Topic
Texas refiner banks big on oil sands and pours millions into Prop 23, a bid to halt Golden State climate policies, and maybe BC's too.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell reaffirmed their commitment to the Western Climate Initiative in 2009. Prop 23 could kill it.
On the table: how to dole out pollution offsets for big parts of Canada, US.
Tories and petro firms worry oil sands restrictions in Europe will spread to other key nations. They're lobbying hard to prevent it.
US politicians bend to foreign-backed pressure to soften climate bill.
The biggest funder of a campaign to suspend American climate change legislation has strong ties to Alberta's oil sands.
Proposition 23, as the initiative is known, has become one of the most contested issues of California's upcoming election. It would put the state's strict greenhouse gas standards in limbo, and could imperil an international climate deal that B.C. helped pioneer.
Prop 23 goes before voters on Nov. 2. Valero Energy has so far contributed more than US $5 million to support it. The Texas-based company is North America's largest independent refiner of fossil fuels. It's one of the continent's top air polluters. Valero worries climate laws will hurt profits at its two California refineries. Those laws could also one day limit Valero's prospects for future growth, which depend in a big way on Alberta's oil sands. Over coming decades, a proposed pipeline to Texas would ship massive amounts of Albertan fossil fuels to Gulf Coast refineries.
Valero owns several refineries in the region, prompting company spokesperson Bill Day to deem Canada "a tremendous potential supplier for us."
The only hitch is that oil-sands energy has a much larger carbon footprint than conventional oil. The climate change legislation targeted by Prop 23 contains a provision that would limit California's imports of high-carbon fuels -- fuels such as those from Alberta. Valero's Texas refineries may be halfway across the United States. But industry insiders worry that oil-sands restrictions on the west coast will be copied elsewhere.
"There is a connection between what California is attempting to do," said Tom Corcoran, a lobbyist who helps represent some of the largest oil companies in the world, "and the encouragement it's given other states."
Prop 23's oil-fueled campaign
The campaign to pass Prop 23 depends almost entirely on oil-sector support. Organizers had trouble raising funds until Valero and fellow Texas-based refiner Tesoro began pumping money into it this spring. More recent donations from fossil fuel mega-player Koch Industries and Alberta oil sands investor Marathon Oil helped coffers reach US $ $10.6 million. Prop 23, if approved by voters, will suspend California climate action until state unemployment falls to 5.5 per cent or less for an entire year, a milestone rarely achieved in past decades.
Green observers argue that plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 would essentially be stopped dead.
Next to die, they worry, could be the Western Climate Initiative, a regional alliance of several states and provinces that British Columbia joined in 2007, the first Canadian jurisdiction to do so. "California has the biggest population and highest emissions of any member," Bill Magavern, director of Sierra Club California, told The Tyee. "If Prop 23 were to pass, I think that would be a near fatal blow to the Western Climate Initiative."
Such fears may have prompted B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell to make a rare appearance before California's state assembly this August.
Prop 23 supporters, meanwhile, describe their plan as "a common-sense proposal that will help save over a million jobs." It's well known that key funders Valero and Tesoro operate some of the highest-polluting refineries in California. But strict greenhouse gas standards could have implications beyond state lines. Valero's Texas operations stand to make big money from the Alberta oil sands in coming decades. Could California's climate laws put those plans at risk?
Valero's need for Alberta crude
Valero has for years been eyeing Alberta's massive oil reserves, the world's second largest after Saudi Arabia. The company's Port Arthur refinery processes at least about 2,300 barrels of oil sands fuel a day, or 20 per cent of the total oil-sands fuel currently reaching Texas and Louisiana. It's only a small trickle compared to what might come. A highly controversial pipeline stretched south from northern Alberta could eventually ship up to 600,000 barrels per day to the region.
