The home energy management (HEM) market continues to attract attention, especially with the increasing presence of newer stakeholders like broadband service providers (e.g., Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast) and security companies (e.g., ADT and Vivint). However, the products and services that constitute the HEM market continue to struggle for more traction. In recent years, the industry’s expectation had been that a smarter grid would enable a wider use of new tools and incentives for consumers to use energy more efficiently, such as demand response (DR) or dynamic pricing. People would save money and utilities would benefit from lower overall consumption and not having to spend capital so quickly on new power-generating plants.
[quote]Over the coming decade, a continued desire among consumers to reduce bills, regulatory mandates for greater efficiency, wider use of variable pricing schemes, and a strong green sentiment will combine to help drive adoption forward with growth of the home energy management market from $300.7 million in 2012 to $1.8 billion in 2022.[/quote]
But the HEM market has been fairly sluggish, with plenty of trials and only a few cases of utility-led deployments or significant consumer uptake. That view is starting to change a bit. Over the coming decade, a continued desire among consumers to reduce bills, regulatory mandates for greater efficiency, wider use of variable pricing schemes, and a strong green sentiment will combine to help drive adoption forward. These market forces will be countered by indifference to potential savings, a resistance to paying extra for HEM hardware, unsettled standards for interoperability, a crowded vendor space, and tepid support by many utilities. Nonetheless, the driving forces will spur some gains, particularly where mandates are strongest.
Navigant Research forecasts that global revenue from various segments of the HEM market will grow from $300.7 million in 2012 to $1.8 billion in 2022.
The aftermath of Colorado’s recent flood in heavily fracked Weld County (David Lavallee)
by David Lavallee
I first heard about the flood that left the Colorado fracking industry underwater by way of a story on The Common Sense Canadian. I happened to be in neighboring Utah on a shoot for my new documentary, entitled To the Ends of the Earth. This documentary focuses on the economic consequences of our “ends of the earth” exploration for oil.
News of the flood did not draw my attention initially – after all, epic floods are commonplace nowadays. In the past year we have witnessed a series of events which, in isolation, don’t seem to add up to much – but taken together tell a powerful story of the shifting carbon balance of our planet, our home.
[quote]Not since the wholesale slaughter of cetaceans 150 years ago has energy been this violent. [/quote]
Cyclone Phailin, a storm the size of France, recently pounded the eastern coast of India. The storm surge for Hurricane Sandy (widest storm in US history) left the global financial capital, Manhattan, underwater. Floodwaters left the town of Canmore and the city of Calgary, Canada’s energy capital , underwater. Meanwhile, an observatory in Mauna Loa Hawaii measured a long-feared milestone – 400 PPM carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – a record last beaten 5 million years ago.
So the simple fact of a flood in Colorado didn’t immediately grab my attention (despite being a “one in 10, 000 year event”). What grabbed my attention was the richness of the metaphor – one of the industries (among many) causing this calamity was actually underwater. Add to that Manhattan and Calgary – where myriad decisions are made, decisions changing the carbon balance of our planet – underwater!
Weld County, Colorado fracking capital
Weld County, Colorado is the site of some of the most intense fracking in the world (a powerful short film on Colorado fracking can be found here.
There are 50, 000 wells in Weld County alone. During the flood, emergency procedures were enacted and the wells were shut in, averting a catastrophic spill of the many hundreds of proprietary toxic waste chemicals that typically get injected a mile below the ground into ancient coral reefs that have lain dormant for many millennia – until violent underground explosions crack open these formations releasing the shale gas.
Concerns over frack fluid leaks overblown
Not since the wholesale slaughter of cetaceans 150 years ago (back then oil came from Spermaceti, not BP) has energy been this violent. Only 75,000 gallons of crude oil/condensate were reported spilled in the flood, an amount that paled in comparaison with toxic waste from the flood that washed over feedlots – agricultural waste, because of it’s volume, is arguably a far greater contaminant than a small amount of condensate.
Yet the social media circles were abuzz with outrage over the spills, and rumours of the coming human health crisis from leaked frack fluid – tempest in a teacup.
I watched this debate unfold and wondered what parallels there were with my own province’s current battle against Enbridge (with its focus on spills) and the fracking of northern B.C. Could it be that the environmental movement is missing the point?
Fracking your front yard
Allow me an alternate view of what the point could be. Consider the daily operations of a frack well. In Weld County, drilling operations are occurring in the one place that big oil has been forced to go now that there is no place else left to drill: your front yard. The proximity of wells to people’s homes, playgrounds, schools in this area is quite simply shocking.
Nosebleeds and ethyl benzenes
Near Longmont, CO. I met and interviewed Rod Brueski, a local organic farmer. He showed me his family’s “blood panel” document, a medical procedure that they underwent as part of a study to determine the effects of living near a frack well (100 metres from his house). “My son has uncontrolled nosebleeds that last three hours,” he told me as he pointed out the variety of hexanes, ethyl benzenes and xylenes that are now in their blood.
Forget the 75,000 gallons that leaked, this industry was a disaster even before the flood hit.
A flood certainly provides an opportunity for environmentalists to point out to an industry its antisocial shortcomings, but let’s not lose sight of the bigger picture.
Governor Hincklehooper sues constituents over fracking ban
Brueski took advantage of an opportunity to point out to the governor of the state his antisocial tendencies. Governor Hincklehooper is thought of in the activist/environmental circles as being a Halliburton puppet, who advocates vociferously for the oil and gas industry at the expense of the general public. As evidence to that effect, Brueski told me he is actually using state taxpayer’s money to sue the community of Longmont for wanting to pass a municipal bill that bans fracking within city limits (a reasonable bill, one would think).
Our cameras rolled as Brueski gave the governor, who was on a flood impacts tour, a piece of his mind. It is destined to be a powerful scene in my upcoming film, one that won’t likely end up on the cutting room floor.
The root of the problem
As easy as it is to vilify the governor though, that also isn’t the point. It’s not the man in power, it’s the culture of people that placed him there. It’s the anachronistic, so-called democratic institutions that allow a person like Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, with so little of the popular vote, to gain and hold power for so long.
It’s a culture of instant gratification, which has turned 40% of our economy into a casino (aka the financial services sector). It’s what turned our economy into a Ponzi scheme – a house of smoke and mirrors that almost collapsed completely in 2008, and will certainly collapse globally someday soon (Communism, which once held sway over half the globe, collapsed – is it that big a stretch to believe that capitalism could too?).
The bigger picture, bigger than oil spills from Enbridge into the Skeena river, bigger than poor leaders who lack a true democratic mandate, bigger than the volume of frack fluids spilled into the South Platte river of Weld County is the culture that perpetuates these things.
The Growth Imperative
If I had to boil it down into a few words, they would be these: the growth imperative. We have created a society in which the fortunes of politicians rise and fall based on the growth numbers they post. A society and culture so out of step with the biosphere that sustains us that we have come to view infinite growth as normal , like it’s always been this way (only since the 1950’s has it been around, really).
Infinite growth is impossible in nature, and that’s a really good thing. To paraphrase Richard Heinberg, author of The End of Growth (whom I interviewed for my film), imagine a 2 pound hummingbird – there’s a reason nature didn’t create such a creature.
