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Opinion/editorial
Are you into hearing strong words? Just say Kyoto investigation to Premier Ed
Calgary Sun, May 9, 2008: Ed is not happy. In fact, Premier Ed is not shy about telling us he is actually miffed with the United Nations right about now. You see, this week we find out Canada is being investigated by the enforcement branch of the UN's Kyoto Protocol for allegedly failing to meet a deadline set up for reporting greenhouse gases and our country is threatened with suspension from carbon trading.
Hey! Wanna buy my SUV?
Globe and Mail, May 8, 2008: I pumped 60 bucks of gas into our SUV the other day. That was a record. My husband and I are heavy users, so we can count on pumping in another 60 bucks before the weekend. Ouch! This is getting painful. "Honey," I said, "Maybe it's time for us to trade it in."
Meat in a low-carbon world
BBC News, May 8, 2008: Feel-good food just got tricky. It was easy when "good" meant anything which could have stepped off a John Constable canvas: free range chicken, foraging pigs and grazing cattle. But then climate change came along.
Brits offer a taste of Kyoto
Toronto Sun, May 8, 2008: Great Britain is a decade ahead of Canada in the global warming debate and what's happening there today is instructive for us. Former British prime minister Tony Blair was a major booster of the Kyoto Accord. A 2006 report his Labour government commissioned from British economist Sir Nicholas Stern, predicting world-wide environmental and financial disaster if immediate steps weren't taken to combat global warming, is the Holy Grail of the international green movement.
Dion must decide soon on carbon tax
Toronto Star, May 7, 2008: With a snap spring election virtually out of the way, Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion faces what could be a make-or-break decision for his next campaign. Over the next few weeks, he will have to decide whether and when to firm up plans to make a carbon tax a centrepiece of the Liberal platform.
Time to update forestry policies
Financial Post, May 6, 2008: It has been a confusing spring for tree huggers and others worried about the environment. Last month, Greenpeace issued a report that found logging in Canada's boreal forests contributed to global warming – no surprise. But then Canadian Forest Service scientists reported the unprecedented mountain pine beetle epidemic of the past decade in British Columbia will lead to so many rotting, carbon-emitting trees that the forests will belch huge amounts of greenhouse gas.
The climate change deniers
Washington Times, May 6, 2008: When heralded Canadian environmentalist Lawrence Solomon first set out two years ago – on a bet, no less – to find credible dissenters to the well-entrenched climate change dogma, he thought he might perhaps unearth enough material for a few National Post columns. Instead, like Alice passing through the looking glass, Mr. Solomon entered a world wherein it soon became clear the much-ballyhooed idea of a "scientific consensus" was as nonsensical as "Jabberwocky."
If there is a God, he's not green. Otherwise airships would take off
The Guardian, May 6, 2008: Of all the charges levelled against environmentalists, perhaps the most unfair is the accusation that we are opposed to technological change. Most of the greens I know are fascinated by gadgets (sometimes to the exclusion of better solutions), while some of the people we confront seem terrified by new technologies, and react to them – witness the campaigns against windfarms – with irrational hostility.
To fight climate change, 'we need to put a price on carbon'
Stéphane Dion, May 4, 2008: Now, more than ever, we must build bridges. We must build bridges between environmental sustainability, social justice and economic growth because only a solution that addresses all of these concerns will ensure success. And we must build bridges among the countries of the world because climate change is a global crisis requiring global action.
A tax on carbon worthy of debate
Toronto Star, May 4, 2008: Many Canadians, including a large number of Liberals, think Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion must be crazy. With oil prices close to $120 (US) a barrel and gasoline approaching $1.30 a litre, Dion has been musing aloud about bringing in a carbon tax that would push those prices, in Canada at least, even higher.
Oilsands never 'green'
Vancouver Province, May 4, 2008: If BC Premier Gordon Campbell is serious about saving the world, he could do better than to slap British Columbians with a carbon tax. He could pick up the phone to Ed Stelmach and tell the Alberta premier to get his head out of the oil sands.
Global warming on hiatus
Toronto Sun, May 4, 2008: Let's call it Apocalypse Postponed. At least temporarily. German climate scientists have just published a study in the respected science journal Nature suggesting global warming has stopped and will not resume until at least 2015. In other words (my words, not theirs) contrary to the received wisdom of Al Gore's simplistic and propagandistic An Inconvenient Truth, global temperatures aren't moving in lockstep with rising greenhouse gas emissions, the science isn't settled and we don't know everything we need to know.
