Electricity from zero emission sources

 

Recent political activity in the Maritimes and Ottawa resonate with this year's "Season of Creation."

Change to renewable sources

 

The New Brunswick Green Party Leader, David Coon, said his party would mandate NB Power to use 100 per cent renewable energy sources by 2035.

 

Coon said management at NB Power has been dictating energy policy to PC and Liberal governments for years. As a result, he said, there hasn't been any progress on energy efficiency or renewals. "What the rest of the world has been embracing has been blocked here in New Brunswick," he said. Coon blamed NB Power for wasting $13 million on Joi Scientific, a Florida-based company that claimed to be able to efficiently generate hydrogen gas from seawater to generate electricity on demand, something that would be a major scientific breakthrough. Coon also committed to providing zero-interest loans for solar panels and energy efficiency measures such as new insulation and windows.1

In December 2019, Richard Dewey, President and CEO, New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), wrote that New York State, the 11th-largest economy in the world, recently enacted the US’ most aggressive climate change legislation. By 2040, according to the new law, the state must get all of its electricity from zero-emission sources. How does a state of 19.8 million citizens, which in 2018 generated more than 40% of its energy from fossil fuels, reach zero emissions in only two decades? A carbon-pricing proposal from the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) can play a significant role - as new research by the Analysis Group has concluded.

 The report by the Analysis Group, commissioned by NYISO and co-authored by energy policy and economics expert Susan Tierney, concluded that our carbon-pricing proposal can help New York State meet its clean energy goals faster and more cost-effectively while reducing emissions and maintaining grid reliability. The report also found that carbon pricing can: (1) Reduce the consumer cost of reaching 100% carbon-free emissions: (2) Help grow investment and innovation in clean energy generation: (3) Promote innovation and energy efficiency in fossil fuel-burning technology: (4) Improve public health by encouraging the retirement of the highest-emitting generators: (5) Affirm New York’s position as a national leader on climate change2

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government will unveil an “ambitious green agenda” in the throne speech scheduled to be delivered later this month. Western Canada has been especially hard-hit by the pandemic as travel restrictions have sent global oil prices tumbling. Trudeau said green recovery is about “long-term recovery,” and that the country needs to be “leading the way” on the shift to renewable energy and addressing the climate crisis.

 

He said the path forward must include people working in industries that will be affected by such a shift, but that Canada should seize the opportunity that COVID-19 has created. “We have an opportunity to go green. We have an opportunity to be fairer, to reduce barriers for women’s participation, (and) Indigenous participation in the workforce,” he said. “There are so many things that we can look at as an opportunity through this tragedy of COVID to do bigger things.” The green agenda will be presented to Parliament later this month, he added.3

Support for politicians who recognize our concern about climate change is action we can take to bring change.

 

References

1	(2020, September 3). Liberals promise to balance budget, while PCs boast about .... Retrieved September 3, 2020, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/elections-new-brunswick-voting-campaign-trail-1.5709271
2	(2019, December 4). Carbon pricing can help New York State green its energy .... Retrieved September 3, 2020, from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/12/new-york-carbon-pricing-climate/
3	(2020, September 2). Liberals to unveil 'ambitious green agenda' in throne speech .... Retrieved September 3, 2020, from https://globalnews.ca/news/7312636/trudeau-green-agenda-throne-speech/

 

Attention to environmental racism

 This 'Season of Creation' demands attention to environmental racism, according to Daniel P. Horan, Duns Scotus Chair of Spirituality at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, where he teaches systematic theology and spirituality. Dan Horan writes as civil rights and environmental advocates note, it cannot merely be coincidental that the communities in Flint, and others like it across the country, that are most deleteriously affected by pollution and the effects of global climate change are poor and Black.

 The announcement of the proposed settlement in Flint coincides with the launch of this year's "Season of Creation," an ecumenical commemoration that invites Christians to focus their reflection, prayers and actions on care for creation. The "Season of Creation," which runs from Sept. 1 through the feast of St. Francis of Assisi on Oct. 4, is an event supported by Pope Francis and co-sponsored by the Vatican's Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. This year's observance, particularly in the midst of a global pandemic and in the wake of continuing protests on behalf of racial justice in the U.S., is an opportune time to study, reflect, pray and act in response to the intersecting "cry of the earth and the cry of the poor" that Francis highlights throughout "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home." The poor in this case certainly includes the materially impoverished, who face environmental injustices, but it also includes those who have been historically disenfranchised from civil and social power on account of their race. Despite Francis' continual exhortations to the church about the need to think in terms of an "integral ecology" that encompasses intersecting forms of injustice, too many Catholic communities still treat justice issues such as racism and environmental degradation separately.1

Moira Donovan of CBC News reports that the The ENRICH Project looks at the cause and effects of toxic industries near marginalized communities.

https://i.cbc.ca/1.3494128.1458149510!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_780/enrich-environmental-racism-map-of-nova-scotia.jpg

 

The ENRICH Project web site offers the Latest News on Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities & Community Health Project. It is a collaborative community-based research and engagement project on environmental racism in Mi’kmaq and African Nova Scotian communities.

 

Geoff Dembicki reports that many First Nations and non-white communities have been the dumping sites for industry. But environmental advocates say Canadians are struggling to empathize.

 

Yet the siting of that particular dump appeared to be no accident. Research done by the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities & Community Health Project shows that dozens of toxic facilities across Nova Scotia have been built near Black and Indigenous communities. (You can check out an interactive map here). This type of work is much more common in the U.S., where for decades researchers and activists have documented the racist zoning decisions and other policies that have led to Black people and other non-white Americans breathing in toxic fumes and drinking contaminated water. Fixing this racism is now a big part of the U.S. election, with Joe Biden promising to spend hundreds of billions of dollars cleaning up the air and water of disadvantaged communities. Canada appears to be much further behind. “The Canadian Environmental Protection Act is Canada’s main pollution prevention law and it doesn’t mention environmental justice, human rights, or vulnerable populations,” West Coast Environmental Law lawyer Rayanna Seymour-Hourie, who is from the Anishinaabe First Nation, said during the panel talk. But that could soon be changing. When Parliament resumes this fall, one of the pieces of legislation it will consider is a private member’s bill introduced by Nova Scotia Liberal MP Lenore Zann known as the National Strategy to Redress Environmental Racism Act. Bill C-230, which has the support of former Green Party leader Elizabeth May, would create a national strategy for alleviating the pollution pumped into non-white areas.3

Action by people to support initiatives by the government to address environmental racism will contribute to supporting both the “cry of the poor and the cry of the earth” for peace and equity.

 

References

 

1	(2020, September 2). 'Season of Creation' demands attention to environmental racism. Retrieved September 2, 2020, from https://www.ncronline.org/news/earthbeat/faith-seeking-understanding/season-creation-demands-attention-environmental-racism
2	(2016, March 16). Nova Scotia group maps environmental racism | CBC News. Retrieved September 2, 2020, from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/ns-environmental-racism-map-1.3494081
3	(2020, August 20). Canada Is Falling Behind on Confronting Environmental Racism. Retrieved September 2, 2020, from https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/5dz4dz/canada-is-falling-behind-on-confronting-environmental-racism