David Akin's On the Hill

Kick Canada out of the Commonwealth for climate change inaction, greenies urge

2009-11-26T15:29:00-05:00

A coalition of prominent figures from the developing world have joined a former UK development minister, a UN scientist and British environment and development groups to demand the suspension of Canada from the commonwealth for its record on climate change...

Experts say: Wake up Canada - you're about to lose control of over Canada's waterways

2009-02-23T19:43:00-05:00

Or at least that's what several recreation and boating groups told the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance tonight.

CEOs, economists say carbon tax is fine; Harper, Layton say it ain't

2008-09-11T21:08:00-04:00

Stephen Harper and Jack Layton had some not very nice things to say about Stephane Dion's carbon tax. But some non-partisan types, including Canada's CEOs and independent economists actually think Dion's approach is best . . .

DeSmogBlog backs down on Obama criticism

2008-01-08T10:18:00-05:00

Earlier, I noted that DeSmogBlog, a blog which aims to de-bunk the spin from climate change deniers, had sharply criticized Democratic candidate Barack Obama for a lousy green plan. Now, after howls from others in the green movement, DeSmogBlog has apologized to Obama and withdrawn a “Smogmaker of the ...

Is Obama blowing smoke on climate change?

2008-01-06T13:31:00-05:00

Climate change activists who publish the DeSmogBlog just named Barrack Obama their Smogmaker of the Year, saying he deserves it for sowing confusion and delay on climate change but other green activists says DeSmogBlog hasn't done its homework ...

Blame anti-nuke activists for climate change

2007-12-29T00:16:00-05:00

This argument is the starting point for Jason Mark in a long piece in The Utne Reader which looks at the tension within the green movement over the role of nuclear energy in an era when climate change is the greatest threat to the planet: The argument over nuclear power reveals a long-standing tension in the environmental movement between those who say there are technical fixes to the greenhouse gas challenge and others who believe that we need a wholesale restructuring of society if we are to avoid global meltdown.... And so we find 'greenies' like Stewart Brand, he's the guy behind the Whole Earth Catalog, a After decades of decline, the nuclear industry is on the upswing, cheered along, oddly enough, by green activists who once fought the industry but now say that nukes are better than coal given the global threat of climate change.

Lululemon nixes bisphenol A products

2007-12-18T13:10:00-05:00

Earlier this month, I reported on a decision by sporting goods retailer Mountain Equipment Co-op to remove some products made with bisphenol A from store shelves. Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical most often used to harden plastics products, such as baby bottles, water bottles, etc. Environmentalists say bisphenol A has ...

Climate Change -- the view from tomorrow's generation

2007-11-29T15:35:00-05:00

Barbara Hayes is the 24–year-old National Director for the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. This week, she made a presentation to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development. While others there talked about science and policy, Hayes spoke about the emotional and generational impact of ...

A Day in the Life of Your Environment Committee

2007-11-15T18:51:00-05:00

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development met this afternoon for the first time this Parliamentary session. Last session, this committee was the scene of more than a few partisan brushfires. It seems we may be in for more of the same this session.

At this ...

Canada's forest sector commits to carbon neutrality

2007-10-30T09:12:00-04:00

This just in from the Forest Products Association of Canada:

The Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) announced today that Canada’s forest products industry, a global leader in sustainable forest management, is setting a new bar for environmental responsibility and action on climate change: industry-wide carbon-neutrality by 2015 without ...

Hearn sued for failing to protect fish

2007-08-23T06:57:00-04:00

A trio of environmental groups are suing federal Fisheries and Oceans Minister Loyola Hearn for failing to take steps to protect the Nooksack Dace, a small freshwater fish that once flourished in streams in British Columbia's Fraser River Valley.
The Nooksack Dace is listed as an endangered species in ...

Foreign Policy: Why Nuclear Energy Isn’t the Great Green Hope

2007-06-28T16:18:00-04:00

Charles Ferguson and Sharon Squassoni writing at Foreign Policy’s Web site, argue:

As the planet warms, leaders from Washington to Beijing are pushing nuclear power as a clean alternative to coal. But this new strategy for fighting climate change has a fatal flaw: It can’t possibly work.

Another Commons committee grinds to a halt

2007-06-14T16:05:00-04:00

Today, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainablee Development was to hear testimony from Mark Jaccard, an environmental economist at Simon Fraser University, who has often found himself at the centre of some policy debates. When Environment Minister John Baird, for example, wanted to trash Liberal ...

And now the national forecast: hot and dry

2007-06-01T13:13:00-04:00

This just in from Environment Canada:

OTTAWA, June 1 /CNW Telbec/ - Environment Canada today released the summer seasonal outlook for the months of June, July and August. The summer outlook predicts that much of Canada will be warmer than normal.
Highlights from the Seasonal Temperature and ...

