2007 Year In Review Environment And More

This will be my last post of the year.

I'm going to share a few news pieces covering environmental stories of 2007, but before I do I'd like to reflect on my own personal experiences this year.

The year started with talk of a spring election (much like we're seeing again) and I was hard at work organizing and facilitating Green Party training sessions back in southern Alberta. In the end there was no federal election, but my wife did decide to run for the Green Party of Alberta in a provincial byelection in the late spring. I had started full time work at the Tyrrell museum again, and she resigned so she could stay at home with our son. As soon as the byelection was over Jen wanted to work again, so she got a part time job and we saved up a bit of cash. In September a job opportunity opened up for Jen here on Vancouver Island, and obviously she got the job. We made the move from Drumheller AB to Nanaimo BC in about a month. Her job here is great, our son loves the mild weather and the trees, and I'm starting to get some gigs playing around Nanaimo. I also have a part time job to make ends meet. I'm very excited about the direction our lives are moving in! Next move: selling our house back in Drumheller, and possibly buying some land and building some kind of green home. We've been looking at yurts and manufactured homes as well as small condos or townhouses, and we still don't know exactly what move to make.

I've taken up a supportive peripheral role in the local GPC electoral district assoc. We have a great candidate here and I look forward to the next federal election when I'll be door and phone canvassing during the campaign. I left a big hole back in Alberta, but I'm confident that the Crowfoot EDA, working with the provincial organizer, will be able to find a solid candidate for the next election. As of the fall council elections, Alberta has a strong and capable representative on the GPC Federal Council in Mark Taylor.

Throughout the year my blogging efforts had me exploring and learning about energy, economics and how both subjects are so very intertwined with the environment. Thanks to many visitors here on my blog who forced discussion and debate, I'm now much better informed on these subjects.

For more on specific subjects, or to see my posts over the year, please view the right hand columns listing my blog posts by subject and by month.

Here are a few news summaries of 2007 environmental news.

See you in the new year!


2007: The year in environment
22 December 2007 NewScientist.com
Catherine Brahic

The Magnificent '07
The top green stories of 2007
By David Roberts and Lisa Hymas
20 Dec 2007

Twelve Environmental Victories in 2007
Environmental Defense
03-Dec-2007

ABC Australia - Year in Review - Environment
By Elaine Ford - Dec 19, 2007

News review 2007: Reality of climate change hits home
22 December 2007 - New Scientist

Happiness Is...

An excellent article by Bill McKibben exploring how the environment that sustains us has become very relevant to economics, and how a new shift in focus on well-being can help people understand the relationship between economic activity, our quality of life and the environment.

The Green Party already has extensive policy (also found here, and in other places throughout the federal party's website) on the interconnectedness of the environment, the economy and societal well being. And if this article isn't enough reading on the subject for you, I've blogged on it before as well.

From the article:

...we were so deeply enmeshed in the rhythms of consumer culture that challenging it in any real way seemed anathema. You could really see this attitude at work in the negotiations around the World Trade Organization. Relentless expansion of the international economy was the central business at hand – labour and environmental concerns could be discussed, but as ‘side agreements’. We were, literally, in the margins; the economic worldview loomed so large that all else was in its shadow.

But that’s begun to change – or soon will. Or could, anyway, if environmentalism begins to transform itself from a fixation on filters and light bulbs to a new fixation – on human satisfaction. For a very long time, ‘happiness’ has been considered a soft topic, something that hippies and sandal-wearers bothered themselves with and the actual world ignored as it went about the important business of More. In the past decade, however, economists, aided by psychologists and sociologists, have begun to question some of their assumptions...

...British economist Richard Layard, who has written a great deal about this work, says: ‘We now know that what people say about how they feel corresponds closely to the actual levels of activity in different parts of the brain, which can be measured in standard scientific ways.’ People who call themselves happy also seem happier to their friends, live healthier lives, and so forth.

Which allows you to start doing something interesting. It allows you to start reversing two centuries of reductionism. Instead of asking: ‘What did you buy?’, you can ask someone: ‘Is your life good?’ And once you’ve asked that, you’re in position to ask the most subversive question there could be: ‘Is “more” better?’

Because if more really is better, then environmentalism is a lost cause. There aren’t enough Powerpoint slides of calving icebergs to turn things around.

But if more isn’t necessarily better, then there are possibilities.