US cleans air, Canada blows smoke
Globe and Mail, May 2, 2008: In 2006, the US economy expanded at the real and robust rate of 2.9 per cent – a decent rate of growth for any advanced economy. Economic growth necessarily requires more consumption of energy, right? Economic growth necessarily requires more greenhouse gas emissions, right? Here's a quick Q&A to test these environmental assumptions.
PM's sunny relationship with Premier signals change in political landscape
Globe and Mail, May 2, 2008: Prime Minister Stephen Harper has traditionally reserved a special loathing for carbon taxes and so it was revealing earlier this year when he instead lauded Premier Gordon Campbell for introducing such a levy in British Columbia.
Oilsands spin risky strategy
Calgary Sun, May 2, 2008: Normally, spending $25 million to secure hundreds of billions would seem a prudent investment. The problem is, how much persuasion can even that much laundering purchase when confronted with so much inconvenient reality?
Natural born survivors
The Guardian, May 2, 2008: For three years, my husband has talked about taking to the hills. About buying a smallholding on Exmoor where, with our four-year-old daughter, we can safely survive the coming storm – famine, pestilence and a total breakdown of society.
Carbon tariff might be legal as a VAT
Financial Post, May 1, 2008: Notwithstanding a barrage of gloomy economic news, pressure is mounting on the US and Canadian governments to take firm action to limit carbon dioxide emissions through regulation, caps and taxes. Some states and provinces have acted already, and even President George W. Bush has started talking about hard limits on emissions.
Good move on food aid, but rethink biofuel bill
Toronto Star, May 1, 2008: With the support of the Liberals and Bloc Quebecois, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government is expected to push Bill C-33 through the House of Commons this week. They should all think again.
The intent of the carbon tax is to make us feel the pain
Vancouver Sun, May 1, 2008: Ouch. Ouch, ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch. That, in short, pretty much sums up the reaction from across the province to the carbon tax announced by Finance Minister Carole Taylor in her budget in February and finally introduced as legislation this week.
Carbon tax a fuels paradise
Toronto Sun, May 1, 2008: Despite his previous opposition to a carbon tax, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion now says he's looking "very seriously" at imposing one on Canadians if the Liberals win the next federal election. Either that, he told CTV's Question Period on Sunday, or a "cap and trade" system.
Time to draw a line in the oil sands
Toronto Star, May 1, 2008: Ontario is on the cusp of helping oil-sands emissions explode. Shell Canada wants permits to be granted by the end of this year for a new refinery in Sarnia to process oil from its oil-sands mines in Alberta for use in gas tanks across the GTA.
Tory energy diet tough to swallow
National Post, April 30, 2008: It's classic Canadian mentality: Fret the pump price, blame a profit-pocketing conspiracy by Big Oil for gouging consumers, contemplate fuel alternatives down the road – and then drive normally. A poll by Praxicus Public Strategies, taken last weekend, finds energy costs tied with health care near the top of Canadian concerns, behind only chart-topping worries over the economy and the environment. But will Canadians drive less? Heck no.
Dumb as we wanna be
New York Times, April 30, 2008: It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer's travel season.
Agents and not victims
The Guardian, April 30, 2008: It seems every day brings news of another "natural disaster". If a year helping to pilot the climate change bill through parliament has taught me one thing, however, it is that there is very little "natural" about the disasters hitting children around the world.
We should warm to the idea of melting poles
Globe and Mail, April 28, 2008: More than two decades ago, at the height of the Cold War, Arctic scholar Oran Young proclaimed that the world was "entering the age of the Arctic, an era in which those concerned with international peace and security will urgently need to know much more about the region, and in which policy-makers in the Arctic-rim states will become increasingly concerned."
Air travel becomes latest eco-cause
Calgary Herald, April 28, 2008: I'm flying to Alberta next week and starting to feel more than a tad guilty about it. Not because I'm abandoning my work, loved ones and responsibilities in order to fish. I never feel guilty about fishing. No, the reason for my angst has to do with the unintended consequences of my flight, specifically, my contribution to global warming via carbon dioxide emissions.