A U.S. government decision on TransCanada's Keystone XL proposal is expected early this spring. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said recently she's "inclined" to support it. That's good news for Valero. Wracked by recession, the refiner lost US $55 million in 2009, a year it refers to as "exceptionally challenging." Valero is banking on Keystone XL to make up for some of those losses. "This large new source of crude oil for the Gulf Coast market will further diversify our feedstock slate and increase our ability to optimize our profitability," reads the company's most recent annual report.
Valero's Texas refineries have traditionally sourced heavy fuels from south of the border. But Mexican oil fields are declining and Venezuela is politically uncertain. "So we're looking for additional supplies of heavy crude," spokesperson Bill Day told The Tyee, "and Canada is a tremendous potential supplier for us."
Industry lobby groups confidently predict a near tripling of oil-sands production by 2025, with most fuel bound for U.S. markets.
Valero's prospects for future growth would seem to make strong economic sense, except for one major liability. Fuel from Alberta's oil sands has a huge carbon footprint, an estimated 82 per cent bigger footprint on the production side than conventional crude. That makes the industry an obvious target for carbon-conscious policymakers.
California's cutting-edge carbon policy
California took aim this January by approving the planet's first low carbon fuel standard. Legislation requires a 10 per cent emissions cut across the vehicle fuel sector by 2020. It gives suppliers a clear incentive to avoid energy from places such as Alberta's oil sands.
Valero CEO Bill Klesse does double duty as chairman of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, one of three lobby groups currently suing to repeal California's fuel standard. Valero, in a sense, is helping fight a two-front war. That same fuel standard would be suspended if voters pass Prop 23 next week.
Company spokesperson Day downplays any connection to oil-sands ambitions on the Gulf Coast. "We have significant operations in California," he said. "[Prop 23] is not a symbolic thing for us -- it's something that directly affects us."
But the Centre for North American Energy Security, another litigant in the California fuel standard court battle, acknowledges profits tied to Alberta's oil sands are part of the Prop 23 equation. Strict greenhouse gas targets in one state likely wouldn't have a huge effect on Alberta's oil sands industry. But tough legislation in California could set a dangerous precedent, the group's director Tom Corcoran told the Tyee.
"More importantly," Corcoran said, "it would develop a model for other states to use."
Already, 11 north-eastern states are considering adoption of their own regional fuel standard, patterned on California's. And those states have urged the U.S. government to set national standards.
The Valero-supported Prop 23 initiative may have wider climate change implications than many people imagine. "[Proponents] think if they can stop California in its tracks, then they could delay national action for years and years," said the Sierra Club's Magavern. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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seth
2 years ago
Save the world, Nuke Alberta and California.
California opposition to tar sands oil would be eliminated if Alberta nuked the tar sands replacing gas generated steam with nuclear steam, saving big bucks and eliminating production GHG's at the same time.
Tar sands oil would be the most environmentally friendly crude in the world.
We'd need 8 big mass produced Candu ACR-1000 reactors or 300 hot tub sized Hyperion units ($400 kw of steam). The total cost of the zero GHG, clean and green Hyperion units is $9 billion. Natural gas at $4 a thousand cu ft is $3 billion a year. Payback - three years.
Any excess clean and green nuclear power would be delivered to the American power companies at a lower cost than they are paying for dirty carbon intense new coal and NG plant, and a tiny fraction of wind and solar, generating huge profits for Alberta.
Alberta could like Utah, start a motor vehicle CNG program to use the surplus gas for autofuel at 30 cents a liter equivalent.
With any luck California Prop 23 will pass, because this current not so renewable strategy is one of the stupidest pieces of legislation a bunch of attorneys cum politicians has ever come up with.
Not so renewables costs start at 50 cents a kwh when they have to start paying for all the grid, storage and natural gas plant costs they are getting as a freebee today. Solar is double that. Big offshore wind producer Cape Wind is 24 cents a kwh going to 34 cents at the current tariff rate no grid, storage or gas costs included. Wind and solar prices have bottomed out and are rising.
European examples like Denmark are dismal failures with Denmark having to import 98% of its domestic use energy mostly dirty coal from Germany and then gets to pay to give away its wind power when nobody wants it.
