Nouvelles des groupes
- Détails
- Publié par : Terry Wishart
- Affichages : 16458
NEWS RELEASE - Council of Canadians, Fredericton, NB Chapter, 25 February 2013
New Shale Gas Rules A Red Herring Diverting From Real Issue
FREDERICTON – Rather than paving the way for the government plans, the new rules for the oil and gas industry released on Friday, February 15th 2013 by Ministers Leonard and Fitch are becoming the object of a growing controversy. Today, 17 community groups came to the same conclusion that the new rules are a red herring trying to deflect attention from the worrying fact that they have ruled out a moratorium on shale gas based on false claims.
“Moreover, the media have a duty to prevent government from deceiving the public. It is high time to set the record straight”
In a statement made November 28th, 2012 in the Legislature about the future of the oil and gas industry in New Brunswick, Energy Minister Leonard claimed that both Dr. LaPierre’s and Dr. Cleary’s reports came to the same conclusion – a moratorium on shale gas exploration is neither required nor desirable in New Brunswick.
“This claim is fraudulent”, affirms Dr. Castilla, a member of the Fredericton Chapter of the Council of Canadians and Adjunct Professor at the University of Calgary. “The remarks about a moratorium appearing in the conclusion section of Dr. LaPierre's report do not stem from the content of his report or the input he received from the public. Rather, they are based on fallacious arguments such that a moratorium is incompatible with a science-based approach and would leave undefined the issues. But then how can a moratorium ever finish if the issues that prompted it are not defined?” asks Dr. Castilla.
“The remarks about a moratorium appearing in the conclusion section of Dr. LaPierre's report do not stem from the content of his report…”
“We also have to remember that Dr. LaPierre is a Director of NB Power, which has expressed interest in converting to natural gas some of its power generating stations. Hence it is possible that the flaws in his reasoning are intentional”, speculated Dr. Castilla. “In any case, when someone tells you that a report came to this or that conclusion, you expect something that follows from the report itself and not from a personal opinion which on top of that is biased”, explained Dr. Castilla.
“Even more striking is the misrepresentation of the conclusions of Dr. Cleary’s report, which does not even contain the word moratorium. How can you reach a conclusion on something you don’t even mention?” Dr. Castilla asks.
“The misrepresentation of Dr. Cleary’s report is clearly intentional”
“The misrepresentation of Dr. Cleary’s report is clearly intentional”, argues Mark D’Arcy, a spokesperson for the Friends of the UNB Woodlot. “On November 30, 2012 I sent an email to Mr. Leonard bringing to his attention the falsehood of his claim and asking him to publicly retract from it, but he never got back to me. This is very relevant, because this claim is a center piece in the government’s rationale to move ahead with shale gas”, Mr. D’Arcy continued. “Moreover, the media have a duty to prevent government from deceiving the public. It is high time to set the record straight”, concluded Mr. D’Arcy.
The Fredericton Chapter of the Council of Canadians and 16 organizations and community association across New Brunswick are demanding that the case for a moratorium be reopened and revised by an independent panel of scientists with no conflict of interest with industry.
- Détails
- Publié par : Terry Wishart
- Affichages : 81990
NEWS RELEASE - Council of Canadians, Fredericton N.B. Chapter, 21 February 2013
New shale gas rules put the cart before the horse
FREDERICTON– The new rules for the oil and gas industry released on Friday, February 15th 2013 by Ministers Leonard and Fitch are starting to backfire on the government. Today, 17 community groups all agreed that the Alward government is putting the cart before the horse by hastily moving the shale gas file ahead without having obtained or sought the consent of Aboriginal Peoples and the rest of the people in New Brunswick.
