Aldyeen Donnelly on Cap-and-Trade Policy in Federal Election

 Aldyen Donnelly: Politicians ignoring the constitutional crisis that would accompany cap and trade | Energy Probe

Index of Wellbeing adresses Environmental Issues

 The Canadian Index of Wellbeing

• Air quality is showing mixed signs but is still problematic and is costly to Canadians’ health, particularly in large traffic-congested cities.
• Water quality is good, but supplies are shrinking in parts of the country and, combined with high demand, raise concerns for the future.
• Canadians are consuming more and disposing more. There are some signs of reduced consumption in the last few years, but it remains to be seen whether this was because of actual behaviour change or the onset of the recession. Recycling is increasing but not enough to reduce total waste.

I'll address some aspects of this later, but there are 3 examples of issues that are not being discussed because carbon tax, cap-and-trade, and climate change, continue to be trumpeted 5 years since temperatures started cooling in the thin belt of Canada where the vast majority of the population lives.

Overview of Smart Meter Jurisdictions From the Guardian

Smart grid leaders | Smart revolution | guardian.co.uk

Australia: "The aim was to save energy costs through using power at non-peak times, but fears arose that large-scale businesses would be better equipped than small households to reap these rewards.'
...
"In November 2009, Victoria's auditor-general published a damning report that highlighted gaps in accountability, flaws in cost-benefit analysis and high technological risks. The report's concerns over the inequity of the project's economic outcomes led to a March 2010 moratorium"
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Amsterdam: "The bill was later amended to allow voluntary participation in the smart meter scheme. Consumer groups claimed they had issued a forceful reminder to governments that many people consider their personal privacy a higher priority than their electricity bill."
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The Ontario section might have noted that the 6.5% reduction in energy use in the pilot was a Toronto Hydro pilot in the cool summer of 2009's recession -- and that the entire province had a reduction of the same magnitude, whether on smart meters or economical ones.

New York Times Blog: Maybe the Gas Is Not Greener ...

Fugitive Methane Stirs Debate on Natural Gas - NYTimes.com

Bipartisan Group in U.S. Looks to Jump-Start Energy Policy Debate

Jump-Start U.S. Energy Policy, Bipartisan Group Urges - NYTimes.com

"They want to shift the focus of the debate from the environmental benefits of reducing fossil fuel use to the national security aspects of the nation’s dependence on oil, much of it from the Middle East and other unstable regions. "

Idaho Senate rejects 'Green' Subsidy Bill “developed by the industries that will benefit.”

Idaho Senate kills much-debated energy rebate

Senator Joe Stegner led the successful opposition to a bill that, “would have given alternative energy developers — including geothermal, digester gas and irrigation-canal hydroelectric projects — a 6 percent break on energy production equipment through 2014. Also, the action affects 18 wind projects in their advanced stages that would have sought to qualify for the tax break, which now expires June 30."

"This has been crafted by people who will enjoy that rebate," Stegner said. "It's not been developed by policy makers with regards to whether it's going to be good policy for the state. It's been developed by the industries that will benefit."

Scottland's John Muir Trust Looks at IWT's

And comes to the same conclusions everybody else who looks at the expensive baubles does.

They require full backup - or a populace that tolerates blackouts.
Analysis of UK Wind Power Generation

Nuclear Waste Issue Being Dealt with in US - but only by the opposition

Republicans Open Inquiry on Yucca Mountain Shutdown - NYTimes.com

More Monbiot

The unpalatable truth is that the anti-nuclear lobby has misled us all | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

Quebec's Shame Running Strongly Again This Election.

Harper's pledge an 'attack' on Quebec: Duceppe

Canadians don't pay much attention to Quebec politics, but this article really points out how the atheistic Duceppe assume Quebec has a divine right to suckle on every teat on earth.

Quebec Hydro earns about $2 billion dollars every year reselling the output of Newfoundland and Labrador's Churchill Falls hydroelectric dam. It was a pretty bad deal signed back in the 1960's - with the federal courts demanding Newfoundland respect the deal in the 1980's. Being landlocked, Quebec abandoned concepts of free trade, inter-provincial trade, and any semblance of decency, to get the deal done.

Newfoundland honours the deal - but is fighting for a route to get additional immensely valuable hydro-electric resources to people in fair markets desiring cleaner energy.  

Quebec signed a deal when it harmonized the sales taxes - and it did so to maintain control on exemptions, and it is eliminating exemptions that is the justification for the tax.

Quebec's petty populist says obviously Quebec's adversaries should keep their word when bullied and conned by Quebec, but not vice versa - that he calls stealing.