Solar and wind are Big Oil gas producer favorites as even more NG is sold supplying the needed load balancing with low efficiency fast spooling gas plant. Better, cheaper, less GHG and less natural gas sales to build slow spooling high efficiency CCGT plant instead.
Clean and Green Nuke power is obviously Cali best strategy with the Tennessee Valley Authority already using its 5 cents a kwh new nuclear build cost to finance a coal to nuclear transition. Current Asian builds put new nuke costs under 2 cents a kwh and dropping fast.
If this not so renewable standard excluding nuclear with insane feedin tariff's is not stopped in its tracks by 2050 California will be paying a buck a kwh for wind and solar load balanced by dirty radioactive radon and GHG spewing low efficiency gas plant while GHG free Asia will be laughing at its destroyed economy with their less than 1 cent a kwh nuclear.
That assumes the not so renewable lobby doesn’t destroy civilization in a climate/peak oil holocaust first.
KevinC
2 years ago
tl;dr
GHG is by no means the only concern when it comes to the tar sands, as has been amptly illustrated in previous articles on this site. For example, how would nukes do anything to address the issue of groundwater contamination?
Also, if such a money-saving approach, why aren't the extractors already doing as you suggest? Energy concerns active in the tar sands are unlikely to have any moral qualms as long as the price is right. Ergo, I suspect something about your maths doesn't add up.
Finally, your comment on Denmark: Dead wrong. They are net energy exporters; look at these very recent Total Primary Energy figures from the US Energy Information Administration.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/country/country_energy_data.cfm?fips=DA
Granted this is by no means due to clean energy, they are petroleum exporters. Therefore, I am willing to accept that you may have "mistakenly" conflated coal imports, which are indeed high, with Denmark's overall energy basket.
marlonbrando
2 years ago
reality
If we don't produce oil in Canada, we will have a fifty cent dollar and massive unemployment. Do you really want that?
What we need is the oil royalties to be spent on developing alternatives instead of paying for refugee claimants like the Tamils and Randy Quaid.
KevinC
2 years ago
reality check?
What about all of the countries in the world that don't have oil, marlonbrando? How do they manage?
That being said, you are certainly correct when you say that oil royalties need to be spent on alternatives. And on economic diversifcation. And on foreign investment as per the Norwegian example in order to mitigate currency distortions. But thanks to our constitution, the ball is firmly in Alberta's court on all of these sensible measures.
freebear
2 years ago
Discussed at Bildenberg secret talks I'm sure!
I think climate change is happening, however I do not think the profitters and behind closed doors politicians really care!
seth
2 years ago
tar sands nukes
Yup the groundwater pollution will continue, but the new nukes will replace coal and gas fired electricity plants and the freed up NG will be available for transpo fuel, potentially reducing Alberta's overall ground and air pollution by an enormous amount.
Bruce Power has a $10B proposal for 4.4 Gw of nukes at Peace River and is awaiting Brimstone Harper's decision on AECL
Big Oil and its wholly owned subsidiary the fascist CRAP party hate nukes because it is the only technology that can put it out of business. It certainly doesn't want to establish a precedent in the tar sands.
chrisale
2 years ago
How can we be surprised?
When the BC Government not only gives away BC Rail to its friends at CN Rail, but doesn't bother to invest in the former E&N rail line on Vancouver Island.
http://www.norailnocoal.ca
Our entire society is a lesson in contradictions. But it will continue to be until the society as a whole accepts that the only way forward economically, socially and environmentally is one where fossil fuels are kicked to the curb ASAP.
seth
2 years ago
Denmark
Sadly Kevin once again, you are wrong.
Denmark has 18% of its electricity production coming from wind energy but less than 3% is used domestically. The remainder of the wind energy Denmark generates has to be exported usually at times when nobody wants it an incredible loss. Denmark often has to pay other countries to take the unwanted wind power.
