Location of proposed Site C Dam (photo: Damien Gillis)
The federal government struck out in court Friday in its attempt to gut key passages of a Treaty 8 First Nations Judicial Review into the environmental certificate for Site C Dam.
After 3 hours of arguments on the crown’s motion to strike, brought with the support of the province, the presiding Prothonotary Lafreniere not only threw out the government’s argument – which he called “a very rare request” – but ordered costs be paid to the First Nation plaintiff. The decision presents another legal roadblock to the $9 Billion dam, on which the BC Liberal government and proponent BC Hydro intended to break ground this summer. The federal judicial review is now slated to be heard in July, with the nation’s key argument of rights infringement by the dam fully before the court. The Judicial Review is being brought jointly by West Moberly First Nations, the Prophet River First Nation, McLeod Lake Indian Band, and Doig River First Nation.
The right to be heard
At issue in Friday’s hearing was a highly technical but significant debate over whether a Judicial Review is equipped to deal with an Aboriginal rights-based argument. Both the crown and province maintained that in the past, the courts have refused to hear such arguments in a Judicial Review – referring them instead to full-on trials. The First Nation argues that the environmental review process and subsequent decisions by governments to award Site C its certificates failed to consider the infringement of its treaty rights to hunt, fish and trap on the land – unimpeded by development.
The crown countered that the matter of rights infringement falls outside of the scope of the environmental review – parameters that the government deliberately hardwired into the terms of reference for the Joint Review Panel. In other words, both the federal and provincial governments ensured that the questions of rights infringement never enter into the JRP hearings – even though the panel readily acknowledged the project would have adverse impacts on First Nations throughout the region.
“Put it to bed”
The crown argued that the plaintiff’s evidence and legal standing was “so utterly devoid of merit and hopeless that…it should be struck out and put to bed early on.”
Prothonotary Lafreniere disagreed. During the hearing, he challenged the crown’s argument that the rights issue couldn’t be adjudicated by a Judicial Review:
[quote]Why can’t you argue that in the hearing?…I’m very concerned about bringing a motion to throw them out before getting a fair hearing.[/quote]
Counsel: Govt totally ignored First Nations’ rights
In her clients’ defense, Lead Counsel Allisun Rana drew attention to the government’s carefully contemplated refusal to address meaningfully the Nation’s rights. While the JRP’s hands were tied from dealing directly with rights infringement – a loaded legal notion that goes deeper than merely observing adverse impacts – the government was supposed to consider the evidence gathered and deal with the rights issue later, before issuing its decision. It chose not to, whatsoever – a revelation that only came to to light through this recent motion to strike. Even the plaintiff seemed surprised to learn that no consideration was given at any point to the infringement by the dam on First Nations’ treaty rights.
The crown’s own consultation report on Site C contained a clearly-stipulated responsibility for the government to deal with rights infringement issues – as reflected in the report’s consultation schematic. Only later, without the nation’s knowledge, did the crown alter the language in the schematic to say “determining impacts” instead of “infringement“. Legally speaking, this one word makes all the difference as it speaks specifically to the breaking of legal promises made in Treaty 8 of 1899.
“[My clients] had a good faith belief that the governor in council would consider infringement and were led to believe that by the agency,” Rana told the court.
[quote]If the project is an infringement on First Nations’ rights and the governor in council approved it, then that’s a constitutional issue…that is a matter that needs to be heard before a full hearing.[/quote]
A big decision
Land impacted by Site C Dam (Wilderness Committee / Google Maps)
While the crown argued that the plaintiff is “trying to go through the back door” in raising issues at a Judicial Review which both governments have clearly sought to keep off the table, the court disagreed. “It’s good to have this behind us,” said Rana on Friday’s decision, “so we can focus on the Judicial Review.”
The decision, just one in a long list of legal developments currently surrounding the controversial dam, is another troubling sign for governments which seem in a real hurry to get construction underway.
Perhaps that’s because they can feel the judicial sands shifting beneath their feet. And like quicksand, the harder they struggle, the deeper they may find themselves stuck.
Alberta Premier Elect Rachel Notley celebrates a shocking victory (Alberta NDP facebook page)
Somehow, the day after it happened, the election of the NDP in Alberta doesn’t seem quite as astonishing as it would have say, a year ago. Back then, one would have been in danger of certification as mad to predict that the Tories, after some 43 years, would be turfed out of what had become a political fiefdom. They reigned supreme with no contenders in sight, the Wildrose Party having apparently disintegrated. The Liberals had never been much of a force, although, from time to time, they would pop up hopefully as Liberals are wont to – and the NDP, well, they were just the NDP, a hopeless island of the left in a sea of the right.
A good part of the NDP victory is, of course, simple exhaustion with a very old government. It’s also due to some bad luck for the Tories – the same sort of bad luck that has hit every government relying upon fossil fuels for their day-to-day livelihood.
Ready for Rachel
Another enormous factor was Rachel Notley, bred in politics and ideally suited for the moment.
Leaders had become pretty stuffy in Alberta as they tend to become in democratic dictatorships, or any dictatorships for that matter. She caught of the mood of the times and had what so many politicians don’t have: patience. Mind you, much of that patience was imposed by the circumstances.
One cannot overlook the impact of the late Jack Layton on the NDP generally in Canada. The members of the NDP had been drifting towards the centre for sometime but their leaders had not caught up. Layton did and so did Notley.
What now?
There will be much more perspicacious observers than me looking at this election and I will leave the sorting out of the pepper from the fly shit to them. The question is what will the NDP do now that they have plucked the plum from the pie?
The honest answer to that question is, “I’m damned if I know.” However, one does not get away with that sort of answer in this business!
First off, Ms. Notley has homework to do. She has an economy that is bad, getting worse and a citizenry who are not used to that sort of situation.
Philosophically the NDP are not Tar Sands people. They must become that, however, if there is to be recovery and the question is how will that happen?
A Hobson’s choice
She really has three choices – she can subsidize the industry, she can actively help sell the product, or she can wait and see and hope that international oil prices save the day. This is a terrible triple Hobson’s choice and she’s not to be envied.
There is no money to subsidize in any direct way, so she will have to do it by way of taxation and other concessions. But, that’s the very reason the Tories were thrown out on their prats. While she has a four-year mandate, there is no point getting off on such a bad footing that she can never recover.
Secondly, to whom would Ms. Notley try to increase sales? That is the problem in a nutshell anyway – there are no customers right now for expensive Canadian heavy oil and unconventional gas.
The reality is that she’s left with no other choice but to sit back and hope for increased prices…At least in the short term.
There’s also no earthly reason why Alberta couldn’t use this opportunity to begin developing a clean tech industry that will yield jobs and revenues down the road. As our contributor and innovation expert Will Dubitsky has demonstrated repeatedly in these pages, that’s precisely what the US, China, Germany and other industrial nations are doing today – with great success. Now is as good a time as any to think the once unthinkable in Alberta.