And so here’s the bottom line. We’ve become significantly richer, but not significantly happier...

read more | digg story

A Carbon Tax, the Arts and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

There is a point where ideology can exceed common sense, and one might wonder if that is happening with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

One month ago Maureen Bader, BC director of the CTF, came out against arts funding stating that government subsidies to the arts should be abolished. Bader sees the arts as business activity, but it is more appropriate to compare investment in the arts with investment in things like parks and recreation. Perhaps Bader isn't aware of the difference between investments and subsidies.

According to a 2001-02 Statistics Canada report, with an investment of $6.8 billion from three levels of government, the arts and culture sector directly employed 740,000 people and generated $26 billion for the economy. I'm sure Bader doesn't want to hurt our economy, so it might be that she just doesn't understand the concept of EROI (economic return on investment).

Then Maureen Bader misrepresented carbon taxes while making fun of global warming 'theorists' <--(her term).

Poverty is a serious concern, and Bader's use of the issue to breed fear of a carbon tax is misleading. By suggesting that we imagine carbon taxes "so high that people can't afford to heat their homes in the winter" in the opening of her missive entitled The Carbon Tax Poverty Effect, she tries to scare us out of using critical thinking to examine the situation. By listing "global warming theorists" as beneficiaries of a carbon tax, Bader manages to question the reality of climate change while suggesting that public concerns about climate change are somehow preyed upon by scientists for financial gain. Ridiculous! This suggestion seems more like a call from Bader to question the science of climate change than a sincere concern for Canadians living in poverty.

It is irresponsible of Bader to haphazardly dismiss the seriousness of climate change, and by conflating the subject with poverty she leads the reader to conclude that action on climate change in the form of a carbon tax will invariably lead to widespread poverty. It's also irresponsible to dismiss the concept of a carbon tax without first investigating how it could be implemented correctly, or why many respected economists support the idea.

Only one national political party is calling for a carbon tax and suggesting that the revenue be used in part to reduce income and payroll taxes, as well as kick start green energy industries. This tax shift can be as close to revenue neutral as we want, and Canadians can decide for themselves if they wish to spend their tax savings in ways that reduce or increase carbon emissions and climate change.

In the absence of tax shifting, a carbon tax would likely impose a higher cost on some people than on others, in particular those who cannot afford to upgrade their energy efficiency or who have no alternative to driving long distances. The Green Party would use tax shifting in a way that provides equivalent tax breaks to such people, so that they would not suffer economic hardship. We cannot afford to dismiss the use of carbon taxes, and using tax shifting to achieve fairness is a way to make it work.


More reading:

Arts ire for canadian taxpayers federation

Is the Canadian Taxpayers Federation Right-Wing?

Canadian Taxpayer Federation being Dishonest with Canadians

Get The Prices Right (on tax shifting and GPC policy)

Green Tax Shift will protect Canadians against gas price shocks, says Green Party

Video: Dr. Mark Jaccard talks about carbon taxes

Carbon Tax FAQ

from the link above:
Q: Won’t low income and rural people be hardest hit by a carbon tax?

* In the absence of tax shifting, a carbon tax would impose a higher cost on some people than on others, in particular those who cannot afford to upgrade their energy efficiency or who have no alternative to driving long distances.
* The Green Party would use tax shifting in a way that provides equivalent tax breaks to such people, so that they would not suffer economic hardship.
* We as a society cannot afford to dismiss the use of carbon taxes. It’s much better to use tax shifting to achieve fairness.

- - -

UPDATE (Feb 21st, 2008) Click here for a good blog post on the new BC carbon tax by Vancouver Island federal Green Party candidate Brian Gordon.

Green Party of Canada releases 'Vision Green'

PDF version

About the Green Party of Canada and Vision Green

From the GPC website:
Vision Green presents leading-edge thinking and rational, realistic solutions for all the issues facing Canadians. It was developed by a 31-member Green Shadow Cabinet and was informed by experts, activists and citizens who participated in policy workshops held across Canada. All the proposals are based on policies approved by the membership of the Green Party.

Green Party solutions are rational because the Green Party, unlike other parties, understands the scientifically verified limits to growth set by the carrying capacity of our planet. We must work within these limits. Otherwise, we will exhaust resources, degrade our environment and put our economy, health and children’s future at risk.

Our solutions are realistic because they follow “best practices” already in place in parts of Canada or other countries. These practices are cost-effective, deliver results and benefit people, the economy and the environment.

The Green Party’s down-to-earth solutions will work in Canada because they have worked around the world. Many have been successfully applied in Europe, where Greens are elected at all political levels, including the European Union and national parliaments. Countries where Greens have served in government are the countries creating new high-paying jobs while simultaneously meeting targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They are the countries where the gap between rich and poor is small and the standard of living is high. These countries don’t trade off the environment for the economy. Their economies and environmental laws are both strong.

