Archive
Earthgauge Radio – August 21, 2018
A Canadian environmental news podcast featuring stories from across Canada and around the world. Broadcast every other Tuesday at 12:00 noon EST on CKCU radio 93.1 FM in Ottawa or online at www.ckcufm.com. Or join me here for the podcast.
On the show this week:
- Antibiotic genes are airborne
- Investor skepticism grows over the Canadian government’s Kinder Morgan pipeline purchase
- A toxic red tide in Florida is causing environmental havoc
- Brazil’s leading food retailer goes cage-free
- Weed killer Roundup is found in kids’ cereals
- The world passes the milestone of generating over 1 terawatt of power from wind and solar
- And the west coast Orca lets her dead newborn go after carrying body for 17 days
Earthgauge News – Oct. 30, 2017
Edition #4 of the Earthgauge News podcast for the week of Oct. 30, 2017.
A weekly Canadian environmental news podcast featuring stories from across Canada and around the world.
Join me here every Monday or subscribe in iTunes or your favourite podcast catcher.
On the show this week:
- Could owning a car become a thing of the past?
- The calming effects of nature
- Giant oil companies are paying less taxes in Canada than elsewhere
- The state of Victoria in Australia is the latest place to ban plastic bags
- Fossil fuel consumption in Canada is projected to peak by 2019, but global CO2 levels shot up at record levels in 2016.
Earthgauge News – Oct. 15, 2017
Edition #2 of the new podcast Earthgauge News for the week of Oct. 15, 2017.
A weekly Canadian environmental news podcast featuring the top environmental stories from across Canada and around the world.
Join us here every week or subscribe in iTunes or your favourite podcast catcher.
Earthgauge News
The inaugural edition of our new podcast Earthgauge News! A weekly Canadian environmental news podcast featuring the top environmental stories from across Canada for the week of Oct. 9, 2017.
Join us here every week or subscribe in iTunes or your favourite podcast catcher.
Will John Kerry reject Keystone XL?
A very interesting post today by Joe Romm at ThinkProgress.org. Based on the recent comments of the new U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, Romm is speculating that Kerry “shows no sign whatsoever of backing down from the moral urgency that has made him a true climate champion.” Click the video link above to see Kerry’s first big foreign policy speech in which he says the following:
We as a nation must have the foresight and courage to make the investments necessary to safeguard the most sacred trust we keep for our children and grandchildren: an environment not ravaged by rising seas, deadly superstorms, devastating droughts, and the other hallmarks of a dramatically changing climate.
As Romm writes, “Does this sound like a man who is going to launch his term as Secretary of State approving the expansion of one of the dirtiest sources of fossil fuels in the world? His repetition of the word “courage” makes it sound like he is talking directly to the President.”
Remember that the U.S. State Department, under Kerry’s leadership, must give its approval to Keystone XL (because it crosses an international border) before the project can proceed.
New details of Canadian government’s tar sands cheerleading campaign
This article is not new but I felt it was important to mention it given the shocking length to which our federal government is willing to go to lobby on behalf of the tar sands. As you likely know, the European Union has proposed classifying crude produced from Alberta’s tar sands as much dirtier than other fuels. The Canadian government is well known to be fighting this move but now an examination of hundreds of pages of documents obtained under access to information legislation in both Brussels and Ottawa show just how extensive the government’s lobbying efforts have been.
Remember, lobbying efforts by corporations are nothing new. What’s important to keep in mind here is that this is a sovereign state fighting on behalf of some of the largest corporations in the world. Here is an excerpt from the article:
The governments of Canada and Alberta, along with Canadian companies, have wooed dozens of European parliamentarians, offered trips to Alberta and sponsored conferences in an effort that Chris Davies, a British Liberal Member of the European Parliament and a backer of the EU proposal, said “has been stunning in its intensity.”
Satu Hassi, a Finnish MEP for the Greens and another backer of the EU proposal, said the thing that sets Canada’s campaign apart is not its size but its official backing. “There have been massive lobbying campaigns by the car industry, by the chemicals industry, banks, food giants, etc. But so far I have not seen such a lobbying campaign by any state.”
Emails from Canadian diplomats and other documents show Canada feared negative publicity could hit tens of billions of dollars of investment in its industry by such European majors as Royal Dutch Shell, BP, France’s Total and Norway’s Statoil.
