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Climate Change’s Biggest Threat

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Collapsing ice shelfs? Nope, perhaps the gravest impact of climate change on humankind will stem from the melting glaciers of the Himalayas. These enormous ice fields feed the river systems that have sustained Indian and Chinese civilizations for millennia. With their rapid retreat, the lives of over 2 billion people are at risk due to rivers like the Ganga, Yellow, and Yangtze being reduced to a seasonal trickle for the first time in recorded history.

The timeline for the near disappearance of these glaciers has been moved up due the accelerated pace of melting. Many could disappear altogether even before the mid-century mark. These alarming trends and their grave impact on food production have been noted by Lester Brown and the folks at the Earth Policy Institute. You can also listen to a podcast of this issue, which is also part of the general discussion on their latest book, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.

Earth Hour 2008

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Next Saturday, 29th March, is Earth Hour, when, at 8 pm, the Toronto Star and World Wildlife Fund Canada is asking Canadians to turn off the lights for an hour. Various events are being organized by York students (we have asked them to let us know, so that we can let YOU know on this website). My husband, has, naturally, signed up our family and I am trying to figure out how we can take this further... What do we do as a family, once the lights, the computers, the tv (maybe my fridge?) and other electrical equipment, is all unplugged? Will we walk to our local park and look at the stars, free from light pollution? Since there has been massive sign-up in Toronto, I expect it to be quite dark. What are you doing for Earth Hour?

Dawn Bazely

Yesterday was World Water Day

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What with Earth Hour and Earth Day coming up and International Women's day come and gone, I totally forgot about World Water Day. But, last year, 2007, York University students, led by Korice Moir, who was helped by Roberta Hawkins (see the gender and water poster), and Paul Marmer, the 3 Master's students, who went to Mongolia for 3 months in 2006, as part of our Sustainable Water in Mongolia project, organized a great event with fellow Faculty of Environmental Studies students. Here are a few pictures. We had a hike around the campus (see our former Campus Planner, and IRIS exec. member, Andrew Wilson, in the central picture at the bottom) and learned about lost rivers, and the First Nations land claim that still remains to be settled. There were also posters and displays in Vari Hall and students taste-tested the difference between tap and bottled water (top photo).

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Ontario’s Ethanol Problem

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The Sunday Toronto Star carried a sobering article on the "Ethanol Craze" and how it is impacting Ontario's farmers and the province's food supply. With the cost of food rapidly increasing due to higher oil prices, conversion of a significant amount of the supply for fuel may only exacerbate the problem. It has already sparked massive protests in Mexico, where corn prices have quadrupled due to the enormous demand for corn by the US ethanol industry. Moreover, since corn is used in so many products, the downstream economic costs will be widespread. The environmental costs will also be profound, given that corn monocultures will require massive chemical inputs to keep up production.

There's much more in this feature article, so definitely take a look.

Greening the (Ex)-Governor’s Mansion

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Silda Wall Spitzer, the former first lady of New York State, and wife of disgraced governor Eliot Spitzer, had headed up an interesting project to "Green the Governor's Mansion." Here's a glimpse of her speaking in January to the U.S. Green Building Council at the New School in NYC. Luckily, the new Governor, David Paterson, is also a strong advocate on renewable energy and will most probably continue such ground breaking projects.

So you’re buying stuff that is green, eh?

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Maybe you think you are, but perhaps that “green” product isn’t so green after all. The Globe and Mail recently reported that the Competition Bureau will soon be making it a lot tougher for companies to deceptively label their products as green. That is to say it will be tougher for companies to “greenwash” consumers with claims that are misleading or outright false, as products labelled as green often sill have substantial environmental footprints, even if certain negative aspects of a product have been addressed. I’m thrilled to see this movement by the Competition Bureau as I have often felt torn by the action we’ve seen to date by most corporations. On the one hand, they are taking steps in the right direction. On the other, the steps are still of the “incremental” type, rather than the significant change that needs to happen to stabilize this planet.

The article also advises that the Competition Bureau will be working with the Canadian Standards Association to publish industry guidelines that will clearly define terms like green. That we are moving toward a time when companies will have to transparently label their products on environmental fronts is good news. Some companies have even already begun to do so, including Timberland which includes an energy “nutrition” label on its footwear. However, a lot of work is still needed in this area.

Ultimately we need measurement tools which easily allow us to compare products based on their entire life cycle. This means being able to ascertain whether that organic apple from New Zealand has a smaller impact on the environment than the local one that was grown using conventional methods. An example of such a system would be the Sustainable Business Achievement Ratings (S-BAR) which is currently under development. S-BAR touts itself to be “the first comprehensive system with a market-based, broadly applicable, and transparent means of assessing a company’s environmental, economic and social performance”. Hopefully such a system will soon be on store shelves, making it easier to determine how green a product really is.

Alberta Tar Sands documentary airs on CBC tonight

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A new documentary "Tar Sands, The Selling of Alberta" commissioned by the CBC, will be on channel 5 Toronto, tonight at 9 pm. In an interview on The Hour last night, the filmaker, Peter Raymont, pointed out that Fort McMurray, in Alberta, is the third largest Newfoundland city in Canada (that's an indication of the extent of within-Canada migration!).

