Not Much To Add

...as the stealth program to convert Canada into a banana republic continues apace. Our military command structure is now completely subsumed in the American one and the "War On Terror "continues to target North American citizens who speak about about the direction our lords and masters are taking us.
From The Tyee:

A top lawyer at the world's largest civil liberties organization warns that Canada's increasing participation in the so-called "War on Terror" has jeopardized democracy.
The unchecked political influence of "deep state" spy agencies -- whether the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or our own Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) -- is threatening citizens' ability to hold the state accountable, says Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
"The larger idea that we are engaged in a global war against terrorism (is) a very dangerous idea," Jaffer told the Tyee, where he addressed a BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) event on Monday. "It's a dangerous proposition that we are involved in this war that has no temporal boundary, no geographic boundary, and is against an enemy that is really difficult to identify.
"(It's) drastic and radical: it's to propose that we're in a forever war and in an everywhere war... In Canada, the Charter is a very useful tool for litigators and public interest advocates to use in articulating arguments against these kinds of counter-terrorism policies that are inconsistent with democratic values."

Post-Copenhagen

So what did Canada get from our little trip to Copenhagen? Well, our PM made it clear that when it comes to photo opportunities, he's your guy--witness all the shots with various heads of state on his carbon-intensive journey pre-Copenhagen. But when it comes to facing up to the results of his beliefs and actions, he's really not so ready to get in front of a camera (well, to be fair, with the exception of his trip to China where only the sight of him crawling would really satisfy the Chinese leadership. But I think back to a year ago when Harper wouldn't face parliament after a major miscalculation either. Not really good at owning up to mistakes, our PM.). So poor old Jim Prentiss was trotted out to deliver 9 paragraphs of irrelevancy.
But Canada did get what our government wanted; nothing really changed. A vague commitment to reduce our emissions by 20% from 2006 levels (non-binding and unenforceable) and a promise to contribute to an international fund (dollars that are likely to come out of our current Foreign Affairs budget anyway).
But in terms of real change? Well, all we're going to get is more of the same. Enbridge is trying to build a pipeline across northern BC to haul bitumen (our vaunted "heavy oil") from Fort MacMurray to a tanker terminal at Prince Rupert. The Dogwood Initiative is working hard to keep that from happening, and is experiencing some success. But the extraction at the oil sands is still set to expand without any controls or limitations.
Which is one of the reasons Harper was willing to eat shit in China; China doesn't care what people do in their own country, as long as they fulfil their contractual obligations. So war criminal, genocidal lunatic, or environmental criminal, none of it matters as long as the resources keep flowing. And the US has pointed out that it does have some reservations about Alberta's bitumen extraction process. Several states are now refusing to accept oil from the tar sands, and President Obama announced on his arrival in Copenhagen that the EPA was going to be able to regulate CO² emissions. So Canada is facing growing restrictions on its ability to export dirty oil to the US.
As an aside, the move to declare CO² a pollutant and regulate it through the EPA is an important step for the US. Recent studies have indicated that the introduction of pollution controls in the US in the 1970s was important to the US remaining an economic powerhouse through the rest of the century. By forcing industries to clean up their act, the US government forced production efficiencies on those industries, making them much more competitive. This despite the extra imposed costs. It seems obvious that the same reasoning and results would apply to restrictions on CO².
So our PM, having no intention of imposing restrictions of any type on Alberta's bitumen production (he is, after all, the son of an oil executive, and beholding to oil companies), has realized that its necessary to find new markets that will not put restrictions on methods of production. Enter China.
China indicated at Copenhagen that while they are willing to agree to CO² reductions, they really have no interest in international verification procedures. Regretfully, NASA failed the launch of a satellite capable of doing that monitoring; currently the satellite rests on the bottom of the ocean near the Antarctic ice shelf. So until the US comes up with another 230 million dollars, international monitoring of CO² emissions is nothing but a dream.
But despite their dislike of international monitoring, China bids fair to become the renewable/green energy powerhouse of the 21st century. With the ability to totally ignore local opposition, China has begun building large wind and solar installations to supplement their coal and oil power producing infrastructure. In Canada, we've lost that opportunity with the Harper government's decision to spend infrastructure funds on partisan projects. Instead of taking the opportunity to help Canada into the 21st century, Harper decided instead to continue to believe that its the 1950s, and spend on old school projects. And unless there's someone presenting an oversized Conservative-logo'd novelty cheque, good luck on finding out where our billions of dollars are being spent. The Bush regime perfected the art of spending the country into impotence as a technique of hobbling future governments. Harper does it by cutting taxes (yes, we've gone from an inherited 13 billion surplus back to deficit spending--mostly down to Harper's cutting of the GST and other taxes)(as an aside, I'm actually in favour of taxes like the GST/HST; being strictly consumption-based and applying across the board, they tend to act to discourage spending and encourage saving).
So post-Copenhagen, we're really no further along to where we need to be. No international binding agreement on CO² reduction. The sea levels continue to rise, the poles continue to melt, the death of billions over the next 50-100 years still looms, and future of human life on Earth still hangs in the balance.

Copenhagen

So the Copenhagen talks on climate change are under-way. They come on the heels of hacked emails out of East Anglia, the announcement that Barack Obama will attend after all, and Stephen Harper being compelled to attend (in all fairness to Harper, there is no upside for him; as a climate-change denier, he views the whole thing as a waste of his time. As the Prime Minister of a petro-state that is an international pariah all he can hope for is abuse internationally, and no help to his reputation at home. He's much more comfortable in Korea, talking neo-con bullshit economics to a country that knows better than most how full of crap he is). SO what happens? Someone freaks out and leaks the "Danish Text," not a Rosetta Stone, but an agreement between the US, UK, and Denmark (and clearly some others, still unidentified)to apply the global system of Third World exploitation to the climate change crisis.
Briefly put, the Danish Test suggests that the developing world be restricted to emissions of 1.44 tonnes per person, while the First World be restricted to 2.67 tonnes per person. In exchange, the World Bank will pay out funds for climate change adjustments (from purchasing ameliorating technologies to paying the boat fares to allow your citizens to flee while their county and homes disappear under the waves of an advancing ocean) as long as the countries affected follow rules set down by the World Bank and the First World governments footing the bill.

