Used to be?

When discussing the David Suzuki Foundation it's time to add a few clarifying words i.e.-
"former environmental organization the David Suzuki Foundation..." would be a good start.

If you can get some copies of "Vote Wild", try to distribute them to friends, work, family, in coffee shops-everywhere you can think off.

"Vote Wild' is great and we need to get it out there!

Is peace river dam smart?

All indicators, based on past performance, are that the liberals will do whatever is in the interests of business interests and dam the environment in the Peace. Rumours are that this project will be pushed through soon after May 12. What about the backroom deals they made with Alcan?

Although I support initiatives such as the carbon tax - I don't support how the liberals are managing it. Of course, the largesse of the impact of these plans and policies are felt by the small populations in the north. Out of sight, out of mind I guess.

NDP "weakest" carbon platform in Canada ...

While I very much support Michael McGonigle's thoughts and ideas put forward in yesterday's article posted here, I just picked up this article from yesterday:

Ottawa Think-Tank Calls B.C.'s Carbon Tax Canada's "Most Effective"

British Columbia has the best carbon pricing scheme in Canada. That's the conclusion of a national survey and analysis of climate policies compiled by Sustainable Prosperity, a progressive think tank based at the Univeristy of Ottawa.

According to a Globe and Mail report, the authors of the study invested a year speaking with top economic, business and environment leaders across the country before identifying eight key principles of a carbon pricing plan—think tranparency, reach, simplicity, and so on. The group then applied those principals to score Canada's existing carbon laws and proposals. B.C.'s carbon tax, introduced a year ago, scored an 87. It fell short in the areas of national reach and long-term impact.

The group also informally examined the limited cap-and-trade policy that B.C.'s New Democratic Party is presently campaigning on. Sustainable Prosperity's carbon-pricing director told the Globe that her group's "score card would rate [it] as the weakest policy in Canada.” With few details of that plan yet available, the group was only able to conduct a back-of-the-envelope analysis. It was enough, though, to suggest that New Democrat's plan would introduce "huge instability and doubt" to the market."

The decision is simple - and imperative

Whichever alternate camp your political leanings may lie, if you care about the environment and all its plant and animal inhabitants in this great province, at the end of the day the one party to singly, unequivocably NOT vote for is -- the Liberal party. Hands down, the most destructive party in the history of BC, with plans to continue the destruction if voted in for yet another four, long years. That is the message. Understandably most of the established environmental orgs do not take a partisan stance at election time, but let's not beat around the bush here. The Liberals are a disaster. Most recent case in point - this week's announcement to further cut park and conservation officers yet AGAIN in the Ministry of Environment, by another 40%. Outrageous and completely representative of Campbell's real "green" policies and priorities. Send this party packing on May 12. Eight years is ENOUGH.

TYEE should to an ENGO Leader scorecard

I would like to see an Enviro Leader scorecard to see if they practice what they preach!

Or are they just like Al gore and his Mansion (did David Suzuki support vthe wind farm project off Quadra Island?)!

Carbon TAX

I will not vote ndp unless they support a carbon tax until cap and trade is ready. (thats 5 years or so) Only when it is up and running, can they get rid of it.
OK? The NDP comes across as dictatorial for not taking on the concerns of the sazuki organisation and others.
Instead they smear them! Smear smear smear! The sazuki organisation has done the math. You guys can still wake up, LISTEN, change course on carbon tax and you will get my vote. (And I suspect lots of others tooo).
A good politician listens, and reviews. James can still win but only if she respectuflly changes course right now.
Brian

The Symbolic (useless) Carbon Tax!

Funny how those that support the un-effective carbon tax say you should vote Liberal to keep the Symbolic Green Wash Carbon Tax, yet...

You should vote no against STV because it is not effective enough

If you want it both ways you should bend over and open your mouth!

Pivot point

The pivot point of this election is the Liberal strategy to avoid their environmental track record while stepping up their environmentally destructive agenda by cloaking it with the green screen provided by the celeb enviros.

This has been brilliantly executed and has been undertaken by some of the best mind benders in the business.