Ribs
2 years ago
Making good decisions
This is not just a climate change issue, it is a clean air and clean water issue. If the war against Alberta's oil sands is possible then it must be waged from both sides. Pressure is needed from the public, and support is needed from government. Having states pass legislation that bans oil sand oil is a great step. (Kudos to the city of Bellingham Wa. for not allowing Alberta oil to flow through their pipeline.) If Prop 23 goes away maybe all the things the oil lobbyists fear will happen. Other states will take notice of California's practises, the Western Climate Initiative will have a chance to make an impact. Clean energy will become common place. Pick your fights carefully people. This isn't about using oil, it's about using the dirtiest oil on the planet and making sure we take the steps needed to be able to make good decisions in the future.
Sask Resident
2 years ago
Ultramar
Valero owns Ultramar in Canada, including the Montreal oil refinery. However, oil in California has a high carbon foot print but is exempt under the Californian legislation.
The article also ignores that most of the carbon emissions are produced by the combustion not the production of oil. The Alberta oil sands are not a large carbon emitter when compared to Californian or Ontarioan transportation and industry. Stopping the oil sands would reduce the expansion of Canadian carbon emissions but would not reduce the total emissions since Canada would import oil to replace the lost production.
RickW
2 years ago
marlonbrando
Why not? We were almost there once. And having a Canuck peso might well serve as impetus for someting other than "hewers of wood, drawers of water" economy.
sicntired
2 years ago
It's easier to do nothing
Or to just keep doing the same thing.The Germans are knee deep in solar energy because they enticed(saved)a Canadian company that couldn't make a dime here.It was just in the paper that Secretary Clinton is going to sign on for a couple of pipelines bringing Alberta crude to the eastern and southern states.Two tankers a week carry Alberta crude through the second narrows and people don't even know about it for the most part because the MSM is either paid off or just totally incompetent.The Tar sands are expanding and also spending a fortune trying to convince people that the squirrels just love the reclaimed land,poisoned though it may be.The misinformation on water use alone should be criminal.Why can a company go on television and lie about it's environmental record but the just say now people can't put an ad on facebook?The truth is something the folks in Ottawa and Washington are telling us daily is just too expensive right now.I have no doubt at all that environmental destruction will continue to accelerate at the rate it is maintaining and people like Gordo,who seem to want to have it both ways,are as much if not more to blame than the rest of them.This bill in California shows the danger of dealing with the government in the US.They can change their minds and leave you with your pants around your ankles.I hope Gordo was more persuasive in California than he has been here.He has destroyed what was once a prosperous and happy Province and turned it over to his friends in the private sector.It's not like there weren't warnings around the world of the dangers of public private partnerships.We have spent billions of dollars making other people rich.I know Gordo and his family aren't worrying about tomorrow.If there even is one.
realisticman
2 years ago
Rick
You can say goodbye to whole host of lavish social programmes that some people seem to really like. Of course, Americans could come up here with their double-valued currency and buy up thousands of houses and land. Canadians would be overjoyed to unload them, especially those laid off in the social services industry.
Traffic would be reduced with $2.40 a litre gas.
G West
2 years ago
Sask Resident
Hardly...if the only TAR SANDS oil produced in Canada were for domestic consumption there would be no need to import anything.
In fact, if production were damped down (though that would undoubtedly cause Albertans to set their hair on fire - at what cost the environment) the GHG footprint of Canadian production wouldn't be a world problem either.
The point is, and California seems to understand it, TAR SANDS oil is some of the dirtiest oil in the world. California has been a leader in addressing GHG pollution for a generation - the fact a Texas oil company, whose marketing strategy is cut-throat, would try to subvert that work is simply another example of what has happened because of the betrayal of democracy by the Roberts Court in the United States.
G West
2 years ago
Foreign ownership
IS a huge problem. It should be outlawed...If you don't live here (and are either a citizen or a landed immigrant) you shouldn't be allowed to own ANY real property.
