TYLER IRVING: This week, two Fortune 500 companies announced that they will no longer be using fuel refined from Alberta’s tar sands in their shipping operations. The two companies are Whole Foods Markets, Ltd., an organic foods retailer, and Bed, Bath, and Beyond, which retails home furnishings. The move is part of a campaign organized by then environmental group ForestEthics. Letters were sent to over 100 companies urging them avoid the use of tar sands fuel, which produces 3-5 times more greenhouse gas emissions than an equivalent amount of traditional fuel. The new policy has its share of critics. Industry experts point out that fuel from the tar sands is routinely mixed with fuel from other sources, making it virtually impossible to tell where a given amount of fuel has come from. Indeed, in some areas, such as the west coast, there are no alternative suppliers of fuel. Others have criticized the companies for avoiding a particular type of fuel when the environmental footprint could be reduced by supplying the products closer to home, rather than shipping from overseas. The companies say they are working with their suppliers to try and make good on the new policies. ForestEthics says it expects more companies to join the boycott in the coming months. [ index ]

DARYN CAISTER: Ontario’s nuclear power mix will remain its current mix for at least a decade due to upgrades and retrofits. The Toronto Star reported that the much older first generation CANDU Pickering reactor would be receiving a decade’s worth of tune-ups which would buy the province time to finalize its decision over building a new reactor at the Darlington site. The much newer Darlington nuclear plant is set to receive upgrades that will extend its lifespan until around 2050. Nuclear power currently provides roughly half of Ontario’s power mix, employees were relieved to hear the news of the retrofits and extensions as nuclear power generation provides around 12,000 high paying, specialized jobs in Ontario. Not everyone is celebrating however, nuclear power in Ontario has been under strong opposition by some segments of the population protesting among other things the highly toxic fuel waste it produces that cannot be properly disposed of. Plans for a new plant at Darlington were put on hold last year by then Ontario Energy Minister George Smitherman due to what was identified as “many billions” over expected costs. Anti-Nuclear groups would like to see the plants shut down, but the Ontario Premier has made it his priority to focus on trying to shut down the provinces much more immediately dirty coal fired power plants. Despite Ontario’s laudable green energy act, renewable energy in Ontario is a long way away from replacing nuclear level base load capacity, and may never be up to the job according to power analysts with the premier’s office. [ index ]

TYLER IRVING: After years of pressuring the British Columbia government, environmentalists trying to protect the Flathead Valley from mining operations have got their wish. The provincial government made the promise as part of its throne speech, delivered on Tuesday by BC’s lieutenant governor Steven Point. The move to ban mining development came just weeks after a fact-finding report by two UN world heritage representatives recommended exactly that. The Flathead Valley borders Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park in Montana and Alberta. Created in 1932, Glacier-Waterton was the world’s first international peace park, and was designated a World Heritage Site by the UN in 1995. Environmentalists, such as John Bergenske of the group Wildsight, say that although it would be better to designate the Valley a national park, banning development is the next best thing. However, there is likely to be some backlash from mining companies, some of whom have already spent millions of dollars prospecting and staking claims. It is not yet clear whether these companies will be compensated by the provincial government. [ index ]

DARYN CAISTER: Responding to a call for input, the Green Budget Coalition makes recommendation to the Prime Minister about greening the federal budget. The Green Budget Coalition is one of many umbrella groups that many of Canada’s most prominent environmental groups uses, in this case included groups such as the Canadian Environmental Las Association, the David Suzuki Foundation, Ecojustice Canada, the Sierra Club and the Pembina Institute among many others. The Coalition’s recommendations to the Prime Minister focus on the creation of green jobs of which the plan says they it can generate 8000 new jobs in renewable energy. The plan also seeks to ensure clean drinking water where there is none currently available for millions across Canada, as well as help Canada achieve compliance with its commitment to establish national and regional system of protected areas. The coalition also said that their representatives have been meeting with MPs from all parties and with senior government officials to discuss the recommendations, about which they said they received much support and feel confident that their recommendations will at least be seriously considered when making final budgetary decisions. Coalition representatives said that as they were holding meeting with government representatives that part of their message was to remind the officials of their experiences in Copenhagen for COP15, and apparently made their case that this budget was an excellent opportunity for Canada to reclaim some of its traditional respect on the international stage for the upcoming G-8 and G-20 meetings. [ index ]

