The Canadian Environment: Who Can Speak?

News of this paper  arrived on my twitter feed last evening, and one of the author's was kind enough to email me the entire thing.  It takes a look at the practical effect of the Candian  government's attempts to narrow who gets to participate in environmental assessments.  The results are profoundly unsurprising:

So, guess who typically benefits these narrowed criteria:

Of course, not everything has gone the government's way:

So there you have it.

If Environmentalists Drive Smart Cars

...what do Conservatives like Kitchener-Conestoga MP Harold Albrecht drive?

Something You Already Knew

The Tory Green Plan has "oil and gas lobby" fingerprints all over it. Most obvious quotation in Hill-Times story, from Liberal l MP John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Ont.) :

"I think industry's challenge was to not look too happy with it, so that it wouldn't look as though they'd won," he said. "In the whole question of the gamesmanship of these things it would be very hard to know what their actual reaction to this is and what they could have really tolerated in tougher regulations, because it's not in their interest to say that."

All of which I predicted here.

OHMYGAWD! Deniers Make Sense!

When the NRSP (The Natural Resources Stewardship Project), a front group for the oil-patch designed to spread confusion over the issue of Global warming, launched its "Science AuditCentre" in April, I have to admit I rolled my eyes until they hurt. And reading Uber denier Tim Ball claim that

Tax dollars must not be squandered on feel-good 'green' plans that have little basis in real science. This approach only hurts the economy by diverting tax dollars away from important environmental issues where attention is needed.

...was almost enough to induce vomiting.

However, like a stopped clock that is nevertheless right twice a day, I find that their recent letter to John Baird, questioning his decision to ban incandescent bulbs (link to it from here), makes a certain amount of sense:

Earlier today, I sent you an e-mail, a copy of which is attached to this cover letter. I am forwarding that communication to you today via courier to ensure that it is not lost in the large volume of e-mail submissions you undoubtedly receive.

As part of our newly launched "Science Audit Centre" campaign, the Natural Resources Stewardship Project certainly look forward to hearing back from you concerning the process that was employed to come to the decision to ban incandescent light bulbs. As explained in my e-mail, NRSP believes that a major government intervention into the lives of Canadians such as that represented by the incandescent light bulb ban should have a clear and demonstrable environmental benefit; otherwise it is not worth the financial cost and inconvenience. That is why we would like to learn about the full life cycle assessment process that was employed in this case.

In principle I favour such a ban, and in practice have replaced about half my home lighting with compact fluorescents. However, the swiftness with which so many governments have embraced the move away from incandescent bulbs reminds me too much of the move to replace gasoline with Ethanol, which for example the Bush administration has embraced as part of its own green thinking, even though the net savings in emissions is minimal to non-existant once life-cycle costs have been taken into consideration. So I too would like to see an analysis of the GHG emissions involved in producing CFs. And I would be surprised, no shocked, if anything like this was done when Mr. Baird was formulating his plan.

Furthermore, since compacts do contain a (tiny) amount of mercury, there are disposal issues to look at which are nowhere considered in the government's plan. And while some of the outlets selling compacts apparently have functioning take-back plans, my local hardware store is telling people to pitch the dead ones into the trash.

Elizabeth May Insults Stephen Harper, Tories Appalled

In fact, they're so chuffed they sent out an anonymous spokesman (oh so brave!) to hurl a bit of mud at the Green Party Leader:

[Comparing Stephen Harper's stance on climate change to Neville Chamberlains appeasement of the Nazis] is an outrageous comment to make that just goes to show how desperate she is for attention. She is obviously doing the dirty work for Stephane Dion.

Gracious me! The same party that brands you a Taliban supporter for wondering why Canada turns over Afghan prisoners to known torturers is taking umbrage at some harsh language! Presumably they're whispering "bully!" in the back benches; maybe Mr. Harper himself has collapsed into the arms of his psychic hair-dresser and she's holding him close as he weeps.

h/t to Political Staples.

Coyne's Horrible Car Metaphor Goes Viral, Destroys All Reasoned Discourse In Its Path

...to the point where politicians of every stripe are declaiming bad poetry in the very halls of government. Witness Liberal MP Mark Holland criticizing the Tories do-nothing approach to Climate Change:

Yesterday, the minister laid out a road map that takes a wrong turn and drives Canada into a climate change ditch.

Yeah, but can't Mark Holland shut the fuck up? And, Andy, can't you at least switch back to that freaky wolf metaphor you were using at the beginning of the week, so I can entitle a post "Does Coyne's Wolf Metaphor Shit In The Woods"? Or on the other hand, maybe you could just stick to the elegant economic number crunching that is your specialty. That's why people love you: you're the Conservative that knows how to add.

PS., this is crap:

The Tories’ newfound enthusiasm for fuel-efficiency standards is even stranger. How many times does it need to be said? The main effect of legislating fuel efficiency is to reduce the cost of driving. At more miles per gallon, you can drive more miles at the same cost.

