Check this out! Peter Mansfield on CBC news, March 15
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6CT-I2Nw-o
This is interesting. The noose tightens. The wiggle room contracts..
Monday, March 19, 2012
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
The Decline and Fall of Canadian Science
At the American Association for the Advancement of Science's annual conference
Feb. 16 to 20 in Vancouver, one of the panel discussions was titled "the muzzling of Canada's federal
scientists."
http://www.embassymag.ca/page/printpage/scientist-02-29-2012
Many of the participants appeared openly surprised, puzzled or worried by recent modifications in protocols relating to Federally employed or supported scientists' media access. In the past Canada was often seen as a model of governmental transparency. We find these recent changes a bit ironical, not to say hypocritical, given the fact that the Harper government was elected on a platform of "law and order, transparency and responsible government". Ironic, too, since Canada is headed in the direction the US followed under the Administration of George Bush, jr when climate science supporting the global warming hypothesis was ignored or devaluated. Today, under the Obama Administration, the US has become more open, while Canada, traditionally the more liberal and open society, is becoming more closed, controled, defensive.
Dr. Francesca Grifo, one of the panelists on "The muzzling of Canada's federal scientists" discussion and senior scientist and director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists warned that re-establishing open communicatons will be an ardurous process. "The longer that this [restricted access] goes on, the more deeply embedded it becomes in the culture in the agencies, and the harder it is to turn back," she said. "You don't want a situation where a scientist is scared to open their mouths when something is desperately wrong, that can hurt lives in a very direct way." Dr. Grifo's warning needs to be taken very seriously, we feel. In the turbulent times ahead, it will be essential that we have confidence in our officials and leaders. We will be facing, in the next few decades, several critical transitions: from our current cheap oil economy to the "post peak" oil economy, the divisive challenges of climate change adaptation, global demographic pressures on dwindling non-renewable resources.. Failing an abiding confidence in our leaders, we will only face a future of political and social chaos..
Here is a link to the full panel discussion at which Dr Grifo spoke:
http://hosting.desire2learncapture.com/StellarJay/4/watch/28.aspx
It is interesting to note that, while the government was invited to participate in the panel, all invited participants declined (!!) Very telling piece of behavior that..
Now what does Harperite "transparency" look like in practice, the transparency they promised us before they were elected? Well, in the past, reporters could call up an Environment Canada scientist, chat, and arrange an interview. Now calls are required to pass through a "filter" called "Media Relations". Good Lord, shades of the former Soviet Union, wouldn't you believe it! This is Canada we're talking about folks.. The idea seems to be: "no news is good news", "what the public doesn't know won't hurt them" (it will hurt them, of course, but we are dealing here with ideologues, no different - in reality - from those who oversaw the decline and fall of the Soviet Union).
En passant, it is interesting to note that the "muzzling" / "filtering" process imposed by the Harper government actually succeeds in introducing several new levels of beauracracy to science communication - and this from a rabidly anti-beauracracy government so keen to cut services to the most disadvantaged members of society! Will wonders never cease? What the hell is going on with these guys? Did they never heard the words "consistency" or "integrity"..
Canada has recently lost its "PEARL" of arctic science research, the world renowned Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory. Once again, one wonders about the possible motivations for the irrational destruction of critically important data gathering infrastructure: "no news is good news?", "what the public doesn't know won't hurt them"..
http://forums.canadiancontent.net/news/104697-feds-cut-funding-key-science.html
"This loss comes at a highly significant time when Arctic conditions are changing rapidly: Witness the recent rapid loss of permafrost, the appearance of the first large Arctic ozone depletion last year and many other harbingers of significant Arctic change," the researchers said in a statement Tuesday.
"Without PEARL there will be no continuous active measurements in the High Arctic of many atmospheric quantities scientists believe greatly affect both our Arctic and the whole planet."
internal blog link: sep 19, 2011 http://transparencycanada.blogspot.com/2011/09/environmental-transparency-what-you.html
http://www.embassymag.ca/page/printpage/scientist-02-29-2012
Many of the participants appeared openly surprised, puzzled or worried by recent modifications in protocols relating to Federally employed or supported scientists' media access. In the past Canada was often seen as a model of governmental transparency. We find these recent changes a bit ironical, not to say hypocritical, given the fact that the Harper government was elected on a platform of "law and order, transparency and responsible government". Ironic, too, since Canada is headed in the direction the US followed under the Administration of George Bush, jr when climate science supporting the global warming hypothesis was ignored or devaluated. Today, under the Obama Administration, the US has become more open, while Canada, traditionally the more liberal and open society, is becoming more closed, controled, defensive.
Dr. Francesca Grifo, one of the panelists on "The muzzling of Canada's federal scientists" discussion and senior scientist and director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists warned that re-establishing open communicatons will be an ardurous process. "The longer that this [restricted access] goes on, the more deeply embedded it becomes in the culture in the agencies, and the harder it is to turn back," she said. "You don't want a situation where a scientist is scared to open their mouths when something is desperately wrong, that can hurt lives in a very direct way." Dr. Grifo's warning needs to be taken very seriously, we feel. In the turbulent times ahead, it will be essential that we have confidence in our officials and leaders. We will be facing, in the next few decades, several critical transitions: from our current cheap oil economy to the "post peak" oil economy, the divisive challenges of climate change adaptation, global demographic pressures on dwindling non-renewable resources.. Failing an abiding confidence in our leaders, we will only face a future of political and social chaos..
Here is a link to the full panel discussion at which Dr Grifo spoke:
http://hosting.desire2learncapture.com/StellarJay/4/watch/28.aspx
It is interesting to note that, while the government was invited to participate in the panel, all invited participants declined (!!) Very telling piece of behavior that..
Now what does Harperite "transparency" look like in practice, the transparency they promised us before they were elected? Well, in the past, reporters could call up an Environment Canada scientist, chat, and arrange an interview. Now calls are required to pass through a "filter" called "Media Relations". Good Lord, shades of the former Soviet Union, wouldn't you believe it! This is Canada we're talking about folks.. The idea seems to be: "no news is good news", "what the public doesn't know won't hurt them" (it will hurt them, of course, but we are dealing here with ideologues, no different - in reality - from those who oversaw the decline and fall of the Soviet Union).