The 'three amigos' did little to address environmental problems at their summit in Mexico
Montreal Gazette, April 27, 2008: Somewhat surprisingly, the attention given by the press to the North American summit in New Orleans has been limited solely to the discussions between Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Presidents George W. Bush and Felipe Calderon on issues of border security, trade and energy, particularly the US dependence on Canadian oil and gas.
How biofuels could starve the poor
Foreign Affairs, April 27, 2008: In 1974, as the United States was reeling from the oil embargo imposed by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Congress took the first of many legislative steps to promote ethanol made from corn as an alternative fuel. On April 18, 1977, amid mounting calls for energy independence, President Jimmy Carter donned his cardigan sweater and appeared on television to tell Americans that balancing energy demands with available domestic resources would be an effort the "moral equivalent of war."
Climate change and forest fires
Sault Star, April 25, 2008: Forest fires are a significant, natural and necessary element of Canada's boreal forest, yet when they threaten our values, such as our communities and timber resources, they become unwanted and we try to limit their extent through suppression activities.
Clothesline liberty
National Post, April 24, 2008: Spokesmen for all three of Ontario's major political parties have come out in support of Energy Minister Gerry Phillips' plan for clothesline liberation. Talk to homeowners about the subject, though, and you find nothing like such unanimity.
The greenback effect
Mother Jones, April 23, 2008: Since I spend most of my time haplessly battling global warming, I encounter a fair number of climate-change skeptics. They're usually clutching some tattered study about tropospheric temperatures from six years back, or muttering about sunspots, but they're almost never carefully weighing the actual current science.
A day to mourn and to celebrate
Toronto Star, April 22, 2008: Today people around the globe celebrate this tiny revolving speck in the universe, the likes of which have yet to be discovered anywhere else in the cosmos. The Earth sustains and nourishes life with oxygen, food, water, energy, minerals and metals that humanity has come to take for granted. So much so that we ignore the fragility of this life-giving planet and its dependence on us for its own well-being.
Reinventing energy
Jeffrey Sachs, April 22, 2008: The world economy is being battered by sharply increased energy prices. While a few energy-exporting countries in the Middle East and elsewhere reap huge profits, the rest of the world is suffering as the price of oil has topped $110 per barrel and that of coal has doubled.
Risky climate plan
Financial Post, April 22, 2008: Drastic reductions in so-called greenhouse gas emissions proposed by the federal government would, if enacted, cost Canadians $60-billion in coming years – at a minimum. Proponents claim that this "investment" would improve public health and the environment, and accelerate development of "clean" energy. But a review of the presumed costs and benefits reveals that this massive regulatory scheme is unjustified on both scientific and economic grounds.
The Fat Bush theory
New York Times, April 19, 2008: George W. Bush says we're on track to meet the nation's goals for curbing global warming. I see some hands waving out there. Didn't know we had any goals for curbing global warming? Where were you in 2002 when the president put us on the road toward reducing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent by 2012? So there.
Be prepared: how to deal with the food crisis
Vancouver Sun, April 19, 2008: With rioting over food shortages in the developing world and stratospheric prices at the gas pumps, a new book on the world's woes provides insight into what on earth is going on.
Arctic meltdown
Foreign Affairs, April 18, 2008: The Arctic Ocean is melting, and it is melting fast. This past summer, the area covered by sea ice shrank by more than one million square miles, reducing the Arctic icecap to only half the size it was 50 years ago. For the first time, the Northwest Passage – a fabled sea route to Asia that European explorers sought in vain for centuries –opened for shipping.
Time to rethink biofuel solution
Toronto Star, April 17, 2008: One of the most frightening consequences of global warming is the impact it will have on the world's food supply. More extreme weather patterns resulting from climate change are expected to exacerbate droughts, like that now taking its toll on food production in Australia, as well as more tropical storms and increased flooding, like that which destroyed 2 million tonnes of rice production in Bangladesh last year.
How to win the war on global warming
Time Magazine, April 17, 2008: Americans don't like to lose wars – which makes sense, since we have so little practice with it. Of course, a lot depends on how you define just what a war is. There are shooting wars – the kind that test our mettle and our patriotism and our resourcefulness and our courage – and those are the kind at which we excel. But other struggles test those qualities too.
