Greenspiration News: election, Green Deal, carbon bloat

Sun Oct 12 10:37:09 EDT 2008

Greenspiration News

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"Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat,
but it's something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it,
democracy crumbles."
- Abbie Hoffman

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Don't forget to vote on Tues. Oct. 14. If you don't know where to vote, go
to http://www.elections.ca/

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More than 120 of Canada's top climate scientists have signed an open
letter urging Canadians to vote strategically for the environment in next
week's federal election.  http://www.site.climateletter.org/

To vote strategically for the environment:

    VOTE FOR ENVIRONMENT
    http://www.voteforenvironment.ca/

    VOTE FOR CLIMATE
    http://www.voteforclimate.ca

    VOTERS TAKING ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
    http://www.vtacc.org

    ANYTHING BUT CONSERVATIVE
    http://www.anythingbutconservative.com

    PAIR VOTE - Strategic Voting for 2008 Canadian Federal Election
    http://www.votepair.ca/

    ANTI-HARPER VOTE SWAP CANADA
    http://www.voteswapcanada.ca/

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Readers call for Proportional Representation

My last Greenspiration mail out got several responses to my suggestions
for strategic voting. Here's one:

"I understand the majority's desperation to keep Harper out, but we've got
to wake up to the painful, horrible realities of our current electoral
system. By voting strategically, we keep trying to make it work, and when
it almost does, we limp along until the next hold-your-nose election.
It'll never get fixed that way. The only way people will realize how bad
it is is to vote positively, then let us all suffer the consequences."

And here's another: "I encourage you to look beyond this election.
Personally, I don't want to spend the rest of my life hearing debates
about strategic voting.  It's a viable band-aid solution that diverts time
and energy, distracts us from the real issues and should be completely
unnecessary.  Canada is one of the only western countries that still uses
First Past the Post, an out-of-date system that was designed for a
two-party environment.  With three or more parties, it simply fails to
operate as a democratic process. It marginalizes smaller parties, excludes
new voices, forces strategic voting, and can even reward an unpopular
party with a majority government.  Many countries have changed their
system, and we can too."

To get hard facts about our current first-past-the-post electoral system,
see: http://www.fairvote.ca/ and
http://www.orphanvoters.ca

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Check out <http://www.harperindex.ca/>www.HarperIndex.ca - Analyzing
persuasion tactics of Canada's Conservatives

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This is what our election candidates should be talking about, combining
the financial meltdown worries with the world's environmental crisis. -a
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A 'Green New Deal' can save the world's economy, says UN

Independent, 12 October 2008

Top economists and United Nations leaders are working on a "Green New
Deal" to create millions of jobs, revive the world economy, slash poverty
and avert environmental disaster, as the financial markets plunge into
their deepest crisis since the Great Depression. <snip>

The Green Economy Initiative - which will be spearheaded by the United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), headquartered here, and is already
being backed by governments – draws its inspiration from Franklin
Roosevelt's New Deal, which ended the 1930s depression and helped set up
the world economy for the unprecedented growth of the second half of the
20th century.

It, too, envisages basing recovery on providing work for the poor, as well
as reform of financial practices, after a crash brought on by unregulated
excesses of the free market and the banking system.

“The 20th century economy, now in such crisis, was driven by financial
capital. The 21st century one is going to have to be based on developing
the world's natural capital to provide the lasting jobs and wealth that
are needed, particularly for the poorest people on the planet”

He says for example, that it makes more sense to invest in preserving
forests, peatlands and soils, which naturally absorb carbon dioxide, than
destroying them and then developing expensive technology to do the job.

Full article:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/a-green-new-deal-can-save-the-worlds-economy-says-un-958696.html

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Sign the Petition for a Climate Coalition

We, the undersigned, urge the leaders of the Liberal Party of Canada, the
New Democratic Party of Canada, the Bloc Québecois and the Green Party of
Canada to form a coalition on the issue of climate change only that will
seek to coordinate policies and action on climate change. The objective of
this political collaboration will be to ensure that the will of the
majority of Canadians is honoured and a much stronger set of climate
change policies is implemented in Canada.

http://climatecoalition.ca/index.php

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As you ponder how you will vote after your tofurky this week-end, tune
into rabble.ca's election blog for the analysis you need before and after
the election.
http://www.rabble.ca/

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Oil sands will pollute Great Lakes, report warns

Globe and Mail, October 8, 2008

The environmental impacts of Alberta's oil sands will not be restricted to
Western Canada, researchers say, but will extend thousands of kilometres
away to the Great Lakes, threatening water and air quality around the
world's largest body of fresh water.

In a new report, the University of Toronto's Munk Centre says the massive
refinery expansions needed to process tar sands crude, and the new
pipeline networks for transporting the fuel, amount to a “pollution
delivery system” connecting Alberta to the Great Lakes region of Canada
and the U.S.

It warns that the refineries will be using the Great Lakes “as a cheap
supply” source for their copious water needs and the area's air “as a
pollution dump.” <snip>

“This expansion promises to bring with it an exponential increase in
pollution, discharges into waterways including the Great Lakes,
destruction of wetlands, toxic air emissions, acid rain, and huge
increases in greenhouse gas emissions,” it says.

<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081008.wlakes08/BNStory/National/home?cid=al_gam_mostview>http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20081008.wlakes08/BNStory/National/home?cid=al_gam_mostview

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Ecuador:  First Country in the World to Shift to Rights-Based
Environmental Protection

By an overwhelming margin, the people of Ecuador today voted for a new
constitution that is the first in the world to recognize legally
enforceable Rights of Nature, or ecosystem rights.

