By Mitchell Beer The push to build the Keystone XL pipeline may be less about a pending decision in the United States, and more about mounting fears that the opportunity to fully develop the Alberta oil sands could close forever. Crazy…
By Mitchell Beer The push to build the Keystone XL pipeline may be less about a pending decision in the United States, and more about mounting fears that the opportunity to fully develop the Alberta oil sands could close forever. Crazy…
By Mitchell Beer In this hour-long interview with TV host Charlie Rose, legendary money manager and investment analyst Jeremy Grantham cites the decline in fertility rates and the rise of renewable energy as his two sources of hope for civilization.…
As U.S. President Barack Obama moves closer to a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline,the dire warnings about the future of Canada’s petroleum resources are reaching a fever pitch.
But alongside the familiar arguments about buying oil from friends instead of enemies (for the U.S.) and sustaining a cornerstone of the national economy (for Canada), there’s a new line of attack that almost sounds perverse.
This phrase leapt out at me as we worked on messaging for the release of the Trottier Energy Futures Project’s Low-Carbon Energy Futures: A Review of National Scenarios in late January:
To reach a target of 100 megatonnes in 2050 (20% of the 500 Mt we produced in 1990), Canada would require a boom in clean-energy technologies and low-energy practices on at least the magnitude of the post-Second World War boom in fossil fuel consumption.
Well, whatever it takes to get people’s attention with proof that climate change is real, is right in front of us, and will touch every aspect of our everyday lives.
Forget the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy (if your geography gives you that luxury). Never mind record floods, droughts, and Arctic sea loss. With long, lazy holiday mornings on the horizon, just wait for the social media circuit to light up when people realize their children and grandchildren will some day be deprived of their morning joe!
Our daughter mentioned Saturday afternoon that a friend of hers would be marking Earth Hour with an acoustic guitar performance at our local fair trade coffee house.
We’ve supported the annual show of awareness and support for low-carbon energy futures since it came to Canada in 2008. So at the appointed time, four of us piled into our reasonable efficient, low-sulphur diesel vehicle…and drove to Earth Hour.
One of Canada’s leading climate scientists found himself with a more nuanced result than he might have expected when a casual conversation led him to look into the direct climate impact that would result from burning all the oil in the country’s oil sands reserves.