Warmed over
Washington Post, April 17, 2008: President Bush strode to the lectern in the Rose Garden yesterday and once again passed up an opportunity – perhaps his last – to do something meaningful on climate change.
Global-warming chutzpah
Boston Globe, April 17, 2008: If President Bush had unveiled his goals for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions at the beginning of his administration instead of in its waning months, he might have actually played a role in linking the United States to global efforts to curb climate change.
A climate anticlimax
The Guardian, April 17, 2008: Yesterday, George Bush made another faltering step on the long road to accepting that the US should do something about its contribution to global warming. From outright denial of the science, and deep scepticism about targets and timetables, he has moved on and now accepts that something must be done.
I got a carbon-frugal car to save the earth – and if mankind survives as well, there's nothing I can do
The Guardian, April 16, 2008: A few months ago, I decided to save the earth. Maybe it was something Al Gore said. Maybe it was something Leonardo DiCaprio said. Maybe it was just the high gas prices and the weakening dollar. Whatever it was, two weeks later I was at a car dealership near where I live in upstate New York, trading in my glacier-melting, atmosphere-wrecking, gas-guzzling American pick-up truck for a pocket-sized, carbon-frugal, 35 mile-per-gallon Japanese econobox.
One less burger, one safer planet
International Herald Tribune, April 15, 2008: Earth Day is a week away, so brace yourself for cuddly, hug-the-planet blubbering from the presidential candidates. John McCain will tell you we must be the "caretakers of creation." Hillary Clinton will talk of recycling and efficient light bulbs. Barack Obama will surely tell us we "cannot afford more of the same timid politics when the future of our planet is at stake." Ah, but what about hamburgers?
Climate reality bites the libertarians
Atlantic Free Press, April 14, 2008: Some of my best friends are libertarians. We read each others' papers, we exchange ideas by e-mail, and we invite each other to participate in our seminars and conferences. On numerous occasions, my libertarian friends have treated me with generosity and respect. I've found them to be personable and tolerant of my progressive opinions. And also unyielding in their convictions.
Our global warming rage lets global hunger grow
The Telegraph, April 14, 2008: We drive, they starve. The mass diversion of the North American grain harvest into ethanol plants for fuel is reaching its political and moral limits. "The reality is that people are dying already," said Jacques Diouf, of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. "Naturally people won't be sitting dying of starvation, they will react," he said.
Hungry for oil, starving for food
Bangkok Post, April 13, 2008: Supplying the world's growing energy needs while at the same time improving food security for the poor and needy is no easy task. And if it can be done, it will probably involve developing new energy sources to replace fossil fuels while addressing the spiralling cost of food.
The coming hunger
Toronto Star, April 12, 2008: The warning bells are ringing, furiously. This week, food riots paralyzed Haiti, with angry marchers outside the president's palace shouting "We are hungry!" Five people were killed in the chaos.
'Peak oil' crisis, and drastic change, coming our way
Vancouver Sun, April 11, 2008: In the 1990s the Vancouver Board of Trade's debt clock travelled the nation, delivering a doom and gloom message about Canada's $583-billion debtload. The public's consciousness was raised, allowing politicians to impose change through hardship. Today, the debt is under control and attention has shifted to climate change.
Kyoto rhetoric meets reality
Toronto Sun, April 10, 2008: The conventional wisdom in Canada is that no matter who becomes the next American president, he or she will quickly lead the United States into compliance with the Kyoto Accord and its successor treaty. What the US does is vital to us because unless we act in concert with it on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, our economy will tank.
Carbon taxers think $1.15 gas not high enough
Financial Post, April 10, 2008: The prospect of a carbon tax continues to mesmerize policy wonks and the media. The price of oil is already through the roof, hitting a new high of $111 yesterday. Gasoline is at $1.15 a litre at the pumps in Canada, up 60¢ from a two years ago, which means we have a form of carbon tax equal to $300 a tonne already in place, presumably gnawing away at carbon emissions.
The push to electric cars will come with hidden costs
Vancouver Sun, April 10, 2008: Thirty-five years ago this month, Martin Cooper picked up his phone, dialed a number and changed the world. Cooper was the general manager of Motorola's Communication Systems Division. He was calling a rival at AT&T to gloat. What mattered was not what he said, but how he made the call. Cooper was calling from a street corner in New York City in the first public use of his new invention – the cellular phone.
