tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8460983234048358685.post5322880409085927354..comments2023-09-03T08:18:33.076-07:00Comments on Why Stop Harper!: Endangering Our Environment:Ann T. Harperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01507426624040964457noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8460983234048358685.post-85057123546744663742014-07-05T10:09:20.789-07:002014-07-05T10:09:20.789-07:00Nice Post....
fundraiserNice Post....<br /><br /><a href="http://www.forwrdfund.com" rel="nofollow">fundraiser</a> Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11047251677484527743noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8460983234048358685.post-47905111661719461532011-04-08T11:18:15.152-07:002011-04-08T11:18:15.152-07:00April 8, 2011
Pembina reacts to Conservative Part...April 8, 2011<br /><br />Pembina reacts to Conservative Party platform<br /><br />Ed Whittingham, Executive Director, made the following statement in response to today's release of the Conservative Party's election platform:<br /><br />"The Conservative Party came to today's announcement with a five-year track record of failing to meaningfully tackle greenhouse gas pollution and avoiding federal responsibility for oilsands development. The result is that Canada now risks falling further behind other countries in capitalizing on the rapidly growing global clean energy market.<br /><br />"Today's platform would do nothing to reverse these trends." <br /><br />On renewable energy and efficiency<br />"While it does contain one-year funding for home retrofits that was announced in this year's budget, the platform misses the opportunity to position Canada to support a stable and competitive clean energy industry. <br /><br />"It's also worth noting that the claim that the government has 'introduced regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the production of electricity' is incorrect. The government has stated that it plans to introduce such regulations, but they are not in place yet."<br /><br />On climate change<br />"Heading into this election, Stephen Harper's government had not implemented the key climate policies needed to cut Canada's greenhouse gas pollution. By failing to commit to carbon pricing, sectoral regulations or other new emission-reduction policies, today's platform is a recipe for growing greenhouse gas pollution in Canada.<br /><br />"While the platform mentions Canada's national greenhouse gas emission target for 2020, it does not commit to meet it. Without new policies, Environment Canada projects that emissions will be higher in 2020 than they are today, putting Canada on track to miss its Copenhagen Accord target by nearly 30 per cent. Today's platform would not reverse that trend."<br /><br />On oilsands development<br />"This platform fails to even mention the oilsands, the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas pollution in Canada. It would allow for the continued abdication of federal responsibilities and does nothing to ensure that oilsands development occurs responsibly and in accordance with Canadians' expectations.<br /><br />"In contrast to other political parties, this platform makes no new commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies."<br /><br />On sustainable transportation<br />"The Conservative platform put nothing new on the table to support public transit or sustainable transportation. Instead, it moves in the other direction by committing to invest in highway infrastructure, building new gateway corridors and completing the national highway system. <br /><br />"While the platform says it will protect the environment and improve Canadians' quality of life and the air we breathe, there is nothing tangible here to reduce pollution from transportation, relieve congestion or provide access to rapid transit for commuters. The Conservative Party also provides no new dedicated federal funding for transit, high speed rail or other clean transportation technology."Ann T. Harpernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8460983234048358685.post-23542390038509227532011-04-05T06:52:40.422-07:002011-04-05T06:52:40.422-07:00Taken from a media report: "When a federal c...Taken from a media report: "When a federal commission investigating the collapse of Fraser River sockeye stocks heard recently that a Fisheries and Oceans scientist who has done groundbreaking research was being silenced, it gave Jeffrey Hutchings a bad case of déjà vu. <br />“Your recent articles on DFO’s muzzling of Dr. Kristi Miller remind me of similar attempts by DFO to stifle the imparting of science from government scientists to other scientists and to the Canadian public,” he wrote in an e-mail.<br />Prof. Hutchings, a widely respected fisheries scientist, holds the Canada Research Chair in Marine Conservation & Biodiversity at Dalhousie University, in Halifax. In 1997, he, Carl Walters from the Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia and Richard Haedrich, Department of Biology at Memorial University of Newfoundland, set off a media firestorm with a paper that ripped DFO for suppressing controversial science.<br />Writing in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, they outlined two cases – the collapse of Atlantic cod stocks and the diversion of the Nechako River, in B.C. – in which they maintained research was stifled because it didn’t conform to political agendas.<br />They argued that, on the East Coast, DFO silenced scientists who warned Atlantic cod stocks had been devastated not by seal predation, but from overfishing. And, in the West, they stated that DFO rejected research that showed an Alcan plan to divert the Nechako River would damage Chinook stocks.<br />In both cases, they wrote, hard-working scientists had their findings suppressed by DFO managers who didn’t want to see research that clashed with political goals.:Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8460983234048358685.post-88071894566695098962011-04-04T06:43:07.478-07:002011-04-04T06:43:07.478-07:00Journalist Ralph Surette, April 2, Halifax Chronic...Journalist Ralph Surette, April 2, Halifax Chronicle-Herald: “Two years ago, the government was proposing a fishery treaty with the European Union — one drafted by the EU itself and that opened the door to the EU, the main predator of stocks off Newfoundland, possibly having a say in how fish are managed inside Canada’s 200-mile limit. Canada’s veterans of international fishery negotiations, going back to the 200-mile-limit and the UN Law of the Sea, raised the alarm, calling it a sellout. The Senate and Commons fisheries committees both agreed and called for revisions. The government pressed on. Then, on Dec. 10, 2009, the House of Commons rejected the treaty, 147 to 142. Then — note this — the very next day the government signed the treaty anyway. That such a flagrant violation of parliamentary process should not only happen, but happen unreported by the mass media (except by me in a column for this newspaper) as though it was normal business not worthy of attention makes me wonder how far we are from that notorious category of countries we usually decry as "corrupt and authoritarian."Ann T. Harpernoreply@blogger.com