"There is growing scientific and anecdotal evidence that shale gas extraction is an activity that can potentially cause significant harm”
“Premier Alward’s claim that New Brunswickers had their say on the issue during the 2010 provincial election is stretching the truth”, commented Dr Jean Louis Deveau, a social scientist and chair of the Fredericton Chapter of the Council of Canadians. “Shale gas and hydraulic fracturing were never mentioned in the PC Party platform. The PC’s statement was that they would support the responsible expansion of the natural gas sector in New Brunswick. This cannot be taken as a carte blanche for developing a shale gas industry”, asserts Dr Deveau. “The government has the responsibility of protecting the public from environmental harm. There is growing scientific and anecdotal evidence that shale gas extraction is an activity that can potentially cause significant harm. Ignoring this responsibility by moving ahead without having thoroughly assessed the risks and without a credible business case cannot possibly be called ‘responsible’; therefore their current plans cannot be reconciled with their 2010 platform statement”, concluded Dr. Deveau.
“We maintain that proper duty to consult with Aboriginal Peoples has not been executed and so this development cannot proceed under Canada's own rule-of-law”
“Our Government has never held public meetings to consult with their constituents about the decision to move ahead with shale gas, even though they have been requested to do so”, argues Jim Emberger of the Taymouth Community Association. “Oil& Gas companies like SWN Resources have been by with open houses, and Dr LaPierre toured the province asking for feedback about an earlier version of the new rules, but this marketing exercise and Dr LaPierre’s pro forma consultation, where no elected officials were present, are no substitutes for a meaningful two-way consultative process.”
“Our Government has never held public meetings to consult with their constituents about the decision to move ahead with shale gas even though they have been requested to do so”
Consent from Aboriginal Peoples could even be a harder nut to crack for the Alward government. “We maintain that proper duty to consult with Aboriginal Peoples has not been executed and so this development cannot proceed under Canada's own rule-of-law”, emphasized Brian Francis, spokesperson for the Sikniktuk Mi'kmaq Rights Coalition.
"The government of New Brunswick does not have the free, prior, and informed consent of the Maliseet People to explore, license or mine for shale gas"
"The government of New Brunswick does not have the free, prior, and informed consent of the Maliseet People to explore, license or mine for shale gas", asserted Alma Brooks of the Maliseet Grand Council. Chief Candice Paul of the Saint Mary’s First Nation is even more stringent: “Under our Peace and Friendship Treaty, we have not ceded any land. We have not given up title to any land in this Treaty area. So, this is the basis from where we need to talk before anyone can move ahead with any type of resource development in the province of New Brunswick”, she said shortly after Minister Leonard’s and Fitch’s press conference.
- Détails
- Publié par : Sam Arnold
- Affichages : 15073
Can We Follow Germany’s Route to Renewable Energy?
Keith Helmuth
In the early 1970’s I attended a conference on long-term agricultural planning at the federal Research Centre in Fredericton where I had a memorable conversation with a soil scientist from Ottawa. He was as frustrated with the conference as I was but for a somewhat different reason.
I was stymied by an almost contemptuous dismissal of organic agriculture. He was out of sync with his fellow professionals on long term planning because, as he put it, “All they want to talk about is how to increase production in the next five or ten years, and I want to talk about how we are going to feed ourselves when we can no longer feed our combine-harvesters.”
This man already knew something about the end of the road for oil and the crisis it portends for industrial civilization. The science and practice of organic farming has come a long way since then, but, unfortunately, the governments of Canada and the US have not yet taken seriously what it will mean for the energy source on which our economies now run to become less and less available and more and more expensive.
Since 1981 the rate of discovery of new oil deposits worldwide has fallen steadily below the rate of increase in demand. According to oil industry analysts, the new drilling technologies that can now tap previously inaccessible sites have not changed this scenario. Not only are oil reserves rapidly diminishing, industrial civilization is burning oil at a steadily increasing rate.
If we don’t plan for an orderly transition from oil dependency to renewable energy, we will likely be left in the lurch not only by a supply crunch and a price spike, but by other nations and regions of the world that have already gone into overdrive with their public policies and infrastructure planning for the transition to renewable energy.
I know there are those who scratch their heads and say it can’t be done, not here in New Brunswick, and not here in Canada. It’s too cold, too cloudy, the wind is too intermittent, and above all (perhaps) people want their electricity as cheaply as possible.
