This …

Or this …

Would you believe that the Tar Sands in Alberta could pose a greater environmental risk than the drilling rigs off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico?

Certainly, if you have time to read this 96 page report from this Ceres-commissioned report authored by RiskMetrics Group.

A brief review of the document was provided on the Ceres website, including the following observations:

• Alberta’s oil sands are already the world’s largest energy project—with $200 billion in funds committed from the world’s leading oil producers, including BP, ExxonMobil and Shell.  However, these producers face numerous environmental, production and distribution challenges that will grow as the oil sands industry pushes to boost production amid tighter regulations and resource constraints
• Oil sands companies in Alberta are already producing 1.3 million barrels a day, and their goal is to triple production by 2030.
• Ceres president Mindy Lubber:  “The energy-and water-intensive nature of oil sands, combined with climate change regulations, permitting obstacles and other challenges, are a recipe for diminishing revenues and returns if not properly managed.”
• Investors have already filed shareholder resolutions on the oil sands topic with Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil, BP and ConocoPhillips. The Shell resolution will be voted on at tomorrow’s annual corporate meeting in London.  ExxonMobil’s shareholder resolution is up for a vote on May 26.
• While just over half of U.S. oil comes from overseas countries like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia, the fastest growing source is from two North American regions – the Gulf of Mexico and Canada’s vast oil sands region. Oil production from these two areas has grown to three million barrels a day in recent years, supplying more than 15 percent of total U.S. oil needs.
• Long-term risks from development in Canada’s oil sands region are arguably greater. Many of these risks stem from already-high financial costs and the environmental impacts of transforming highly viscous bitumen into synthetic crude oil – a process that requires vast amounts of energy and water.
• “Investors need to question whether this is a wise use of resources,” says Doug Cogan, a report co-author and director of climate risk management for RiskMetrics Group.  “The oil sands process takes natural gas—the cleanest-burning and lowest-carbon fossil fuel—to turn one of the dirtiest and highest-carbon fuels into a saleable product.  Large volumes of freshwater are also consumed in the process, and end up in toxic tailings ponds.  It’s like the Gulf of Mexico spill, but playing out in slow motion.  From a climate and ecological perspective, we’re really no better off.”
• “This report makes clear that oil sands companies must do more to analyze the far-reaching risks from current and future production in Alberta,” said Jack Ehnes, chief executive officer of the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), the nation’s second largest public pension fund. “With nearly $1.9 billion invested in the equity securities of BP, Shell, Exxon and ConocoPhillips combined, we have quite of teachers’ money at stake here. We need to ensure these companies are properly recognizing and managing oil sand risks.”

Among the report’s key findings:

Shrinking profit margin: The costs of producing oil sands – already the world’s most expensive source of new oil -  are rising and will continue to do so due to the onset of carbon pricing, higher input commodity prices, and rising costs for water treatment and land reclamation. As a result, global oil prices will need to remain high – possibly approaching $100 per barrel – to ensure a competitive rate of return on $120 billion in planned expansion projects. Oil sand operators must also be mindful that if global oil prices get too high, between $120 and $150 a barrel, it will likely reduce global oil demand and shift markets in favor of alternative fuels.

Vulnerability to changes in U.S. Markets: Presently, the vast majority of of the 1.3 million barrels being produced every day flows to the United States. Long-term access to this market is jeopardized, however, by emerging low-carbon fuel standards in the U.S. that will require a lower carbon intensity in transportation fuels. These fuel standards, already adopted in California, will put carbon-intensive oil sands fuel at a distinct disadvantage because oil sands output will likely have to be mixed with next-generation biofuels that are not yet being produced on a commercial scale.

Other Distribution Obstacles: Transporting expanded oil sands production west to China and other Asian markets is another alternative. However, there is strong opposition to building pipelines to Canada’s West Coast from Aboriginal communities who have significant rights under the Canadian constitution.

Water and Other Resource Constraints: Oil sands production is highly water intensive, with up to four barrels of freshwater consumed for every barrel of oil produced from surface mining extraction. Water withdrawals from the Athabasca River watershed are already restricted during winter months to protect fish habitat. If oil sands production volume grows according to companies’ estimates, some oil sands mining operations could exceed their wintertime allowances as early as 2014, causing possible production interruptions. Climate change may also exacerbate this situation; glaciers feeding into the Athabasca River watershed are already shrinking.

Growing Land Reclamation Costs/Liability: After 40 years of production, no oil sand companies have yet fully reclaimed the extensive tailings ponds used for holding polluted wastewater. This is because the fine tailings in these ponds take decades to settle out. These tailing ponds, already covering an area the size of Washington D.C., pose risks of contaminating adjoining lands and water resources, and present health problems in downstream communities. Alberta’s Directive 74 requires oil sands miners to speed up remediation of existing ponds – an order that creates especially large liabilities for the industry’s legacy miners such as Suncor and Syncrude.

