The Price of Oil:Solutions for Children

Yesterday I saw a news clip about G8 Asian powers urging an oil production hike

AOMORI, Japan (AFP) — Eleven nations that guzzle nearly two-thirds of the world’s energy called Sunday for an urgent hike in global oil production as host Japan warned the world could plunge into recession….
In a joint statement, they called for boosts to their own production and asked major oil producers “to increase investment to keep markets well supplied in response to rising world demand”.
The European Union’s energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs warned that high oil prices were a fact to be reckoned with and that major economies needed to come up with alternative energy.

“The era of cheap energy seems to be over and no economy should gamble on a potential return to low prices,” Piebalgs said.

What incredible wisdom-if there is not enough - ask mom and dad for more. The “end of oil” has been a long time in coming. Peak oil production had been predicted, ridiculed and discovered again. But,none of this wisdom reached politicians or car manufacturers. Standards for emissions were relaxed as the new gas guzzlers (SUVs) came into being.

Dead Ducks:The Envirornment and Making Clean Oil

Title: Dead Ducks: The Environment and Making “Clean” Oil

500 hundred ducks landed in a Syncrude toxic tailings pond 75 km north of Fort McMurry. Only 5 were strong enough to even try saving, of those, 3 have survived. The tailings pond contains water that is used to wash the oil from the tar sands. The contaminated water contains a mixture of heavy metals, sands and residual oil. Birds that land on the pond are quickly coated, loose their waterproofing and drown.

Update on Bisphenol A and Plastic Toxicity

It seems that our exposure to Bisphenol A, may be much greater than was previously assumed. Bisphenol A is an endocrine disrupter and can have a drastic effect on the endocrine system, especially in infants and children.

David Biello writes an excellent article in “Scientific American”:Plastic (Not) Fantastic: Food Containers Leach a Potentially Harmful Chemical

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found traces of BPA in nearly all of the urine samples it collected in 2004 as part of an effort to gauge the prevalence of various chemicals in the human body. It appeared at levels ranging from 33 to 80 nanograms (a nanogram is one billionth of a gram) per kilogram of body weight in any given day, levels 1,000 times lower than the 50 micrograms (one millionth of a gram) per kilogram of bodyweight per day considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the European Union’s (E.U.) European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

This seems all well and good, the levels in human urine are less than the arbitrarily defined level deemed harmful by the EPA. I say arbitrarily defined as the more subtle, affects of Bisphenol A (sperm counts, developmenal anomalies, cancer rates i.e. non-lethal effects.) were examined. However, almost ALL urine samples had Bisphenol A. Further, it seems that humans can degrade Bisphenol A quickly.

Harper Goverment Shows Leadership by Doing Nothing

Steven Harper managed to dilute the agreement at the Commomwealth talks from a proactive statement to a statement of hope that one day things would be better, just not now.

Commonwealth leaders agreed to a much watered-down agreement on climate change after Prime Minister Stephen Harper resisted any reference to binding targets on greenhouse gas emissions.

The agreement, announced at a news conference Saturday afternoon was a setback for other Commonwealth members, led by Britain, who had called for binding commitments for greenhouse gas reductions in the statement.
Instead, the statement speaks of “a long term aspirational global goal for emissions reduction to which all countries contribute.”

How Not to Eat oil

I did not comprehend our utter dependance on oil in food production. I have been listening to “The Ominvore’s Dilemma”, by Micheal Pollan. The beginning of the book discusses the utter dependance of animal feed and processed food on the abundance of corn. This is probably slightly different in Alberta, as there is more wheat than corn, but the ideas are the same. The diagram below illustrates the entire convoluted relationship. The book is worth a read or listen for a deeper understanding how we are essentially eating petroleum. Plastic pollution makes this statement more literal.

How the Harper Government Knows Everything About Climate Change

In a move that is classic for the Harper government, funding for climate research has been slashed.

Last year

Forty per cent of this year’s budget for climate change programs has been slashed from the departments of Natural Resources and Environment, CBC News has learned.
The cuts include the much-advertised One Tonne Challenge, 40 public information offices across the country and several scientific and research programs on climate change.

In fact, the Canadian Climate Impacts and Adaptation Research Network has been shut down.

The Canadian Climate Impacts and Adaptation Research Network (C-CIARN) was established by Natural Resources Canada in 2001 with the mandate of promoting and encouraging research on climate change impacts and adaptation, as well as promoting interaction between researchers and stakeholders.
C-CIARN successfully met the mandate that it was given when it was created in 2001, and on June 30, 2007, the network closed.
The Harper government has claimed that the C-CIARN had met its mandate. But, there was also a question of funding.

The foundation has received $110 million in federal grants since 2000 and will continue to finance research projects until 2010, while seeking additional government money.
But a spokesman for Environment Minister John Baird last week questioned whether they were managing their funding properly.
“The question one has to ask is, if CFCAS has spent the $110 million it received from the government already, why have they run out of money three years before the end of their allocation?” wrote Garry Keller, Baird’s director of communications, in an e-mail to CanWest News Service.

