The filth and the fury

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by PATRICK LEJTENYI

January
• The year gets off to a warm start. Continuing a trend that will last until at least this fall, the past 14 seasons were declared warmer than usual by Environment Canada. 2000 was the seventh warmest year in Canada since 1948, with an average 0.9 degrees Celsius above normal. The last year to record below normal temperatures was 1992.
• Forestry giant Tembec announces it will cooperate with the World Wildlife Fund and a Mexican conservation group in practicing socially and environmentally responsible logging practices.

February
• The Species at Risk Act (SARA) is introduced for debate in the House of Commons. It aims to save wildlife in Canada from extinction and provides for the recovery of species at risk, while recognizing the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). It also calls for scientific assessments to be made public and gives the feds the authority to protect species in imminent danger. Critics say it is riddled with shortcomings.
• The attorneys-general of New York and Connecticut ask Ontario to close three power plants that they say harm the health of humans and wildlife.
Health Minister David Anderson unveils a $120-million smog-fighting plan aimed at cleaning Ontario’s air, including halving the output of nitrogen-oxide emissions.

March
• George W. Bush is the Devil. Aside from pulling the world’s greatest polluter out of the (admittedly flawed) Kyoto Protocol, he reneges on a campaign promise to declare carbon dioxide a pollutant. Before becoming the Greatest President That Ever Served, he received ample donations from the oil and coal set, and padded his Cabinet with energy execs.
• Environment ministers from the hemisphere’s 34 “democratic” countries meet in Montreal. Topics for discussion are environmental management and the need for innovation, improving understanding on environment and health linkages and the conservation of biodiversity in healthy ecosystems. Montreal happens to be the UN’s H.Q. on biodiversity.
• Vancouver-born Greenpeace founder David McTaggart dies in a car accident in Italy, age 68.

April
• Canada becomes one of 87 signatories to the UN’s Cartagena Protocol on Biological Diversity, which regulates the transborder “movement of living organisms that are the products of biotechnology and that may have an adverse effect on biodiversity,” according to a federal release. The Protocol, which was negotiated in Montreal in January, allows for trade of living modified plants, animals and microorganisms as long as they are consistent with WTO rules. Last year, trade in biotech products made over $2-billion for Canadian companies.
• A draft declaration for the Summit of the Americas, a.k.a. the FTAA Summit, in Quebec City saw a watered-down and tepid commitment to Kyoto.

May
• The Sydney Tar Ponds, a sludge of toxic chemicals containing high levels of arsenic, lead and a host of other chemicals, gets federal attention when Health Minister Allan Rock and Environment Minister David Anderson agree on further tests and possible relocation for residents living nearby. In December, officials said the Ponds were not affecting local residents and relocation would not be subsidized. Sydney residents suffer from higher levels of cancer, mortality and birth defects than anywhere else in Canada.
• Opponents of Quebec’s Bill 136, which would allow lumber companies to increase their haul by as much as 23 per cent, go on the offensive. Domtar, one of Quebec’s biggest loggers, states that the logging industry isn’t threatening forests, and that Canada’s forests are actually getting bigger.

June
• At the second Annual Toronto Smog Summit, much ado is made about Canada investing more than $109-million in initiatives focussing on urban transportation, fuel-cell technology, increasing fuel efficiency and marketing low-emission vehicles. An agreement with car manufacturers to market low-emissions vehicles starting this year was reached, and a $23-million investment in the Canadian Transportation Fuel Cell Alliance to investigate different fuelling options for fuel-cell vehicles is also announced.
• The Sierra Club releases its “Rio Report Card,” and Canada gets the dunce cap. We got an F for conservation of marine resources, a D on greenhouse gas emissions, a D- on making trade and environment mutually supportive and an “Absent (No effort in this area!)” for forests. Alberta and Ontario both receive double Fs on biodiversity and climate change. Quebec gets a D- and B- respectively. Ontario and Newfoundland get detentions for their efforts on water.
• The Supreme Court of Canada rules against two companies, Spraytech and Chemlawn, who challenged the town of Hudson, off the western tip of Montreal, for banning the use of cosmetic pesticides within town borders.