"A confidential analysis of the text by developing countries [...] seen by the Guardian shows deep unease over details of the text. In particular, it is understood to:

• Force developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts and measures that were not part of the original UN agreement;

• Divide poor countries further by creating a new category of developing countries called "the most vulnerable";

• Weaken the UN's role in handling climate finance" (The Guardian)

As usual, the First World is finding democracy--even the sad and crippled version typified by the U.N.--to be an impediment to their own desires. So, as usual, the goal is to take any constraints on the developed nations off the table, and to screw those who are trying to have better lives--not lives as good as the developed world, just lives that are better than the hell they currently live in.

James Hansen, "[t]he scientist who convinced the world to take notice of the looming danger of global warming says it would be better for the planet and for future generations if next week's Copenhagen climate change summit ended in collapse." He figures the direction of the developed world at Copenhagen is so wrong that it would set us on the wrong path for decades, condemning us all to the hell of +6°C warming.

The Deniers are so clearly on the wrong side that they've been reduced into hacking email accounts and mis-representing the results, and, here in Canada, breaking into the office of a UVic climate scientist. Is it any wonder that I think we're alll doomed?

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Monbiot Comes To Canada

From The Guardian:

When you think of Canada, which qualities come to mind? The world's peacekeeper, the friendly nation, a liberal counterweight to the harsher pieties of its southern neighbour, decent, civilised, fair, well-governed? Think again. This country's government is now behaving with all the sophistication of a chimpanzee's tea party. So amazingly destructive has Canada become, and so insistent have my Canadian friends been that I weigh into this fight, that I've broken my self-imposed ban on flying and come to Toronto.

So here I am, watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petro-state. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalisation of the country, and a government campaign against multilateralism as savage as any waged by George Bush.

So writes George Monbiot in The Guardian today. I think my favourite line is "[Canada] is now to climate what Japan is to whaling." Although he gets one thing wrong; when he says that Canada is "turning itself into a corrupt petro-state," I'd have to point out that Alberta's been one for forty or fifty years, and the Canadian government has been following suit since Mulroney at least.
Heard Andrew Nikiforuk talk this past week. He too calls Canada a corrupt petro-state. In his recent book, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent, he carefully explains the defining characteristics of a petro-state and how Alberta and Canada fit that definition. He then sums it up with what should be a rallying cry (but will never be so): There is no representation without taxation. In his article Declaration of a Political Emergency (pdf) he continues; "Oil hinders democracy and corrupts the political process through the absence of transparent reporting and clear fiscal accounting. Alberta, a classic petrostate, has one of the least accountable governments in Canada as well as the lowest voter turnout."

Canada and the World

Even 20 months ago, no one knew what 350 meant, nor why it mattered. That's less than 2 years back. Then 10,000 year old ice sheets disappeared in the Arctic, Stephen Harper got a north of 60 hard-on, the IPCC released a report based on data that was already out of date (some of it a decade out of date), and a book detailing how James Hansen's work was censored came out. We shook our collective head, and some of us began to realize that we had entered what James Kunstler has called The Long Emergency.
It didn't take long to realize that 350 was the upper limit of atmospheric CO2 that could be considered "safe" (meaning that we might be able to keep global warming to 2°C and we might be able to live with the consequences of that rise), and here we are today looking at 390 ppm of carbon dioxide, no significant efforts being made to reduce carbon emissions, and a future that's looking at a minimum of 4°C warming and 6 metres of sea level rise--meanwhile emissions continue to increase and atmospheric CO2 rises at about 2ppm/year.
Here in Canada, we've got a Conservative government that is lead by a Prime Minister who still yet to convince anyone that he actually believes global warming may be a problem. Stephen "American Corporate Lackey" Harper is busy fiddling while the globe--including the nation of which he is nominally a member--burns. All our divorced-from-reality leader can see is the NorthWest Passage opening up and all that lovely ocean open to commercial exploitation.
Last week, the British Meteorological Office released a map of what we can expect to happen when we hit 4°C. The equatorial countries will get hotter, true, but the further you get from the equator, the more extreme the changes. But even now, Environment Minister Jim Prentice wants special treatment for Canada, allowing us--well, really just Alberta and the oil sands--to continue increasing our GHG emissions, while insisting that developing nations like China and India agree to hard caps that we ourselves will not accept. And the Canadian Government still refuses to release specifics of its plan to reduce our GHG emissions by 20% from our 2006 levels--which is light-years from our commitment under Kyoto.
Today comes the release of a new report. Quite unlike anything released in Canada before, it was financed by the Toronto Dominion Bank, produced by the Pembina Institute and the David Suzuki Foundation, with economic modeling by the well-respected economic consultants, M.K. Jaccard and Associates Inc. As John Ibbitson writes in the Globe and Mail; "A major bank has paid two environmental organizations to produce a groundbreaking report that, for the first time, calculates the costs of both the Harper government's modest plans to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and the much more ambitious targets set by the environmental community, nationally and regionally."
The report offers a regional breakdown of economic impacts based on both the Harper government's vague commitment to 20% by 2020 (from 2006 levels) and  the impact from the deeper and harder cuts that environmentalists are calling for and that would put Canada in line with our international obligations. And guess what? Neither scenario would kill us!
According to the report,"The Conservative government's goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 can be achieved, but only by limiting growth in Alberta and Saskatchewan." Alberta's growth would be 8.5% less in 2020 than it would be under a BAU (Business As Usual) approach, the report concludes. Under the  same scenario, Saskatchewan would lose 2.8% of its projected growth. Central Canada, on the other hand, might well see some additional growth added to its projection. To quote Shawn McCarthy's article in the G&M; "Despite the steep costs involved in meeting targets, the analysis concludes the Canadian economy would continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace, and that investment in renewable energy and efficiency measures would result in an overall increase in employment compared to a “business-as-usual” scenario.
And even with the significant reduction in Alberta's potential growth and employment prospects, the province would still lead the country economically over the next 10 years."
So our economy would continue to grow AND there would probably be an increase in employment as well. And the cost? A reduction in projected growth an Alberta and Saskatchewan, and a significant out-migration from both provinces back to central Canada.
To further quote Shawn McCarthy's article: "TD's chief economist, Don Drummond, said the bank has not endorsed any targets, though it has supported a policy of a national emissions cap. He said the bank's interest was to shed light on an area where there has been little informed debate: the likely cost of imposing regulations."
I'm actually not seeing any real downside here. The Globe and Mail editorial board does though. In today's editorial, we read: "[T]he study acknowledges that what is proposed is no less than an economic upheaval: “There is a migration of capital and labour out of carbon and trade exposed sectors (e.g., fossil fuels) to sectors that are less carbon and trade exposed (e.g., manufacturing, services and renewable electricity).”
Canada cannot take its national unity for granted and must not, in the service of international obligations, allow itself to be immolated by a government policy of such wrenching dislocation." And the editorial concludes: "[T]he target [of carbon dioxide emission reduction] may be unreachable without unacceptable damage to Canada's economy and national unity. In which case, it is time for new targets, and new policies."
I can't help but think that no-one raised much of a stink about the "wrenching dislocation" caused by the development of the oil sands on the communities of Atlantic Canada. And even Jeffrey Simpson concludes that the Harper government's targets are just so much smoke being blown up our collective asses.
And so we have serious economic modelling of the potential and problems with trying to meet our international obligations regarding global warming and CO2 emissions. And we can now point to the report and say, "Tough, yes. But it won't kill us, and will probably make us stronger." And what of the complaints sure to come from the political and ruling classes of Alberta and Saskatchewan? Well, both provinces have had a great decade, with both provinces posting significant surpluses in their budgets, and neither has done a damn thing to prepare for the inevitable crash (particularly Alberta under Ralph Klein). For Alberta, that's two oil-based booms they've pissed away under Conservative governments. So honestly, I have no great sympathy for the Alberta government. And regardless of any future whining, we can look at the economic model contained in the M.K. Jaccard and Associates Inc. report, and read again the conclusion that "even with the significant reduction in Alberta's potential growth and employment prospects, the province would still lead the country economically over the next 10 years." And the planet (well, the human part of it) would thank us for facing up to our responsibilities.

