Attention News Editors:

• To date, Canadian jurisdictions that have announced or implemented a system for pricing carbon include Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and, now, New Brunswick.

• Click here to download the list of the top 11 large polluters in New Brunswick.

• In June 2017, New Brunswick’s Auditor General delivered a substantive review of the province’s climate change plan, including recommendations to turn policy intentions into on-the-ground work to protect homes and communities from what she called “one of the greatest challenges for communities, governments and corporations in the coming decades.” Among other things, the review called for an aggressive timeline and full details on how the government plans to execute the 118 actions laid out in its Climate Change Action Plan.

• New Brunswick’s Climate Change Action Plan, released in December 2016, contained all the elements for effective climate action in N.B., including commitments to Premier-led governance, target-driven policies, and sources of funding to support programs for low-income families, homeowners, and industry. It also included several measures called for by the Legislative Select Committee on Climate Change, including legislating carbon pollution reduction targets and energy-efficiency improvement targets, and phasing out coal from electricity production and phasing in more renewable energy like solar, wind, biomass and hydro.

• One month after the climate change plan was released, New Brunswickers experienced a sobering example of climate change impacts at home with the January 2017 ice storm that led to two people dying from carbon monoxide poisoning and nearly 300,000 homes and businesses left without power, some for up to 13 days. NB Power estimates the damages to its infrastructure at $30-million, making it the most expensive restoration in the utility's history.
• New Brunswickers are keenly aware that climate change is already happening in their communities in the forms of more extreme ice storms, hurricanes and flooding events. The Ice Storm Review 2017, released in August 2017, provided a snapshot of climate change-related extreme weather events in New Brunswick, including but not limited to:
  • Hurricane Arthur in July 2014, which brought torrential rains and 100-km/hour winds that caused road closures and washouts and significant infrastructure damages across the province. The total damages were estimated at $12.5 million.
  • A Nor-easter in December 2014 which impacted 56 roads with flooding or washouts across several regions, with impacts primarily concentrated in the Moncton region. Damages totalled $10.3 million.
  • Extreme flooding and storm surges in December 2010 which resulted in $13.8 million in damages from flooding in Charlotte and York Counties, and $3 million in damages associated with storm surges affecting the east and northeast coasts of the province.

Free Videos and Lesson Plans About Climate Change in Atlantic Canada!

(For use in middle and high school classrooms in New Brunswick.)

Book your training session before March 31st 2016!

“Courts ‘Recognizing the Obvious on Climate”

Telegraph Journal, Daily Gleaner, Times Transcript - March 11, 2019

The New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance was an intervener in the recent Saskatchewan Court of Appeals reference case on the federal carbon pricing “backstop.”

Those opposing carbon pricing portrayed the case as strictly a constitutional matter of jurisdiction, and chose not to discuss the issue of climate change. However, one of the first questions the Chief Justice asked Saskatchewan’s lawyer was: “If (climate change) literally imperils the future of the planet, should it be taken into account?” 

There was little doubt why the Justice asked this question. The Court had received overwhelming evidence about climate change and its calamitous effects. 

Our group submitted judicial decisions from courts around the world, based on the principle that increased greenhouse gases emissions from anywhere, no matter how small the amount, add to the global totals that threaten everyone. 

Clearly the courts are now recognizing the obvious about climate change and the elemental part fossil fuels play in it. 

Saskatchewan and its co-plaintiffs, realizing that being “deniers” is no longer politically acceptable, proclaim concern about climate change. But their claims ring hollow, as all these provinces have recently elected Progressive Conservative governments whose climate policies belie their words.

Sadly, New Brunswick is a case in point. Its signature energy policies of a new shale gas industry and a resurrection of the Energy East bitumen pipeline contradict concern about climate change, despite official rhetoric to the contrary.

The first necessity to slow climate change is to stop creating additional greenhouse-gas emissions from new fossil fuel sources. This is the very thing that carbon pricing is designed to deter.

How could New Brunswick meet any greenhouse gas limits while starting a shale gas industry that would create huge volumes of emissions from leaking methane and from burning large quantities of diesel fuel and gasoline?

Reviving Energy East is a fantasy few experts consider viable, not least because its approval would have to consider the climate effects of its upstream and downstream emissions. It didn’t face that requirement last time around, but would now.

By misreading climate change considerations, and fossil fuel market forces, our government’s policies both suffered setbacks.

After promising that Corridor Inc. had millions of dollars to immediately invest in local shale gas, the premier appeared to be blindsided when Corridor said it wouldn’t be drilling new wells until 2021, and only if it found a financial partner.

This should not have been a surprise. The gas market is flooded. Shale gas has never been profitable for lenders and investors, who are now demanding long-delayed paybacks. The easy money spigot is closing, making it tougher to get financial backing.

A recent Supreme Court decision, finding environmental clean-up obligations have precedence over repaying loans, has made banks warier about fossil fuel investments.

Mr. Higgs has countered with the position that local shale gas could replace gas from Nova Scotia’s about-to-close Sable Island facility. However, gas suppliers, noting that a new local shale gas solution was years away, announced they would supply the Maritimes with western gas via the pipeline that was the centrepiece of Energy East. 

With Energy East dead, and with no apparent market justification for local shale gas, Mr. Higgs now gives us a truly convoluted policy rationalization for both.

He would have us believe a local shale gas industry (years in the making) would convince gas pipeline companies and western producers to give up their Maritime business, and once again go through the near-impossible task of Energy East approval.

Besides needing dozens of things to go exactly right, the many years required would bring this plan to fruition at the very time when fossil fuels must be reduced by nearly half, and when carbon pricing would be at a maximum. It strains credulity.

Readers should note these setbacks to the premier’s plans are not due to political opposition, or environmental activism, but rather to business decisions and market forces in the industry. 

Climate change, by necessity, will be a major market force in reducing fossil fuels, while cheap renewable energy is another. 

Energy planners and pundits should begin recognizing the obvious, as Alberta just did in contracting three new solar farms to provide 55 per cent of the government’s electricity, at nearly half the cost of natural gas.

The U.S. Permian Basin, the heart of shale oil, produces so much accompanying gas they pay to get rid of it. Yet, plans for the industry’s electricity needs include a solar farm and the world’s largest battery.

Despite many similar examples, Mr. Higgs maintains renewable energy is still too expensive, and continues dealing in the false hopes of fossil fuel riches. Both ideas are from a bygone era.

The climate threat and market forces clearly indicate there is no future in a local shale gas industry. We, too, need to recognize the obvious.

Jim Emberger is spokesperson for the New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance, an organization intervened in the recent court challenge over carbon pricing in Saskatchewan.

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

Join the Executive Committee of the Sierra Club Canada Foundation - Atlantic Canada Chapter (SCCF-ACC)

Climate emergency: health and cost 

Sam Arnold

Climate change is now widely recognized as a planetary emergency that is having both health impacts and economic costs caused by extreme weather events.

These events, linked to global warming, now include prolonged droughts, increased forest fires, massive rainfalls, floods, polar ice melting, sea level rise, and severe storms around the world. This is an emergency that if not checked, is on track to severely impact human health and economic life. The effects of this emergency are already being felt in New Brunswick.

Climatologists and the vast majority of unbiased climate scientists, led by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have essentially proven that the mining and burning of fossil fuels has produced a sharp spike in global warming over the past 200 years. They have made it amply clear that if fossil fuel use remains at current levels, within a dozen years it will almost certainly be too late for humans to limit global warming, and the climate emergency will become uncontrollable.