Others argue that fossil fuels are the life-blood of our economy and we have to make maximum use of then to generate more economic growth and more wealth. Otherwise, how will we ever get ourselves out of our current debt and deficit hole, both provincially and nationally? Everyone seems to agree that economic growth is the David for our debt Goliath.
I am happy to say there is plenty of evidence that New Brunswick is not too cold, too cloudy, or insufficiently windy to make a combination of renewable energy technologies a rapidly growing feature of our energy system and a significant factor in economic growth. The best case study for New Brunswick and for Canada is Germany.
Germany is less sunny on average than New Brunswick, yet during midday on May 24th and 25th of 2012 its solar capacity supplied 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour to the national grid. That’s equal to the output of 20 nuclear power stations. This was close to 50 % of the nation’s midday electricity needs. Of course, this is just a peak which is why the German system combines wind (8.6%), biomass (6%), and solar (6.1%) along with hydro to now have 26% of its electricity generated by renewable energy. Solar is the rising star of this system. Solar power installation and electricity production in Germany grew more than 50% in the first nine months of 2012.
The first key to this growth is the feed-in tariff that provides a powerful economic incentive for anyone with a building and power bill to install solar electric panels. All renewable electricity producers are paid a premium for the power they supply. Individuals, cooperatives and communities own an amazing 65% of the nation’s renewable energy capacity. This change is being driven by private investment because Germany’s energy policy has got the incentives right.
The second key to this success is that the vast majority of the German people understood that to make this feed-in tariff and renewable energy system work, the amount they pay for electricity service needed to increase. Because they want their country to make this transition to renewable energy, they accepted this increase in cost. Honest information, public education, political leadership, and both private and public investment have combined to make Germany a world leader in renewable energy. This has taken broad cooperation and a keen sense of the common good.
It’s true there are people in Germany who have opposed the increased costs of electricity and some special interests that disagree with the national energy policies, but they are marginal to the general support that has rallied behind this growing transition to renewable energy.
Germany now has over 1/3 of the world’s solar electric capacity and they are bounding ahead at an astounding rate. In 2000, 6% of their electricity came from renewables. They set a target of 30% by 2020, but they are now ahead of their projections and expect to make to 35 to 40% by that date. By 2050 they expect to be at 80 to 90%. Some folks might say only the Germans can pull this off, but the fact is other nations in Europe and around the world are following this example and making it work. Why not New Brunswick? Why not Canada? (For further study see the new book, Clean Break: The Story of Germany’s Energy Transformation by Osha Gray Davidson.)
The final point to this story is that the switch to renewable energy is also a boost for economic development at the grass roots level. The move to renewable energy is a job creator. It creates jobs in the manufacturing, installation, and maintenance of renewable energy systems. The recent announcement by Premier Alward that wood pellets will heat two new schools being built in Woodstock is perhaps a small step in this direction. New Brunswick may not yet be manufacturing the furnaces, but it is manufacturing the pellets, and the greater the demand for pellets the more jobs in the industry.
It’s a good sign that the government now has the German firm, Siemens, working on a smart grid for the province. If the government would begin installing solar electric on public buildings, it would be taking a step that would help create good jobs and lower the long-term costs of operating government infrastructure. And if it put a feed-in tariff system place for electricity generated with renewable energy, it would be taking another important step to boost the industry and create still more, good, long lasting jobs. When we see this kind leadership, we will know we are on the way to serious growth in renewable energy, and to a renewal of job creation in the economy.
Keith Helmuth is a member of the Woodstock Sustainable Energy Group (SEG). SEG has just published From Oil Dependency to Renewable Energy: An Energy Transition Guidebook for the Woodstock Region; Assessment, Planning, Resources. Complimentary copies may be obtained by contacting [email protected]">[email protected]
January 26, 2013
- Détails
- Publié par : Sam Arnold
- Affichages : 27864
World Bank Says: “Turn Down the Heat?”
Keith Helmuth
A line of demarcation is falling across our society that has on one side those who believe it is a good thing for Canada to allow and encourage the production and consumption of fossil fuels for as long as we can, and those on the other side who think the extraction and burning of all fossil fuels should be scaled back as rapidly as possibly.