A buyers’ market
As for the Tar Sands, the fact is that higher prices are really the only option any fossil fuel government really has in the world today. There are no mysterious kingdoms over the seas that have a burning desire (pun intended) for oil, have none, and just can’t wait to buy all they can. Everybody is in the same boat – producers have product but not enough customers.
This is not to say that Ms. Notley will not flap her wings and try to appear to be doing all sorts of things, but only to point out that she really hasn’t got too many options.
I have a surprise suggestion for Ms. Notley….
Changing the game
Having no bread, she needs a circus and this goes back to her election platform. To divert attention – and she will only be partly successful at that no matter what she does – she should bring in electoral changes in Alberta, some variation of Proportional Representation.
The results yesterday make the point that “first past the post” is about as unfair a way to run on the election as has yet been invented. She should take these results and run with them, perhaps having a constituent assembly as happened in British Columbia. She can tie this into the current economic situation by saying “if we had the input of other parties over the past years, etc., etc.”
It’s not as if this notion will fall on barren ground. Albertans have long chafed at their system – the Tories have not always been wildly popular in Alberta but seen as the only game in town. To offer voters the opportunity to vote effectively for whomever they please and still have a stable government at the end of the day is a very appealing thought.
Thin gruel?
Perhaps. But it is hard to imagine what else Ms. Notley can do at this stage. The Alberta economy is not one you can quickly or easily diversify (though she should start trying that now too, for good measure). The basis of the economy is in deep doo doo, and you’ve just been elected to do something.
Under those circumstances, one reads one’s Roman history and arranges a Circus Maxima, or at least as Maxima as you can make it.
“On April 8, 2015, with the stroke of a pen, the BC Government made the largest exclusion of land from the Agricultural Land Reserve in BC history,” said Hudson’s Hope Mayor Gwen Johansson, upon the release of a new interactive map which visualizes the enormous loss.
“Without Agricultural Land Commission review or public hearings, 3715 hectares (9180 acres) of ALR land was removed from production for Site C dam.”
The Peace Valley is one of Canada’s most fertile regions
Yet the overall impact of the dam on BC’s increasingly scarce agricultural land base is even worse than that, according to two expert agrologists who presented their findings to the Joint Review Panel on the $9 Billion proposed project.
In all, the Site C would impact 31,528 acres of class 1-7 farmland, roughly half of which lies “within the project’s flood, stability and landslide-generated wave impact lines,” the former president of the BC Institute of Agrologists, Dr. Wendy Holm, told the 3-member panel last year. The other half will be permanently lost beneath the reservoir and access roads. Of the total land impacted and compromised, over 8,300 acres are class 1 and 2 soils – making it some the best farmland in the country.
“The Peace River Valley has extraordinarily high value for agriculture,” soil scientist Evelyn Wolterson added.
[quote]It is our opinion that the public interest is better served [by] agriculture and other uses for this valley, rather than a hundred years of power production…Power has other alternatives; agriculture doesn’t.[/quote]
Mayor Johansson agrees, especially in light of the dire drought conditions now plaguing California, on which BC depends heavily for imported produce. In fact, BC currently produces far less than half the food it consumes, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
“The severe drought in California and the resulting increase to the cost of food we import only reinforces the need to suspend this decision and allow time for the Agricultural Land Commission to provide an independent, open and transparent review of the exclusion decision,” commented Johansson in passing along the new interactive map to media.
The map enables users to compare the loss of land in BC’s Peace River Valley from Site C with what it would look like in other major farming regions in the province, includingRichmond, Victoria, Kamloops, Prince George, Kelowna and Chilliwack.
Said Johansson, “…this single land exclusion is equivalent to removing an area equal to 72% of all ALR land in Richmond, BC.” According Holm and Wolterson, the land being taken out of potential agricultural production could feed up to a million people – or close to a quarter of the province’s population.
While the BC Liberal government has approved the project and stands by its goal of starting construction this summer, Site C is currently facing no fewer than seven legal challenges from First Nations and farmers.
Except briefly, let’s avoid environmental questions about Woodfibre LNG for today and concentrate on fiscal matters.
Even if Woodfibre LNG was an environmental bonus to Howe Sound and the surrounding communities; even if it was clean as a whistle, its plant and accoutrements safe as a church, and the tanker traffic absolutely guaranteed by God to cause no accidents, the case against having this plant would be open and shut.
Up against this shady, at best, Indonesian billionaire, we have Premier “Photo-Op” and her poodle, Natural Gas Minister Rich Coleman, prancing around the world, hyping LNG, dealing way over their heads in what is, more and more each day, a losing proposition. They’re doing this because they’re politically committed and rather than simply say, “we were premature and excessive in our enthusiasm,” and lose face, they’re bluffing it through, at our expense (1st Class all the way), hoping like Mr. Macawber that “something will turn up.”
BC leaders in way over their heads
BC Minister of Natural Gas Development Rich Coleman
Here are the business qualifications of this pair.
Christy Clark, though she attended three universities, has no degree and no professional background, let alone so much as 24 hours experience in any business.
Before his election to the Legislature, Rich Coleman ran a real estate management and consulting company and is a retired policeman.
His Official Legislature biography utters not a peep about his work background, but says:
[quote]Before entering public life, Rich was governor of the BC Kinsmen, president of the Aldergrove Chamber of Commerce, Langley’s 1988 Volunteer of the Year, and a director on several volunteer boards. As a member of the Aldergrove Kinsmen Club in the 1980s, Rich oversaw the volunteer fundraising and construction efforts that built the Aldergrove Kinsmen Community Centre, a vital community facility which houses a preschool, library, workout area, and meeting space. The Club was also involved in building a successful housing project in Aldergrove. Rich is a life member of the Kinsmen.[/quote]
The premier and Mr. Coleman especially seem to have been fine citizens yet just how that qualifies them to deal with international corporate slime bags is quite another matter.
About said Slime Bags
Before getting into this, let’s have a quick look at Tanoto’s environmental record. Greenpeace calls him “Indonesia’s lead driver of rainforest destruction”. Tanoto doesn’t deny his gross, unwarranted destruction of rain forests but claims he has reformed.
Woodfibre LNG Vice-president Byng Giraud was, from 2010 until 2013, vice-president corporate affairs for Imperial Metals, owner of the Mount Polley mine which, in 2014, caused massive destruction in Quesnel Lake, Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Cariboo Creek, the entire Quesnel and Cariboo river systems right up to the Fraser River.
When asked about Tanoto’s appalling environmental record, Mr. Giraud scarcely puts up a vigorous defence for his boss, stating:
[quote]When you come (to B.C.) you have to follow the rules, regulations and conditions imposed by our regulatory regime.[/quote]
Just as Tanoto’s companies do in Indonesia, presumably.