The easy stuff is gone
Globalization and our economy today is a ten pound hummingbird, struggling to fly after it has gorged on free-flowing nectar. We are now fat, and the nectar of our civilization, oil and gas, doesn’t flow so freely anymore. It is fracked a mile down and a mile horizontally in Colorado, mined or steamed at enormous cost in the Tarsands – the only free-flowing stuff left is in the Arctic, and we need to dodge icebergs to get it. Just ask Shell how easy it is to access after their prize drill ship, the Kulluk, ended up on the rocks of Kodiak Island last New Year’s eve.
The rise of Extreme Energy
Quick – look around the room you are in and name one object in it that doesn’t have oil’s footprint in it, either in its manufacture or in the transportation of it to your door. This era is all about the rise of extreme energy – can we have avocados from Argentina or apples from New Zealand, brought to us on ships using oil shale (energy return = neutral – it takes a barrel of oil to make a barrel of oil shale!) or fuel our vehicles ten years from when the energy surplus from the tarsands has diminished to a 1:1 ratio because they moved into the final marginal deposits, nothing else being left.
“Economies don’t run on money, they run on energy,” Andrew Nikiforuk told me in a recent interview.
[quote]Money is just a metaphor for energy surplus.
[/quote]
Real solutions
Do I want the fracking industry to clean up their mess in Colorado, and do I want Enbridge to use state-of-the-art spill response systems if they manage to get their stinking bitumen pipe through my province? Absolutely. But I am asking far more than that – of myself and my society. I’m asking that we shift our culture of consumption that is the root cause of all these issues.
I’m asking that we recognize and rebuild a society in which the growth imperative is an anachronism, a barbaric incarnation of yesteryear, not the going concern it is today. I’m asking politicians to help create a structure that helps us plan for a non-growing economy, that helps us localize our food sources and transition off of fossil fuels that are becoming too expensive for our economy to afford anyways. I’m asking those same politicians to restructure political institutions in such a way as to be adaptive of current realities (such as climate change) and to help build a resilient society.
I suspect when we go to a protest against an Enbridge pipeline, it’s more than just the pipe we are protesting. It’s what’s in it, and what that means for us all, either economically or environmentally.
Let’s not lose sight of that, because if we do, we fall into the failed paradigm of economy vs. environment – a paradigm that puts us in a position of winning a few battles here and there but losing the war. Let’s create a new paradigm – a life-after-growth paradigm that focuses on human wellbeing.
If this is too much to ask, then let’s start with this – Halliburton and Hincklehooper: clean up your mess! We’re gonna think real hard on how you can make it up to us.
David Lavallee is the Director and Producer of the award-winning film, White Water, Black Gold. He hopes to complete his new film, To the Ends of the Earth, within a year.
by Carol Linnitt – Originally posted on DeSmog Canada
The hotel rental for Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s September visit to New York City cost Canadian taxpayers a total of $56,582.91, according to documents recently released by CTV News.
“Canada and the U.S. are making important progress on enhancing trade, travel and investment flows between our two countries, including securing our borders, speeding up trade and travel, modernizing infrastructure in integrated sectors of the North American economy, and harmonizing regulations,” Harper said at the event. “But there is much more that can be done, and must be done, to make our economic relationship more productive and seamless.”
The event, organized by the Canadian American Business Council, gave Harper the opportunity to tell an audience of American business executives that he wouldn’t “take no for an answer” on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, planned to carry tar sands crude from Alberta to oil refineries in the Gulf of Mexico.
Hotel bill mistakenly sent to CTV
The hotel bill for the luxurious New York Palace Hotel, which was mistakenly sent to CTV’s Washington bureau, suggests Harper’s speaking engagement was a staged promotional gathering for the Keystone XL, rather that a typical guest speaker event which are usually paid for by the host.
The hotel charges include coffee services for $6,650.00, room rental for $33,500.00 and audio visual services of $14,709.15. An overall service charge for the room and coffee came to $9,234.50.
According to CTV, the event was co-hosted with the Canadian American Business Council, which claimed to ‘share’ the costs for the event with the Harper Government.
Maryscott Greenwood, senior advisor for the Council said, “the costs were shared…we paid for pieces of it.”
The “Voice of Business”
On their website the Canadian American Business Council claims to be “the voice of business in the world’s most prosperous relationship. Established in 1987 in Washington, D.C., the Council is a non-profit, non-partisan, issues-oriented organization dedicated to elevating the private sector perspective on issues that affect our two nations, Canada and the United States.”
Membership to the Council requires a $5,500 annual fee, with conference sponsorships running up to $25,000 per event. Members of the Council include the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the Canadian Embassy, the Government of Alberta and TransCanada among many other major oil and gas companies.
In 2012, the Council listed “Approval of the Keystone XL pipeline that would bring Canadian crude oil to the U.S. gulf refineries” in its top ten ‘list of issues.’
The Council’s Washington offices are located inside a major law and lobbing firm, McKenna, Long & Aldridge, LLP, that represents TransCanada’s Keystone XL project.
Andrew Shaw, who works for the Council, is also a registered lobbyist for the Keystone XL pipeline with KcKenna, Long & Aldridge. Shaw was hired by TransCanada to lobby on the topic of “permitting issues regarding the Keystone XL pipeline,” lobbying disclosure documents show.
According to further lobbyist documents, Shaw was also hired by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Canada’s largest oil and gas lobby firm, to speak with members of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives about American environmental legislation or policies that might have implications on the development of Canada’s tar sands.
TransCanada spends millions on US lobbying
A recent white paper report released by DeSmog Canada shows TransCanada has spent $2.78 million on in-company lobbyists and $1.26 million on U.S. based lobby firms, including McKenna, Long & Aldridge, since 2010.
The white paper also shows that since 2010-2011 the Harper Government’s spending of taxpayer funds to promote the tar sands and Canada’s environmental performance has increased by 7000 percent with plans to further increase in the 2013-2014 year.
Fracking protest in New Brunswick (photo: Colin McPhail)
by Emma Lui
Communities everywhere are calling for a stop to fracking – from Elsipogtog First Nation’s highway blockade in New Brunswick to Californians, New Yorkers and other Americans urging for a frackign ban on public lands to farmers occupying fields in Poland, to recent fracking protests in the U.K.
Quebec fracking moratorium
It was this sort of public pressure that prompted the Quebec government to place a moratorium on new fracking permits in parts of the St. Lawrence Basin in June 2011. With this law, less than one per cent of licenses in the total exploration area were revoked. In June 2013, a bill submitted to the Quebec National Assembly that would expand the moratorium to fracking in the lowlands of the St. Lawrence River.
If the law is passed, the moratorium would be in effect for a period of five years. Quebec’s anti-fracking movement has been incredibly strong with dozens of municipalities passing resolutions calling for a moratorium on fracking, frequent protests and a 700-kilometre march along from Rimouski along the St. Lawrence and Richelieu Rivers to Montreal.