Ecuador's constitution now recognizes that ecosystems possess the
inalienable and fundamental right to exist and flourish, and that people
possess the legal authority to enforce those rights on behalf of
ecosystems.  In addition, these laws require the governments to remedy
violations of those ecosystem rights.

The Legal Defense Fund has also assisted communities in the U.S. to adopt
laws that change the status of ecosystems from being regarded as property
under the law to being recognized as rights-bearing entities.

http://www.celdf.org/

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REDUCE CARBON BLOAT BY CUTTING BACK ON FROZEN FARE
BY ADRIA VASIL, Ecoholic, Now Magazine

Q: What’s the best way to reduce my carbon footprint through my diet?

A: As a friend, I should tell you that you’re looking a little bloated
these days. We all are. When researchers measured the greenhouse gases
that are swallowed up in the average Canadian household’s diet, our annual
food-related GHG emissions were almost twice that of our driving habit!

Read full article: http://www.nowtoronto.com/lifestyle/ecoholic.cfm

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IS MY LUNCH CAUSING GLOBAL WARMING?

Did you know, the food system is responsible for 1/3 of global greenhouse
emissions?

With every meal you eat, you have the power to reduce climate change.

The Bon Appétit Management Company Low Carbon Diet Calculator is designed
to allow you to compare the relative carbon impacts of your food choices.

http://www.eatlowcarbon.org/

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"Stuck in the Tar Sands: How the Federal Government’s Proposed Climate
Change Strategy Lets Oil Companies off the Hook" demonstrates how the
federal government has failed to hold oil companies accountable for the
emissions they generate.

Climate Action Network is calling for an immediate tax on greenhouse gas
pollution, the development and implementation of a rigorous cap-and-trade
system and a requirement that all existing and new oil sands operations
become “carbon neutral” by 2020.

To download the report, go to  <http://www.climateactionnetwork.ca>

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Columbus's Population Bomb

Columbus Day, celebrated in many parts of the Americas this month,
commemorates the most catastrophic population disaster in human history.
Scholars estimate that 90 to 95 percent of the native population died
during the first century after contact with the Europeans, and more than
500 years later, many of the native groups that survived remain mired in
chronic poverty and face new threats in the form of multinational oil and
mining companies, soybean farmers, and cattle ranchers.

Read:
<http://www.elabs5.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=lizj,3bde,db,bhat,7qzg,cdbq,7xpq&MLM_MID=154706&MLM_UNIQUEID=8ce765a66e>"The
Meaning of Columbus Day," World Watch

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Global Species Survival In Crisis

The World Conservation Union's (IUCN) World Congress in Barcelona this
week announced that more than a third of the world's species are
threatened with extinction. According to the IUCN's latest Red List of
Threatened Species, about 38 percent of the 44,838 species listed are
designated as "threatened" and 7 percent are "critically endangered."

Read:
<http://www.elabs5.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=lizj,3bde,db,4c3,gnzb,cdbq,7xpq&MLM_MID=154706&MLM_UNIQUEID=8ce765a66e>Global
Species Survival "In Crisis," Red List Says

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Ontario's Green Future

Ontario can obtain 100% of its grid-supplied electricity from renewable
sources by 2027 if Energy and Infrastructure Minister George Smitherman
adopts the recommendations in the Ontario Clean Air Alliance’s new report,
<http://www.ontariosgreenfuture.ca/Ontarios_Green_Future.pdf>Ontario’s
Green Future.

The report’s three key recommendations are: build on success; take the lid
off clean power; and make nuclear the last choice, not the first.

Build on success
Ontario’s Standard Offer Program for Renewable Power has been a huge
success, attracting more projects in one year than the Ontario Power
Authority had projected would be available in 10.  It’s time to extend
this simple and effective program, which pays a fixed price for each
kilowatt-hour (kWh) of new supply, to energy efficiency and clean combined
heat and power projects.

Take the lid off clean power
We also need to make the Standard Offer Program model more robust by
removing arbitrary project size limits and raising the standard offer
price to reflect the true comparative cost of obtaining power from new
nuclear units and associated transmission systems.

Make nuclear the last choice, not the first
Nuclear power projects have a long history of massive cost overruns in
Ontario. No other electricity generation projects, whether they be wind,
water, solar or natural gas, are allowed to pass their capital cost
overruns on to ratepayers and taxpayers.  It is time to end this and other
costly special deals for nuclear and to make nuclear projects compete
fairly with other generation sources.

Ontario should pass a Nuclear Cost Responsibility Act that makes it
illegal for nuclear capital cost overruns to be passed on to ratepayers or
taxpayers. This will prevent any additions to the $18 billion “stranded”
nuclear debt that is still being paid off by Ontario ratepayers.

The Ontario’s Green Future report can be downloaded from:
<http://www.ontariosgreenfuture.ca/Ontarios_Green_Future.pdf>http://www.ontariosgreenfuture.ca/Ontarios_Green_Future.pdf

Website: <http://www.cleanairalliance.org/>www.cleanairalliance.org
Website: <http://www.ontariosgreenfuture.ca/>www.OntariosGreenFuture.ca

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Wal-Mart Nation

Airing: Sunday October 12 at 11 pm ET/PT on CBC Newsworld
What does Miss America have against Wal-Mart? Anti-Wal-Mart activists in
Canada & the USA battle against the world's largest retailer.
<http://links.cbc.ca/a/l.x?T=jncickafnhecnbicfhbabpia&M=4>Read facts about
Wal-Mart.

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Starhawk has produced a Climate Change Primer:

<http://www.earthactivisttraining.org/climate_resources.html>http://www.earthactivisttraining.org/climate_resources.html

"The environment is not an afterthought:  it’s the ground of economy,
security and survival.  Environmental protection, environmental justice
and regeneration must be our top priorities, because they are the only
sound foundation for every other endeavor."

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