Tax evader extraordinaire
But what about his corporate reliability? Can we trust Tanoto to be responsible and meet his financial responsibilities?
Surely even to Clark and Coleman this is of huge importance and requires the highest degree of “due diligence”.
Let The Guardian, one of the most respected papers in the world, speak the evidence:
[quote]Giant Asian logging companies that make billions from destroying rainforests use a labyrinth of secret shell companies based in a UK overseas territory, the British Virgin Islands (BVI), which operate as a tax haven, according to documents seen by the Observer. The 13 companies own millions of acres in Indonesia, provide much of the world’s palm oil, timber and paper, and use complex legal and financial structures to keep their tax liabilities low.
An unpublished two-year investigation by anti-corruption experts, and seen by the Observer, says Britain should launch a major investigation into the use of the BVI and other tax havens by “high-risk” sectors such as Indonesian forestry. This follows a court case in Jakarta in which one of the world’s largest palm oil companies, owned by billionaire Sukanto Tanoto, was fined US$205m after being shown to have evaded taxes by using shell companies in the BVI and elsewhere. The company has agreed to pay the fines.
Documents arising from the case show that Tanoto’s company, Asian Agri, systematically produced fake invoices and fake hedging contracts to evade more than $100m of taxes. [emphasis added][/quote]
When you see and read ads by their PR prevaricators about the huge advantages Woodfibre LNG will confer on British Columbia, you might just recall those words: “Documents arising from the case show that Tanoto’s company…systematically produced fake invoices and fake hedging contracts to evade more than $100m of taxes.”
Thus we might well wonder, “Will Tanoto leave behind, for our generosity, a penny of taxes or royalties or, more likely, will the money all somehow wind up in Singapore?”
Even a casual investigation of Tanoto’s modus vivendi discloses a pattern of moving money around his companies so as to avoid, if not evade tax – why wouldn’t he do the same with Woodfibre LNG?
Thinking like Tanoto
Indonesia’s Sukanto Tanoto – one slippery customer
This scenario is corporate child’s play.
Suppose Pacific Energy Corp., a Tanoto company, buys gas on the Alberta exchange (Woodfibre LNG has opened a Calgary office to do just that), then transfers it to Woodfibre LNG Export Pte. for just enough to cover Pacific’s Energy’s costs to Woodfibre – resulting in zero profits there. No problem – all the same owners.
Now, Woodfibre LNG Export Pte. has a deal with Woodfibre LNG Ltd. (WLNG) – the guys at Squamish – for the latter to liquefy the gas and store the LNG. That contract also sets a price that just covers WLNG’s costs. Result: No profits at WLNG, either.
With me so far?
Here’s where it’s “now you see it, now you don’t” – so do pay close attention!
Woodfibre LNG Export Pte. – a company which may be as insubstantial as a single trader at a desk anywhere – sells the LNG to an overseas firm for an annual profit of over $275 million (our Dr. Eoin Finn confirms this as a reasonable prognostication) in the hands of the Singaporean-registered (and domiciled) Woodfibre LNG Export Pte.
LNG sleight of hand
Now, watch the corporate fingers carefully!
Because of the Canada-Singapore tax treaty, which states that Singapore – not Canada – gets to tax this entity, no income taxes for any of this will be levied in Canada. Nor royalty taxes, which are levied at 3.5% on domestic profits, only after capital costs have been fully depreciated (by Woodfibre LNG Ltd., which will own the facility).
Now, folks, here’s where you act really surprised.
Singapore has a 10-year tax holiday for LNG firms!
If you listen carefully, wafting through the tropical palms, you can hear the soft refrain, “let me call you sweetheart…”
What’s in it for us?
So, back to the main question: will Tanoto and his corporate plaything, Woodfibre LNG Export Pte., leave anything behind in taxes or royalties for the considerable privilege of doing business here?
The answer is surely “not a chance”. Why the hell would he? What is there in his track record to make us believe that this time will be different and out of a spirit of corporate generosity he’s going to leave his money in Canada and pay every cent of the taxes and royalties owed?
Clockwise from top left: Teck’s Doug Horswill, Stewart Muir, former A-G Geoff Plant, and Lyn Anglin of Geoscience BC
Apart from welcoming an environmental pariah, we’re walking, eyes wide open, into a deal with a man who’s a convicted big-time tax evader, coming into a jurisdiction where tax evasion isn’t even difficult!
Joining this welcome are a former BC premier, two former attorneys-general, the elite of the business community and The BC Business Council, calling themselves “Resource Works”, spending money like drunks in a Cat House, dishing out half-truths at best to convince us plebes that they know what’s best for us.
And aren’t we so lucky also to have a business-oriented government, guided by Christy Clark and Rich Coleman, looking after our affairs?
Water scarcity and resulting wars will be a key consequence of the climate crisis
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that human-caused climate change is already responsible for 150,000 deaths annually. If we continue our current trajectories of “business as usual” as our response to climate change, the WHO expects that between 2030 and 2050 climate change will cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year.
According to the WHO, the yearly death rate will include, “38 000 due to heat exposure in elderly people, 48 000 due to diarrhoea, 60 000 due to malaria, and 95 000 due to childhood under nutrition.”
Once “tipping points” occur, non-linear changes will emerge, and the death toll will be much higher.
As author David Ray Griffin demonstrates in his book, Unprecedented: Can Civilization Survive The CO2 Crisis?, we are facing a constellation of unprecedented, intersecting threats that are leading humanity to increasingly severe catastrophes, and possibly even extinction.
The unprecedented, lethal threats identified by Griffin are these:
Extreme weather
Heat waves
Droughts and wild fires
Storms
Sea level rise
Fresh water shortage
Climate refugees
Climate wars
Ecosystem collapse
Extinction
Food shortage
Reservoirs in the sky
Glacier National Park in BC’s Kootenays has seen decreasing snowpacks in recent years (Sesivany/Jiri Eischmann/Wikipedia)
A closer examination of just one of these threats shows how they are inter-related:
Author Lester Brown explains in “Rising Temperatures Melting Away Global Food Security” that we are losing our “Reservoirs In The Sky” – glaciers and snowpack – and that these reservoirs are melting in all the world’s major mountain ranges.
Melting glaciers and snowpack deliver less water for drinking and agriculture. Once these “reservoirs in the sky” – also called “natural water towers” and “frozen water towers”- are degraded and disappear, food scarcity and drought impacts are amplified. In the winter of 2015, for example, California’s Sierra Nevada snowpack was measured at 25% of its average depth.
“Deglaciation” also contributes to sea level rise and regional hydrological changes. In Western Canada and elsewhere, for example, it impacts freshwater fisheries; once the glaciers are gone, the fisheries will become extinct.