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Copenhagen, Canada, and the End of the World

The Globe and Mail is reporting on an interview with Environment Minister Jim Prentice, saying that the chance of an agreement on climate change in Copenhagen is pretty much non-existent.
The world wants a climate change agreement in Copenhagen. The US is even onside, with President Obama actually understanding both the science and political realities of global warming. The EU wants an agreement, with Germany busy poaching Canadian alternative energy companies and the Brits launching the 10-10 campaign. China is even pursuing lower carbon emissions. So what's the problem?
The problem is the Canadian government. Canada has become the biggest roadblock to an international agreement to lower carbon emissions. According the the G&M article (23 October 2009, p A1 Ottawa dashes hope for treaty in Copenhagen) Canada is continuing to "insist that it should have a less aggressive target for emission reductions[...] because of its faster-growing population and energy-intensive industrial structure". The Harper government is also going to insist that any cap on industrial emissions will not be applied uniformly across the country, but will allow the Alberta oil sands to continue expanding. To quote the Environment Minister; "The Canadian approach has to reflect the diversity of the country and the sheer size of the country, and the very different economic characteristics and industrial structure across the country." The Harper government has also demanded that emerging economies (like China and India) agree to binding caps on carbon emissions, and has refused to release its own plan for carbon reduction until there is clarity on what the Americans are planning to do.
The New Democratic Party has a bill currently in committee that would commit Canada to an emission reduction of 25% from 1990 levels by 2020--a target that would meet our commitment under Kyoto and would be consistent with the EU's approach in the next round of negotiations. Ottawa has proposed a reduction of 20% from 2006 levels of emissions by 2020--our obligation under Kyoto was a cut of 6% from 1990 levels by 2012. The plan proposed by the Harper government would result in a 3% reduction from 1990 levels by 2020. Chief climate negotiator Michael Martin said to the committee considering the NDP bill that the Harper government's targets are "comparable" because they will be just as costly to achieve as the more aggressive NDP targets.
What becomes clear, as we follow the progress towards significant carbon emission reductions, is that the Harper government has no intention of ever reducing carbon emissions. Harper simply does not consider carbon emissions to be a problem (how can I say that? By simply looking at his record).
And our Prime Minister is dragging a lot of sceptics along with him. World-wide, temperatures maxed out in 1998, leading deniers to claim that temperatures have levelled off or are even declining. But new research to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, was carried out by Judith Lean, of the US Naval Research Laboratory, and David Rind, of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The research, "is the first to assess the combined impact on global temperature of four factors: human influences such as CO₂ and aerosol emissions; heating from the sun; volcanic activity and the El Niño southern oscillation, the phenomenon by which the Pacific Ocean flips between warmer and cooler states every few years.

The analysis shows the relative stability in global temperatures in the last seven years is explained primarily by the decline in incoming sunlight associated with the downward phase of the 11-year solar cycle, together with a lack of strong El Niño events. These trends have masked the warming caused by CO₂ and other greenhouse gases.

As solar activity picks up again in the coming years, the research suggests, temperatures will shoot up at 150% of the rate predicted by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Lean and Rind's research also sheds light on the extreme average temperature in 1998. The paper confirms that the temperature spike that year was caused primarily by a very strong El Niño episode. A future episode could be expected to create a spike of equivalent magnitude on top of an even higher baseline, thus shattering the 1998 record.

The study comes within days of announcements from climatologists that the world is entering a new El Niño warm spell. This suggests that temperature rises in the next year could be even more marked than Lean and Rind's paper suggests." (The Guardian Online).