“The oil sands are posing a growing reputational problem, with the oil sands defining the Canadian brand,” London-based Canadian diplomat Sushma Gera wrote in a confidential e-mail on August 20, 2010, which like many of the documents acquired through Freedom of Information legislation has been redacted. “With (a) recent increase in the NGO campaigns targeting (the European) public, we anticipate increased risk to Canadian interests much beyond the oil sands.”
Last year, Natural Resources Minister Joe Olive sent a letter to European officials implying that if Europe pressed ahead with tagging tar sands dirtier, Canada would take its case to the World Trade Organisation.
Global greenhouse gas emissions linked to economic growth
“A new study from the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research suggests that a transformation of the world’s economies or a limit to economic growth may be needed to curb the rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.”
This comes from a recent article about the fundamental incompatibility of an economic system based on endless growth and the problem of climate change. And therein lies the fundamental paradox of our times. Our modern, industrial, capitalist economy depends upon endless growth to function. We celebrate every uptick in the growth rate and fret when growth is “sluggish”. Yet as this study demonstrates, more growth leads to more greenhouse gas emissions and consequently an accelerated rate of climate change. So we can have one or the other, it seems, but not both. What will it be? More growth or less climate change?
“The researchers found that for each trillion in U.S. dollars that global GDP deviates from the trend, there is an accompanying deviation in CO2 levels of about half a part per million (ppm), reported LiveScience.
Noting that the study “more or less” echoes 1972’s “The Limits to Growth,” author and environmental activist Bill McKibben told HuffPost in an email, “We should change the meaning of ‘business-as-usual’ to focus on building more resilient, localized, community-focused economies, instead of the sprawling ones that for the last few decades have been awarding their bounty to the 1%.”
Climate Change And Sustained Economic Growth Link Observed In New Study.
Canada’s coal industry pressured government to weaken regulations
Perhaps it’s no surprise that the coal industry would try to exert pressure on the federal Conservatives but the fact that their efforts were so successful speaks volumes about who has the ear of this government (hint: it’s not environmentalists).
Briefing notes prepared by Environment Canada in September show that proposed regulations to crack down on pollution from coal-fired power plants offered an 18-month deferral on enforcement of the regulations “because of the interventions made by ATCO,” an Alberta-based energy company.
Here’s an excerpt from the Postmedia article:
The regulations, if finalized, are slated to come into force by July 1, 2015, but ATCO was seeking the deferral “to the end of 2016,” to protect its existing “Battle River 3” generating unit.
“ATCO’s views had an influence on the proposed regulations as published,” said the briefing note, produced a few weeks after Environment Minister Peter Kent unveiled his plan.
Tim Weis, director of renewable energy and efficiency at the Pembina Institute, said any further efforts to weaken the regulations would be favouring profits over public health.
Canada’s coal industry pressured feds to weaken regulations, records say.
U.S. Geological Survey confirms fracking causes earthquakes
When I talked with Mark Ruffalo last November – whose organization organization Water Defense is trying to bridge the movements working to stop mountain top removal, hydro fracking and tar sands mining – he said that we had entered the era of “extreme energy”. As supplies of conventional fossil fuels dwindle, we are employing increasingly extreme methods to extract energy resources from the earth.
I was reminded of Ruffalo’s comments today when I read this article, which discusses two separate studies confirming a link between the practice of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” and earthquake activity. Here is an excerpt:
Energy companies are increasingly using the technique across Canada, where there is already regular seismic activity and an ever looming threat of various sized tremors. The process involves blasting water, sand and chemicals deep into the ground to fracture rock to obtain oil and natural gas.
The U.S. Geological Survey is set to release its findings Wednesday that a “remarkable” increase of quakes in the U.S. midcontinent since 2001 is “almost certainly” the result of oil and gas production.
Opposition to fracking has ramped up since the release of the 2010 documentary “Gasland,” which shows residents of small town Colorado setting alight tap water they charge was soured by nearby oil industry activity.
Fracking causes earthquakes, studies confirm – Technology & Science – CBC News.