Disappearing water drives instability
Since deglaciation impacts food and water security, it also contributes to desertification, and this in turn creates “climate refugees”, as people are forced to leave for more habitable locations. A report by the Environmental Justice Foundation claims that, “on average, 27 million people are displaced by climate and weather-related disasters each year.”
Increased scarcities of food and water, and the growing displacement of peoples due to climate change – and de-glaciation – will likely be casual factors of so-called “water wars” as well.
Radical change: our only hope
Citizens rally against pipelines in Victoria (photo: TJ Watt)
Our collective response to catastrophic, human-caused climate change, is inadequate on many levels. Griffin argues that our failures and challenges are also “unprecedented”. He shows that the status quo/business-as-usual approach to climate change will accelerate catastrophic consequences, that a “wait and see” attitude would be even more cataclysmic, and that the only reasonable approach is radical change.
Radical change means full scale societal mobilization and the rapid decarbonisation of the economy, all with a view to reducing the global temperature increase by less than 2 degrees Celsius relative to pre-industrial levels.
The stakes couldn’t be higher, since we literally face the real prospect of human extinction if we do not radically change our approach now.
Critical failures that must be addressed
Griffin identifies the following unprecedented challenges and failures that are currently preventing radical change:
Climate change denial
Media failure
Political failure
Moral challenges
Religious challenges
Economic challenges
As with the iteration of unprecedented lethal threats, the aforementioned list of challenges and failures share intersecting trajectories as they meet, overlap, and create common ground. Consequently, a closer examination of one failure sheds light with others as well.
The industry of Climate Change/Global Warming Denial, for example, is closely linked to, and sometimes a causative element of, the other challenges and failures.
The denial industry
Despite the fact that the scientific debate is closed, and the scientific consensus is that humans cause global warming, the Climate Change Denial Industry spends vast quantities of money to promote unreasonable doubt about this scientific fact.
ExxonMobil, for example, launders money through organizations, foundations, think tanks etc. to create unreasonable doubt about human-caused global warming.
Increasingly, money is being laundered through Donors Trust. A Greenpeace analysis reveals that Donors Trust has laundered $146 million in climate denial funding from 2002 to 2011.
False Balance
Corporate media also amplifies disinformation. One particularly effective strategy is a technique called “false balance.” Editors will “balance” science-based global warming articles with articles that deny global warming, with the effect that readers become confused and doubt the scientific reality of human-caused global warming.
Politicians invariably exploit the fabricated confusion and endorse policies that serve the narrow interests of Big Oil. An extreme example of this is the Tea Party movement.
This seemingly grassroots movement endorses policies that align with Big Oil interests – low taxation, high profits, de-regulation. Evidence suggests, moreover, that it was created with a view to make it appear like a grassroots movement, when it was actually fabricated by Big Oil to serve Big Profits rather than the interests of those who support the party. The term used to describe the process is “Astroturfing” (i.e. fake grass roots).
In terms of morality and religious propriety, the use of deceit and subversion to advance a civilization-killing agenda is repulsive.
[quote]Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.[/quote]
What is to be done
The complexities of “What is to be done?” to confront our dire circumstances can be reduced to three momentous actions.
First, we need a mass mobilization of people prepared to respond to the global warming emergency. Second, we need to transition immediately and completely to clean energy. And finally, we need to abolish dirty energy.
David Ray Griffin’s extraordinarily comprehensive and well-researched book, Unprecedented, should serve as a foundational guide for our needed mobilization.
Chinese solar company Suntech at the Bird’s Nest stadium
Despite Canada’s total lack of leadership in the green economy, a number of key global developments are grounds for optimism heading into the Paris UN conference on climate change.
Global emissions plateau in 2014
In a pleasant surprise for the planet at large, according to the International Energy Agency, global emissions reached a plateau in 2014.
Most importantly, this is not a onetime aberration, but rather an indication that the cumulative impacts of the growing numbers of measures to address climate change in China, Europe and the US are collectively bringing about transformative change. Other key nations such as Japan, India and Brazil have also begun a process that will engender a transformative migration to a green economy.
A case in point: in just 2014 China’s new installations of wind and solar capacity amounted to 34 gigawatts (GW – a billion watts) of new electrical generating capacity, bringing the total installed capacity of wind and solar energy in that country to 114.8 GW and 28 GW respectively. In other words, China’s new clean energy installations added in 2014 represent nearly 3 times BC Hydro’s entire installed capacity of 12 GW and more than 70% of the total electricity capacity of Hydro-Quebec, 46.3 GW – but China installed all of this new capacity in one year!
As to what all this means in terms of jobs, China has staggering employment numbers for 2014 in its solar PV and wind energy sectors, 1.58 million and 356,000 jobs respectively!
Wind and solar projections boosted
And China promises to do even better in 2015. So optimistic is China on accelerating the pace of new installations of renewables that its National Energy Administration has raised its target for new solar installations in 2015 to 17.8 GW, up from the original target of 15 GW.
Projections for China’s new wind installations in 2015 are such that as much as 20 GW of capacity may be added.
That said, there may be caveat to China’s impressive clean energy projections in that it is not sure if past trends will continue with respect to increases in transmission capacity, lagging behind new wind and solar farm developments.
It is conceivable that India will exceed its targets as clean energy companies have spoken of total commitments of 266 GW of new renewable installations by 2022.
Equally impressive is that the aforementioned goals of India will bring jobs and electricity to regions that either have no electricity or unreliable/unsteady electricity supplies. It is estimated that the solar and wind targets will generate one million and 183,000 jobs respectively, thereby providing boosts to impoverished communities by addressing energy and job deficits concurrently. To-date, approximately 70,000 jobs are attributable to the country’s solar and wind sectors.
Japan: Post-Fukushima
Elsewhere in Asia, Japan’s post-Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear crisis, which led to the shutting down of 54 nuclear plants and the scrapping of plans to build 14 new nuclear facilities, initially meant a spike in fossil fuel imports, but this was followed by a boom in the renewables sector – supported by the central government.
US #2 on Green Economy, despite Republicans
President Obama visits Copper Mountain solar plant (Photo: Sempra U.S. Gas & Power)
As for the US, one may be inclined to conclude that the Republicans have put a damper on the progress of non-hydro renewables – yet 47% of new electrical power capacity added in 2014 came from non-hydro renewables. Republicans haven’t succeeded in stopping the Obama administration from doing what it can within existing constraints.
Firstly, there is the question of what contributed to the US having become the world’s number two investor in the green economy after China. The answer begins with the 2009 to 2011 period, under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – when the US government laid the foundations for a green economy with a $70 Billion investment.
By contrast, Canadian green tech innovators and manufacturers face an unfavourably uneven playing field for participation in the high-growth, high-job creation, competitive global green economy – by virtue of the near total absence of Government of Canada support.
