A Mound Of Sound Guest Post: The Relentless Growth of CO2

I put this item together a while ago but I was reminded of it today while reading a report from the WMO, the World Meteorological Organization, that April will go in the books as the first month in which atmospheric CO2 topped 400 ppm throughout the northern hemisphere. Not just one nasty region here or there, the entire bloody northern hemisphere. That's change you can believe in (sorry Barack).

Scientists say emissions will need to peak by 2020 and then decline rapidly to limit warming to 2C, a target agreed at the 2009 round of UN talks in Copenhagen.

According to the UN climate science panel, the world has already used between half and two-thirds of its “carbon budget” the amount of CO2 that can be released before the 2C goal is impossible.

This got me thinking about our chances of peaking our emissions by 2020 and then slashing them rapidly after that. At that point a quiz I recently spotted in The Globalist popped to mind.

The Globalist website posts a weekly quiz and they're generally pretty thought-provoking.

A recent one dealt with automobile manufacturing in 2013. How many cars were built in 2013? How about 83-million! China accounted for 27% of global sales. More telling was the fact that it wasn't until 2010 that we reached the 73-million auto mark. That's an increase of 10-million in just three years. Even more depressing is the forecast of 100-million cars to be produced in 2018, a third of them for the Chinese market.

What does that information tell you? In eight years we're going to go from producing 73-million cars to building 100-million. That means we'll be adding another hundred million cars a year to the hundreds of millions of older cars already prowling the planet's roads and highways. Now imagine what that's going to mean in the context of oil and gasoline consumption, water consumption (it takes 39,000 gallons of water to build a car), and of course greenhouse gas emissions. Hey kids, we're so screwed!

Another Globalist quiz looked at energy rich Nigeria and how much electricity the average Nigerian consumes in a year. It's about as much as the average person uses to power their microwave over the course of a year. That's because Nigeria is a corrupt petro-state and all that oil wealth mysteriously never makes it down to the ordinary folks.

How about electricity production from renewables? Brazil is the winner in the clean power contest at 82%. Canada comes in at 63% clean electricity, mainly through provincial hydro-electric generation (no thanks to Ottawa). The United States? Under 13%, well below the global average of 20% which also happens to be China's renewable electricity level.

You can find all the quizzes, including archives, here. If, like me, you're interested in issues pertaining to globalization, you can subscribe to their daily e-mail briefing. It's as timely as it is insightful.

Contempt Of The Electorate?

Tom, a friend of mine, posted the following on Facebook yesterday:

Kind of tired of all the polemical posturing in the latest election. However, can anyone provide one instance in history -- at least, since the advent of the Industrial Revolution -- where, corporate or business tax cuts, the basis of trickle down economic policy, have been primarily responsible for an upsurge in hiring or the oxymoronic fictional concept of job creation.

I replied:

Tom, you are asking a question that the media refuse to ask. Considering who owns most of the media in this country, this is perhaps not so surprising.

To which Tom replied:

I think that's partially true, Lorne. However, how come politicians and supporters of those on the other side [of the] argument don't keep asking the question and insist upon an answer. I've been looking for such an historical antecedent and can't find anything.

I wrote back:

A good question. Perhaps it reflects their belief that the attention span of the average citizen is short, and boring them with facts is counter productive? Sound bites do seem to rule the day.

Tom makes an excellent point about the dearth of questions asked about the right's underlying premises. Indeed, the Liberals have only gone so far as to ridicule the accuracy of the job-creation numbers Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak claims will ensue from both his gutting of public service jobs and reduction in corporate tax rates. Nowhere is his philosophical foundation questioned.

Kim Campbell, in her short career as Canada's first woman prime minister, once infamously observed that political campaigns are not the time to discuss policy. She was much pilloried for that comment, but perhaps it was simply an oblique expression of disdain for the very people whose support politicians seek on their road to power. That contempt seems to be more and more the default position of those who lead us or aspire to.

In his column this morning, Martin Regg Cohn laments the fact that Tim Hudak will not be taking part in the Ontario leaders' debate in Thunder Bay, attributing crass political calculation to his boycott, and not the 'scheduling conflict' Team Hudak claims.

Cohn calls his decision a disrespect for democracy, and yet I have long given up on such debates, reflecting, as they do, the very contempt that is the subject of this post. Far too frequently, instead of engaging in the thrust and parry a real debate entails, politicos are all too content either to simply rework their stump speeches into their responses or answer the questions they wished had been asked, rather than the actual queries. Avoidance and obfuscation seem to rule the day, and the journalists moderating the panels rarely seem to hold them to account.