The report specifically recommends that oil sands producers:

• Review the lasting impact of their proposed development plans and pursue more pro-active, incremental strategies to manage environmental and social risks;
• Provide guidance for assumed oil, natural gas and carbon prices in future production forecasts.
• Do a better job of articulating to community groups and other stakeholders their strategies for land use planning, water management and carbon mitigation;
• Disclose information from these more detailed evaluations to investors;
• Develop stronger ties with the U.S. biofuels industry both for speeding up development of advanced biofuel capacity and sharing existing infrastructure, such as oil sands pipelines that already feed into the U.S. Midwest.

“All oil is getting dirtier and harder to produce,” said Bob Walker, vice president of sustainability at Northwest and Ethical Investment in Canada. “With Chinese investment and demand set to grow outside the U.S., oil sands production is likely to grow. Investors need to be aware of the environmental and social risks and engage oil sands companies to improve disclosure, operational performance and to make technological investments to reduce environmental and social impacts.”

“We recognize that oil companies will continue to invest in the oil sands,” continued Lubber, “but they shouldn’t do so blindly. Investors need assurances that the risks outlined in this report are being taken into account.  This includes the fact that carbon will be regulated, that water will be increasingly scarce, that tailings ponds need to be cleaned up, and that doing all this will be expensive. Companies need to build solutions in up front or they shouldn’t be building these projects at all.”

The full report is available at http://www.ceres.org/oilsandsreport and http://riskmetrics.com

About Ceres
Ceres is leading coalition of investors, environmental groups and other public interest groups working with companies to address sustainability challenges such as climate change. Ceres also directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk, a network of 90 institutional investors with $10 trillion of collective assets focused on the business impacts of climate change.

About RiskMetrics Group
RiskMetrics is a leading provider of risk management and corporate governance services.  Its ESG Analytics Group analyzes cutting edge issues like climate change, water and ecosystem services that support the global economy.

Late in the evening on December 30th, one thing survived Stephen’s Harpooning of Canadian democracy:  oil.

That’s right.  While the rest of us were being distracted about losing our ability to have even a moderate sense of democracy in this country, the Harper-crites were busy ramming through an approval on the Mackenzie Pipeline.

And then I realized:  the prorogue moment was a very risky smoke screen on the part of the Cons in order to ensure that it was business as usual for Big Oil.

Is this even legal since everything was shut down at the same time by ‘Tsar-per’?

Original story from the New York Times:

Canadian Board Approves Western Gas Pipeline

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS

HOUSTON — A long-delayed natural gas pipeline in Western Canada, which has the potential to provide significant amounts of energy to North America, has cleared a crucial hurdle by receiving the endorsement of a Canadian government review panel.

The $15.4 billion Mackenzie Valley project, which involves Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips, would connect natural gas fields in the Arctic with the rest of Canada and potentially with the United States.

Some Indian communities and environmental groups have called the 750-mile pipeline a threat to local species and native cultures and have expressed concern about the greenhouse emissions created if the gas is used to heat and upgrade Tar Sands into usable fuels. Greenhouse emissions from oil sands are substantially higher than from conventional oil and gas production.

But the joint review panel, after five years of study, concluded late Wednesday that the project “would deliver valuable and lasting overall benefits and avoid significant adverse environmental impacts.” It continued, “The project itself, as long-term infrastructure, provides a key basis for future economic development.”

The National Energy Board and federal cabinet still need to approve the project, but they are expected to follow the recommendations of the review panel. The board is scheduled to hold hearings in April.

If the project is approved, the oil companies would then have to decide whether to build the pipeline, given the current low gas prices, the prospects for competing gas fields in western Canada and the uncertainty of financial support from the Canadian government. Furthermore, a competing and also delayed gas pipeline project in Alaska might overtake the Canadian project.

“If the oil companies think prices are firming on gas, they will go ahead with this,” said Donald Hertzmark, a consultant who advises energy companies on international projects. “It could still be important for the United States and Canada, especially if gas takes off as a transportation fuel or if environmental issues slow down or derail the development of shale gas resources.”

The oil companies originally filed applications for the project in 2004, and hoped to begin operations five years later. But the review panel took longer than expected to complete its study. Now gas industry experts say operations could start in 2014 at the earliest.

The review panel, which assessed the environmental and socioeconomic impacts, concluded that the pipeline would not harm fish in the Mackenzie River. But it called for regional planning to protect many species including polar bears, caribou and beluga whales.