Flush the scam artists and easy-money rip-offs out of the realty business and Canadians with ordinary jobs might be able to own their own homes.
Bring on the 50 cent dollar...currency bottom dwelling seems to work pretty well for the Chinese...maybe we should adopt the renmimbi...
realisticman
2 years ago
Not a bad idea.
Our raw exports would be cheap buys and our manufacturing costs would go down without any need to reduce wages. Updating imported machinery would cost too much but there'd be so much unemployment from the decimated social-services that more could be hired to work harder, for less. Vacations abroad would cost too much so the services sector could expand and there'd also be more people prepared to flip burgers.
G West
2 years ago
Hardly - they're flipping burgers now.
We'd put the unemployed to work building houses and infrastructure for CANADIANS - not simply digging our wealth out of the ground and shipping it overseas.
Now they work for $10 and hour or less so Gordo can holiday in Hawaii.
We might even have a real manufacturing industry again and some head offices would move back instead of moving away.
pender paul
2 years ago
my pension
My BC Teachers' Pension Plan is part of a pooled investment in Valero to the tune of $17.5 million. bcIMC has a responsible investment policy, the BC Teachers' Federation calls itself a 'social justice' union with a focus on the environment and Premier Campbell, who represents the sole shareholder in bcIMC tells us were the greenest place on earth. The Tyee exposes the truth about Valero and its attempt to sway the vote in California. Is there no integrity left on the west coast?
Frank
2 years ago
r'man
You don't actually believe what you write do you?
Social services would be gutted if we shut down the tar sands?
Then why were our services better before the tar sands really came online?
Besides, do the math, look at what the federal government receives from the tar sands. According to the VERY suspect numbers from the The Canadian Energy Research Institute (chosen by me because you couldn't find a more biased pro-tar sands supporter) our federal revenue from every source related in some way to the tar sands is thought to maybe, someday in the future, reach as high as $12 billion a year. And that number of course doesn't count the money going into the tar sands.
So in Canada's trillion a year economy the tar sands at best, at best mind you, will someday produce federal revenue of around $12 billion a year.
Health care in Canada is $137 billion a year right now.
RickW
2 years ago
R/M old man....
Maybe you could 'splain why your scenarios didn't happen when our buck was 65 centavos...?
You just gotta try harder to get out of that box you live in.
realisticman
2 years ago
Frank
That's funny:
"In 2009-2010, the total amount of the program was roughly 14.2 billion Canadian dollars."
...and we all know that Alberta doesn't receive any but pays most of it. Almost the same figure you cite.
Were Alberta not to be producing oil and not be able to pay in, then who would? The other provinces? The money is either there or not and if it's not someone has to go short.
Rick:
I remember when the dollar was 64 cents to the US in 1994. In that year the federal debt had also grown to $500 billion. (1996-97 $562,881)
It was costing us $42 billion a year in interest payments. That's money that could otherwise be spent.
2010-11 (projected) $522,337
15 years later, a larger population and a larger economy, modest inflation, and the debt is less. That's one big reason the Canadian dollar is high today.
realisticman
2 years ago
Frank
I should have said that In 2009-2010 it's the federal Equalization Programme.
Marysue52
2 years ago
TAR sands! TAR sands!
Stop pussyfooting around the issue! They are TAR sands--not oil sands. Grab some courage and tell it as it is, Tyee and Geoff Dembicki! Lordie, for a news media supposedly dedicated to the truth, you sure use a lot of wimpy euphemisms.
RickW
2 years ago
R/M old man....
Nothing to do with oil. Much to do with Mulroney, then Chretien's completely irresponsible tenure.
Frank
2 years ago
r'man
Are you waging a personal war against logic?
We'd lose $12 billion a year in equalization payments so therefore all of our social programs, including our $137 billion a year health care system, would crumble?
Maybe we'd have to cut down on our purchase for foreign fighter jets instead of cutting social programs?
