[Image-1] Avi Lewis was filming This Changes Everything in nine different counties as his partner Naomi Klein wrote the book of the same name. The duo’s third film collaboration argues that climate change is fundamentally an existential crisis that can be seized upon to create a more just and sustainable economic system. Lewis spoke with […]
Climate change
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One hundred days to make a change
[Image-1] Student group Divest Dalhousie is launching their “100 Days of Action” campaign to pressure the south end university to divest its endowment from fossil fuel companies. In June, Dal’s board of governors’ investment committee announced they’d be looking at the specifics of fossil fuel divestment based on research presented by student group Divest Dalhousie. […]
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Canada will fail to meet climate change goals
[image-1] The graph above comes from a page quietly posted on Environment Canada’s website last week, with the page titled “Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Target and Emissions Projections.” The graph shows the amount, in megatonnes (millions of tonnes), of greenhouse gases emitted by the entire country each year between 1990 and 2010, with projections forward to 2020. There’s a small attempt to spin the real situation—it throws in the red herring of China’s GHG emissions (a real concern, but not relevant to this country meeting its own GHG goals), and this bit of misdirection: Added together, all these existing government actions
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UPDATE: NDP climate bill survives vote
NDP’s federal climate change bill moves forward after Commons vote.
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Halifax MP calls for help to save climate bill
Halifax MP, Megan Leslie calls on Nova Scotians to phone or e-mail Liberal and Conservative MPs to ask them to support NDP climate change bill.
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Local activists return from Copenhagen disappointed
Nova Scotian activists return home from the Copenhagen climate conference with one adjective in their hearts: disappointed. Thea Whitman, a Kings County member of the Canadian Youth Delegation, is distressed that so little has resulted from 15 years of conferences. “While the Copenhagen Accord cites a goal of limiting warming to two degrees,” she says, […]
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Emily Rideout Post-Copenhagen Debrief
I asked Sierra Club Atlantic representative and Dal student Emily Rideout for her post-Copenhagen thoughts. What were her feelings about the conference and the outcome, and what’s next for the climate movement? Here is Emily’s response: There was some progress made in terms of process that may help us create a real climate deal within […]
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Thea Whitman Post Copenhagen Debrief
I asked Kings County activist and member of the Canadian Youth Delegation Thea Whitman for her post-Copenhagen thoughts. What were her feelings about the conference and the outcome, and what’s next for the climate movement? Here is Thea’s response: I am disappointed – you might even say devastated – to see this as the result […]
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Andrew Weaver: “Global leaders have abdicated their responsibility”
Andrew Weaver, a climatologist at the University of Victoria, is considered Canada’s foremost climate scientist. He is respected internationally as well, as he is the lead co-author of the last three reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world body charged with studying climate change. When I interviewed Weaver in September, he told me that the UN conference on climate change to be held in Copenhagen in December was humanity’s “last chance” to avoid reaching irreversible climate change. “If agreement isn’t reached at Copenhagen, we might as well forget about it,” he told me at the time.
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They Failed Us
oops we failed again It ended with a whimper. Humanity should be so lucky. After 12 days of bitter arguments, leaked documents, sit-ins and arrests, negotiators agreed it would be the lowest common denominator all around. Poor countries didn’t want rich countries verifying their results. They got what they wanted. Rich countries didn’t want citizens […]
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No Deal
photo by Chris Benjamin Twitter was so right. Hours before the Globe and Mail posted the story rumours started circulating that leaders had failed to make a deal and had been asked to stick it out another day. The PMO’s office denies it but says “negotiations are still ongoing.” Somebody should tell Russia’s Medvedev that; […]
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Final Day, Maybe
It’s the final day of the Copenhagen climate conference. In the words of WWF Sweden CEO Lasse Gustavsson, “world leaders have arrived and negotiated overnight with little or no progress.” Shocking that even with 120 super-egos in the room they couldn’t save the world overnight. You think maybe they should have allotted more time for […]