Now, what is new is that private banks are getting into the act, supporting the green economy with dedicated funds. Barclay’s, Bank of America Merril Lynch and Citi Bank are among the new private sector players.
Consequently, with this increasing convergence of public and private banks on green investments, it is estimated that together they willissue $100 billion in green bonds in 2015.
Clean Transportation: California and China lead the way
A solar ev charging station in San Francisco
According to a UBS study, by 2020, customer-side renewable energy production (e.g. solar roof panels), energy storage and electric vehicle charging station technologies – combined with an electric vehicle in the driveway – would offer consumers a 7% return every year with a 6 to 8 year capital payback. The payback would be greater in jurisdictions such as California, which now offers incentives for energy consumers to install combinations of these technologies on their respective properties.
For California and China, the future for zero and low emission vehicles has already arrived. Each has a long list of policies, including aggressive eco-vehicle government procurement targets, subsidies for consumers, support for manufacturing/innovation, generous funding for electric vehicle charging stations all across these jurisdictions and requirements for new/recent buildings to be designed to accommodate ev charging stations.
Meanwhile, in 2016, the new US corporate average fuel economy standards will kick in, requiring that each manufacturer present in the US market achieve an average of 6.2L/100km based on cars sold in that year and 8.2L/100km for trucks. These standards, which are identical in Canada, get incrementally more stringent, reaching a mandatory average of 4.3L/100km for cars by 2025.
However, while these US vehicle standards constitute progress, appearances are somewhat deceiving for two reasons. First, the new standards will allow for the skewing of corporate average fuel economy results by leaving wiggle room in the form of fuel economy by category/size of vehicles sold (based on wheelbase length and track width). Second, the standards include higher consumption allowances for SUVs, considered to be trucks. Together, these factors could translate into higher average consumption/vehicles sold by a given manufacturer than the above-mentioned targets suggest.
The collapse of the Big Oil business model
A Pennsylvania fracking operation
While the cumulative impacts of the climate action measures are the backdrop for the International Energy Agency numbers on the plateau in GHG emission levels in 2014, another game-changing phenomenon is also occurring: the collapse of the business model of the oil industry.
This model is based on: 1) demand for fossil fuels continuing to climb; 2) oil prices remaining high enough to justify continued investments in expensive-to-extract unconventional sources such as the tar sands, offshore and shale sources; 3) high oil prices justifying the pumping out of greater volumes of conventional oil to further increase profits; and 4) the growing concern about climate change failing to affect the bottom line.
Until recently, this business model worked like a charm, with Exxon earning $32.6B in 2013, more than any company other than Apple. Well as it turns out, all of the above elements of the business model have hit a wall.
Demand not Rising at the Expected Pace
Not only do China, the US, the EU and India have policies which are lessening the current dependence on fossil fuels, but they all also have policies that will increasingly reduce this dependence. As indicated above, even India, once thought to be a major vector for increased demand in fossil fuels, has targets to change the economic/energy/job paradigm in favour of locally-produced renewable energy.
According to the US Energy Information Administration, 2015 global oil demand had originally been projected to be 103.2 million barrels/day, but this number has been adjusted to 93.1 million barrels/day, thereby undermining the viability of unconventional investments. True, economic slowdowns are also affecting demand, but the shift to clean energy and eventually clean transportation can only increase with time.
Evidently, global actions on climate change are starting to have an impact on Big Oil’s bottom line.
Low oil prices lead to stranded assets, dangerous debt
It now appears that the price of oil might not rise for a long time to come. Low prices cannot sustain the development of tar sands, shale and offshore oil.
This is translating into dangerously high debt loads, with assets being written off in the billions, thus generating a cascade of announcements of abandoned projects around the globe, putting tar sands projects on hold and pushing shale gas companies into bankruptcy.The US shale gas and oil sector now has accumulated a debt of $200B!
By Lorne Craig
How long can this last?
As for the Big Oil premise that concern about climate change would not translate into social change, it requires an extraordinary amount of denial to ignore the emerging paradigm change entailing: 1) the decline in growth of fossil fuels; and 2) political trends favouring more stringent policies in support of the green economy.
Collectively, these factors offer grounds for optimism and hope. And the evidence presented here is only the the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, there are now more than 100 countries that have adopted a target for 2050 to achieve zero net GHG emissions.
Meanwhile, back home, Trudeau and Harper remain wedded to the resource-based export economy, with trade deals to support this dated economic development paradigm. This while our potential customers for increased resource exports are working hard on reducing their fossil fuel dependencies.
Alberta Premier Jim Prentice meets with Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard to salvage the proposed EnergyEast pipeline.
On the provincial front, Ontario and Quebec’s participation in the cap and trade (C&T) Western Climate Initiative (WCI), along with California, is helpful, but is also purposely a smoke screen. This is to say that these standalone measures are equivalent to suggesting that one can end poverty with a single policy item. The same can be said of BC’s carbon tax.
In effect, what both BC and Quebec have in common is that their current governments are committed to a resource economy, and are totally indifferent to and/or ignorant of the green economy model. Yet, on a global scale, the green economy is currently, and will be, offering the best economic development strategies of our time, as measured in both jobs and economic growth.
To this effect, Quebec is cutting all the environmental impact corners and investing large sums of public funds to sort out the potential of – and requirements for – the development and commercialization of shale gas and oil, plus offshore oil. This despite the aforementioned $200 billion in debt of the US shale sector and, more generally, the demise of the Big Oil business model.
Quite the contrast with the third C&T participant, California, with its hefty sets of policy packages to migrate California to a green economy. Even a partial list of the state’s policies on zero-emission vehicles is incredibly long!
On the side of the LNG plant is all the money, the company itself and its crooked multi-billionaire owner, the federal government, the provincial government, the LNG lobby, the fossil fuel industry, the tanker industry, the corporate media, and the right wing in general. Shilling for Woodfibre LNG, as readers will know, is an outfit called Resource Works, funded in part by the BC Business Council and, one suspects, Woodfibre LNG itself – although that’s not been admitted or proved.
Incidentally, Woodfibre LNG and Woodfibre Natural Gas are the same company.
David a good match for Goliath
Citizens line the Sea to Sky Highway to protest Woodfibre LNG (My Sea to Sky)
One would think that the forces against us who are fighting this battle to save Howe Sound are such that we should throw up our hands in surrender and be good little boys and girls and obey our “betters”.
Au contraire – the odds are perfect because we have two allies who are invincible, the Citizens and the Truth.
Because we have the facts, telling the truth comes easy to us.
For the same reason, it is impossible for Woodfibre LNG, its acolytes and apologists to do the same. Their streams of half-truths and untruths come naturally, such that they no longer recognize truth from fiction. They also carry with them the conviction of missionaries that what they are doing is God’s work thus is good for the people.
