UPDATED: Patently Ridiculous

That is my assessment of our faux Environment Minister, Catherine McKenna, in her latest political statement in answer to the question of whether or not Canada should ban the export of our plastic waste:

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says she has asked her department to look at what else Canada can do to reduce the amount of Canadian garbage that is ending up overseas.

As recently as Aug. 1, McKenna’s officials dismissed the idea of banning plastic waste exports entirely, fearing such a move could be economically harmful to countries with recycling industries that rely on the material. [Italics mine.]

Canada pointed to Australia, New Zealand and Japan as countries with similar policies.

But last week, Australia’s federal and state governments came together to start planning for an eventual ban of plastic waste exports.

While some might be fooled by McKenna's expressions of concern for jobs in other countries, others are not:

Kathleen Ruff, founder of the online advocacy campaign RightonCanada.ca, wants Canada to agree to stop shipping plastic waste out of the country. She has been critical of the federal Liberals for refusing to agree to amend the Basel Convention to stop plastic waste exports. The convention is an international agreement to prevent the world’s wealthiest nations from dumping hazardous waste on the developing world.

Ruff said she was happy to hear McKenna say there was room to do more — and suspects the Oct. 21 federal election may have something to do with it.

Politics, indeed. I think I would have more respect for McKenna if she took the almost unheard of route of speaking honestly to the public and state that a ban of plastic exports would require the elimination of a wide array of single-use products that Canadians are addicted to, ranging from plastic water bottles to bubble wrap to takeout containers to coffee cups (lined with plastic). Such a move would take real courage and vision, but the initial public backlash might be politically costly.

Instead, we have a visionless shill masquerading as the Environment and Climate Change Minister taking faux pride in the fact that we will ban plastic straws in another year or two.

In closing, it is useful to remind ourselves that we are all complicit in this minister's posturing:

Canadians are among the biggest producers of waste in the world, churning out as much as two kilograms per person every day.

Not a pretty picture


UPDATE: Now here is something we should all find sobering about plastic pollution:

Abundant levels of microplastic pollution have been found in snow from the Arctic to the Alps, according to a study that has prompted scientists to warn of significant contamination of the atmosphere and demand urgent research into the potential health impacts on people.

Snow captures particles from the air as it falls and samples from ice floes on the ocean between Greenland and Svalbard contained an average of 1,760 microplastic particles per litre, the research found. Even more – 24,600 per litre on average – were found at European locations. The work shows transport by winds is a key factor in microplastics contamination across the globe.

The scientists called for research on the effect of airborne microplastics on human health, pointing to an earlier study that found the particles in cancerous human lung tissue.

Eating Ourselves To Death

If you want to read a comprehensive report about another dire crisis humanity is facing, be sure to check out this post from the Mound.

There is something of a solution, but it is one most will just ignore. Here is the Coles Notes version:

Will Hysteria Or Rationality Prevail This Fall?

As we wind ou way through the dog days of summer, it is a truism that no one will pay attention to politics and the upcoming election until after Labour Day. That may well be, but the Green Party is seeking to allay fears that its climate action plan would result in massive job loss for those working in fossil-fuel industries.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has unveiled a multi-pronged plan to help workers in the gas and oil sector transition to a renewable energy economy, working to allay fears that her climate action plan would bleed jobs as she ramps up pre-election campaign efforts.

The Green worker transition plan, which includes skills retraining programs and massive retrofit and cleanup projects designed to create employment, fleshes out details from the Green Party's climate action plan called Mission: Possible, that was released in May.

A canny move in anticipation of the fear-mongering about the Greens that will inevitably increase as their momentum in the polls grows, May wants to spread the message that there will be plenty of work for those who will be displaced as we decarbonize. Her platform includes

- Investing in retraining and apprenticeship programs to refocus the skills of industrial trade workers for jobs in the renewable energy sector.
- Start[ing] a massive cleanup of "orphaned" oil wells; some of which can be transformed to produce geothermal energy.
- Creat[ing] a national program to retrofit all buildings to optimum energy efficiency.

May said the party's plan for retrofitting buildings would create four million jobs for tradespeople such as carpenters, electricians and plumbers, and said there is an "immense economic opportunity" in moving to green jobs.