Climate change resulting from human produced global warming is by far the most serious threat facing the future of humanity with the global temperature on track to reach 4 to 5 degrees above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century. It is no surprise that a growing number of municipalities are declaring climate emergencies, while the World Health Organization has called the climate crisis the greatest threat to public health. 

This situation is very hard to accept or ignore. It means that fossil fuel extraction and use must now be sharply curtailed if the human species is to have any possibility of passing a liveable environment on to the next generation and to the generations to come.

But in the face of these warnings and this evidence of the climate emergency, leading news stories and editorials in these newspapers continue to advocate for growing the economy with oil and gas extraction and with pipelines to bring these carbon producing fuels to market. The Conservative premiers of New Brunswick and Alberta continue to talk about “responsible resource development” for bitumen oil and shale gas. 

How can this be “responsible” when long-term damage to public health and to economic life will be the result of continuing to burn fossil fuels? Resource development that increases global warming and makes the climate emergency worse is not responsible. It is negligent. It is even negligent about the well-being of the economy. 

It is not responsible to insist that we must burn fossil fuels in order to have a healthy economy when the climate emergency created by burning fossil fuels is increasingly damaging the economy. Even major business corporations are now recognizing the reality of this situation, including some energy companies.

Moreover, new research from Global Energy Monitor, an organization that tracks fossil fuel development, questions the long-term viability of even the natural gas industry. It cautions that many natural gas developments could become “stranded assets”. Investment in fossil fuels, which are creating the climate emergency, will become less and less attractive. Investment in clean energy alternatives will become increasingly attractive as costs continue to decrease and benefits continue to increase.

New Brunswick, Canada, and the entire world must now pull out all the stops to substantially lower greenhouse gas emissions while making the switch to a low carbon economy with clean, renewable energy. The comparison has often been made that we need to mobilize for this climate emergency with the same speed and determination that was mobilized for World War II. 

Only a total team effort by all levels of government, business, industry, and every citizen in all parts of the world can we make the changes necessary to reverse the climate emergency and avert a public health and an economic disaster. 

The future looks grim unless all government subsidies to the fossil fuel industries end and are redirected to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions and rapidly advance the conversion to a clean energy economy. The sooner actions of this sort are taken, the lower will be the climate emergency costs and the better the outcome for the health of New Brunswickers and the economy of the province.

For an eye-opening report that puts New Brunswick in the centre of this issue, see Healthy Climate, Healthy New Brunswickersby Dr. Louise Comeau and Daniel Nunes. 

This comprehensive report summarizes existing research that explains how climate change can affect physical and mental health in New Brunswick. It includes temperature and precipitation projections for 16 NB municipalities. It reviews the health profiles of these same communities and makes recommendations for the next thirty years. This important report can be downloaded from the Conservation Council of New Brunswick (CCNB) website.

Sam Arnold is a member of the Sustainable Energy Group in Carleton County.

Jim Emberger,Spokesperson
New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance

[A slightly edited version of this appeared in “The Telegraph-Journal”and ”The Daily Gleaner” on May 17, 2019, under the the title ‘Public not well-informed on climate change’.]

I recently met a crew from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, who were installing a new structure to count salmon smolt on the Tay River. In recent years the count has been disappointingly small, so new and better information is needed.

It’s always heartening to see dedicated people working to save our environment, but this morning I was left feeling that their task was like trying to hold back the tide.

I had just read the United Nations report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. It concluded that human activities have pushed one million plant and animal species to the brink of extinction.

The reporting agency’s chair stated, "The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health, and quality of life worldwide."

Seems like the kind of consequential information everyone needs to know. But mainstream media barely covered it. Since most people still get their news from mainstream media, the citizens, politicians, pundits and publishers who will shape our future will do so in ignorance of the real world.

We just witnessed a similar failure of the press in the debate over carbon pricing, which took place with hardly any discussion of the essential context of the climate crisis.

Carbon pricing began simultaneously with the release of a momentous scientific report showing that Canada is warming at two or three times the rate as the rest of the world. One of the consequences is increased precipitation.

Days later another study reported that the arctic, as we have known it, is gone. High temperatures, that crush records by double digits, have altered almost every part of the arctic ecosystem, pushing it into a new state of existence.

This will seriously impact global weather patterns, especially in our Northern hemisphere. One researcher warned, “What happens in the arctic does not stay in the arctic.”

Other studies note that feedback loops, like melting permafrost (twelve times faster than thought), are increasing the speed and intensity of warming, and that the latest climate models show that former ‘worst case’ scenarios may, in fact, prove to be the norm.

These reports each contained enough important news on causes, effects, and necessary actions to provide daily news stories for weeks.

Actual media coverage lasted one or two days for the Canadian story, while the other stories received essentially no coverage.

These studies were all released as eastern Canada was enduring the second ‘once-in-a-generation’ flood in two years. A responsible media could have informed the public of the connection between these stories and events.

Instead, week after week, media climate news consisted solely of variations of the PC party’s political narrative, that a modest price on carbon pollution was somehow an assault on our freedom.

This ‘debate’, consisting almost entirely of conjecture, crowded out the factual context of the climate crisis. One would think that carbon pricing, rather than a climate crisis, was threatening our world.

Another missing story was that new audits of the emission targets of the Paris climate treaty reaffirmed that “any production from new oil and gas fields, beyond those already in production or development,” will take us beyond safe limits.

This means that exploiting new tarsands or shale gas will render our other climate plans meaningless.

Perhaps, not knowing this explains how Premier Higgs, pundits, publishers, and economists can express concerns for flood victims in one breath, while in the next breath promote new fossil fuel projects whose development will help to ensure a growing supply of future flood victims.

If they had good climate information, politicians might be aware that raising roads won’t help us, unless we do something to keep future floodwaters from rising even higher.

The media’s failure to provide context has consequences.

The effort necessary to slow climate change is often compared to fighting World War II. It will require universal consensus that recognizes the vastness of the problem, the substantial work required, and that some sacrifices may be needed, but also that the task is necessary, we can do it, and that any hardships are justified by guaranteeing a liveable future for ourselves and our children.

The climate crisis is the definitive ‘we are all in this together’ issue.

The press has made getting this necessary consensus much harder. The outrage fostered by its focus on the politics of carbon pricing, was not balanced by sober reasoning about limiting fossil fuels.

Angry people, whipped into a divisive frenzy by a one-sided argument, are not easily drawn back together.

In one of the least reported parts of the Appeals Court carbon pricing decision, the five justices unanimously agreed that, “climate change has emerged as a major threat, not just to Canada, but to the planet itself.”

We all need to be privy to the same proof that convinced the Court of that conclusion. Providing it should be the daily job of the press.

Otherwise, the press simply becomes the enabler of ignorance. And as Mother Nature keeps reminding us, “what we don’t know can hurt us.”

• Read Chapter 3 (on climate change) from Volume I of the 2017 Auditor General’s Report
  
  
• Read New Brunswick’s Climate Change Action Plan
  
  
• Watch CCNB video series: Green Energy: Making Informed Choices
  
  
• Check out CCNB’s Climate and Energy Solutions hub
  

Ditching fossil fuels is like a ‘monkey trap’

The Daily Gleaner, Tuesday, January 28, 2020

A recent Brunswick News Commentary wondered how bad must things get before the concept of ‘climate emergency’ gets traction.

One depressing answer may be found in the title of a widely circulated NYTimes editorial: “Australia Is Committing Climate Suicide.”

