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Canada Plans To Phase Out Coal-Powered Electricity By 2030 (theguardian.com)
Last week, French president Francois Hollande announced that France will shut down all its coal-fired power plants by 2023. This week, Canada's environment minister, Kathleen McKenna, announced that Canada plans to phase out its use of coal-fired electricity by 2030. The Guardian reports: [McKenna] said the goal is to make sure 90% of Canada's electricity comes from sustainable sources by that time -- up from 80% today. The announcement is one of a series of measures Justin Trudeau's Liberal government is rolling out as part of a broader climate change plan. Trudeau also has plans to implement a carbon tax. "Taking traditional coal power out of our energy mix and replacing it with cleaner technologies will significantly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, improve the health of Canadians, and benefit generations for years to come," McKenna said. Four of Canada's 10 provinces still use coal-based electricity. Alberta had been working toward phasing out coal-fired electricity by 2030.
They don't even use the word "electricity" up there. They call it "hydro".
I think you should be modded "-1 fucking ignorant moron".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The UK switched to gas years ago. It was Thatcher and her successor John Major who phased out the British coal industry since it was uneconomical. Odd that in America the preservation of coal is seen as a conservative ideal, whereas in the UK it was the left that was trying to keep it alive in the interests of the workers. I guess the definition of conservative in America must require anything that beats the crap out of the environment whether it pays its way or not.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Yes, Saskatchewan has the last pseudo-skeptic Premier in the country. Of course, the pseudo-skeptics like Postmedia (the Canadian oil industry's advertising branch masquerading as a newspaper chain) is cheering for Trump to kill the US's involvement in the Paris agreement, and naturally insisting "Well, there's no point to Canada fighting climate change, because the US won't".
Meanwhile, the very same newspaper chain is reporting that the Arctic is 20 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year.
I keep thinking that some point really soon the mounting evidence of serious climate shifts will override even the hardest critics, but then again, AGW pseudoskepticism has become a sort of a cult of its own, which follows the same bizarre and idiotic credo of the Creationists, both groups declaring almost every other day "Any day now, that nasty scientific theory I hate is going to be disproven."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Looking out my window I see frozen nitrogen falling like snow into a darkness that has never felt the warmth of a star. This global warming is a lie!
Wait... wrong channel.
I see sandworms. Yep, global warming.
See here. So good luck with that. There are limits to the amount of pollution folks will tolerate. China and India have long since reached those limits.
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Yes ... let's keep kicking those environmental issues down the road. Fourteen years should give plenty of opportunity to blame some other government when this (and many other distant promises) don't actually happen ...
Your own private definition of "ice age"? Suggest you try this one instead: ice age implies the presence of extensive ice sheets in both northern and southern hemispheres. By this definition, we are in an interglacial period
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
It's actually not a conservative thing. It's that the Republican Party, which is sort-of conservative, is controlled by a few monied elite that have significant fossil fuel interests. Therefore, in the U.S., fossil fuels = conservative cause, but not because it has anything to do with actual conservative ideology.
I don't live there, but it sounds like a good thing.
By many measures, Canada and Russia are the biggest "winners" from global warming. They benefit from warmer temps, longer growing seasons, more land in the cultivation zone, etc. So it is a bit ironic that Canada is making commitments to reduce CO2, while America (a big net loser) is backsliding.
> as I write this post, it's snowing heavily outside and there's over a foot of snow on the ground.
So because it's cold somewhere, global warming doesn't exist, excellent logic. Countervailing point: When I moved to Vancouver 30 years ago nobody needed air conditioning and winters saw about 1-2 weeks of snow. The last 10 years there's been annual runs on all stores in the summer where they can't keep air conditioners in stock, and I haven't seen a single flake on the ground in 6 years.
However, as you wrote that post it is also TWENTY DEGREES warmer than it should be in the arctic.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/north-pole-20-degrees-warmer-than-normal-as-winter-descends
Note, that's also the National Post, the right wing rag of Canada, so if THEY are publishing it, there must be some fire behind that smoke.
Odd that in America the preservation of coal is seen as a conservative ideal
That is just political pandering. Coal is dying because of simple economics. It can't compete with cheap shale gas, and Trump can't do a damn thing about that. The coal miners in Appalachia need to get on the bus and move somewhere that has jobs.
I keep thinking that some point really soon the mounting evidence of serious climate shifts will override even the hardest critics, but then again, AGW pseudoskepticism has become a sort of a cult of its own, which follows the same bizarre and idiotic credo of the Creationists, both groups declaring almost every other day "Any day now, that nasty scientific theory I hate is going to be disproven."
I think that calling them pseudoskeptics bestows too much grace on them. What they really are is anti-science denialists.