DARYN CAISTER: In a related story, other Canadian Environmental groups have officially put the federal and provincial British Colombia government’s “on-notice” over the state of their endangered species management. The legal notice was issued by several groups, including the Wilderness Committee, which said that, they must immediately rewrite the recovery strategies for 43 endangered and threatened species in BC. The letter was issued in response to a recent Federal Court ruling and a damming document revealed in an Access to Information request that showed that science identified what “appeared to be obvious” about the state of critical habitat for the 43 species despite the government sitting on the information for 2 years and not acting despite its own laws concerning endangered and threatened species habitat protection. Included in the list is habitat that is critical to the Vancouver Island marmot, also known as the Muk Muk, which is the cyber-mascot for this year’s Olympic Winter Games. The groups claim the document proves that government agencies maliciously ignored documentation showing that critical habitat needed immediate protection as per the endangered species act, and refused to act upon it. Recent studies show that as much as 86% of BC species at risk require habitat protection in order to have any hope of surviving and recovering their populations. Groups involved in the ecological fight in BC such as Ecojustice have obtained copies of policy directive from the provincial government that tell recovery teams specifically not to identify critical habitat for species on the species at risk list, thereby conclusively and intentionally violating its own federal Species at Risk Act mandates according to Ecojustice. 88% of BC recovery strategies do not currently identify critical habitat protection. [ index ]

TYLER IRVING: The largest climate study ever undertaken in Canada has revealed that Arctic sea ice is thinning faster than expected, and raised the possibility of an ice-free winter as early as 2013. The $156 million project was called the Circumpolar Flaw Lead System Study; a flaw lead is the scientific term for a gap between sea ice and ice that is fastened to the coast. Over 300 scientists from 27 countries spent the winter aboard the Canadian Coast Guard research vessel Amundsen as part of the International Polar Year. It is the first time that a research vessel has remained mobile in open water over the winter season. The lead investigator on the study was University of Manitoba professor David Barber. He says that part of the reason the ice is melting so quickly is a “domino effect” of interacting ocean and atmospheric systems. For example, more open water leads to more cyclones that drop heavy precipitation in Arctic regions. This snow acts as a blanket, insulating the ice beneath and causing even more melting. The effects of this melt are far-reaching. Marine biologists on the study observed predator species that normally stay further south, while toxicologists showed that as the ice melts, it releases organic pollutants that would have otherwise stayed frozen. According to Dr. Barber, previous models suggested that the Arctic could see an ice-free winter by 2100. However, the best guesses from the current research are that this could happen sometimes between 2013 and 2030.
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TYLER IRVING: On Tuesday, councillors in Halifax Regional Municipality were presented with a report that estimates sea levels in the harbour could rise by up to 73 cm over the next century. The report was put together by municipality staff with support from Natural Resources Canada, Dalhousie University, and the Applied Geomatics Research Group. It estimated the height of sea level rise using data from harbour monitoring over the last 100 years as well as projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It also took into account “subsidence,” a term for the sinking of the earth’s surface relative to sea level. In the Halifax region, this is happening at a rate of 1.6 mm per year. The 73 cm figure is based on the “worst-case scenario” model from the IPCC, known as A1F1. However, Halifax’s supervisor of regional and community planning, Roger Wells, said that current observations show that sea levels are currently even higher than predicted under this scenario. In addition to this, high-water events such as hurricanes and tropical storms could raise the water level more than 2.5 m for brief periods. The reports authors have produced digital elevation maps showing which areas of the city are at the greatest risk of flooding, and are currently conducting a vulnerability analysis of those properties. [ index ]