Besides, your parties have killed manufacturing and forestry and I don't see you crying over all of that lost income.
morechatter
2 years ago
Feds Focus is Oil
It has cost the provinces dearly as Canadian dollar has risen because of Oil while other industry are hurting. Especially because of the high dollar and the adverse affects of chemicals used as acid rain has also had its affects on prarie crops. If it wasn't for the oil and its affect of dollar provinces wouldn't need the equalization payments as maybe the Feds could take their focus of big oil and focus on the Canadian people instead. Like that is going to happen.
Harper was in Switzerland checking out Swiss Banks accounts and what do you think are the chances he was checking his own acct out?
morechatter
2 years ago
Oil is the villian
As American consumers find better deals at home or abroad while Canadians can count on their over priced dollar in closing another shop. Canadians can find better deals shopping in America than at home.
Just wait until you got pipelines and oil being transported from the Atlantic to the Pacific and the tar sands is full steam ahead. What is over priced real estate going to be worth if this continues on?
samuidave (not verified)
2 years ago
Campbell in complete adoration of the Terminator
...pictures says too much sometimes.
realisticman
2 years ago
Frank
With a 12 billion dollar loss some health-care would survive but some of the social programmes would just become too expensive for taxpayers to sustain. We certainly couldn't leave an increased debt burden for the next generation. This generation would have to take some hits.
"March 22, 2010
Ministry of Forests and Range
2009 WOOD EXPORTS TO CHINA DOUBLE PREVIOUS YEAR
VICTORIA – Final trade statistics for 2009 show that British Columbia softwood exports to China hit 1.63 billion board feet, more than twice the record 784 million shipped the previous year, Forests and Range Minister Pat Bell announced today. ..."
The F18s are old technology, we must maintain our commitment to NATO. The air force has to have modern equipment and there will be lots of spin-offs.
RickW
2 years ago
R/M old man....
Spoken like a true huckster!
Between this $16B and the $11B for the helicopters, it would be great seed money for resurrecting an aircraft industry in this country - a la Avro Arrow style. THEN one could say "and there will be lots of spin-offs".
But right now, all this means is $27B+ leaving the country.
G West
2 years ago
Don't make me laugh - it
EDITED FOR PERSONAL INSULTS -- MODERATOR a moment's sleep - nor meant you'd miss a meal either...You even supported a $75 billion bailout for Canada's banks when they had some underperforming mortgages on their hands...Combining mortgage insurance liabilities and mortgage backed securities held by CMHC they now tip the scales at $500 billion. This is substantially up from the CMHC's $100 billion in securitization back in 2006.
EDITED FOR INSULTS
You should actually look at what the accumulated debt obligations of this Province are - and how they've mushroomed under the regime of Gord the obscure.
We need Nato about as much as we need more Globalization.
In fact, virtually everyone agrees that Pee Wee's and little McKay's choice of the F 35 is stupid, expensive, not suited to the actual threat here in Canada and almost absent of any real benefits for Canada.
dave49
2 years ago
It's called checkbook democracy
I recall seeing a Canadian news story on how Gray Davis was ousted as California governor. A wealthy US senator put up a million dollars to fund the petition drives. One of the people talked to in the story described it as checkbook democracy. A very apt description. Democracy for the rich (inevitably right-wing) and powerful.
Frank
2 years ago
r'man
Unfortunately for you bafflegab never does well against statistics.
In 1995 under the NDP employment in forestry was 36,100.
In 2009 it was 19,700
"With a 12 billion dollar loss some health-care would survive but some of the social programmes would just become too expensive for taxpayers to sustain"
LOL. So out of the $137 billion spent on health care you're saying its the $12 billion in federal revenue from the tar sands that is underpinning our entire social services net? What is it about those dollars that make them so much more important than all the other money in federal coffers?
And of course its unsurprising you would say that the first $12 billion cut would come from social services and not other parts of government such as business subsidies to the oil and gas sector or new fighter jets.
