Carbon tax most powerful way to fight climate crisis: IMF

Rural Manitobans need to stop electing Tories if we hope to make progress on climate mitigation. (Opinion)

by Larry Powell

I believe we rural Manitobans need to do a deep “re-think” of how we traditionally vote if we want to do anything meaningful about our looming climate catastrophe.

In my own riding of Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa, for example, we're about to elect Dan Mazier (l.), to a four-year term as our Conservative Member of Parliament. While he wouldn't accept the label of "climate-denier" (he does use solar panels to help power his farm and has been endorsed by an environmental group), he’s still echoing on social media, his own party’s shrill opposition to the carbon tax. (In my books, this makes him a candidate for that label.) 

Despite the fact the tax applies to fossil fuels only, is refundable and exempts many farm fuels like the ones Mazier burns on his own farm, he amazingly concludes, it will “increase the cost of almost everything!” 

In my mind, one cannot be a true supporter of climate action while opposing a price on carbon. 

Here's why.

A carbon tax in BC in the early 2000s, worked.  It actually reduced emissions without damaging the economy in the least. It has also been endorsed by leading climatologists, a Nobel prize-winning economists and the respected think-tank, the Pembina Institute, to name a few. 

Here's the proof.

• THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
• CARBON TAX CENTER
• SUZUKI FOUNDATION
• PAUL ROMER - NOBEL PRIZE-WINNER
• CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL
• PEMBINA INSTITUTE
• JAMES HANSEN - WORLD'S FOREMOST CLIMATOLOGIST
• BELOW 2 DEGREES C

Vast acreages like this remain in Manitoba fields due to storm
conditions some have described as "historic." A PinP photo.

The irony of Mazier’s position is striking. He's a conventional farmer who uses lots of fuel in his big machines and synthetic fertilizers on his crops. And he's almost certainly facing economic losses himself from a wacky growing season which bears all the hallmarks of manmade climate change. Drought, torrential rains, hail and snow have left vast amounts of crop in the fields (see above) and many livestock producers on the verge of ruin. And the irony only deepens when you consider the deeply-flawed way Trudeau imposed the tax on Manitoba. It exempts producers like Mazier from paying it at all on much of the fuel he burns on his farm.

For years, Conservative has been the party of choice for most rural Manitobans. The outgoing MP for this area, Conservative Robert Sopuck, criticized organic production and strongly opposed action on climate change. He was a strong supporter of the status quo in regard to conventional farming and livestock production.

I'm not convinced that I fully believe Conservatives who say they accept that manmade climate change is happening. They take that position because the science is now so compelling, it would make them look ridiculous in the public eye to say otherwise. So their condemnation of a carbon tax is their "fallback position," where they can deny the science in private but publicly still appear to be disagreeing only on solutions.

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We’re Just Starting to Learn How Fracking Harms Wildlife

EcoWatch

A PinP photo.

Spills highlight the dangers that come with unconventional fossil-fuel extraction techniques that go after hard-to-reach pockets of oil and gas using practices like horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing (otherwise known as fracking). Details here.

How a small Manitoba town urged action on our climate crisis - a video by Larry Powell

Unprecedented damage to oceans has Canada's marine life on the run

Canada's National Observer 
The world's foremost climate scientists have found oceans are getting intensely warmer, sea levels are rising and the Earth's waters are losing oxygen and becoming more acidic. Story here.

A Pacific ocean perch (top) and blackspotted rockfish (bottom).
Photo by NOAA.

RELATED:

• New research finds that “marine reserves” – tracts of ocean where fishing is banned – are protecting fish, the coral reefs where they live and vast undersea "gardens," a lot more than once thought. - by Larry Powell
• Do Marine Reserves Provide a Buffer Against the Ravages of Climate Change? Yes, say experts! - by Larry Powell

Greta Thunberg's full speech to the United Nations

We must act now - for people and our planet. (Video)

In Alberta, a shocking abuse of political power to protect the oil industry

NATIONAL OBSERVER

This story is part of "Covering Climate Now," a global collaboration of more than 220 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate story:

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The Government of Alberta has created the new “Energy War Room” (with an annual budget of $30 million) to combat environmental NGOs, specifically those who have been campaigning against the oil sector. This may come as a surprise to taxpayers wondering why a billion-dollar industry needs such government-subsidized assistance in the first place. Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage provided an answer of sorts, offering the following as the higher purpose of the Energy War Room: More here.