The environmental community is dominated by issue-based, ego-driven self-appointed leaders and Campbell knows that anyone organizing to push back on his strategy will be so busy shoveling frogs in to a wheel barrow that he can drive his agenda down BC's throat virtually undhindered.

So far this insidious, hypocritical deception has been a great success as Gordo clings to the mantel of "World Leader" on climate change regardless of the fact that this position is a mile wide and an inch deep.

Public opinion is not on his side, the majority of the enviro community is not on his side and if our media was in the business of reflecting reality versus driving the corporate agenda everyone would know that the handful of power brokers who are on his side have nothing to do with "saving the environment."

BrianWhite

You're rewriting history, Suzuki and others attacked the NDP first. James did not come out swinging against the so-called environmental leaders, she instead reacted to the environmental media darlings and their press conferences with "agree to disagree". How is that smearing or even wrong?

As for your vote, we don't want it if it means the NDP has to turn its back on its progressive past and instead become as right-wing as the Fraser Institute and their push to adopt connsumption taxes over income taxes.

Green a color, not a political strip.

A couple of weeks ago a Globe & Mail article rehashed in a NYT blog about our BC carbon tax recieved a comment from Kevin Grandia, Vancouver's "desmogblog"'s Operations Manager. Apparently:

Kevin Grandia has been trained by Al Gore as part of The Climate Project, an initiative designed to educate the public about climate change.

Kevin's comment in the NYT:

... economist and Nobel Prize winning IPCC author, Dr. Marc Jaccard weighed in with an analysis of the NDP’s cap and trade plan and concluded that it could cost BC upwards of 60,000 jobs...-snip-
What amazes me most about this election is that we have a carbon tax that is considered the most comprehensive in North America and a LEFT wing party is against it.
The whole thing smacks of political opportunism on the part of the left-wing NDP who should know better.

This, a telling admission, that Kevin expects a left leaning party to be more environmentally aware. The truth is the NDP has a better environmental record than any party in Canada or the USA and have a policy/platform to prove it: Sustainability Policy

The response to Kevin, also a Vancouverite:

First, Dr. Jaccard is not an IPCC author. BC’s Dr. Andrew Weaver is our NobelPrize winner. -snip-It is very curious that Dr. Jaccard could imagine how a cap and trade programme could be comparable/as effective as a carbon tax when drafting his report in December 2008, but could not so imagine when he decided to step up and criticize BC’s NDP party on April 11, 2009. It is even more curious that the media would directly quote Dr. Jaccard contradicting his own findings, without picking up on that fact.
— Aldyen Donnelly

Who is DeSmogBlog?

The DeSmogBlog team is led by Jim Hoggan, founder of James Hoggan & Associates, one of Canada's leading public relations firms.

According to Elections BC records he is also Suzuki Foundation Chairman and communications advisor and is a frequent Liberal donor. Also his company was paid $353,855 by the BC Gov't for various contracts.

Where are these people's integrity and what does it say when even TheTyee has difficulty determining who is really green and who is brown. Seems like a pack of wolves in sheep's clothing, these desmogblog characters. They act like sheep trying to hide behind green veneers, telling half truths and lies so that we vote for the Liberals because Suzuki's organization has had the wool pulled over their eyes.

Suzuki is a collaborator, the ultimate traitor and the only thing any of them care about are appearances. Could they give a damn about climate change, I think not. As their actions speak louder than words.

michael maser

"Huge instability and economic doubt," eh? Like that caused by gordon campbell by losing 80,000 jobs since last summer, by having the fastest growing ei rolls in canada, by having the second lowest rate of gdp growth in 2008 in the country, despite a residue of olympic construction?? And I have not trusted the globe and fraser institute lunch pail, since it was bought by bell globe media, along with ctv. Someone as supposedly concerned with democracy as yourself should really not quote polls by a newspaper that may have tweaked the outcome of the last provincial election with a notorious push-poll. But that's all too typical of many, if not most carbon tax supporters. But what can we expect from anyone who would support a tax whose really only real aim is the cosmetic greenwashing of a premier with the worst bc environmental record ever. You can put lipstick on a pig, or on the premier, but the result, if one actually looks is always ridiculous, except to those whose agenda is really not a green and healthy planet, in the first place, but endless greenwashing as the rape of the environment continues at a breakneck pace...