Many people find it hard to position the Green Party on the old political spectrum. We believe in sound fiscal management and strengthening our economy while ensuring that it is sustainable. Does that mean we are “right wing”? We believe that government must provide needed social services while protecting our environment and the rights of women, minorities and disadvantaged people. Does that make us “left wing”? We don’t think so. More and more people are simply thinking of the Green Party as the party of the future.

The Green Party is different from other parties in another important way. We will never place the pursuit of power above principle. We will not allow partisan politics to get in the way of good ideas and needed action. We agree with Canadians who say it’s time for parties in parliament to stop bickering and get on with the job of combating climate change and taking better care of our environment, our health and our economy.

The Green Party of Canada, founded in 1983, is now a major force in Canadians politics. Over 660,000 Canadians voted Green in the 2006 federal election. More than one in ten Canadians are now saying they plan to vote Green.

There is only one true Green Party. We are not like the old line parties who talk green when seeking your vote but sideline green action once elected. You can trust us to stay true to our promises and champion the issues you care about. If you share our vision and agree with our solutions, VOTE GREEN.

Change the climate in Parliament.

The Green Economy

Averting Climate Catastrophe

Preserving And Restoring The Environment

People

The Planet Needs Canada (and Vice Versa)

Good Government

Green Economics - Stephen Leahy

I'd like to share with you a few articles on the economics of going green by Stephen Leahy.

Enjoy!

Like Enron, Earth Inc. Sliding Into Bankruptcy

All economies depend on the natural capital lying within nature’s lands, waters, forests, and reefs, but humans have often treated them as if they had little value or were inexhaustible.

Global Warming Is Real But I Didn’t Do It

The vast majority of North Americans now declare that they want action on climate change. But whether people are truly willing to embrace “carbon-neutral” lifestyles — including giving up their gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles — remains an open question, say experts.

How to Kick-Start the 21st Century Eco-Economy

Farming and forestry in nearly all countries is only about maximising food or lumber production, but that has to start including maximising the ecological goods and service those ecosystems also offer. And since they are extremely important services, the stewards of these lands to ought to [be] compensated so these services will be preserved and enhanced.

57 Tips On Going Green and Saving Money

The reason I spotted Stephen Leahy is that I read Adbusters magazine, and there is a great article in the latest issue called 'Earth Inc. - Staying in the black now means going green'. For more on this subject, as explained by Adbusters, click here.

Going green is an economic plus, but Tories won't do it

While surfing the news online (I mostly use the highly customizable Google News but I have other alternative sources too) I spotted The Province, a canada.com CanWest Global paper from Vancouver BC. Here are a few links and story excerpts on the latest green plan from the Harper Government...


Tory Green Scheme Kills Kyoto With Hot Air

CLIMATE CHANGE: Greenhouse gases to continue rising under weak plan
James McNulty, The Province
Published: Sunday, April 29, 2007

Perched on a sunny Vancouver hotel rooftop last fall, Stephen Harper pitched his then-new Clean Air Act as the golden eagle of climate-change plans.

It would soar through greenhouse gases like a bird and sting pollution like a bee, Harper told the glorious photo-op, which cost taxpayers $75,000 to stage.

Nuts, said the opposition parties. The Liberals and NDP claimed the Clean Air Act was a partisan time-waster, when GHGs and smog-causing pollutants could be regulated under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

Nuts, said Harper, claiming CEPA wasn't strong enough. The Clean Air Act was declared "dead" by the opposition and a stalemate ensued.

Instead of standing by the CEPA argument, the opposition -- and Harper -- bought into NDP Leader Jack Layton's plan to revive the act for rework by a House committee.

The act was then bolstered with GHG caps and returned to Harper three weeks ago. The revisions were too tough for his liking.

Harper's solution? Abandon the big-sell act and have green foghorn John Baird announce that Canada's environment would now be saved . . . with new CEPA regulations.

The impenetrable haze of climate-change politics is thicker than ever for bamboozled Canadians.
(snip)

The opposition, having spent months rebuilding the act it once said was unnecessary, now argues that it trumps CEPA.
(snip)

Layton, the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois were suckered when Harper agreed to rework his act. The PM clearly had no intention of honouring the committee's work, using the sop to waste time on a file already years behind schedule.

Harper and Baird's new plan is called the Clean Air Regulatory Agenda. It amounts to unambitious, unbalanced, half-slices of old Liberal policy, weak "intensity-based" GHG-reduction targets that allow total GHG output to continue rising, and a feebly low carbon tax of $15 per tonne for non-compliers.