It also recommended that the gas be used to replace coal-fired electrical generation to control greenhouse gas emissions that have been linked to global warming and climate change.

The three gas fields that the pipeline would connect have reserves that are estimated at six trillion cubic feet — an amount equal to more than two years of total Canadian consumption of gas. The pipeline would initially supply about one billion cubic feet a day, which could be expanded after future offshore and onshore drilling.

The United States Energy Department has projected that Canadian annual gas consumption will increase from 3.3 trillion cubic feet in 2006 to 4.7 trillion cubic feet in 2030, largely because of the expanding needs of the oil sands industry.

Production in Canada’s conventional natural gas fields have been in decline, along with exports to the United States.

Lists bring a sense of order to the world.

More importantly, I look at lists like filters.  They help me (and hopefully others that read this list and my Heroes list) identify what I think the most relevant activities / people / events in 2009 were.  They help separate all of the noise that’s going on around us and get us right down to the fundamentals of who was naughty and who was nice during the last year.

Anyways, here goes (and apologies for the growing list):

#22:  Scouts Canada

2009 was the first year that my son could enroll with Scouts Canada as a Beaver.

Having grown up with Scouts myself, I couldn’t wait.  I was looking forward to reliving my own youth through my son’s eyes.

This was not going to happen.

Scouts Canada has failed to adapt with the times.

At the very basic level of the Beavers, they decided to ‘teach’ the young kids about soldiers, marching, using guns and even encouraging them to engage in gun play (with fake guns, of course) where they would chase each other and ’shoot’ at each other in mock games.

To top it all off, it was on the night before Rememberance Day.  I was disgusted and complained to the local leader, only to get a response that it was OK and that gun play is fun and harmless when done right.

I was furious and took my complaint to a local administrator, but was shut down and told to take it up with my local leader, even though I had forwarded the email from the local leader.

Scouts Canada faces extinction if it cannot adapt with the times.  In the grand scheme of things, this was a small issue, but what happens when religion and the Queen enter the weekly running dialogue and series of chants that my son ‘must’ learn in order to ‘get the most’ from this institution?

What also bothers me is the constant ‘tithing’ or requests for donations that we receive every week.  We already paid $150 for the year so that my son could run around a church basement.  Yes, there are things that they provide without asking for more money, but we’re donating a loonie or toonie with every session, bumping up the annual commitment to something more like $250.  There are also the endless fundraisers (Apple Day, Popcorn sales), all of which make me wonder why Scouts Canada needs so much damn money.  I’d rather give this money to charity.

I now attend every meeting, but will not renew my son’s membership in 2010.

Also, I’m looking for a new group that my whole family can participate with.  I’d like to join something that acknowledges and explores world cultures without being religious, but more importantly, something that we can join where we learn some basic outdoors skills while also learning how to be responsible about them.

Suggestions?

#21:  Darlington Spill

The tritium spill at Darlingon in December 2009 was glossed over by the OPG, Ontario’s government and the general media in an unbelievable wave of simplicity.

We have been told that there’s nothing wrong, but should we believe this?

This story was a small glimpse into the hazards related to the nuclear industry.

Please never install another nuke again.  To be honest, I don’t care, but the future of our planet depends on not being so stupid.

#20:  Religious Zealots (especially as Political Advisors)

The Toronto Star finally did a tell-all about how people like Charles McVety are effectively controlling policy direction in the Prime Minister’s office.  We need more exploration of a similar and more intense nature.  We need all Canadians to understand how these people are shaping policy for their own profit and gain, with little regard for the population at large.

No Apologies blog offered a little more detail on the subject.

These issues have reawakened the desire of all Canadians to separate Church and State.

It’s time.

#19:  Don Cherry

Canada’s hockey ‘Don’ is a frustrating ‘tour de force’ that perpetuates two things in this country:

1. ‘Support the troops’ flag waving that we just don’t need.
2. Hockey violence.

I support our troops just as much as I support our doctors, public policy analysts, our nurses, road workers, and the millions of other people in Canada that provide public services to all of us all the while having deficit cuts and public inquiries hanging over their heads.

And hockey violence?  I will never enlist my son with hockey so long as nothing is done to curtail hockey violence in Canada.  Don Cherry could do something about given his stature as a Canadian commentator with Hockey Night in Canada, but he doesn’t.

Why?

#18:  The Nobel Peace Prize Committee

Barack Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize like I deserve an award for being the first male to give birth.  Giving someone an award for something that they promise to do or might do is not the same as rewarding action.  The likelihood of this happening, however, is marginal.  I think even Obama knows this.