The British Meteorological Office released a new map of the world (below) showing the current thinking on what the world will look like with a 4°C rise in the average global temperature. The 4°C rise mostly happens at the equator--the further you move away from the equator, the greater the changes. Here on Vancouver Island, we may only see an average 5°C rise, but up in Hudson's Bay, its looking more like 16°C. What this doesn't indicate is just how this will affect global weather patterns. If it was just going to get warmer, that wouldn't be the end of the world.But all that extra energy is going to change things in ways we can't imagine yet, much less model.

The Met Office says that climate researchers have discovered that:

• levels of CO2 have risen 40% since the Industrial Revolution
• Global sea levels have risen 10cm in the last 50 years [and that's a hell of a lot of water]
• temperatures in the Arctic have risen at twice the global average [which suits our Prime Minister just fine]
• snow cover in the northern hemisphere has dropped 5% in the last 2 decades

And researchers figure that extreme temperatures will affect eastern North America, with Toronto and Ottawa seeing the temperatures of their hottest days jumping by up to 10°C to 12°C. Anyone having suffered through a GTA summer will be white with fear about now....

Mad, And With Good Reason

Stephen Maher is mad as hell. Out in Nova Scotia, he writes in the Chronicle Herald:

In order to create a database of federal stimulus spending in Nova Scotia, it was necessary to look at all kinds of different federal websites, all with scraps of information, and then find out from other levels of government how much money was spent on each project and figure out where the shovels were hitting the ground.

In the United States, on the recovery.gov website, you can, in seconds, download exhaustively detailed databases showing where and how stimulus is being spent, who is getting the contracts, for how much, when, and how many jobs are created.
In Canada, on the actionplan.gc.ca site, there’s a map with icons showing where projects are located, but if you click on the icons, you get a popup with a charming picture of what’s his name, our prime minister, but no dollar amount.
There is a link to a video of the same guy singing a Beatles song, but there’s no database of projects available for download.

Not just one guy's experience, this is being noted by journalists across the country. The Harper government has no intention of telling the people anything. They've figured out that if you can't actually tell where the billions of dollars they claim to be spending are being spent (or not being spent), then they can claim and reclaim and re-re-claim to be spending that money. We saw this before the crisis when they would re-announce the same spending every two to three months, to make it appear that they were actually doing things that Canadians wanted.

Now, of course, they've been handed the gift of a lifetime; a demand for stimulus spending that Canadians understand and support. Not that they have any desire to actually spend it where it will do any serious long-term good, but still, they get to hand out those oversize novelty cheques and people won't be mad at them for doing so.

The rule is that the government in power gets to hand out the cheques, not the MP in a riding. Although, that point is moot when you're only spending real money in riding's that either voted Conservative or you hope you can swing Conservative. But the Harperites aren't content with politics as usual. They have to go one further and add big Conservative Party logos to the novelty cheques and have them signed with the signature of the local MP.

But this isn't the Conservative Party's money. This is money from the taxpayers of Canada to the taxpayers of Canada via their federal government. The MP gets to say "It is due to my efforts that this project was approved for funding, and I get to present this cheque." He (and, painfully, it's still primarily he in this country) does NOT get to say "My party and I are giving you this money." It's not only untrue, but it has been recognized as an unreasonable intrusion of partisan politics into the operation of government. Partisanship and governing are supposed to have a firewall between them: the visibility of being the ruling party is supposed to be all the partisan gain the ruling party gets. The linking of government spending to the way a riding voted is called (what's that name again? oh yeah,) pork-barrelling. And it's been falling out of favour among the electorate for the past half-century.

And the reason it's been falling out of favour is the blatant unfairness of pork-barrel politics. It doesn't serve the public good. Yes, it continues. After all, you have to repay the faithful somehow. But this is more in the vein of "Hey, we can finally fund those projects we think are valuable" rather than "Here's the payoff for voting Liberal (or Conservative)." One can be seen as being sympathetic with "them that brung ya" and still be seen as governing and spending with the best interests of the country at heart.

This is not true of the current government. They are not governing with the best interests of the country at heart. They are governing, and spending, only with the best interests of the Conservative Party at heart. They are proving to be incompetent at practical politics--the art of governing for all while supporting your own. The Conservative Party, Under Stephen Harper, has taken on the Prime Minister's own paranoia. Liberals, the NDP, etc. are not Canadians with differing views, but are at best unwitting dupes of pure evil in the Harperite worldview. Their belief that sometime in the past there was a perfect Canadian world and that we've gotten off track with all this crap about rights for bitches, hos, and faggots, that we need to have respect for our betters (you know them, they already have money and power), and (to quote Denny Crane) "I'm here to enjoy nature. Don't talk to me about the environment" approach to industry and the environment, well, if they had organized supporters who used physical intimidation to shut down dissent, the party would fit nicely into pre-WW II Italy. It's the same line of crap, fuelled by the same hate, the same fear, as we heard then. Thankfully, Canwest-Global is collapsing and the National Post is losing money hand over fist. Canada doesn't quite have a Fox propaganda network yet. That gives us some breathing room to fight this worldwide rightward drift here in our own country.

