March 21, 2024 - "Despite calls from seven of Canada’s premiers ... to scrap the upcoming carbon tax hike, ... Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has doubled down as he tries to convince Canadians this tax, ... set to rise from $65 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) to $80 per tonne on April 1, will really be good for them. Speaking with reporters in Calgary (not coincidentally Premier Danielle Smith’s backyard), the prime minister said, 'My job is not to be popular. My job is to do the right things for Canada now and do the right things for Canadians a generation from now' to 'deliver that better future one generation from now, two generations from now.'
"But Trudeau’s argument that somehow GHG reductions, which might stem from Canada’s carbon tax, will yield appreciable benefits of any kind — economic or environmental — now or in the future is nonsense....
"Canada’s share of global GHG emissions is slowly declining and small relative to the world’s larger emitters, particularly China. Indeed, in 2021 Canada’s emissions comprised 1.5% of global GHG emissions compared to 26% for China (in 2018). And since 2005, emissions from China increased by a staggering 71.7%. It’s absurd to think that, even if Canada could drive its GHG emissions to zero, there would be any measurable impact on the global climate. And no impact on climate means no improved environmental benefits for future generations.
"Economically, the prime minister’s argument is even less compelling.... According to a study published by the Fraser Institute, implementing a $170 carbon tax would shrink Canada’s economy by 1.8% and produce significant job losses and reduced real income in every province....
"Trudeau government policies, including the carbon tax and imposition of federal bills C-48 (which bans large oil tankers carrying crude oil off British Columbia’s north coast, limiting access to Asian markets) and C-69 (which introduces subjective criteria including the 'social impact' of energy investment into the evaluation process of major energy projects), combined with impending regulations such as GHG emission caps, are contributing to a collapse in business investment and ultimately economic stagnation in Canada. Per-person gross domestic product (GDP) — a broad measure of living standards — ... stood in 2014 at $58,162, which is $51 higher than at the end of 2023 (inflation-adjusted). In other words, living standards for Canadians have declined.
"Capital investment, which contributes to economic growth and higher living standards, is also declining. A 2021 Fraser Institute study showed that the growth rate of overall capital expenditures in Canada slowed substantially from 2005 to 2019 and the growth rate from 2015 to 2019 was lower than in virtually any other period since 1970.... [F]rom 2010 to 2019, Canada’s investment growth rate dropped substantially below that of the United States and many other developed countries. Corporate investment in Canada as a share of total investment was also the lowest among a set of developed countries from 2005 to 2019.
"Far from delivering environmental or economic benefits for Canadians 'one generation from now' or 'two generations from now,' Trudeau’s policies have thrown serious shadows over the future economic prospects of Canadians, who will find themselves less well-off and less economically capable of adapting to predicted climate risks, whether manmade or natural."
A Federal court has ruled the Trudeau government's ban on single-use plastics to be both unreasonable and unconstitutional. The government is appealing the decision.
November 18, 2023 - "On Thursday a Federal Court judge, the Hon. Angela Furlanetto, startled the Dominion by essentially sweeping aside the Liberal government’s ban on a short list of single-use plastic items, including grocery bags, cutlery, takeout containers and drinking straws.... Justice Furlanetto, asked for judicial review by Alberta and Saskatchewan and a coalition of petrochemical processors, concluded that the actual rule was 'both unreasonable and unconstitutional.' Her judgment is a thorny 200-paragraph monster, but the innermost logic of it is simple.
"The federal Environmental Protection Act allows Ottawa to ban or restrict 'toxic' substances that might enter the environment. In 2021 the Liberals made a cabinet order essentially saying 'These here single-use plastic items are hereunto declared to be toxic'. Abracadabra!'” No one can show that these items are actually poisonous in the ordinary sense, and the listed items weren’t condemned as substances, i.e., for their chemical content or composition. The reasoning of the government was that if an Arctic lynx might choke on the ring from a six-pack of Labatt Blue, that kinda sorta makes the plastic in the ring 'toxic,' and justifies the federal government in the use of its criminal-law power.