En passant, it is interesting to note that the "muzzling" / "filtering" process imposed by the Harper government actually succeeds in introducing several new levels of beauracracy to science communication - and this from a rabidly anti-beauracracy government so keen to cut services to the most disadvantaged members of society! Will wonders never cease? What the hell is going on with these guys? Did they never heard the words "consistency" or "integrity"..
Canada has recently lost its "PEARL" of arctic science research, the world renowned Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory. Once again, one wonders about the possible motivations for the irrational destruction of critically important data gathering infrastructure: "no news is good news?", "what the public doesn't know won't hurt them"..
"This loss comes at a highly significant time when Arctic conditions are changing rapidly: Witness the recent rapid loss of permafrost, the appearance of the first large Arctic ozone depletion last year and many other harbingers of significant Arctic change," the researchers said in a statement Tuesday.
"Without PEARL there will be no continuous active measurements in the High Arctic of many atmospheric quantities scientists believe greatly affect both our Arctic and the whole planet."
Public ethics is in deep water, folks, and sinking fast.
internal blog link: sep 19, 2011 http://transparencycanada.blogspot.com/2011/09/environmental-transparency-what-you.html
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
So this is governmental Transparency, eh?
Lest we forget, Steven Harper was elected on promises of "responsible government, Law 'n Order, and transparency". And what do we get? An unenviable record of electoral dirty tricks that would even neo-conservative tactician Karl Rove would be proud of.
During the last election, people in contested ridings received automated phone messages ("robocalls") purporting to originate with Elections Canada. Victims were told that their voting stations had been changed and were directed to new (non-existant) locales. Impersonating officials of Elections Canada to prevent voters from exercising their right is, of course, illegal.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/least+ridings+affected+robocalls+opposition/6212336/story.html
During the last election, people in contested ridings received automated phone messages ("robocalls") purporting to originate with Elections Canada. Victims were told that their voting stations had been changed and were directed to new (non-existant) locales. Impersonating officials of Elections Canada to prevent voters from exercising their right is, of course, illegal.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/least+ridings+affected+robocalls+opposition/6212336/story.html
We suspect that neocons
stoop to the level of negative ad bashing because they have nothing
to put on the table: no program, no ideas, no vision. Just maintaining
the dying, suicidal status quo on life support for a few more years at
which time the boomers will all be dead
in our graves. A sad commentary on a generation - who were given so much! - and our times..
To
conceal the intellectual vacuity of their positions on pressing issues like climate change, alternative energy, environment, rising disparity in income.. reactionaries turn - instinctively it seems - to the ad
hominen / personal attack, to the victimization of scapegoats or to delusional national projects (historically, imperial wars were often used to this end).
Given that no less than 34 counties and some 79 individuals have come forward to date with complaints, one suspects that this issue is not going to go away very soon. We may be dealing with a breaking Watergate type scandal.
internal blog link: 14 dec, 2011, Dirty Tricks, the New World Order
http://transparencycanada.blogspot.com/2011/12/dirty-tricks-new-world-order.html
http://transparencycanada.blogspot.com/2011/12/dirty-tricks-new-world-order.html
Friday, February 24, 2012
Krista puts her hoof in it again
Kista Erikson at Sun News has taken ombage at the fact that Québécois film director Philippe Falardeau's Oscar nominated film "Monsieur Lazhar" received - gasp! - money from the Federal government (hence - double gasp! - from the taxpayer).
http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/2012/02/17/sun-news-network-attack-on-monsieur-lazhar-is-just-goofy/
Montréal Gazette writer Brendan Kelly finds her behavior "goofy" but we think there may be more here than meets the eye. Look behind the goofiness and find, perhaps, a political motivation..
Ironincally, Mr Kelly himself appears to find the trace only to lose it again. Thus he writes quizically:
"What an outrage! Apparently our tax dollars went into this film. Actually I really have no clue why the folks at Sun News are so outraged. Is it ’cause the film is in the French? That the main character is an Algerian refugee? That it takes place in that noted communist hotbed Montreal?"
Yes, Mr Kelly we are suggesting that Krista lost it - unreflectedly or with premeditation (we do not know) - exactly because the film is in French, the main character is an Algerian refugee (both the fact that he is Algerian AND a refugee can be held against him), and that it takes place in a "communist hotbed" like Montréal.
If such an interpretation is true, one can only speculate. However, it does tie in with the rightwing, redneck, reactionary, populist tone of the Harper government in all its doings and gestures. If true, a new level of hypocrisy of neoconservative thinking would be revealed. We all know that the Harper government has made significant overtures to immigrant communities - at least during electoral campaigns, apparently in an attempt to tap into two potential sources of votes within immigrant communities: 1- the immigrant business community and 2- the conservative / reactionary social attitudes of many New Immigrant communities. This would constitute a delicate balancing act indeed because many Canadian rightwingers appreciate neither immigrants nor their particular brands of reaction (Islam as the One True Faith, outside of which there is no salvation, for example). At the limit, one might argue that the populist ideologues are attempting to play off one group of bigots against another so as to muster the intolerance of both against a common enemy ("the Left": liberals, moderates, social democrats, Québécois nationalists, feminists, "secularists"..) We note however that such hypocrisy and internal division would are, by no means, foreign to populists if their past actions are any judge. One need only consider the state of US politics before John F Kennedy and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Traditionally, the democratic party was the "natural ruling party" founded on an unholy alliance of "Jim Crow" - anti-black - local and state politicians in the South and northern working class / immigrant / labor union voters.