Do I exaggerate?
Woodfibre’s spin machine
Let’s take a look at the credibility issue from several points of view.
Woodfibre LNG, has two PR agencies, one of which is Hill and Knowlton, one of the worlds largest. Here are a couple of their business adventures over the last few years.
A number of the firm’s clients over its history have been involved in most unsavoury practices. These include:
The tobacco industry in the 1950s and 1960s
The Bank of Credit and Commerce International from 1988–90 (about which Time Magazine said, “Nothing in the history of modern financial scandals rivals the unfolding saga of the Bank of Credit & Commerce International (B.C.C.I.), the $20 billion rogue empire that regulators in 62 countries shut down early this month (July 1991) in a stunning global sweep. Never has a single scandal involved so much money, so many nations or so many prominent people”)
The Government of Kuwait in the lead up to the Gulf War
The Church of Scientology from 1987–1991.
The company has also been famous for polishing the image of governments seeking to hide their human rights violations such as Indonesia, Turkey, Maldives, and Uganda.
Hill an Knowlton is one of a number of firms engaged by fracking interests in recent years.
When our governments are called upon to approve applications of Woodfibre LNG and the public to support them, we’re asked to rely upon carefully prepared words. I know from personal experience that the likes of Hill and Knowlton ensure that every public word their client speaks has been carefully laundered and approved. Any resemblance to the truth is strictly coincidental.
How confident are you, under these circumstances, that you’re getting any truth, let alone the whole truth, when you hear from Woodfibre LNG’s president Anthony Gelotti, who has worked in the development of LNG projects all over the world for Chevron, Shell North America, Enron and Mobil?
How about your confidence in the veracity of Woodfibre LNG’s vice president and constant spokesman – about whom more in a moment – Byng Giraud?
Woodfibre VP oversaw regulatory affairs for Mount Polley
Giraud joined Woodfibre Natural Gas Limited in April 2013 and this may interest you – immediately before was vice-president corporate affairs for Imperial Metals, owner of the Mount Polley mine which, in 2014, caused massive destruction in Quesnel Lake, Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Cariboo Creek, and the entire Quesnel and Cariboo river systems right up to the Fraser River. As vice-president, Giraud was responsible for regulatory affairs and communication with regulators.
Woodfibre flacks lie to lobbying commissioner
Woodfibre LNG also uses a Canadian PR firm, Global Affairs Inc.
Now hear this!
In order to lobby the federal government, each of them was required to register with The Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying, pledging that their clients are essentially independent of any control from outsiders. Needless to say, they are expected to be truthful.
Here’s what they did:
First, Hill and Knowlton Strategies’ lobbyists Mark Cameron and Ryan Kelahear – in both their client information segments – state that their client “is not a subsidiary of any other parent companies” and that “The activities of Woodfibre Natural Gas Limited are not controlled or directed by another person or organization with a direct interest in the outcome of this undertaking”.
Meanwhile, Global Public Affairs Inc. lobbyists Katherine Preiss and Dan Seekings gave precisely the same undertakings to the Commission.
These are, to put it bluntly, barefaced lies.
Here is the truth – Woodfibre LNG, the proponent of the Squamish project, is a subsidiary of Singapore-based Pacific Oil & Gas Limited, part of the Singapore-based Royal Golden Eagle group.
Royal Golden Eagle was founded, is owned and controlled by Sukanto Tanoto, a business tycoon with a personal wealth estimated at $2.3 billion US; he is considered one of the richest men in Indonesia.
Indonesian billionaire’s long record of fraud, eco-crimes
But does this really matter? Aren’t these just pieces of paper that the bureaucracy loves to have and tuck away in some obscure spot?
The answer to that is an unequivocal YES it matters a great deal! This information is of vital importance and here is a good example of why – here’s the actual track record of Sukanto Tanoto the PR companies are obviously trying to bury.
As owner of Indonesia’s Unibank, he borrowed heavily and then managed to avoid repayment of $442 million US to customers.
Animal lovers accuse Tanoto’s palm oil enterprise of causing orangutan deaths on a large scale and destruction of the habitat of the Sumatran tiger.
His critics, including Greenpeace, call Tanoto “Indonesia’s lead driver of rainforest destruction.” His companies and contractors routinely violate local laws and illegally expand palm and pulp and paper production into rainforests, national parks and community lands.
In 1988, a rupture occurred in an aeration lagoon at Indorayon, a pulp and paper mill owned by a subsidiary of Tanoto’s RGE, sending raw chemical waste into a river from which several villages drew their water.
Five years later, a boiler exploded, showering the countryside with chlorine and other chemicals. Thousands of people fled. Clearly there were alternatives to chlorine, but they would have made the production process more expensive.
Mr. Tanoto’s companies have a poor record of complying with government regulations.
These allegations, unchallenged by Mr. Tanoto, have been made in first class newspapers, including the Guardian and a summary of them appeared on these pages in an article I wrote some months ago.
Is this kind of neighbour Squamish wants?
This is the man upon whose reputation and credibility Woodfibre LNG depends when they come to our governments, and to us as citizens, and promise that they will obey our laws, not cheat on taxes, and be good corporate citizens – especially when it comes to our environment?
How do you feel about believing Mr. Tanoto, his employees and their public relations companies?
Squamish resident and My Sea to Sky co-founder Tracey Saxby put it this way:
[quote]We need to ask whether Tanoto is who we want to welcome to Squamish as our new neighbour. You have to question as well, when you have somebody who doesn’t necessarily have the same ethics or morals you’d like to see in a good neighbour, how does that filter down in the company that he owns? It really comes down to a question of trust and do we trust that Woodfibre LNG is going to do the right thing. And I think the answer to that is that most people don’t.[/quote]
Industry lobby uses deception, fakes interview
Let me now to take you back to recent articles I wrote here about Resource Works and their averment that that tanker traffic in Howe Sound was confirmed safe by Dr. Michael Hightower of Albuquerque New Mexico. In fact, this was a distorted statement from a phoney interview that was conducted by Resource Works. A sham!
When, after the so-called interview, Dr. Eoin Finn talked to Dr. Hightower it became quite clear that he was not referring to Howe Sound. Moreover, and this would be funny if it weren’t so serious, when you actually use Dr. Hightower’s calculations, there is absolutely no way tanker traffic in Howe Sound could be considered safe. This is more than confirmed by the fact that less conservative scientists than Dr. Hightower have set standards by which the safety boundaries actually go up on top of the Sea-To-Sky Highway!
[quote]I believe it is also important to clarify that LNG shipping is important to clarify that LNG shipping is extremely safe. LNG has been shipped around the world for 50 years, and there has never been any recorded loss of containment from an LNG carrier at sea. (Emphasis mine – RM)[/quote]
Here are the facts with respect to tankers in Howe Sound, where you may recall, Woodfibre LNG proposes to send its tankers – not LNG tankers at sea.