An aerial photo believed to depict a dump site near the Muskeg River mine,
Alberta tar sands. A "Beautiful Destruction" photo.

Three billion birds in the US and Canada have vanished since 1970, surveys show

Science magazine

North America's birds are disappearing from the skies at a rate that's shocking even to ornithologists. Story here.

Birds ranging from the iconic meadowlark (l.) to the common house sparrow (below) are being hit. PinP photos.

Manitoba taxpayers paid out almost $900 thousand to help counter a deadly hog disease in this province. A PinP exclusive.

by Larry Powell

It cost the Manitoba treasury $871,847.26  to help hog producers battle “Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea,” (PED) since the killer virus invaded many barns in the southeast in the spring of 2017. But even with authorities warning that PED has now spread further west and north than ever before, and could return to the same high levels as it did in 2017, the provincial government claims it still doesn’t know how many piglets have died in the outbreak. (PED causes significant deaths only in animals in their first few days of life.)

Photo credit - Manitoba Pork.

*The Department of Agriculture tells PinP, "With respect to the number of piglet mortalities, this is personal business information and mortalities are not required to be reported for any livestock species.”

Yet the government’s own “Livestock Manure and Mortalities Management Regulations” seem to suggest otherwise. They say, when a producer has more animals dying than he/she can routinely dispose of (as was almost certainly the case here), “the operator shall, without delay, provide an environment officer with any information about the situation that the officer requests.” 

So, what does this mean? The industry has been reporting the numbers, and the government is lying? Or, has the industry not been reporting them and, by so doing, breaking the law by ignoring the regulations? Or, has the government simply not been asking these question? Any one of these scenarios surely display serious neglect on someone's part!

A year or so after the initial outbreak, industry officials were describing how they got “walloped” by it, how desperate efforts to fight it were causing symptoms in some owners and barn workers similar to PTSD, and describing it as "the largest animal disease outbreak in the province in 30 years."

Yet the closest estimate to the number of mortalities on the public record appears in the online publication “Pig Progress” in March of 2018. A swine specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, Robyn Harte, is quoted as saying, at the peak of the outbreak, “There were over one million pigs under surveillance.” She does not elaborate. 

Several other requests I’ve made to the industry group, Manitoba Pork for a figure on mortalities, have gone unanswered.

Another partial hint on the death toll came in June of 2017. The President of Hylife, a major, Manitoba-based producer and pork processor, was appearing before the Commons Agriculture Committee. Claude Vielfaure testified, "As of yesterday, we believe that we've lost 21,000 pigs already to PED." 

The cost to the public treasury comes in because the government helps industry manage the disease by paying for some veterinary fees, diagnostic services, lab supplies and staff expenses. 

Experts have warned for years that Intensive Livestock Operations, like the ones in Manitoba, where large numbers of animals are housed in confined spaces, contribute to disease outbreaks. Late in 2017, well after the initial outbreak, the provincial government relaxed regulations to allow for industry expansion.

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**I initially asked the Government for this information in an e-mail. But it only responded after I launched a formal inquiry under “FIPPA,” the Freedom of Information and Personal Privacy Act. 

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Boreal Forest Fires Could Release Deep Soil Carbon

NASA

Courtesy Environment & Climate Change, Canada.

Increasingly frequent and severe forest fires could burn generations-old carbon stored in the soils of boreal forests. Releasing this previously buried carbon into the atmosphere could change these forests’ balance of carbon gain and loss, potentially accelerating warming. Story here.