The development of Canada’s oil sands will single-handedly undo greenhouse gas gains made by weaning the country’s electrical supply off coal, a government study predicts. The Environment Canada forecast of Canada’s carbon output over the next decade casts in stark terms the challenge facing the country as it pursues major energy development at a time [...]
Ogoniland oil spills: Shell admits Nigeria liability
Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011from BBC News Africa Oil giant Shell has accepted responsibility for two devastating oil spills in Nigeria’s Ogoniland region. The Bodo fishing community sued Shell in the UK, alleging that spills in 2008 and 2009 had destroyed the environment and ruined their livelihoods. Their lawyer said they would seek hundreds of millions of dollars in [...]
Canada lagging U.S. on climate, Kent warned
Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011Postmedia News By Mike De Souza OTTAWA — Global warming is the world’s greatest environmental challenge and Canada is falling behind the United States in reducing the pollution from industry that is causing the problem, say newly released briefing notes prepared for Environment Minister Peter Kent. The warnings, submitted to Kent in January when he [...]
The trouble with outsourcing
Saturday, July 30th, 2011from The Economist WHEN Ford’s River Rouge Plant was completed in 1928 it boasted everything it needed to turn raw materials into finished cars: 100,000 workers, 16m square feet of factory floor, 100 miles of railway track and its own docks and furnaces. Today it is still Ford’s largest plant, but only a shadow of [...]
Trim staff, fat profits?
Saturday, July 30th, 2011from The Economist ONE of the bosses in the film “Horrible Bosses” (see article) announces that it is time to “trim some of the fat”. He then tries to fire the fat employees. In real life, companies are more humane. But they do worry about their employees’ health, and the effect this has on productivity and [...]
Canadian campaign puts the spin on ‘ethical oil’
Thursday, July 28th, 2011Posted by Leo Hickman You’ve got to hand it to Alykhan Velshi: for such a tender age, he seems to be remarkably well-versed in the dark arts of spin and misdirection. Many people outside of Alberta believe the Canadian state’s tar sands industry to be the most environmental destructive energy extraction industry in the world. But not [...]
Ex-Tory message maven tailors his spin to oil sands
Thursday, July 28th, 2011By: Colin Freeze Alykhan Velshi, a 27-year-old who established himself in Ottawa as a master of messaging and a crucial cog in the Conservative machine, has a new job – he’s out to polish the image of Canada’s oil sands in the minds of freedom-loving people everywhere. “When petroleum reserves were deposited around the world, [...]
Puma leaps ahead of Nike and Adidas in Detox Challenge
Tuesday, July 26th, 2011Blogpost by EoinD Hats off to Puma, the third largest sportswear company in the world, for publicly committing today to eliminate all releases of hazardous chemicals from its entire product lifecycle and across its whole supply chain by 2020. The move comes less than two weeks into our Detox campaign, and shows yet again what’s possible when activists [...]
SEC Regulations Could Bring Oil Revenue Transparency To Uganda
Tuesday, July 26th, 2011Submitted by Alisa Zomer and Peter Veit Now twice delayed during the public comment and rule-drafting periods, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is due to release regulations for Section 1504 of the Wall Street Reform Act in late August. Recent developments in Uganda’s oil industry have made the release of these transparency provisions more urgent [...]
Alberta tops all of U.S. in June job creation
Wednesday, July 20th, 2011By: Gary Lamphier Just how awful was Friday’s bleak U.S. jobs report? Let us count the ways: Alberta created more new jobs in June (22,000) than all 50 U.S. states combined (18,000), even though the U.S. population is 85 times larger than Alberta’s; The shockingly weak U.S. jobs tally was more than 80 per cent [...]