Therefore, the decision to give him the Peace Prize in 2009 is one made in error.  Until the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are actually ended and the hundreds of US military installations around the world are untangled from the rubric of local affairs, I’ll insist that the man get the award.

Until then, find someone who is actually doing peaceful things.

#17:  Asian Carp

Asian carp – a voracious and destructive breed of fish – threaten to invade the Great Lakes within the next few months to few years and this will spell disaster for the natural environment of these water systems.

The Toronto Star covered the issue recently.

The history:

Asian carp were first brought to Arkansas in 1963 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which wanted a natural way to control aquatic weeds, reducing the need for chemicals. Fish farms brought more carp to function as pond cleaners.

The fish started to escape as early as 1966, according to a Fish and Wildlife Service history. The Asian carp were spread by Mississippi River floods in the 1990s.

Once released, the insatiable fish quickly conquered local rivers and headed north to spawn and eat. Asian carp now dominate many parts of major rivers, including the Mississippi, Tennessee, Missouri, Ohio, Columbia and Platte rivers. A survey in an offshoot of the Mississippi River near St. Louis found 97% of the fish were Asian carp.

The other sad part of this story:  the Asian Carp represent just one of the more than 150 invasive species to occupy the Great Lakes since the beginning of the 20th century.

#16:  The CBC

Yes, the CBC most certainly deserves a unique mention in this year’s list, mainly because the management has done everything it can to grind ‘the mother ship’ into the ground, buy American programming, and regurgitate all of the PR and spin that comes from various spin doctors.

I think they also deserve to be singled out since they made the exceptionally poor decision to join the hordes of corporate shills behind the ‘LocalTVMatters’ campaign.  Not only is CBC extremely lacking in local content, but their support gives a level of authenticity to the campaign that it otherwise lacks.

To top it all off, they (through CBC Radio) continue to produce the most abhorrent piece of propaghanda known as Afghanada.  It is the bottom of the content barrel and even Goebbels would be proud.

#15:  IOC / VANOC

When I was a kid, the Olympics meant a lot to me.  It was a brief moment in time when all of the world stopped to cheer on the youngest, strongest, fastest and most talented athletes that we could offer to amateur competition.

Today, the Olympics represent nothing more than a big drain on public coffers, a massive never-ending advertisement, support for repressive  regimes (has anyone seen reforms from China yet?) and, worst yet, near-Fascist in the control of information that will come from the Games as they’re played out in February of 2010.  And I haven’t even begun to touch the issues related to native land claims.

The latest casualty of censorship and control was the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, which refuses to ‘mime’ their performance for the grand opening.  Good for them.

I, for one, will not spend a minute watching the Games.

#14:  Rupert Murdoch

In 2009, Mr. Murdoch of News Corp and Fox News fame essentially told Google to go screw itself and that all content produced by his companies would be hidden from search engines.

While thinking ‘hey, that would be a good thing, right?’ I also wondered if Mr. Murdoch had read the stock pages recently of his own Wall Street Journal for the list price of Google?

#13:  The IMF and World Bank

2008 ended in near-complete financial anarchy.  The economies of the world were barely pulled together only because the world’s largest economies and treasuries responded to the clarion call of a number of international institutions, particularly the World Bank and IMF, to generate a massive and unprecedented level of spend from public coffers.

I believe the action taken to encourage economic stability was misdirected in the form of incredibly large bailouts for companies and activities that needed them least of all (the banks and car manufacturers).

The short-term result was unprecedented deficits of all western governments.

The longer-term result:  we will see 2010 and beyond be years of incredible slashing and burning of all public institutions.

I predict that anything that we hold dear in Canada – health care, the CBC, a legal system, etc – will be put on the block by Jim Flaherty.  The entire array of government-owned property will be sold off at fire-sale prices to finance a fraction of the inappropriate spending on home renovations and tax-free savings accounts for the rich and roads for the mob.  In fact, this story will prove to be a scandal of much larger proportion in 2010 than the Ad Scam was, assuming someone has the stones to do something about it.

#12:  Dalton McGuinty and Gleb Campbell

The HST will sow the seeds of ruin for both Dalton McGuinty and Glen Campbell.  It is Harris downloading at its best and will help the Cons shine while the rest of the country gets mired in political wrangling and the perception that it’s the provincial leaders brining about a tax increase.

Both of these men got screwed by the Cons, but we’re all going to get screwed by downloading.

Thanks for nothing, gents!

#11:  Elizabeth May

“Where’s my home?”

Elizabeth May has run in 4 jurisdictions (London North-Centre, Central Nova, possibly Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, and in the next election, the Saanich-Gulf Islands in BC) since being elected leader of the Green Party and she needs to settle down.