DARYN CAISTER: Citizens band together to modernize the BC Water Act. 29 non-profit groups, mostly local British Colombia citizen groups endorsed a joint “Statement of Expectations on the Reform of the BC Water Act” on the anniversary of the federal government’s issuance of an inquiry into the Fraser River salmon collapse in 2009. The open recommendation to the BC government was compiled to compliment and encourage the BC governments promise to modernize its water laws, which according to Ecojustice ranks among the worst in North America. Proponents hope that the government will seriously consider their recommendations which would move the water laws from near the bottom of the list of to near the top as far as its environmental protections. Among the recommendations by the group of NGO’s are a suggestion to provide legal protection of in-stream or environmental flows and a cap on water withdrawals from the Fraser River, which would seek to protect the physical, biological and chemical benefits of an ecologically stable water system. One of the key objectives of the recommendation is to monitor and stabilize water temperature that can be highly affected by depth of the water body as temperature has an important effect for salmon habitat such that too warm water can pose a particularly dangerous threat to young salmon. Last year only 7% of the expected 8.7 million salmon returned to the Fraser River causing widespread hunger problems for communities that depend on the fish for sustenance and income as well as economic trouble for large important fisheries in BC.  [ index ]

NAOMI JEHLICKA: Hundreds of sick and starving pelicans continue to wash up along the shores of Southern California. These ailing birds have been appearing in large numbers since mid January and scientists and conservationists alike are grappling with understanding the triggers for this environmental catastrophe. some scientists think that the annual El Nino effect caused a change in water currents and pushed the pelicans’ prey fish out of the pelicans’ feeding area, ridding them of food sources and resulting in starvation. Others blame the larger and ultimately more aggressive Humbolt squid for competing with the pelicans for food. Regardless of the triggers, the sad reality is that conservationists are overwhelmed with the magnitude of pelicans desperately in need of medical attention. “We’re going through about 200 pounds of fish a day,” said Terri Oba, a technician at the Huntington Beach Center, which is a wildlife rehabilitation centre located in Orange County, California. Currently, over 200 pelicans are recovering in this facility with more than 50 new birds arriving daily.
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NAOMI JEHLICKA: Zipping across the Pacific ocean, the Indian government formally announced a moratorium on the launching of its first genetically modified (or “GM”) vegetable to ensure that it will have a minimum impact on the environment. Last year, the government supported research and development into the genetically modified eggplant that would, with the help of Bt corn, be able to withstand India’s adverse weather conditions. Supporters argue that the GM eggplant could not only increase food supply for billions of starving Indian families, but will also increase production and withstand pest invasion. Dissenters are fearful about the possibility of GM eggplants contaminating their organic crops and are also worried that local farmers would become overly dependent on the Multinational Corporations that provide the seeds. During a press conference on Tuesday, Jairam Ramesh, the Indian environment minister, explained to reporters the reasoning behind the moratorium: “It is my duty to adopt a cautious, precautionary, principle-based approach,” he said, “until the tests are done, the country should build a broad consensus to use GM technology in agriculture in a safe and sustainable manner.”
The green majority will continue to closely follow this story with interest and keep you updated with the developments. [ index ]

NAOMI JEHLICKA: And in some truly international news, this past week, 55 countries from all over the world have been busy submitting their national pledges to cut and limit greenhouse gasses by 2020 to The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The national pledges were required as part of the Copenhagen Accord that was negotiated this past December and so far, the pledges received collectively account for over 78 percent of global green house gas emissions. Of the pledges submitted to the Climate Change Convention, Norway’s was the most ambitious. This progressive Scandinavian country volunteered to reduce their GHG emissions 30-40 percent below their 1990 levels, provided that the other major parties pledge commitments that will meet the 2°Celsius target. Following Norway was Japan, which offered a cut of 25 percent below their 1990 levels. The European Union also put forth a significant commitment, offering to reduce their overall emissions by 20 percent of their 1990 levels, and even pledged to increase it to 30 percent provided that other major emitters are willing to show a similar high calibre dedication to curbing climate change. Unfortunately, not all countries put forth significant commitments. Canada is to this date the only developed country that actually reduced its emissions pledge since the 2009 climate change talks, from 20 to 17 percent below 2005 levels, which amounts to a 2.5 percent emissions increase above the 1990 levels. It is now up to eco conscious citizens to encourage their respective government representatives to increase their GHG reduction targets, especially here in Canada. [ index ]