The continuing unimaginable conflagration of Australian bushfires has already burned an area much larger than New Brunswick, destroyed thousands of homes, and killed over a billion animals.

Decades will pass before knowing how many human lives will be lost or shortened by exposure to the world’s worst air pollution. An air quality index (AQI) above 200 is defined as hazardous. The AQI in Canberra has hit 4,650.

Climate scientists have long predicted such events, as the conditions that created them are well-studied climate topics.

While droughts and heat waves are normal, climate warming increases the odds of their occurrence, their duration, and their intensity. A continually warming Australia experienced its hottest and driest year in 2019. Average temperatures in the 40’s have baked the entire continent for weeks. Altered weather patterns push normal rains out to the ocean.

Yet, despite scientists’ warnings, years of increasingly destructive weather, and the current catastrophe, Australia plans to expand its world-leading exports of coal and liquid natural gas (LNG).

Perhaps, the country does have a psychotic death wish. Maybe it’s contagious.

In the USA, 100, 500 and 1000-year floods are meaningless, as they occur regularly. While the southwest faces water shortages, the central breadbasket remained flooded for months. California’s fire season is now year-round. Coasts are threatened by tropical depressions that turn into monster hurricanes within a day.

America’s response? Promote coal and frack as much gas and oil as possible.

Canada watches record fires burn BC, Ft. McMurray, and boreal forests. Extreme temperatures and precipitation and record flooding are the norm. Canada is warming at twice the global rate, and three times as fast in our north, where melting ice and permafrost lead to abandoned settlements and climate refugees.

Yet, several provinces stake their futures on huge new tarsands and LNG projects. The federal government, while shouting climate emergency warnings, inexplicably abets these expansions.

Maybe a mass psychosis has seized these countries. But, perhaps, there is a better explanation - the classic ’monkey trap’.

A monkey trap is an immovable trap, with a hole just large enough for a monkey's open hand. It is baited with a banana. A monkey grabs the banana, but the hole is not large enough to allow the monkey to withdraw its clenched fist (now clutching a banana).

Because the monkey can’t conceive of letting the banana go, it remains trapped, awaiting its fate.

It is the perfect analogy for humanity’s current situation. We cannot escape our trap (climate emergency), because we can’t conceive of giving up the banana (fossil fuels), even though doing so is our only means of escape.

There is absolutely no doubt about the climate trap. All the recent climate disasters resulted from less than 1.5-degrees warming - considered the ‘safe’ limit.

Our current fossil fuel usage puts us on track for 3 to 5 degree warming. At 3 degrees, Australian-like catastrophes become normal.

2019 ended the hottest decade on both land and in the ocean. No one born after 1985 has experienced a month cooler than the 20^th century average.

Coal, and the energy intensive processes of fracking, LNG and tarsands produce more greenhouse gases than conventional oil and gas, and make the USA, Australia and Canada the word’s largest per capita contributors to climate change.

Despite knowing this, they still can’t conceive of letting them go.

Supposedly, a monkey isn’t intelligent enough to understand how its trap works. Is it conceivable that we, likewise, lack the intellect or imagination to envision a life without fossil fuels?

Or is it something more distinctly human? Are we so tied to greed, convenient habits, or misbegotten ideology that we cannot act to save ourselves?

We have a simple choice. Let go of the banana, or remain trapped. Nothing else will save us.

New Brunswick’s record floods, tropical storms, hurricanes, ice storms, and windstorms are becoming the norm. Each costs millions and affects our health, lives and livelihoods.

Our government has finally begun taking small steps to address the climate crisis. Hydro-electricity from Quebec to replace coal-fired Belledune is a good idea, as is regional cooperation. The Ministers of Environment and Energy tout their climate awareness in plans to use carbon-pricing revenue for climate action programs.

Yet, immediately upon hearing that a complicated investment deal might restart a local shale gas industry - an industry that supercharges climate warming - the Minister of Energy boasted how his Department had made it possible.

Congratulations! Have a banana! They’re irresistible.

The fossil fuels we have all profited from now threaten our existence. If you believe that we can gradually let them go, because we are superior to monkeys, let your leaders know. Act for our children instead of quietly awaiting fate.

Jim Emberger is spokesperson for the New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance

Nous sommes heureux de vous informer que nous publions un numéro spécial de notre magazine, le NB Naturalist, sur la Nature, la Biodiversité et les Changements Climatiques. Le magazine est gratuit et prêt à être envoyé par la poste d'ici la fin du mois de novembre.  Nous aimerions le rendre disponible dans toute la province, veuillez nous faire savoir si vous êtes intéressés à contribuer à la distribution dans votre région. L'édition est entièrement traduite. Veuillez remplir le formulaire ici : https://goo.gl/forms/IdGVeuUJQOwBqj8o2.Si vous avez des questions, n'hésitez pas à nous contacter: 506-459-4209

OUR 2019 CROWDFUND CAMPAIGN IS NOW LIVE!

As we get ready for our 2nd season on the farm and the new-and-improved Regenerative Farming Certificate program, we need YOUR help to continue doing this work.

We need your help to create a new generation of community-led farms, one person at a time. Help us train people to feed their communities as part of a new food and climate paradigm.

As a community-based farm, we are changing our focus from maximizing profit to maximizing production for greater community impact. With reduced revenue and public funding in 2019, we are asking for the crowd’s continued help in funding our current shortfall, so that this next cohort of farm learners (15 participants for the 2019 season!!) can get a meaningful education in feeding our (their) communities without taking on an undue burden.

You may have noticed some curious posts about the federal carbon tax on the Government of New Brunswick’s Facebook Page and website.

Premier Blaine Higgs’ Progressive Conservative government’s materials on the carbon tax and what it will mean for New Brunswick cherry-picks facts about the issue, misconstrues how we got here, and (until recently, after pushback from New Brunswickers and groups like your Conservation Council), didn’t even tell us how to claim the federal Climate Action Incentive in our 2018 taxes (an incentive which, for the majority of New Brunswick households, analysis shows will more than cover the extra costs associated with a carbon tax).

Between the Higgs government’s misleading information on the carbon tax, and Andrew Scheers robo-texting campaign, there is a lot of politics dominating what should be a serious ‘all-hands-on-deck’ conversation about tackling climate change — what Canada’s leading health professionals call the ‘greatest public health threat of the 21st century.”

Climate change is already affecting New Brunswickers. An issue this serious and this urgent should go beyond politics. Protecting the places we love should be something we all get behind and give our best, honest effort.

But, slowing climate change is complicated business. And it’s made all the more confusing by stubborn and disconnected leaders who would rather deny climate change and abandon their duty to slow it and protect us from its effects.

How did we get here? How does a carbon tax work? Why is it important? What more should we be doing to protect families from increasingly severe flooding, devastating ice storms, and flipped, unpredictable weather?

Our Dr. Louise Comeau has prepared science-based, non-partisan fact sheets to help answer these important questions. If you are worried about climate change, but not sure where to get a sincere explanation of what all this is about, these resources can help. Give them a read. Share them with friends and family. And please, reach out to us if you have any questions (506-458-8747; info@conservationcouncil.ca).

For the love of New Brunswick, we can — and must — prepare for a future with less pollution and safer communities.

