#2 has too many weasel words

"2. Enact a moratorium on new fossil fuel extraction unless 100 per cent of emissions can be captured and stored underground permanently."

should be changed to

"2. Enact a moratorium on new fossil fuel extraction."

I remain completely skeptical of any claims that carbon can be captured and stored underground any more efficiently than nature has already done for us in the form of coal, oil, and natural gas. Instead, I view "carbon capture" as a talking point invented by big carbon companies to convince the credulous that big carbon is going to change its ways.

Bravo

This report is a rare entity - honest and visionary. It is hard to find anyone with an eye to the future in these days of instant gratification, greed, and fear so solidy entrenched in the mindset of most westerners. We are at a significant crossroads in the history of Homo sapiens sapiens and this report will help greatly in the making of good decisions, not only for our present generation but for all those that hopefully will come after we are long forgotten by name, but remembered by deed. Cheers and hearty applause to the authors.

Without nuclear power there is no hope

The report is the usual claptrap from some liberals arts graduates who have no understanding whatsoever of "green" energy technology - just the usual wind, biofuels, solar and hydro claptrap for their "green" energy solutions. We're supposed to replace the 2/3 of our energy that now comes from fossils with this stuff?

Hydro what limited amount is left is not only 10 times the cost of nuclear power but produces more GHG's than coal due to its massive methane production from rotting vegetation. Solar would be a joke being so far north and cloudy, and wind is so intermittent it's useless without enormously expensive massive load balancing hydro and pumped hydro builds. Biofuel's are so odious that even the Goracle himself is against further expansion of this destructive technology.

Suzuki and Pembina are even worse recommending massive investments in "clean" coal.

Here's James Cameron's take on the subject.

" I’m pro-nuclear, yeah, in this particular context, as a bridge to a fully sustainable future. I think the waste problem is a 500 year horizon, I think the warming problem is a 10 to 15 year horizon. "

Waste Problem? Not!!

All the worlds nuclear waste to date would occupy 1% of the Great Pyramid at Giza which has lasted 5000 years. Better we let a billion people die in an Global warming/Peak oil holocaust than lose a football field forever? And the stuff is not waste it is fuel waiting for recycle enough to power the world for hundreds of years. Whats left is such low level it could be stuffed back in an uranium mine shaft.

Meltdown?

The worst possible accident with a post fifties nuke happened at three mile island, the reactor vessel was barely scratched. The IAEA standard for new reactors has a core melt release probability on 1 per million reactor years of operation. The Westinghouse AP-1000 improves that to 1 per 200 million reactor years of operation.

If the contracts Canwest/Gordo signed with his stockbroker pals for $65B in worthless and destructive GHG spewing run of the river projects had been signed with AECL for nuke plants instead BC could be fossil fuel free in 5 to 10 years at half the cost, and be exporting clean and green nuke power. Thousands of hectares of sq kilometers of BC forest and farmland would be saved from destruction.

10 to 15 years people!!! Then add to that less than ten years for Peak Oil. That's what climate scientists are telling us.

BC's greenies seem to be closet global warming deniers who mouth platitudes about global warming yet don't seem to believe in it extolling the virtues of ultra expensive way in the future if ever "green" solutions. As "green" hypocrites they love to laugh at the more honest climate deniers who are simply seriously deluded. The "green" movement in western countries seems to love their not so renewables more than the survival of civilization.

myopia unlimited

What a wonderful world this study outlines. Zero fossil fuel use in 30 years. Wow.

But you don't have to spend a lot of time on this to see some of the blatant contradictions and fatal flaws that would send this spinning off into oblivion almost over night.

1. It dismisses the impact of the fossil fuel business by pointing out it provides only 1.2% of provincial employment (I'd be interested in their methodology for that one), and ignores the several billions a year that flow directly into the treasury from royalties and lease sales.

2. It recommends a moratorium on new energy extraction w/o 100% carbon capture (likely an impossible goal), then blithely suggests that all this radical change can be funded by higher taxes on -- fossil fuel extraction.

3. It says end all subsidies for fossil fuel industries (which it estimates to be in the hundreds of millions, but provides no specifics). How does it define a subsidy? Well, lowered royalty rates designed to encourage exploration. But that's not a subsidy -- no money flows from govt. to industry -- that's a decision to forego a royalty payment in order to encourage production. No royalty holiday, no production, and no royalty of any kind no matter what the rate.

4. It argues that all that extra gas is headed for the tar sands, completely ignoring that 50% of it now goes south to the Americans (and soon offshore to Asia) earning valuable foreign exchange dollars. Also completely ignoring what the Americans will do when their BC gas suddenly costs twice as much as the gas available from every other NA jurisdiction.