Fracking’s water contamination
Fracking is a way of extracting natural gas – often using millions of litres of water, thousands of pounds of sand and thousands of litres of unknown chemicals, gas companies blast apart shale rock to release the trapped natural gas. U.S. and Quebec government studies have shown that some fracking chemicals include carcinogens and hazardous air pollutants.
Companies are not legally required to disclose the amount or type of chemicals they use and in fact this information is protected as a trade secret. Communities around the world have raised concerns about the impacts that fracking has on drinking water, greenhouse gas emissions and public health.
Given the red flags raised by indigenous communities, dairy farmers, U.S. doctors, German brewers and more recently even the European Union, you would think Quebec was well within its right to ban this risky practice until they had completed the necessary studies. Think again.
Lone Pine’s NAFTA challenge
Holding one of the revoked licences, Lone Pine Resources, an oil and gas company, is now launching a $250 million lawsuit against the Canadian government over Quebec’s fracking moratorium under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Although Lone Pine maintains all its operations in Canada, it’s registered in Delaware which allows it to make claims under NAFTA.
The company is claiming that Quebec moratorium is “arbitrary” and “capricious,” and that it deprives Lone Pine of its right to profit from fracking for natural gas in Quebec’s Saint Lawrence Valley.
Groups like the Council of Canadians, the Réseau québécois sur l’Intégration continentale, the Sierra Club, For Love of Water (FLOW), Eau Secours!, and AmiEs de la Terre have been gathering signatures for a letter to Lone Pine urging the company to drop plans to sue Canada and sending a letter to Lone Pine for every thousand signatures they receive. The groups issued a press release last week when they discovered that Lone Pine had quietly filed a request for arbitration indicating that the company was moving forward with the NAFTA lawsuit.
NAFTA Tribunal not accountable to Canadians
The lawsuit is very troubling. It undermines our basic notions of democracy, threatens needed environmental regulations, and puts private profits above the public good. What’s more, the lawsuit will not go through the public court system. The case will be heard before an unaccountable tribunal that may but is not required to consider issues of public health or water and environmental protections. The tribunal’s one concern is whether a government measure upsets the company’s broad set of rights in NAFTA.
And we could be seeing more cases like this where investor rights trump legitimate regulations protecting water sources, curbing climate impacts or safeguarding public health if trade agreements that are currently being negotiated are signed into law. The text of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) between the U.S., Canada, and 10 other nations, is expected to closely mirror NAFTA’s investment rules, while Canada is in the final stretch for a deal with the European Union that would also provide those excessive powers to multinationals.
Trade deals, water and fracking
And it’s not just fracking bans or moratoria that can be challenged under these trade deals. The amount of water a fracking company draws could be subject to a trade agreement lawsuit if a government decides to cut back on the amount of water it had previously allocated for a fracking project. The Fort Nelson First Nation has been fighting applications for the withdrawal of three billion of litres of water per year from the Fort Nelson River for fracking projects in northeastern B.C.
Once approved, if the B.C. government decided to restrict the water withdrawals because of drought or other availability concerns, the government could open Canada up to another investor-state lawsuit. B.C.’s recent announcement of its LNG deal with Malaysia’s Petronas, one of countries that are involved in the TPP negotiations, is another reason alarm bells should be sounding.
UN: Water is a human right
In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution recognizing the human right to water and sanitation and the UN Human Rights Council has also passed resolutions outlining governments’ obligations concerning the right to water and sanitation. This right is now enshrined in international law and Canada, like all other countries, must ensure its implementation.
Catarina de Albuquerque, the UN’s special rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, wrote specifically about fracking and its relationship to the human right to water during her visit to the United States in 2011. De Albuquerque’s U.S. report highlights the concerns raised about the impacts of fracking on water and recommends that countries need to take “a holistic consideration of the right to water by factoring it into policies having an impact on water quality, ranging from agriculture to chemical use in products to energy production activities.” In order to protect the human right to water, governments of all levels must place a ban on fracking.
Study finds radioactive water from fracking
With the exorbitant amount of water used for fracking and the risk of water contamination – as seen with Duke University’s recent study warning that fracking is resulting in radioactive contamination in Pennsylvania rivers – communities must continue to call for a ban on fracking.
Communities have a right to say ‘no’ to fracking and any projects that threaten their water sources. So it’s even more crucial that communities pressure decision-makers to exclude investor-state dispute settlement processes from trade agreements so that communities safeguard not only their right but also their responsibility to protect water for current and future generations.
Emma Lui is a water campaigner with the Council of Canadians, based in Ottawa. Emma’s work focuses on the Great Lakes, human rights, water privatization and the connection between energy and water. She has worked at the Canadian Human Rights Commission and has an M.A. in political economy.
The Common Sense Canadian has made much of the Harper government’s promotion, facilitation and subsidization of big oil and the Clark government’s current LNG export fetish. The underlying messaging to Canadians in both cases is: support these projects or face economic and social armageddon.
What seems to get lost in the refrain is the vast business opportunity presented by “alternative energy”. Alternative energy in quotes because “alternative” is rapidly becoming a misnomer. What was alternative a decade ago is now mainstream and a viable job-creator. Often it’s just a matter of governmental emphasis, the stroke of a bureaucrat’s pen and entrepreneurial determination.
[quote]Microgrids promise to be a $3 billion industry in 2013 growing to more than $8 billion in 2020.[/quote]
One such opportunity lies in the application of technology to off-grid power systems which have been around forever and already number in the tens of thousands worldwide. Currently, these are powered primarily by diesel. What’s new is other systems using smart, far cleaner combustion technologies capable of reducing diesel consumption by as much as a third without any renewable generation. Even better, with renewable distributed energy generation (RDEG), relegating diesel to emergency or peak demand backup, for which it is ideally suited.
Developing nations will lead growth in electrical demand
The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that demand for electric power will double by 2020 in the developing world. This projected demand is substantially higher than projections for the industrialized world, representing 80% of total growth in electric production/consumption by the year 2035.
Industry leaders point to the majority of this new power being produced and distributed via remote microgrids which are ideally suited to the demand. As small-scale versions of the centralized, conventional grid we are more familiar with, they provide the benefits of reliability and flexibility. With extreme weather now business-as-usual, according to the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, this is good news. Plus key technology now allows for increased security and widespread customer participation at the community level.
Microgrids promise to be a $3 billion industry in 2013 growing to more than $8 billion in 2020 – and that’s a conservative scenario. Along with the $8 billion in revenue will come a wide range of long-term jobs.
How can Canada plug into microgrid market?
So…how does Canada fit into this grand opportunity? A recent report by Navigant points to”twenty promising players (both established and newly entering ones) in the microgrid market” and a market where the “competitive landscape…presents a very interesting picture, where large number of small players has become a force to reckon with.
“While the bigger players including the utility and software giants are venturing into the market and have earned big projects. Some of the key players in the microgrid market include ZBB Energy Corporation (U.S.), Chevron Energy (U.S.), Siemens AG (Germany), Echelon Corporation (U.S.), Mera Gao Power (India), Spirae Inc (U.S.), GE Energy (U.S.), ABB Limited (Switzerland), Power Analytics Corporation (U.S.), Virdity Energy (U.S.), Pareto Energy, Ltd. (U.S.), and Microgrid Energy, LLC (U.S.) among others.”