Of course, I like Elizabeth.  I like her broad knowledge base and ability to cite specific details in relation to environmental issues, legislative challenges and other elements related to her party’s platform.  I like her the fact that she seems approachable.

In fact, I think that the Greens should still consider some way to partner with the NDP (despite vast political and ideological viewpoints) and find a way to minimize the destruction that both parties bring to each other at the benefit of the Cons.  If they do, it will guarantee that either May or Layton will be top-ranked as Heroes in 2010.

And those are the only reasons why she didn’t get graduated to the Top 10 list of curmudgeons in 2009.

#10:  Michaelle Jean

In 2009, Canada’s Governor General proved that the office was redundant and an insult to Canadians.  Stephen Harper leveraged the office of the Governor General to prorogue, or effectively cancel the notion of democracy in Canada.

The situation proved that Canada is nothing more than a blob on a map for monarchists to do with as they please.

Thanks for another year of Conservative dictatorship, Michaelle!  Thanks.

#9:  Alberta’s Tar Sands

I don’t think I’m going to say much about the Tar Sands with the exception of this:  Ed Stelmach is right in that we all have Tar Sands muck on our hands.  As long as we accept transfers from the Wild Rose state province, we all have to accept responsibility.

#8:  10 Percenters

It used to be that Parliamentarians tried to communicate the wonderful things that they did in the House of Commons using what are called ‘10 Percenters‘.  These mass mailings could go to households in other ridings – at no cost to the politician sending them – so long as the distribution did not exceed 10 percent of the households in their own constituency.

This ‘perk’ has proven to be a complete sham and is being abused by every single federal political party in Canada to spread malicious BS about anyone else that is a Parliamentarian.

Will 2010 be the end of the 10 Percenter?  Let’s hope so.

#7:  The CRTC

During 2009, the CRTC proved to Canadians that it doesn’t have a purpose.

Whether it was rules and regs about Net Neutrality, licensing and copyright issues or policies related to broadcast television, they clearly demonstrated that they are not connected with Canadians, but with the monopoly institutions that lobby the CRTC day and night.

Canadians are being lead to believe that we need things like CanCon or rules related to content programming for our broadcasters.  Unfortunately, neither of these or other rules have done little to benefit Canadian artists.

If you feel the same way about the CRTC, call for its demise and support DissolvetheCRTC.ca.

#6:  H1N1 ‘Hysteriosis’

The insanity that surrounded H1N1 vaccinations, the clinics, the media and people that were threatening violence if they didn’t get their shots was beyond obscene.  All of the actors involved did nothing less than depreciate the human experience in 2009 and they should be ashamed.

2009’s H1N1 mania exceeded the insanity we saw with 2000’s Y2K.  It was a mess that was compounded by the media’s inability to apply scrutiny to an awful situation.  Moreover, several company did their best to act in their own interest and not with that of the public.  It opens up the likelihood that any federal party that promises a public medical research institution will gain credibility with a wide array of Canadians that don’t believe companies should profit from hysteria.

The hidden story with the H1N1 fiasco:  it highlighted the ways in which certain privatization zealots would attack Canada’s revered health system.  Because private institutions were given medication ahead of public flu shot clinics, many wealthy and powerful Canadians will do their best to continue to get front-of-the-line access like they might at a Lexus dealership.

#5:  Canadian Broadcasters

Read this article.  It will change your life.  Save Local TV, but for what?

The dark side to the whole Canadian broadcast story the past decade or so has been the limitless, reckless overspending – especially by CTV – in order to attain total dominance in the marketplace. CTV has owned the Canadian Top-20 nationally the past decade with its deep line-up of American hits – American Idol, the CSIs, The Amazing Race, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, the list goes on and on.

During – and, really, because of – that drive to dominance, the cost of importing American shows skyrocketed. Still, it seemed, no price was too high to keep a potential hit away from arch rival Canwest Global.

…

Now CTV wants you to cover their losses after recklessly overspending on the rights to the Olympic Games. The CTV-Rogers consortium paid a record $153 million U.S. when you include the rights to 2012. It was, some estimate, about $50 million more than CBC was prepared to bid at the time.

Times have changed. The companies that used to race to sponsor Olympic TV – mainly car companies and banks – got in ahead of the broadcasters for bailouts. The grand plan by CTV and Rogers to charge the highest ad rates in Olympic history ran smack into a stiff recession.

So now they’re going for the gold by asking Canadians – also hard-hit by the recession – to reach into their pockets and help them cover their losses.

If overspending was an Olympic event, CTV would win the gold, Global the silver, City the bronze. Don’t get taken for another ride in the KITT car, Canada. Let the buyers beware.