But did it REDUCE the carbon footprint....?

Twistin, they're Twistin, just Twistin...

The NDP is criticized by a whole bunch of Enviro organizations and people and the NDP defenders here just can't stand it.

Quick, run around and find something, anything to slag the Liberals!

What about Al Gore? Well, he's a traitor now because he supports a carbon tax, just like that Liberal one.

What about David Suzuki? Well, he's another traitor now because he supports a carbon tax, just like that Liberal one.

What about Tzepora Berman? Well, she's a traitor now because she supports a carbon tax, just like that Liberal one.

What about Mark Jaccard at SFU?, Well, he's a traitor now because he supports a carbon tax, just like that Liberal one.

What about the Pembina Institute? Well, they're all traitors now because they support a carbon tax, just like that Liberal one.

What about Sustainable Prosperity? Well, they're all traitors now because they support a carbon tax, just like that Liberal one.

What about the Ottawa office of the NDP, they say that the platform policy is based on Suzuki and Pembina? Well .....Well I don't know maybe all the enviros bought them off just like they did Liberals!

What about the Sierra Club, they praised the Liberals for Saving the Great Bear and they support the Carbon Tax? Well, they must all be traitors too, even if ex-BCGSEU President George Heyman is now Executive Director.

Is there a pattern here?

No everyone is wrong and only the BC NDP is right.

Traitors

How could people like Al Gore, Mark Jaccard, Sustainable Prosperity etc be traitors when they were never on our side?

By your logic Gordon Campbell is a traitor too as he is also against the NDP.

Anyway, there's lotd of environmentalists on the NDP side as you know which is why you found it so hard to compile your list.

Suzuki Foundation Objective? Hardly!

Two points from the story, as quoted below:

"Moola said the David Suzuki Foundation is still debating whether or not to release a report card this year."

"We're a science-based organization, so it necessitates a lot of research and careful critical analysis. And as a charitable foundation, we're under quite strict rules by the CRA in terms of our ability during an election period to be explicitly political in terms of assessing policy and platforms."

First, given the huge amount of corporate financial support (read Liberal supporters) given the Suzuki Foundation, who would find any report card from this organization credible?

Secondly, the Suzuki Foundation (SF) has been very political in this campaign, having slammed the NDP over the carbon tax and so implicitly supported the Liberals. Only a coincidence that the SF is funded heavily by big corporate donors? Maybe the CRA should be looking closer.

Report card from the Watershed Sentinel

Delores Broten at the Watershed Sentinel brought this article to my attention.

It is a great piece on Liberal, NDP and Green platforms on environmental issues, beyond what I've addressed here -- including Parks, Groundwater, Coal Exports and Automobile Alternatives.

Whoops, here is that link...

http://www.watershedsentinel.ca/content/playing-party-game-2009-bc-election

Hardly a ringing endorsement for the Carbon Tax

Rather tired of the spin being put on the carbon tax - how can anyone believe the liberals are in support of the environment after the Sea-to-Sky highway fiasco and the development of the Howe Sound - let alone the Gate Way project.

The following is probably the most complete study of a country that has used the the carbon tax for approximately 18 years. It is available on line.

Further more the Nobel Prize was awarded to the IPCC and according to Nobel Committee none of the IPCC committee members are called Noble Laureates or Nobel Prize winners. They were simply part of the committee

Conclusions from Annegrete Bruvoll og Bodil Merethe Larsen
Discussion Papers No. 337, December 2002
Statistics Norway, Research Department
Greenhouse gas emissions in
Norway
Do carbon taxes work?