We haven’t yet cracked this particular top twenty, but Canada does have program appropriately titled Canada’s Smart Grid, which: “will be a network of integrated Smart Microgrids: geographically compact units capable of running autonomously from the main grid. Each microgrid will be capable of load side management, peak-shaving, power conservation and integration of local renewable energy generation”. Clearly a joint government and private industry program as one can tell from the mind bobbling list of associate acronyms the NSERC Smart Microgrid Network (NSMG-Net) looks like a good start. There is a nascent industry here and remote towns and villages that can serve as microgrid development test beds.
So where is Canada? A shift in political will on energy, a few strokes of the pen at the provincial and federal level, a bit of entrepreneurial elbow grease, and jobs and economic opportunity will follow.
The following is a private letter, republished with permission, from retired BC NDP cabinet minister Corky Evans to a friend, discussing their party’s recent election failure and uncertain future. Though not intended as a polished manifesto, it should be required reading for anyone interested in rebuilding the NDP.
August 10, 2013
Dear Steve,
Thank you for initiating the dialog about the state of our Party. 100 members with your commitment to change could save us.
We lost an election we could have won. This is not a particularly new phenomenon. The only difference between this one and many in the past was that the pundits and the press told us we would win.
Otherwise, it was pretty much as we remember. We thought we could win. We didn’t.
Of course Adrian must go. His image has been damaged by attack ads the same way Mr. Dion and Mr. Ignatieff were damaged by similar smear campaigns in the recent past. They were both fine people and they both had to leave so that their Party could move on, so must Adrian.
It would constitute huge failure however, if we, the membership, celebrated the departure of our Leader and believed our troubles were resolved.
The first Leader I ever ran for was Bob Skelly. Bob did a terrible job of campaigning. And, I don’t know, but I would wager, that in spite of his troubles he got more of the popular vote than we have received lately.
Indeed, we continue to decline regardless of who we chose as Leader. Getting rid of the Leader is sometimes necessary but it solves nothing except allowing folks to feel that they can begin again.
The only way I can think of to describe our problem is to say the Movement that we were has become the Institution that we are.
The same thing happens to every religion as it turns into a church, every political movement that outlives it’s vision, every business that grows big enough to forget what it started out to accomplish.
The Pope dies, the CEO gets paid to leave, the Leader resigns, and the institutions that they led, precisely because they are institutions, survive and carry on as before.
It seems to me that a movement becomes an institution pretty soon after it spawns a number of people whose well being, financially or psychologically, is dependent on the survival of the organization, rather than its success.
And survive we do.
We survive even if our Leadership candidates sign up bogus membership to get nominated.
We survive even if we cannot attract enough voters to grow or win.
We survive when we have nothing to say to citizens who are not already committed to our way of thinking.
We survive even when we have to get someone else to pay our President.
The people who increasingly dominate positions of leadership electorally or in the Party do not need to win elections for them to remain secure. So secure, in fact, that there are those among us who have never held a job that wasn’t, essentially, political.
Please do not misunderstand my intent. I do not wish to denigrate the folks who dedicate their lives to make us function. They Are Us.
Our problem is not ”who” they are, it is that they exist in critical mass and their voice is perceived to be our voice and their voice is not interesting. It is an institutional voice. It is pretty much like listening to the Ford Motor Company or the BC Medical Association.
I remember when one of the Leaders I worked for asked some guys many of us know to purge our Party of the troublemakers (that was not the word he used.)
They did a good job. We got Slates so the people we didn’t like couldn’t serve in Executive positions. We got Mike Muffins (members with nothing to say who stand in the line at the microphone) at Convention so they couldn’t speak. Candidates got a Message Box and were told not to say what they thought and to stick strictly to only what they were given to say.
The “troublemakers” were sidelined and we became an effective, and boring, machine. Leaders and Leaders staff tell MLA’s what they can and cannot say and punish independent thinking. Or, worse, speaking their mind. We are now a modern political machine, and we sound like one.
We are rarely, anymore, embarrassed. There is no blood on the floor at Convention. We have become a successful Institution and a failed Movement.
The contradiction in this analysis, if analysis it be, is of course that some of this organizational behavior is necessary and some of it even works.
In an age of television many believe that we cannot allow real debate at convention and we cannot have MLA’s saying what they think about stuff because everything, everywhere, is grist for the mill and can be used against us.
I remember the election when every Liberal candidate in BC, including Gordon Campbell, had a sheet of stupid things Corky Evans has said to quote from.
Of course, every quote on the page was taken out of context and was, to me, defensible. But in a time where the sound bite has replaced discourse as the way that people receive ideas, it can be argued that it is better to be boring than to risk being made to look stupid.
I do not know how to fix this. I could not write a tract entitled ”What is to be done,” because I do not know. The thing I do know, though, is that discussion is medicine for screwed up situations. Self-criticism can heal.
The message box, on the other hand, is not discourse. It is poison, like drinking the cool-aid at Jonestown.
I’d like to see us cut everyone a little slack and see if we couldn’t be a bit of a movement again, a bit embarrassing at times but also interesting and current and vibrant and less controlled, less careful, less run by anybody in particular.
This isn’t about Adrian, who I am pretty sure knows what he has to do. It is about us as a Party with a diverse base of support. I doubt very much if we know the details of what it is that we have to do, but I believe we know the spirit of the changes needed. So we best talk.
Living as close to the Peace River as a home can legally get, my family watches a daily nature show that few people realize exists. I would like to share with you a snapshot of spring on the Peace, as we are privileged to see it.
The old cottonwoods along the driveway are a nursery for many different birds. A family of kestrels (sparrow hawks) uses a large branch on their home tree to sun themselves each morning and scan the undergrowth for voles and chipmunks, both rodents plentiful here. A few trees upriver, a family of flickers occupies the trunk of a tall stump. The yellow-orange undersides of these large woodpeckers flashes through the woods each day, almost matching the bright yellow warblers that flit among the alder in our yard.
In front of our home is an island, which elk and deer use as a nursery. They swim out to the island to give birth away from the keen noses of predators like bears and coyotes. Then, when the fawns are strong enough, mothers coax them into the water for the chilly swim back across. One morning in June, I witnessed a cow elk giving birth at the river’s edge! As the calf lay in the shallows, mother took a quick swim, then nudged baby to shore. All clean and less likely to attract a bear’s attention! (Bears do swim to the island occasionally, but they generally linger around the many berry patches on the mainland.)
Canada Geese (photo: Donald Hoffmann)
On this island, a long cliff provides nesting sites for several families of Canada geese. This year, a slightly more exciting species has arrived: Great Horned Owls! My family watches through our spotting scope as a grey ball of downy fluff fledges out into a magnificent young owl, gaining strength and flight feathers until ready to launch out over the river on that first big flight!
Downstream, a similar cliff on our side of the river is home to a colony of about fifty cliff swallows. The whole flock swoops over the river as one, collecting bugs (hopefully mosquitoes) to bring back to their babies, safely tucked into perfectly constructed mud nests that hang in clusters from sandstone ledges.