The Oil Refiners Conundrum

Irving Oil Ltd. and their partner BP PLC have decided to stop their planned construction of an $8B oil refinery that was to have been built in St. John, and they have done so on the basis of a report that looking out over the next thirty years, oil consumption has now peaked. There are now a number of analysts that believe that even if the economy recovers, gasoline consumption peaked last year, and we will never achieve those levels again.
Some analysts are suggesting that with the economy still tanking and excess inventory of gasoline and other refined products piling up (there's a million barrels per day of production capacity sitting idle in North America at the moment, and surplus inventory has hit a 24-year high), crude oil prices can be expected to tank—possibly as low as $20/barrel.
So even though refiners have seen their margins rising to a ten-year high (according to numbers released by MJ Ervin and Assoc. in 1998 refiners were seeing an annual average margin of 6.7¢/litre which has risen to a year-to-date average of 15.6¢/litre this year), they are not planning any more production capacity and are, in fact, abandoning planned expansion. Plans such as Royal Dutch Shell's now abandoned plans for a refinery near Sarnia, Ont., that was to handle production from the Alberta oil sands. Shell has also delayed the expansion of its Texas plant for two years—obviously wanting a better read on future North American consumption patterns before building what may well prove to be capacity that's surplus before it even comes on line.
Of course, if crude prices do fall to $20/bbl, a massive oversupply could trigger a steep fall in gasoline prices, and stimulate demand. But if North American governments hold to improved mileage rate requirements for new cars, even increased demand may not make up for the current oversupply.
But other analysts are suggesting that, particularly with the Saudis keeping a lid on their production in order to stabilize prices, prices may yet rebound to the $100/bbl level before dropping back into the $50-$60 range. If that is the case, demand is likely to fall even more than projected, leaving North America with a growing oversupply problem and refiners facing decent margins, but considerably less volume from which to get those margins.
So refiners are caught in a bind; legislated drop in demand and oversupply means falling volumes and lowered overall profits. Or legislated drop in demand, higher crude prices bringing a corresponding drop in consumer demand, and oversupply at refineries meaning lower consumption and a steadily rising oversupply. Either way, there's not going to be a lot of construction going on—even as the current refineries age. And if North American governments ever get really serious about global warming, these antiquated refineries will not only not be expanded, but will begin closing to meet emission requirements—which will finally take out the excess capacity, but will not encourage anyone to build new plants. Ultimately, this could mean that North America will be entirely reliant on shipping crude overseas ( that is, oil sand crude, making it even less economically viable than it is today) and importing refined hydrocarbons. Which is, contrary to my expectations, already happening.

So What's the Big Whoop about Deflation?

So Canada has registered it first “technical deflation” in 15 years in June 2009. More than a few people are having a very quiet freakout about this. A few, like Ken Rogoff (former research director at the IMF, now Harvard economics professor), John Makin (economist with the American Enterprise Institute, a hard-right conservative outfit) and Paul McCulley (portfolio manager at Pimco—who run the world's largest bond mutual fund) suggesting that this might be the time to bring back inflation—perhaps as high as 6% for a couple of years.
The spark behind this is the release of the consumer price index for the last couple of months, showing that in May and June, prices for consumers fell for the first time in years. While you and I might think this is good news, economists and businesses think differently about this. If the CPI is dropping, it begins to make sense, as a consumer, to put off spending money on anything. Why buy now, if in a month the price will have dropped? Does it make sense to spend 20K on a car if, by waiting a year, you can save $1100 (assuming an annual 6% deflation rate)? Of course not, particularly when not buying accelerates the deflation rate.
Again, as a consumer, this sounds great. Prices falling, money worth more instead of less (inflation eats away at the value of the dollar, making it worth less. Deflation reverses that), it sounds like good times for all. But with everyone sitting on their money, businesses find no reason to stay in business, or if they do, they certainly don't need to be as big. So as consumer spending falls, unemployment rises and the economy contracts. And if nothing kicks this pattern apart, it stabilizes into a long-term nation-crippling problem. Just ask the Japanese, who have been grappling with a structural deflation problem for over a decade now, since the collapse of the commercial real estate bubble.
We're not necessarily in that position here in Canada, as the major reason for our fall in the CPI is primarily the result of a 19% fall in gasoline prices. Although, nationally, prices increased at the pump 6.8% from May to June, prices have dropped 24.3% since this time last year. It should be noted that natural gas, car, and house carrying costs have all fallen over the last year as well, helping drive the CPI into negative territory. Phillip Verleger, a U of C professor and energy economist, is now forecasting a drop in the price of oil to $20/barrel (as predicted by peak oil theory, which forecasts a series of spikes and slumps in oil prices), which will hammer Oilberta—not so much in resource revenues, but in cancelled oil sands projects, unemployment, and concurrent collapse in consumer spending which will ripple out through the economy—and will continue to push the CPI into negative numbers. But, if you strip out the effect of oil/energy pricing from the current numbers, inflation is still tripping along at 2.1%, which is why this period is referred to as “technical deflation.”
So this is why our governments are all Keynesian now. The possibility of structural deflation is scaring the hell out of all of them and the corporate community. The system we live under is predicated on continual growth, and stabilizing that growth (removing the bubbles and crashes, inflationary and deflationary cycles) has been made job one for governments. Both corporations and the public dislike uncertainty, so uncertainty must go.
From an environmental point of view, a sustained period of deflation might be just the thing we need. But a deflating economy will have more trouble making the shift to a green(er) future than one that is growing. An expectation of profit is essential for businesses in order to get them to make changes in their business models.

Corruption, Private and Public

Here in B.C., some of us have been paying attention to the Basi/Virk trial—these are the guys who got arrested in 2003 when the RCMP raided the Ledge, hauling off cartons of files and papers. B&V are charged with fraud and corruption relating to the sale of BC Rail to CN. More precisely,leaking information, rigging the deal, and taking payoffs. Their defense is based on “just following orders” to get the interest (and, by extension, price) up on the sale. They deny having accepted money in any way (other than their salaries, of course), but acknowledge that they leaked information—though on the instructions of higher ups, including from our premier. So their lawyers subpoenaed all emails relating to the sale of BC Rail, including those of the premier.

It turns out, to no one's surprise, that the email records were destroyed. Of course there are rules concerning such things; “Government records destruction must be suspended during court orders for Demand for Discovery.” Also “Records disposition must be suspended during legally mandated reviews (e.g. Litigation, document discovery, and commissions of inquiry).” “Well,” said the business charged with keeping track of government backups, “that was more than 13 months ago, and they've already been trashed.”(or words to that effect.) Except that now it comes out that some email backup records from pre-May 2004 were discovered during the election campaign earlier this spring—including some of the premiers email. And somehow, someone in a position of power decided that the tapes should be destroyed. And so they were, during a campaign in which the court case was an issue. Funny how that happens, isn't it?

And Gordon Campbell “cruised to an easy win,” returning as premier for the third time. “Cruised to a win” in an election in which 4,500 votes, in the right ridings, would have almost exactly reversed the outcome. This is the kind of crap that sent Dick Nixon down. It's sunk quite a few Canadian politicians as well.