I would have to say you're winning your war against logic.
lidia sarah
2 years ago
Oil Sands Debate
Here's a video featuring a Syncrude worker claiming that oil sand operation sites can be reclaimed and restored to their prior functions after the operation is complete. Post your opinions on:
http://bit.ly/gtsdebate
*please include the hastag#gtsd in your comments
G West
2 years ago
PARDON ME!
This is what the realisticman wrote:
"We certainly couldn't leave an increased debt burden for the next generation. This generation would have to take some hits."
Responding to absurd implications contained in another poster's comment can hardly be called 'insulting'. Suggesting that someone who wrote that – who was also (by implication) ignoring the actual debt record in this province and this country amounts to an attitude of ‘carelessness’ about the future isn’t ‘really’ an insult. I’d say it was fair comment.
If one posts what amounts to a direct falsehood - i.e. that the governments in this country have not already piled up an enormous backlog of debt - because that's the subtext of realisticman's point - then not pointing out the falsity of that comment is an 'insult' to the truth.
We have governments in both Victoria and Ottawa who have incurred hundreds of billions of debt already - the suggestion that these governments are models of fiscal probity is laughable.
Almost as laughable as the report of the Fraser Institute this week (interestingly timed to coincide with the premier's current rehabilitation campaign) which suggests that Campbell gets the 'highest' grade of all provincial premiers in this country.
For anyone who likes a good laugh and doesn't mind reading fiction, here's the link:
http://tinyurl.com/2bmjs5e
Paddon Developments
2 years ago
Is Canada going to supply oil ? Tar Sands, California, Texas
"Valero's Texas refineries have traditionally sourced heavy fuels from south of the border. But Mexican oil fields are declining and Venezuela is politically uncertain," By Geoff Dembicki, 25 Oct 2010, TheTyee.ca. Greenhouse as (GHG) and the Hole in the Stratosphere Ozone layer work together in a positive and negative feedback system. The Antarctic Ozone hole causes cooling and the GHG's, heat islands warm the troposphere where it has been cooled. Front the are major occur from this, I would be able to research and document this for the east coast and the west coast, California to Venezeula. The energy is needed and California's leadership in environmental Policy is needed. Canada has the opportunity to sell it's tar sands oil and if alberta doesn't sell it to them Saskatchewan will. I don't make the decision for Saskatchewan but it isn't mentioned as a tar sands producer and these provinces Manitoba to British Columbia and the Nunavik Territory could make a large contribution to the decision: Sell. When Mexico, Venezeula, and British Columbia are negotiating with California and energy is needed for jobs then energy should be made avaiable, not only the alternative energy being written about but avaiable. " Prop 23, if approved by voters, will suspend California climate action until state unemployment falls to 5.5 per cent or less for an entire year," could state unemployment be brought to 5.4 and "the Calif.climate action deal that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell reaffirmed... to the Western Climate Initiative in 2009"
" [and] put the state's strict greenhouse gas standards... and ...international climate deal that B.C. helped pioneer" be put into action?
Yes, alternative agriculture does add to the economy and to the GHG economy. The proposed 5per cent tax and DEA isn't the answer it is only part of the answer. The area of Californis where the thermohaline circulation system is, is one of the areas that the pressure fronts cause the major and abrupt climate change in. Thank You, Anna Paddon
realisticman
2 years ago
Frank
Do you think the world financial collapse and the US housing market collapse had anything to do with the forestry labour numbers or was it just the NDP?
There's certainly a co-incidence and a link to the federal equalization payments that are just about the same amount as the $12 billion you claim as the federal benefit of oil sands production. Since the provinces receiving equalization rely on the funds for services, there would clearly have to be some cuts somewhere if the money did stop flowing. I never said that the FIRST cuts would be social services, you did, but we know that the status quo would be unsustainable. Québec currently receives over $8 billion in equalization from Ottawa. Alberta receives nothing but those high-earning Albertans payt feral taxes. Today, according to the recent Quebec budget, health care consumes 45 per cent of all provincial program spending and that total health-care cost is around $28 billion annually. Do you honestly think that without over $8 billion in equalization payments, plus health-care transfers from Ottawa that expense is sustainable?
