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What's the matter with Canada?

Byoliveridley

But beneath the calm exterior, Canada’s political system is in turmoil. Since 2004, a succession of unstable minority governments has led to a constant campaign frenzy, brutalizing Canada’s once-broad political consensus and producing a series of policies at odds with the country’s socially liberal, fiscally conservative identity. Canada is quietly becoming a political basket case, and this latest election may make things even worse.

What’s the matter with Canada? – By Christopher Flavelle – Slate Magazine

I don’t necessarily agree with the whole “basket case” assertion, it is a fundamentally strong country with a broad consensus on what the country should be.

The current set of political parties is rewarding a minority set of policies (the conservatives) by fragmenting the majority centre-left of centre consensus between 4 different political parties, none of which will talk to each other. This is not exactly new, the conservatives only merged their parties a few years back.

The liberals suffer from Dion’s non Englishness, he gets little traction from the English media (no idea about the French, I don’t know any). He’s not that charismatic, nor does he orate well in English, and so like the American election, it is all optics. The liberals also seem to have no understanding of what it takes to win a modern election. The conservatives get in the news all the time, their ads are all over TV, the liberals seem to be MIA.

Harper on the other hand is “strong”, strength of course being defined as sounding decisive and declaratory, even though he usually just sounds alarmist and hyperbolic all the time. Somehow, this is interpreted as leadership. I guess the only good quality of leadership is being loud.

Dion also made a gamble by selling something called the Green Shift, a carbon tax, to increase efficiency in energy consumption and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Even though the tax is designed to increase efficiency in a country notorious for its very poor efficiency (27th among the 29 OECD countries in energy use/capita), it is being demonized as a tax that will destroy the country (just like every other environmental regulation destroyed every other country). It is also bad timing, as energy prices have soared recently, and Canada’s economy sputters to a halt due to falling resource prices and the American housing market bust (destroyed the BC lumber industry). The last thing people want to hear is “tax”, even though the middle class will get more than sufficient rebates to cover any tax increases. The liberals seem to have overplayed this hand. Elections are never won on environmental issues, too easy to attack.

The conservative pitch thus far has only been to attack Dion while offering some incremental changes. But as Harper is flirting with a majority, this Toronto Star editorial asks the right questions.

While Harper is presenting himself as a kinder, gentler Conservative these days, in the past, as a Reform MP, head of the National Citizens’ Coalition and leader of the Canadian Alliance (successor party to Reform), he staked out quite radical positions. He has called Canada “a northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term,” has denounced the “moral nihilism” of the Liberals and the left for opposing the Iraq war, has suggested building a “firewall” around Alberta, and has called for “market reforms” for health care, “further deregulation and privatization,” and “elimination of corporate subsidies.”

With a Conservative majority in sight, it is fair for Canadians to ask Harper whether he still holds these views and would implement them once in office. And if the answer is No, Harper should use the remaining four weeks of this election campaign to tell voters just what he would do with a majority.

The media lets Harper get away with sounding “presidential”, his proposals are very vague, and that is worrying. It is clear, however, that from an environmental standpoint, he will be a disaster. A combination of a slowing economy and reduced social support programs (conservatives hate safety nets for regular people) will be bad for the not so well off Canadians. We shall see what happens in a few weeks.

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    Sri Lankan Government registers all Tamils

    Byoliveridley

    The Americans put all citizens of Japanese origin into camps for the duration of the World War. Did you know that?’She did not say anything.‘What if we place all Tamil citizens in camps for a period of one year,’ I asked. ‘We’d use that year to flush out and kill all the rebels hiding in the Wanni. You can’t blow up our cities when your bombers are not allowed free access to economic and civilian targets, pretending to be innocents.’‘That idea is barbaric. It is only a short step from there to the gas chambers,’ she said furiously and then brightened. ‘But I like the idea. When you start on it, the whole world will condemn you…. It will help our cause in other ways as well. We’ll have plenty of new recruits and funding from our expatriate community will increase immediately.’‘Oh, I understand that the idea is impractical but we don’t have many options.’”So goes the dialogue between Captain Wasantha Ratnayaka, the Sinhalese officer in the Sri Lanka Army, and Kamala Velaithan, a female cadre of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who pretends to be an informer of the diabolical plans of the Tigers, in the much-acclaimed novel of the late Nihal de Silva titled The Road from Elephant Pass.On September 21, the Sri Lankan government almost made real this surreal scenario with its diktat that all citizens from the five districts of the LTTE-dominated North who have been living in and around Colombo (Western Province) for the past five years “re-register” themselves with the police.The professed logic of the government, or to be precise the Defence Ministry, was almost on the lines narrated by Captain Ratnayaka in the novel but with a twist. While the officer-character portrayed in the novel concurs with the illogic of its logic, the collective wisdom of the Sri Lankan establishment did not betray signs of any such reasoning. Even assuming it did, the drumbeats of war have numbed its senses to such an extent that Colombo has stopped bothering about the repercussions of its actions.The latest move by the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime is astonishing to say the least as just over a year ago the government was condemned from within and without for a similar action. Besides, it comes at a juncture when the armed forces have driven the LTTE into wilderness in its own heartland and the entire world is lined up behind the government in its war.