Gore's praise a matter of convenience – not truth
Globe and Mail, April 10, 2008: Al Gore held court in Montreal on the weekend and a who's who of Quebec business and politics rushed to his side, if only to have the cameras catch them bathing for an instant in the Goracle's compact fluorescent glow.
Unusual friends in unusual places
David Suzuki, April 9, 2008: These days, the environment is at the top of the polls as an issue of concern, and global warming is often the lead story in the media. What a change! A few years ago, I would have been grateful to see any coverage of environmental issues anywhere.
Carbon capture good for Earth
Toronto Star, April 8, 2008: In terms of energy, the United Kingdom and Canada have had a tremendous amount in common for decades. Both are significant hydrocarbon producers and both are advanced energy-dependent economies. And we both now face the same critical challenges.
Who caused the world food crisis?
National Post, April 8, 2008: We are now by all accounts in the midst of a global food crisis: key grain prices were up 40% to 130% in the last year, people are protesting and hardship is mounting. But it could soon be worse. Governments and agencies all over the world are gearing up for a global "New Deal" on agriculture policy to solve the food crisis, which means the people who brought us the food crisis are the same people who now want to fix it.
Earth Hour: one week later
CBC News, April 4, 2008: Cities around the world darkened their skylines last week in an impressive demonstration of public co-operation and commitment to cut down on energy consumption. The target for Earth Hour was to reduce energy loads by 5 per cent. Most cities, except Calgary, interestingly, exceeded that goal by a significant amount.
The road from Kyoto
The Guardian, April 4, 2008: A spring gale is lashing orthodox climate policy. This week, an article was published in Nature that should shake the certainty of anyone who assumes that the Kyoto protocol approach is the sensible way to go, and that signing the accord is a responsible step for the United States to take.
Bush's global-warming limbo
Boston Globe, April 4, 2008: The US Environmental Protection Agency used to insist that it lacked the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions – until the Supreme Court ruled otherwise a year ago. Since then, scientific research has provided new evidence for the urgency of acting to slow global warming. But the Bush administration drags its feet anyway, leaving the matter in bureaucratic limbo.
Dangerous assumptions
Nature, April 3, 2008: The United Nations Climate Conference in Bali in 2007 set the world on a two-year path to negotiate a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Yet not even the most rosy-eyed delegate could fail to recognize that stabilizing atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations is an enormous undertaking.
Can capitalism survive climate change?
Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 3, 2008: This whole week, beginning Monday, the United Nations Ad Hoc Working Groups on climate change are meeting in Bangkok in the critical first round of negotiations to follow up on the resolutions of the climate talks in Bali in December.
Calling on youth to save our planet
Toronto Star, April 3, 2008: After the success of Earth Hour last Saturday, the obvious question for Canadians worried about climate change is: What next? And the obvious answer is: Look to our youth to lead the fight against this global challenge.
Kyoto supporters have no idea
Toronto Sun, April 3, 2008: It's time for an adult discussion about our continued participation in the Kyoto Accord and it's not the one we've been having. Our politicians have been talking to us as if we were children. It's time we put a stop to it.
Hot issues at climate meet
Bangkok Post, April 2, 2008: As delegates from across the globe gather in Bangkok this week to hammer out a key issue that has taken our world by storm – climate change – they will likely face a stumbling block: how to manage economic growth while eradicating poverty, the scourge of developing countries.
Through small actions make a world of difference
David Suzuki, April 2, 2008: As you no doubt know, last week's Earth Hour took place in several cities around the world, including many in Canada. Earth Hour was a fascinating experiment. It's a bold idea. As Marshall McLuhan famously observed, we live in a global village. And Earth Hour is an expression of cooperation and support between the other villagers on our little blue planet.
After Earth Hour
Toronto Star, April 1, 2008: For one hour on Saturday evening, Torontonians turned their lights off and cut their power consumption by almost 9 per cent from the average over the past three years. Symbolic though it was, Earth Hour demonstrated the level of concern in this city over climate change as well as a willingness by residents to start changing their behaviour when it comes to the overuse of fossil fuel.