For those of you who haven't paid much attention to exactly what the fuss about the Tar Sands is, imagine that you take a can of motor oil, walk over to your child's sand box (or the local park's kiddie sand box!), pour the oil into the sand, and mix it around. Then, someone tells you that you need to get that oil off of that sand and back into the can! That is the challenge with the Tar Sands - it's a huge fossil fuel reserve, but the oil is very difficult and energetically expensive to extract. When it comes to carbon emissions, the cost of extracting the oil is huge. The documentary explores the social impacts and geopolitics of this issue, moreso than the environmental aspects. But, all of these aspects are directly linked when it comes to sustainability. Highly recommended viewing.

Dawn Bazely

Green Labour Alliance builds in the US

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According to Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello and Brendan Smith, reinvestment in US workers through so-called "green collar jobs" is playing an unlikely but important role in the US presidential campaign. All the major candidates are taking up the call of the new Blue-Green Alliance, a group of environmental organizations and unions that are holding their first conference in Pittsburgh on March 13-14. This initiative hopes to see the creation of millions of green jobs to help the US transition towards an environmentally sustainable economy.

Perhaps the most important aspect of this alliance, is the putting to rest the entire "jobs vs. environment" myth that has been perpetuated to stifle past environmental legislation. Instead, a green future has now become a rallying cry for US labor, starting with the much touted Apollo Alliance that takes up the cause of energy independence, and with the approach of a new administration in 2009, its potential translation into reality.

British Columbia leads the way

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When British Columbia's finance minister Carole Taylor introduced the continent's first ever carbon tax in her provincial budget this February, her actions were greeted with almost unanimous praise in environmental circles. The news out of BC was particularly encouraging, as many felt that it would set off a chain of dominos that would see the rest of provinces and territories follow BC's lead.

The carbon tax has been a particularly tough nut to crack given the widespread antipathy towards introducing new taxes in general. With oil prices reaching record highs, any hike would be considered political suicide. However, with gas prices so high, a new levy could also be more palatable in much the same way that fair trade organic coffee has been successful due to consumers getting used to buying expensive coffee.

In perhaps a similar vein to China where the upcoming Olympics are sending various bureaucrats and administrators into massive overdrive to clean up the city, environmentalists may indeed have the Vancouver Winter Games to thank for this forward leap in thinking.

The flip side with the tax and why some have critiqued it is that it will be offset by tax breaks and credits elsewhere. As William Rees, the economist who invented 'eco-footprint' analysis notes in the alternative BC weekly Tyee:

In effect, neither business nor the average consumer will feel much financial bite from the tax and is free to spend his/her tax savings and credits on alternative forms of consumption. This amounts to "impact neutrality." (No wonder the Vancouver Board of Trade called it a "smart carbon tax" and gave the budget an 'A' grade.)

The problem is, that redirected consumption may have negative ecological impacts equivalent to those of any carbon emissions avoided. Keep in mind that climate change, while important, is only one of many symptoms of what has become rampant human ecological dysfunction.

- BC's Carbon Tax Shell Game (Tyee, February 28, 2008)

Another argument over the tax is that it may be regressive, amounting to a flat tax on gas consumption. As Tom Barrett notes in the Tyee:

Problem is, the rich are also the ones who can most easily afford to pay carbon taxes -- taxes like the ones in Tuesday's budget, which are intended to stop people from spewing out greenhouse gases.

-- How Fair Is BC's New Carbon Tax? (Tyee, February 20, 2008)

However, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives thinks the budget has "done a reasonably good job of considering economic fairness." In fact, the progressive think tank contradicts Rees in that it praises the credits as making the tax more affordable for low income families.

Indeed, debate around the carbon tax gets very complicated very quickly, bringing into contention the universal need to reduce consumption vs. the need for a fair tax policy that cushions the blow on the poor. At the very least, British Columbia has brought the debate into the realm of actual government policy!

US Candidates on Eco Issues

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Grist Magazine as a handy chart that outlines the positions of the major US presidential candidates on environmental issues. However, on the Democratic side, the chart won't help that much given the almost identical platforms of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Unfortunately, the chart ignores minor candidates and parties such as Mike Gravel (still in the race) and the Green Party who are environmental giants in comparison.

Interestingly enough, the journal continues the troubling trend of collapsing all environmental issues along the climate change-energy continuum. Although they are obviously important in themselves, both civilizational level challenges lie (or are treated as such) in the domain of economic and technological fixes. More complex and far reaching issues such as biodiversity conservation are conveniently ignored in Grist's chart, even with habitat loss, species extinction, and dislocation of traditional livelihoods exacting their increasingly grim toll.

Beyond the usual laundry list of pledges, political will and a working green majority will be vital for the passage of any far reaching legislation, particularly in the US where entrenched interests have demonstrated their unyielding strength in both houses of Congress.

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