Canada a world leader? Sometimes that headline is good news. This time it is not…
Canada is one of the world’s leaders
COVID-19 death toll: 7 million, 18 million, 27 million or 33 million?
The Economist, a 180-year-old newspaper published in Britain, has been tracking deaths from COVID-19. They examine fatalities reported by official sources, but also look for how many people have actually died because of the covid-19 pandemic. A lot depends on how “because” is defined…
Boundless, scalable, clean energy
Decarbonization is a catchword used by the fossil fuel and nuclear power industries. But those groups cannot eliminate inherent dangers. Unless we develop safe, carbon-free energy sources, we cannot sustain current standards of living. And, perhaps we cannot sustain human life in the long-term. But, as billions of public dollars pour into subsidies of dangerous energy sources, promising technologies seem to get minimal support from governments…
The difficult path to a green economy
Since 1990, Canada’s emissions have decreased by a modest 3.1 tonnes per person. However, when we look at the distribution of emissions, we find that the bottom 90% reduced their emissions by almost 5 tonnes per person, while the top 1% increased their emissions by 34 tonnes per person.
Media should serve the governed, not the governors
I began following the Washington Post decades ago, when journalists often held the feet of powerful people to the fire. Today, that is unlikely since many media owners rank among the world’s wealthiest people. In general, they oppose changes to the status quo that do not provide personal benefits. That may partly explain why newspapers have about one-third the number of serious readers per capita than they had in the days of my parents…
A foundation of political and corporate lies
In 2017, construction of Site C could have been halted without wasting more than $10 billion. But influential promoters of the megaproject — including Marc Jaccard, the newly appointed head of the “independent” regulator of BC Hydro — were misinforming citizens about the viability of alternatives…
It’s not the carbon tax
A few in the BC Legislature, and the Official Opposition in Canada’s Parliament, want us to believe that carbon taxes must end to improve the country. They’re wrong, MP Alistair MacGregor has it right about carbon taxes making a major contribution to inflation, although the NDP MP misses an even more important point…
BC’s money pit is no comedy
Economist Erik Andersen emails an informal newsletter offering opinions, sometimes about how organizations and individuals use political influence to extract wealth from the public. He gave an example that was bad by itself but set the stage for secret private power contracts worth more than $60 billion despite expansion of the BC Hydro’s own generating capacity and a decade and a half of flat demand by consumers…
Record temperatures and record dangers require strong actions
In September, California issued a lawsuit charging numerous oil companies and the American Petroleum Institute for intentionally spreading misinformation and delaying action on climate. The lawsuit details behavior by companies to protect their business interests regardless of the damage caused. This is not the first such lawsuit, but may be the most important…
Deregulation dangers
For years, BC Opposition Leader Kevin Falcon demanded “red tape” reductions. Under Premier Gordon Campbell, Falcon spent more than two and one-half years as Minister of State for Deregulation. His effort were joined by right-wing business interests such as the Canadian Federation of Independent Business…
October smile
The following item was found on the internet. Unlikely any of it is true, but it is amusing…
Spending $130 billion in BC to accelerate oil & gas production
More than $130 billion dollars has been or will be spent in British Columbia to increase consumption of oil and gas. NDP and BCUP politicians make empty promises about dealing with climate change, but at the same time welcome photo ops at large scale fossil fuel projects. Conservatives cling to unscientific ideas that climate change is either not real or not caused by human activities…
Wildfire warnings ignored by government
I began to distrust the province’s wildfire statistics after noticing the reported size of the Donnie Creek fire — the province’s largest ever — was not altered from mid-July to mid-September. Yet throughout this time, BC Wildfire Service stated that Donnie Creek was out of control. Now at the end of September, the fire is still uncontrolled and the government agency said it may burn until winter. Today, my distrust seems proven. On September 29, BC Wildfire Service added 533,409 hectares (5,334 square kilometres) to the total area burned in the province. That is 93 percent of the amount reported in the preceding four weeks and almost one-fifth of the total for 2023…
Comparing BC Hydro June 2023 to BC Hydro June 2007
BC Hydro recently released its first quarter results for the fiscal year ending March 2024. The report covered three months in 2023: April, May and June. It is worth looking at the changes at British Columbia’s public utility since June 2007.
Organized hate groups on our streets
Gonzaga University is often recognized for basketball, but the 135-year-old Spokane institution is also known for academic initiatives. One is the Journal of Hate Studies, an annual peer-reviewed publication by Gonzaga’s Center for the Study of Hate. Fomenting prejudice or hostility against others is worth attention today after organized hate groups took to the streets of Canada to demand that human rights should not be universal…
323 years into a 246 year cycle
Earlier this year the TMX budget stood at $31 billion, but public officials recently admitted to further delays that will inevitably result in expenditure of additional billions. But wasting money may be the least of the problems affecting Trans Mountain pipeline. It has now been 323 years since the last really big earthquake hit the coast of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon,and northern California…
Wildfires — deadly for some, unhealthy for hundreds of millions
Stanford research reveals the rapidly growing influence of wildfire smoke on air quality trends across much of North America. Wildfire smoke in recent years has slowed or reversed progress toward cleaner air. Tens of millions of people suffer degraded health, thousands die…
Western Canada’s plans for fossil fuel expansion are the second largest in the world
2023 is the worst ever year for areas burned by wildfires in British Columbia, Alberta and the entire nation of Canada. For years before 2023, despite huge sums invested by the public to improve firefighting responses, areas burned were trending upward. So what is the response by Canada’s federal and western provincial governments to the warnings of climate scientists? They are spending tens of billions of dollars to increase production of fossil fuels.
Strategic misrepresentation, aka lying
Bent Flyvbjerg of Oxford University is the world’s most cited scholar of megaproject management and mismangement. One of his studies included this: “Underestimation cannot be explained by error and is best explained by strategic misrepresentation, that is, lying. The policy implications are clear: legislators, administrators, investors, media representatives, and members of the public who value honest numbers should not trust cost estimates and cost-benefit analyses produced by project promoters and their analysts.
American attitudes toward climate change
A 2022 study1 by investigators from Yale and George Mason universities reported survey results after Americans were questioned about climate change. I suspect ignorance would be lower and expressions of concern would be higher in Canada since this country is not bombarded with reckless disinformation to the extent experienced by our neighbours…
in-sights.ca 
[…] At the Canada West Forum website, you’ll find a video contrasting two very different responses to homelessness. It shows…