At the base of this cliff, there is a long, narrow cave that foxes have converted into a den. Every morning at about 6:30, mother fox comes out for a drink before she goes off hunting. If she takes too long to return, her impatient kit sets up a series of sharp barks to call her home. Once, I was lucky enough to see the little rascal, all bright eyes and big ears, before he growled and disappeared into the darkness of his home.
A merganser duck shepherds her eight ducklings around the back-eddy below the cliff, keeping them together with her earthy quacks. Occasionally, she must sharpen her voice and shout at more adventurous babies as they wander too far in their pursuit of the various minnows sheltering in the calm waters of the back-eddy.
A young eagle, its mottled plumage beginning to show the white-headed pattern of adulthood, alights on a snag atop the cliff. A regular visitor here, we refer to it as Tristan’s eagle, because our youngest son takes such delight in the bird’s presence, and because they are the same age.
Mother merganser issues a series of sharp quacks to gather her vulnerable ducklings to her, just as the eagle swoops down to try for a fluffy snack. Mother puts up such a fuss, quacking, flapping and splashing up a maelstrom; the young eagle becomes disconcerted and gives up.
Fox (photo: Don Hoffman)
Mergansers aren’t the only ducks to seek refuge here. We’ve identified at least eight different species using our property for a much-needed rest along their migratory routes. Not just in spring: swans, both tundra and trumpeter, grace us with their elegance each autumn as they move south. Every season is amazing here, even winter when the river otter comes to fish and play on the ice, while the resident beavers are sleeping.
If the Site C dam were to happen, all this would be gone. The cottonwoods, the cliffs, the back-eddy, the island. All these homes would be lost forever to the rising waters and endlessly sloughing banks of the reservoir. And that’s just one tiny portion of the big picture: this proposed project is in all of our backyards. Where would our animals go? What would happen to them? Is it really worth it?
Thank you for taking the time to read this account. I sincerely hope my words can have some benefit to this beautiful region and all of its residents.
An abandoned tanker carrying jet fuel for forestry helicopters battling summer fires lays overturned, leaking 33,000 litres of toxic fuel into the Slocan Valley’s Lemon Creek
by Nelle Maxey
It was a beautiful day.
The day was Friday July 26. It was just like any other sunny summer day in the Slocan Valley, located in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia 650 kilometres east of Vancouver.
It was the height of the tourist season. Bed and breakfasts, restaurants, and retail stores were swollen with visitors. Kayaks, canoes, rafts and tubes filled the Slocan River as swimmers cooled themselves at public and private beaches along the river. Others were in their gardens, assessing if the beans were ready for canning and the garlic ready for digging. People picked raspberries and blueberries from the loaded bushes, dug potatoes, plucked zucchini, and lettuce for dinner. It was a bumper year for gardens in the valley. Farmers were in their fields cutting hay. Market gardeners and local greenhouses irrigated their crops and picked produce to sell.
All this of course was normal. What wasn’t normal, however, was the drone of helicopters flying over the Slocan Valley’s Winlaw area, dumping water scooped from the river on the two-day old Perry Ridge fire.
Then disaster struck the Slocan Valley.
At about 1:30 p.m., a large tanker truck delivering jet fuel for the Ministry of Forests fire-fighting helicopters tumbled into Lemon Creek and dumped 33,000 litres of jet fuel into the swift-flowing creek which joins the Slocan River downstream of the spill.
The driver was on the wrong road. If the driver was on the right road, they would have used Uris Road north of the Lemon Creek bridge. The tanker was on Lemon Creek Road south of the bridge. This stretch of road is a narrow, decommissioned logging road that had been closed to traffic due to slides and crumbling banks.
In the official record of what happen, one report says the driver was to meet forestry personnel who would direct them to the helicopter staging area. This never happened. Instead, the driver proceeded on his own up Lemon Creek Road, past two signs that indicated the road was closed. The driver eventually found a place to turn around and was on his way back down to Highway 6 when a road bank gave way under the weight of the tanker.
The driver, not seriously injured after the accident, scrambled up the 15-foot bank and walked the 6 kilometres back to Highway 6 where a passing vehicle picked him up so he could report the accident. RCMP arrived on the scene at approximately 3:30 p.m. in the afternoon, although the fumes were so bad they could not approach the area. Once it was confirmed the truck was carrying jet fuel, the Interior Health Authority was notified at 6 p.m. on Friday evening. A few hours later, the first evacuation order was issued for 800 residents within 300 meters of Lemon Creek and the Slocan River for 3 kilometres upstream and downstream of the spill. It took many hours before the volunteer firemen and search and rescue teams could be organized to notify residents of the evacuation order. The first phone calls went out around midnight with volunteers going door-to-door in the most affected areas.
Meanwhile back at the spill site, officials estimate the tanker released the 33,000 litres of fuel in about 40 minutes. The fuel slick reached the Winlaw Bridge sometime around 6 p.m. (about the same time the local health authority was notified of the accident). Children swimming in the river near Appledale just north of Winlaw were later reported to have skin rashes. People who were canoeing in the area also reported health effects. Residents along the river between Winlaw and Lemon Creek reported that the smell was so strong by 5 p.m. that they closed up their homes and left the area. Within 24 hours of the accident the slick had traveled 60 kilometres: down the Slocan River, then into the Kootenay River to just above of the Brilliant Hydroelectric Dam at Castlegar. The first boom to stop the slick was established there on Saturday afternoon.
The plume was 2 to 3 kilometres long and 30 to 50 metres wide. A Ministry of Environment spokesperson said a boom was put in place at about 1:30 p.m. on Saturday just above the Brilliant Dam. The spokesperson said the boom’s effectiveness in containing the fuel was being monitored. Officials didn’t know at this time if fuel had entered the dam works.
The evacuation
Within hours of the first evacuation notice issued by the Interior Health Authority, the evacuation was expanded to include everyone in the valley. Anyone living within a 3 kilometre radius of the river between Lemon Creek and Playmore Junction (where Hwy 6 joins Hwy 3 to Nelson and Castlegar) were to evacuate. This affected 2,500 residences. As the fuel progressed down the river, health authorities had become worried sleeping people would not smell the fuel.
People with emergency services and volunteer fire departments began making phone calls and knocking on doors. The evacuation order included a “Do Not Use Water” order to “all users of water supplies within 10 kilometers downstream of the spill.” Later, the wording of the order changed to suggest water wells were okay to use. This was revised again to say shallow wells near the river might be affected. Today, a week after the accident the order explains that if your creek surface water or well water doesn’t smell like jet fuel, then it’s okay to use. Essentially, a smell test was the only test for private water supplies that didn’t originate from the rivers or Lemon Creek. The evacuation order also contained the following statement: “Jet fuel poses an immediate health risk to people. Exposure can burn skin, inhalation can harm respiratory systems and may cause brain damage. It is also dangerous to consume.”