• Download fact sheet #1: The carbon tax and New Brunswick
• Download fact sheet #2: Why a carbon tax is needed in New Brunswick
• Download fact sheet #1: New Brunswick is not doing its part to fight climate change

• Fiche descriptive #1: La tarification du carbone et le Nouveau-Brunswick
• Fiche descriptive #2: Pourquoi une taxe sur le carbonne est-elle nécessaire pour le Nouveau-Brunswick?
• Fiche descriptive #3: Le Nouveau-Brunswick ne fait pas sa part pout lutter contre le changement climatique

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NBASGA Applauds Supreme Court Decision on Carbon Pricing, with Conditions

Fredericton, (March 25, 2021) – Today the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the right of the federal government to employ a carbon pricing mechanism across the entire nation. The New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance (NBASGA) intervened on the side of the federal government, and we applaud this 6 to 3 decision, which allows Canada to address the global climate emergency in a uniform manner.

The court reaffirmed for good that “Global climate change is real, and it is clear that human activities are the primary cause.” NBASGA Spokesperson, Jim Emberger, said that, “while noting that all levels of government have parts to play in solving a global climate crisis, the court recognized that many necessary actions can only be achieved through national and international actions.”

“We are disappointed that the court decided the case without addressing our argument that the government’s carbon pricing program was justified by its responsibility to guarantee life, liberty and the security of the person under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, we are gratified that they point out that Canada’s North and Indigenous people endure inordinate climate change suffering.”

Emberger added, ”This is a powerful tool, which we hope governments employ wisely. Yet, it is only one tool. If governments use other financial tools to subsidize and increase the supply of fossil fuels, it will negate the reductions in demand that it achieves through carbon pricing.”

The federal government used taxpayer money to buy the Transmountain Pipeline, increasing the expansion of the tarsands. It is now considering the financing of the Goldboro, Nova Scotia LNG export project with up to a billion dollars. This will build a network of hundreds of new gas wells, fracking, pipelines and an LNG export plant, and stretch from Alberta through Quebec to Atlantic Canada.

The increased methane and CO2 emissions resulting from these projects alone will prevent provinces and the nation from hitting their already inadequate greenhouse gas emission targets, directly offsetting decreased emissions from carbon pricing.

The contradictions between our economic policies and scientific fact are painfully obvious. Do governments really grasp the meaning of ‘existential threat,’ as the courts describe the climate crisis, and do governments recognize the scientific fact that producing any additional fossil fuels will undo any other climate progress?

Emberger said, “We hope that they do. It would be disappointing to celebrate with the government on this historic climate victory, only to have to oppose them in other courtrooms. Holding up one’s hand and swearing to take serious climate action, while crossing one’s fingers and funnelling money to fossil fuel interests behind one’s back, will bring us to ruin. The laws of physics don’t care about such political games and strategies. Like the Supreme Court, they don’t vote, but they do have the final say.”

• English Pembina report 
• French Pembina report

FREDERICTON —

• Read the Climate Change Act
• Read the government’s press release on the Climate Change Act
• Read the government’s backgrounder on the Climate Change Act
• Read the Conservation Council’s background materials on N.B.’s carbon pricing system (Dec. 12, 2017)
• Read the Conservation Council’s media backgrounder on carbon pricing (2016)
• List of the large carbon polluters in New Brunswick

LNG export terminal would carry great risks | TJ.news

Jim Emberger|Commentary  August 13,2022

Editor's Note: As part of our In-Depth series, we invited a proponent and an opponent of the LNG export terminal in Saint John to make their case. Below is Jim Emberger's argument against the project.

The economic and climate costs of developing an LNG export facility in Saint John are real and significant. Benefits, if any, will come at great risk.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres recently stated, “Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness.”

He was summing up the warnings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, and climate scientists everywhere. Developing new fossil fuel projects will hinder any chance of meeting the climate targets necessary to save the world from dire consequences.

Observing the current record-setting heat waves, droughts, floods and forest fires afflicting every corner of the planet gives proof to these warnings. Unfortunately, the warnings underestimated how quickly climate effects would arrive, and how severe they would be.

The costs of climate disasters go beyond the billions in property destruction and loss of lives. Climate-influenced crop failures across the globe have threatened multitudes with starvation, created millions of food refugees, and increased food prices for us all. 

Climate disasters in Europe have also shut down nuclear power plants and rendered the Rhine River too shallow to support its normal huge load of shipping. So why would Germany look to increase the production of the very fossil fuels responsible for climate change?

In fact, they are not. Germany is well into a transition to a clean economy, with a large and growing renewable energy sector. In response to their current gas shortage, they plan to double down on renewables, and exit from natural gas as soon as possible. 

Germany needs LNG only for short-range relief. Yet, it will likely take five years to even begin sending LNG from a new Atlantic terminal – probably longer in light of necessary Impact Assessments and probable legal challenges. 

Atlantic LNG cannot be a real solution to Germany’s immediate needs.

This timing mismatch also highlights the extreme risk associated with any potential benefit for New Brunswick. Converting the Repsol facility to exports will require between $2 billion and $4 billion (according to a 2014 Natural Resources briefing note), plus considerably more for pipeline additions, and may require billions more for expensive carbon capture technology that either doesn’t exist or works poorly (and undoubtedly requiring taxpayer subsidies).

Add many more billions if the intent is to later convert the facility to handle hydrogen, another expensive, high-risk conversion for which there is little actual experience. Hydrogen itself currently has only a few technically and economically proven uses.

To recoup such vast investment, these projects require guaranteed purchases by LNG buyers for at least 20 years, as made clear by Repsol’s CEO. It is doubtful that a Germany looking to rapidly leave gas behind will make that commitment.

If by some miracle commitments are made, then the climate costs to Canada, New Brunswick and the earth increase, as fossil fuels are locked in for another generation. 

Canada is the only advanced nation that has never met a single emissions target, and New Brunswick is a leading per capita producer of greenhouse gases (GHGs). LNG export terminals produce great amounts of GHGs. Adding a terminal here will ensure that neither Canada nor New Brunswick meet our climate targets.

Simultaneously, we will risk having a multi-billion dollar white elephant in Saint John, as we gamble in the incredibly volatile gas market.

For the last decade, shale gas created gas prices so low that investors lost billions. Only in the current crisis has the price risen to profit-making levels. It’s now so high that it is causing financial crises and providing more incentive to abandon gas.

Shall we bet that the current scene will last the next 30 years? Repsol is stuck with the unused LNG import terminal that it now has, because it made a wrong bet on where gas was heading 20 years ago.

What makes climate and economic sense for New Brunswick is to invest in and promote the cheapest electricity in the history of the world – solar and wind, whose fuel costs will never go up – accompanied by affordable energy storage, conservation and retrofits of infrastructure.

This move to electrification of our society is inevitable, as the world is starting to seriously react to a fast-changing climate. We can, and should, be a leader in that move.

The cost/benefit comparisons are no-brainers. Any temporary jobs created during construction of an LNG terminal could easily be surpassed in a transition to a renewable/electrified economy.

LNG tax and royalty money for government coffers only lasts while markets are good, whereas cheap electricity rates for citizens will continue with renewable energy, and residents of Saint John will not have to cope with the huge dose of air pollution that LNG exports will also bring.

A clean economy in New Brunswick benefits Germany, the world, and us by reducing GHG emissions, which our Supreme Court acknowledges cause the same global harm, regardless of where they are created. Let’s not add to the harm.

Jim Emberger is spokesperson forthe New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance.

From intense rain, wind and ice storms bringing flooding and power outages, to hotter days and seasons bringing dry summers and ticks, a lot of us are feeling anxious and on edge about climate change in New Brunswick.

We need strong leadership from our provincial government to do everything it can to protect our families’ health and communities’ safety from the effects of climate change and extreme weather we’re already seeing today.

