Author Archive

Lac Megantic: Environmental Report Details Extent of Contamination

Toronto Star: There was never doubt that the deadly train derailment in Lac-Mégantic caused an environmental disaster, but a report made public this week by Quebec’s ministry of the environment details the extent of the devastation to the soil, river and lake near the disaster zone. An estimated 5.6 million litres of crude oil spilled out of the 72-car train that barrelled into the Quebec town July 6. A significant percentage burned off in the explosion and blaze, but several hundred thousand litres of oil...

Canada: Climate change caused Calgary, Ontario flooding: Poll

Toronto Star: Climate change caused by human activities was behind the flooding in Calgary and the recent storms in central Ontario. That’s the belief of 53 per cent of Canadians polled July 23 by Forum Research. It’s also a belief more common among women (59 per cent) than men. In addition, eight in 10 of those polled believe the Earth’s climate overall is changing. Forum Research polled 1,782 Canadians who were 18 or over. The political backgrounds of those polled were also registered. Apparently,...

Canada: ‘Nobody Understands’ Oil Spills at Alberta Tar Sands Operation

Toronto Star: Oil spills at a major oil sands operation in Alberta have been ongoing for at least six weeks and have cast doubts on the safety of underground extraction methods, according to documents obtained by the Star and a government scientist who has been on site. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. has been unable to stop an underground oil blowout that has killed numerous animals and contaminated a lake, forest, and muskeg at its operations in Cold Lake, Alta. The documents indicate that, since cleanup...

Canadians lobby Congress on climate change

Toronto Star: Under a toasty summer sun last week in Washington, President Barack Obama peeled off his jacket and mopped the sweat off his brow, as if to accentuate the reason for his speech at Georgetown University: the world is getting hotter. And with that visual and his words, Obama laid out his plan of action to deal with climate change, which involves ramping up emissions rules on new and existing power plants. At that very moment, a few miles away on Capitol Hill, I was preparing to meet with the energy...

Canada: Mackenzie River, ‘Amazon of North,’ under threat

Toronto Star: Alexander Mackenzie kept a careful record of his troubles 224 summers ago, scribbling about torments like cold, driving rain and clouds of ravenous mosquitoes as he paddled a bark canoe north to the Arctic. For days on end in early June 1789, he journeyed along the shores of Great Slave Lake, blocked at each turn by ice, searching with native guides for a route to the river that would eventually take his name. Some 600 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle, lake ice was a constantly shifting barricade,...

When the desert devours the lake

Toronto Star: In its glory days during the 1960s, Lake Chad was 38,000 square kilometres of sparkling blue-green water that nourished humans, animals and plant life in the four countries it straddled: Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria. The lake, on the edge of the mighty Sahara Desert, gave solace to people. Poems were written about it; celebrations were held on its banks. But Lake Chad is now a speck of what it was five decades ago, measuring just 1,300 square kilometres. The Sahara desert is the culprit....

Canada: Toronto ill-equipped for impending storms, experts warn

Toronto Star: Buses, roads and sewers may not be trending topics on Twitter, but the people who run Canadian cities and businesses say infrastructure is a sleeper subject worthy of more civic engagement. The pipes and pavement of the 1950s, '60s and '70s are rapidly wearing out. Investing in infrastructure renewal is a way of shoring up an uncertain economy with good jobs and gains in productivity. It's also a way of protecting Toronto from the damage of climate change, city and business experts told a news...

Canada: Radical environmentalists discredit their cause with extreme claims on oilsands

Toronto Star: Developing Alberta's oilsands poses big environmental problems for the province, and the whole country. But it does not involve, quite literally, the end of the world as we know it. A common sense conclusion, if ever there was one. But when an eminent climate researcher published a study this week making these seemingly balanced and even banal statements, it made a splash -- precisely because climate science is such an intensely politicized field where balance is the hardest thing to find. And...

Canada: Titanic clash looms over proposed Northern Gateway pipeline

Toronto Star: A biologist, an energy lawyer and an aboriginal geologist will sit down Tuesday in a recreation centre in the wilderness of northern British Columbia to initiate what could be the fiercest environmental standoff ever seen in Canada. Before the hearings in B.C. and Alberta are completed next year, more than 4,000 people are expected to appear before the three-member panel vetting the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline from Alberta through the Rockies to the B.C. coast. Like the now-stalled Keystone...