The boundaries of the evacuation and a timeline of events are shown below:
Fifty volunteer fire fighters from the four valley fire departments worked overnight and into Saturday to notify residents of the evacuation. Even though they had help, they concentrated on people closest to the river and spill site. They notified over 800 residents in all. Much of the notification went by word of mouth to neighbours, family and friends, all of which took place at night. Many residents in the north end of the valley left even before the order was issued due to the heavy concentration of fumes.
By noon on Saturday, the fumes had dissipated enough to lift the evacuation order. Residents trickled back into the valley all day Saturday. Unfortunately, at the north end of the valley some people returned to homes that were saturated with the smell of fuel. Even people’s gardens and hay fields were contaminated, not to mention the watering tanks for livestock had a layer of fuel on top of the water.
By this time, people in the valley settled down and most residents assumed the scare was over. Then the town hall meeting was held.
Many questions, few answers
On July 30, hundreds of residents from all areas of the valley jammed Winlaw Hall for a meeting to hear presentations from local government officials, provincial authorities and employees from the company involved. The meeting was not well organized. The handouts did not contain contact information or the names of the speakers. At first, many residents did not have their questions answered as they were told they were not on topic. Then the format was changed and residents were allowed to ask questions of any panellist. Many questions required responses from multiple panellists.
The health official immediately declared the serious nature of this event and explained the reasons for the evacuation. Though benzene was not a component of the jet fuel spilled in the creek, kerosene was a component and is dangerous by skin contact or ingestion. This applies to humans and animals. Aquatic life is at special risk as the specific type of fuel spilled (Jet Fuel A1) is listed to have a chronic toxic effect on aquatic ecosystems.
Residents were informed the “Do Not Use Water” order would stay in effect for 5 to 10 days at a minimum. The order applied to recreation in the river as well as water use from the river and Lemon Creek. All such water systems should be shut down so the contaminated water is not drawn into pipes and hot water heaters. Other surface water users from the creeks not affected directly should use their own judgement and apply the “smell test” to their water. Deep wells were unlikely to be affected. Shallow wells along the river should not be used as they may be contaminated.
This was the first time some residents heard the information about shallow wells and surface creeks. Individual water licence holders or well owners would not receive assistance to have their water tested. Registered purveyors on water systems with more than two users could receive assistance to have water testing done. Residents were also told to wash all vegetables 3 times for 3 minutes before use with potable water (a Catch-22 for residents without potable water supplies), and were also told not to buy local produce.
As residents poured into the line-up for the mic and began asking questions and sharing their stories, the consequences of the spill and the fact that little help had been available were becoming more apparent. The problems associated with the spill were most severe at the north end of the valley, from Lemon Creek to Winlaw. Homes were contaminated with the fuel smell. Fruit trees and vegetables were contaminated. Hay fields and pastures were contaminated. No water was available for livestock, poultry or gardens.
Many people were without any water for drinking, washing dishes, flushing toilets or showering. Similar water problems prevailed all along the river to the lower valley – especially contaminated hay and pastures, no water for gardens and livestock, as well as difficulty hauling enough water from potable water tank stations for resident needs. The meeting was held five days after the spill and potable water tanks had been set up in four locations in the valley only on the day of the meeting.
As of Saturday, August 3, the water and the rocks in Lemon Creek still smelled of jet fuel. There was a sheen visible and emulsion (milky-looking jet fuel and water mix) under rocks in the creek at the Lemon Creek bridge on Highway 6. The road has been remediated just before the accident site where fuel spilled from the tanker. There is no fuel on the road at the actual location where the truck went off. There is water from seeps in the rock face running across the road at that location. You can see this water in published photographs. Workers at the site agreed that the water run-off contributed to weakening the bank that collapsed under the truc, resulting in the fuel spill.
Recent developments:
Until further notice, a “Do Not Use” order for drinking water and recreational use remains in effect for Lemon Creek, Slocan River and Kootenay River above and below Brilliant Dam. Fuel is still visible in the containment booms and along the shoreline.
Garden vegetables, fruit, eggs, and dairy milk that were contacted by the fuel vapor are SAFE to consume as long as they do not smell like fuel or have a fuel sheen. Interior Health is advising residents to thoroughly wash fruit and vegetables with alternate water sources to remove any dirt and debris prior to consumption. Food products that have been irrigated with contaminated water AND smell like fuel should be discarded.
Aproximately 1,000 litres of contaminated material has been recovered.
RCMP have issued Vessel Operating Restrictions for the Slocan River from Lemon Creek to the Kootenay River, which will be lifted when the clean-up has been completed.
The smell of jet fuel is still apparent in the Lemon Creek area and responders equipped with gas monitors have been testing the air quality outside residences close to the spill site.
Many residents in the valley are still waiting for promised testing.
A Resiliency Centre is being established at the Winlaw Elementary School to support residents with shower, lavatory and emergency support services. It is expected to open within the next couple of days.
Polaris Applied Sciences from Kirkland, Washington was hired to conduct a Shoreline Clean-up and Assessment Technique, or SCAT. Leading the SCAT team is Polaris principal, Dr. Elliott Taylor, a world-renowned expert in spill clean-up operations. The assessment is underway and is already providing additional information which is helping to clean up the waterways by providing operational focus to the response teams and prioritizing where we focus our attention.
Light “flushing” activities are being conducted to free product (Jet Fuel A1 / without additives) from stream banks and vegetation to make it available for collection. Nearly 1,000 metres of containment boom has been deployed throughout the Slocan River system and it is capturing any free-flowing product. The product is being skimmed off the water into a vacuum truck and removed to a licensed waste facility. In areas where soil is impacted, the soil is being removed and trucked to a separate licensed waste facility. A significant amount of contaminated water and soil was recovered.
Experts continue to collect water samples, sediment samples, and fish and wildlife from the impacted water courses. Wildlife mortalities to date have been collected and sent to the laboratory for analysis.
Water quality test results are being sent to the Interior Health Authority to assist in making a decision on when the “Do Not Use Water” order may be lifted.
Responders equipped with gas monitors have been testing the air quality throughout the area of potential and observed influence. To date, atmospheric concentrations have been within established government standards; however, the smell of jet fuel is still occasionally apparent.
Nelle Maxey is a grandmother who lives in the beautiful Slocan Valley in south-eastern BC. She believes it is her obligation as a citizen to concern herself with the policies and politics of government at the federal, provincial and local level.
An interview with a whistle-blower doesn’t happen every day. I spoke with Dr. Thierry Vrain, a former soil biologist and genetic scientist who for 30 years worked for Agriculture Canada, and was the designated spokesperson to assure the public of the safety of GMO crops.
He retired ten years ago, and thus no longer received a paycheck dependent on a specific perspective. With time to read different viewpoints on GMO agriculture, Dr. Vrain experienced a gradual awakening, leading him to speak out passionately about the devastating effects of GMOs, both to the environment, and to the health of sentient beings.
My partner and I listened carefully as Dr. Vrain explained the basics of Genetic Engineering. Cells of every living organism consist of basically three major kinds of molecules: carbohydrates (made by plants through photosynthesis from sunlight) lipids, and proteins. The carbs and lipids do not move, but the proteins do. “Every molecule of protein can twitch, can make a movement…that molecule can twitch another molecule and can do something in the cell”. The intention of the genetic scientist is to engineer a protein in the plant to do something NEW in the plant.