July
• In Bonn, Germany, Canada joins 180 countries in reaching a political framework to “give life to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and open the way for its ratification by Canada in 2002,” the feds announce. Canadian environmentalists are only kind of happy: while they applaud reaching the agreement and Canada’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions by 65 megatonnes—one-third of the Kyoto target, with 11 years to go—most remain skeptical of the “carbon sinks” scheme, which allow for transferable carbon credits. The idea behind the sinks relies on our forests absorbing a large part of our emissions, so while we are getting rid of more carbon dioxide, we aren’t really producing that much less from our factories and cars. The sinks would account for 15 per cent of Canada’s effort.

August
• Eastern Canadian Premiers and New England governors agree on a long-term plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 75 to 85 per cent.
• The Quebec government seems intent on carrying out its plans to build 36 small dams on 24 rivers, to the chagrin of outdoor enthusiasts. The dams would yield a maximum 50 megawatts, making them uneconomical for long-distance selling.
• Pierre Audet, the former head of the Bloc Pot, and Serge Granger, their former political advisor, announce they are joining the Green Party.

September
• The fourth biennial State of the Great Lakes Report, issued by the Canadian and American governments, is released, and the news isn’t too good. Thirty-three indicators of a possible 80 were studied, and these were some of the findings: the drinking water quality was listed as “good,” but there are still too many “exotic species” being released into the Lakes, and the native unionid mussel is still posing a threat. There is still a lot of pollution, including phosphorous and other toxic chemical concentrations, and acid rain is still a problem. Biodiversity is also suffering. Furthermore, water levels in the Great Lakes are at their lowest since the mid ’60s, with Superior being the only one with water levels above those last year. A rapid recovery is deemed unlikely.

October
• A team of research scientists and weather specialists in Toronto come up with a new way of measuring the wind chill index, based on results of trials conducted on actual humans. Previous tests were done on vials of water suspended 30 metres in the air, with results often a full 10 degrees above the actual temperature.
• Quebec Cree charge the provincial government with apathy regarding their health. Even though the government knew the Cree’s water was being poisoned by high levels of cyanide, arsenic, mercury and other metals, it did nothing for two years, until the Cree went public with an American scientist’s finding confirming the presence of toxins.

November
• Environmentalists appear before a Parliamentary Standing Committee to ask for legislation amendments on a plan that would allow Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, the federal agency charged with disposing nuclear waste, to bury nuclear waste in the Canadian Shield. There are 30 specific amendments needed to Bill C-27 before it can be acceptable, they say, including stopping the production of nuclear fuel waste and prohibiting the importation of it into Canada.
An international conference on biodiversity held in Montreal as a lead-up to the “Rio+10” conference next year saw world government officials take the issue of primary forest protection seriously, which was seen as encouraging.
• The Earth Liberation Front (ELF), lets it be known that they have “spiked” trees (which damage logging equipment) in Idaho’s Nez Percee national forest. Logging groups, the FBI and some conservative politicians denounce the group as terrorists, and more mainstream groups like Greenpeace reject the practices of the ELF and its animal rights cousin the Animal Liberation Front. This year alone, the ELF and ALF have claimed responsibility for burning down the offices of a lumber company in Oregon, started a fire at a primate research centre in New Mexico, released mink from an Iowa fur farm and firebombed a federal corral for wild horses in California.

December
• The U.S. Senate kills a deal that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling. American environmentalists say the project would have destroyed one of the last pristine parts of North America for six months worth of oil that would only be available 10 years from now.
• Environment Canada releases the names of hundreds of companies across the country that emit two of the most harmful industrial pollutants, dioxin and mercury. While previously naming and shaming only the Hudson Bay Mining Company and Smelting in Flin Flon, Manitoba, whose emissions were in the tonnes, the new list includes companies that emit only kilograms of the vile stuff. Environmentalists are hoping the new list will allow locals bring action against companies polluting in their regions. Check on local enviro miscreants at www.ec.gc.ca <<