John Baird is an evil little man.

Last month when Jim Prentice resigned as Minister of Environment, my initial reaction was “good”, followed quickly be “aw, shit.” Because despite Jim Prentice’s troubles with the portfolio, he might have been the best the Harper Conservatives had to offer in that role.
Harper’s previous picks for Minister of Environment were Rona Ambrose and John Baird. Ambrose is, of course, the dim-witted Ayn Rand-quoting Calgary ideologue who once suggested a Federal Child Care plan would violate Canadian women’s rights and that the spotted owl population was not threatened just because their total population was reduced to 17 individuals. Rona’s main asset appears to be that Sarah Palin – Christine O’Donnell kinda-puffy former cheerleader vibe that is so damn attractive to puffy white male conservative voters. An asset that puffy white Harper is quick to exploit by assuring she is in the near background whenever you see him speaking in the house.
Here: see if you can play a game of “Find Rona”: 

After Ambrose’s embarrassing run as Minister of Environment became too embarrassing, even for Harper, The PM propped Baird into the role, despite the obvious handicap of Baird’s disfigured hand, which prevents him from ever bending his index fingers:

When Baird was eventually replaced by one of the reasonable voices in Harper’s cabinet, one of the few Progressive Conservatives who had not been driven out or dragged down by the PMO, there was room for cautious optimism. And a few good things did manage to get done under Prentice. He made progress on water quality on first Nations reserves, made some useful changes of the CEAA, and even managed to kill the proposal to replace Fish Lake with a tailings pond.

Unfortunately, his failure to secure funding for the CFCAS will be part of his legacy, and was probably part of the reason he found greener pastures in the Private Sector. Anyone with a conscience cannot continue to serve in that portfolio under this Prime Minister, which brings us to John Baird…

Here is the notice I got today from John Baird, as part of his regular press missives. It is a stunning example of cognitive dissonance. In it, he has three points to make:

“We are committed to working with our partners in preventing and preparing for marine environmental emergencies.”

This in the day that the person responsible for evaluating the Government’s preparedness for maritime oil spills blasted the Ministry for being woefully unprepared, This is not some Eco-terrorist suggesting that the government has it’s head in the sand, or even the opposition passing a private members bill to protect the coast from being devastated by Alberta’s economic interests, it is the guy the government hired to perform an audit of the very practice he is commenting upon. This is, in effect, John Baird’s employee. For once, pointing a finger at HIM.

What else does John say:

“We are proud of the concrete and measurable action we are taking to implement a strong and comprehensive approach to protect Canada’s waters. This past year alone, Environment Canada has spent more than $140 million on water related programs and science.”

This sounds impressive, but is one quarter of what the US government is spending on water monitoring and protection in the Great Lakes alone, and orders of magnitude less than the subsidies being given to Tar Sands industries that are turning most of Northen Alberta water into emulsion. A fact he might be concerned about if only a single doller of that sampling money was spent measuring for potential Tar Sands impacts on the Athabaska River. But he don’t want to go there.

Finally, the mud in the eye to the few still reading:

“The Government of Canada is also taking action to help Canadians adapt to a changing climate and we are working towards developing a Government-wide adaptation framework.”

So Baird has decided to stop denying climate change, and has decided to think about adapting to it. Mr Baird is sunning his not-unsubstantial buns in Cancun right now, at the UN climate conference. And he is there with, apparently, a purpose.
And that is his power, with a stright face (and ever straighter finger), John Baird, overseer of environmental responsibility in a Country that has made the least progress (actually, the most negative progress) of any nation since Kyoto, the country that in the last 10 years has gone from a world leader in reductions to a global pariah, is going to show up at Cancun and slam his shoe on his desk. I can’t help but see Baird’s approach to this conference as eerily similar to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s rants to the UN. Both are separated from reality, both show a complete lack of self-awareness, and both completely lack in credibility. These are desperate, distracting rants being delivered by persons who the sane people in the debate have stopped listening to years ago. But he is now Stephen Harper’s closest ally in the house. And even worse, he is Canada’s representive on a world stage.

I ascribe to Hanlon’s Razor: I try not to assume malice when incompetence will suffice. But I think Baird is too smart to be so utterly hopeless. I am left to interpret only evil. 

Why Can’t we be Freinds?