Andrew, I hate to tell you this, but your analysis here is based on a false assumption. For the vast majority of Canadians, sitting in traffic is not at all like sex. Its not the kind of thing you would do more of if you just had more energy. If the kind of economists you like to hang with think otherwise...well, we know what they need more of, don't we?

Didn't I Say This Would Happen?

Didn't I just say that the Tories would claim to have "aimed for the middle" on climate change regulations because "Environmentalists will howl, so will industry"? Well, as Don Martin's Wednesday column demonstrates, this is exactly the line that the government and their media cheering section is going to take. And they will almost certainly be able to find a few Oil Patch spokesmen to let loose an obligatory scream or two, like the victims in some B-grade horror movie.

But the thing is, a lobbyist worth his or her salt knows that you never act pleased, no matter how much free candy you've been given, no matter how much moral obligation you've managed to dodge. Unfortunately, environmental activists tend to be less professional about such things; they tend to act happy when they are happy, and sad when they are sad. So they often get out maneuvered by their industry counterparts.

The proper response is that it is never enough when it comes to money spent, and its always too much when it comes to responsibilities imposed.

Coyne's Crappy Car Metaphor

From CTV:

The Harper Conservatives have stunned the House of Commons by supporting a Bloc Quebecois motion that calls for absolute limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

Andrew Coyne responds that this is a "non-story":

If the Tories had "rejected" absolute limits, how did they expect to get to the 45 to 65% reduction (from 2003 levels) projected in the Clean Air Act (Ambrose version)?

The whole "intensity" vs "absolute" target controversy, as I've written before, is a complete red herring. It's simple arithmetic: before you can get to absolute reductions, you have to reduce the "intensity," in the same way that before you can stop your car, you have to slow down.

Which just shows that Coyne has swallowed the Tory koolaid, but has added his typical frilly nuances to their basic claim.

In fact, intensity reductions do not necessarily ever lead to absolute reductions. If you lower your amount of GHGs emitted per unit of production, and your production increases, so too can your absolute emissions. To follow the logic of Andrew's metaphor accurately, it is as though he is saying that you must slow the rate of acceleration of your car before you can actually slow your car, before you can stop your car. Which is patently false. Its also terribly bad advice to give to a speed junkie: "you must bring the car to a halt, but before you do that feel free to stomp on the gas for awhile, just not as hard as you were planning to stomp on the gas."

I'm away from the PC all day again today. This may be all you see here. Have fun.

(PS. Lord Kitchener explains this much better than me in his comments to Andy's post.)

Expect Crocodile Tears...

...out of the oil patch after Thursday, no matter how soft the Tories new emissions targets, goals, regulations etc. might be. Expect more whiny bullshit like:

We're seeing an industry now really with no leadership in Western Canada, nobody seems to be speaking up for this industry and when they do, nobody wants to say anything of substance...It's really an industry predicated on soft love.'

Because, as someone who has worked with PACS of various industry lobby groups for years, that's what they do: they whine like welfare queens. Like the guy in The Terminator said, that's ALL THEY DO.

You know as a lobbyist that you've hit the sweet spot when an industry friendly government says: we must have found the middle, because we've offended both sides of the issue. Ever since offending both sides became the acid the test for being in the political Center, lobby groups, no matter how much free candy they get handed, have made a point to feign offense.

Tories Retreat on Tory Retreat On Clean Air Act

Now Baird is saying the Tories haven't decided whether or not to kill the Clean Air Act. And is it just me or is he starting to look a little bit puffy around the cheeks, like he's been getting into Harper's donut box? Pity. From The Hulk to The Blob in three short months.

Torys Serve Up Vaporware

Stephen Harper was supposed to announce his plan for regulating GWG emissions in the last week of March. Now, three weeks later, a "secret plan" lands up with every newspaper in the country promising wonderful things: participation in Kyoto's CDM, declines in emissions by 2012.

But of course the Tories won't take ownership of the plan:

Eric Richer, a spokesman for Environment Minister John Baird, said the plan "sounded like action and we promised action."

But Richer said he had not seen the document and could not comment on it.

Its apparently just supposed to float around out there as an expression of the Torys' wonderful intentions.

The Nerds have a word for this kind of thing--Vaporware:

Vaporware is software or hardware product which is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge, either with or without a protracted development cycle.

Because it looks very much like C-30 (the Clean Air Act) will die without coming to a vote, and it would not surprise me if the "release date" on these vaunted regulations doesn't get pushed back and pushed back and pushed even further back...

Because the Tories, despite their Winter offensive on the Environment, know that their previous announcements were just appetizers before the main course, which centers around C-30 and these emissions regulations. And it is the one issue that they are afraid to fall over, and yet their political pre-commitments to the oil-patch and other interest groups mean it is an issue that they can't afford to act meaningfully upon. So I suspect they will try and sneak away in the night, as it were--choose discretion as the better part of valor.

