Tag Archives: canada

Sobering, unsettling, and at times startling climate change-related news emerged in Antarctica, Canada, Iceland, and Australia this past week.

The proposed framework leaves it up to Canada's 10 provincial governments to choose the policy instruments and mechanisms -- direct charges or a cap-and-trade system -- to achieve a national goal of bringing greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent below 2005 levels while fostering job creation and economic growth.

There has been a flurry of activity regarding efforts to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions this week and month. Pres. Obama is zeroing in on achieving UN climate treaty emissions cuts as he makes his way to the annual G20 summit in China, while U.S. state and Canadian provincial leaders took actions to further reduce carbon emissions and boost renewable energy use.

Last week Nova Scotia's New Democratic Party (NDP) introduced an Environmental Bill of Rights in the provincial legislature. The proposed bill would enhance transparency of the government decision-making that revolves around ecosystems and the environment and give citizens a greater say in the political process.

There are two principal issues at play within the tar sands oil controversy.  First and foremost, the extraction of tar sands oil is a process that releases significantly more greenhouses gasses into the atmosphere than conventional drilling methods. As a primer for those not privy to this situation, the oil industry has revamped old methods of extracting oil from sediment that is soaked in …

Episode 8 from our friends at DoSomethingAboutClimate.com discussing the Canadian tar sands and what it really means for our energy and climate future.

GlobalWarmingisReal contributor Anders Hellum-Alexander wraps-up and comments on the climate and environmental news headlines for the past week: Permits for the Cape Cod Wind Project have just been approved, with over a hundred wind turbines planned off the shore of Massachusetts. Extending the federal wind tax credit will allow more projects like this to happen. The US is a world leader in climate change denial, but just …