This year, make your Earth Day count a little extra by writing Premier Blaine Higgs about your concerns and your call for serious action on climate change.

We’ve made it easy for you to speak out. Use our letter-writing tool below to let the Premier know where you stand and what you want.Our pre-written letter includes recommendations for smart climate solutions. We strongly encourage you to add to this letter with your own personal story of how climate change makes you feel and how it has affected you and your family.

Traditional territory of the Wabanaki Peoples/Fredericton — New Brunswick’s greenhouse gas emissions increased 700,000 tonnes from 2020 to 2021, a six per cent increase, due to increased emissions in the electricity sector, according to Environment and Climate Change Canada’s 2023 National Inventory Report 1990 – 2021: Greenhouse Gas Sources and Sinks in Canada.

New Brunswick’s planet-warming greenhouse gases increased from 11.2 million tonnes in 2020 to 11.9 million tonnes in 2021, the latest year for which data is available. A detailed break out of emissions across all economic sectors in the province shows that the entire increase in emissions is from the electricity sector. 

“Burning fossil fuels to generate electricity must end,” says Louise Comeau, co-executive director at the Conservation Council. “Making money off planet-warming energy sources is unethical. It increases our carbon tax liability and puts our future at risk. The time is now to switch off the fossil plants in favour of renewable energy, storage, interties and efficiency.”

The 700,000-tonne increase from New Brunswick’s electricity sector represents an annual rise of 26 per cent, from 2.7 million tonnes in 2020 to 3.4 million tonnes in 2021. The increase was driven by increases in emissions at the Coleson Cove Generating Station (up 47 per cent, or 730,000 tonnes in 2020 to 1,070,000 in 2021), the Belledune Generating Station (up 22 per cent, or 1,140,000 tonnes to 1,390,000 tonnes), and the Bayside Generating Station (up 11 per cent, or 830,000 tonnes to 920,000 tonnes).

The Point Lepreau Generating station was largely operational in 2021, with three short-term outages in February, April and November, leading to a 7 per cent decline in megawatt hours of power production.  Wind power production was down 21 per cent due to base cracks at Kent Hills. These outages increase reliance on New Brunswick’s fossil plants or on imports from Quebec or New England.  According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, in 2021 electricity production at Belledune was up 23 per cent (1440 GWh in 2021, compared to 1140 GWh in 2020), up 15 per cent at Bayside (1580 GWh in 2021, compared to 1380 GWh in 2020), and up 34 per cent at Coleson Cove (940 GWh in 2021, compared to 700 GWh in 2020). Greenhouse gas intensity increased to 290 grams/carbon dioxide/kWh from 230 grams/carbon dioxide/kWh in 2020.

In 2021, NB Power also increased export sales which can contribute to increased use of the utility’s fossil fuel plants. NB Power’s 2021-2022 annual report shows a 52 per cent increase in export sales ($558 million in 2021-2022 from $369 million in 2020-2021), and a 35 per cent increase in gigawatt hours of production (6,175 GWh  in 2021-2022 from 4,576 GWh in 2020-2021). 

Emissions increases year-over-year are a concern even if long-term trends are still downward. New Brunswick’s greenhouse gas emissions are down 39 per cent from 2005 and 7 per cent from 2019.  Similar trends to 2021 are expected for 2022, signalling the importance of controlling electricity sector emissions through actions like a federal clean electricity regulation. 

As Earth Day (April 22) approaches, the Conservation Council calls for a clean electricity strategy that ensures New Brunswick has a reliable, sustainable and affordable electricity system with the right balance of in-province efficiency, wind, solar, hydro and storage, along with regional transmission interties like the Atlantic Loop.

To arrange an interview, contact:

 Jon MacNeill, communications director, Conservation Council of New Brunswick, 506-238-3539 |jon.macneill@conservationcouncil.ca

The New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance (NBASGA) has sent its comments on climate policy to the legislative committee working on the climate plan. They are available on our website to read or to download (12 pages of text, 4 of references).
https://www.noshalegasnb.ca/nbasga-comments-to-new-brunswick-climate-change-committee/

We remind everyone that the deadline for submission to the committee is midnight on Feb 24th. 
You may write your own comments, and email them to: climatechangeNBchangementsclimatiques@gnb.ca

You may also register comments by answering climate survey questions from the Committee. To do so, go to:
https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/elg/environment/content/climate_change/content/action-plan-renewal.html

At the bottom of the page click on the 'Share Your Thoughts' button to get the survey, and when you complete the survey, just click Submit.

Please feel free to use any ideas or references from NBASGA's comments.

Jim Emberger, Spokesperson

Jim Emberger (English) 367-2658, 440-4255 (cell), shaleinfo.nb@gmail.com
Denise Melanson (Français) 523-9467, 858-0321 (cell), inrexton2013@yahoo.ca

(1) https://cape.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2018-Lancet-Countdown-Policy-Brief-Canada.pdf

The forecast is dire — but the solutions we need to slow climate change will make us happier and healthier

The sky is clear and the sun is punishing.

A thick layer of ozone ripples above the pavement. No matter how much water you drink, you know you’re losing more through your pores whether you’re moving or not.

And for a lot of New Brunswickers, a province with more folks over 65 years of age than any other province, activity is out of the question.

It’s the fourth 30+ degree day in a row. You’re restless. Exhausted, despite having been shuttered inside, blinds drawn, melting in your chair, since the heat wave hit.

You’ve weathered these days before, over the years. But never in such succession. Never so persistent.

You feel depressed as you realize that there are fewer and fewer of those beautiful, tepid, liberating New Brunswick summer days, and it’s not going to get any better. 

This is just life now.

An (un)real scenario 

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The scenario described above is a science-based snapshot of where life is headed in New Brunswick if governments, businesses and industries don’t take serious action to limit carbon pollution causing the climate crisis we’re already experiencing.

How bad will it get? What will it mean for everyday life in New Brunswick? Who will suffer the most? Can we do anything about it?

These questions are tackled in the Conservation Council’s new report from Dr. Louise Comeau,Healthy Climate, Healthy New Brunswickers: A proposal for New Brunswick that cuts pollution and protects health, released today (June 25).

A spoiler for you: there is hope. There are concrete actions we can take to change the stark forecast described above and in the report. 

But first, a look at what scientific research and health data in New Brunswick predicts about life in the picture province between 2021-2050.

The bad news

You may not think climate change is a public health issue. With the overwhelming focus on environmental degradation, species loss, and damage to public and private infrastructure, you could be forgiven. But when we combine existing research from sources such as the Canada Climate Atlas and New Brunswick Health Council’s community health profiles, among others, we get a sobering story indeed.

This is what Dr. Comeau does in our report, the first comprehensive look at how climate change will affect the physical and mental health of all New Brunswickers, but particularly the very young, seniors, the isolated, and those living on low incomes.

In the report, Dr, Comeau combines climate projections and existing community health profiles for 16 New Brunswick communities, including the Edmundston, Campbellton, Dalhousie, Bathurst, Caraquet, Miramichi, Moncton, Sackville, Sussex, Oromocto, Fredericton, Minto, Woodstock, Grand Falls, St. Stephen, and Saint John areas. 


How’s the weather out there?

New Brunswickers aren’t used to hot, 30+ degree days, let alone long stretches of them. But that’s what the data says is coming in the immediate- to medium-term.

Comeau’s analysis shows that each of the communities listed above will experience between 122 to 300 per cent more 30+ degree days in the summer over the next 30 years if we don’t come together to eliminate the heat-trapping pollution causing global heating.

