Our New Web Site - No new posts here

We are in the midst of developing a new website here. We are rather excited about this change, and think everyone will like it, but it will take some time to get everything moved there. So the old sites will remain, at least for the time being.

Nevertheless, this column is going up there already, so we will not longer be posting anything here. So check out the new site. Share your opinions on the issues of the day there. The site allows that.

If you have some thoughts about the website, get back to WadeWiebe@yahoo.com or eric@southeasttransition.com

Canadians Want a Clean Energy Future

One goal of the Premier’s conference last month was to develop a national energy strategy. That did not happen. According to news reports, this failure occurred because Premier Christy Clark would not agree to any general energy strategy unless BC and Alberta could reach some agreement in their current dispute. Clark had laid down five conditions that would need to be met if the proposed Keystone oil pipeline, promoted by Alberta, was to pass through BC. The single condition that is generating the most controversy has to do with the sharing of the revenues resulting from the export of the bitumen/oil. 

At first glance there seems to be much wisdom in such a stance: if we can’t agree on the detail on this specific aspect of energy development, what’s the point of talking about general agreements. The devil is in the detail.

But on second thought, much of that wisdom evaporates. The dispute seems to be about who gets what revenue. The dispute framed that way assumes the resource, bitumen/oil, ought to be developed, exported and sold. But should and do Canadians accept this assumption?

A new survey commissioned by Tides Canada speaks to this. The results are striking. According to this new poll, Canadians believe the country needs an energy plan that reduces fossil fuel dependence, cuts energy waste, creates more clean-energy jobs, fights climate change, and sets aside a portion of oil wealth to help prepare for a clean and renewable energy future.

“Citizens are hungry for a smart plan that will move the nation forward on the emerging global clean-energy opportunity and tackle climate change at the same time,” says Merran Smith, director of the energy initiative at Tides Canada.

Tides Canada commissioned Harris/Decima to do the survey. Canadians were asked to indicate to what degree they would prioritize a series of objectives for a potential Canadian energy strategy. They identified as a “top” or “high” priority “improving energy efficiency” (82 percent), “creating more jobs in clean energy” (75 percent), “reducing Canada’s carbon pollution to slow down climate change” (66 percent), and “reducing our reliance on fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal” (66 percent).

In contrast, only 33 percent of those surveyed placed a “top” or “high” priority on “exporting more of Canada’s oil and gas resources.” 

 

Meanwhile, 82 percent of those surveyed said that they either “strongly agree” or “somewhat agree” that “Canada should set aside a portion of its oil wealth to help prepare the nation for a clean and renewable energy future.”

The idea of a Canadian energy strategy resonates strongly with citizens. Fully 87 percent of those surveyed either “strongly” or “somewhat” agree with the statement “the nation needs a Canadian energy strategy to plan its energy future.” 

Oh that our governments would listen!

Eric Rempel

Natural Systems Agriculture Field day

I attended the Ecological and Organic Farming Systems Field Day at Carman last Monday. As in previous years, the plots and the work we were shown was most impressive. In introducing the day, Dr. Martin Entz informed us that their work indicates they can produce field crops using 37% of the fossil energy needed in conventional farming. The 150 guests there spent the rest of the day seeing how the research team goes about achieving this remarkable efficiency.

This reported efficiency is astonishing for two very different reasons.

It is astonishing that, given this efficiency, only very few people produce food in this way. Why don’t they? Because current economics does not reward this efficiency. The current fossil energy price is artificial. True, the price is determined by free market forces. In that sense it is the free market price, but that price only includes the cost of extracting the oil, and does not even include all of those costs. Furthermore, that price includes no compensation to future generations who will not have access to this precious resource because it will be gone. Whatever that compensation ought to be, whether it is high or low, it is never included in the market price of fossil energy. The market price of fossil energy is artificially low. Because of this low market price, it currently makes economic sense to use fossil energy extravagantly, in the production of our food.

But the number is also astonishing because it shows what is possible when good science is applied to a problem. In conventional agriculture, the posed challenge is, maximize net economic return by managing fertility, weed control, pest control and genetics. Prodigious amounts of research dollars have been and are being devoted to addressing the challenge defined in this way, and the results have been truly impressive.

The Natural Systems Farming research team has redefined the challenge. Their focus is not on economic return, but on return to energy. Prior to the fossil era, prior to this era when fossil fuel has been readily available, the food production challenge has always been that: how to get the necessary food, while expending the minimal amount of energy. What was lacking prior to the fossil era, was the application of the scientific method, and world wide communications.

When my grandfather farmed with horses, he was very aware of energy in and energy out. There was no cheap energy. His tools to enhance fertility were summerfallow, alfalfa, sweet clover, and to a limited extent, barnyard manure. The Carman researchers, today, are able to choose for some twenty different potentially useful green manure crops. My grandfather was very limited in the tools he had available. Today many more tools are available to both researcher and farmer.

The work done at Carman needs to be nurtured. Input manufacturers will not do this research, because it does not result in a return for them. Such research needs to be and only will be funded by a forward thinking government.

By Eric Rempel

Does extreme weather add up to climate change?

I have no trouble remembering a time when a drought was just that: a drought. Sure, even as we lapped up the sunshine and enjoyed our ice cream, we were concerned about our gardens and the crops our farmer friends were tending. But no one doubted then, that the drought would come to an end – sometime.

But things are not that way anymore. Now we have extreme weather, and we wonder: is this just another weather cycle, or are we beginning to experience climate change. There can be little doubt that we are experiencing extreme weather. For us in Manitoba it began with the record flooding on the Assiniboine River in the spring of 2011. That was followed by the record dry summer in 2011, an extremely warm winter, and now again record high temperatures and prolonged drought.

Britain by contrast has been incredibly wet. The reporting leading up to the Olympics refers to this every evening. The wettest April ever was followed by the wettest June (more than double average rainfall), and July has started the same way.

Russia had its hottest summer ever in 2010, with peat wildfires raging out of control — over 5,000 excess deaths in Moscow in July alone — but this summer it’s wet in Russia too.

This past week we have been hearing about flash floods in China

One could go on, enumerating extreme weather events in Australia and the US, but in fact, they are all just anecdotal. Anecdotes – extreme weather events – do not prove that climate change is occurring.

So can we say anything about climate change with absolute certainty? Well, no, we can’t. It is just possible that all of the events we are witnessing are just a random collection of extreme events that signify nothing at all. But it’s a long-shot. Occasionally a tossed coin comes up heads six times in a row. But usually it doesn’t.

Were global warming actually occurring we would not feel it. If the actual temperature of our planet went up one or two degrees, we would not notice this. The glaciers and the polar ice caps may be affected, and, say the climate scientests, the weather would get wilder.

We never really experience the climate; what we feel is the daily weather that it produces. A climate that is changing will produce unfamiliar weather — and if it is getting warmer, it will be more energetic weather. Wilder weather, if you like.

That means hotter, longer heat waves, and bigger storms that bring torrential rain and killer wind speeds. But it can also mean prolonged droughts as rainfall patterns change — and much more severe winters, like the “Snowmageddon” storm that hit Washington in February 2010 and shut down the U.S. federal government for a week.

You can’t prove that all this means we are sliding into a new and steadily worsening climate right now — that the long-threatened future has arrived.

The statistics aren’t good enough to support that conclusion yet. But if you have to put your money down now, bet yes.


By Eric Rempel