For example, a new protein would be engineered to kill insects. The new gene is inserted into the plant, along with an antibiotic resistance gene. The outcome on the soil is basically that “every single engineered plant on the planet today has antibiotic resistance gene in it. That gene is in the genome, it’s in the roots, it’s in the soil and that can be picked up by the bacteria in the soil”. This is all happening globally on several hundred million acres of farmland planted with GMO crops.
In an effort to sell the public on the benefits of genetic engineering, the biotechnology industry came up with a special term to describe their new creation. The genetically modified plant is described as being “substantially equivalent” to a conventional plant. But if DNA has been altered, isn’t the plant different, and not equivalent?
Then Dr. Vrain explained how a scientist can hold a different view of nature. He asked us to imagine if by adding a human gene to corn, we could have 10,000 acres of corn growing insulin, and wouldn’t that kind of progress be very good? So if a tomato plant has a bacterial gene, and the fruit still looks and tastes like a tomato, to a scientist it is still a tomato plant, and therefore, the principle of substantial equivalence seemed natural to describe the genetically altered plant.
Now immersed in our science lesson, we learned about the results of the Human Genome Project, completed in 2002. Its goal was to sequence the whole genome of a person. Before this research, the science of molecular biology was based on the theory that the human body functions with about 100,000 proteins. DNA codes for proteins, and it was believed that each protein is coded for by one gene. Thus, if there are 100,000 proteins in our body, then there should be 100,000 genes.
However, the Human Genome Project concluded we have only just over 20,000 genes in our body. Suddenly, the one gene, one protein hypothesis no longer applied. It was an old paradigm. Since science is based on observation, here was a perfect example of yesterday’s scientific “fact” being obsolete.
As for the engineering process itself, Dr. Vrain told us that the scientist has absolutely NO control over where the gene will show up in the genome. Since this inserted gene doesn’t really belong there, it is impossible to predict what the gene is going to express! The conclusion is starkly clear: genetic engineering is an imprecise technology.
More troubling information emerged in our conversation. Genetic scientists needed to test for the safety of the inserted protein, to make sure it produces no adverse effects. Dr. Vrain explained that scientists started with the pure protein, meaning they tested it in a laboratory. They did not look for the protein IN the plant to see its effects on the plant or its environment. Using the old one gene one protein paradigm, scientists simply “assumed” that if the desired protein was inserted, it would get the effect they wanted, spawning the principle of “substantial equivalence”. We may imagine scientific research to be all about facts and evidence, but hearing about such an assumption shatters that illusion.
Furthermore, according to Dr. Vrain, scientists still believe the old paradigm, in contradiction of the evidence, because if they question the possibility of there being more than one protein in the plant other than the protein intended, that would make the plant different, and not substantially equivalent. And that would necessitate testing. Since 1996 the regulatory agencies have waived responsibility, saying “it’s completely substantially equivalent, there are no differences, we do not even need to look at them, and the companies don’t need to do any research”.
Instead, regulatory agencies trust scientific research. Dr. Vrain then shed light on the modus operandi of scientific research by explaining the expression “Publish or Perish”. Scientists need to make sure to publish their results. But in the late 80s, a significant change occurred. Scientists were allowed, and even encouraged, to seek corporate funding. Inevitably, once industry got involved, extra funding meant the scientist could enjoy a bigger lab. “If you were good and successful and you hit on a really good project, you could patent. So from Publish or Perish we went to Patent and Get Rich”.
It follows that funding will dry up if a scientist publishes results not acceptable to the scientific dogma or the corporate line. Moreover, the biotech corporations rarely do research themselves. Instead, they give very generous grants to scientists at universities, and what scientist will turn down good grants for his lab?
I had to inquire about Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, proven not to be bio-degradeable as initially advertized. The active ingredient, glyphosate, actually starves the plant by being a chelator, making minerals in the soil unavailable to the plant. Still, Monsanto insists that Roundup is much less toxic than the herbicide it replaced, and ignores proof of the spread of super-weeds and super-bugs that have become resistant to the engineered technology. Dr. Vrain gave a sigh…“Yet the madness continues.”
I brought up the continuous battles to prevent the introduction of other GMO crops, such as alfalfa, which farmers definitively do not want, and the non-browning apple, which Dr. Vrain said began in his lab when he worked in Summerland. It was apple country, and “someone got the bright idea to silence the gene that browns the apple”. Geneticist David Suzuki’s message springs to mind regarding the perils of genetic engineering: Just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we should do it.
A frightening example is “terminator” technology, in which the seed or pollen becomes infertile. Do terminator genes pollinate? Is it possible to pass on infertility? Dr. Vrain answered yes, “We are talking famine here” because infertility can spread. Monsanto did buy the technology, for if seeds were infertile, people would be forced to buy their seed. Such a serious issue demands stopping Monsanto from ever bringing this idea out again.
Our sobering conversation was ending. Dr. Vrain mentioned an important document available online, a 120 page study released in June of 2012 called GMO Myths and Truths, a compilation of articles and government reports that question the safety of GMOs.
In conclusion, it takes courage and humility to let go of preconceived ideas and accept new data. Psychologists call it cognitive dissonance. Spiritual teachers refer to the letting go as disillusionment. Thierry Vrain has faced this most humbling human experience with dignity and grace.
But we are all being humbled now. We all eat for a living. Informed citizens worldwide know uncomfortable truths about GMOs and the biotech companies that profit from them. In this interview, we learned how genetic engineering is an imprecise technology, that safety tests are faulty, and that scientists abuse the scientific method for money by ignoring major sources of information. The informed also know that GMO crops contaminate other crops, and see it as a duty to resist Big Biotech’s techno/chemical war against nature. Dr. Thierry Vrain is now an organic farmer, a kindred spirit with peasant farmers worldwide, who know that the way to feed the world is to create and support small sustainable farms working with nature.
There is a robust debate happening in university halls, around religious congregations, and at individual kitchen tables nationwide. The driving question: Should we divest from the fossil fuel industry?
Whether you are a college student, a trustee of a religious or educational institution, or an individual with a retirement fund, this is a relevant question for you.
Earlier this year, several community organizations in Boston, including the Institute for Policy Studies’ Jamaica Plain Forum, held a community forum in Boston to discuss the moral and practical issues of divesting from fossil fuel companies as a strategy to combat climate change.
The forum, viewable here, brought together those with expertise in finance, community organizing, social justice, and policy to address questions surrounding the basic nature of fossil fuel divestment as well as its implications for our investments and our world. Some of the questions we debated were: Is divestment meaningful? Can we exert leverage over energy companies by retaining the leverage of ownership? Would divestment reduce the investment returns required to sustain our institutions and income needs?