Fredericton, for example, can expect at least 20 of these scorching days a summer, compared to the 1976-2005 average of eight — up 150 per cent. 

Bathurst could experience at least 14 hot days by 2021 to 2050, up from an average of six. The Miramichi and Minto regions will have 20 scorchers, Oromocto will have 21 (up from 9), Woodstock will have 15 (up from six), St. Stephen will have 11 (up from 4) and the Sussex area will have 12 (up from 4), to name a few.

This is a big departure from what is normal. Temperature influences natural cycles, our lifestyles and our physical and mental health. 

We know heat waves, for example, can cause death in the elderly or sick as seen in recent years inEurope, theUnited States andQuébec. And then there’s the reality of hotter conditions exacerbating existing health conditions, or helping to cause them.

Health researchers from around the world find that climatic changes affect and contribute to cardiovascular disease and respiratory conditions (more air pollution, greater frequency of and more extreme forest fires, droughts and dust storms), allergic reactions (especially ragweed), cancer, traumatic injuries, vector-borne illnesses (from disease-carrying insects; think black-legged ticks), food and water-borne illnesses (contaminated water, prime conditions for bacterial growth), malnutrition, and mental health (being displaced from your home, grief from losing cherished possessions and property, and extreme weather-induced stress, anxiety and depression). 

More frost-free days — but don’t get excited yet

Comeau’s analysis shows higher average temperatures, especially in spring and winter, increase the number of frost-free days per year. In New Brunswick, that means between 19-22 more frost-free days a year between 2021-2050, compared to the 1976-2005 average.

But don’t get excited yet.

Warmer temperatures increase the risk of exposure to ticks carrying Lyme disease and pave the road for the expansion and establishment of othertick species and diseases. We’re seeing this already, especially in southern New Brunswick.  In 2017, there were 29 confirmed cases of Lyme disease in the province, up from eight cases reported the year before. 

More intense rainfall events, more extreme floods

Increases in temperature means more precipitation is forecast for New Brunswick in the coming decades. That’s because warmer air holds more moisture. Scientists calculate that for every one degree Celsius increase in temperature, the atmosphere can hold seven per cent more water. 

What does this mean? Comeau’s analysis shows we are likely to experience less frequent but much more intense precipitation events, increasing the annual total volume of precipitation across the entire province.

This will mean more intense rainfall, more snow, and increases tosnow depth — adding to spring freshet worries and flood risk.  It also means more freezing rain causing winter flooding and ice jams, and ice-on-snow cover making walking dangerous, especially for seniors.

New Brunswick experienced record-breaking floods along the Wolastoq (St. John) River in 2018 and 2019, partly caused by above average snowpack and rain (at least partly due to our changing climate). There are, of course, other factors, such as land-and-forest use, and poor development planning in flood plains that, combined with natural variability and super-charging by climate change, increases the probability of extreme events, including flooding.

Projections show we’re likely to see the amount of rain falling in spring increase seven to nine per cent in the immediate to medium-term, with the amount of snow, rain and freezing rain in winter increasing eight to 11 per cent (with the higher amounts in northern communities).

Recently, University of Moncton hydrologistNassir El-Jabi told CBC he estimates frequent but minor floods could see water levels increase 30 to 55 per cent by 2100 in New Brunswick, and extreme floods like those in 2018 and 2019 could be 21 per cent bigger by 2100. 

As Comeau writes in our report, “It is getting hotter, wetter, extreme, and less safe because greenhouse gas levels are not where they need to be and we are not changing the way we do things.”

Feeling down and out

We know young children and adults are increasingly anxious about climate change, as demonstrated by the global School Strike for Climate movement started by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg from Sweden. This winter and spring students in Fredericton, Moncton, Campbellton, Edmundston, Saint John and Sackvillejoined the movement, walking out of school to protest government and industry inaction on climate change.

Mental health professionals are increasingly worried about the psychological effects of climate change. Research shows climate change effects such as flooding and extended power outages can undermine well-being and cause ecoanxiety, a “chronic fear of environmental doom.” 

Beyond the immediate stress and anxiety of disasters fueled by climate change, the chronic mental health affects these events bring about is even more frightening.

According to the American Psychology Association, these effects include post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicide, substance misuse, strained social relationships, aggression, violence, and feelings of helplessness, fear and fatalism — just to name a few.

What’s this all mean?

If you are a senior or single parent living on low income, in an under-insulated home with no air conditioning, you are more at risk from extreme heat and extreme weather events. You might not have a vehicle to leave home, or you may have fewer social contacts to reach out to if the power goes out.  

A senior woman living alone on a low income, with one or more chronic health issues, and who has few social contacts is especially vulnerable to the mental and physical health effects of extreme events made worse by climate change. 

A person with asthma is more at risk from hotter days and more smog (heart and lung-damaging ground-level ozone).

New Brunswick generally has low levels of smog-related pollution. Communities like Saint John, Belledune and Edmundston, however, that house industrial operations (pulp and paper, coal-fired power, lead smelting, and oil refining), experience close to maximum levels for fine particulate matter and higher levels of smog.

Katie Hayes, a leading researcher focused on the mental health effects of climate change, points out in herrecent paper that the mental health effects of climate change are accelerating, “resulting in a number of direct, indirect and overarching effects that disproportionately affect those who are most marginalized.”

The good news — a better scenario 

The sky is clear and the sun is punishing.

The mercury has breached 30 degrees, and you remember, 20-odd years ago, reading about the dire forecast that these days would become more and more the norm. You’re grateful that action, from communities to the highest levels of government and industry, didn’t let things get that bad.

All the same, on this day, you’re choosing to stay inside. You just can’t handle the heat like you could in your younger years.

But it’s beautiful. Specialized doors and windows, combined with a super-insulated attic, basement and walls, means you are comfortable no matter how hot or cold it gets outside.

You catch the glint of sunshine from the windshield of your electric car parked in the driveway. It’s charging from your rooftop solar panels and sleek battery bank on the wall, hidden by a painting from your favourite local artist.

Even if you need more power than your panels and bank provide, you rest easy knowing it’s coming from a public utility powered entirely by renewable energy sources.

The coal-and-gas-fired power plants of yesteryear have long been shuttered, their workers enjoying a new gig in booming cleaner energy and technology sectors.

You hardly even think about air quality, not like you used to, then living next to Canada’s largest oil refinery in Saint John. 

Cancer rates are down across the board, including places like the Port City, Edmundston and Belledune, once dogged by heavy, polluting industries.

You get up, head to the kitchen, and make a sandwich for lunch from vegetables grown just one block away, at one of several community gardens dotting the landscape.

You smile. This is just life now.

A new way on

There is no way around it — our lives depend on energy and always will. But we can control whether this energy comes from sources that pollute our climate and negatively affect our health, like coal, oil and gas, or sources that offer a much better balance with what our planet can sustain. This is a choice we can make. 

Today, it’s a choice we must demand.


The Conservation Council’s climate change and health report, along with our climate action plan released in 2016, provide a blueprint for achieving the healthier, happier scenario described in the section above. 

Slowing climate change will in turn fix so many social, environmental, health and labour problems that we can’t just look at it as a crisis — but as a tremendous opportunity to get things right. 

Yes, the science-based projections are dire. 

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we’ve got about 10 years to get serious about solving the problems of climate change. And, even then, we’ll still be dealing with some of the effects.

But we can get it right, we can limit the suffering. We must not despair, and we must not be discouraged. 

So what can you do right now?