Another example is found in Québec during the "Grande Noirceur" - the Great Darkness, the reign of Québécois Premier Maurice Duplessis (reigned 1936 - 1959). Dupessis promulgated a nationalistic, patriotic - Québécois patriotism, anti-State and anti-labor message. Government spending was cut to a minimum as were labor safety regulations. Result: extractive industries (mining, forestry) payed next to nothing in royalties and taxes, environmental regulations were nil, the death toll from industrial accidents for Québécois workers was four times that of neighboring Ontario, Québécois were among the most uneducated and underpayed Canadians. New immigrants - Italian workers in Montréal - actually earned $200 per annum more than unilingual French Montréal citizens, circa 1960. In return, the Québécois were promised they would go to heaven for all eternity while their oppressors, "les Anglais et les Juifs" - the English and the Jews - would burn in hell for all eternity. The irony is that the greatest turn out of voters for Duplessis' Union Nationale party was in wealthy Westmount where the rich Anglais business owners lived! The populist voice often speaks different messages from both sides of its mouth..
Once again, we observe what can only be called the "prostitution of religion" to serve Ceasar. I recall conversations with people that grew up in Québec under the Duplessis regime. At election times, nuns in school would have kids recite the follow ditty:
Bleu est pour le ciel, Rouge est pour l'enfer
Blue is for heaven, Red is for hell
Blue was the color of the Union Nationale party, Red that of the Liberal party. Kids were told to instruct their parents they would go to hell if they voted the wrong color!
Do we not see echos of these attitudes in today's political scene..
We are witnessing a disturbing trend in contemporary societies: a rejection of the "Universalist" perspective of the Enlightenment. Universalism is a deep, "intuitive" ethical or philosophical insight which demands a recognition of the shared humanity or "human nature" of all people and groups of people, a common humanity expressed variously in different socio-cultural, historical environments.
Unfortunately, with the rising tide of reactionary thought and values, it is now becoming acceptable - even excpected in some quarters - to reject "cultural or moral relativism". We are warned in ominous tones and grandiose gestures that such "relativism" poses great moral risks for our collective security. Although what, exactly, is so evil about possessing the capacity to see complex entitities like people, nations, cultures, political views, other religions.. in their complexity and mulitiplicy is never explained. In this game, facts don't count but the "Great Gesture", the knowing - or insinuating - look. One does not argue or debate, one POSES. Politics as theater - some call it demagogy.. I even recall hearing reactionaries calling for a ban on Einstein's Theory of Relativity apparently because it contains the word "relativity" and therefore would, presumably, incite people to think "relatively". Reactionaries, as decades of social psychological research has shown, choose to live in a simplified - not say "mutilated" - world of Black / White, Good versus Evil dichotomies. At its worst, this mutilated and mutilating thinking projects a delusional / paranoid Manichean world view, a full blown retreat from reality into an all embracing, self-reinforcing, autoreferential delusional system: a social or collective psychosis. (All White, all Good) "fortress America" - or "fortress Russia", "fortress Islamic Community".. - is ringed in, surrounded by the omnipresent, omnipotent, insidious corrupting forces of Total Evil, attacking from both within and without. When mass paranoia develops around racial / ethnic / religious identity, we can only speak of "neotribalism" at its worst..
I am currently studying Fascist thought / ideology because I recognize the danger it represents to all that I hold good and valuable and noble in Western culture. One of the common threads in fascist / reactionary thinking is the duping of exploited classes so that, adopting a totally "inauthentic", "alienated"stance toward the world, they identify with the values of their oppressors and support those values to their own detriment. (footnote 1)Truly, truly twisted! As we wrote above: ".. the Québécois were promised they would go to heaven for all eternity while their oppressors, "les Anglais et les Juifs" - the English and the Jews - would burn in hell for all eternity. The irony is that the greatest turn out of voters for Duplessis' Union Nationale party was in wealthy Westmount where the rich Anglais business owners lived! The populist voice often speaks different messages from both sides of its mouth.." Indeed it does, it does indeed..
For Krista's commentary on government funding of the film "Monsieur Lazhar":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiUaPaDkAME
Internal blog link An earlier story on Krista's bullying populist attack on dance artist Margie Gillis:
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8403090612918247270#editor/target=post;postID=1372087197201984404
footnote 1 - "Inauthentic" is an insight drawn by Existential philosophers of the 20th century (Camus, Satre) to describe the modern consciousness. We claim to be "for the environment" yet buy SUVs! "Alienated" is Karl Marx's description of the relation of the industrial worker to his labor the results of that labor. The worker does not "own" the "fruits of his labor", his work does not express his personhood or value. It has become "alien" or "foreign". Work is no longer a blessing but a curse, at best a mere economic necessity. Social psychologists use the general term "anomia" or "anomie" to describe the sense of confused disorder, meaningless and insignificance resulting from a preceived lack of common norms, goals or values. In general, anomia is one of the major breeders of fascist, reactionary thought and movements.
http://blogs.montrealgazette.com/2012/02/17/sun-news-network-attack-on-monsieur-lazhar-is-just-goofy/
Montréal Gazette writer Brendan Kelly finds her behavior "goofy" but we think there may be more here than meets the eye. Look behind the goofiness and find, perhaps, a political motivation..
Ironincally, Mr Kelly himself appears to find the trace only to lose it again. Thus he writes quizically:
"What an outrage! Apparently our tax dollars went into this film. Actually I really have no clue why the folks at Sun News are so outraged. Is it ’cause the film is in the French? That the main character is an Algerian refugee? That it takes place in that noted communist hotbed Montreal?"
Yes, Mr Kelly we are suggesting that Krista lost it - unreflectedly or with premeditation (we do not know) - exactly because the film is in French, the main character is an Algerian refugee (both the fact that he is Algerian AND a refugee can be held against him), and that it takes place in a "communist hotbed" like Montréal.