Last Part of Conclusions
When we consider the emissions of all greenhouse gases, policy measures aimed at reducing other greenhouse gas emissions than CO2 seem to have been more efficient than the carbon taxes’ effect on CO2 emissions. For example, abatement of landfill gases, and regulations of the process industries have significantly slowed down or reduced climate gas emissions (Ministry of Environment 2002).
Not only have these direct regulations proven far more successful, but they have also been carried out at significantly lower costs per tonne CO2 (Bruvoll and Bye 1998). The low emission effect from the high taxes implies high costs from sources on which the tax is levied.

For countries that consider implementing a carbon tax and in future Norwegian carbon tax policy, we recommend a more broad based, cost efficient tax, which is uniform for all sources and greenhouse gases. With a more uniform distribution of the tax burden, it is possible to accomplish larger reductions in the greenhouse gas emissions at lower costs. A joint international cooperation regarding the carbon taxes would also reduce the concern related to trade effects of the domestic tax burden, and hence ease the pressure towards tax exemptions for e.g. the process industries.

green?

I have never voted NDP. I will keep on not voting NDP now that the NDP are against the carbon tax. Who in their right mind thinks that someone who cares about the environment would vote Liberal because of the carbon tax?? The Liberals will clearcut anything that helps the corporations, the NDP will clearcut anything that helps the unions. I will keep voting Green, thank you very much.

All you NDP fanatics who would say that my vote for Green is effectively a vote for the Liberals, after you wash your mouth out with soap you should make sure that you vote yes for STV. If there were no Green Party I would rather hold my nose and vote for stronger unions than for stronger corporations, and I'm sure I'm not alone. With STV, I could mark Green #1 and NDP #2, and when the Green candidate is eliminated then the NDP would get my vote. But I think the thing that terrifies a lot of you is that a lot of the people who do hold their nose and vote NDP would use their new freedom of choice to do the same thing - demote NDP to #2 and put Green down at #1. Oh noes, Green party candidates elected, why won't anyone think of the poor poor unions?!?!

Of course we need the carbon tax. More of the true cost of burning fossil fuels has to be accounted for in our economy. More benefit from becoming more energy efficient has to come to end users. More incentive is needed to shift our economy towards a greener future. Everyone who gives it a good look knows it's a great idea. Except the NDP who choose to make a crass political ploy for a few hurtland votes. Showing yet again how important the environment really is to them. Sick.

Brian White: Exact opposite of the truth

BrianWhite
Instead they smear them! Smear smear smear! The sazuki organisation has done the math.

This characterization is the exact opposite of the truth, and Brian White knows that.

It's David Suzuki and Mark Jaccard, as well as Nancy Olewiler and John Robinson who have taken to writing caustic, abusive op-ed pieces for the CanWest press attacking Carole James and Jack Layton in personal terms, deliberatly using such pejorative labels as "dishonest", and in Suzuki's case stating that he was "ashamed" of Carole James, as if she were someone in whom he had a proprietary interest.

For her part, James has replied diplomatically, sticking to the issue as avoiding the cheap and churlish personal remarks, stating that there is a disagreement and that's that.

For Brian White or anyone else to state that the NDP is smearing poor Doctor Suzuki is outside the acceptable range of baloney, even for a B.C. election.

This is BC. Smoke and mirrors are de rigeur.

Not to be cynical but in BC, you don't actually need to DO anything. All you need to do is to go to meetings and talk big. Gordon Campbell was talking about a Hydrogen Highway to California last year. It was a perfect example of empty rhetoric. He should take that highway himself and never come back.

mikev: "a few heartland votes"?

mikev
Of course we need the carbon tax. More of the true cost of burning fossil fuels has to be accounted for in our economy. More benefit from becoming more energy efficient has to come to end users. More incentive is needed to shift our economy towards a greener future. Everyone who gives it a good look knows it's a great idea. ...

Carbon pricing can also be achieved through a cap and trade system. That is what President Obama is going to do, and that is what Carole James and Jack Layton think Canada should do.

... Except the NDP who choose to make a crass political ploy for a few hurtland votes. Showing yet again how important the environment really is to them. Sick.