"I don’t know if anyone at the cabinet table anticipated how this argument would fare under a 'reasonableness' analysis with lawyers for two provinces, plus Dow Chemical and Imperial Oil, among others, on the opposite side. But the government almost certainly faced a piece of extra bad luck in having the case go before Justice Furlanetto, a jurist with hard-science credentials that include a master’s degree in biochemistry....
In her judgment she observes that the explicitly stated rationale for the plastics ban was that 'all plastic manufactured items have the potential to become plastic pollution.' Justice Furlanetto found this reasoning to be puzzling.... 'The basic principle of toxicity for chemicals is that all chemical substances have the potential to be toxic,' she writes. 'However, for a chemical substance to be toxic it must be administered to an organism or enter the environment at a rate (or dose) that causes a high enough concentration to trigger a harmful effect. In this instance, the reverse logic appears to be applied: all PMI are identified as toxic because they are made of plastic and because all plastic is deemed to have the potential to become plastic pollution.'
"The judge goes on to accept arguments from the provinces that the order implementing the ban was overbroad, potentially capturing some categories of plastic items for which there is no evidence, or none with any scientific standing, of significant environmental harm. Past caselaw is clear that the federal power to make criminal law must be very closely connected to actual, demonstrable harm: the federal government isn’t supposed to invoke criminal-law power to sneakily engage in economic regulation. Unfortunately for the Liberals, their own documents discussing the ban contain some gasbag talk about creating a 'circular plastics economy,' even though all provinces have plastics regulations of their own (and less than one per cent of Canadian plastics escape the 'managed waste stream' that ends in the landfill).
"Furlanetto concludes: 'The broad and all-encompassing nature of the (banned) category of (plastic manufactured items) poses a threat to the balance of federalism, as it does not restrict regulation to only those PMI that truly have the potential to cause harm to the environment.'
"So if the Liberals choose to appeal her ruling, they have two (admittedly connected) hurdles to clear. They have to show that their defining of some non-poisonous forms of manufactured plastic as 'toxic' was reasonable.... And they have to show that the whole thing wasn’t a mere abuse of criminal-law power to obtrude into provincial economic jurisdiction. It’s impossible to trust the Supreme Court to uphold Furlanetto wholesale, but she has certainly shed light on the sheer logical shadiness of the plastics ban."
Canada's environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, also serves as executive vice president of an advisory board to (and run by) the Chinese Communist Party government, which the Trudeau government has financially supported
August 16, 2023 - "Justin Trudeau’s environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, is pulling double duty as an official adviser to the Chinese government. Turns out, he also wants to make Beijing an ally on the environmental issue and will head to coal-powered China at the end of the month after lecturing Canada’s premiers on using fossil fuels.... 'Maybe some (political opponents) will try and attack me' for traveling to China amid tensions between the two countries, Guilbeault told the National Observer. “I am clearly a lightning rod for some of them, but I think Canadians, in general, will understand how important it is. We can’t solve climate change, you can’t solve the international biodiversity issue, without working with countries like China'....
"Guilbeault is going to a meeting of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development [CCICED]. It is described as a think tank but is actually a creation of China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment. The ministry, part of the Communist Party of China, selects the leadership as well as 'providing guidance for its operations, implementation, and daily management.' The council is tasked with conducting research and offering proposals to the Chinese government.
"Guilbeault is also currently listed as Executive Vice Chairperson of the Executive Committee of the CCICED. He sits alongside Ding Xuexiang, who serves as the chair of the CCICED. Xuexiang is also the first vice premier of the People’s Republic of China and stands just behind [president] Xi Jinping in the pecking order of the Communist Party of China.
[According to the Government of Canada website: "Established in 1992, the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development is a high-profile international advisory body to the Chinese government..... Since 2016, Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change has been its international executive vice chair." Environment and Climate Change Canada has also committed at least $8 million "to financially support the Secretariat International Support Office of the China Council, located at Simon Fraser University, Canada." - GD]
"There truly is no length that the Trudeau Liberals won’t go to cozy up to China. It’s one thing for diplomats to have discussions, to deal with irritants at international conferences but this is something else. Guilbeault wants to treat a country that undermines our democracy, that intimidates and harasses Chinese-Canadians as an ally. He is a formal adviser to the government of China on the environment while also serving as Canada’s environment minister, it’s an untenable situation.