Talk about climate change. Read the recommendations in Dr. Comeau’s report and share them with everyone you know. 

By all means, do what you can in your home, life and workspace to limit the carbon pollution you add to the atmosphere. But the changes we have to make are bigger than better insulation and energy efficient appliances. 

Dr. Comeau’s report encourages everyone interested in protecting public health from the immediate and looming effects of climate change to speak out and demand action from politicians, businesses, and industry. 

There is a better way forward. It’s going to be hard work, but together, we can get there. 

Click here to send your #climateaction letter

Recommended links:

• Read our new report, Healthy Climate, Healthy New Brunswickers
• Watch our renewable energy video series: Making Informed Choices
• Read the Conservation Council's Climate Action Plan
• Tell us your climate change story

EMBERGER: No deal is a good deal to start shale gas | TJ.news

Jim Emberger|Commentary

5-6 minutes

Every day, business ads promote the idea that wise business leaders make decisions based on solid data.

Premier Blaine Higgs likes to project the image of an experienced business leader, but his current effort to resurrect shale gas reveals that he more closely embodies his other reputation as a “Data, my ass” decision maker.

There is unequivocal data in the latest report from the International Panel on Climate Change, which shows that we cannot develop any new fossil fuel source if we hope to escape the dire consequences of a warming climate.

This data was researched by virtually the entire global community of climate scientists and institutions.

Knowing this, any suggestion to now begin a shale gas industry, (designed to last for decades) directly contradicts the data, and constitutes an intellectual, not to mention moral, failure.

Data show that: the fossil fuel industry is Canada’s leading source of greenhouse gas pollution; the global warming effect of methane (natural gas) is 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide over 20 years; and methane is the fastest-growing greenhouse gas.

Fracking produces a lot of carbon dioxide by burning huge amounts of fossil fuels. This, plus well-documented leakage of methane from the entire shale gas life cycle, mean that fracked gas may be as bad as burning coal to generate electricity.

Thus, Higgs’s idea of switching the Belledune power plant from coal to fracked gas to lower provincial greenhouse gases directly denies all the data. Even the International Energy Agency, once a champion of shale gas, acknowledges that gas can no longer be a transition fuel.

In addition to its climate effects, research on fracking's other harmful effects overwhelmingly supports continuing our current moratorium. Fracking’s serious threats to health are growing in type and number, as the “safe distance” from wells grows longer.

Fracking pollutes both ground and drinking water. It produces copious air pollution. Ever-longer wells use huge and growing amounts of freshwater, and produce correspondingly more toxic wastewater, for which no safe, affordable method of disposal exists. It causes earthquakes.

In sum, the data show that none of the standards for lifting the moratorium can be met.

Higgs denies historical data, too; believing he can bring back shale gas by simply convincing First Nations community leaders to make a deal.

While the RCMP raid in Elsipogtog was dramatic and memorable, it was just one event in years of opposition to fracking by a historic alliance of First Nations, anglophones and francophones across the province, which included unions, public health, physician and nursing groups, religious organizations, community groups, environmentalists, and groups formed just to oppose fracking.

Thousands of non-Indigenous people signed petitions, demonstrated, attended educational meetings, and participated in civil disobedience, risking arrest along with their Indigenous allies. They filed a lawsuit against the Alward government, and later voted that government out.

This overwhelming demonstration that there is no social licence for fracking in the non-Indigenous community is more data that Higgs ignores.

Even his reprehensible attempt to bribe First Nations with promises of $1.6 billion in shale gas money over 20 years woefully lacks supportive economic data.

No one knows how much New Brunswick gas is economically recoverable, and the past year has seen record volatility in gas prices. The gas market is shrinking through conservation, a renewable energy boom, and price volatility.

Promises based on gas price and market predictions 20 years out, are strictly crystal ball gazing. The timeframe matters, because governments typically give tax and royalty breaks to the industry to offset upfront investments. Little revenue is actually collected for many years.

A gas industry launched today may be unused in 20 years if we address climate change; and if we don’t, then the climate, and our goose, will be well and truly cooked.

I don’t speak for Indigenous people, but any objective observer can see that their serious opposition to shale gas is rooted in age-old spiritual and cultural obligations to protect the water, the land and nature’s bounty. It is an ethos that also finds support in scientific data, and which we all would do well to adopt.

Higgs asks that they forsake that heritage in exchange for a fantasy deal, and ignore the real and continuing need to preserve the province, planet and our future.

Instead, wise leaders, following the dictates of solid data, should ask for an immediate, legislated, permanent ban on shale gas and fracking.

Jim Emberger is the spokesperson for the New Brunswick Anti-shale Gas Alliance.

TIME & LOCATION : ST. ANDREWS : 9:00 AM– 1:00 PM / SAINT JOHN : 12:00 PM– 5:00 PM

The UNESCO-designated Fundy Biosphere Reserve (FBR) has released the long awaited results of research into climate change-resilient tree species in southern New Brunswick.

The FBR recently completed an analysis of which native tree species has the most chance to prosper under changing climatic conditions over the next 100 years, as well as those that will most probably merely persevere, and which could even decline. Northern trees species like spruces, fir, birches, and poplars will likely face more insects, disease, extreme weather, and competition, which would lead to slower growth and higher mortality. By contrast, southern species such as maples, oak, pines, beech, hemlock, and cherry should have a longer growing season and thus, faster growth. 

The FBR has created a pamphlet that describes the eight ‘winners’ for the changing climate.  It describes the trees and their preferred growing conditions, so that woodlot owners, foresters, municipalities, and the general public are armed with the right information about what to plant and where

As the climate changes and less-resilient species begin to decline and disappear, the Acadian Forest composition in southern New Brunswick (as well as throughout the Maritimes) will also change. This means that the forest as we know it today will later contain fewer of those northern species, and probably more of these “winners”. But the forest will need help from residents of the region, notably in planting these resilient species.

By planning ahead for climate change and planting tree species that have a better chance to thrive, we can help ensure that there will be healthy and beautiful trees in our neighborhoods and parks as well as in the forest, to be enjoyed by generations to come. An informative brochure has thus been developed to help 

The other component of this research is related to forest corridors. As climate change and deforestation affect the forest, wildlife can become cut-off.  The FBR is working with other organizations to try and establish forest corridors based on areas with climate change resilient trees, helping plants and animals move freely around the FBR or to and from Nova Scotia.

Premier Blaine Higgs’ continuing desire to exploit shale gas and LNG can only be described as “perverse,” which the dictionary defines as “showing a deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unreasonable or unacceptable, often in spite of the consequences.”

Higgs referenced LNG development during his State of the Province address on Jan. 25.

“We have so many advantages with our direct access to the U.S. and international markets along with our rich natural resources including wind, minerals, water, forestry, and natural gas,” he said.

“That’s where I believe we have a tremendous opportunity to punch above our weight and really impact global emissions.”

His obstinate, decade-long pursuit of shale gas, can reasonably be called obsessive. It begins with his continuing promotion of gas even after citizens voted out the Alward government, which ran on the issue.

As premier, Higgs has repeatedly attempted to revive shale gas by partially lifting the moratorium and by backing an LNG plant in Saint John, but these and other efforts never attracted investors. His campaign for gas continued even during the years when shale drillers were losing billions of dollars and going bankrupt.

An award-winning public health report by then-Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Cleary, and evidence presented to the Commission on Hydrofracturing, and contained in a lawsuit against the government, catalogued the serious health dangers of fracking. Neither these nor a myriad of other serious negative consequences from fracking caused Higgs to reconsider his crusade for gas.