The idea that the federal government would simply raise taxes across the country to make up the lost $12 billion is one solution. Another would be that the provinces would raise taxes themselves. Another is that programmes would be cut. We can guess which might happen.
realisticman
2 years ago
Health Care
Keith Martin"
"Only one source that can provide the extra monies we need to fund our medical needs: the private sector.
Read more: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/10/28/keith-martins-prescription-for-healthcare/#ixzz13fL2Aq7g"
Frank
2 years ago
r'man
As I recall the "world financial collapse" didn't happen until late in 2008.
In 1995 employment in forestry was 36,100
In 2008 it was 17,400
In 2009 it was 13,900
So sure, you can claim 3,500 of those jobs were lost for the reasons you suggest but I would say the trend was already downward and there's no reason to believe 2009 employment would have been much better if the market collapse hadn't happened.
As for the $12 billion in federal revenue, it represents a tiny fraction of our economy and I don't think it would be a hardship to make up the revenue or do without the revenue.
Look at it this way, Campbell just cut $600 million from his budget and says there will be no program cuts as a result. That's the equivalent of almost half of our share of that $12 billion in federal revenue.
There would also be benefits. We would no longer have a dollar tied to the price of oil. That would perhaps help our manufacturing sector recover?
We would also no longer have to deal with the massive environmental problems that will probably end up costing us even more than we collect in revenue.
G West
2 years ago
Frank
In fact, the r/man didn't actually think there was going to be a financial collapse at all...long after the rest of us here at Tyee had recognized the inevitable he was still pushing sweetness and light and the unalloyed joys of globalization.
I remember it well!
realisticman
2 years ago
Frank
Herd mentality. It's all their fault. The power of negative thinking. I don't see much change in globalization yet, although I expect there will be some protectionism coming soon. The first barrier to go up will likely be from our southerly cousins. You can see the ads; vote Tea Party, abrogate Nafta. Maybe the left in Canada will help fund the campaign.
G West
2 years ago
Some herd!
A few left wingers on Tyee and Nouriel Roubini.
Memory failure is tough all right...The herd was the folks who said (and wrote) that it couldn't/wouldn't happen.
The herd was wrong.
G West
2 years ago
Keith Martin
how many political hats HAS that cat worn...when he first got involved in Politics he was a BC Socred; then he joined Reform - morphed into the Canadian Alliance and, when they merged with the rump of the PCs he decided he was a Liberal.
Why would anyone listen to someone who can't make up his mind?
realisticman
2 years ago
The Herd was wrong
Absolutely right. Your buddy Jeff Rubin too. Did your world become smaller yet, just as he said it would? Jeff predicts $200 BBL oil, doesn't he. Alberta must be hoping he's correct. When are we going to be able to snap up one of those condos on the waterfront for 50 grand?
G West
2 years ago
R/man
You're the guy who brought up the 'herd' mentality, remember?
I'm pleased though that you recognize exactly where you belong...with the 'herd'...
It's coming r/man, it's coming - cause this mess isn't nearly over.
If you're in it for a condo I think that indicates a certain shallowness of spirit though. In fact, I'm not the slightest interested in whatever happens to the creeps who built the house of cards Vancouver real estate has become.
We're already a stupid petro state suffering the first painful pangs of the Dutch Disease.
And Alberta ain’t gonna save the situation either.
I do appreciate you admitting your error in such a public way though.
I'll make a note of it.
realisticman
2 years ago
The herd that got out
Remember back in 2008 when realisticman posted this?
"...Google 'sub prime danger' and 1,240,000 references pop up in 1.2 seconds. ... It was all there for all to see; Enron, ABCP, Ninja Mortgages, Credit Default swaps, pumped ratings and Ninja credit cards are next. ..."
Some say the recession is over. Some disagree. They are probably both correct. What is certain is that everything changes and nothing stays the same.