Earthgauge Radio April 5: Elizabeth May // Federal Budget 2012 // Land Awakening
On Earthgauge Radio this week, it’s our federal budget 2012 special program. Click the audio player above to hear the whole show. We have 2 interviews on today’s show:
- Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada and Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands
- Raul Alvarez, director of the new film Land Awakening
Earthgauge Radio is broadcast every other Thursday morning at 7:00-8:00 AM on CKCU 93.1 FM in Ottawa. Right click here to download today’s full show.
It’s been a big week in politics and for environmental issues here in Ottawa with the federal budget being released last Thurs. In addition to the well-publicized thousands upon thousands of public service job cuts, the budget was described by Chantale Hébert of the Toronto Star and CBC as the most anti-environmental budget she has seen in her 20 years on Parliament Hill. So we talked with Green Party Leader Elizabeth May this week about the Budget and what it means for environmental protection in Canada. Click the audio players below to hear this interview as well as her full speech at the University of Ottawa last week.
Elizabeth May interview. Right click here to download:
Elizabeth May speech at the University of Ottawa (April 2, 2012). Right click here to download:
Also on today’s show, Rosanna has an interview for us with Raul Alvarez, director of the film Land Awakening, which screened in Ottawa last week. A wonderfully inspiring film that challenges us to rethink our relationship with food production, the film is the director’s personal journey to experience hands-on organic sustainable agriculture. This experience becomes a spiritual reflection into our deep and sacred relationship with the land. Click the audio player below to hear this interview. Right click here to download.
Raul Alvarez interview:
We’ll also have our usual segment with Ecology Ottawa who will be updating us on local environmental events and campaigns. We’ve listed some of the upcoming events below or you can click here to see a complete list with full details.
Finally, we hear a clip from our friends at Deutsche Welle Living Planet on their coverage of the recent Planet Under Pressure conference, which took place in London, England last week. As we’re talking about the environmental assaults in the federal budget this week, we thought it was worth listening to what scientists rather than politicians have to say about the current state of our global environment.
I’m pleased to be announcing that as of today we will be moving from a bi-weekly to a weekly show. You can now hear Earthgauge when you tune in every week on Thursday morning from 7-8AM and streamed online at ckcufm.com. We’re also excited to be introducing a new partnership with the Climate Action Network who, starting next week, will be bringing us monthly features on a variety of themes.
Remember that Earthgauge Radio is podcast on iTunes if you type earthgauge into the search bar, you’ll find us. Contact us at . Facebook address is www.facebook.com/EarthgaugeRadio and Twitter handle @earthgaugeCA. Please do get in touch if you have story ideas, a comment on something you’ve heard or want to get involved or contribute to the show.
Upcoming local environmental events (courtesy of Ecology Ottawa)
Wednesday April 11th – the second in a series of Organic Gardening Workshops will be held from 7:30 to 9:30 pm at the Sandy Hill Community Centre. These workshops are a presentation of Canadian Organic Growers Ottawa in collaboration with Just Food and the City of Ottawa. Workshop number 2 will be divided into 2 parts; part 1 will focus on seeding and transplanting, including such topics as organic seed sources, seed starting requirements and transplanting to the garden. Part 2 will focus on winter storage of fruits and vegetables, including temperature & humidity requirements, drying, canning, freezing and more. Call 613-564-1062 to register or for more information.
Thursday, April 12th – the City of Ottawa will be holding a Public Open House at Ben Franklin Place to discuss plans to address the emerald ash borer problem in Ottawa. The emerald ash borer is an invasive insect that poses a serious threat to the survival of ash trees across the city. Councillor Peter Hume and the City Forestry Staff will be leading the meeting. More information will be confirmed closer to the actual date.
Thursday, April 12th – there will be an Ecology Ottawa presentation on investing in solar power at the Ashbury College Chapel, from 7:00 to 8:30 pm. Come learn what 49,000 Ontarians have already figured out: how investing in solar power providesa stable, long term financial return. Solar power generated by panels on rooftops can be sold to the province’s electrical grid at a price that is guaranteed for 20 years. This payment is known as a “feed-in tariff,” made possible by Ontario’s Green Energy Act. Come learn a step-by-step plan for installing solar power on your home. If you don’t have a good rooftop, opportunities to invest in renewable energy through the Ottawa Renewable Energy Cooperative will also be discussed.
An Environmental Film Festival is taking place at the Museum of Nature starting on April 18 and running to the 20th. Tickets are available online.
