Carbon offsets are the modern day indulgences, sold to an increasingly carbon conscious public to absolve their climate sins. Scratch the surface, however, and a disturbing picture emerges, where creative accountancy and elaborate shell games cover up the impossibility of verifying genuine climate...
It’s not surprising that the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has generated controversy. What’s surprising is that the people challenging it aren’t the usual global warming deniers, but leading climatologists who view this new IPCC report as too conservative...
by Ian Angus Some statistics from Energy Bulletin: The US Air Force has 5,986 aircraft. The US Navy has 285 combat and support ships, and about 4,000 operational aircraft. The US Army has about 28,000 armored vehicles 4,000 combat helicopters and several hundred airplanes. In addition, the Army and...
by Roy Wilkes Greenhouse gas emissions are arguably the most dangerous by-product of capitalist accumulation. They constitute a cancer which is attacking the vital organs of our ecosystem. And like the most dangerous of cancers, its full impact will not become apparent until after it is too late...
by Ian Angus I recently heard a radio interview with one of my favorite Canadian bands, the Barenaked Ladies. Much of the discussion concerned their efforts to be carbon neutral by investing in various projects that supposedly offset the greenhouse gases they create while touring. I’ve been a...
Jared Diamond: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (New York: Viking, 2005) reviewed by by Richard Smith For decades, environmentalists who warned of impending disasters were dismissed as extremists and alarmists. No more. Today, all the mainstream of scientific organizations, notable...
by Dave Riley The almost universal deference now reluctantly being paid in the establishment forums to the actuality of climate change presents us with a major opportunity to advance the ideological envelope. What is required is a very open and public discussion about what we need to do about this...
The InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights has agreed to hear an unprecedented challenge to U.S. policy on greenhouse gas emissions. As reported in the article below, a delegation representing Inuit peoples from the US, Canada, Russia and Greenland will argue that global warming is destroying...
“Try to image an airplane suddenly losing its engines. It was really a crash”… A crash that put Cuba into a state of shock. There were frequent blackouts in its oil-fed electric power grid, up to 16 hours per day. The average daily caloric intake in Cuba dropped by a third…...
While there are differences in emphasis and details, all four of Canada’s major political parties are proposing “emissions trading” as a key component of their proposals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Similar schemes have been operating in Europe for some time. Kevin Smith, a researcher with...
