NDP MP and leadership candidate Thomas Mulcair has staked his leadership bid on the support of the NDP’s remaining environmentalists by pegging ‘sustainable development’ as the cornerstone of his campaign. It’s a policy decision he hopes will clinch him the leadership of the federal New Democrats. Mulcair is betting he can find a way to … Continue reading
This past week, a multi-agency fishing expedition got underway looking for Asian Carp west of Lake Michigan in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. After catching a 19-pound Asian Carp (which is actually an umbrella term for up to nine difference species of carp introduced to North America from Asia) in Lake Calumet in Chicago … Continue reading
Not content to have merely taken on the gun lobby, the tobacco industry, and the anti-gay marriage crowd, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg has set his sights on picking a fight with Big Coal. Bloomberg, who also happens to be the 10th wealthiest person in America right now with an estimated personal fortune of … Continue reading
While in Vancouver last week as part of a First Ministers meeting, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty made a direct link between subsidies paid out to the oil and gas industry in Alberta, BC, and Saskatchewan, and the need for greater subsidies from Ottawa for Ontario’s green energy sector. According to the Vancouver Sun, McGuinty claimed … Continue reading
No one can accuse Parks Canada of not pulling out all the stops to celebrate its 100th birthday in style. The Parks Canada website has been overhauled to reflect this important milestone; the establishment of the first urban new national park has been announced for Rouge Valley in Toronto; free parks passes have been granted … Continue reading
I feel as though every decade in North America another article, report, or paper emerges in which The Environment (note the capital letters) is pitted as public enemy number one. The latest of such reports was issued just recently by the Canadian Armed Forces entitled Army 2040: First Look, which sounds like an awful Michael … Continue reading
CBC is reporting through the Access to Information Act, that the Harper government rejected a 2006 recommendation from Health Canada to support a global ban on asbestos. Health Canada suggested that the government reverse their previous commitment to keep asbestos off the UN list of banned hazardous materials, and Harper refused. The 2006 Rotterdam Convention … Continue reading
A report released this past week from the U.S. Geological Survey found that over an 800 year period, the past 30 years indicate a dramatic break from the typical snowpack patterns in the Rocky Mountains. The report stated that “over the past millennium, late-20th-century snowpack reductions are almost unprecedented in magnitude across the northern Rocky Mountains,” … Continue reading
Effective immediately, the US Department of Transportation has ordered TransCanada to suspend all activity on the Keystone I pipeline. According to the New York Times, the order was issued by the Transportation department’s Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. “Effective immediately,” the PHMSA claims, “this order prevents TransCanada from restarting operations on their Keystone crude … Continue reading
With the massive natural resource wealth that Alberta continues to enjoy as an accident of geography and an industrial system that craves what it has to sell, the Alberta government has long been in the enviable position of unimaginable wealth that seems – quite falsely – to be bottomless. Large volumes of oil and natural … Continue reading