If such an interpretation is true, one can only speculate. However, it does tie in with the rightwing, redneck, reactionary, populist tone of the Harper government in all its doings and gestures. If true, a new level of hypocrisy of neoconservative thinking would be revealed. We all know that the Harper government has made significant overtures to immigrant communities - at least during electoral campaigns, apparently in an attempt to tap into two potential sources of votes within immigrant communities: 1- the immigrant business community and 2- the conservative / reactionary social attitudes of many New Immigrant communities. This would constitute a delicate balancing act indeed because many Canadian rightwingers appreciate neither immigrants nor their particular brands of reaction (Islam as the One True Faith, outside of which there is no salvation, for example). At the limit, one might argue that the populist ideologues are attempting to play off one group of bigots against another so as to muster the intolerance of both against a common enemy ("the Left": liberals, moderates, social democrats, Québécois nationalists, feminists, "secularists"..) We note however that such hypocrisy and internal division would are, by no means, foreign to populists if their past actions are any judge. One need only consider the state of US politics before John F Kennedy and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Traditionally, the democratic party was the "natural ruling party" founded on an unholy alliance of "Jim Crow" - anti-black - local and state politicians in the South and northern working class / immigrant / labor union voters.
Another example is found in Québec during the "Grande Noirceur" - the Great Darkness, the reign of Québécois Premier Maurice Duplessis (reigned 1936 - 1959). Dupessis promulgated a nationalistic, patriotic - Québécois patriotism, anti-State and anti-labor message. Government spending was cut to a minimum as were labor safety regulations. Result: extractive industries (mining, forestry) payed next to nothing in royalties and taxes, environmental regulations were nil, the death toll from industrial accidents for Québécois workers was four times that of neighboring Ontario, Québécois were among the most uneducated and underpayed Canadians. New immigrants - Italian workers in Montréal - actually earned $200 per annum more than unilingual French Montréal citizens, circa 1960. In return, the Québécois were promised they would go to heaven for all eternity while their oppressors, "les Anglais et les Juifs" - the English and the Jews - would burn in hell for all eternity. The irony is that the greatest turn out of voters for Duplessis' Union Nationale party was in wealthy Westmount where the rich Anglais business owners lived! The populist voice often speaks different messages from both sides of its mouth..
Once again, we observe what can only be called the "prostitution of religion" to serve Ceasar. I recall conversations with people that grew up in Québec under the Duplessis regime. At election times, nuns in school would have kids recite the follow ditty:
Bleu est pour le ciel, Rouge est pour l'enfer
Blue is for heaven, Red is for hell
Blue was the color of the Union Nationale party, Red that of the Liberal party. Kids were told to instruct their parents they would go to hell if they voted the wrong color!
Do we not see echos of these attitudes in today's political scene..
We are witnessing a disturbing trend in contemporary societies: a rejection of the "Universalist" perspective of the Enlightenment. Universalism is a deep, "intuitive" ethical or philosophical insight which demands a recognition of the shared humanity or "human nature" of all people and groups of people, a common humanity expressed variously in different socio-cultural, historical environments.
Unfortunately, with the rising tide of reactionary thought and values, it is now becoming acceptable - even excpected in some quarters - to reject "cultural or moral relativism". We are warned in ominous tones and grandiose gestures that such "relativism" poses great moral risks for our collective security. Although what, exactly, is so evil about possessing the capacity to see complex entitities like people, nations, cultures, political views, other religions.. in their complexity and mulitiplicy is never explained. In this game, facts don't count but the "Great Gesture", the knowing - or insinuating - look. One does not argue or debate, one POSES. Politics as theater - some call it demagogy.. I even recall hearing reactionaries calling for a ban on Einstein's Theory of Relativity apparently because it contains the word "relativity" and therefore would, presumably, incite people to think "relatively". Reactionaries, as decades of social psychological research has shown, choose to live in a simplified - not say "mutilated" - world of Black / White, Good versus Evil dichotomies. At its worst, this mutilated and mutilating thinking projects a delusional / paranoid Manichean world view, a full blown retreat from reality into an all embracing, self-reinforcing, autoreferential delusional system: a social or collective psychosis. (All White, all Good) "fortress America" - or "fortress Russia", "fortress Islamic Community".. - is ringed in, surrounded by the omnipresent, omnipotent, insidious corrupting forces of Total Evil, attacking from both within and without. When mass paranoia develops around racial / ethnic / religious identity, we can only speak of "neotribalism" at its worst..
I am currently studying Fascist thought / ideology because I recognize the danger it represents to all that I hold good and valuable and noble in Western culture. One of the common threads in fascist / reactionary thinking is the duping of exploited classes so that, adopting a totally "inauthentic", "alienated"stance toward the world, they identify with the values of their oppressors and support those values to their own detriment. (footnote 1)Truly, truly twisted! As we wrote above: ".. the Québécois were promised they would go to heaven for all eternity while their oppressors, "les Anglais et les Juifs" - the English and the Jews - would burn in hell for all eternity. The irony is that the greatest turn out of voters for Duplessis' Union Nationale party was in wealthy Westmount where the rich Anglais business owners lived! The populist voice often speaks different messages from both sides of its mouth.." Indeed it does, it does indeed..
For Krista's commentary on government funding of the film "Monsieur Lazhar":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiUaPaDkAME
Internal blog link An earlier story on Krista's bullying populist attack on dance artist Margie Gillis:
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8403090612918247270#editor/target=post;postID=1372087197201984404
footnote 1 - "Inauthentic" is an insight drawn by Existential philosophers of the 20th century (Camus, Satre) to describe the modern consciousness. We claim to be "for the environment" yet buy SUVs! "Alienated" is Karl Marx's description of the relation of the industrial worker to his labor the results of that labor. The worker does not "own" the "fruits of his labor", his work does not express his personhood or value. It has become "alien" or "foreign". Work is no longer a blessing but a curse, at best a mere economic necessity. Social psychologists use the general term "anomia" or "anomie" to describe the sense of confused disorder, meaningless and insignificance resulting from a preceived lack of common norms, goals or values. In general, anomia is one of the major breeders of fascist, reactionary thought and movements.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Steven Harper - Québec separatists' best friend??
bumptious: crudely or loudly assertive; pushy
The idea might seem a bit bizarre but there is an argument that Harper's populist tub-thumping style may end up driving Québec into the hands of the seperatists, reviving what many consider a "dead issue"..