Now … go out and give some money to the folks with Net Neutrality.

Along with the need to abolish the CRTC, we all need to send a signal to our politicians and broadcasters that we’re really not interested in watered-down pablum from the US.

Canadians can produce good content, but you have to let us go.

#4:  Jim Flaherty

When this man talks, I have to turn off the radio or TV (although I have to admit that I don’t watch TV much anymore).

I’m left with a single question:  did the people in Oshawa not learn their lesson when Flaherty was Michael Harris’ axe-man in the 1990s?

Shortly after Parliament was dissolved for the holidays, ‘Diamond Jim’ crouched over the collective fire pits of millions of Canadians and took a dump on their Christmas by threatening unprecedented cutbacks in public programs in order to finance the growing deficit.  This was most likely a tactic done to appease the Conservative base but also avoid any real public scrutiny in the House of Commons.  Bold move, Jim.  Bold move.

What’s next?  Stealing presents from under the tree and ‘taking burned out lightbulbs to repair them there and bring them back here’?  When’s the moment when you and Max ride to the top of Mount Crumpet to discover that your heart is three sizes too small?  Is there anything that will make your heart grow to normal proportions?

Probably not.

#3:  Christie Blatchford

I’ll give her this:  blogging in Canada wouldn’t have taken on the relevance that it has in just the last few weeks if Christie Blatchford hadn’t trashed Richard Colvin the way she did.

Her unfortunate acts against Colvin have not only ruined his character, but they’ve damaged the reputation of the Globe and Mail to a point where I believe there will be an internal riot that will ultimately destroy one of Canada’s most influential media institutions.

In fact, I would argue that her acts of bias have pushed the Globe into irrelevance, much like Rupert Murdoch has pushed Fox into a world of ‘Faux News’.

Congratulations!

#2:  Stephen Harper

I’m honestly not sure where to start.

Stephen Harper spent 2009 being at the centre of Canada’s rapid descent into last place with pretty much everything on this planet unless, of course, you’re talking about the world’s worst and we’re at the top.

The great thing about Steve is that he’s helped the world of bloggers develop a broad new lexicon to describe him and the Conservatives:

• “Harpooned” – anything that gets in Steve’s way gets Harpooned (democracy, Parliament, environment, etc).
• “Slippery Steve” – to date, nothing has stuck to Steve, but give it time.  You can’t be mired in so much shit and not stink.
• “Harpocrisy” – the constant state of saying one thing and doing another (example:  destroying the Liberals for their efforts to bring a carbon tax to Canada and then suggesting it might happen here simply because the US might want us to).

#1:  Jack Layton

That’s right.  I’ve saved Jack Layton for the very end.  We all know that Stephen Harper is the most manipulative politician since Macchiavelli himself, and that Michael Ignatieff will continue to lead his party sideways for the rest of 2010 and beyond.

However, Jack Layton deserves the #1 spot for zeroes in 2009 for one simple reason:  he helped the Conservatives retain their hold on power in Canada.  I think Jack is the ‘friend’ that Stephen is singing about here.

I love the man, but the NDP made a single bad choice in the fall of 2009 by not stepping in to defeat the Conservatives when they could have.

Of course, an election wouldn’t have helped us collectively avoid our shameful disgrace in Copenhagen.  However, we could have opened up the books on the Afghanistan detainee issue.  We might have even been able to get what Jack wanted (EI reforms) if we simply pushed the Cons over the edge and brought on a new election in Canada.

That’s right:  I would have welcomed an election in Canada again so that I could celebrate the fact that I live in a democracy and not in a tempestuous brine of political swill that swallows my sense of pride and dignity when I say I’m Canadian.

Maybe you’ll be reading this Jack and you’ll get the message that if you don’t want to lead, please step out of the way because there are lots of Canadians who believe our country is more than just about political aggrandizement and power grabs.

And if you’re reading this Jack, please take a note from your ‘friend’ and start thinking ahead 4 or 5 steps like Stephen Harper does.  I don’t like the man, but I’ll give him this:  he and the rest of the Cons are exceptional strategists.  If you’re ever going to bring the NDP to power, you have to start thinking ahead instead of having knee-jerk reactions to various ‘turdblossoms’ that the Cons hurl at you because it’s exactly what they want you to do while they work behind the scenes on dismantling this country.

Another consideration (which I mentioned above) is that Jack needs to talk with the Greens.  Together, they could come to rule this country if they work out some way to cast aside differences and stop chipping away at each other’s base.  If they do, it will surely be an exceptional action worth noting in 2010.

In fact, I believe the future of our depends on it.