Two recent reports from mainstream international sources have now put a big stick in the wheel of fossil fuel production and consumption. They both come down on the side of those who see the future of sustainable economic development and prosperity in the rapid shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
On November 12 the International Energy Agency released its annual flagship publication, World Energy Outlook, in which it writes, “No more than one-third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be consumed prior to 2050 if the world is to achieve the 20 C goal.” Two degrees centigrade is the scientifically based, internationally recognized limit for average global warming in order to prevent catastrophic climate change.
On November 19th the World Bank released a new report, Turn Down the Heat: Why a 40 Degree Warmer World Must Be Avoided, in which it writes, “Humankind’s emissions of greenhouse gases are breaking new records every year. Hence we’re on a path towards 4-degree global warming probably as soon as by the end of this century. This would mean a world of risks beyond the experience of our civilization – including heat waves, especially in the tropics, a sea-level rise affecting hundreds of millions of people, and regional yield failures impacting global food security.”
“If we venture far beyond the 2 degree guardrail, towards 4 degrees, we risk crossing tipping points in the Earth system. …. The only way to avoid this is to break with the fossil-fuel-age patterns of production and consumption. …. Lack of action on climate change threatens to make the world our children inherit a completely different world than we are living in today….. we need to assume the moral responsibility to take action on behalf of future generations….”
Take note: This is the World Bank speaking, not a so-called “radical environmentalist organization.” Where does this leave our Provincial enthusiasm for the oil sands pipeline project?
We could say, “Well, this oil is going to be produced and consumed anyway, so why shouldn’t NB get a piece of the action and benefit financially by helping route it to the world market? Why shouldn’t Alberta maximize the production of its oil sands resource and create as much wealth for itself as it can? Why shouldn’t Canada create a national energy policy for ramping up its fossil fuel resources to serve the world market?”
These questions appear quite rational, until you begin to plot them against the scientific risk assessment that informs the IEA and the World Bank reports, and until you begin to factor in moral responsibility.
Admittedly, the thought of leaving two thirds of known fossil fuel deposits in the ground is, perhaps, the most difficult thought we can imagine. How can this calculation possibly be taken into account? Yet, if we don’t take it into account how can we possibly run the risk that the IEA and the World Bank now lay before us?
This is a huge question that goes to the heart of both business and political leadership. How it is answered will determine whether global warming will rise to a level that renders a large a part the earth humanly uninhabitable.
At the moment, it seem unlikely that either business or political leadership in Canada will do anything except maximize the wealth that can be created from the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels. The enthusiasm of NB political, business and labour leaders for the oil sands pipeline to Saint John is perfectly in sync with this wealth maximizing strategy.
Unfortunately, this strategy can be employed only by radically discounting the long-term wellbeing of our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren both at home and around the world. Is this acceptable? If not, what is the option?
A good start would be a scaling up of renewable energy development comparable to the industrial strategy and social cooperation that enabled the winning of World War Two. In the light of the IEA and World Bank reports, responding rationally to the global climate crisis requires something like this historic effort. In addition to helping mitigate long-term global warming, a national and provincial energy policy that goes full tilt for solar energy would create significant employment opportunities and long lasting economic benefit.
The window is closing on fossil fuels, one way or the other. Burning them out to the end of available supplies, according the IEA and the World Bank, will be a disastrous closing that will, for example, turn a large part of the planet’s best farmland into desert.
Winding down the fossil fuel era by shifting rapidly to solar energy is the rational alternative. Those who doubt this can be done in our climate should check out what is happening in Germany – a place that has less solar energy potential than NB, but is bounding ahead in making this shift.
Why the difference? Leadership, smart policy, incentives, investment. Put “Germany solar energy 2050” into Google for an eye opening look at what is possible.
