Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Friday, December 20, 2013

Anti-pipeline ENGO thugs show utter contempt for democracy and the rule of law

Peter Foster:
... ForestEthics has muscled its way to a seat at the policy table by its thuggish tactics.

... Ben West ... Tar Sands Campaign Director of ForestEthics Advocacy ... declared “The Enbridge line will never be completed.”  ... clearly indicates his group’s utter contempt for legal and democratic processes.

... Surely there are more balanced voices within the ENGO community. What about the giant World Wide Fund for Nature, WWF? they are even more subversive when it comes to undermining democracy, and actually profit from ForestEthics’ anti-corporate antics. ... The head of WWF Canada, David Miller [mighta' known][declared that] Northern Gateway should be turned down whatever the NEB and the democratically elected government says.

Organizations such as ForestEthics, WWF, Greenpeace and the David Suzuki Foundation all despise short-sighted “ballot box” democracy because they claim to speak for the planet and future generations.  Significantly, neither entity is in a position to speak for itself. 

... The ultimate decision on Northern Gateway is, as noted, that of the federal government. That decision should not be subject to veto by a radical minority who are impervious to facts, logic or evidence, and whose careers depend on spreading alarm, threatening violence, and contempt for democracy.

Northern Gateway - glass half full / glass half empty

National Post:                                                                Vancouver Sun:



And coming up empty: Mulcair and Trudeau

Thursday, December 19, 2013

Northern Gateway Pipeline approved with conditions

Financial Post:
In a decision that spans two volumes and nearly 500 pages, the three-member panel of environmental and energy regulators led by Sheila Leggett said the $6.5-billion project’s economic benefits outweigh the environmental burdens.

... approval includes 209 environmental, financial and technical conditions. Enbridge must set aside $950-million in liability coverage to cover costs of a potential spill, including at least $100-million available within 10 days in the event of a large rupture and $250-million of “no-fault” insurance, the panel said.

... Five conditions set by the B.C. government are still unresolved, and the pipeline remains deeply unpopular with some aboriginal groups and environmentalists. 

... Reaction from opponents was swift. Greenpeace vowed on Thursday to “do what it takes, from court cases to civil disobedience, to ensure this pipeline never gets built.” 
Vivian Krause shows that opposition to the NGP was largely the work of American ENGO, ForestEthics:
... a large percentage of the fuss over the Northern Gateway pipeline has been generated by a single, American organization: ForestEthics, based in San Francisco.... In its 2012 tax return ... ForestEthics claims credit for having generated fully 87 percent of the letters of comment sent to the National Energy Board regarding the Joint Review Panel for the Northern Gateway.

ForestEthics’s own words in its tax return: ... "... In the last six months of 2012, we amassed more than 25,000 new supporters for this campaign ... In August, we submitted to the National Energy Board 4,119 (out of 4,722 in total submitted) unique Letters of Comment on the Enbridge tankers/pipeline project, written by our supporters.”
... Since 2008, ForestEthics has been the workhorse of the Tar Sands campaign, co-funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Tides Foundation.

 There are many hurdles still to jump, not least those set up by paid agitators and radical eco-fascists organized and funded by foreigners. Also, the BC NDP is still calling for rejection and then there's Christy Clark's "fair share" shakedown to consider.  Et cetera ...

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Kathleen Wynne's self-destructive opportunitic mercantilism

Peter Foster: Ontario’s anti-markets deal with Cisco a self-destructive case of ‘opportunist mercantilism’
The loudly-trumpeted news that the Ontario government is to give California-based Cisco Systems “up to” $220 million to create “up to” 1,700 jobs is a typical example of “opportunist mercantilism” — that is, “beating” other governments at self-destructive policies.

...The one relatively clear statistic is that the Ontario government seems to be ponying up well over $100,000 a job. This is nonsensical.

... This game bears little or no relevance to the voluntarily, non-criminal cooperation of the free market, but it does explain a lot about the government behaviour.  ... governments aren’t interested in economically optimal results. They are interested in gestures that will win votes, whatever the costs to the economy. They play. Taxpayers lose.

Ezra Levant's take:

Monday, December 16, 2013

Foreign Policy magazine editors and journalists are "naive children"

Donna Laframboise on FP's selection of the UN IPCC as one of 100 Global Thinkers of 2013:
... Oh, dear. A magazine that can’t write 283 words without using the phrase “climate-change deniers” twice, is out there. I mean, really out there.

... the editors and journalists at Foreign Policy magazine are naive children. They’ve mistaken eco-apocalyptic fairy tales featuring planet-saving superheroes and wicked climate deniers for reality.

The notion that anyone is depending on that magazine’s power of analysis with respect to foreign policy is downright frightening.
Also named among FP mag's 100 Global Thimkers is this quartet of geniuses for proving that the 
devastation of Superstorm Sandy was partly our fault:
... Using the tools of a field known as "climate attribution science," the researchers compared, correlated, and analyzed data on weather and anthropogenic pollution such as carbon dioxide emissions. They examined a dozen meteorological cases from 2012, including superstorms, retreating Arctic sea ice, heavy rainfall in Europe, and intense heat along the United States' Eastern Seaboard.... ["Climate attribution science" would appear to be a "science" of rationalizing preconceived conclusions.]