Conclusions

I’m sorry about writing such a massive list.  However, after several days of effort and a lot of thought, I’m happy with my list, but I know that I missed a thousand examples of people being small, petty and miserable in 2009.

Please share your thoughts about who deserves the crown as a zero in 2009.  I look forward to it!

P.S.  I expect to have my list of ‘2009 Heroes’ polished and published within the next few days.

In an interview with the CTV (does he ever talk with the CBC?), Stephen Harper has indicated that he will not rule out a carbon tax, simply because he’d be more than happy to drop his pants for the US (again).  This is a complete 180 from his original position that destroyed the Dion Liberals in the 2008.

Brilliant.  Sycophantic slippery Steve has lied to us again.

In fact, we’re all about to be ‘Harpooned’, much like Baby Boomers and other savers were Harpooned when the Conservatives killed the value of Income Trusts back in 2006.

We’re all going to eat the cost of carbon capture and carbon sequestration all so that the companies in Alberta can continue to belch out unprecedented volumes of crap.

Yay!  I can’t wait until the next election.  Please Santa.  Please bring me an election for Christmas

Stephen Harper has declared that no sacrifices will be made in order to salvage Canada’s ailing economy.

From this article, Stephen Harper said he will:

…use Canada’s co-chairmanship of next year’s Group of 20 countries meeting to urge members to put economic recovery before efforts to protect the environment.

Slippery Steve is at it again, only this time embarassing all Canadians with his perverse love of oil and joins Sarah Palin in ‘going rogue’.

Once again, Canada will be reaching up to touch bottom and will be the international ‘bad guy’ when it comes to climate talks.

From Yahoo Business.

It looks like the Cons will be burying another $63 million in taxpayer money in ‘carbon capture’ schemes, mainly in an effort to prove that the Tar Sands are worth the unprecedented environmental disaster that they’re subjecting on this planet.

If I can show them if I fart in my hand and cup it and hide it under a pillow, can I get $63 million as well?

For all those following this blog, please sign the following online petition to show that we care about our country and we’re no longer interested in exporting dirty oil to the US:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/green-jobs-yes-we-can-tar-sands-no-we-cant

Also, please copy / paste the URL and spread the word to your friends and families.  We need to send a strong signal to Stephen Harper and when Barack Obama comes to visit Canada, we need to tell him that we’re much more than just a source for dirty oil.

Rex Murphy, host of the national CBC show called "Cross Country Checkup", is asking Canadians tonight where they should spend their money.

You can all hang up.  I have the top 10 answers.

1. Stop spending any more money on fossil fuels or things that burn fossil fuels.  It’s stupid.
2. Understand that we have an opportunity to institute structural change:  invest in green and invest lots.  Renewable fuels & energy.  Solar retrofits & geothermal installs.
3. Infrastructure, but think in terms of "downtown" and the future.  Light rail transit.  Bike lanes in green spaces.  Fewer roads outside of the core.  And for the city of London (where I am), several over/underpasses so the city doesn’t get choked off by trains.
4. Cut spending on defense to balance any potential deficit spending.  The $500 billion that is planned by the Harper government has never come into question and should.  Why do we spend that money on enterprises that, in large part, aren’t even Canadian?  Because we’re stupid and we’ve bought into the ‘feat factory’.
5. Spend a minimum fixed dollar amount on every single city with a population that’s greater than 100,000 people.  I suggest $100,000,000. Those that have been spending their money wisely can invest in new projects or reducing property taxes.  Those that don’t can at least avoid slashing desparately needed social programs and public infrastructure.
6. Spend a pro-rata amount for cities larger than 100,000 people.  The more people, particularly that are in your downtown core, the more money you get.
7. Stop insisting that projects be given to the private sector first.  It’s a sure way to add 20-30% to the bottom line and cost of new projects and it’s a waste of public money.
8. Make a massive public investment in the communications network.  Bell Canada is doing a very poor job of running it, so Canada should have a new and exceptionally efficient public pipe that anyone can use without being throttled or facing lack of net neutrality.
9. Create a massive public investment in co-ops, non-profits and socially responsible organizations that are committed to the future of this planet.  If it’s not part of their mandate, they don’t get a cent!
10. Fire at least 18 Senators.

There.  Easy.  Now go to it, Jim!

According to James Hensen of NASA, a ‘green shift’ was the right thing for Canadians to do.

This article reminds us that we blew an opportunity to institute a new system for penalizing polluters.  Instead, we blew it because some of us were wooed by a blue sweater vest and the rest of us were too busy bickering amongst ourselves to get a majority for progressive voices when we needed it the most.