"As for China’s environmental record, it’s horrible and nothing Guilbeault says or does will change that. According to Our World in Data, run by Oxford University, China’s CO2 emissions in 2021 were 54.59 billion tonnes, up from 52.59 billion tonnes in 2020. That means China’s annual increase of 2 billion tonnes is more than all of Canada’s emissions, pegged at 777 million tonnes.
"And while Guilbeault picks fights with provincial governments across Canada for generating a small and shrinking amount of electricity from coal or natural gas, China last year built roughly two coal plants per week. According to the group, Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, the coal power capacity of the generating stations China put under construction last year was six times that of the rest of the world.
"These are Steven Guilbeault’s friends and allies. Canadians, it seems, are his enemies."
The Trudeau government's ban on single-use plastics is an expensive measure that will actually create more garbage and impose higher costs on Canadians.
(Appeared in the National Post, March 23, 2023) - "The Alberta and Saskatchewan governments recently appeared before the Federal Court of Canada to essentially challenge the Trudeau government’s ban on six types of single-use plastics, which went into effect late last year. Citing an ocean pollution crisis, the Trudeau government also plans to gradually ban the manufacturing, importation and sale of checkout bags, cutlery, food service ware, stir sticks and straws by 2025, purportedly to improve the environment and deliver economic benefits to Canadians. But in reality, the plastic ban is an expensive measure that will actually create more garbage and impose higher costs on Canadians....
"Canada contributes an estimated 0.02 per cent of all plastic in the world’s oceans. Meanwhile, nearly 90 per cent of ocean plastic comes from Asia and Africa, with five countries—Philippines, India, Malaysia, China and Indonesia—accounting for the majority the world’s ocean plastic pollution. Therefore, eliminating Canada’s plastic waste will have an undetectable impact on global ocean plastic pollution.
"More importantly, despite claims from Ottawa, Canada doesn’t have a plastic waste crisis. According to the federal government’s own report, 99 per cent of the country’s plastic waste is already disposed of safely through recycling, incinerating and environmentally-friendly landfills. If you’re concerned about the remaining 1 per cent, it’s worth noting that according to the government’s own sources, none of the six types of now-banned single-use plastics are among the top five items found on shorelines....
"In fact, as acknowledged by the federal government’s own analysis, banning single-use plastics will actually increase waste generation rather than reduce it. According to the analysis, while the ban will remove 1.5 million tonnes of plastics from 2023 to 2032, it will almost double that tonnage in substitutes such as paper, wood and aluminum over the same period. In other words, the ban will increase, not decrease, the amount of net garbage in Canada.
"To make matters worse, according to the government’s Strategic Environmental Assessment, plastic substitutes “typically have higher climate change impacts” including higher greenhouse gases (GHG) and lower air quality. Indeed, according to multiple studies, single-use plastic substitutes such as paper require more energy to transport, feature higher smog formation and ozone depletion potential, demand more water and energy to be produced, and result in higher GHG emissions. Simply put, the plastic ban harms, not helps, the environment....
"According to the federal government’s own estimates, the plastic ban will save $616 million in avoided clean-up expenses over the next 10 years but will cost around $2 billion over the same period, due to the management of additional waste discussed above, ban enforcement and the forgone profit opportunity for manufacturers. The cost of the ban surpasses the benefit by a 3-to-1 ratio.
"Overall, the plastic ban is a costly measure that turns a small environmental problem into a bigger one. If the Trudeau government wants to do something about the small percentage of plastic that escapes into the environment, it should improve coordination with municipal waste-handling systems rather than impose and enforce a costly nationwide ban, which literally hurts more than it helps."
July 10, 2023 - "On July 2, Kenya's president ended an almost six-year moratorium on logging in the country's public and community forests. 'We can't have mature trees rotting in forests while locals suffer due to lack of timber. That's foolishness,' President William Ruto explained during a church service. 'This is why we have decided to open up the forest and harvest timber so that we can create jobs for our youth and open up business.'
"In 2018, when he was deputy president, Ruto announced a 90-day ban in order 'to allow reassessment and rationalisation of the entire forest sector.' The government regularly extended the ban as part of an effort to limit illegal logging and prevent the lowering of Kenya's water levels.
