Tag: Climate Change

Trudeau government’s Climate Accountability Act passes to the sound of one hand clapping

Trudeau government’s Climate Accountability Act passes to the sound of one hand clapping

Posted by | Jun 29, 2021 | , |

Accompanied by much damning with faint praise, the Trudeau government’s climate change legislation passed third reading in the House of Commons last week. A few minutes after midnight on June 23 – just ahead of the first record-breaking heat wave of the summer – the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act was approved by a vote of 204 to 114. Then it was off to the Senate where the committee assigned to conduct a pre-study had already concluded that the incoming Bill C-12 is “weak and will not lead to actual reductions of GHGs.” Flaccid as the act is, the...

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New book says Canada needs to fight climate change like we fought the Nazis

New book says Canada needs to fight climate change like we fought the Nazis

Posted by | Nov 17, 2020 | , |

Timing may not be everything but it is important. Seth Klein was putting the finishing touches on his climate crisis call to arms A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency when COVID-19 hit. The war metaphors for the fight against the virus followed almost immediately and continued at many pandemic constrained Remembrance Day ceremonies last week. For now at least the pandemic and the resulting economic disruption have resulted in governments spending what it takes to wage war against the virus threat. Parallels have been drawn with World War II when the country’s debt-to-GDP ratio exceeded 100...

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While public attention is elsewhere oil and gas industry takes advantage

While public attention is elsewhere oil and gas industry takes advantage

Posted by | Sep 16, 2020 | |

As the saying goes, it’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. So the winds that have been blowing smoke from the terrifying infernos in California and the Pacific Northwest may have a positive impact of putting climate change back on the agenda in Canada after months during which the news cycle has been dominated by COVID-19, the WE fiasco and the Black Lives Matter movement. It will be recalled that just a bit over a year ago Canada’s House of Commons joined many other institutions in declaring a climate emergency. And climate change figured large in last...

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Obsession with larger vehicles has gone into overdrive

Obsession with larger vehicles has gone into overdrive

Posted by | Jan 22, 2020 | |

Disconnect between concern about climate change and the vehicles people drive keeps growing. In 2018 I noted a couple of troubling Canadian transportation trends – the number of registered road vehicles is increasing faster than the population and SUVs and their ilk are increasingly taking over the roads. The drift continues. Between 2017 and 2018, Canada’s human population increase of 1.41 per cent was outpaced by a 2.01 per cent increase in registered road vehicles. In Nova Scotia, where population growth has become a fixation, the number of humans grew by only 0.96 per cent, while cars on the...

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Decade look backs miss climate mess

Decade look backs miss climate mess

Posted by | Jan 6, 2020 | |

At the risk of being repetitive, it’s hard not to address the dearth of discussion about climate change in the media’s reflections on the ten-year period that ended last week. Even as drought stricken Australia burned amidst heat waves and fierce winds, the media presented a menu more concerned with reflections on populism, pop culture and political positioning than climate change. Then, forcing everyone to move on, Trump changed the channel with his reckless adventurism in Iraq. One notable exception to the trend bemoaned above was a piece in the National Observer, part of a collaboration with HuffPost. It...

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Richard Starr, The man behind the Point

About Richard

RICHARD STARR has had careers as a journalist, public servant, broadcaster, political staffer and freelance policy adviser. He is author of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, a former radio and TV producer and weekly newspaper editor, and the author of three non-fiction books. Starr has lived in Dartmouth for more than 30 years.

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