Photosynthesising in a CO2-enriched world
Posted in Canada, Climate change on May 1st, 2010
Neatly underscoring just how unusual the winter of 2009-2010 was here in Canada, the Ottawa Tulip Festival is facing the prospect of a lack of tulips. CBC reports that crews have already started pulling up some tulip beds a week before the festival is even due to start. It isn’t all bad. The late blooming [...]
Posted in Canada, Canadian NewsWatch on Apr 21st, 2010
Climate Scientist Sues National Post for Libel Weaver Seeks Unprecedented Order to Remove Stories That “Poison” the Internet VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA–(Marketwire – April 21, 2010) – University of Victoria Professor Andrew Weaver, the Canada Research Chair in Climate Modelling and Analysis, launched a lawsuit today in BC Supreme Court against three writers at The National [...]
Posted in Canada, Climate change on Apr 18th, 2010
Jim Prentice on Earth Day: “As in any day where we symbolize a matter of significance, Earth Day highlights the cause, it highlights the importance of all of us making individual efforts, and so yes, it’s important,” he said. “I would like Canadians to think about our responsibility as stewards as one of the most [...]
Posted in Canada on Apr 12th, 2010
Simon Donnor has an interesting proposal for how Canada can make progress on meeting emissions targets. Provinces, if they commit to a defined federal standard for emissions reductions – say, an optimistic 14% below 1990 by 2020 – would become eligible for participation in a federal climate change policy program. This gives them access to [...]
Posted in Canada on Mar 14th, 2010
Winter 2009/2010: 4.0°C above normal Warmest winter since records began in 1948 Driest out of the past 63 years, 22% below normal Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan had 60% less precipitation than normal It really has been extraordinary. Says David Phillips, a senior climatologist with Environment Canada: "I think it’s a combination of a strong El [...]
Posted in Canada on Mar 8th, 2010
What does science get from the 2010 budget, after funding cuts of $147 million in 2009? First, a promise about creating The Economy of Tomorrow [p.55]: In designing Canada’s Economic Action Plan, the Government incorporated measures to help create the economy of tomorrow. In 2010–11, the Action Plan will invest almost $1.9 billion in post-secondary [...]
Posted in Canada on Feb 17th, 2010
Parliament may be prorogued, but the opposition parties are keeping busy. I was up on Parliament Hill last week for the Round Table on ‘Improving the Lives of Northerners’. Lots of interesting Arctic policy titbits. Michael Ignatieff comments: “An Arctic strategy can’t be only a military strategy.” Spot on. A couple of new icebreakers to [...]
Posted in Canada on Jan 23rd, 2010
“If the United States decides to go down that road of not carbon taxing and not capping and trading but rather, simply, detailed regulations across the economy, we would need to harmonize with the United States on a regulatory approach,” he said. What is left to try, if not a carbon tax and if not [...]
Posted in Canada on Jan 20th, 2010
“I don’t think we should consider signing on to a deal that makes us virtually the sole country in the world that is going to take any action.” (Stephen Harper, Toronto Star, September 5, 2002) “Kyoto does virtually nothing to deal with pollution and to deal with the quality of the air that we breathe. [...]