Moving on the low carbon road
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Donald Tusk and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, March 29, 2008: A meeting of United Nations member states in Bangkok on Monday to discuss climate change is the first in a series this year at which the action plan adopted at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, Indonesia, in December 2007, will be translated into concrete steps on the road to a new global climate change agreement. We, the president of Indonesia and the prime ministers of Poland and Denmark, have decided to join forces in a coordination group at the highest political level. Our goal is to facilitate an ambitious climate change agreement in Copenhagen in 2009.
Debate over carbon tax is just starting
Victoria Times Colonist, March 29, 2008: I was reading by the pool in Mexico when I overheard a fellow British Columbian grumbling about the new carbon tax. Straight into general revenues, he said. Just another tax grab. He's not alone in his dissatisfaction. Some northern mayors are complaining that the carbon tax is going to hit their communities and residents much harder than southern urban dwellers.
China's free ride may soon end
Edmonton Journal, March 29, 2008: Out of sight, out of mind. That's been the prevailing attitude of most North Americans when it comes to the environmental costs associated with China's economic boom.
HTC: Clean coal solution?
Financial Post, March 28, 2008: Only a small group of companies has received a visit from a prime minister. And the list is even shorter for companies that have received visits from two PMs. But thanks to a visit this week by Stephen Harper, Regina-based HTC Purenergy Inc. is on the second list, given Paul Martin was there three years ago. One difference: Harper brought a cheque for $240-million.
Broken ice in Antarctica
New York Times, March 28, 2008: Winter is coming to Antarctica, and that may be the only thing that keeps another of its major ice shelves from collapsing. On Tuesday, scientists from the British Antarctic Survey announced that there had been an enormous fracture on the edge of the Wilkins ice shelf, which started breaking last month.
Earth Hour? It's a cinch for Desis
Toronto Star, March 28, 2008: I've signed up for Earth Hour. Although I'm trying hard to do the composting thing and I do care for everything green, let me confess that it was more with a strong sense of nostalgia than my love for the environment.
Earth Hour proving cynics wrong
Toronto Star, March 27, 2008: Cynics love to attack popular campaigns, and that is exactly what is happening with Earth Hour. "Won't Earth Hour be a failure if the entire city doesn't go dark?" a friend asked last week of the campaign to have residents and businesses in the Greater Toronto Area and around the world turn out their lights at 8 p.m. this Saturday for an hour to show support for action on climate change.
Minutes count when saving Earth
Toronto Sun, March 27, 2008: This Saturday, March 29, starting at 8 p.m., 24 "global cities," including Toronto, will be participating in "Earth Hour." The aim is to encourage people to turn their lights off for an hour to promote awareness of man-made global warming. Here is my itinerary.
In pollution terms, Alberta's wealth is based on dirty dollars
Vancouver Sun, March 27, 2008: Alberta is a filthy rich, high-spending, pollution-belching piece of property growing increasingly out of sync with other provinces. That's one way of interpreting a flotilla of figures featured in a newly released report titled State of the West, 2008; Western Canadian Demographic and Economic Trends.
Carbon tariff trade war?
Financial Post, March 25, 2008: As world financial markets struggle through credit risks, looming currency crisis and talk of recession/depression, along come an assortment of politicians and economists set to pile on another round of global downers: carbon taxes and a possible carbon trade war.
The Security Council must act preemptively – on climate change
Christian Science Monitor, March 24, 2008: The United Nations tackled the task of troubleshooting climate change last month. Between holding special General Assembly meetings at headquarters in New York, bringing 100 environmental ministers to Monaco in the largest meeting of ministers since Bali, and launching a Climate Neutral Network to highlight best practices in tackling global warming, the UN appears to be doing what it can to ensure that climate change does not fall off the political radar. Yet, it still isn't enough.
Tony the climate tiger: Roaring success?
BBC News, March 24, 2008: Tony Blair rode into Japan on his white horse earlier this month calling for a "global environment revolution" that would see the world's biggest polluters, including China and India, cut their greenhouse gas emissions to tackle climate change. So far, so good; but Blair's credentials on climate change and some of his recent statements show that he needs a revolution of his own mindset if he is to succeed.
