Calgary Herald Opposes Basic Democracy

To no one's surprise the Calgary Herald wrote an op-ed wholly justifying the Senate's vote down of Bill C-311, the Climate Change Accountability Act. It seems so twisted, to me I can only summarise it in point form:

• The bill would cause irreparable economic harm while at the same time mandating unattainble C02 reduction goals. Unattainable, yet catastrophic.

• Millions will end up out of work and we'll be standing in soup lines.

• Ideological climate change denial trumps any consideration of basic democracy.

• Stephen Harper had no choice but to appoint Conservative partisans to the Senate because no other province would hold fake Senate elections like Alberta.

• Canadians will freeze in the dark, will have to stop driving, and will have turn down their heat by 40%.

• Our estimates and statistics were very carefully checked by Lord Monckton.

• For rhetorical purposes, the oil sands and coal based electricity do not exist and do not produce C02. All reductions are on individuals.

Ok, I made the part up about Monckton. But would you have doubted it if I hadn't said so?

As Harper's era comes to an end, and the rest of the world starts tackling climate change without us, the status quo will be defended by liars.

Please recommend this post

David Hockney's Lost Seasons

David Hockney is one of my favourite artists and photographers. He had planned to paint a series of four paintings of a stand of Beech trees near his home in Yorkshire England. Each painting was to be done in a season of the year.

The Winter and Summer paintings (above) were completed. When Hockney went to paint the next in the series he found that the stand of trees had been cut down. When I read the story I wanted to weep because I love art, photography and the dwindling number of pastoral settings.

It doesn't seem likely to me that the stand of trees were economically significant. Hopefully the owner got their 30 pieces of silver. Please recommend this post

A Lump of Coal Ash For You

I was reading PZ Myers blog post on coal ash. Coal ash is the toxic sludge that is leftover after coal is burned. In Tennessee a retaining wall collapsed and 500 million gallons of coal ash were dumped into the state's water table. Since coal ash contains concentrations of heavy metals and other toxic substances you would think this would be recognized by the media as a huge environmental disaster. However the coverage has been very light to say the least.

This got me thinking about how we deal with coal ash in Alberta. Over 95% of our electricity is coal fire generated. Mostly this comes from the two large generators at Lake Wabamum. The first plant built in the 1950's pretty much ruined the ecology of the lake. A CN derailment a few summers ago didn't help by dumping millions of gallons of bunker oil in the lake.

So where does the ash from these plants go? Most of the coal in Alberta is strip mined, so it is likely the ash goes back in an excavation where the coal came from. I did find one document on Alberta Environment's website which did not exactly fill me with confidence.

Some excerpts:

Coal ash contains certain elements (B, Se, As) in concentrations that may create toxic conditions when entering the food chain via plant uptake or by leaching into the ground and surface waters. Therefore, it is critical to define and characterize coal ash to ensure proper use and disposal procedures.

and..

Update: B,Se and As in the above quotation refer to Boron, Selenium and Arsenic.

The Alberta User Guide for Waste Managers states that “fly ash waste, bottom ash waste, slag waste or flue gas emission control waste generated from the combustion of domestic waste, coal, wood, or other fossil fuels” are not considered hazardous wastes..

Emphasis mine. And...

Current management options for coal ash include: disposal in mined out areas, surface impoundments, off-site landfills, co-disposal with sour wastes, soil conditioner for pH adjustment, and re-use.

The document goes on with the usual assurances that there shouldn't be any problems. I wrote some time ago about how a moth-balled gas plant in Turner Valley was leaking toxic hydrocarbons in the Sheep River water basin and no one was acknowledging the problem or trying to fix it. Then there's the ongoing allegation of cancer rates in the Athabasca River communities. The response was to deny and fire a health official.

Do you see a pattern here? A province that actually has poor environmental practices goes to great lengths to deny the problem and harass whistle blowers.

Unfortunately there's not much the rest of us can do about it because the Government has the unwavering support of Alberta's media outlets. Vote Tory, be happy. Please recommend this post