Disobedience

Leap Manifesto a little vague for you? Here ya go...

"We have to roll back corporate capture of our governments if we want to try and fix problems that conflict directly with their industry bottom line."

"There's nothing radical about anything we're talking about. If you are willing to get up in the morning and make your fortune by altering the chemical composition of the atmosphere ... then you're a radical and our job is to try and check that radicalism ."

"Disobedience is a new film about a new phase of the climate movement: courageous action that is being taken on the front lines of the climate crisis on every continent, led by regular people fed up with the power and pollution of the fossil fuel industry.

Disobedience tells the story of 4 communities - in Canada, Philippines, Turkey, and Germany - preparing to participate in Break Free from Fossil Fuels actions in May 2016.

Screenings are being planned across the globe starting on April 30 to support ongoing organizing to defeat the fossil fuel industry."
So far in Canada one screening at York U has been planned and the first organized action is in BC :

"If Big Oil gets its way, the Kinder Morgan pipeline could be approved by the end of 2016 – but we can stop that. 

On May 14th, we’re going to encircle the Kinder Morgan facility on the ground and on the water...
On the ground, hundreds of us will march down to the facility together and stage a sit-in outside the gates.
On the water, we’ll create a mass flotilla of kayaks and canoes.We’ll cross the Burrard Inlet to swarm the tanker terminal for the Kinder Morgan facility, which could see over 400 tankers a year putting the coast at risk if the project is approved.."

BreakFree 2016.

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World ass oil spill response in Vancouver harbour

Say, remember last year when Rachel Maddow was absolutely gob-smacked to learn that Kinder Morgan had included the economic benefits of oil spills in its National Energy Board application to triple the size of the Trans Mountain pipeline?

  

Well, funny story there ....

Kinder Morgan-owned company called in to clean up oil spill in English Bay

That would be 2,700 litres of this toxic gunk.

So I guess we owe KM an apology here. 

They were right - there are economic benefits if you're a KM shareholder. 

KM would have liked to get that apology last year, claiming that they were obligated to mention the upside of oil spills in their pitch to NEB. 

Unfortunately NEB said that was crap.

Federal government describes response to fuel spill as “world class”  Conservative MP James Moore

To which Press Progress replied  :On what fucking planet does this look like a "world class" oil spill response?   (I might be paraphrasing slightly here)

World assness in progress.... 

Spill reported at 5 pm by a sailor. 

Nine hours later at 2am there was a boom in place around the leaking bunker fuel now wending its way to the beaches of Kitsilano and West Van.

And finally, 12 hours after the leak was first spotted, someone remembered to let the City of Vancouver in on the secret. 

So how could it possibly have taken so long to get their shit together?

Ok here's a clue. The Cons shut down the key responders in 2013.

We had a marine safety response purge when the Kitsilano Coast Guard base - 6 minutes away from the bunker fuel spill  - was shut down to save $700K a year, and the special pollution response boat with its 300 meters of self-inflating oil- containment boom was moth-balled off to Richmond.

Gotta balance that world class ouroboros budget. 

Like why are we here first ? ...

Volunteers were out cleaning up the gunk off the shoreline themselves and putting up home-made signs warning to keep dogs and children out of the oily water. Good on them. Still, sea birds are notoriously poor readers and some had to be rescued when they got soaked in the gunk after not obeying the signs. 

CBC reports the leaking vessel was on its maiden voyage after being launched from a Japanese shipyard in February. So - a brand new vessel then.

According to Tanker Free BC, the proposed Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker project "would see an increase from the current 80 tankers a year to over 400 tankers a year carrying primarily tar sands bitumen which is more likely to sink in the marine environment potentially causing significant harm."

Too bad we don't have some kind of ocean traffic control tower to co-ordinate emergency response communications for the next one. ..... Wait for it .....

Fun fact : "Vancouver will also have to deal without a marine traffic communications centre (the ocean's equivalent to an air traffic control tower). The Conservatives shut that down last month, consolidating the Pacific Coast's operations to Victoria and Prince Rupert."

Tyee : Vancouver's Preview of a Spill from Hell

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DILBIT does the Nebbies

The National Energy Board has sided with Kinder Morgan in refusing the Province of BC's request for more details on how KM would handle an oil spill from KM's proposed $5.4-billion Edmonton-to-Burnaby Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. 
None of our business apparently. Kinder Morgan cited "commercial, security, and privacy reasons" for their redactions.

The NEB is also rather coy when it comes to identifying the former energy industry links among the members that make up their own ranks.  NEB bios are full of expressions like "contributed to the creation and development of major energy projects" without getting into exactly which projects and companies they represent. So to augment that lack of info - here's the Nebbies...

Not to pick on "Bob" in the toon specifically here but rather than the NEB stating that Mr. Bob Vergette was once "Vice President, Operations with a major North American liquids pipeline company", it would seem rather more to the point given NEB's current Trans Mountain review to include the info that company he was VP of was Trans Mountain Pipelines - even if it was a decade ago.