How we arrived at this sad state is not an easy question to answer, but undoubtedly the pernicious influence of the Harper regime and its worship of ignorance is a factor.

Two brief letters in today's Star make this point:

Gutting Statistics Canada is a pound-foolish strategy, Opinion May 19

Anyone with brains could see that gutting Statistics Canada would be a disaster for future governing of this country. To me, it represented one of the first major steps of Stephen Harper’s “secret agenda” of remaking this country into his little fiefdom of conservative domination into the future ruled by ideology not evidence-backed policies.

It will be the ruination of this once small but proud country.

Ann Goodin, Burlington

I don’t think money is the main motivator behind gutting StatsCan, although it’s a great excuse. It’s been obvious for years that the Conservatives don’t like pesky facts getting in the way of their ideology.

They’ve also figured out how to data mine us so they have info we’ll never see (those pesky facts again).

Ellen Bates, Toronto

That is not to see that any of us gets a free pass when it comes to embracing ignorance. Far too many have stopped taking the political process seriously, seeing it more as a source of soap-operish entertainment than as fundamental to the health of our country. Anyone who doubts that need only refer to the antics of a Rob Ford and the tenor of so many reactions to them. Or ask yourself this: What comes to mind when you think of Maxime Bernier and the misplaced government documents?

I will end what has been perhaps a bit of a meandering post with one final letter from today's Star. During this Ontario election campaign, both Mr. Hudak and Ms. Horwath have made much about our hydro rates. It is taken as undeniable that we pay some of the world's highest rates thanks to Liberal incompetence and corruption. Here are the facts:

Business shifts election focus to power prices, May 15

Most people realise that just because a politician (or party rep) says something, it doesn’t mean it’s true. The latest scuttlebutt is the “sky-high” prices we pay for electricity in Ontario making us uncompetitive and putting a strain on working families.

Let’s face it: nobody wants to pay more for anything, but before voting for political parties who are promising to lower your hydro rates, consider the fact that electricity prices in Ontario are actually not high at all.

Hydro Quebec routinely surveys electricity rates for consumers/small business and large industrial customers across North America. In 2013 it may surprise many people to know that at a kw/h price of $0.1248, Toronto has lower hydro rates than Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Halifax, Charlottetown, and St John’s. In addition, it has much lower rates than Boston (0.165), Detroit (0.1554), New York (0.2175), and San Francisco (0.2294).

If one looks further abroad, a 2011 comparison of electricity rates (all in U.S. dollars per kw/h) world wide indicates that after adjusting for relative purchasing power, Canada has the lowest rates in the entire world. Not adjusting for purchasing power, we have the fourth lowest rates in the world at $0.10, just above India and China at $0.08 each and tied with Mexico and South Africa.

The average price in the U.S. in 2011 was actually $0.12, more than we pay in Toronto. The top five? Denmark: $0.41, Germany: $0.35, Spain: $0.30, Australia: $0.29, and Italy: $0.28. Even Brazil has higher rates at $0.17.

Ontario has a massive electricity grid to maintain relative to its population. Part of this cost is offset by relatively cheap hydro electric power and the artificially low cost we pay for nuclear power, but maintenance on a system this large requires substantial and on-going investment.

Before voting for a party promising to cut prices, ask yourself this question: Who is going to pay for them?

Rob Graham, Toronto

About Those 39 Pieces of I.D. Pierre Poilivre Keeps Talking About

H/t Canadians Rallying To Unseat Stephen Harper

To hear Pierre Poilievre speak, one might think that any Canadian who claims that the 'Fair' Elections Act could very well disenfranchise up to 500,000 Canadians in the next election is intellectually challenged. The ubiquitous Harper weasel, both in the House and on television, assures us that all the experts, both domestically and internationally, are dead wrong in all of their criticisms, since the bill will allow 39 pieces of I.D.* to be used at the ballot box, thus rendering vouching and voter information cards quite redundant.

But are his claims of our collective ignorance/stupidity/hysteria valid?

The CBC's Laura Payton did an investigation of the issue, with some very interesting results.

If you look at the list of I.D at the end of this post, you will see the problem. As Peyton points out, Canadians don't just prove their identity to cast a ballot: they have to prove where they live too.