The Business community and the Environmental community are often painted as enemies, battling for the hearts and minds of Canadians. This is based on, and perpetuates, the myth that our society must choose between giving a rats ass about our environment, and putting food on the table.

This is obviously a false dichotomy.

The Board of Change is an example that flies in the face of that old conventional model of environment vs. business. In New Westminster, the Downtown Business Improvement Area has reached out to the NWEP, hoping to work together on some local environmental initiatives. Businesses in Sapperton recently took part in a Zero Waste Challenge, recognizing that being “greener” about how they manage their waste saves them disposal costs, and helps with the bottom line.

But shades of grey don’t work for some people. Some just like to live with the myth that we have to choose between a greener world and having jobs. Unfortunately, it is these narrow-minded, frightened types who dominate our national “economics” discourse. The Dismal Science is too often represented by people like the Vancouver Sun’s Harvey Enchin.

Have a look at two recent opinions he published, Both in the same month, both with the same theme: Business (as usual) good, environment bad.

First, his review of a report that clearly lays out the benefits of the AirCare Program results in his dismissal of the entire report, and of the hugely successful program, because AirCare is, apparently, a hassle.

Clearly he had this thesis goingi n, because he had to pick and choose from the report pretty carefully to argue his point.

Harvey notes that “Lower Mainland air quality is excellent, no thanks to the program, but to a growing proportion of cleaner vehicles on the roads”, but in reality, 20% of the reduction in airborne hydrocarbons (HC) and Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) is directly attributable to the AirCare Program, and the program has reduced the emission of benzene and other toxic mono-and poly-cyclic hydrocarbons by more than 40%. He also fails to recognize that the AirCare program is partially responsible for the accelerated introduction of a newer vehicle fleet in the province.

He is quick to point out the $45 Million dollar cost is born by drivers (well, who else should bear it, Mr. Conservative, the taxpayer? Carbon Tax? The automobile industry?), then links this idea to the 114 BCGEU jobs at Air Care. But in reality, the main beneficiaries are not the BCGEU members, it is the independent small businessmen running (for the most part, non-union) AirCare repair shops, as the $45 million figure includes the $35 Million in repair costs motorist pay to comply with the program. What is doesn’t include is the increased new car sales this program generates: more benefits to the independent businessman, and the Auto Industry in general.

Harvey also writes the howler: “An additional claim that the lifetime cancer risk would be reduced by 1.57 per cent through 2020 if AirCare were to continue is little more than a rounding error”. I don’t expect an Economist to know much about Human Health Risk Assessment. Far from being “rounding error”, a 1.57% increase in the chance of getting cancer is equal to the risk attached to getting more than 150 chest x-rays. A 1.57% increase in the chance of getting cancer means that 70,000 more people in BC getting cancer by 2020. Rounding error indeed.

He complains about the cost per tonne of removing these emissions by AirCare. He (mistakenly?) confuses the cost/tonne estimate of removing toxic contaminants through the AirCare program ($5000) with the cost/tonne of removing CO2. The report clearly spells out how the cost / tonne of removed toxins is significantly lower than other programs condidered (e.g. Bus upgrades, Park and Ride lots, cleaner locomotives) and has the extra benefit of not costing the taxpayer anything (as most of the programs would) or inconveniencing industry (who will therefore be able to afford to buy Harvey more lunches).

He (confusedly?) compares this cost to some random number for carbon-capture-and-storage, which he puts at $45-$65 per tonne. A number he must have pulled out of his …uh…tailpipe, as the Alberta Government has already invested $2Billion in CCS and have yet to store a single molecule. (There were some US estimates that there would need to be a carbon market at about $60/tonne to make CCS economically feasible). Of course, none of this would have anything to do with reducing CO2 emissions from the tailpipes of cars… It is a red herring he is throwing in there to make this look like a considered “economics” argument. Lazy, and silly.

The Air Care program costs taxpayers nothing. It adds 0.3% to the overall Provincial Auto Sales industry annual revenue, in other words, compared to what we spend in cars already, it is “rounding error”. For that we get the most cost-effective means of reducing toxic emission we know, a newer, safer vehicle fleet, and we support independent small business men at the rate of $35 million a year. The, a’hem, economics look good on this one to me.

But Harvey thinks it is a hassle. Tough luck, avoid the hassle and ride a bike.

In the same month, he pumps out this bizarre, one-sided account of the benefits of the Tar Sands, not even acknowledging that there may be any negatives related to such a good story.