NEB Chair and CEO Peter Watson - formerly Deputy Minister of the Alberta Executive Council til last June - is at least straight up about NEB priorities. Last November he explained that "the board's main job is to ensure proper construction of the pipeline" while he saw environmental concerns as more "the job of the provinces and pipeline company".

NEB Vice Chair Lyne Mercier : 29 years with Gaz Metro.

Roland George : according to NEB "worked primarily in the private energy sector for over three decades", is also a Gaz Metro alumni, and held senior positions with the Canadian Energy Research Institute, or CERI, a not-for-profit tarsands booster. 

Philip Davies : Vice-President, Law and General Counsel of SaskPower ; VP, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Encana Gas Storage

Shane Parrish : Manager of Business Development for Canadian Petroleum Engineering

Ron Wallace : From NEB : "At AGRA, he was involved in major oil and gas operations throughout the former Soviet Union and Russia where he managed major project assignments in conjunction with the World Bank."
Also "senior management positions with Petro-Canada and CanStar Oil Sands Ltd."

Kenneth Bateman : "VP of Legal Affairs for Enmax, a large energy distribution, supply and service company"

Alison Scott : Deputy Energy Minister of Nova Scotia and offshore oil promoter

James Ballem : former Conservative MLA and PEI Minister of Environment and Energy.

Mike Richmond : energy lawyer and Co-Chair of the Energy and Power Group at McMillan LLP; and on the board of the Ontario Energy Association.

Jacques Gauthier : one time personal envoy to Harper in 2010 for the Vancouver Olympics, served on the Prime Minister's Advisory Committee on the Public Service, and was "senior VP and CEO of Kruger Energy Inc., where he headed up a new division dedicated to the development of renewable energy" . 
NEB bio : "Mr. Gauthier has contributed to the creation and development of major energy projects in Canada, the United States and Europe."

The only NEB member who doesn't seem to fit comfortably into the oil and gas sector insider mold is David Hamilton - Chief Electoral Officer and Deputy Minister and Clerk of the Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories. 

Could be it's possible to be just a bit too much inside : 
NEB : Onshore Pipeline Regulation Incidents 2000 to 2012 :

"A truly captured regulator " said Marc Eliesen, a senior energy executive who once served as CEO of BC Hydro, when he quit his role as a NEB intervenor in the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain tarsands-to-tankers expansion project.

This post an update to Norm Farrell's from 2013 as more players have been added since.

Collected DILBITs
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Protected species

Brilliant cartoon from Bruce MacKinnon illustrating Canada's unprecedented decision to opt out of 76 of 77 resolutions not to trade in endangered or protected species like manatees, turtles, and swallowtail butterflies at last year's Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species [CITES] 

Environment Canada has not explained why they won't support the bans but it's possibly related to pique at the proposed ban on commercial trade in polar bear parts put forward at CITES by the US and backed by Russia, which banned polar bear hunting in 1956. The other polar bear regions - Alaska, Greenland, and Norway - have all banned it aside from the traditional practice by indigenous peoples. 

According to the United States Geological Survey in 2007, the decline in sea ice is expected to lead to the extirpation of approximately two-thirds of the world's polar bear populations within the next 50 years. 

Environment Canada reported 75% of Canada's commercially traded polar bear skins or bodies were exported to China in 2011. 

Insert mental pic of polar bear balancing on tiny ice floe floating out to sea here.

As MacKinnon so aptly illustrates, the only species Steve has shown any real interest in protecting so far is the tar sands ... 

 Feds leave $321-million unspent for green programs, overspend on oil and gas 

research, ads 

"The federal government failed to spend a total of $321-million Parliament approved for “environmentally responsible” programs last year—nearly one-third of the money that was available for that purpose—while spending more than the $438-million that had been set aside to fund programs that primarily supported the oil and gas sector through scientific research, market development and government advertising."

Liberal MP John McKay :

“We’re not nearly dead last in climate change progress for nothing, we worked at it, and we worked at it by emphasizing the oil sands in preference to everything else. So when we have this impending oil deflation, the price of oil deflation, all of our eggs are in that basket and because all of our eggs are in that one basket, we’re just watching that basket sail down the river, and there is no plan B."

Insert mental pic of Canada balancing on tiny oil derrick floating down the river here.
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Foreign Special Interests and their Deep Pocket Puppet

A remix of the now-infamous video to include a few of those "foreign special interests" not mentioned in the original broadcast, as Ethical Oil pocket puppet Kathryn Marshall strives mightily - eight times! - to limit the phrase to describe only the environmental opposition to the Enbridge Northern Gateway tarsands project.

Original broadcast, including a more generous sprinkling of "deep pockets" and "puppets", here .
Or there's always Rick Mercer's version.

Harsha Walia : Enbridge's pipeline of distortions

Terry Glavin : China has our forests, Now we're sending our oilfields too.

*Brilliant post from Emma Pullman @ DeSmogBlog*:
Friends With Benefits: The Harper Government, EthicalOil.org and Sun Media Connection 
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