The question of whether the sale of BC Rail was corrupt isn't in doubt; by admission of Basi/Virk, it was. But naturally this won't make a damn bit of difference to the sale. Nothing can be allowed to interfere with that. Instead, at best, it will cost a couple of flunkies their jobs and maybe some jail time. Gordon Campbell is expected to retire before the next election, and every effort is being made to see that he remains un-tarred by this particular brush (although his bio will always record that he was a convicted felon when elected for the third time (having been convicted of felony DUI in Hawaii)). He will, of course, be cared for by those for whom he's made boatloads of money over the last two terms. But anyone actually paying a price for corruption in government? Not gonna happen.

This is one of the failings in our current system of government; there is a real and serious lack of accountability. CN knew damn well that it was participating in a corrupt process, but there will be no piper for them to pay. A couple of schmucks will have their lives ruined (maybe—they too may be cared for in the end by the rich pricks ripping apart the commons for private profit).

But what would happen if the sale was nullified? The billion dollars BC took for BC Rail returned to CN, and CN not compensated for “improvements” (the line has not only not been improved, but in fact has been the scene of numerous speed-based derailments, including the one that dumped highly toxic chemicals into the river outside of Squamish a couple of years back. CN paid a few bucks for the massive destruction of salmon at the time, but apparently no changes have been made to the way they've been doing business in the region. The number of derailments since bear witness to that.), but what if CN was actually taxed to recover all the profit they've made on the line since its sale? After all, a case could be made that, by participating knowingly in a corrupt bidding process, these profits are in fact proceeds of crime, just like any pot dealer's car. Corruption flourishes because of economic benefits. If you remove the benefits, you can slow or stop corruption.

Julia Dales

Yeaaaaah Booooy! Two casual minutes in the back seat of a car with a cellphone--taking a break from reading Death of a Salesman--Julia lays down some beats that are good enough to get her into a wildcard spot at the Beatbox Battle World Championship in Berlin this weekend. That's top 20 worldwide, y'all.

To quote Karl, "anything humans can do, they'll do competitively," and Julia just takes us all to school. Again, I am amazed at what humans are capable of, because not only is Ms. Dales in the beatbox battle, but she's holding a 95% average down, sings, writes music and plays guitar, and is in the process of choosing the university at which she will pursue studies in global development and political science.
Back in Grade 9, she knocked out her friends and schoolmates:

Humans have the most unexpected talents and they come out in the most unexpected times and places--often during wars, emergencies, or other times of great stress. It is up to us as a culture, as a society, to find ways that everyone's talents get a chance to develop--without the war, emergency, or great stress. Do I really have to tell you why?

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Conservative dirty tricks--not just in Amerika anymore

From Rabble.ca:

By Rebecca Granovsky-Larsen, Editor-in-Chief and Nora Loreto, News Editor

Audio recordings, photographs and documents that were leaked from a recent Conservative Party student workshop at the University of Waterloo expose a partisan attempt to take over student unions and undermine Ontario Public Interest Research Groups (OPIRGs) on campuses across Ontario.

At a session held in early February by the Ontario Progressive Campus Conservative Association (OPCCA) and the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, campus Conservatives, party campaigners, and a Member of Parliament discussed strategies to gain funding from student unions for the Conservative Party and ways to run for-and win-positions within student unions.

The leaked materials were posted on WikiLeaks.org over the weekend and add to the growing body of evidence that the Conservative Party has a strategy for interfering in campus student unions. In early 2002, the campus press first learned of a secret Millennium Leadership Fund that the party's campus wing used to fund candidates in student union elections. Now it appears that strategy has evolved into a campaign to falsely obtain student union funding and destabilize student clubs with a social justice mandate.

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Will Capitalism Collapse Under Its Own Contradictions?

Different in kind, different in scale, is this the big one? Via Alternet:

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Boxing Day +2

Woke up this morning and took the dogs for a walk--already the snow was pretty much gone. We met john and Louise for coffee and then the four of us went walking in the sunshine down to see the two kayaks abandoned on the beach (the one Paula salvaged and another). Both have been kicking around since the summer, but both have since been moved and are now clearly abandoned.
The weather has been terrific today. Lots of sun and mild temperatures--not even any wind. A bit of a breeze came up this afternoon--as usual--but it didn't get cold until the new front blocked out the sun mid-afternoon. When Paula and I got home from cleaning one of the cars we're responsible for (as members of the Victoria Car Share Co-op), I wandered down to Gyro Park to get some photos.


Olympic Mountains from a snow-free Gyro Park
The mountains aren't snow-free (although it may be difficult to tell from this distance), but the park is pretty much cleared. There's a lot of melt-water still trying to drain away, but there's considerably less than this morning (by about three quarters).


Wet, sure, but snow-free
The tides have been quite high (not perigeal tide high, but getting close), which makes it difficult for the park to drain. But as the tide goes out, the park empties. The park was originally a salt-marsh (home, I believe, to many harvest mice--which in some countries is how March goes out: like a salt-marsh harvest mouse), and is quite low. I suspect that if I took out a transit and stick, I'd discover that quite a bit of the park is below the high-tide line.


Frozen water in Gyro Park
There are those who are not unhappy with Gyro's slow draining. The photo above shows some of the undrained water in the park, which is appreciated by the local ducks (all fifty or sixty of them), and when frozen (as they are here), by the local kids who rarely get to slide about on frozen ponds. they were having a pretty great time.