…Gordon McBean, a climate scientist who is the volunteer chairman of the foundation, said the organization still has money, but that it could shut down in a few years if it doesn’t get more funding for new projects.
>”I’m quite concerned because they never ask us,” said McBean. “They have never allowed us to give them a briefing on what we do … They don’t acknowledge our requests.”

Scientist are surprised at the rate of climate change. It is occurring (faster than predicted)[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5303574.stm}. Given that the scientists are surprised, I am not sure how the Harper government can claim that the C-CIARN has fulfilled its mandate of climate research. The C-CIARN had research that was used for the IPPC(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Cange) report. This was the same report that for which the IPCC was co-awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore.

This is the real reason for clamping down on climate research. It has gotten public attention. Public attention means that the Harper government will have to undergo public scrutiny on its lack of any concrete plan to address climate change. The funding cuts come at a time that the Harper government has made election winning, $60 billion dollars worth in corporate and personal tax cuts. Harper has once again taken his direction from George Bush. This is an echo of the Conservatives’ Afghanistan policy, where muzzling the press is the best response

Without adequate research, we are unable to determine what is actually happening with the climate. As the news gets ever more dire and the evidence more conclusive, government will have to set policies to meet the crisis. But, the Harper government would rather take the route of not knowing. Not knowing means not doing - business and pollution as usual. It is not as if resource are tight, after a $60 billion dollar tax break, how tight could they be ?

I thought that any reasonable government would have to acknowledge the problems and challenges we have to face. It is not as if the research is tenuous, although even at this late stage, debate is rife by a minority of oil company scientists. What I did not count on was the incredible power of cognitive dissonance. In spite of increasing evidence that the climate is in serious trouble, the Harper government takes the route of ignorance. Not knowing is better that actually making the hard decisions to change.

Our “leaders” are unable to change the direction of our society. Leadership has to come from the people. Without this internal leadership we will end up like Easter Island. Decimated on a deserted Island with no trees and a lot of large stone statues that stare back with the folly of its creators.

Meditating and Finding Real Community

During the first part of May my wife and I took part in a ten day Vipsassana meditation retreat hosted by the Alberta Vipassana foundation.I sat for the same course last year. Meditating for 11 hours a day was not easy. Not talking was even harder. But, as one fellow student said “ This is the only time you will truly get to spend with yourself. So use it wisely.”

At the end of the ten days I had never felt so calm, peaceful and clearheaded . There was a great energy and happiness with the group. Even though you never actually talked to anyone, you went through meditation boot camp together. That sense of accomplishing something together fostered a great deal of positive energy, cooperation and gratitude for such an experience. But, as the year wore on and my practice was less than consistent, I let the demands of the world intrude into my mental space. I had hoped that by repeating the course I could regain some measure of peace and calmness.

This was not to be. A few days before the course started I received a call asking if I could serve on the course instead of participate as a student. I reluctantly agreed even though my stomach was churning. I was disappointed and a little bit nervous. What had I gotten myself into ? A server I talked to last year had said that there was a great deal of work to do and sometimes things got tense in the kitchen. A server would have between 3-5 hours of meditation a day. While this was more than I was doing, I hardly thought this was enough time to develop a deeper practice.

covenant

Last month we planted some carrots, potatoes, and onions in the vegetable garden. The garlic and onions from the year before had already sprouted because of early warm weather. I like this activity — it is full of promise and surprise. You do the planting and given enough rain and sun, fresh food will arrive, eventually. It is dirty, patient work, but a great deal more fulfilling than a trip to the supermarket.

Ultimately, this is what survival is all about. It is a matter of trust that with planting and care, food will be produced. All of human achievement and endeavor is built upon this biological covenant— the earth will provide. No matter how much money we can make, no matter how fast the computers, how spectacular the graphics, how powerful the engine it is all built on this tiny promise.

Becoming Plastic — Dynamics of Plastic Pollution

Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew we had a problem in the ocean with plastic. Plastic filling the stomachs of seabirds, huge nets drifting and killing fish and mammals indiscriminately. Plastic pollution to me was seeing grocery store bags blowing trapped against fences, straws not quite making into the garbage can. But, I thought, I try to put as much plastic as we can in the recycling bin. We reuse our plastic bags. What I did not know was the extent and insidiousness of the pollution. How could plastic pollution be as dangerous as global warming ?

The Cost of Doing Nothing - Ottowa and Kyoto

Environment Minister John Baird presented a federal study supporting the devastating, recession creating effects of meeting the Kyoto targets.

• 275,000 Canadians would lose their job by 2009

• The cost of electricity bills would jump 50% after 2010
• The cost of filling up a car would jump 60%
• The cost of heating a home by natural gas would double

The study shows that Canada’s GDP would decline by over 4.2%. This is comparable to the deepest recession since World War II, which Canadians faced in 1981-82. Many still remember the pain of that time

Baird told the committee that analysis from economists shows implementing the Kyoto Protocol would mean the following:

• Gasoline will cost more than $1.60 a litre over the 2008-to-2012 period

• Job loss will cause unemployment rates to rise 25 per cent by 2009
• The decline of economic activity in the range of $51 billion

Baird said the study has been reviewed and approved by a number of leading economists including Don Drummond, chief economist of Toronto Dominion Bank Financial Group and Carl Sonnen, president of Informetrica.