5. It slags all the port development (i.e. Gateway), but neglects to deal with how the local economy (e.g. Vancouver, Prince Rupert) would cope with the unemployment generated by the diminution of those activities, including a slow slide into oblivion as each of those ports loses out to US competitors.

6. It talks about a brave new fossil-fuel-free world where we all drive electric cars powered by "clean " electric power sources, then slags the Site C dam, arguing that its power will simply be used for shale gas extraction. So where is all this "clean" power going to come from? Nuclear?

7. It recommends zero net construction -- we'll all be doing renos I guess --- and doesn't deal with either a) the impact on employment of a zero construction rate or b) who's going to pay for all the renos we'll all be forced to do. And are we going to shut the door on in-migration from other parts of Canada? Immigration?

8. Finally, having ground into dust all those elements of the existing economy that actually create wealth and, more importantly, tax revenue -- it recommends a whole slew of research grants, tax incentives, subsidies -- you name it -- in order to create the brave new fossil-fuel free world we'll all live in.
Wonderful.

The Green Dream

I did not have the opportunity to read the above reports and articles but know from an economic point of view it would mean jobs with a future. Business will have no choice but to clean up while creating green jobs as the carbon tax can be used to help out small and medium sized business to go green.
BC Rail was green and rail is the future but it was ripped off from the public as BC Hydro is up to the same dirty dealing with BC waters.
If BC continues on with no regulations or the ignoring of regulations by a shoddy bunch of provincial employees and business the price will be to high as the waters and the sky will be blackened and clean air and water will be the past as global warming will take a big bite out of BC.

Immigration needs to be monitored

And of course it hasn't be and that is one of the biggest problems many will face as hundreds and thousands of new immigrants drawing on health and social programs. Pass a clinic with the waiting rooms filled with immigrants who get treat and street along with other benefits and lack of jobs is to much.
Immigration can be disatorous to local residents and cities with cost and pollution and such. Governments have been cutting back and not adding to these services that are so over strained with all these new Canadians who never paved the way. Immigration is the big problem when it isn't planned and people are just crammed in so real estate markets can drive up prices and banks can lend more money for cars and home renovations. Bubble bubble lots of foreclosures on the market so plenty of losers to pick from ....

Imagine

...getting paid to come up with this stuff. Pulitzer quality for sure. Pull its, err, you know what.

This one's a beaut,:
"5. Push the construction industry to "net zero" new buildings as quickly as possible."

Great. The whole province goes super-green just like our beloved Olympic Village. Hell, it's only $1,100 a foot! That cheapo 2,200 sq' suburban house in the boonies won't be around at 500 grand for long. Maybe they can bring it in volume for, say, a million-five. That'll be a deal because you'll be able to drink your own recycled pee water as you look out at your veggie patch through triple-glazed windows.

This will do great things for affordability. They'll come running.

The Measure of Wealth...

The measure of everything in the eyes of these rwingers, apparent here, is in "the wealth it creates", measured entirely of course, in GDP, Housing Starts and other criteria that plug suitably into ruling class "business" sensibilities. Such as restrict their capacity to look into the real future they are actually creating, if they cared or not. (At that, we are already living through one of the "other" creations of their greed driven obsession with endless "private wealth" creation, which is what they really mean: Cyclical economic crises and share disparities that create poverty at one end of the social/class spectrum, as the corollary of obscene "wealth" share at the other end of the class structure. Along with an ever worsening decline in any case, in the health and wellbeing standards of the remaining working class majority.)

Recovery, my ass. Not from my class perspective. And I don't give a rat's ass what stats you trot out to serve your own perspective.

No. The reality is this is not working for a growing body of people NOW, along with the environment, let alone talking about its sustainability on ANY LEVEL going into either the near or long term future. This System's chickens are already coming home to roost.

I'm sure, if you are looking out at the parkland of your gated estate right now, feeling confident about your ability to ride out, even enrich yourself, sooner or later, off the current downturn and the increasing misery of everyone else, whose share is declining to protect yours, that you have one view of this world. That it is the best of all possible worlds. And you are going to work mightily to defend and protect it, hopefully, you fully intend, for at least the remainder of your days. (Prince Phillip has the same view for British Royalty, such as he has expressed.)

Then there's the rest of us, whether we are all aware of it yet or not.

We need new concepts of what is "economic" and not, what is "wealth" and what is not, what is essential to life and the economy and what is not... and whether you from your estate window are further affordable going into the future or not.

I say you are not. We need to create a new and more actually "practical" and "desirable" socio-economic model, to replace you, or at least give you a different function under quite "different" circumstances and class/power arrangement. And for that, we will also need a quite different understanding of what is "democracy" and what is not.