It abandons Canada's Kyoto targets, even as a new Strategic Counsel poll shows that a clear majority of Canadians -- 61 per cent -- want the signed targets honoured.

Harper is trying to have it every which way, voting last week to support a BQ motion to meet Kyoto objectives while simultaneously trashing Kyoto.
(snip)

Harper is willing to bring in hard caps on smog-causing pollution, but avoids GHG caps, not wanting to annoy tar-sands producers counting billions in profits in all-Tory Alberta.

"The government of Canada is the only government of 165 nations to officially announce we have no intentions of ever trying to reach our targets," says Green party leader Elizabeth May. "It's really very shameful."

Economists polled by the Canadian Press said the Harper government overstated Kyoto costs while claiming one of the world's "most aggressive" climate-change plans.

Denmark, for one, has far tougher carbon penalties, yet its economy continues to grow as GHGs come down faster than in Canada.
(snip)

Dirty Canada Failing Global Test

CLIMATE CHANGE: Smart nations move as Canada's record worsens
James McNulty, The Province
Published: Sunday, January 28, 2007

The heat is on, and Canada is running cold. The Great White North is falling far behind the world's enlightened nations in the growing push to cut greenhouse-gas emissions hastening global warming.

As the Conference Board of Canada notes in a new report, Canada has the highest rate of increase in greenhouse-gas emissions of any G8 nation. The growth in emissions under Stephen Harper's Conservative government is even greater than that of the previous do-nothing Liberal regime.

The Conference Board, urging a cap on industrial emissions, warns that Canada would be "ill-advised to wait" and "risks being left behind" the United States, Europe and Japan in moving to a cleaner, greener economy.

Even the great climate-change skeptic George W. Bush, one of Harper's top ideological soulmates, has changed his tune from denial to urging conservation in gasoline use.
(snip)

Ten major U.S. corporations, including General Electric, BP, DuPont, Duke Energy and Alcoa, joined environmental groups last week in urging Congress to "significantly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions" with mandatory caps and a carbon-trading market to speed the inevitable conversion to greener energy sources.
(snip)

Canadian climate-change deniers falsely argue that there is no scientific consensus on global warming. In fact, there is consensus, to be demonstrated again this week in the latest UN report from top world scientists.

The need for action has never been clearer. Under Harper, Canada marches backwards.

Going 'green' makes eminent economic sense

Letter
Published: Thursday, February 01, 2007

I'm concerned about climate change and feel it's crucial our government takes urgent action.

It should commit to clean energy sources and reduce emission targets and guidelines as well as stop coal-fired power plants.
(snip)

As an entrepreneur and a capitalist, I believe there is greater economic opportunity for all communities that pursue a greener path. B.C. has a chance to lead the country and the world by adopting policies that deal with climate change.

If we ignore climate change and work only to maintain the status quo, our economy and lifestyle will suffer rather than flourish.

See two recent related Green Party media releases on this here and here.

As many people expected, the GPC Green Plan Squared (pdf link) continues to be the most economically sound and the best plan currently around.

Nuclear is not an option

Reading The Long Emergency by James H Kunstler I almost feel like there is no alternative to nuclear, but then I snap out of it.

Using nuclear to maintain our society as it is won't work.

I am most certainly anti-nuclear, and I am fully aware of the reality of this position and the consequences of not building nuclear power plants in the face of an imminent global oil shortage.

In the post fossil fuel world (yes, it will happen one day not far from now) there will be consequences to not attempting to replace our 'cheap' abundant fossil fuel with the stop-gap of nuclear energy. Canada should start setting up sustainable decentralized energy systems that are not reliant on the grid right away.

Without fossil fuels to build nuclear power plants, large scale wind farms, solar grids, etc, we will find ourselves unable to maintain a society that's anything like what we have now. Based on the information in the book The Long Emergency I'm not even sure that we have a choice. A few decades (50 years?) down the road we may find ourselves with a broken down energy grid, using mostly coal and wood for energy because solar and wind power systems have broken down. When my 3 year old son turns 50, and his children are making a life for themselves, we won't have the abundant energy to consume at an unnecessarily rapid pace like we do now.

Nuclear will prolong the scenario of fossil fuel depletion, societal & government inaction, and the economic pains that accompany it, with the addition of radioactive waste. In the end we will not be able to maintain or replace the nuclear power systems without fossil fuel energy anyways. I'm having trouble imagining nuclear power plants that exist just to provide the energy to build more nuclear power plants, in addition to the nuclear power plants needed to provide energy to an entire country that continues to become more energy hungry.