Minimum Safe Separation
Sandia International laboratories has defined for the US Department of Energy three hazard zones of 500m, 1600m, and 3500m surrounding LNG tankers. The largest, a circle of 3500m radius centred on the moving ship, represents the minimum safe separation between tankers and people. Other LNG hazard experts say at least 4800m is a more realistic minimum safe separation distance.
Channels too narrow
Courtesy of Eoin Finn – Click to enlarge
Almost nowhere in Howe Sound can a ship in mid-channel be more than 1600m from shore. North of Britannia Beach, the Sound is only about 2700m wide. The 3 possible outbound routes from there to the Salish Sea (one east and two west of Bowen) contain another 14 choke points, where the average width is reduced to just 1850m. Thus the Sandia 3500m minimum safety zone extends more than 2 kilometres beyond each side of all those channels. Virtually the entire Sea to Sky Highway from Britannia down to Lighthouse Park, Anvil, Bowyer, Bowen, eastern Gambier, most of Keats, and the Pasley Islands group, – representing many thousands of people – all lie well within the 3500m zone.
Dr. Finn and Commander Sweeny have interpreted these findings with overlays on charts of Howe Sound and the evidence is solid and final. The proposed Woodfibre LNG tanker route falls well inside these conservative limits.
You can see, I trust, why credibility matters so much.
When Mr. Giraud speaks of “LNG tankers at sea” it’s no slip of the tongue but a very deliberate misstatement. He wants you to think that that safety record includes narrow channels like Howe Sound and it clearly does nothing of the sort.
Opponents not going away
I leave you with this thought:
The Howe Sound Action Committee and the various organizations and citizens that are dedicated to fighting the Squamish LNG proposal realize that all of the money and the power is against us.
We also know that we have two things going for us – the citizens and the facts, and this gives us credibility.
On the other hand, Woodfibre LNG’s “case” is built on falsehood, starting with the question as to who they really are, and half-truths which will always come out and cannot stand the most cursory examination.
Howe Sound is not just the fight of those who live along its shores. This is a gem of nature, possessed by all British Columbians; we must, all of us, take up the cudgels and fight those who would destroy this fantastic natural asset that belongs to all 4 million-plus of us.
We who fight have been underestimated. Woodfibre has underestimated us, the governments have underestimated us, the mainstream media has underestimated us.
That will prove to be a very serious mistake. Let it be clearly understood that we intend to fight to the end and we accept that civil disobedience on a large scale will be required.
A cleanup crew works on Third Beach following the recent English Bay oil spill
I say three cheers for Premier Christy Clark and Mayor Gregor Robertson of Vancouver.
The verbal assault by the Premier on the federal government was more than justified by recent events and just happens to be a move that is always popular amongst many British Columbians, frankly including me, whenever Ottawa behaves like Ottawa – which is most of the time.
The recent oil spill in English Bay is, as has been said by so many, a wake up call. In fact, however, there are many people like Dr. Eoin Finn, who didn’t need that wake-up call and have said for a long time that sooner or later an accident like this was going to happen. As sure as the penny will turn up heads sometime, there will be next one and it could be infinitely worse.
Federal cuts mean increased risk to coast
Before we get to the future let’s just take a look at the present. The prime minister of the country immediately defends his cuts in funding and acts as if this spill really is of very little consequence. His gauleiter in BC, James Moore, a lump of arrogance in a three-piece suit, actually opined that the response to this spill was just peachy.
The Member of Parliament most concerned about the future of oil spills is the one for my constituency, John Weston since his constituency includes Howe Sound and Squamish. It is through Howe Sound that the powers that be, including the two senior governments and the entire fossil fuel “establishment”, want to run LNG tankers to English Bay for refuelling!
LNG tankers are risky business
Let me pause here to say that opposition to these tankers is not based on some dreams concocted by airy fairy environmentalists, munching nuts and chewing raisins. Thanks to the work of Dr. Finn and Cmdr. Roger Sweeny (RCN Ret.), we know that even the most conservative expert evidence, that of Dr Michael Hightower of New Mexico, and several other experts, is such that Howe Sound is utterly unsuitable for LNG tanker traffic. In fact, the boast of the tanker industry of a safe record with LNG, while fundamentally true, overlooks the fact that this is because tankers don’t go into dangerous places like Howe Sound.
MP Weston wrong to defend tankers, LNG
Getting back to Mr. Weston, this issue should demonstrate, as if a demonstration were necessary, that the political system in this country simply doesn’t work. Here we have the Member of Parliament for an area which is largely up in arms at the thought of an LNG plant in Squamish, not only supporting that plant at every turn – berating at the West Vancouver Council for being opposed – but now struck dumb by an oil spill which demonstrates the huge dangers posed by this LNG plant he so loyally and stubbornly supports.
Surely to God this question must be raised by all reasonable people, no matter how they feel about LNG plants or tankers:
[quote]Why hasn’t John Weston been asking questions in the House about the cleanup capability in BC long before now?
Why isn’t he raising hell about this oil spill?[/quote]
Everyone knows that clean-up capability been under-funded by his government yet not a peep out of the man sent to Ottawa to represent our concerns.
Now that we have this huge wake up call, Mr. Weston is totally unconcerned for one very plain reason – he must be loyal to the government and its policies, however damaging they may be to his constituency. How else can he get that coveted cabinet post?
Surprisingly, Clark deserves some credit
I am certainly no fan of the premier or her government but am compelled to say that she has shown, in the clutch, the kind of leadership British Columbians expect when, as usual, Ottawa indifference is raising havoc in this faraway nuisance it couldn’t care less about.
Anyone who wishes to criticize the premier for her immediate and strong reaction should ask themselves this: If the premier doesn’t stand up for the people of British Columbia who will?
It sure as hell won’t be the likes of the Honourable James Moore or government backbencher John Weston.
Ocean pollution specialist Dr. Peter Ross displays an oily substance from English Bay (Vancouver Aquarium)
The following is an open letter by Ben West of the group Tanker Free BC to Christy Clark.
Dear Premier Clark,
In a 2013 interview with Peter Mansbridge, you discussed Canada’s inability to handle a major coastal oil spill now, let alone in the future should new pipelines be approved. “We are woefully under-resourced,” you said.
In that same year your government rejected the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and tanker project in part because of concerns around oil spills. “British Columbia thoroughly reviewed all of the evidence and submissions made to the panel and asked substantive questions about the project including its route, spill response capacity and financial structure to handle any incidents,” said then B.C. Environment Minister Terry Lake in a May 31 media release. “Our questions were not satisfactorily answered during these hearings.”