"People may think when we talk about climate emergency that we're hoping to have people be afraid. People are already afraid. We want to give them hope and the tools to know that their future is secure."

While rabidly partisan 'progressives' will no doubt continue advocating a surrender to 'group-think', insisting that a vote for anyone but Trudeau is a vote for Scheer, it is to be hoped that independent, critical thinkers will base their voting decisions on more measured, less hysterical grounds.

Time will tell.

Only The Beginning

While the average cossetted North American may feel smug about the following, since the water shortages discussed seem far, far away, they are the stuff that social unrest, rioting, regime change and mass migrations are made of:

Countries that are home to one-fourth of Earth’s population face an increasingly urgent risk: The prospect of running out of water.

From India to Iran to Botswana, 17 countries around the world are currently under extremely high water stress, meaning they are using almost all the water they have, according to new World Resources Institute data published Tuesday.

Greatly exacerbated by climate change, floods and droughts are becoming more volatile:

Water-stressed places are sometimes cursed by two extremes. São Paulo was ravaged by floods a year after its taps nearly ran dry. Chennai suffered fatal floods four years ago, and now its reservoirs are almost empty.

Unfortunately, the short-term solution many countries have adopted, tapping deep into their aquifers, only promises a deferment of the crisis:

Mexico’s capital, Mexico City, is drawing groundwater so fast that the city is literally sinking. Dhaka, Bangladesh, relies so heavily on its groundwater for both its residents and its water-guzzling garment factories that it now draws water from aquifers hundreds of feet deep. Chennai’s thirsty residents, accustomed to relying on groundwater for years, are now finding there’s none left. Across India and Pakistan, farmers are draining aquifers to grow water-intensive crops like cotton and rice.

Are there any solutions? Not really.

...city officials can plug leaks in the water distribution system. Wastewater can be recycled. Rain can be harvested and saved for lean times: lakes and wetlands can be cleaned up and old wells can be restored. And, farmers can switch from water-intensive crops, like rice, and instead grow less-thirsty crops like millet.

Given the world's ever-increasing population, the quickening pace of climate change and humans' reluctance to alter their profligate ways, it is a safe bet that things will get worse. Clearly, this is only the beginning of the horrors that await the planet.

The Global Population Gets Greedier By The Day

That is the opening line in the following report that deals with Earth Overshoot Day, the day our species uses up the Earth's finite resources that should take a year to use. As my friend Mound often says, the climate-change disaster rapidly bearing down on us is but one part of a trifecta, the others being overpopulation and overuse of said resources. Our rapaciousness will be the death of us all, including many innocent non-human species.

Start the following at the 12:20 mark:

Be Very Afraid

I remember in 1975 seeing the film Jaws. Like most people, it terrified me, so much so that it was many year before I got up the courage to go into the ocean.

Perhaps it is time for a re-release of the film, given that warming waters due to climate change are increasing the chance that those venturing into the waters off the eastern seaboard could fall victim to the fierce marine predators.

The message? Be afraid. Be very afraid.



Sadly, all of this is yet another sign of the unfolding ecological collapse that the world's leaders will continue to ignore.

But Is Anyone Listening?

The Star has been running a series on climate change that I have read with some interest, offering as it does a good and extensive primer on the peril we face. Ultimately however, it fails, especially in the last part which talks about what we can do to combat it.

There really is only one solution, which letter writer Norm Beach of Toronto articulates. However, one has to ask a fundamental question: Is anyone in a position of power listening?

The Star’s series on our climate emergency notes that, despite Canada’s small population, we are among the top 10 biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the world. It’s important to add another inconvenient truth: Our emissions on a per-person basis are more than 20 tonnes annually, the highest of these ten largest-emitting countries, three times the G20 average and 20 times that of Bangladesh.

The good news: Our carbon footprint is getting smaller. The bad news: We’re not doing enough to avert global disaster.

If we keep on electing politicians dedicated to preserving market share for fossil fuels, our flag will get as much international respect as an oil-soaked rag and our children will inherit a devastated planet. Years ago, the Pogo cartoon put it best: “We have met the enemy … and he is us.” Canada, it’s time to get our heads out of the sand, stop squandering our hard-earned reputation, mobilize for the greater good and reclaim our right to be proud of our country.