"While lifting the ban, Ruto is maintaining Kenya's goal of planting 15 billion trees over the next 10 years. The Kenya Forest Service (KFS) has also set rules for harvesting in gazetted forests, including requiring loggers to acquire entry and exit certificates.
'Some of the areas, in the Great Rift Valley for example, used to be hubs for timber production,' says Lubanga Makanji, who teaches environment and resource development at Egerton University in Kenya. 'And that means that there were wood processors that would provide employment for the local community. As soon as the moratorium came into place, those jobs were lost.' According to the Kenya Forestry Research Institute, the 2018 ban led to the loss of approximately 44,000 jobs and $28 million in revenue, bringing economic collapse to communities that relied on the logging industry.
"Ruto's decision has set off a storm of environmentalist anger, with activists accusing Kenya of favoring economic development over its climate goals. John Kioli, the executive director of the Green Africa Foundation, told the Associated Press that ... lifting the ban would 'undermine all efforts to put Kenya on a low-carbon trajectory.' 'By lifting this ban president Ruto has prioritised profit over people and nature,' said Tracy Makhet of Greenpeace Africa in a press release....
"But the ban is still in effect for indigenous forests. The lifted portion of the ban applies to trees in plantation forests, which should be felled when the trees reach rotation age, Makanji says....'We have a community that is also engaged in tree planting within these gazetted government forests. So to me, there shouldn't be any environmental impact.'
"Furthermore, it's far from clear that the moratorium substantially reduced illegal logging. In a 2004 study, Makanji and Haruyuki Mochida of the University of Tsukuba found that a previous ban did not prevent illegal logging in the Kakamega forest. 'As wood shortage bites, the price of sawn timber has risen hence creating a major incentive for illegal extraction,' explained the authors....
"By bringing property rights to the forest, Kenya could ensure that its trees are both conserved and used depending on the utility they bring to Kenyans, as determined by price signals. A 2000 paper on forest conservation in Kenya's Mt. Elgon National Park, written by Esther Mwangie of Indiana University and Paul Ongugo and Jane Njuguna of the Kenya Forest Research Institute, found that the 'institutional flexibility' of 'according claimant rights to local communities' can 'create incentives that encourage communities to take long term benefits and short term costs into account when making decisions.'"
Dec 10, 2022 - "The Trudeau government’s plan to eliminate plastic waste in Canada by 2030 [ZPW2030] is underway in earnest with the gradual elimination of single use plastics. As of Dec. 20, the manufacture and import for sale in Canada of plastic checkout bags, cutlery, takeout containers, stir sticks and most plastic straws (with some exemptions for flexible ones) will be prohibited. The sale of these items in Canada will end a year later. For six-pack ring carriers, the respective deadlines are six months later. By December 2025, all designated single use plastics will be prohibited, including manufacturing, importing and sales for export.
"The most visible change at first will be grocery stores ending the use of plastic bags — already underway in some chains and poised to happen in 2023 for others. Many fast-food outlets have already eliminated or are phasing out plastic straws, cutlery and stir sticks.... (Single use plastic water bottles are not included in the current prohibitions.)
"Meanwhile, the government’s own impact analysis says that while banning single use plastics will remove 1.5 million tonnes of plastics from the waste stream from 2023 to 2032, it will add almost double that amount of waste — 2.9 million tonnes — from the use of substitutes for plastic such as paper, wood, moulded fibre, aluminum and alternative plastics.
"Because the production costs of these alternatives are typically more expensive than plastic, the government estimates the increased costs to consumers at $2 billion from 2023 to 2032, or $50 per capita. Even with estimated savings of $616 million from eliminating single use plastics, the net cost is estimated at $1.4 billion. While the impact analysis says here will be a net environmental benefit from eliminating single use plastics, including the reduction of 1.8 million megatonnes of greenhouse gases annually, it also says some substitutes will have a higher climate change impact, as well as negative effects on air and water quality....