But his current push for gas is particularly perverse, as it comes at a time when we must address the glaringly obvious matter of the climate crisis.

We just experienced the warmest year and decade in 125,000 years, accompanied by record-breaking heat waves, droughts, floods, storms, melting poles and glaciers, and forest fires in every part of the world, totalling a record number of climate-related disasters that each exceeded a billion dollars-plus in damages. Climate tipping points may have been passed or are rapidly approaching.

This was eye-opening enough that the nations of the world finally, and unanimously, agreed at the COP28 meeting to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems” and “reduce both consumption and production of fossil fuels in a just, orderly and equitable manner.”

In real numbers, for gas, that means that by 2030 we must reduce usage by 42 per cent — minimum — and that no new fossil fuel projects should be started. Canada signed a separate pledge to reduce the amount of methane (natural gas) emissions, as methane is 86 times more potent than CO2 in trapping heat, which can make it as bad as burning coal.

The science journal Nature,summed up COP28 this way: “Phasing out fossil fuels is not negotiable. World leaders will fail their people and the planet unless they accept this reality. In the end, the climate doesn’t care who emits greenhouse gases…. This year’s climate extremes have made it all too clear that there is no truly safe level of warming, and every fraction of a degree matters.”

In response, U.S. President Joe Biden just paused the approval of all new LNG export projects (Higgs’ biggest fantasy) in the States, until their true effect on climate change can be ascertained.

The health effects of LNG’s large volumes of pollution on surrounding communities will also be investigated.

Shale gas production itself has also been shown to severely stress public health systems, especially hospitals, in many ways. Studies have associated fracking with a long list of diseases, such as birth defects, leukaemia, asthma, and heart disease, among others.

Fracking is a dangerous industry with lots of accidents, and the thousands of truck trips the industry requires are associated with increased traffic accidents. The heavy trucks also destroy roads and bridges, which cost millions to repair, while also hampering emergency vehicles. In a province with a struggling health care system and deteriorating infrastructure, shale gas is unacceptable.

The gas industry requires experienced workers, many of whom will come from other provinces. Studies of communities that host shale gas development show the industry brings with it higher rents and a spike in evictions.

New Brunswick is not unique: the financialization of real estate, a lack of government investment in public housing, and an over-reliance on market forces by policymakers has created a housing crisis. The gas workers could displace local residents, and they, like other immigrants to the province, would be blamed for a crisis they did not create.

In a province trying to preserve its forests, fracking will segment forests with networks of roads, well pads, compressors, pipelines, and parking areas.

And it must be noted that there is still no safe way to dispose of toxic fracking wastewater, nor has Higgs established any meaningful degree of social license in either settler or Indigenous communities.

Can such devastating climate, health, social and economic consequences be ignored, as long as the province can collect some royalties?

This is perverse and unacceptable, and Higgs’ business case is also unreasonable, as it is outdated and untrue.

After a period of adjustment, caused by the war in Ukraine, the European gas market is now well-supplied. Europe uses only a small portion of its coal to generate electricity, and has long-standing plans to retire its coal plants. There is little evidence to show that they will require more gas from Canada to do so, as Higgs asserts. Also, as the research mentioned previously indicates, replacing coal with LNG brings no climate benefits.

European gas demands have decreased and are predicted to continue decreasing. Some analysts predict a glut of gas in Europe, as it continues a huge buildout of renewable energy and heat pumps, making gas investments very risky.

Premier Higgs would do well to follow the European model of renewables, heat pumps, and conservation into the future, rather than perversely clinging to an unhealthy and destructive fossil fuel past that must end.

Years ago the International Energy Agency coined the phrase “the Golden Age of Gas.” It now states that the Golden Age “is over.”

It has already been 20 years since the United Nation Conference on Environment and Development of 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, The Earth Summit. During the Earth Summit, many principles had been adopted. 

As the tradition wants it, it’s now time to reopen the discussions between industrialized and developing countries, so together, they can look forward for the next 20 years to safeguard the Earth and the human race. The theme for 2012 is sustainable development

Secretary-general of the United Nations Ban ki-Moon thinks it is crucial that the different countries’ leaders agree on a plan for the future. He knows Rio+20 won’t solve all the problems, but he thinks that if we "do not take firm actions, we may be heading towards the end – the end of our future". The United Nations up a list of seven critical issues that will be discussed in the Conference: jobs, energy, cities, food, water, oceans, and disasters.

Meanwhile, the Canadian government is trying to prevent the other conference members from agreeing to end fossil fuel subsidies, even though it could save the country millions of dollars. 

Here is a very interesting video by theUnited Nations Development Program for the Rio+20 sustainable developments.  

I just have to say it Scott Vaughan is one cool Environment Comissioner! Check out his frank 2012 report on how Canada’s faltering on our climate change commitments and the at times overlooked impacts of contaminated sites. Click here to access the whole report online.

I also included one of his videos here but, click here, if you want to watch some more of his videos – they make his job seem accessible.

We are thrilled to let you know that we are publishing a special edition of our magazine, the NB Naturalist, on Nature, Biodiversity and Climate Change.The magazine is free, and is ready for mailing by the end of November. We would like to make it available across the province, please let us know if you are interested in helping with the distribution in your region. The edition is fully translated. Please fill in the form here: https://goo.gl/forms/IdGVeuUJQOwBqj8o2.

If you have any questions, please contact us: 506-459-4209

There's a great new internet resource that anyone working on climate change issues will find handy.  This look at the global world gives a good idea of exactly what is going on. The intro video is one and a half minutes long and fascinating to watch. 

Check it out by clicking here!

Maybe the environmental movement should re-consider wearing green this year and take its cue from Pink Shirt Day - an action with the motto that “we as a society will not tolerate bullying anywhere.” Currently though we are tolerating the Harper Government acting just like a bully – defined as “a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people.”

The proof you ask! Well here are some links to stories of the Harper Government’s national and international bullying efforts!

International Climate/Environmental quarreling:

• -You want this, well then you need to do that - “Durban Talks Progress as Host Urge Canada Not to Bully”
• -We’re Out! – “ Canada Will Not Renew Kyoto Commitment”
• -Bullying is old hat 2009 Copenhagen – “Canada’s image lies in tatters. It is now to climate what Japan is to whaling”

Durban – another international meltdown!

Ok - 2011 experienced a major nuclear meltdown but the world is about to see another international mess –governments/politicians talking climate. The two just do not mesh because national governments, such as Canada, are looking to protect the national gross domestic product index and multinational investors. To add to it, very little press is passing the depth of this story along. Luckily, we do have some fresh eyes and voices in Durban with worthwhile stories to share.

• -“Youth in Durban wonder if negotiators are listening”
• -Kent Crashers –“ Americans and Canadians skeptical about Chinese climate offer”
• -Durban Week One WWF summary of Durban
• -“Canada Slammed at the Durban Climate Talks”

Ongoing Updates from Durban

Canadian Youth Climate Coalition youth delegates have amazing daily updates, podcasts, videos, etc…probably the best coverage out there click here to explore their site.

Click here to link to Climate Action Network – ongoing Durban news updates.

• A host of serious diseases affecting those living near gas wells, and especially the unborn. 

• Water contamination from every aspect of industry activity.

• Leaking methane from gas infrastructure, making it a leading contributor to climate change.

• Toxic wastewater created by fracking, with no safe way of disposal.

• Universally inadequate regulations and oversight, plus the precarious financial state of the industry, means that these threats continue unabated.