    Profiling problem

    More on the Sri Lankan government’s astonishingly appalling treatment of Tamils. Clearly, they do not view Tamils as equal citizens of Sri Lanka. The Sinhalese state bears equal responsibility for Sri Lanka’s problems. I do not know what this sudden increase in pressure from India will do. There is some indication that the Sri Lankan government is paying attention.

    A day after India officially communicated to Colombo the need for a peacefully negotiated political settlement to the Tamil issue in Sri Lanka, President Mahinda Rajapaksa telephoned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday to give an assurance that all necessary measures were being taken to ensure the safety and welfare of Tamils in the island nation.

    Very empty and meaningless words. My question is, who will speak for the Tamils in a negotiated settlement. Are there any credible voices for peace on either side of the conflict?

  • Energy efficiency, electricity, power plants

    Byoliveridley

    Suppose I paid you for every pound of pollution you generated and punished you for every pound you reduced. You would probably spend most of your time trying to figure out how to generate more pollution. And suppose that if you generated enough pollution, I had to pay you to build a new plant, no matter what the cost, and no matter how much cheaper it might be to not pollute in the first place.

    Well, that’s pretty much how we have run the U.S. electric grid for nearly a century. The more electricity a utility sells, the more money it makes. If it’s able to boost electricity demand enough, the utility is allowed to build a new power plant with a guaranteed profit. The only way a typical utility can lose money is if demand drops. So the last thing most utilities want to do is seriously push strategies that save energy, strategies that do not pollute in the first place.

    Energy efficiency, electricity, power plants | Salon News

    There are some things you wish you could have written, and the first paragraph is one of those. Romm nails it. Clearly, the most efficient MW of electricity is the one that was never used. But unless utilities are paid to conserve, not paid to produce, they will always build, build build.

    Excellent summary of arguments he makes all the time over at the gristmill. Now to find out what BC does. Canada is one of the worst in terms of energy use per capita. Some of it can be linked to the cold climate, but Germany is plenty cold too, and uses a third less per person.

    This article compares BC and California and finds BCHydro lacking in its incentives to save. The key is “decoupling”

    Significantly, California adopted regulations so that utility company profits are not tied to how much electricity they sell. This is called “decoupling.”

    BC’s per capita energy consumption is 0.26, well below the Canadian average and on the decline as Canada as a whole is getting worse. But more can be done.

    The key value judgment to be made here is that reducing energy use benefits all of us. The system should be set up in such a way that it benefits the utility as well. This way, they’re on the same side.

    Also, while a carbon tax is all well and good, it is not sufficient. Energy efficiency requires investment up front and people would rather pay 50 bucks a year in carbon tax than pay 300 bucks up front to insulate their homes better and save a 100 bucks a year in energy costs. Rebates only work if you have money up front. Giving people a $100 check is nice, but only if they spend it on improving energy efficiency. But, it’sjust money and we all know that money gets spent (beer, beer beer!) Subsidies work better as they reduce the cost of things. I would rather buy 10 compact fluorescent lamps for a buck each with the government chipping in the extra 10 bucks than get it back at the end of the year as a rebate, or pay 20c extra per incandescent lamp as a carbon tax.

    All rambling aside, a really good article on the value of energy efficiency.

  • EPA Faces major Challenges, and no money

    Byoliveridley

    At a time when this country faces major environmental challenges, including catching up with the rest of the developed world on global warming, the agency that would have to do the heavy lifting on environmental regulation ain’t getting the money to do diddley squat. A 25% cut in inflation adjusted terms over 4 years is huge, especially considering that the EPA was not a cushy agency even before that.

    ES&T Online News: Budget cuts increasingly damaging to EPA

    Support for research and development at EPA has declined by 25% in inflation-adjusted terms between the recent high point in 2004 and the proposed 2008 budget, according to figures from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

    “Morale has never been so low here since the days of Ann Gorsuch, and even then there was more money,” says one scientist, referring to the time during the early 1980s when former administrator Gorsuch, who resigned under a cloud, did her best to shrink the agency.