The six categories of single use plastics subject to the ban account for an estimated 160,000 tonnes of plastic waste annually, just 5% of the overall amount of 3.3 million tonnes of plastic waste. Of that, 86% ends up in landfills, 4% is burned, a dismal 9% is recycled — so much for all those years of faithful blue box recycling — and about 1%, or 29,000 tonnes, is discharged into the environment as litter, with 2,500 tonnes ending up in oceans, lakes and rivers....
"Canada is not a major contributor to the global problem of plastics pollution in the world’s oceans, rivers and other waterways. Canada’s contribution to global aquatic plastic pollution, when assessed in 2016, was between 0.02% and 0.03% of the global total. If observed market trends were to continue in the absence of ZPW2030 (zero plastic waste by 2030) the government’s regulatory impact assessment estimates plastic waste and plastic pollution could increase (from 2016 levels) by roughly one third by 2030. Thus, if ZPW2030 eliminated all the predicted increase, it would prevent an increase from 0.02%-0.03% to 0.023%-0.033% of the global total, an undetectable reduction of three-thousandths of one percent....
"Canada’s plastic manufacturers are challenging the Trudeau government’s ban on single use plastics in court, as well as its legal definition of plastics as “toxic,” plus warning the policy will lead to job losses. The government says more jobs will be created. As for replacing single use plastics in practical terms, the government has helpfully suggested, among other things, that the food industry provide customers with more options people can eat with their hands."
January 27, 2022 - "Today’s plans to decarbonize global energy systems center on a massive expansion in the use of solar, wind, and battery technologies, with the goal of these becoming the dominant means to power society. But scaling up these energy sources entails a radically heavier materials footprint than is associated with fossil fuels.... The unavoidable scale of materials demand will have significant impacts on commodities markets and prices, as well as on the environment. Most policy formulations fail to account for these implications. The country is long overdue for thoughtful and realistic planning that honestly acknowledges the tradeoffs and consequences arising from the materials needed to accelerate what is being called the energy transition.
"It has long been known that building solar and wind systems requires roughly a tenfold increase in the total tonnage of common materials — concrete, steel, glass, etc. — to deliver the same quantity of energy compared to building a natural gas or other hydrocarbon-fueled power plant. Beyond that, supplying the same quantity of energy as conventional sources with solar and wind equipment, along with other aspects of the energy transition such as using electric vehicles (EVs), entails an enormous increase in the use of specialty minerals and metals like copper, nickel, chromium, zinc, cobalt: in many instances, it’s far more than a tenfold increase.... Installing so much wind and solar generation capacity worldwide has profound materials implications, not to mention land requirements.... Replacing the energy output from a single 100 megawatt (MW) natural gas-fired turbine (producing enough electricity for 75,000 homes) requires at least 20 wind turbines, each about 500 feet tall and collectively requiring some 30,000 tons of iron ore and 50,000 tons of concrete, ... requir[ing] 10 square miles of land. And although a solar installation would require one-third as much land as wind, the aggregate tonnage of cement, steel, and glass used is about 150% greater than wind.
"Scaling up solar, wind, and batteries also means scaling up the mining of the refined minerals they require. There is a significant environmental impact associated with the sheer tonnage of earth that must be moved and processed to produce these refined minerals. To produce one ton of a purified element, a far greater quantity of ore must be extracted and processed. Copper ores, for example, typically contain only about 0.5% by weight of the element itself: roughly 200 tons of ore are dug up, moved, crushed, and refined to produce 1 ton of copper.... Cobalt (used in most batteries) occurs at a grade typically lower than 1 ton of the element per 1,500 tons of ore.... The IEA [International Energy Agency] ... estimates that an energy plan more ambitious than implied by the 2015 Paris Agreement, but one that remains far short of eliminating the use of fossil fuels, would increase demand for minerals such as lithium, graphite, nickel, and cobalt rare earths by 4,200%, 2,500%, 1,900% and 700%, respectively, by 2040.... The IEA report is not alone in pointing out that the required mining and processing infrastructure capacities don’t yet exist to meet the demand for essentially every category of mineral necessary for the transition path.