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Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent

I count myself lucky to have managed to get my hands on this book already. This may be the most important non-fiction book written in Canada this year. Andrew Nikiforuk has shown once again that he is not afraid of the truth, and will report it. Canada's Greg Palast, if you will. He's already won the Governor General’s Award for his writing, and deserves it again.
Andrew Nikiforuk breaks his book down into a history of the oil sands and their development--a history of which we are all too ignorant. In each chapter he details an aspect of the oil sands history and how the exploitation of the sands has proceeded. The book begins with the "Declaration of a Political Emergency"--note, a political emergency, not an environmental one. That the Tar Sands is an environmental emergency is beyond question: alone, the sands account for why the federal government has spent upwards of six billion dollars on trying to reduce the Canadian carbon footprint and has achieved less than nothing (having actually fallen further behind its stated targets each year). But the most important chapter in Tar Sands is Chapter 12: The First Law of Petropolitics. Simply stated, it is this: as the price per barrel of oil rises, the freedoms, transparency, and democratic nature of a society falls. To quote from the book:
Ross examined a number of social and political measurements, such as taxes and military spending, from 113 different sates between 1971 and 1997 and found that a "single standard deviation rise" in oil wealth directly corresponded with a 0.72 drop on a democracy scale.
You don't have to belive any of this. All you have to do is read the suggestions put forward and then look at the Alberta provincial government and (particularly since the election of the Harper Conservatives) progressively the federal government to see the overwhelming linkages between the First Law of Petropolitics and the evidence of our own country's fall into Third World petrostate status. We are already corrupted.
You can see a preview of the book at Google books, and Andrew Nikiforuk's website contains a wealth of supplementary information. This doesn't do justice to the importance and readability of this major book. Go get it. Read it. Get really angry. And then DO SOMETHING.

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Keep Reading--It Just Gets Better

This is from the CBC:

A documentary that takes a critical look at the oilsands is raising a big stink at the Alberta legislature.

It turns out that Downstream, by U.S. documentary maker Leslie Iwerks, was funded in part by the provincial government.

That's prompted the government to take a closer look at how films get funded in Alberta.

Downstream features the story of Dr. John O'Connor, who blew the whistle on the health effects of the oilsands on residents of Fort Chipewyan, a town downstream from the project.

The film is on a shortlist of documentaries nominated for an Academy Award in 2009.

Like Passchendaele, which recreated Calgary during the First World War, and the steamy love story of gay cowboys, Brokeback Mountain, it got financing through the Alberta Film Development Fund.

All the films that are approved under the fund are signed off by Culture Minister Lindsay Blackett.

Blackett told CBC News he may have to rethink how he approves films for funding.

"Even though all the projects come to me for my final signature, you get a couple of lines as to what that film is and … we're looking at now how do I get more information about it because — oh, it's a film about Alberta, it's a film about the oilsands — but who knew what it meant at the time?" Blackett said.

Blackett said he might have considered withholding funding if he'd known how critical the film would be of the oilsands.

Downstream comes at a time when the government is sinking millions into improving Alberta's reputation around the world.

However, there is no mechanism in place now that would allow him to deny funding.

The Alberta Film Development Fund offers money to films that use Alberta producers actors or technicians.

Now it's considering adding an element of creative control to the criteria.

"Because if I'm going to actually invest money on behalf of Albertans into a film, the whole idea is to show Alberta in a better light, to create an economic diversification to help them, so anything that's going to be negative is only going to be a negative impetus on this province," he said.

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Harper Speaks

Prorogue has been granted. Harper will stay for the next while. Parliament will resume on January 26th/09, and a budget will immediately be introduced.
Harper will not discuss why it took two hours with the GG to get his prorogue.
This is still a poor decision on the GGs part. So we can expect the lie machine to go into overdrive for the next 7 weeks.  No indication that any limits were put on Harper by the GG. harper doesn't sound the least humbled or understanding that he is in a minority situation. This guy really isn't the person we need for PM at this time--we might have trouble surviving him.
Harper is defending his decision to withdraw public funding from political parties. He indicates that he is still intending to remove public funding from political parites--why not just give up, Stephen, and put the corporate assholes in charge of Canada? We know you'd be happy with that.

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So Just What's Up?

Like  so many others, I've spent the last way too long watching pictures of a door on television. Harper has spent the last two plus hours talking with the Governor General, Michelle Jean, and word has just come out that she has granted a proroguing of this parliament. The PM hasn't addressed the public yet--although a couple of minutes ago a podium was set up!!!!! (see what watching a door will do to you?)--so we still don't know if any conditions were set on the prorogue.
I don't think this was the best decision on the part of the GG. If Harper has received his proroguing, it means that any subsequent PM, facing a confidence vote in the house that s/he is expecting to lose, can approach the GG and, by precedent, get a prorogue. This means the primary element of democratic accountability will have been removed from parliament and, by extension, the Canadian public.
The GG may have set limits on what Stephen Harper can do during the next however many weeks--similar to during an election campaign when there can be no major spending or laws passed. We shall see. Harper is not known for allowing rules or laws to stand in his way....

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Crisis? What Crisis?

I am, I confess, something of a political junkie. Not quite hardcore enough to watch CPAC when the house is sitting, but certainly trying to keep up with much of what is going on in Ottawa at any given time. So the last week has been, well, a lot of fun for me.

The only current “crisis” that I see in the capital is that the Harper Conservatives have been humbled. That's pretty much it. That the current governing party may no longer be governing after the 8^th of December, well, that's not a crisis. The circumstances may be almost unprecedented in Canadian parliamentary history, and the uncertainty surrounding the current Prime Minister's ability to govern may be a problem, but this is not a crisis for anyone except the Harper Conservatives.

This has happened before: the King-Byng affair, as it is called, occurred when Mackenzie King's Liberals fell in 1926. They were a minority government supported by the Progressives and lost a confidence motion (based around a scandal). King moved to dissolve Parliament and go to an election, but Byng, the Governor General, refused King, and instead allowed Aurthur Meighen to form a government with the support of the Progressives. The coalition fell five days later on a motion questioning the legitimacy of the government and an election was then called, resulting in King returning with a bare majority (128 seats, with 127 for all opposition parties). To quote Claude Bélanger of Marianopolis College:

"The Canadian people had vindicated King who had claimed that Meighen and Byng had acted improperly and had undermined responsible government in Canada. The electoral decision might have been politically wise but it was constitutionally unsound. The Governor-General might not have acted wisely but there is no doubt that he had the right, given the circumstances, to refuse to follow King's advice. It is one of the royal prerogatives that, given certain circumstances [...] it can refuse to follow the advice of the Cabinet to dissolve Parliament and can choose an individual who has a reasonable chance to be supported by the House to lead the government. “

A Liberal/NDP coalition would be perfectly legitimate—even and especially because they would be formally supported by the Bloc, who would not be a part of the government, but have signed a formal agreement not to vote against the coalition on a confidence motion over the next year. What our current Prime Minister seems confused about (as do most Conservative and conservative commentators) is that in Canada we do not elect a Prime Minister, we elect a parliament. Prime Ministers are expendable and replaceable—witness Westminster where Gordon Brown has replaced Tony Blair without an election. Both were sitting members, but the party lost confidence in the sitting Prime Minister and replaced him. The government didn't fall (nor did the sky), just the Prime Minister.