I have placed an asterisk beside those pieces that do provide an address. One of the key problems with many of those forms of identification is that one would have had to have gone to the trouble of requesting such proof well ahead of an election (eg. First Nations attestation of residence, or such attestation as issued by a soup kitchen, shelter, student/senior residence, or long-term care facility); a second problem would be remembering to have it with you when going to the polls. How many would bother to line up a second time after returning to their residence to retrieve the required but forgotten piece?

But most people have a driver's licence, right? Says Payton:

... while Elections Canada says 85 per cent of Canadians have a driver's licence — based on the numbers they get from provincial licensing offices — that penetration drops in urban areas like Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal, where better public transit systems mean fewer people require cars to get around.

What about things like insurance policies (which you are far less likely to have if you are a renter) or bank statements? Those are fine, says Peyton,

Unless, that is, the documents are delivered by email. [Don't forget we are always being preached to about the environmental virtues of paperless billing.] A printed version of emailed documents won't suffice. Instead, voters would have to go to the bank or the hydro or insurance company — or dig through their paper files at home — to find an original copy. And they'll have to know that before they head to the polling station to cast a ballot on the advance polling day or election day.

Curious as well, isn't it, that a voter information card, which contains one's address, isn't accepted as one of the two proofs required? Does the government believe dark conspiracies are afoot not only to steal the cards, but also people's other pieces of identity as well?

Given all of the criticisms levelled against this bill, criticisms that Poilievre has facilely dismissed as without merit, there is only one conclusion, in my view, to be drawn. Given those who are most likely to be excluded from easy access to the polls (aboriginals, the poor, the homeless, renters, the 'urban elite,' the young and the very old), people who are less likely to vote for the Conservatives, the Fair Elections Act is, unquestionably, legislation aimed solely at achieving voter suppression.

*Driver's licence
Ontario health card
Provincial/territorial ID card in some provinces/territories
Canadian passport
Certificate of Canadian citizenship (citizenship card)
Birth certificate
Certificate of Indian status (status card)
Social insurance number card
Old age security card
Student ID card
Liquor ID card
Hospital/medical clinic card
Credit/debit card
Employee card
Public transportation card
Library card
Canadian Forces ID card
Veterans Affairs Canada health card
Canadian Blood Services/Héma-Québec card
CNIB ID card
Firearm possession and acquisition licence or possession only licence
Fishing, trapping or hunting licence
Outdoors or wildlife card/licence
Hospital bracelet worn by residents of long-term care facilities
Parolee ID card
*Utility bill (telephone, TV, PUC, hydro, gas or water)
*Bank/credit card statement
*Vehicle ownership/insurance
*Correspondence issued by a school, college or university
*Statement of government benefits (employment insurance, old age security, social assistance, disability support or child tax benefit)
*Attestation of residence issued by the responsible authority of a First Nations band or reserve
Government cheque or cheque stub
*Pension plan statement of benefits, contributions or participation
*Residential lease/mortgage statement
*Income/property tax assessment notice
*Insurance policy
*Letter from a public curator, public guardian or public trustee
*One of the following, issued by the responsible authority of a shelter, soup kitchen, student/senior residence, or long-term care facility: attestation of residence, letter of stay, admission form or statement of benefits

Shoulder Shrug

Like many of the commentators and bloggers whom I read, I regularly feel a deep frustration over the passivity of people. No matter what the problem, be it political, social, environmental or a host of others, too many have a 'can't-do' reaction that debases so many in a myriad of ways. Indeed, it appears to be one of our species' defining characteristics, one at which Canadians seem to particularly excel, if our current political landscape is any indication.

Perhaps we need a national shoulder-shrug symbol as an expression of the what-can-you-do paralysis that cripples so many, a condition that undoubtedly facilitates the dark manipulation our political 'masters' so gleefully engage in.

My reflections are partly prompted by a column in this morning's Toronto Star by Rick Salutin entitled David Cameron and Jim Flaherty prove fatalism is back. Using the picture of British Prime Minister David Cameron in boots wading through flood-ravaged south-west England, Salutin sums up the photo-op in these terms:

It’s the shots of British Prime Minister David Cameron slogging through the floods there in wellies that convinced me: fatalism is back. He may have looked as if he was trying to do something, but it had nothing to do with addressing the causes of flooding. He was all accommodation: like Noah building an ark after hearing from the Lord that the skies were going to burst.

That image parallels the reactions people had in Toronto and beyond after the ice storm that left so many without power for so long; rather than to start a real discussion about climate change, people instead carped about how long it took to restore power. An 'action plan' in the form of an independent panel convened by Toronto Hydro to address that concern was our way of avoiding acknowledging and confronting the real issue.