"In a recent report from the Geological Survey of Finland, researchers considered the minerals implications for ... using solar and wind to electrify all ground transport as well as to produce hydrogen for both aviation and chemical processes. They found the resulting demand for nearly every necessary mineral, including common ones such as copper, nickel, graphite, and lithium, would exceed not just existing and planned global production capabilities, but also known global reserves of those minerals. A recent analysis by the Wood Mackenzie consultancy found that if EVs are to account for two-thirds of all new car purchases by 2030, dozens of new mines must be opened just to meet automotive demands — each mine the size of the world’s biggest in each category today. But 2030 is only eight years away and, as the IEA has reported, opening a new mine takes 16 years on average....
"Another area of concern for these new technologies is their future cost.... Today, future plans for solar, wind, and battery technologies assume costs will continue to fall significantly, as they have over the last decade. But the implications of record-breaking demands for mineral commodities suggest the reverse is more likely. Consider batteries.... Numerous estimates ... suggest that commodity materials comprise 60 to 70% of the cost to produce a battery. Thus, modest increases in commodity prices can wipe out gains in the smaller share of costs associated with assembly, electronics, and labor, leading to overall higher costs.... In fact, 2021 saw high material costs lead to overall lithium battery prices declining by only 6%. That was a dramatic slowdown from the decadal trend, and less than half the decline rate in each of the prior two years. Although EVs comprise only 5% of the market for automobiles, the price index of EV battery metals has already increased by more than 200% over the past two years....
"There is, in short, no escaping the fact that the astonishing scale of global materials production needed for proposed energy transition plans will almost certainly place severe limits on aspirations for expanding the use of wind, solar, and battery systems. But even before those limits are reached, the pursuit of a materials-heavy energy infrastructure will cause economic impacts that ripple beyond energy markets, inflating the cost of nonenergy uses for the same minerals in computers, conventional manufacturing equipment, everyday consumer appliances, and more. Beyond economics, there are also the practical and geopolitical challenges arising from realignments of energy material supply chains..... Finally, there are the social and moral implications associated with a radical shift in the types and locations of environmental impacts that comes from replacing drilling (for fossil fuels) with a massive expansion in mining, much of which will occur in emerging markets and fragile ecosystems....
"Based on today’s physics and technology, the only path to an energy system with a material intensity lower than hydrocarbons would be one focused on nuclear fission.... Nuclear fission offers a potential hundredfold reduction in material intensity over combustion, and a thousandfold reduction over solar and wind. Here too, though, even if policies are implemented that are conducive to a nuclear renaissance, meaningful expansion will take decades longer than the rapid transition timelines popular today.
"The material realities associated with solar, wind, and storage technologies do not obviate an expanded, or even a substantial, role for these energy systems. However, believing that such technologies make possible a rapid and wholesale replacement of fossil fuels ignores the underlying physics, engineering, and economics. Even more troublesome, putting so much effort and money into those technologies will lead the world down a path that won’t meet targets to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but would cause massive collateral damage to economies and the environment."
SC: "Large hydro dams are a hugely expensive and destructive way to generate renewable energy. They are neither 'green' nor environmentally friendly.... Among other impacts, the Site C dam will destroy habitat for more than 100 species already vulnerable to extinction, including bird, plant, butterfly, bee and mammal species. The Site C dam and its reservoir will also eliminate some of Canada’s richest farmland, ancient wetlands called tufa seeps, old-growth boreal forests and a living laboratory for scientists to study how species adapt to climate change.... As many as 30,000 songbirds and woodpeckers nest in the dam’s future flood zone....
"Just how 'clean' big hydro dams really are is called into question by many scientists. One study by U.S. scientists shows that reservoirs produce considerably more carbon emissions than anticipated. About 80 per cent of these emissions are in the form of methane, a greenhouse gas 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide....
"[T]here was a concerted lobby by construction trades unions to continue the Site C dam. The same unions donated generously to the NDP — to the tune of many hundreds of thousands of dollars — and they continue to form a key part of the party’s labour base. The unions directly lobbied the NDP government and held well-attended press conferences in Vancouver and Victoria to champion continued Site C construction....