The biggest problem faced by the country now is not the legitimacy of the government—that will be dealt with by a confidence vote in the House and, should the sitting government fall, by the Governor General—but by the attacks by the Conservative party on the legitimacy of the coalition. We will see and hear things like this quote (from the Sydney Morning Herald): “We will be fighting this with every legal means at our disposal," a senior government official said. "It's an attack on Canada. It's an attack on Canada's democracy. It's an attack on our economy.” This is, of course, total bullshit. A lie, if you will. A falsehood. A knowing misstatement of the truth. But a lie that will get traction.
When our current PM says: ''We will use all legal means to resist this undemocratic seizure of power,'' [Harper] told Conservatives at their annual Christmas party at an Ottawa hotel. ``My friends, such an illegitimate government would be a catastrophe, for our democracy, our unity and our economy, especially at a time of global instability.'' (quoted in the Miami Herald), he is lying. Such an action will be a catastrophe for him personally, as he will no longer be PM and, one assumes, very quickly no longer leader of the Conservative party as well, but the formation of a coalition government is neither illegitimate nor is it a catastrophe for the country. (Said coalition may be a disaster, but until it has had a chance to govern, it is an open question as to its competence). If anything, such a coalition could be seen as being more legitimate, as the member parties of the coalition will represent a larger percentage of the popular vote in Canada than do the currently-governing Conservatives. But what we face is not a crisis of government, but rather a crisis of truth from the Conservative propaganda machine in full panic mode.It has already begun—John Ivison wrote in The National Post that Canada's about to become "the world's coldest banana republic." What a load of horsecrap. The proposed coalition has been aboveboard (or at least as aboveboard as such things tend to be) in their decision. They have announced what they intend to do, have formally signed agreements about what the Canadian public can expect from the coalition, and have laid out in those agreements a division of powers and responsibilities ahead of their proposed action.
It should be noted that the BQ has no part nor representation in the proposed governing coalition. What they have formally agreed to do is to not defeat the coalition on a confidence vote for a set period of time. That's it. That's all. That there is a quid pro quo is certain--just as there was between the BQ and the Harper Conservatives during the Martin government. In this case, the BQ will expect a certain amount of input into plans made by the coalition—as it should. As should the Conservatives for that matter; a minority government cannot and must not govern from an ideological basis, but rather from one of co-operation and consensus building. That is one of the reasons why Canadians like and elect minority governments.
Most certainly, this is not over. Monday will prove to be a very interesting day—particularly for political junkies like me.

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J, K, L

I spent almost a work-week on the water this summer in an inflatable boat fighting seasickness and trying to keep track of the number and actions of the local whale-watching boats pursuing the local pods of orcas.
Paula got me involved with a group called Straitwatch (www.straitwatch.org) which watches whale watchers (and, for some reason, whenever I try to describe what they do, Elvis Costello's “Watching The Detectives” plays in my head). Straitwatch doesn't watch whales, instead they try and educate the public on the legal requirements around whale watching, and they track the activities of the whale watching businesses on the west coast, making sure that everyone is playing by the (same) rules. The rules are pretty simple; no closer than 400 metres front and back to the pod, no closer than 100 metres at the sides. If you're getting close, slow your engines. If you're caught within the minimum distance, cut your engines until the whales move away.
Now I read a report in The West Australian that apparently there are seven orcas missing from the local waters.
Seven gone this year, and that after reports of emaciation in J, K, and L pod's whales.One was the 98 (estimated)-year-old matriarch K-7, another L-101,the six-year-old brother of Luna (the (in)famous Nootka Sound whale). What makes it even worse is that L-67 (mother of L-101 and Luna), and another breeding-age female are both also missing and presumed dead. This makes the third year of a downhill trend for the population of local orca, after topping out at 90 whales in 2005.
To quote from the article; "[p]ollution and a decline in prey are believed to be the whales’ biggest threats, although stress from whale-watching tour boats and underwater sonar tests by the navy also have been concerns." I can speak to the stress from the industry; the busiest day I saw on the water this summer, there were over 40 boats around the whales. There were over 50 boats on the busiest day in August.
It makes economic sense. That day in August there were over forty boats surrounding the whales; ranging from our Zodiac with three people in it, up to large boats carrying fifty plus people that had come over from Vancouver. Which seems crazy to me, but once you multiply fifty people by $75/head, well, $3,750 a trip buys a lot of gas and a pretty extravagant boat. Heck, even ten people in a Zodiac isn't bad—especially if you can do it three times a day.
So there is a strong economic factor in whale watching. But, watching the whales for a moment during a break in data collection, all I could think was here is a group of mammals doing what they've always done—at a minimum, since the ice last receded,—and here we are driving boats over them for the last twenty five or thirty years. To read that K-7 was almost a hundred years old,well, the change from hunted to harassed had occurred in her lifetime. How tired of people had she become? Hell, I'm half her age and I'm tired enough of people that I stay in the house for weeks on end. Bears at least kill the occasional tourist to keep us on our toes, but the local orcas didn't even nibble on the idiot who put on his wetsuit and went swimming amongst them this August. And that is the Disneyfication of the natural world; a disrespect so deep that I can only hope that the swimmer tries it again among the transient whale population. They eat animals that look like seals....

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