Washington Post: US Rejects G-8 Climate Proposal

2007-05-27T05:57:00-04:00

The Washington Post reports yesterday that:

U.S. Rejects G-8 Climate Proposal
Germany Urges Limiting Emissions, Temperature Increase

U.S. officials have raised a second round of unusually bluntly worded objections to a proposed global-warming declaration that Germany prepared for next month's Group of Eight summit, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Representatives from the world's leading industrial nations met the past two days in Heiligendamm, Germany, to negotiate over German Chancellor Angela Merkel's proposed statement, which calls for limiting the worldwide temperature rise this century to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit and cutting global greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 ...

UK government adopts climate change policy rules

2007-05-24T10:29:00-04:00

The British government today announced some guidelines and recommendations it believes will help the UK government as it embarks on new regulatory regimes to address issues of climate change. The government was moved to do this in response to a report submitted to it by the Better Regulation Commission (BRC)...

The Green leak

2007-05-10T07:48:00-04:00

You may have heard yesterday that t he RCMP arrested and charged a federal government employee of Environment Canada for allegedly leaking drafts of what would be the government’s clean air plan. Here’s a roundup of reaction from various politicians after Question Period yesterday. The questions are being put to ...

May says sorry, sort of ...

2007-05-02T12:57:00-04:00

Green Party leader Elizabeth May just put out the following statement in response to reaction to her comments in which she compared the Harper government’s Green Plan to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s policy of Nazi appeasement in the 1930s.

Statement by Elizabeth May, Leader, Green Party of Canada
“I ...

UN appoints climate change special envoys

2007-05-01T12:19:00-04:00

Days ahead of a key report from the United Nations-convened Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon appointed three Special Envoys For Climate Change. The Special Envoys will be tasked with soliciting the views of national leaders on the issue.

The IPCC report out this Friday ...

Trying to stop the Swindle

2007-04-29T18:53:00-04:00

Scientists are lobbying UK regulators to prevent the DVD distribution of a documentary that claims global warming is hoax. One of the scientists who is featured in the documentary now says the film is “as close to pure propaganda as anything since World War II.” Again: The guy who said ...

Attention Catholics: Pope says get green!

2007-04-29T18:46:00-04:00

I’m an Anglican but this Pope guy sounds like he’s got a plan …

The Vatican yesterday added its voice to a rising chorus of warnings from churches around the world that climate change and abuse of the environment is against God's will, and that the one billion-strong Catholic church ...

The Great Global Warming Swindle Swindle

2007-04-28T21:17:00-04:00

This evening, on another network’s national newscast, the contents of a British documentary called "The Great Global Warming Swindle” were reported. Many readers of this blog have brought this film to my attention and, as it has been widely available from time to time on YouTube and elsewhere on the Web, I often open my mail client ...

Waiting for a Green Plan

2007-04-26T11:22:00-04:00

Just touched down in Toronto for the media lockup with Environment Minister John Baird. At that lockup Baird will detail the industrial regulations his government will ring in in order to lower Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 and halve emissions of other pollutants. This is ...

Baird on CTV's Question Period

2007-04-22T20:40:00-04:00

On CTV's Question Period today, co-host Craig Oliver asked Environment Minister John Baird about his doom-and-gloom forecast if Canada commits to meeting its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol:

Oliver: Canadians can be forgiven if they don't know exactly who to believe on this issue. Disaster, if we do, disaster ...

Montreal paper asks if it's green enough

2007-04-21T07:50:00-04:00

Neat idea in The Montreal Gazette this morning. The newspaper looks at its own operation and grades itself on its own sustainability footprint. Reporter Marian Scott has a long piece inside the paper about her own paper and the newspaper business generally:

…we looked at every aspect of our business: ...

Snowmobiling: Do it now ...

2007-04-03T23:13:00-04:00

… cuz those trail networks are slowly going to disappear. So says the latest report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The report will be released Friday but I (like tons of reporters around the world) got look at a final draft.

Here’s the story I wrote...

Engineering their own defeat

2007-03-26T18:51:00-04:00

A few days ago I signed up at Facebook and wondered here how I might find it useful. Well, here’s one useful reason to be there: Many of the people I cover are there. Here’s Liberal MP Mark Holland, for example, writing on Facebook live from the C-30 (Clean Air Act) committee ...

Biz mag names its Top 10 'green' giants

2007-03-22T16:17:00-04:00

Suncor Energy, one of the biggest operators in Canada’s oil sands (and, as a result, one of the country’s biggest generators of the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming) has been named as one of the “10 Green Giants” by Fortune Magazine.

Fortune wrote: “In a survey of ...

Northern Manitoba town will ban plastic bags

2007-03-21T13:58:00-04:00

The northern Manitoba town of Leaf Rapids will prohibit retailers from using single-use plastic bags. The ban will go into effect on April 2. Here’s part of the press release being issued by InStore Products Ltd., a Mississauga, Ont. company that makes those green re-useable shopping cart bins (left)you ...

Conservatives' secret meeting with Calgary's oil and gas sector

2007-03-07T18:10:00-05:00

On September 28, Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice, Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn, and then Environment Minister Rona Ambrose held a secret closed-door meeting with the country’s most powerful oil-and-gas executives. The next day, I filed an Access to Information request with the appropriate federal government departments to get “memos, ...