According to James Hensen, a tax is the only solution.  And it’s a critically important one if we’re ever going to control carbon emissions:

The physics of the matter, together with empirical data, also define the need for a carbon tax. Alternatives such as emission reduction targets, cap and trade, cap and dividend, do not work, as proven by honest efforts of the ‘greenest’ countries to comply with the Kyoto Protocol :

(1) Japan: accepted the strongest emission reduction targets, appropriately prides itself on having the most energy-efficient industry, and yet its use of coal has sharply increased, as have its total CO2 emissions. Japan offset its increases with purchases of credits through the clean development mechanism in China, intended to reduce emissions there, but Chinese emissions increased rapidly.

(2) Germany: subsidizes renewable energies heavily and accepts strong emission reduction targets, yet plans to build a large number of coal-fired power plants. They assert that they will have cap-and-trade, with a cap that reduces emissions by whatever amount is needed. But the physics tells us that if they continue to burn coal, no cap can solve the problem, because of the long carbon dioxide lifetime.

(3) Other cases are described on my Columbia University web site, e.g., Switzerland finances construction of coal plants, Sweden builds them, and Australia exports coal and sets atmospheric carbon dioxide goals so large as to guarantee destruction of much of the life on the planet.

Indeed, ‘goals’ and ‘caps’ on carbon emissions are practically worthless, if coal emissions continue, because of the exceedingly long lifetime of carbon dioxide in the air. Nobody realistically expects that the large readily available pools of oil and gas will be left in the ground. Caps will not cause that to happen – caps only slow the rate at which the oil and gas are used. The only solution is to cut off the coal source (and unconventional fossil fuels).

Coal phase-out and transition to the post-fossil fuel era requires an increasing carbon price. A carbon tax at the wellhead or port of entry reduces all uses of a fuel. In contrast, a less comprehensive cap has the perverse effect of lowering the price of the fuel for other uses, undercutting clean energy sources.vi In contrast to the impracticality of all nations agreeing to caps, and the impossibility of enforcement, a carbon tax can readily be made near-global.

It looks like we’re going to need some feedback from the NDP, given that they’ve always supported a cap/trade system.  If you’re with the NDP and you have some comments, please post them below.

In the interim, for those of you who are concerned about the cost of a carbon tax, DO THE MATH.

1. Alberta / Tar Sands exports go mostly to the US.  Our local gas prices wouldn’t be affected as much, given that we get fuel from such stable locations as Libya and Nigeria.  We’d export the cost of environmental remediation to American consumers.
2. A tax of, say, $40 dollars per tonne translates to about $0.02 per litre.

If that’s all it takes to help us dig ourselves out of our self-fabricated economic and environmental disaster, then you’ve got my 2 cents.

Tis the time of Janus, where we look forward to 2009 and back to 2008 at the same time.  What have we learned?  Are we making progress or are we stuck in the mud?

Project Censored has released its list of top censored stories in 2008 and 2009 and, with the power of the web, they’ll cease to be as ‘private’ as the mainstream media intended.

Here’s the full list for your enjoyment (with apologies to Project Censored, I’ve re-pasted the links below, just in case the lead story experiences a page change):

• #1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
• # 2 Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA
• # 3 InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business
• # 4 ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America?
• # 5 Seizing War Protesters’ Assets
• # 6 The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
• # 7 Guest Workers Inc.: Fraud and Human Trafficking
• # 8 Executive Orders Can Be Changed Secretly
• #9 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify
• # 10 APA Complicit in CIA Torture
• # 11 El Salvador’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror
• # 12 Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From No Child Left Behind
• # 13 Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq
• # 14 Mainstreaming Nuclear Waste
• # 15 Worldwide Slavery
• # 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights
• # 17 UN’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights
• # 18 Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers
• # 19 Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction
• # 20 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record
• # 21 NATO Considers “First Strike” Nuclear Option
• # 22 CARE Rejects US Food Aid
• # 23 FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drugs
• # 24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror
• # 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer

What are your favourite under-reported stories for Canada in 2008 and what do you think they will be in 2009?  My suggestions include the following:

1. The Cadman Affair.  What does Stephen Harper know about this?
2. The Coalition:  Which unelected coalition will Canadians be forced to choose?
3. Afghanistan:  end date = when?
4. Canadian Unions Forced to take a back seat to bailouts
5. HPV and the impact on young women
6. Vaccines and the impact on all young children
7. Nuclear power lobbying:  when will it end and when will we be able to move on to viable renewables?
8. The NDP-Green coalition:  Canada’s future in the making
9. Canada’s Trade Deal with Colombia
10. From SPP to North American Union:  Canada’s efforts to harmonize currencies
11. Tar Sands:  How much gain for how much pain to Canadians?

Please post your suggestions below and we’ll do our best to keep track of them during the year.