How many nuclear power plants would we need, how much fossil fuel is needed to build them, what will we do with the waste, who will pay the bill, how will we maintain them or build more when fossil fuels run out... these are the same old questions and the answers are obvious to me.
Too many.
Too much.
Unknown, and no sure answer yet proven.
Taxpayers, through current subsidies to nuclear energy.
We won't be able to.

The bright side is that we can work now towards localized sustainable energy systems, reduce our consumption of fossil fuels, reduce our consumption of energy and shift the economy away from the current growth model. For example if we slow down the oil sands destruction, we will employ those who would have been working in the tar sands in green technologies like solar, wind and geothermal instead. This is a shift that the Green Party has explored thoroughly. (<--pdf link)


There's still no way around the fact that there will be less readily available easily accessed energy to go around in the future (we're already seeing this with the profitability of the once shunned and now coveted tar sands), and if the old-line parties are suggesting sustainability under the current economic model of growth and consumption, they either don't get it or they're lying.

Using nuclear to reduce climate change will not work. Strangely, Patrick Moore, formerly of Green Peace and James Lovelock disagree. Some people are not fans of Patrick Moore, and although I find Lovelocks thoughts on a number of subjects interesting, I (and many others) disagree with him on this point. Nuclear energy won't solve the climate crisis.

First, there are considerable GHG emissions produced in the consumption of fossil fuels needed to create & ship the materials, mine the uranium ore and run the machines in the building of a nuclear power plant.

Second, who's to say that we wouldn't just continue to consume fossil fuels at the same rate, with electricity from nuclear power plants to fuel our increasing demand for energy? This seems to be a more likely scenario than having nuclear power stations everywhere, asking Canadians to start conserving energy and change their lives while pouring billions of tax dollars into subsidies for nuclear development, one of the most expensive forms of energy.

Third, the climate is changing, and even if we stopped all consumption of all fossil fuels right now the climate would still continue to warm. That statement is based on research that shows that there is a 'lag time' in the order of many years with regards to the effects of GHG's on climate change.

There are environmental and economic problems with this source of energy. We should be preparing to deal with the effects of climate change, while reducing our fossil fuel & general energy consumption levels. Building nuclear power plants is a short term stop-gap that will do nothing positive for humans or the planet in the long term.

Year End Reflections

This last year has been one of the best years of my life. When my wife and I decided to contact the Green Party to ask what separates them from the other parties I had no idea what lay in store for me. I find myself reflecting on the significant events in my life relating to my efforts with the Green Party. Follow the links for background on each subject.

January-February

Having signed up to be the Green Party candidate in the Crowfoot riding in southern Alberta, I found myself participating in the federal election in this capacity. I enjoyed the candidate's forums and debates, the television & newspaper interviews, the dozens of daily emails, the door-to-door & phone canvassing and everything else that comes with candidacy. The previous candidate in this riding worked hard and was very well spoken, but wasn't active between elections, so I wondered how we'd do. The 'strategic voting' frenzy - fear based voting as opposed to hope based voting - of the last election (vote X to keep Y from being elected, or vote Y to keep X from being elected) had an impact on the results. Since this was my first kick at the can and we had just formed a new electoral district association the entire campaign was run by myself with some help from a few family members. In the end we achieved the new national average of 4.5% in this riding and I realized that I had been bitten by the political bug. I wasn't going to be walking away from the Green Party.

March-April

As I learned about the Green Parties around the world I shared this and other information here on my blog. When Ralph Klein (thankfully now replaced by Ed Stelmach... we'll see how he does) took a shot at Canada's internationally respected system of health care I wrote a letter to the editor. This was the beginning of my efforts outside of election time to campaign for the Greens. We'll see how the op/ed's and other efforts pay off next election.

May-June

By May I had made up my mind to run for the position of Alberta Provincial Representative on Federal Council. I also intended to go to the GPC convention & general meeting in August and was raising funds to cover the expenses. How I went from curious about the Green Party, to candidate in a federal election, to candidate for provincial rep I'll never know. It all just seemed to happen without me forcing my will on the situation. For that reason, among others, this has been a very enjoyable – yet sometimes stressful – journey.

The newly elected Conservative minority government released it's spring budget and the Green Party had something to say about this, as did I. It's speculated by some that the next spring budget will be when the current government will fall, and our next election will take place. While most Canadians are tired of elections, many are less than pleased with the current governments track record, and when the options are weighed an election is favored over the thought of another year with the current government in place.

