LNG Canada: Short-term politics trumps long-term climate responsibility
by Marc Lee | October 4, 2018
LNG Canada’s final investment decision to build a natural gas liquefaction facility in Kitimat is a triumph of short-term politics over long-term responsibility to act on climate change. Exaggerated numbers have been used to sell the project to the public, while risks have been downplayed. The politics of liquefied natural gas (LNG) have a certain logic …
Paved with good intentions: A guide to evolving climate policies in BC
by Marc Lee | September 12, 2018
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, an economics professor of mine used to say back in the late 1980s. Concerned about the federal government’s inability to reign in fiscal deficits, hell back then was hitting a “financial wall” where the markets would no longer lend or would only do so at catastrophically …
Report on Mount Polley and Brazil tailings spills points to systemic problems with mining industry
by Lindsey Bertrand | August 28, 2018
Major issues remain unresolved four years after catastrophic Mount Polley dam failure VANCOUVER — British Columbia’s Mount Polley mining disaster bears remarkable similarities to a catastrophe at a Brazilian mine the next year and points to the strong possibility of more environmental calamities ahead, warns a new report that examines both events. The tailings pond …
Tailings dam spills at Mount Polley and Mariana: Chronicles of disasters foretold
by Judith Marshall | August 28, 2018
Leia a versão em português This paper explores the many parallels between the tailings dam spills at the Mount Polley mine in British Columbia (BC), Canada, and the Samarco mine in Mariana, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The Mount Polley disaster took place in August 2014, when the dam holding toxic waste from the copper and gold …
