadian military must take proactive measures to protect detainees before torture becomes a possibility. Surely they would expect Afghans to have different standards and plan accordingly. It is not sufficient only to react. Secondly, the federal government cannot bounce this back to the military. This is a question of oversight. The Canadian military is not independent. It is responsible to the federal government and the federal government must demand accountability. Where that accountability breaks down, the correct response is swift and decisive discipline, not finger-pointing.

Canada’s credibility as a civilized people is badly damaged when we fail to protect military prisoners. Combined with our whimpering apology of last week to two known torturers — Israel and the U.S. — Canada looks like an errand boy of the barbarians.

That said, Harper’s language has been strong, solid, and displayed the leadership qualities that will inspire voters to back him simply because they’re nervous. I hope the opposition — whose policies I am more inclined toward — will find a confident tone before the next federal election.

“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

And the British followed through.

By embarrassing contrast, Stephen Harper came home from Bali and snivelled to us about the sacrifices that will be required to save the planet. Here is a quote from his year-end interview with CanWest:

“I know that whatever we do, the radical edge of the environmental movement that gets most of the press will not think it’s enough. And I also know that as soon as we impose costs on the economy — and there is no way of making progress without some short-term costs — that others, industry and others, will complain we’re going too far. So I think the talk will start to turn to where we’re maybe doing too much, but it has to be done, and that’s the path we’re on.”

How inspiring. I feel so honourable, so passionate in my convictions, so unified with my fellow Canadians in sacrificing my unbelievably elevated and entirely unearned standard of living for the sake of the planet and the creatures upon it.

I mean, really, is this what he thinks of us? You and me? That all we care about is gobbling up as much comfort and capital as we can while we can, screw everything and everybody else? He’s wrong. I’m ready to do better than that. And I think you are, too. Our lives won’t be quite the same but we’ll probably get a bit more exercise, lose some weight, save up for things instead of purchasing on impulse. It won’t be so bad. At least nobody will be dropping bombs on us. At least we won’t have to kiss our 18-year old children goodbye and send them to die across the Atlantic in the mud.

Yeah, I think we can handle that, Mr. Harper. No matter what you think of us, we are not actually a bunch of crybabies. There’s an iron will under this flab.

To be fair, Stephen Harper is dead right that India and China should also be held to restrictions on emissions. It isn’t fair that they are not going to get their shot at carbon-based industrialization, and that sucks for them, but fairness is not the point. Survival is. And we’re walking an environmental tightrope. For species like polar bears, and smaller plants and animals whose suffering and demise is not so dramatic, it is too late. Maybe it’s too late for us, too, and we just don’t know it.

And he is also dead right that no government has tackled global warming before. As he said, “The reason no government has done this before — federal, provincial, or municipal — is there is no way to do this without imposing costs on our economy in the short term. That’s why all previous governments have talked a great game and shied away from it.”

That is exactly right. But we can’t get away with it any longer, so it’s time for the back to straighten, the chin to go up, and the snivelling to stop.