On April 9th, 2015 a oil spill took place in the Vancouver Harbour. City of Vancouver staff were not even informed until the next morning and later that day it was revealed that 6 hours went by before booms were put in place. Oil has washed up on the beaches of Stanley Park, Jericho Beach and Ambleside Beach in West Vancouver among other places. No signs were put up on beaches to warn residents and visitors. At this time it is still unknown exactly how much oil was spilled or even by whom. The apparent lack of coordination seems to prove your point from 2013, we clearly are “woefully unprepared”.
To make things worse we now know that the recently closed Kitsilano Coast Guard station could have had booms in the water within six minutes, as opposed to six hours. Next month the Vancouver Coast Guard MCTS centre that regulates shipping movements in Vancouver Harbour is scheduled to close. These are our marine traffic controllers?!?
There are also plans to close the Regional Marine Information Centre (RMIC).The RMIC notifies responders, government agencies such as Transport Canada, Environment Canada, Environmental Response and others so a proper response can be mobilized.
The Harper Conservatives will CLOSE this notification centre on May 6, 2015 as part of the larger cuts to the west coast marine safety network. The Coast Guard will also cease providing anchorage assistance to ships, including tankers when the MCTS centre closes and moved to Victoria next month. This is strongly opposed by BC Coast Pilots and Port Metro Vancouver.
Ottawa hasn’t developed or implemented any replacement system for the dissemination of these pollution reports.
Yet your government continues to allow the Harper Government to call the shots when it comes to decisions about pipelines that would lead to massive increases in tanker and other vessel traffic in BC.
Please make this oil spill incident in our harbour the last straw. Please do as municipal leaders from across the province have requested via a resolution at the Union of BC Municipalities and withdraw BC from the National Energy Boards process regarding the proposed Kinder Morgan pipeline project. And please formally withdraw from the “equivalency agreement” with the Federal Government that puts the environmental assessment and public consultation process under their control.
These are clearly not world class safety standards. Please stand up for the BC coast and do not allow the discussion of increased tanker traffic to continue until the current safety issues are addressed.
Christy Clark promotes “Clean LNG” at Vancouver conference last year (David P. Ball/The Tyee)
The Vancouver Sun – rapidly becoming, if it hasn’t already become the “Pravda” of Vancouver – has done it again with another article supporting LNG and the proposed Squamish plant. This one is by a father and daughter combination and they come to what to me, at any rate, is an amazing conclusion.
LNG would help the climate? Puh-leeze!
If you just read the headline you would assume that this story has British Columbia saving the world from atmospheric pollution and global warming if it just starts to produce more natural gas. If you work your way through the article – and it’s pretty crappy – you’ll see that their point is that natural gas is not as bad as coal or oil. They conclude by suggesting that it would be a very good thing if British Columbia would produce more LNG and, of course, built an LNG facility in Squamish.
Here is the reasoning as I understand it:
If BC “fracks” away, pollutes the ground and the water around it, uses water that is needed elsewhere, dumps chemical-laden water into the water table, further pollutes the air by extracting the natural gas and releasing massively climate-damaging fugitive methane emissions, pipes it dangerously to Squamish, uses enormous amounts of energy to convert it to LNG, then puts it on tankers which by the most conservative estimates will cause great risk to Howe Sound; it’s then taken to, say, China, and is burned causing more pollution into the atmosphere – that this is a very good thing that British Columbia is doing to save the atmosphere and lessen global warming. Hooray for us!
If on the other hand, we leave it in the ground, that would be a very bad thing for the environment. Like, Wow!
Does anybody believe this stuff?
I’m quite happy to have the Podtmedia papers falling all over themselves to kiss Harper and Clark’s backsides and support their undying love for fossil fuels in all forms – the reason being that nobody believes these papers anymore, so shrill have they become. They seem not only unwilling but unable to present the other side of the story and so far as I am aware don’t even report the extremely active goings-on of those who oppose LNG and the Squamish facility.
Sometimes it takes a while but eventually people notice this. They know that there are an awful lot of very intelligent people, not all of the left, who are opposed to LNG generally and the Squamish facility specifically and that that number is growing. When they don’t see that mentioned in either of the Vancouver papers, they conclude that the Vancouver papers are stuck in a right-wing time warp.
Harcourt joins Team LNG
I’ve always felt that in political debates it’s more important as to who your enemies are than your friends. To have Postmedia as an enemy is infinitely better than having them as a friend.
The same can be said for Mike Harcourt, who has jumped into the fray on behalf of Woodfibre LNG and their ventriloquist dummy, Resource Works. This latter organization has poured out such atrocious untruths that they have instantly become, at least in the Sea-to-Sky and Squamish communities, utterly unbelievable.
Mr. Harcourt, who was a mediocrity as mayor of Vancouver and an utter failure as Premier – his inability to run a government destroying his political party in the bargain – is talking a lot of nonsense about rigorous environmental proceedings and public process.
It is amazing to me that people like Harcourt still believe that if you tell a big enough fib, people will believe it. That may have been true at one time but it’s not anymore.
There is one area of inquiry that Postmedia, Mr. Harcourt, the governments and fossil fuel proponents have avoided like the plague, and it’s critically important.
LNG tanker risks ignored
As has appeared in these pages several times, LNG tanker traffic in Howe Sound is far too dangerous to even contemplate. The most conservative of the American experts is Dr. Mike Hightower of Albuquerque, New Mexico, whose standards have been accepted by the US government.
Taking his measurements as to how far tankers must be from land and from other vessels, there is no way in God’s green earth that Howe Sound is suitable for LNG tanker traffic. Dr. Hightower is considered very conservative in this area and the middle-of-the-road expertise suggests it’s far more dangerous.
Surely we must all ask ourselves why this issue has not been thoroughly canvassed Postmedia, Resource Works, senior governments, Mike Harcourt, and others. What are they afraid of?
The answer to that question is simple – the truth. The possibility that Environmentalists, of all people, might be right on something is too much for them to stomach.
Concerns justified
Well, I’m here to tell you, on this issue especially we are right. There is no quarrel with that from anyone who knows anything about this issue.
In fact, my story in these pages so shook Woodfibre LNG that the president called an emergency meeting on a Saturday to announce that another route would be pursued. As you read here, Commander Roger Sweeny (RCN Ret), an expert on these matters and a lifelong landowner in Howe Sound, quickly concluded that this alternative was far, far worse than the original!
This obviously accounts for the fact that Woodfibre LNG and Resource Works have been struck dumb ever since.
I consider myself very fortunate to be able to use these pages, from time to time, to bring to you these facts so unpleasant to Woodfibre LNG, their high paid truth-benders, their captive politicians and pliable press that they dare not even mention them.
If I may say so, we are all very fortunate to have these pages to read after gagging on at the rubbish published by Woodfibre LNG and their acolytes.
