Showing posts with label Environment Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Environment Canada. Show all posts

Monday, January 16, 2012

Why Environment Canada Doesn't Report on Environment Since 2007

Harper body language when abroad
I've been looking for up to date statistics from Statistics Canada and can't get anything recent.  Here's why Canada Cuts Environment Spending

spending more than 60 billion dollars on new military jets and warships
slashing more than 200 million dollars in funding for research and monitoring of the environment.
crippled is Canada's internationally renowned ozone monitoring network, which was instrumental in the discovery of the first-ever ozone hole over Canada last spring.

Canada was the pioneer in ozone monitoring, developing the first accurate ozone measuring tool that led to the discovery that the world's ozone layer was dangerously thinning in the 1970s, which in turn led to the successful Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Substances.
Canada has about one-third of the ozone monitoring stations in the Arctic region. It also hosts the world archive of ozone data, which is heavily relied on by scientists around the world.
"There's only one guy running the entire archive, and he's received a lay-off notice letter," Duck told IPS.
 Environment Canada, charged with protecting the environment, conservation and providing weather and meteorological information.


A similar gutting of science and research is underway at Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the department responsible for protecting and managing Canada's ocean and inland waterways including the Great Lakes.
In addition, the main source of public funding for environmental science for Canadian universities has run out of money, and is expected to close early next year. Not surprisingly, scientists are leaving Canada in droves.
Government scientists are under a "gag order" to not to speak to media under any circumstances without permission from Prime Minister Harper's office. 
Non-government scientists working at universities declined to be interviewed, fearing loss of funding or other forms of reprisal."There will be fallout for anyone talking to you," Duck told IPS. "My prospects for doing any work for Environment Canada are now zero."
Canadian civil society organisations know all about the Harper government's reprisals. Many that once received funding but questioned government policy have lost their funding.
For 34 years, the non-partisan Canadian Environmental Network (RCEN) successfully walked the line between the needs of government and the needs of its more than 650 civil society members. But on Oct. 13, after waiting more than six months for its expected 536,000 dollars in annual funding, the group was informed by letter it would not be coming. Ever.
The network had been Canada's best two-way communication channel between the public and the federal government on all matters environmental. Now the government says this can be done more cost- effectively online.
Just six days after the pressing need to save 536,000 dollars, the Harper government awarded contracts totaling 32 billion dollars to build ships for the Canadian Navy and Coast Guard. It has also committed to spending another 29 billion dollars for 65 fighter jets.
"Among the first acts of the Harper government was to cut our funding to zero," said Hannah McKinnon of the Climate Action Network Canada (CAN Canada), an environmental NGO that used to get some government funding prior to the 2006 election.
CAN Canada has obtained some funding from its more than 80 member civil society organisations. It acts as the coordinator on climate issues, and once worked with government to improve programmes and policies for the benefit of all Canadians. Now has become the de facto watchdog on government promises and actions to tackle climate change.

"If there is a need to reduce the federal budget deficit, why is Canada continuing to give the oil and gas industry 1.4 billion dollars (1.3 billion U.S.) in subsidies every year?" she asked.
Harper promised to end these government subsidies in 2009. The International Monetary Fund, the International Energy Agency, the United Nations and many others have called for an end to such subsidies to the world's most profitable industry.
"Canada can't afford to pay scientists but we can line the pockets of big oil? That is totally backwards," McKinnon said.
Blogs are being blocked in Canada
 It's getting tougher to get real news on the environment from the internet because of censorship like the above.

Friday, January 6, 2012

In the Interests of Oil
Big Push By Harper to Peddle Influence 

"The Prime Minister was also asked about a proposal by Alberta Premier Alison Redford to create a national energy strategy that would pull together Alberta's oil sands, the hydro power of British Columbia, offshore oil in the Atlantic and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty's green-energy agenda."

So it's going to be a bundle of bad oil with a bit 'o green to sweeten the deal. B.C. is suffering the lowest job growth of all the provinces and is running out of options given the lack of government stimulus ideas other than gas plants.

The Northern Gateway push seems to be only concerning the Canadian provinces, without any discussion or attention paid to all the native bands who vehemently oppose the pipeline. They see the Chipewyan experience.

The people have complained of illnesses caused by the pollution of water and air. It will take 10 years to guarantee the results of scientific studies to prove their allegations. They don't have that much time. So it is up to us to bring attention to this horrible crime.

“We want to ensure in Canada that we have a regulator system that protects our environment and obviously protects worker safety and various other community interests,” Mr. Harper said. “At the same time, though, we have to have processes in Canada that come to a decision in a reasonable amount of time and processes that cannot be hijacked.”

Harper cannot bring himself to utter the words of the native bands in opposition.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Water Quality is Not Being Monitored, Seriously Under Reported

  • Why did it take three months for the results to reach the desk of John Baird and why isn't he responding to questions about the study?
  • Why is a perfectly credible study not being taken for its perfectly credible results and recommendations?  The study is comprised of cross panel of Aboriginal, industry, scientific and environmental contributors. 
  • Why have recommendations from 2004 not been taken?

The Athabasca River Basin

At 159,000 km square kilometers, the Athabasca River Basin (the area in green ) is the world’s third-largest watershed. The basin contains 94 rivers, 150 named creeks, and 153 lakes, and contains 4 of Alberta, Canada’s 6 natural regions: Rocky Mountain, Foothills, Boreal Forests, and Canadian Shield. Topographically, the region includes ecosystems as varied as snow-capped mountains, boreal forest, and wetlands. Due to the diverse habitats the basin supports, it is recognized as one of the most diverse, and therefore essential, providers of ecosystem services in the world.

Yet water monitoring has been entirely mismanaged by the tar sands industry, neglected by the Alberta government and highly under reported in the media.

A December 2009 campaign blog notes that the Canadian Press reported: “(A) study (that suggests pollution from Alberta’s oilsands is nearly five times greater and twice as widespread as industry figures say).  Full verification can be found in an American publication  Proceedings of National Academy of Science, and also criticizes Alberta’s monitoring program. ‘Our study confirms the serious defects of the (regional aquatic monitoring program),’ it says. ‘More than 10 years of inconsistent sampling design, inadequate statistical power and monitoring-insensitive responses have missed major sources of (contamination) to the Athabasca watershed. …(David) Schindler said nothing has changed in the province’s monitoring program since it was criticized in a 2004 review.” E & E News adds that, “The (Alberta) government has relied in part on the industry-funded joint Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program (RAMP) to monitor aquatic ecosystems near the oil sands sites. But RAMP lacks scientific oversight and keeps its methods and its data confidential, the study said. …RAMP has not measured PACs for several years after its tests revealed little or no water pollution, Schindler said. …RAMP should submit to oversight by an independent board of experts and make its data available for public scrutiny, the authors said.”

Environment Canada's Twitter page: http://twitter.com/environmentca