Quebecers, on the whole, see themselves as (squishy soft) "social democrats" on many issues such as abortion, gun regulation, social programs, crime and punishment of adolescents.. Many of us find the recent destruction of the long gun registry repellent and offensive: the gun registry was, after all, created by the activism of Quebecers after the Montréal Polytechnique massacre of 14 female students by a misogynist gunman, 6 december, 1989. The fact that Harper, in good populist funk, went so far as to take part in a celebration - !sic! - of the long gun registry destruction really did not sit well with many Quebecers: it's hard not to feel it as salt deliberately rubbed in an open wound..
Populist, redneck, neocon triumphalism - or just bumptious naïveté?
Justin Trudeau, son of former PM Pierre Trudeau and himself Federal Liberal MP, recently shocked Canadians in a French language CBC interview. Trudeau said he was saddened by the right wing direction Canada was taking under the Harper government. He went so far as to say that if things continued this way he might consider the separatist option: this from a son of arch-federalist Pierre Trudeau! (Obviously, this has separatists chuckling under their breath; I've heard them on the radio..) In the French language clip below the juicy part begins at 13 minutes.
Quebecers are feeling increasingly under-represented, misunderstood and unheeded. The longterm effects of Harper's populist bumptiousness are hard to predict but separatist leader (Parti Québécois) Pauline Marois seems ready to make hay while the sun shines..
In her open letter Madame Marois addresses what many Quebecers feel most offensive in the Harper government's handling of the deregistration process (aside from that damned celebratory cocktail party), the mean-spirited refusal of the Feds to turn over to Québec the portion of the long gun registry applying to citizens of the Province (my translation):
"We have proposed, with the Provincial government, the creation of a Québécois gun registry. To avoid prohibitive expenditures, the elected members of the Assemblée nationale have unanimously requested that Ottawa preserve the registry data relating to the Province of Québec. Unfortunately, your government has announced its intention to destroy these data. The people of Québec have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to create these files which are indespensible to the creation of a Québécois gun registry. Transferring these files to Québec will cost your government nothing. All that we are asking your government is the freedom for Québec to act in its own interests.."
Indeed! But Mr Harper seems far more occupied with short term political gain but populist tub thumping and bumptiousness may be this country's undoing.
Watch out Mr. Harper, what goes round, comes round..
Watch out Mr. Harper, what goes round, comes round..
Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind / Qui sème le vent récolte la tempête
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Elizabeth May pleads for realism on Energy policy
By Elizabeth May, Green Party Leader on 9 January 2012 - 3:10pm (from her blog: http://greenparty.ca/)
An Open letter to Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources Minister of Natural Resources
“Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth.
No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams.
These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda. They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest.”
- From your open letter of today’s date, January 9, 2012.
Dear Joe,
Your letter caught my attention. I respect you and like you a lot as a colleague in the House. Unfortunately, I think your role as Minister of Natural Resources has been hijacked by the PMO spin machine. The PMO is, in turn, hijacked by the foreign oil lobby. You are, as Minister of Natural Resources, in a decision-making, judge-like role. You should not have signed such a hyperbolic rant.
I have reproduced a short section of your letter. The idea that First Nations, conservation groups, and individuals opposed to the Northern Gateway pipeline are opposed to all forestry, mining, hydro-electric and gas is not supported by the facts. I am one of those opposed to the Northern Gateway pipeline. I do not oppose all development; neither does the Green Party; neither do environmental NGOS; neither do First Nations.
I oppose the Northern Gateway pipeline for a number of reasons, beginning with the fact that the project requires over-turning the current moratorium on oil tanker traffic on the British Columbia coastline. The federal-provincial oil tanker moratorium has been in place for decades. As former Industry Canada deputy minister Harry Swain pointed out in today’s Globe and Mail, moving oil tankers through 300 km of perilous navigation in highly energetic tidal conditions is a bad choice. In December 2010, the government’s own Commissioner for the Environment, within the Office of the Auditor General, reported that Canada lacked the tools to respond to an oil spill. These are legitimate concerns.
Furthermore, running a pipeline through British Columbia’s northern wilderness, particularly globally significant areas such as the Great Bear Rainforest, is a bad idea. Nearly 1200 kilometers of pipeline through wilderness and First Nations territory is not something that can be fast-tracked.
Most fundamentally, shipping unprocessed bitumen crude out of Canada has been attacked by the biggest of Canada’s energy labour unions, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, as a bad idea. The CEP estimates it means exporting 40,000 jobs out of Canada (figure based on jobs lost through the Keystone Pipeline). They prefer refining the crude here in Canada. (The CEP is also not a group to which your allegation that opponents of Gateway also oppose all forestry, mining, oil, gas, etc is anything but absurd.)
The repeated attacks on environmental review by your government merit mention. The federal law for environmental review was first introduced under the Mulroney government. Your government has dealt repeated blows to the process, both through legislative changes, shoved through in the 2010 omnibus budget bill, and through budget cuts. In today’s letter, you essentially ridicule the process through a misleading example. Your citation of “a temporary ice arena on a frozen pond in Banff” requiring federal review was clearly intended to create the impression that the scope of federal review had reached absurd levels. You neglected to mention that the arena was within the National Park. That is the only reason the federal government was involved. It was required by the National Parks Act. The fact that the arena approval took only two months shows the system works quite well.
Perhaps most disturbing in the letter is the description of opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline as coming from “environmental and other radical groups.” Nowhere in your letter do you mention First Nations. (I notice you mention “Aboriginal communities,” but First Nations require the appropriate respect that they represent a level of government, not merely individuals within communities.)
The federal government has a constitutional responsibility to respect First Nations sovereignty and protect their interests. It is a nation to nation relationship. To denigrate their opposition to the project by lumping it in with what you describe (twice) as “radical” groups is as unhelpful to those relationships as it is inaccurate.
“Radical” is defined as “relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.” (Merriam Webster).
By that definition, it is not First Nations, conservation groups or individual opponents that are radical. They seek to protect the fundamental nature of the wilderness of northern British Columbia, the ecological health of British Columbia coastal eco-systems, and the integrity of impartial environmental review. It is your government that is radical by proposing quite radical alteration of those values.