Which is the view from here in the cheap seats.

If our Corporate/capitalist

If our Corporate/capitalist system is so efficient how come we're dependent on oil for our transportation systems. There is other sources of energy for vehicles why can't we diversify. If you want to check out just one idea google 'air car'. The engine has the same principle as a steam engine but runs on compressed air instead; perfect for a commuter car.

Green Job?

What is a green job? Agriculture uses energy to grow and harvest food, so obviously isn't a green job. Computers are made of plastic, use electricity and generate heat, so working on a computer is not a green job. All manufacturing requires raw materials and energy to build things, so they are not green jobs. Anything involved in transportation since energy is used to fly planes and to build and power railroads and roads would not be green jobs. Fuel cells are manufactured then powered using fossil fuels, so they are hardly green and the building and using hydrogen fuel cells cannot be considered green jobs?

So, what are "green jobs?" Digging caves with your hands?

Idealistic, but not Practical

Nice thoughts but simply not achievable in the time frame suggested.

It Depends...

"...simply not achievable in the time frame suggested." sdgreen.

And you just may be right on this score. I grant you that. In which case, you and your prescious capitalist system go down with the rest of us.

On the other hand, it depends on how quickly "the masses" can awaken from their long slumber here, smell the coffee, and learn a lesson from the French working class and the coming struggle of the British working class for examples, connect all the dots and get on with it. Carrying through the socio-economic transformation/revolution that is...

The clock is ticking and the countdown has begun though. :-) Sometimes, the history demonstrates, shit can happen and go down unbelievable fast, catching everyone with their pants down and their mouths open.

We'll just have to see SDGreenie.

What is a green job?

A green job, also called a green-collar job is, according to the United Nations Environment Program, "work in agricultural, manufacturing, research and development, administrative, and service activities that contribute(s) substantially to preserving or restoring environmental quality. ...

http://climateandcapitalism.com/?p=2727

Nuclear

Actually Rickie, Seth is so tomorrow. Unfortunately, it will take a couple more years before the majority in Canada agrees. Nuclear technology is so advanced now that those that don't want it are 'so yesterday'.

By the way

Rickie, when Jerry says, "learn a lesson from the French working class ", notice if you will, that although the French are screaming because their government is passing a law to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, there are no demonstrations about nuclear power generation in France and France derives the majority of its energy from nuclear stations. So much so that they export it. There is very little opposition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France

Sounds like Germany's Failed Green Plan

Germany had the same plan - check out the Results of 12 yrs of Hard Effort:

http://www.iea.org/stats/pdf_graphs/DETPES.pdf

Notice they did reduce Coal Burning in the early 90's by shutting down East Germany's smoke belching, dirt burners & inefficient Steel Mills. After that they haven't succeeded at ZIP - except their NON-EFFORT on Run-of-the-Mill archaic Nuclear Power made as much of a Fossil Fuel energy consumption drop as the East Germany Coal Curtailment did. And they did replace Oil consumption with NG consumption - WOWEE!

Check out the skinny little Red Line which is their Renewable Energy Special. Like that is going to work. The fact is that any thickening of that Red Line will be matched by a thickening of the NG line that is >5X larger. Really F'in STUPID!

Look at France's meager effort to replace Oil generated Electricity with Nuclear in the 1980's.

http://www.iea.org/stats/pdf_graphs/FRTPES.pdf

Notice that they replaced half of their total Energy Supply with Nuclear in about 20 yrs, most of it in 12 yrs. This is for a middle wealth nation, with the best health care & social services in the World, one of the most expensive, World Class Militaries in the World, and during the period improved their Standard of Living & productivity much faster than Renewables Germany, and instituted a 4 day, 32 hr work week. And all France did was take a run-of-the-mill GenII American Pressurized Light Water Reactor design, standardized and started building. No modern modular construction. No assembly line production. No CAD or CAM. No advanced computer control systems. No advanced GenIII designs or computer simulations. And they even partially reprocess their Fuel, producing only 0.3 oz of waste per capita per yr.

Now Germany is planning to build another 26 giant filthy Brown Coal Burning Monsters. So much for the "Green Plan".

All France has to do now is Electrify Transport, Nuclear Synthetic Fuels, District Heating and/or expand their Nuclear by another 50% over what they already did. And they are the World's ONLY ZERO CARBON NATION! Pretty simple minded, even without using Modern Construction & Design Methods.

So if France could do it with a modest effort & archaic technology, it is UNDENIABLE that the entire World can become A FOSSIL FUEL FREE ZONE within 50 yrs absolute max by converting to Nuclear Power.