July-August

Internal elections were well underway and I was hard at work campaigning. A survey was circulated and many candidates for the GPC internal elections answered the questions. I gave a lot of thought to my answers. George Read, Leader of the Alberta Greens, endorsed me for the position of AB Rep on Federal Council. This was all very exciting!

With all of my experience writing op/ed's for the local weeklies I tried my hand at writing a national media release. After a number of redrafts it was released and I think this played a role in the outcome. This was a very good experience for me. As a member of the Arts, Culture & Heritage Issue Caucus I hope to participate in media releases on those subjects in the near future.

I traveled to Ottawa for the Convention & General Meeting at the end of August. What an amazing time! I was elected to the position of provincial representative and rejoiced in the election of Elizabeth May. I had a tough time deciding who to vote for as our new leader, but eventually it became clear to me who I preferred.

Sept-October

Suddenly I was very, very busy. I was finding my footing with the federal council, organizing our EDA in Crowfoot and living my life with my family. I continued my research on subjects important to me. This included the link between my personal faith and my endeavours as an environmentally conscious person. Environmental stewardship in the context of Christianity was the focus of a lengthy post I made here, and this has inspired me to prepare a power point presentation on this subject for my church. It's not finished yet, but I look forward to sharing this important and often overlooked aspect of my faith one day.

The subject of the oilsands in Alberta finally became major national news (along with the environment) and I wrote a lengthy article as a letter to the oilsands consultations committee. I wondered as I researched this subject more and more, if I'd eventually be comforted or grow worried about the situation. I'm more than worried. I'm spitting mad about the circus that is the Alberta oilsands destruction.

In October the Green Party released it's Green Plan Squared. This was in anticipation of the Conservatives Green Plan 'Two', which was discovered to be... no plan at all! It was in fact a clean air bill that didn't set mandatory targets for decades, and lacked any substantial plan for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. This flop has plagued the Conservative government ever since.

Our EDA held it's annual general meeting, elected a new executive, adopted a new constitution, and set in motion the nominations contest for candidacy in the Crowfoot riding. A few weeks later I was elected to be our next candidate. This time they're in for a real challenge! Although the odds are stacked against us here in rural Alberta, more and more people are waking up to the fact that the Green Party appeals to all voters across the political spectrum. Running out here is a great opportunity to discuss with thousands of people the issues that concern us all and the solutions that the Green Party offers. What do ya know - I'm on the soapbox already! ;-)

A week later I was off to Ottawa again for the Federal Council inperson meeting. This was very important for us to be able to get to know each other and do some very important work. It's unknown when we'll have another inperson meeting (although we've had a number of teleconference meetings) since this is a major cost and traveling consumes energy and increases emissions. We Greens do walk the talk!

November/December

Elizabeth May ran in the London North Center by-election and nearly won! She beat both the Conservative and the NDP candidates and proved that the Green Party is a real contender in Canadian politics.

This brings me to the present, and I can't begin to tell you how excited I am about the next year. Even now after a year of direct involvement I consider myself a newcomer to politics. Something that I found to be very appealing about the Greens is their six key values, and I've tried to practice these in my daily life. Volunteering with the Green Party has been a very spiritually rewarding experience.

I hope you enjoyed my year in review and know that I look forward to kicking some political @$$ in the new year!

Stop Bias Against Green Party by Tom Axworthy - PLUS: Environmentalism & Christianity

Enjoy this wonderful article, and please explore the links to a number of other articles exploring environmental stewardship & Christianity at the bottom of this post!

Environmentalists should be welcomed to political table, says Tom Axworthy

Stop Bias Against Green Party - by Tom Axworthy
Sep. 24, 2006

"Scientists, like the Greens, have been worried about climate change for decades. New to the movement are evangelical religious leaders: In February 2006, 86 of them declared "Love of God, love of neighbour, and the demands of stewardship are more than enough reason for evangelical Christians to respond to the climate change problem with moral passion and concrete action."

It is time the Canadian political and media establishments stop discriminating against the Green party and the ethic it represents. If we are serious about preserving the planet and if we care about fair play, Canadians must demand the Greens be welcomed to the political table.

The basic premise of the Green movement is that "all life in the planet is interconnected and that humans have a responsibility to protect and preserve the natural world." Founded in Canada in 1983, the tiny minority of Greens in the 1980s were right about the impact of the fossil-fuel economy on global warming. As the science on climate change has become more mainstream, so should the Greens.