Your government has failed to present an energy strategy to Canada. We have no energy policy. We are still importing more than half of the oil we use. Further, we have no plan to reduce dependency on fossil fuels, even as we sign on to global statements about the need to keep greenhouse gases from rising above 450 ppm in the atmosphere to keep global average temperatures from exceeding a growth of 2 degrees C. The climate crisis imperils our future – including our economic future – in fundamental ways which your government ignores.
By characterizing this issue as environmental radicals versus Canada’s future prosperity you have done a grave disservice to the development of sensible public policy. There are other ways to diversify Canada’s energy markets. There are other routes, other projects, and most fundamentally other forms of energy.
I urge you to protect your good name and refuse to sign such unworthy and inaccurate missives in the future.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth May, O.C.
Member of Parliament
Saanich-Gulf Islands
Leader
Green Party of Canada
Comment: Once again, in the use of loaded language - "radical", the deilberate misrepresentation of the intentions of environmentalists as threatening jobs, etc - we catch the Harper government stooping to cheap populist demogogy. This is the "politics of fear", a tactic employed in the 20th century by totalitarian governments at both extremes of the political spectrum (fascist, communist). Such language should be taken as an insult to the public intelligence. It is inevitably a smoke screen used to deflect public attention from the real issues at stake. In reality, green energy will produce the greatest number of stable, permanent jobs: virtually all the economic studies I have encountered conclude that green energies - not centralized, capital intensive fossil energy projects - produce the greatest number of jobs per dollar invested. Green energies are labor intensive, fossil energy is capital (infrastructure, financing) intensive. Populists though are interested in Power, not Truth..
An Open letter to Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources Minister of Natural Resources
“Unfortunately, there are environmental and other radical groups that would seek to block this opportunity to diversify our trade. Their goal is to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth.
No forestry. No mining. No oil. No gas. No more hydro-electric dams.
These groups threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda. They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada’s national economic interest.”
- From your open letter of today’s date, January 9, 2012.
Dear Joe,
Your letter caught my attention. I respect you and like you a lot as a colleague in the House. Unfortunately, I think your role as Minister of Natural Resources has been hijacked by the PMO spin machine. The PMO is, in turn, hijacked by the foreign oil lobby. You are, as Minister of Natural Resources, in a decision-making, judge-like role. You should not have signed such a hyperbolic rant.
I have reproduced a short section of your letter. The idea that First Nations, conservation groups, and individuals opposed to the Northern Gateway pipeline are opposed to all forestry, mining, hydro-electric and gas is not supported by the facts. I am one of those opposed to the Northern Gateway pipeline. I do not oppose all development; neither does the Green Party; neither do environmental NGOS; neither do First Nations.
I oppose the Northern Gateway pipeline for a number of reasons, beginning with the fact that the project requires over-turning the current moratorium on oil tanker traffic on the British Columbia coastline. The federal-provincial oil tanker moratorium has been in place for decades. As former Industry Canada deputy minister Harry Swain pointed out in today’s Globe and Mail, moving oil tankers through 300 km of perilous navigation in highly energetic tidal conditions is a bad choice. In December 2010, the government’s own Commissioner for the Environment, within the Office of the Auditor General, reported that Canada lacked the tools to respond to an oil spill. These are legitimate concerns.
Furthermore, running a pipeline through British Columbia’s northern wilderness, particularly globally significant areas such as the Great Bear Rainforest, is a bad idea. Nearly 1200 kilometers of pipeline through wilderness and First Nations territory is not something that can be fast-tracked.
Most fundamentally, shipping unprocessed bitumen crude out of Canada has been attacked by the biggest of Canada’s energy labour unions, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, as a bad idea. The CEP estimates it means exporting 40,000 jobs out of Canada (figure based on jobs lost through the Keystone Pipeline). They prefer refining the crude here in Canada. (The CEP is also not a group to which your allegation that opponents of Gateway also oppose all forestry, mining, oil, gas, etc is anything but absurd.)
The repeated attacks on environmental review by your government merit mention. The federal law for environmental review was first introduced under the Mulroney government. Your government has dealt repeated blows to the process, both through legislative changes, shoved through in the 2010 omnibus budget bill, and through budget cuts. In today’s letter, you essentially ridicule the process through a misleading example. Your citation of “a temporary ice arena on a frozen pond in Banff” requiring federal review was clearly intended to create the impression that the scope of federal review had reached absurd levels. You neglected to mention that the arena was within the National Park. That is the only reason the federal government was involved. It was required by the National Parks Act. The fact that the arena approval took only two months shows the system works quite well.
Perhaps most disturbing in the letter is the description of opposition to the Northern Gateway pipeline as coming from “environmental and other radical groups.” Nowhere in your letter do you mention First Nations. (I notice you mention “Aboriginal communities,” but First Nations require the appropriate respect that they represent a level of government, not merely individuals within communities.)
The federal government has a constitutional responsibility to respect First Nations sovereignty and protect their interests. It is a nation to nation relationship. To denigrate their opposition to the project by lumping it in with what you describe (twice) as “radical” groups is as unhelpful to those relationships as it is inaccurate.
“Radical” is defined as “relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.” (Merriam Webster).
By that definition, it is not First Nations, conservation groups or individual opponents that are radical. They seek to protect the fundamental nature of the wilderness of northern British Columbia, the ecological health of British Columbia coastal eco-systems, and the integrity of impartial environmental review. It is your government that is radical by proposing quite radical alteration of those values.
Your government has failed to present an energy strategy to Canada. We have no energy policy. We are still importing more than half of the oil we use. Further, we have no plan to reduce dependency on fossil fuels, even as we sign on to global statements about the need to keep greenhouse gases from rising above 450 ppm in the atmosphere to keep global average temperatures from exceeding a growth of 2 degrees C. The climate crisis imperils our future – including our economic future – in fundamental ways which your government ignores.
By characterizing this issue as environmental radicals versus Canada’s future prosperity you have done a grave disservice to the development of sensible public policy. There are other ways to diversify Canada’s energy markets. There are other routes, other projects, and most fundamentally other forms of energy.
I urge you to protect your good name and refuse to sign such unworthy and inaccurate missives in the future.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth May, O.C.