His completely myopic analysis of the Tar Sands is simply an embarrassment. A long list of the amount of money being invested (no mention of the massive taxpayer subsidies), Royalties paid (no mention that they are amongst the lowest in the world), jobs created in Fort McMurray (no mention of the lack of social development to coincide with the growth), international investment (no mention of how this hurts our international reputation), summed up with a long-term rosy forecast (no mention of the environmental legacy). He even got a partisan dig in on Obama, completely out of context. Why was Al Gore spared? .

The whole thing got me thinking. Why limit ourselves to dirty oil? Just for kicks, I had a little fun with Harvey’s Tar Sands column and the “find and replace” function in my word processor. Here is Harvey Enchin’s take on the drug trade, translated from his November 24 editorial in The Vancouver Sun. Imagine a world where this was the normal discourse…

World drugs consumption of cocaine, opium, pot, meth, and ecstasy fell by 1.1 per cent last year, the first decline since 1982. But the DEA might want to postpone their celebration. The decline was the result of recession, not conservation, mainly affecting North America and Europe. Drugs use soared in developing nations; indeed, it doubled in China, with cocaine retaining its position as the No. 1 drugs source.

Once the economic recovery gains momentum, drugs-consumption growth should resume its vigorous ascent.

This is good news for Colombia, and particularly for Medellin and Cali, which are blessed with bountiful reserves of cocaine and opium. Of course, the main repository of wealth is Medellin’s coca fields, which have drawn global drugs companies en masse to Medellin and environs.

Their plans include hundreds of billions of dollars in investment, generating an estimated $1.7 trillion in economic activity and 465,000 direct and indirect jobs over the next 25 years.

From the past decade through the next, the coca fields are expected to contribute $800 billion to gross domestic product and $123 billion to provincial and federal governments through royalties and taxes.

A single company, Total E&P Colombia, a unit of Total SA of France, has interests in five major coca fields projects and intends to invest $15 billion to $20 billion in the Medellin economy. By itself, Total’s 75-per-cent stake in the Joslyn North Mine Project will require direct capital investment of $7 billion to $9 billion. Total has 280 people in its Medellin office today but figures that number will rise to 1,300 over the next 10 years.

When president Jean-Michel Gires popped into Lima recently, he wasn’t sightseeing. He was recruiting. With a population of only 3.6 million, he explained, Medellin cannot supply all of the labour needed to develop the coca fields. Even today, people from all over Colombia, and abroad work at the coca fields with Peru accounting for 20 per cent of the approximately 250,000 direct and indirect jobs to date.

And what kind of jobs are on offer? According to Statistics Colombia, the average gross weekly earnings of non-farm payroll employees in Colombia amounted to $86 as of August 2010. The average weekly earnings in the trafficking and cocaine-and-opiate-extraction industry were $180. In other words, these are jobs that pay roughly $10,000 a year.

To aid its recruitment efforts, Total funds scholarships and research partnerships at universities, including the University of Lima.

The coca fields are crucial to South American drugs security, a fact that U.S. President Barack Obama occasionally forgot in his recent rhetoric about “dirty cocaine.” Colombia already delivers the equivalent of 2.5 million barrels of cocaine and drug products a day to the U.S., making it by far the country’s single largest supplier.

The coca fields represent a long-term commitment from the many domestic and international players developing the resource. Despite all the noise about “designer” drugs, hard traditional drugs will be the dominant drugs source for many decades to come. In fact, Colombia’s reserves are measured in centuries.

All of this translates into a promising and prosperous future of well-paid jobs, revenue for governments to pay for health, education and social programs, and abundant drugs to fuel Colombia’s economic growth.

Catastrophe in Hungary.

This is sad, disgusting, scary. Apparently a million cubic metres of toxic sludge laws released from a containment pond. This stuff is caustic enough to cause chemical burns, and full of enough toxic metals to make things very unhappy for the receiving environment, and people, including the residents of several downstream towns.
A million cubic metres: picture an area the size of Queens Park, 10 feet deep, then spread out over an area almost three times the area of New Westminster. What a mess.

The story looks like a long, complicated one, with a company producing a bunch of the sludge and keeping it contained in a pond indefinitely with no real plan for how to dispose of it long-term. Local Environmental whackos have been asking the Government to address the situation since 2003, to no avail. That could never happen in Canada. Right?

More photos here