Global warming means that extra-solar radiation is being trapped at the Earth's surface; the rise in average temperature is only the signal that something profound is going on. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's most authoritative scientific body on the problem, has documented the steady rise in global temperatures and attributes most of it to human activities.

James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Science, believes that in 10 years we will be at the tipping point — there will already be too much carbon dioxide in the system...

(article snipped)

...Last week, satellite images revealed dramatic openings in the Arctic ice big enough to allow a ship to sail to the North Pole. Scientists, like James Lovelock, creator of the GAIA Hypothesis, are deeply concerned.

He wrote this year "the climate centres around the world, which are the equivalent of the pathology labs of a hospital, have reported the Earth's physical condition and the climate specialists see it as seriously ill, and soon to pass into a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years."

Scientists, like the Greens, have been worried about climate change for decades. New to the movement are evangelical religious leaders: In February 2006, 86 of them declared "Love of God, love of neighbour, and the demands of stewardship are more than enough reason for evangelical Christians to respond to the climate change problem with moral passion and concrete action."

These traditional allies of President George Bush have broken with him on the issue of climate change. They argue that change is real, that the poor will be hardest hit (as happened with Hurricane Katrina) and that Christian moral convictions demand a response. An evangelical-scientific alliance to force business and government to exercise responsible stewardship could change politics in a hurry.

If the Greens have been right on one of the largest issues of our time, they have also been dogged in building support. In the 2006 election, they won 4.5 per cent support by running candidates in all 308 ridings. Yet the established parties and the networks have not allowed the Green leader to participate in televised debates.

The Bloc Québécois, which runs no candidates outside of Quebec, gets hours of television time; the Greens are shut out. This has to change. If Canadians are ever to make the leap from a consumer society to a conserver society, the job of public education will be tremendous. For reasons of substance (to create a large environmental coalition dedicated to change) and for reasons of ethics (to give a national party a fair chance), Elizabeth May, the Green leader, must be included in the next debates. The new leader of the Liberal party should refuse to participate in any debate that excludes the leader of the Greens. To prevent climate change, we must change the current climate of denial; a starting point would be giving the Green party the respect it deserves.

Thomas S. Axworthy is chairman of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Queen's University.

- - - - -

Politics, ecology, economics, Green Party, Christianity, environmental stewardship... all of these subjects are related to the others. Maybe I'm tackling too big a topic in this post, but I enjoy exploring how my political endeavors relate to my spiritual & environmental efforts.

Environmentalism can compliment economics, and in fact care of our ecology is a necessary element in having a functioning economy that is sustainable. The Green Party has given this thorough consideration and has an excellent plan regarding our economy in relation to ecological considerations.

The following is a list of interesting articles exploring environmental stewardship & Christianity. There seems to be two opposite schools of thought: a side that in part supports a free market and/or growth, and a side that supports more government involvement and/or sustainability. Both frame their definition of stewardship under each model. I think both extremes are just that - extremes, and the most reasonable concept of environmental stewardship for the Christian, or anyone else, is somewhere in the middle and draws aspects from both schools of thought.

(note: the titles below will link to the full articles.)

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Stewardship and the Environment
"...Many Christians are suspicious of the affinity groups like the Evangelical Environmental Network have with mainstream statist (or outright pagan) environmentalism, but they have not been trained in an appropriate response. Thus, after being browbeaten with the stewardship lingo, they leave the field of battle to the theological liberals and political statists...
...One approach in dealing with the new “stewardship” advocates is to inquire about the criteria for good stewardship. How do we know when we have been good stewards? How do we know when the tradeoffs between garden-tending and “being fruitful and multiplying” have been made appropriately? Is it better to use a 40-acre plot of land for wildlife habitat, for a farm, for a pharmaceutical plant, or for housing? The evangelical environmentalist material I have read so far would not rule out any of these possibilities. How can that decision be made, without resorting to the crucial information provided by that hated system of free market prices? The answers should be revealing..."

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An Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation
"...The earthly result of human sin has been a perverted stewardship, a patchwork of garden and wasteland in which the waste is increasing. "There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land...Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away" (Hosea 4:1,3). Thus, one consequence of our misuse of the earth is an unjust denial of God's created bounty to other human beings, both now and in the future..."

The above declaration seems to be written in the spirit of love, and I recognize the good will within it, but I don't completely agree with the logic and statements contained within it. Nonetheless, it is a very interesting document.

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Eco-Myths - Don't believe everything you hear about the church and the environmental crisis.
Myth 2: It's Not Biblical to be Green (Calvin B. DeWitt) "...I am amazed to hear Christians sometimes say that biblical faith has little in common with the environmental cause. Even worse, some evangelicals fear that teaching people to enjoy and respect creation will turn them into pantheists..."