Member of Parliament
Saanich-Gulf Islands
Leader
Green Party of Canada
Comment: Once again, in the use of loaded language - "radical", the deilberate misrepresentation of the intentions of environmentalists as threatening jobs, etc - we catch the Harper government stooping to cheap populist demogogy. This is the "politics of fear", a tactic employed in the 20th century by totalitarian governments at both extremes of the political spectrum (fascist, communist). Such language should be taken as an insult to the public intelligence. It is inevitably a smoke screen used to deflect public attention from the real issues at stake. In reality, green energy will produce the greatest number of stable, permanent jobs: virtually all the economic studies I have encountered conclude that green energies - not centralized, capital intensive fossil energy projects - produce the greatest number of jobs per dollar invested. Green energies are labor intensive, fossil energy is capital (infrastructure, financing) intensive. Populists though are interested in Power, not Truth..
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Shedding light on Peak Oil
This is an important book on energy, how much it will cost in the future, what this will mean for our "way of life". The Harper government is in bed with the Oil corporations: they provide a very one-sided perspective on the energy future of this country. To counter this slanted presentation of Canada's energy future, we are reproducing a review of an important book on Peak Oil here.
Book review: Jeff Rubin: Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller, Oil and the end of globalization (Random House, Canada, 2009) 265 pages; notes and index. Rating 8.5 / 10
HEADLINE: Summer, 2008. Spike in oil prices to $145 / bbl announces the end of the Era of Cheap Energy
Economic insider, Jeff Rubin, former chief economist at CIBC World Markets, has written a very readable, accessible introduction to "Peak Oil" and its future impacts. Although we have doubts about Rubin's cheery "business (almost) as usual" prognosis, he does nail down the basic mechanics and, for this, he gets close to full marks.
Peak Oil refers to human rationality: humans will pick the "low hanging fruit" first; they will first extract the most accessible, cheapest to exploit, reserves of a non-renewable resource (petroleum). This is logical: low production costs mean higher profits. Only later, when cheap reserves are depleted, will producers willingly switch to more risky, expensive reserves. To maintain profit margins they will pass on the increased cost to the buyer. Prices will rise, establishing a new market equilibrium of supply, demand and price.
In extreme cases, such as the contemporary global oil market, supply may become so constricted - "tight supply" - that even exploding demand for oil in emerging markets (China, India) cannot conjure oil out of the ground faster than it's coming already. Supply curves flatten - before, eventually, declining - despite rising prices and demand. This peaking and subsequent flattening of oil production is colloquially referred to as "Peak Oil".
In effect, the problem the globalized world economy faces today is simple: we've put all - or most - of our eggs in the basket called "fossil energy supply" and now that basket is falling (this is why granny used to say: don' t put all your eggs in one basket!) As easy to access reserves of fossil energy deplete, prices will rise, stiffling the economic growth our economic system requires in order to function - or merely survive.
In theory, way back in the 1970s - when people began to realize that we had demographic / environmental problems, we could have "converted" our remaining reserves of cheap fossil energy (coal, oil, gas..) into green energy infrastructure. Waiting until production costs of newly exploited oil fields becomes prohibitive is obviously not an intelligent strategy. Paradoxically, this imbecilic, "wait till the free market provides price signals for green energy development" strategy - promoted by the fossil fuel lobby - has been the policy followed for the last 40 years in first world economies. As Rubin indicates, rising production costs of newly exploited reserves - offshore reserves, tar sands.., will stiffle the transition to a green energy economy. In addition, our margin of error has now shrunk to the vanishing point. We have neither the time, the money, nor the resources to make mistakes. If we had begun a programmed transition to green energy back in the 1970s, we could have avoided the urgency to "get things right the first time". Letting things go to the last minute is dangerous and stupid if you life depends on making right decisions.. In addition, it is more costly to convert to a green energy economy today: the energy "embodied" in the construction of renewable energy infrastructure is more expensive than 40 years ago.
One of the main victims of cheap oil's demise will be the globalized economy itself. The analysis of the impacts of Peak Oil is indeed one of the strong points of Rubin's book.
During the Golden Era of Deregulation - the Reagan / Thatcher era, international trade barriers fell. Blue collar - and eventually white collar - jobs were exported overseas to 3rd world sweatshops, call centers and software writers. When energy is cheap and tariffs non-existent, this makes (short-term) economic - if not moral or strategic - sense: wages and environmental costs associated with regulations are lower (or nonexistent) in the 3rd world. As a result of "outsourcing", profits, dividends to shareholders, obscenely inflated salaries and "bonuses" to megacorporation plutocrats shot through the ceiling. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer - bigtime! The rustbelt spreading through disaffected industrial towns of America marked the demise of the "American Dream" for the little wo/man.. As peak oil now rears its ugly head, we are forced to recognize that the Cheap Energy Binge is over. Now we have the hangover, the cops and the landlord to deal with.. (So hungover, you fear you are going to die. And then it just goes on and on and on, and now you're so sick you really are scared you're NOT going to die..)
As the world economy attempts to recover from the "Great Recession", oil prices will spike again - since supply remains "tight", prices will be driven up by scarcity. Speculation may further inflate prices, repeating the boom-bust cycle of summer / autumn 2008 (which was the cause of the construction bubble collapse in the USA which, in turn, brought down the globalized financial sector, triggering the Great Recession) - this is one probable scenario. Another possible scenario - the economy will be stiffled by higher "new oil" costs and will never recover but continue its death spiral. This latter scenario now seems the more probable one. Only time will tell..
Regardless of which scenario materializes, the globalized economy is cooked. It will be too expensive to ship cheap rubber bath duckies and steel from China to N. America and Europe. As Rubin says, we will have to get used to producing / consuming locally and regionally as people did in the past. We will relearn the virtues of local food: it will be too expensize to ship mangoes to Montréal from tropical plantations employing massive inputs of expensive fossil fuel energy in the form of fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, insecticides and transport. We will have to reopen rusting N. American steel mills if we want steel, buy N. American vehicles if we want travel and transport.
