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Canada looks to ban US coal shipments as retaliation for a new US 24% tariff on Canadian softwood lumber
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April 26, 2017
24% tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber British Columbian Premier Christy Clark pressed Trudeau on Wednesday to enforce a trade ban on shipments of thermal coal, also called steam coal, at its terminal in Vancouver in response to the Trump administration's 24 percent tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber imposed Tuesday.
"I told British Columbians that I would use every tool at our disposal to ensure we get a fair deal on softwood lumber," Clark said in an open letter to Trudeau. "Friends and trading partners cooperate," but "clearly, the United States is taking a different approach," she said.
Clark said U.S. coal producers rely on the terminal in Vancouver to ship coal to Asia, with a record of more than 6 million tons shipped last year. The U.S. lacks the capacity to move its own coal on the Pacific coast, making the ban an effective retaliatory response to the lumber tariff.
On Friday Washington state will release an environmental impact statement on a proposed coal terminal for Asian shipments.
Clark also said that steam coal is one of the most carbon-dioxide producing fuels, and banning its shipment would help Canada and the province meet its commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Most scientists blame the emissions for raising the Earth's temperature, resulting in more severe weather, floods and drought.
Clark pointed out that over the past five years most of the U.S. proposals to build its own coal terminals have been rejected for environmental and ecological reasons. read more »
Canadian oil firm keeps value promise: pulls out of national park in Peru's Amazon, avoiding damage to cultures and surroundings
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Saturday 22 April 2017
"[W]e wish to reiterate the company’s commitment to conduct its operations under the highest sustainability and human rights guidelines, avoiding damages to cultures and their surroundings; a value promise we feel remains intact."
Canadian oil firm pulls out of national park in Peru's Amazon Pacific abandons one million hectare concession including indigenous peoples’ territories along Brazil border.
A Canadian-headquartered company, Pacific Exploration and Production, has pulled out of a huge oil and gas concession overlapping a new national park in the Peruvian Amazon. The concession, Lot 135, includes approximately 40% of the Sierra del Divisor national park established in 2015.
The concession has provoked opposition in Peru and just across the border in Brazil for many years, including regular statements since 2009 from indigenous Matsés people in both countries and a lawsuit recently filed by regional indigenous federation ORPIO. Both Lot 135 and the park overlap territory used by the Matsés and a proposed reserve for indigenous people living in “isolation.”
Pacific signed a contract for the concession in 2007, the year after a significant chunk of it had been declared a supposedly “protected natural area” but eight years before it became a national park.
The company’s decision to pull out was made public by UK-headquartered NGO Survival International. Institutional Relations and Sustainability Manager Alejandro Jimenez Ramirez told Survival in a letter dated 13 March 2017: read more »
Why not? Let sunshine warm up 700-mile border solar panels and families in neighborly US and Mexico
Instead Of building another costly Berlin Wall
(which has been pulled down anyway),
"Let’s Build a Border Of Solar Panels"!
(What a brilliant idea, so constructive in every measure!!)
It would attract investment, create jobs and neighborly neighbors
(How wise, and no waste – imagine a gigantic smile on Earth!).
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Dec 19, 2016
Instead of another Berlin Wall, Instead Of Trump’s Wall, Let’s Build A Border Of Solar Panels President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly called for Mexico to build a wall between our countries. There is indeed a way that Mexico could create a barrier between the U.S. and Mexico, one constructed exclusively on the Mexican side, with substantial benefits for both countries and the planet: a solar border.
Sunlight in the northern deserts of Mexico is more intense than in the U.S. Southwest because of the lower latitude and more favorable cloud patterns. And construction and maintenance costs for solar plants in Mexico are substantially lower. Thus, building a long series of such plants all along the Mexican side of the border could power cities on both sides faster and more cheaply than similar arrays built north of the border. read more »
86 years ago, 1931. Thomas Edison: "I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power!"
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Thomas Alva Edison (11 February 1847 – 18 October 1931) was an American inventor and businessman
In 1931, not long before he died, the inventor told his friends Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone: I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.
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Image courtesy deviantart.com and Wikipedia
More plastic than fish by 2050: worldwide plastic use increased 20x in 50 yrs, 8 million tons dumped into oceans every minute
Only 5% of plastic waste is effectively recycled, at plants like this one in Indonesia.
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Washington Post - By 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans, study says
If we keep producing (and failing to properly dispose of) plastics at predicted rates, plastics in the ocean will outweigh fish pound for pound in 2050, the nonprofit foundation said in a report Tuesday.
According to the report, worldwide use of plastic has increased 20-fold in the past 50 years, and it is expected to double again in the next 20 years. By 2050, we’ll be making more than three times as much plastic stuff as we did in 2014.
Guardian UK - One refuse truck’s-worth of plastic is dumped into the sea every minute, and the situation is getting worse
According to a new Ellen MacArthur Foundation report launched at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday, new plastics will consume 20% of all oil production within 35 years, up from an estimated 5% today. read more »
Business. Sense. Market. Epic oil glut sparks super tanker traffic jams at sea; largest windfarm installation vessel delivered
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30 Nov 2015 - world's largest windfarm installation vessel, Seajacks Scylla delivered to UK by South Korea
Classification society ABS reports that the world's largest and most advanced wind farm installation and offshore construction vessel, the ABS-classed Seajacks Scylla, has been delivered by Samsung Heavy Industries' Geoje, South Korea, shipyard. read more »
All roads to Rome? Germany: 100% solar & wind; Japan: nuclear; UAE: eye-opener cost report; oil fr $100 to $40: Shell Artic dig
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Fossil Fuels Losing Cost Advantage Over Solar, Wind: cost of producing electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind has dropped significantly over the past five years, narrowing the gap with power generated from fossil fuels and nuclear reactors, according to the International Energy Agency.
“The costs of renewable technologies -- in particular solar photovoltaic -- have declined significantly over the past five years,” the Paris-based IEA said in a report called Projected Costs of Generating Electricity. “These technologies are no longer cost outliers.” read more »