The good news is that, despite what you might have read, Dion's environmentalism is still a powerful political cudgel to beat the Tories with. The bad news is that, as a result, we will most likely get another summer of inaction.





Claims He Wants "Action"

So Jack Layton, Don't You WANT To Save the Planet?

I don't often write about the NDP; I occasionally vote for them out of pity, and anyway criticizing the Dippers is too much like being a heckler at the special Olympics. But you've really got to wonder at how they've positioned themselves with respect to the Lib/Green Party non-compete agreement. Apparently, Layton wouldn't even return Elizabeth May's phone-calls when it came to talk of similar co-operation between the Greens and NDP. And yet, as the Earth Mother herself says:

"He talks to Stephen Harper all the time. Surely, our shared values are much closer between the NDP and the Greens."

Both Layton and the federal NDP rank and file think that they can coast on vaguely greenish promises they once made years ago in a white paper nobody read when there was no hope of them becoming the governing party anyway.

Well they can't. Anyone who spent time in B.C. during the 1990s knows how little difference distinguishes the NDP from more Conservative governments when they actually get in power. Remember B.C. Premier Glen Clark calling environmentalists, who helped maintain the NDP in power for ten years, "enemies of B.C."? He was throwing red meat to the other part of his constituency; the lumber workers manning chainsaws during the War of the Woods.

No, in the Green Party we have a new political player on the scene that matches the NDP policy for policy on the environmental front without having its debilitating connections to Big Labor. So flogging the old dead horses won't do the trick. But from his response to the May's attempts at outreach, this seems to be all Jack Layton has to offer.

Will The Tories Ditch Clean Air Act?

Not fall over it, not pass it, but let it die on the order paper? This is starting to look increasingly likely:

The Conservative government may abandon what is left of a Clean Air Act largely redrafted by opposition parties as it shifts focus to setting industrial pollution limits and financial penalties.

And John Baird hinted the same thing on CBC radio this morning.

Note to those who thought Harper and the Tories had "neutralized" the environment as an issue. Look where the opposition is falling back: here, for example, the NDP is caving and teaming up with the Tories to pass gun crimes legislation. They don't want the next election to be about "law and order issues". Now look where the government is in retreat: specifically, they're trying to sneak away from their own environmental legislation. They don't...repeat DO NOT...want to fight an election over Kyoto.

Therefore, let me repeat, no election this Spring.

Has Anyone Checked The Meter On Stornoway?

Because after this story, which reveals that the PM's house used $57,000 worth of heat and electricity in 2006, a few Blogging Tory types are already suggesting it. I guess we should be demanding that Harper run a "carbon neutral" campaign if he drops the writ this Spring.

Personally, I think carbon neutral campaigns and "carbon offsets" and so forth are mostly gimmicks, although it certainly looks like they are becoming part of the political landscape. For an insight into what's wrong with them, take a look at this.

Get Set For Harper Flip-Flop On Kyoto

You could see this one coming a few days ago, when John Baird insisted that the Torys had no plans to withdraw from the Kyoto accord. And this morning the Natty Post's John Ivison is reporting that:

There are rumblings that when the Conservatives bring out their new regulations on industrial emissions next month, the language will be decidedly softer on Kyoto.

"I'm certainly detecting a sense that, instead of differentiating themselves from the Liberals on Kyoto, they will present their plan simply as a better version of the same thing," said one source close to the government.

Good news? Maybe, but it now looks like the new and improved, opposition-party-crafted Clean Air Act, will

....be allowed to die quietly on the order paper and be buried in an unmarked grave.

As a government bill, the Tories will simply not call it to a vote, and render the whole committee process a monumental waste of time and taxpayers' money.

If true, this will prove what many suspected: that Harper is not brave enough, or dumb enough, to fight an election on environmental issues. Instead, he will

...refrain from introducing fresh legislation, but will simply bring forward regulations on emissions that can be incorporated into existing environmental legislation.

The Conservatives will probably call for big emitters to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to 20% below 2004 levels by 2020.

...which might be fine. The important thing is here is always when these emitters have to start cutting GWGs (and whether these cuts are absolute or merely cuts in "intensity"), not some date over a decade down the road when they are supposed to achieve a goal most of today's politicians won't be in office to witness. So once again we will have the Torys repackaging Liberal initiatives after a delay, and with less philosophical coherence.

The most interesting question is, how do rank and file Torys handle this flip-flop of "Dionesque" (as Ivison calls it) proportions? Well, thus far the Blogging Tories have been willing, if Harper claims the world is square on Tuesday, to walk around arguing that the world is square. And if on Friday Harper changes his mind and argues that the world is a rhomboid, they've been willing to go into the weekend saying that the world is a rhomboid. So, their budget beefs aside, I suspect for the most part they'll be fine with it. As a Liberal supporter, I watched for over a decade as the party raped my principles, and eventually got tired of it. These guys are still virgins to power. To them it still feels like Love.