Save the climate by saving the forests
New Scientist, March 22, 2008: Kevin Conrad was brought up in Papua New Guinea, the son of American missionaries. He spent his childhood "shooting birds, cutting down trees and burning things". His name might not be familiar, but at the Bali climate conference last December he drew applause and worldwide TV coverage for taking on the US. If it wasn't willing to lead the world in combating climate change, said Conrad, head of the Papua New Guinea delegation, the US should "get out of the way".
Insecure about climate change
Washington Post, March 22, 2008: When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, Americans witnessed what looked like an overseas humanitarian-relief operation. The storm destroyed much of the city, causing more than $80 billion in damage, killing more than 1,800 people, and displacing in excess of 270,000.
Noah's Ark for salmon
Los Angeles Times, March 21, 2008: As global warming bears down on our Western rivers and watersheds, it threatens one of the great symbols of Western abundance: wild salmon. With each passing year, their numbers have dropped precipitously. This decline is believed to be in part the result of warming temperatures in streams and rivers.
Thom Yorke: why I'm a climate optimist
The Guardian, March 20, 2008: In 2000, when we did the artwork for our album Kid A, our designer Stanley Donwood and I spent a disproportionate amount of time on the net. We came across the Worldwatch Institute's website, which was full of scary statistics about icecaps melting, and weather patterns changing.
Agonising over the icecap or frantic about floods? You may be suffering from 'eco-anxiety'
The Independent, March 20, 2008: Many of us worry about the future of the planet. It's both fashionable and cathartic. We can assuage our guilt over the fact that, say, the "carbon footprint" from our holiday to the Maldives has upped the official Dead Polar Bear Index by an additional 2.4, or that, thanks to our purchase of a mahogany nut bowl, the Amazonian Nukak tribe has just been wiped out, by recycling bean cans and paying £10 to adopt a stag beetle.
Selective information overload
David Suzuki, March 19, 2008: The most powerful force shaping our lives is science, especially when it's applied by medicine, the military and corporations. All too often, new technologies become part of our lives without much forethought as to their full impacts on our society, let alone that of the non-human environment.
China's pollution nightmare is now everyone's pollution nightmare
Christian Science Monitor, March 19, 2008: The emergence of China as a dominant economic power is an epochal event, occasioning the most massive and rapid redistribution of the earth's resources in human history. The country has also become a ravenous consumer. Its appetite for raw materials drives up international commodity prices and shipping rates while its middle class, projected to jump to 700 million by 2020, is learning the gratifications of consumerism.
Put a price on carbon
Toronto Star, March 18, 2008: In economics there are few true laws. One exception is the "law of demand," which states that the higher the price of a normal good, the less of it consumers will buy. And that law has become the backbone of all serious discourse on how to fight climate change.
Global warming: This is not going to go away
Canadian Business, March 17, 2008: John Maynard Keynes advised us to "study the present in light of the past for the purposes of the future." During my time at the OECD, I frequently invoked that wisdom and encouraged others to do the same. The result? By and large, looking at various economies and challenges across the globe, the future looked optimistic. There was one notable exception: global warming, along with its partner, climate change.
Cool the climate hysteria
Toronto Sun, March 16, 2008: Global warming is the gift that keeps on giving to climate hysterics. For those already pre-disposed to being anti-western, anti-development, anti-growth, anti-capitalist and most of all, anti-US, it's the perfect propaganda tool. After all, as they screech, the survival of the Earth itself is at stake and they alone are on the side of the angels. They alone care about the legacy we will leave our grandchildren.
PM's low-risk environmental plan
Toronto Star, March 14, 2008: Ed Stelmach is just what the Prime Minister needs. He makes Stephen Harper look almost green. The Alberta premier has promised not to "touch the brake" on oil-sands development. He has vowed not to let anybody – not First Nations, not environmentalists, not Ottawa, not even a quintet of oil companies proposing a partial moratorium – slow the gusher. The 56-year-old cattle farmer is cheerfully, shamelessly intransigent on climate change. What better foil could Harper have?
Rise to the challenge
The Guardian, March 13, 2008: The past year has seen a growing storm of environmental campaigners threatening to bring the air transport industry down to earth. The past few weeks have seen two high-profile protests at Heathrow and parliament. Some groups are convinced that aviation is not doing enough in the effort against climate change. Planes seem to have overtaken automobiles for environmental criticism, although their impact is far less.