I notice you specifically disparage rural and northern votes. Is this another attempt at claiming some kind of urban superiority?

Mikev - Take a Closer Look!

Mikev, have you actually looked at the NDP platform to see the very many other environmental initiatives (never mentioned in the media)that Carole James has in place besides her proposed cap and trade system? Much has been made of the carbon tax in the media, but have you looked into whether or not it has actually made a difference in BC? It hasn't, and any money gained from it (after we all get our rebate cheques) is not being poured into green technology and research, as was the promise. It's not working well in Norway, where it has been in place for almost two decades.
As for your comment "All you NDP fanatics who would say that my vote for Green is effectively a vote for the Liberals..." - well, unfortunately that is the case. As someone who has often voted Green in the past, I sadly cannot do so this time around knowing what is at stake. The Green Party will not realistically be able to get a majority - no mouth washing required for telling the truth, hard as it may be for us to accept. So if you vote Green that gives the Liberals more of a chance to get in and continue on their path of deceit, secrecy, and destruction. I really feel the only solution is to vote NDP and YES to STV so that next time around the Greens will get to have a real voice and the representation they deserve.
If you need any further motivation, look up some of the articles by Rafe Mair and go to the saveourrivers.ca website. Watch some of their videos. It's absolutely frightening. Campbell simply has to be stopped immediately, and that can't be accomplished with a Green vote right now.

The Carbon Tax issue; a Primer for the NDP.

Dear Carol James:
The Carbon Tax is a sound idea. BC is leading the country by introducing it. Please don't eliminate it entirely. If you and your party doesn't like it, just don't implement the programmed increases. Leave it on the books as a token tax until you have educated yourself on the need to retain it.

The Campbell administraion has disgraced itself so profoundly with the personal conduct of its members that you don't need to attack everything they do. Their reckless driving record alone would bar at least three of the candididates from office, including the premier and the solicitor-general. BC Railgate and the Run-of-the-river sell-off should give you enough ammunition to take them out of office. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

cap & trade, carbon offsets, etc

Cap and trade, carbon offsets, a bunch of funny accounting in big office towers far away from me. Maybe it's a good idea, but it's also a good idea to try to influence me and people like me by putting the cost of pollution in my face with a carbon tax.

"I notice you specifically disparage rural and northern votes. Is this another attempt at claiming some kind of urban superiority?"

Hehe. I live in a town with a population of about 8,000.

I know a carbon tax is a regressive tax on expenditure as opposed to a progressive tax on income. And I know it affects people in places where work and the grocery store are farther away, without the option of a nice big expensive Skytrain. And I know it gets colder up north. But we're polluting our planet, too much pollution, and if the only changes we are wiling to make are the comfortable ones then we're already lost.

I've looked at a lot of the arguments around run of river power. I'm against the independent power producers scheme, it's ripping off we the people and crippling our shining beacon of a crown corporation BC Hydro. It's an economic issue. Environmentally, there will be some disruption and yes even some destruction, but in the end it will be clean green renewable energy, which we need, badly. What are the better options? Waste incineration and natural gas burning? If BC Hydro would develop these projects then I would be all for them. It's just the outright robbery that sticks in my craw.

I'm sure the NDP party has a lot of great ideas in their policy. What political party today doesn't? Is there a party out there that seriously completely ignores the environment? Why do you think that is? It's because of people like me consistently voting Green, making it attractive to every party to try and get some support from people like me. Voting Green is *NOT* a waste.

And I definitely think anyone who advocates "strategic" voting needs a swift kick in the head. "Strategic" voting blasphemes democracy. I have chosen the party who I think best represents my interests. Now you want to scare me into voting for someone worse, in case someone even worse than that gets in. You know what we get with that kind of attitude? CHRONIC LACK OF MEANINGFUL CHANGE. Unless you vote for a serious party your vote is wasted, and unless you pander to the masses in the center you can't have a serious party. Shame on you. It's a plea for help from our voting system that "strategic" voting could make sense to anyone. Vote yes to STV and wipe this scourge from the bowels of our democratic system.