    But George Gray, assistant administrator for the agency’s Office of Research and Development (ORD), says he fully supports the proposed budget. “This budget fulfills every presidential environmental commitment and maintains the goals laid out in the EPA’s strategic plan, while spending less,” he says. The budget cuts come on the heels of EPA’s program to cut $2 million from the agency’s fund for specialized libraries.

    The scientists’ difficulties are likely to increase if the proposals in a June 2006 memo from Lyons Gray, EPA’s chief financial officer, are carried out. The memo, which was released by the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) directs ORD to reduce laboratory physical infrastructure costs by a minimum of 10% by 2009 and another 10% by 2011. The memo suggests that this will require closing, relocating, and consolidating EPA’s laboratory and field locations, as well as reducing or relocating staff. ORD chief George Gray told Congress that EPA does not intend to shut down any labs or get rid of any scientists during the current administrator’s tenure.

    The U.S will pay the price for this deliberate destruction of government infrastructure. You won’t see it now, it will be a little more apparent in a few years.

  • Hogwash!!!

    Byoliveridley

    pigFrom the annals of “Make them Laugh”

    newsobserver.com | Local & State

    North Carolina has spent six years searching for systems to replace hog lagoons — the open air ponds used to treat waste at hog farms. But according a $17.3-million study’s final results, released today, researchers haven’t found workable alternatives. Mike Williams, a N.C. State University professor and the lead researcher, told legislators today that he has found at least five hog waste systems that are dramatically better for the environment. But they are all too expensive for use on existing hog farms.

    There better be more to this report that what’s in this article. I need to get my hands on the actual report. But this is ridiculous, those hog factories they very thoughtfully call farms are very lightly regulated. Read here for more information on the hog industry in NC, but  “they are all too expensive for use on existing hog farms” is, well, HOGWASH, and a little bit of a waste of 17 million bucks!

  • Apparently, the Earth is warming up…

    Byoliveridley

    story.global.warming.2.jpgAnd Dog bites man, yet again, it’s amazing how they keep doing that. Think of all the money being wasted on re-proving the obvious, this is money not spent in mitigating the effects, money not spent on research, money not spent on encouraging people to use more efficient lighting… It’s a shame.

    CNN.com – Study: Earth ‘likely’ hottest in 2,000 years – Jun 22, 2006

    Climate scientists Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes had concluded the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in 2,000 years. Their research was known as the “hockey-stick” graphic because it compared the sharp curve of the hockey blade to the recent uptick in temperatures and the stick’s long shaft to centuries of previous climate stability.

    The National Academy scientists concluded that the Mann-Bradley-Hughes research from the late 1990s was “likely” to be true, said John “Mike” Wallace, an atmospheric sciences professor at the University of Washington and a panel member. The conclusions from the ’90s research “are very close to being right” and are supported by even more recent data, Wallace said.

    The panel looked at how other scientists reconstructed the Earth’s temperatures going back thousands of years, before there was data from modern scientific instruments.

    For all but the most recent 150 years, the academy scientists relied on “proxy” evidence from tree rings, corals, glaciers and ice cores, cave deposits, ocean and lake sediments, boreholes and other sources. They also examined indirect records such as paintings of glaciers in the Alps.

    Combining that information gave the panel “a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years,” the academy said.

  • Gulf States spending more on Clean Energy than Canada

    Byoliveridley

    Gasoline sells for 45 cents a gallon. There is little public transportation and no recycling. Residents drive between air-conditioned apartments and air-conditioned malls, which are lighted 24/7

    Still, the region’s leaders know energy and money, having built their wealth on oil. They understand that oil is a finite resource, vulnerable to competition from new energy sources.

    So even as President-elect Barack Obama talks about promoting green jobs as America’s route out of recession, gulf states, including the emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, are making a concerted push to become the Silicon Valley of alternative energy.

    They are aggressively pouring billions of dollars made in the oil fields into new green technologies. They are establishing billion-dollar clean-technology investment funds. And they are putting millions of dollars behind research projects at universities from California to Boston to London, and setting up green research parks at home.

    Meanwhile, we in Canada are pushing hard to completely ignore environmental concerns as we push to expand the incredibly dirty tar sands. I read an interesting New York Times article recently, summarizing the issues with this dirty oil. Of course, the CO2 emissions, and the incredibly nasty effects of mining, water pollution, etc. are well documented. One fact stuck in my head – The cost to replace one tire in one of the earth moving vehicles is $60,000. What a wasteful enterprise on such a grand scale, whose only purpose is to carry on business as usual when business as usual is going to result in catastrophic climate change in the not so distant future.