Similarly, during the flooding that hit the Toronto area last July, concern seemed to be limited to how long it took to rescue stranded Go Train passengers. Indeed, at the time Environment Canada's senior climatologist urged a stoic acceptance:

"No infrastructure could handle this...you just have to accept the fact that you're going to be flooded."

Salutin offers this observation:

... ours is the first era ever possessing strong evidence that human action has shaped the climate. It’s simply a case of trying to undo what we’ve (with high probability) done. If you had substantial evidence that food or water was killing your kids, you wouldn’t futz around about “the science” being inconclusive. You’d act.

And here he gets to the meat of his thesis:

I’m not talking about the tendency of governments, corporations and ideologues to lie and manipulate. I mean the propensity of populations to meekly accept brutal realities because that’s just how it is.

The columnist then trains his lens on the federal budget brought down the other day by Jim Flaherty, who apparently had more pressing concerns than people's lives in the days leading up to the budget:

The economy’s another example. How dared Jim Flaherty present that budget? Where did he get the balls? He ignored the state of jobs and debt in people’s lives, the way Cameron ignored climate change while wading in the water.

And so things go merrily along, collective amnesia and widespread denial being a comfortable refuge until the next 'unforseeable' crisis.

Andrea's Dilemma: Whither Blowest The Wind?

Were I a gifted artist (or any kind of artist, for that matter) I would draw Andrea Horwath in a two-panel caricature. In the first panel, index finger raised, she would be turning to her left, and in the second, to her right, testing the prevailing winds. That would, I believe, adequately capture what I, perhaps a tad harshly, characterize as the political prostitution of the Ontario NDP leader.

Like her long ago party leader, Bob Rae, who even today refuses to admit he made some grievous errors during his time as Ontario's Premier by trying to placate and court business, Ms Horwath seems to be walking the same lover's lane that leads to electoral heartbreak. And while it is true that she has gained popularity through some of the initiatives she has foisted upon the Liberal government as the price of her party's support, she seems to be falling victim to the same hubristic notion Rae did, that somehow she can appeal to the political right via the business community.

This strategy is given short shrift by Michael Laxer in a recent article for Rabble. Beginning with the NDP's rather oleaginous stance on the push for a $14 minimum wage, Laxer goes on to make this observation:

... the leader driven party has not strayed from its message of boutique appeals to minor consumerist middle class issues and its pandering to the fiction of the small business "job creator." While it is true that small businesses create many jobs, it is also true, especially in the absence of an industrial or neo-industrial state job creation strategy, that the jobs they create are often not even worthy of the term "McJob." They are, overall, without any question the lowest paying jobs and rarely have any benefits of any meaning.

Laxer also questions whether the consumerist approach Horwath has taken (lower insurance rates, small cuts to hydro bills, etc.) is consistent with the party's principles :

Minimum wage and non-"middle class" workers do not primarily need small cuts to hydro bills, auto insurance rates (if they even own a car), or to have the worst employers in the economy "rewarded" for creating bad jobs, they need higher wages, expanded and free transit, universal daycare, pharmacare, and the types of universal social programs "progressives" and social democrats once actually fought for. They need a wage and job strategy that is not centered around the economy's worst and least reliable employers, "small business."

They need active parliamentary political representation that will fight for living wages and economic justice.

And therein lies the problem: the Ontario NDP has essentially abandoned those whose interests it has traditionally served and advocated for.

Matin Regg Cohn, in today's Star, opines that under Horwath's 'leadership,'

...the NDP has transmogrified itself from a progressive to a populist party. Now, the third party is riding high in the polls and dreams of a breakthrough. She wants to broaden her appeal in the vote-rich middle-class suburbs and among small business owners by downplaying the party’s radical roots. Poverty is not a rich source of votes.

Hence the abandonment of long-standing party principles, evidenced in the following statement from the party leader this week regarding Ontario's minimum wage which will rise to $11 per hour on June 1:

“Well, look, I respect the work of the grassroots movements that have been calling for the $14 minimum wage, but I think that what our role is right now is to consult with families that are affected, as well as small business particularly that’s also affected,” she told reporters Tuesday.

Some might argue that this is just smart politics, that aligning oneself too much with progressive policy will simply alienate voters. But I am left with one fundamental question: If the NDP refuses to be the party of advocacy, who will be?

To that, I think the answer is obvious.