Our view is that our current economy, based on insatiable extraction and consumption, is simply unsustainable – for the planet as well as for us. Powerful fossil fuel corporations exercise an undue influence on environmental and economic policy, thwarting our ability to adopt sane and far-sighted energy policies. Here’s what we found:
1. We Did the Climate Change Math: Now We Must Act
We must compel the 200 largest fossil fuel corporations to keep 80% of their carbon assets “in the ground.” Extracting and burning these reserves of oil, coal and gas would raise the earth’s temperature over 2 degrees centigrade, unleashing climate catastrophe. [Read: Rolling Stone, Bill McKibben, “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math”]
2. Time to Choose Sides: We Must Raise the Cost of Extracting and Burning Carbon
If we succeed in averting climate catastrophe, it will be because we have succeeded in raising the cost of fossil fuels and forcing the industry to internalize its real costs to society and the environment. This will lower the profitability of the sector – and lower returns for investors. Our cities, congregations, and universities should not be in a position where we are rooting for the fossil fuel industry to win. It isn’t right that the value of a sector doesn’t reflect its impact on the earth and society. In the long-term, destroying the planet doesn’t help us boost our investment returns.
3. We Are All Responsible for Carbon Pollution, But the Fossil Fuel Industry Has a Disproportionate Responsibility for Climate Change
While each of us should take personal responsibility for reducing our individual carbon usage, the fossil fuel industry has disproportionate responsibility for climate change. Many of us would like to have lower carbon lifestyles, but we’re systemically blocked from doing so via the lobbying power of the fossil fuel industry. The fossil fuel industry uses their considerable financial and political power to rig the rules to block regulation, block sane energy policy, extract taxpayer subsidies, thwart renewables, and limit consumer choice. They are writing government policies and fundamentally distorting our democracy. The industry is institutionally caught in a short-term system, where their economic interests are aligned with destroying the planet. If we had a carbon tax, innovation and development would be pushed towards energy efficiency. [See: Oil Change International’s Dirty Energy Money index.]
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4. Fossil Fuel Profitability is Based on Rigging Our Political Systems
The profitability of the fossil fuel sector is based on their ability to politically influence and rig the system and shift the real costs associated with their industry onto society. The externalities that they shift include: environmental pollution, worker health and safety, cost of military deployment in oil-producing regions, negative health impacts, global climate change, and political corruption. If fossil fuel companies had to absorb the true costs of these externalities, the industry would be transformed—and would probably likely focus first on energy conservation and sustainable energy sourcing before further extraction. Their dependence on political rules makes them a risky and volatile sector as investments. When their political clout diminishes, as we hope it will, they will become less profitable. [See: Oil Change International]
5. Investment Returns in Fossil Fuels Will Inevitably Decline
Over the last 20 years, the fossil fuel energy sector has been among the most profitable of all sectors. For a variety of reasons, including those described above, this will not remain true. As policy makers start pushing back, they will eliminate government subsidies for fossil fuel, as President Obama has proposed. They will pass laws requiring fossil fuel producers to be more responsible for their negative environmental and social impacts. There is also growing evidence that the assets of fossil fuel industries are greatly over-valued. And, if we are successful, many fossil fuel companies will have “stranded assets,” reserves that will not be tapped. When the real value of carbon holdings is adjusted downward, billions in shareholder wealth will evaporate. [See: Carbon Tracker]
6. Divesting from Fossil Fuels Will Not Negatively Impact Return
Investors are understandably concerned that their investments will earn less money if they eliminate profitable fossil fuel corporations. It may not be prudent to sell off securities with large capital gains all at once; individuals and investors should get professional advice on the best divestment strategy. Some institutions have long-term relationships with trusted investment advisors who have helped their investments grown. It is not ungrateful or unprofessional to direct these advisors to gradually divest from dirty energy and reinvest in socially responsible alternatives. Beware, however, of advisors who tell you it can’t be done or predict huge losses overtime.
It is conventional investment wisdom that if you narrow the breadth of your investments—and fossil fuel securities are approximately 10 percent of the public equities market—that you increase risk. But there is plenty of expertise in the “socially responsible investment” field as to how to divest and design an investment portfolio that will still earn comparable returns. Industry professionals are working now to design “fossil fuel free” investment portfolios and mutual funds.
7. The Fossil Fuel Sector Will Not Reform Itself
The fossil fuel industry will only reform when we change the rules that shape their marketplace and operations. This can be accomplished through regulation and taxation. Instituting a robust carbon tax, phased in over several years and with offsets to address its regressivity, would signal huge market shifts. Many thoughtful people believe we should stay invested in fossil fuel corporations to have leverage with them and engage with them. This has not worked.
8. Support the Movement and an ‘Outside Strategy’
Selling stocks in fossil fuel companies may not drive down stock prices or even devalue the industry since other buyers will purchase those stocks. Regardless, the goal of the dirty energy divestment fight is to change public dialogue and society’s lifestyle, not stock prices. A traditional approach has been inside: engaging with the company and using our ownership stake to press the company to reform. This hasn’t worked. To send a strong message, we need to sever our ties to this sector and make these companies moral pariahs, similar to how the public treated tobacco companies.
Thankfully, there is a radical edge emerging to avert climate catastrophe. The “inside” strategy of working with the fossil fuel industry to reform itself is not moving fast enough. The new “outside strategy” activists are calling out the historic environmental groups who have compromised themselves into irrelevance. They are calling out Wall Street—those interested in only their own private gain at the expense of society and the earth. They are upping the ante in terms of direct action, civil disobedience along with traditional organizing and electoral politics. The call for divestment is part of this movement. [See: 350.org]
9. Engaged Shareholder: You Can Still Work the “Inside Strategy” If You Want
Some institutional investors argue that they can change the behavior of the fossil fuel industry by retaining ownership of corporate shares and being engaged investors. Institutions or individuals that want to actively engage in shareholder activism—introducing social issue resolutions— should retain the $2,000 of stock that enables them to introduce resolutions, as Greenpeace and the Institute for Policy Studies do. Ownership is only one source of leverage, however. We should engage as full stakeholders—citizens, employees, consumers, communities, and moral actors.
10. The Moral Question Is Why Should Any Institution or Individual Stay Invested: This Is an Abolitionist Cause
Divestment is not primarily simply an economic strategy, but also a moral and political one. If slavery is wrong, is it wrong to make a profit from it? If Apartheid is wrong, is it wrong to make a profit from it? “If it is wrong to wreck the planet, then it is wrong to profit from it.” [See: The Boston Phoenix, Wen Stephenson, “The New Abolitionists”]
11. We Can Divest from Fossil Fuels and Invest in the New Economy
The next 20 years will be unlike the last 50 years. We are entering a stage of discontinuity thanks to ecological and economic change. We are in a transition to a new economy—based on an entirely different set of assumptions about energy and the future source of livelihoods. We need to shift capital investment away from the dinosaur economy and towards the sustainable and just new economy. Compared to the limited, risky, corrupt and unethical fossil fuel sector, there is a wide range of socially responsible investment opportunities with comparable returns for individuals, religious institutions, and other institutions. [See: New Economy Working Group]
Conclusion: We Should Divest from Fossil Fuels and Invest in the New Economy
There is no good reason why we should remain invested in the fossil fuel industries, not when we can continue to powerfully advocate with corporations and maintain sufficient returns. We can and should find ways to shift our investment capital to the socially and environmentally attuned institutions and enterprises of the new economy.
