Energy
Vancouver School Board Introduces High School Sustainability Course
SOLARIS, a 4 credit, year long course in sustainability, is being offered to Vancouver students in grades 11 and 12. The course will focus on a range of topics from housing and transportation to forestry and fisheries. Read more here.World's top firms cause $2.2tn of environmental damage, report estimates
Report for the UN into the activities of the world's 3,000 biggest companies estimates one-third of profits would be lost if firms were forced to pay for use, loss and damage of environment.
The cost of pollution and other damage to the natural environment caused by the world's biggest companies would wipe out more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable, a major unpublished study for the United Nations has found.
The Cleveland Model : Green worker Co-ops
Something important is happening in Cleveland: a new model of large-scale worker- and community-benefiting enterprises is beginning to build serious momentum in one of the cities most dramatically impacted by the nation's decaying economy. The Evergreen Cooperative Laundry (ECL)--a worker-owned, industrial-size, thoroughly "green" operation--opened its doors late last fall in Glenville, a neighborhood with a median income hovering around $18,000.
Oceans' acidity rate is soaring, claims study
Under terms revealed in leaked copies of the new Canada-US trade deal, Ontario will become the only province in Canada allowing unrestricted access to those countries who have signed onto the World Trade Organization's Government Procurement Agreement for publicly-funded contracts supplying schools, universities, social services and hospitals, said Fred Hahn, President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario at Queen's Park today (February 11, 2010).
A New Climate for Conservation - Nature, Carbon and Climate Change in British Columbia - Full Report
This report reviews the scientific and technical literature on climate change and biodiversity in British Columbia. It examines the scientific rationale behind the need for conserving natural ecosystems as a critical component of a climate action plan in four key areas: sequestering carbon, avoiding emissions, managing resilience and maximizing stocks and flows of ecosystem services.
Industry questions power export scheme
B.C. could lose $450 million a year, critics warn
British Columbia's biggest industries are challenging the provincial government to prove that its electricity export scheme won't turn into a major money loser.
In a submission to the government's Green Energy Advisory Task Force, the industrial group calculates that the export plans will cost B.C. taxpayers $450 million a year in money-losing power sales transactions.
Beyond Copenhagen: what kind of bottom-up climate activism do we need?
As we move into 2010, the feeling of many people across this country seems to be that now is the time to give up on large-scale politics, and focus on small local-level solutions to the outstanding problems of our age, such as manmade climate change (the Transition movement [1], which began in Totnes and is slowly spreading worldwide, is an outstanding example of such 'localist' solution-seeking).B.C. only province with rising greenhouse gases
British Columbia was the only province in the country to report an increase in greenhouse gas emissions from major industries in 2008, according to figures released by Environment Canada.
The figures cover so-called "facility greenhouse gas emissions" from power plants and heavy industries such as mining, pulp and paper, and petroleum.
Why Carbon Offsetting Will Not Save the Planet
'Carbon offsetting and carbon markets haven't really delivered the reductions of greenhouse gas emissions they claimed and in many ways have just made the problem worse,' they explained. 'These schemes have often just provided an incentive for big polluting companies to continue emitting greenhouse gases rather than to change their ways.' 'Often, carbon offsetting schemes have very negative effects on local communities and eco-systems in developing countries.'
Tar Sands and a Tough Business Lobby Pull Ottawa Far from Copenhagen
When world leaders met on Sept. 22 at the United Nations headquarters in New York for a critical summit on climate change, one head of state of a major oil-producing country notably declined to speak and generally appeared to be missing in action.