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Stewardship Without Prices and Private Property? Modern Evangelical Environmentalism’s Struggle to Value Nature
"... Christians are right to seek ways to improve stewardship over nature. Yet those who are most vocal in their advocacy of stewardship seem intent upon neglecting critical sources of information about the allocation of natural resources. Numerous evangelical scholars and entire denominations give far greater weight to governmental intervention as a method of stewardship than to free-market pricing...
...schemes of central planning are no substitute for the market’s role in calculation. Statist environmentalism, however dressed in rhetoric of “justice” or “Christian stewardship,” is untenable because it lacks the necessary information to make resource allocations. Pursuing “eco-justice” or conservation of nature without protecting private property and the price system is “zeal without knowledge.” Being a Christian does not give one access to new revelation on the ideal allocation of resources."

This article is pro-libertarian & free-market, and anti-socialism & government regulation. It seems to represent the argument for government regulation in a way that is weaker than reality and mostly unappealing, and then argue against that representation. Despite this bias it is interesting reading. See the list of official denominational statements on the environment included in the original article .

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Stewardship and Economics: Two Sides of the Same Coin

"...examples display the shared biblical origin of the terms economics and stewardship. Economics can be understood as the theoretical side of stewardship, and stewardship can be understood as the practical side of economics. Here in the Midwest, over the course of the winter we’ve heard a number of news reports about the dilemma facing households over the rise in home heating costs. Often, the decision must be made to pay only one of two bills, to pay the heating bill or buy food. Dire situations like these are ones in which tough economic decisions are made by the heads of households. Far from being a discipline that explains all of human existence, in the biblical view, as we saw in the case of the shrewd manager, economics is the thoughtful ordering of the material resources of a household or social unit toward the self-identified good end. Thus, if we hold a biblical view of economics and stewardship, we will not be tempted to divorce the two concepts but instead will see them as united. On a larger scale, then, economics must play an important role in decisions about environmental stewardship. Economics helps us rightly order our stewardship. The fact that some advocates for political action on global warming are now attempting to propose economic arguments for their position is a positive step toward reconciling these two often estranged concepts..."

This article is basically about the concept of eco-economics. Click here and here for links to info on a great book exploring this concept.

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Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action
"...Over the last several years many of us have engaged in study, reflection, and prayer related to the issue of climate change (often called "global warming"). For most of us, until recently this has not been treated as a pressing issue or major priority. Indeed, many of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that climate change is a real problem and that it ought to matter to us as Christians. But now we have seen and heard enough to offer the following moral argument related to the matter of human-induced climate change. We commend the four simple but urgent claims offered in this document to all who will listen, beginning with our brothers and sisters in the Christian community, and urge all to take the appropriate actions that follow from them..."

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Preserved Garden or Productive City? Two Competing Views of Stewardship
"...The first position, understood as the preservationist view of stewardship, is manifest in the Evangelical Environmental Network’s Evangelical Declaration on the Care of Creation. This view emphasizes the pristine state of creation before the fall into sin, and understands this “garden” to be the ideal toward which we are to bend our efforts. The failure of humankind lies principally in its inability to both sustain creation’s fruitfulness and preserve creation’s powerful testimony to its Creator...

...The second position is evident in The Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship. This view emphasizes “productivity” and “proliferation.” The “productivity” view of stewardship stresses the unity between the biblical mandate both to “be fruitful and increase in number” and to “rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground” (Gen. 1:28 NIV). The adherents to the Cornwall Declaration affirm human “potential, as bearers of God’s image, to add to the earth’s abundance,” and recognize the identity of human beings as both "producers and stewards."

Again I have to say that neither concept is entirely exclusive of the other. The preservationist view could be said to be supportive of "producers & stewards", but that the word producers doesn't allow for consumption of huge amounts of resources in an unsustainable manner. The proliferation view seems to fit with what the Bible states, and even in the parable told by Jesus (see full article) it appears that one is being told to 'develop and grow your assets'. While the economy is important in both views, and it's smart to make prudent personal investments, (my house has appreciated - hooray!) in the big picture of the world economy we can no longer grow; the human population is too large (it would take three earths for every person to consume resources at the rate that we do in North America), our resources and energy sources are being depleted rapidly, and environmental degredation is everywhere. The economy is a subset of ecology, and only through realizing this can we move forward together with a plan to improve the quality of life for everyone on our planet.