And they (like the Creationists) are not waiting for their least-favorite scientific theory to be disproven. They simply reject the parts of science that are inconvenient to them.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
not unless they have more bombs than us anyway. Reparation payments are made by folks who lack military and/or economic power. The United States has both. Given the enormous natural resources we have that's not likely to change. We're also the only nation with a proper navy (though China's catching up).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The UK switched to gas years ago. It was Thatcher and her successor John Major who phased out the British coal industry since it was uneconomical. Odd that in America the preservation of coal is seen as a conservative ideal, whereas in the UK it was the left that was trying to keep it alive in the interests of the workers. I guess the definition of conservative in America must require anything that beats the crap out of the environment whether it pays its way or not.
No, it was just a cynical pumping of the people who may have lost their jobs by the conservatives. They aren't going to get their jobs back, but thanks for the vote. Also, the people who own the Conservative politicians have a pretty big self interest in preserving coal use, so its a core principle.
Regardless, automation has done more to eliminate coal jobs than anything else. What once upon a time took armies of men, digging with pickaxes and dinky cars is now accomplished by a few people.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Coal is the least efficient and highest polluting method of power generation in the commercial market and everyone should be trying to eliminate it everywhere on the planet. If there was ever one method of power generation to eliminate, it's coal power.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The joke's on you. We're about to have CLEAN COAL starting January 21.
You are welcome on my lawn.
but not because it has anything to do with actual conservative ideology.
Actually, there are those in the Republican party who view environmentalism as a New Age, satanic cult. They equate it to a worship of Mother Earth, and therefore view it as inherently evil and unGodly.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
I don't live there, but it sounds like a good thing.
By many measures, Canada and Russia are the biggest "winners" from global warming. They benefit from warmer temps, longer growing seasons, more land in the cultivation zone, etc. So it is a bit ironic that Canada is making commitments to reduce CO2, while America (a big net loser) is backsliding.
A lot of Russia is trapped, frozen methane and an increasing amount of it is thawing and venting. Not a good thing if it increases. Canada has been seeing more & larger forest fires and coupled with the die-off of trees from infestation, wildfires are going to get worse over time.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
"They simply reject the parts of science that are inconvenient to them"
I keep hoping some of them will find gravity inconvenient.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Sorry we passed peak Truth a while ago and are rapidly entering the post-truth era, the Postfactocene.
Germany has no intention of eliminating fossil fuel burning in the near or even the far future. At the moment they generate 40% of their electricity demand from coal and lignite. They *hope* to have reduced their coal and lignite consumption by 2050 but it's a big industry and employer, and they have billions of tonnes of extractable lignite resources within their own borders so it's not going to disappear completely. They have legislated the shutdown of their non-fossil nuclear power plants by 2023 and that means they will have to find another 15% or so of replacement generating capacity when that happens. A lot of that coming shortfall could be covered by burning more coal.
There is zero evidence that Germany plans to abandon burning lignite any time this century, never mind 2040 or 2060. There have been lots of fanciful announcements about renewables taking over and the end of fossil CO2 emissions but the facts don't agree. Ten years ago Germany generated about 40% of its electricity from coal and lignite, about 290 TWhrs. In 2015 it generated about 40% of its electricity from coal and lignite, about 270 TWhrs. The increase in renewables generation over that period has been balanced by a reduction in nuclear non-carbon baseload generation, from about 25% to 15%. That 15% is going away totally by 2023 when the last nuclear power station will be closed by government order. Either the Germans spend a lot more on building out their renewable fleet, improving their grid to handle the fluctuating supply, add large amounts of storage and start replacing their first-generation wind turbines and solar installations which are reaching end-of-life, or they burn more lignite. My bet is on the latter.
Albertan here. No, global warming is bad for us. In the south, where a lot of land is cultivated for hay and animal feed, it's been a dustbowl, there were news stories about ranchers selling off their cows for pennies on the dollar, otherwise they would starve to death. In the west, the warmer temperatures mean that the pine beetle has breached the mountains and is now in Alberta forests, this bug kills pine trees dead, in Yoho there are vast forests that have been killed by the beetle. The bug is kept in check naturally by cold temperatures.
In the north, where there are forests larger than some American states, forest fires unlike anything we have ever recorded has ripped through the area and one city, 60.000 people were forced to evacuate as a forest fire leveled 20% of the city, Canada's most expensive natural disaster.
In the central region, where I live, farmers are just now finishing pulling in their crops because of unseasonable rain and general crap weather.
In my city, there is huge concern over increased rainfall because our infrastructure was never designed for it. The city recently released previously restricted flood plain plans and I found out that my house is on the very tip of a giant lake that would appear in the 1 in 100 year storm scenario, and all of my neighbors across the street would be underwater. We are expecting the 1 in 100 year storm any old day now, next July is a likely date.
Given a choice, any Albertan would go back to the way things were.