Keith Helmuth is a member of the Woodstock Sustainable Energy Group (SEG). SEG has just published From Oil Dependency to Renewable Energy: An Energy Transition Guidebook for the Woodstock Region; Assessment, Planning, Resources. Complimentary copies may be obtained by contacting [email protected]">[email protected]
January 2, 2012
- Détails
- Publié par : Tashina Thomas
- Affichages : 7908
Avez-vous examiné les changements aux circonscriptions électorales dans la province? La CBC a préparé un lien vers une carte intéressante qui démontre toutes les circonscriptions de la province comme elles le sont maintenant et tel que proposées. La Commission sur les délimitations des circonscriptions électorales et la représentation tient en ce moment des audiences publiques et accepte des commentaires sur ses propositions. Des petites collectivités du Nouveau-Brunswick ont réagi parce qu’elles pensent que les nouvelles frontières ne respectent pas les liens entre les collectivités.
« Selon mon point de vue, il semble que l’on érode graduellement nos institutions démocratiques, » affirme Alex Himelfarb, ancien greffier du Conseil privé, dans un long commentaire écrit sur comment nous nous éloignons d’une société démocratique vers une société de marché et une « citoyenneté à prix d’aubaine. »
Le Congrès du travail canadien a publié récemment un rapport intitulé « Qu’est-ce que les réductions de l’impôt des sociétés ont apporté? » Le 20 janvier 2011, on célébrait le « la Journée d’affranchissement de l’impôt des sociétés. » C’est donc dire que rendu à cette date, les entreprises avaient amassé suffisamment de revenus pour couvrir leurs parts des impôts provincial et fédéral pour le reste de l’année. En effet, en 2011, les entreprises avaient alors réussi à amasser 72 milliards de dollars de plus que l’année précédente.
Et c’est aux fruits qu’on juge un arbre. En octobre 2012, le Réseau de l’indice canadien du mieux-être publiait via l’université de Waterloo « Comment les Canadiens se portent-ils véritablement ? » Cet indice mesure huit indicateurs du mieux-être comme l’environnement, l’éducation, les loisirs et le niveau de vie. Les résultats de ce rapport démontrent que : « de 1994 à 2010, pendant que le produit intérieur brut du Canada (PIB) augmentait par un robuste 28,9 %, la qualité de vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens ne s’améliorait quant à elle que d'un modeste 5,7 %. En revanche, l’impact de la récession sur l’indice canadien du mieux-être a été époustouflant : une chute de 24 % et il n’y a pas de signes de reprise ou même de retour aux modestes gains réalisés jusqu’en 2008. » De plus, l'indice révèle que le mieux-être des Canadiennes et des Canadiens a chuté de 24 % de 2008 à 2010 et que cette détérioration persiste en dépit de la reprise économique qui a suivi la récession. Malgré des années de prospérité, notre croissance économique ne s’est pas traduite en des gains semblables de qualité de vie en général. Et l’important recul des Canadiennes et des Canadiens subit en 2008 est encore plus inquiétant. Suite à la récession de 2008, le PIB du Canada a régressé par 8,3 %, mais montre des signes d’une lente reprise en 2010.
Si les discussions en cours sur la démocratie au Canada vous intéressent, l’Institut Samara vient de publier un rapport sur la Chambre des communes et sur comment elle réussit à s’occuper des priorités canadiennes. Ce mois-ci, l’Institut organise aussi une série de blogues intitulée « Redesigning Parliament »
- Détails
- Publié par : Tashina Thomas
- Affichages : 7900
Voici la situation. Les bureaux du RENB sont situés au troisième étage de l’édifice du Centre pour la paix de Moncton. À cause de problèmes électriques, nous n’avions plus d’électricité pour l’éclairage et les ascenseurs; dimanche après-midi le Centre pour la paix annonce que l’on ferme l’édifice. Mais, le RENB est censé organiser une grande rencontre sur l’adaptation aux changements climatiques. Devinez où. Au Centre pour la paix.
Lynne vient à notre rescousse! Non seulement, un dimanche soir trouve-t-elle un nouvel endroit pour 30 personnes, mais elle grimpe dans la noirceur, lampe de poche à main, pour amasser tout le matériel du RENB, supports des tableaux de conférence, projecteur, etc. Bravo!
Quelle femme!