For me, the weak point of Rubin's analysis: where will all the locally / regionally produced energy come from? Can we get enough renewable energy online, fast enough to avoid really serious economic and social disruption? If we can, at what price? Will that price be too high, stiffling any hope of long term economic recovery? I am not sure that even "green" Western Europe has enough installed green energy infrastructure to make the transition a peaceful one. It is for the perceived weaknesses of Rubin's analysis of the long term situation, that I withhold full marks: 8.5 out of possible 10.
As a general introduction to the subject of Peak Oil, especially for younger readers, it's hard to beat this book - despite its weaknesses.
Book review: Jeff Rubin: Why your world is about to get a whole lot smaller, Oil and the end of globalization (Random House, Canada, 2009) 265 pages; notes and index. Rating 8.5 / 10
HEADLINE: Summer, 2008. Spike in oil prices to $145 / bbl announces the end of the Era of Cheap Energy
Economic insider, Jeff Rubin, former chief economist at CIBC World Markets, has written a very readable, accessible introduction to "Peak Oil" and its future impacts. Although we have doubts about Rubin's cheery "business (almost) as usual" prognosis, he does nail down the basic mechanics and, for this, he gets close to full marks.
Peak Oil refers to human rationality: humans will pick the "low hanging fruit" first; they will first extract the most accessible, cheapest to exploit, reserves of a non-renewable resource (petroleum). This is logical: low production costs mean higher profits. Only later, when cheap reserves are depleted, will producers willingly switch to more risky, expensive reserves. To maintain profit margins they will pass on the increased cost to the buyer. Prices will rise, establishing a new market equilibrium of supply, demand and price.
In extreme cases, such as the contemporary global oil market, supply may become so constricted - "tight supply" - that even exploding demand for oil in emerging markets (China, India) cannot conjure oil out of the ground faster than it's coming already. Supply curves flatten - before, eventually, declining - despite rising prices and demand. This peaking and subsequent flattening of oil production is colloquially referred to as "Peak Oil".
In effect, the problem the globalized world economy faces today is simple: we've put all - or most - of our eggs in the basket called "fossil energy supply" and now that basket is falling (this is why granny used to say: don' t put all your eggs in one basket!) As easy to access reserves of fossil energy deplete, prices will rise, stiffling the economic growth our economic system requires in order to function - or merely survive.
In theory, way back in the 1970s - when people began to realize that we had demographic / environmental problems, we could have "converted" our remaining reserves of cheap fossil energy (coal, oil, gas..) into green energy infrastructure. Waiting until production costs of newly exploited oil fields becomes prohibitive is obviously not an intelligent strategy. Paradoxically, this imbecilic, "wait till the free market provides price signals for green energy development" strategy - promoted by the fossil fuel lobby - has been the policy followed for the last 40 years in first world economies. As Rubin indicates, rising production costs of newly exploited reserves - offshore reserves, tar sands.., will stiffle the transition to a green energy economy. In addition, our margin of error has now shrunk to the vanishing point. We have neither the time, the money, nor the resources to make mistakes. If we had begun a programmed transition to green energy back in the 1970s, we could have avoided the urgency to "get things right the first time". Letting things go to the last minute is dangerous and stupid if you life depends on making right decisions.. In addition, it is more costly to convert to a green energy economy today: the energy "embodied" in the construction of renewable energy infrastructure is more expensive than 40 years ago.
One of the main victims of cheap oil's demise will be the globalized economy itself. The analysis of the impacts of Peak Oil is indeed one of the strong points of Rubin's book.
During the Golden Era of Deregulation - the Reagan / Thatcher era, international trade barriers fell. Blue collar - and eventually white collar - jobs were exported overseas to 3rd world sweatshops, call centers and software writers. When energy is cheap and tariffs non-existent, this makes (short-term) economic - if not moral or strategic - sense: wages and environmental costs associated with regulations are lower (or nonexistent) in the 3rd world. As a result of "outsourcing", profits, dividends to shareholders, obscenely inflated salaries and "bonuses" to megacorporation plutocrats shot through the ceiling. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer - bigtime! The rustbelt spreading through disaffected industrial towns of America marked the demise of the "American Dream" for the little wo/man.. As peak oil now rears its ugly head, we are forced to recognize that the Cheap Energy Binge is over. Now we have the hangover, the cops and the landlord to deal with.. (So hungover, you fear you are going to die. And then it just goes on and on and on, and now you're so sick you really are scared you're NOT going to die..)
As the world economy attempts to recover from the "Great Recession", oil prices will spike again - since supply remains "tight", prices will be driven up by scarcity. Speculation may further inflate prices, repeating the boom-bust cycle of summer / autumn 2008 (which was the cause of the construction bubble collapse in the USA which, in turn, brought down the globalized financial sector, triggering the Great Recession) - this is one probable scenario. Another possible scenario - the economy will be stiffled by higher "new oil" costs and will never recover but continue its death spiral. This latter scenario now seems the more probable one. Only time will tell..
Regardless of which scenario materializes, the globalized economy is cooked. It will be too expensive to ship cheap rubber bath duckies and steel from China to N. America and Europe. As Rubin says, we will have to get used to producing / consuming locally and regionally as people did in the past. We will relearn the virtues of local food: it will be too expensize to ship mangoes to Montréal from tropical plantations employing massive inputs of expensive fossil fuel energy in the form of fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, insecticides and transport. We will have to reopen rusting N. American steel mills if we want steel, buy N. American vehicles if we want travel and transport.
For me, the weak point of Rubin's analysis: where will all the locally / regionally produced energy come from? Can we get enough renewable energy online, fast enough to avoid really serious economic and social disruption? If we can, at what price? Will that price be too high, stiffling any hope of long term economic recovery? I am not sure that even "green" Western Europe has enough installed green energy infrastructure to make the transition a peaceful one. It is for the perceived weaknesses of Rubin's analysis of the long term situation, that I withhold full marks: 8.5 out of possible 10.
As a general introduction to the subject of Peak Oil, especially for younger readers, it's hard to beat this book - despite its weaknesses.
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