"[T]he independent B.C. Utilities Commission (BCUC) would normally have examined the Site C dam to determine whether or not the project was in the public interest. The watchdog commission rejected the project in the 1980s.... B.C.’s Liberal government ... changed the law in 2010 to strip the commission’s oversight of Site C. When the NDP came to power in 2017, it ... sen[t] the project to the BCUC.... But, notably, it didn’t allow the BCUC to determine whether or not proceeding with Site C was in the public interest and the BCUC wasn’t given the most up-to-date financial information for the project....
"Two Treaty 8 First Nations have filed civil claims alleging the Site C dam and two previous dams on the Peace River unjustifiably infringe on their treaty rights.... Already, BC Hydro contractors are clearcutting 13 areas in the Site C project zone that the nations have identified as critical to maintaining cultural practices guaranteed to them in the treaty signed in 1899. Three of those areas fall within a corridor for a transmission line that cuts through ... two wetlands — Sucker Lake and Trappers Lake — where First Nations have hunted moose and trapped for millennia....
"It made financial sense to build large hydro dams in Canada in the 1960s and 1970s when there were fewer renewable energy options available and they were far more expensive. But ... Canada’s publicly owned energy corporations are largely stuck in an old model and haven’t kept up with the times. Plummeting prices for wind energy and other renewables, coupled with the abundance of shale gas, mean that power from expensive new hydro dams can’t be sold for anything close to what it will cost to produce it. So, in addition to their devastating impacts on the environment and Indigenous peoples, large Canadian dams are no longer economical....
"Ultimately, provincial ratepayers will suffer, or taxpayers — they are largely the same people. B.C.’s NDP government just bailed out the deeply indebted BC Hydro for more than $1 billion, for example, and that’s even before many more billions in Site C costs come due."
July 5, 2019 - "The most effective way to fight global warming is to plant lots of trees, a trillion of them, maybe more, according to a new study. Swiss scientists ... say that even with existing cities and farmland, there's enough space for new trees to cover nine million square kilometres, roughly the size of the United States. Their report is in Thursday's edition of the journal Science.
"The study calculated that over the decades, those new trees could suck up nearly 750 billion tonnes of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the atmosphere — about as much carbon pollution as humans have spewed in the past 25 years. Much of that benefit will come quickly because trees remove more carbon from the air when they are younger, the study authors said. The potential for removing the most carbon is in the tropics.
"'This is by far — by thousands of times — the cheapest climate change solution' and the most effective, said study co-author Thomas Crowther, a climate change ecologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.... Before his research, Crowther figured there were other more effective ways to fight climate change besides cutting emissions, such as people switching from eating meat to vegetarianism. But, he said, tree planting is far more effective because trees take so much carbon dioxide out of the air.
"Thomas Lovejoy, a conservation biologist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., who wasn't part of the study, called it 'a good news story' because planting trees would also help stem the loss of biodiversity.
"Planting trees is not a substitute for weaning the world off burning oil, coal and gas, the chief cause of global warming, Crowther emphasized.... Nor is it easy or realistic to think the world will suddenly go on a tree-planting binge, although many groups have started, Crowther said.
"The researchers used Google Earth to see what areas could support more trees, while leaving room for people and crops. Lead author Jean-François Bastin estimated there's space for at least one trillion more trees, but it could be 1.5 trillion. That's on top of the three trillion trees now on Earth, according to earlier Crowther research. The study's calculations make sense, said Chris Field, an environmental scientist at Stanford University in California who also wasn't part of the study."
February 14, 2019 - "The Green New Deal isn’t a bill, it’s just a resolution.... But even if ... the GND took on the full force of law ... it won’t save the planet. It can’t possibly do so because, as Megan McArdle points out ... at the Washington Post, America isn’t the planet. In fact, we’re not even a terribly significant portion of the carbon emissions being released into the atmosphere at this point.
Today, the United States accounts for 4.3 percent of the world’s population, roughly 25 percent of its economic output and 15 percent of its carbon emissions from fuel combustion. Meanwhile China, with 18 percent of the world’s population, has 15 percent of its gross domestic product and 28 percent of its emissions. And India, with a population almost as big as China’s, produces only about 3 percent of global GDP and 6 percent of emissions....
Looking at these three countries brings the scale of the problem into focus. There is a small, rich world that lives in comfort and plenty, and a much larger, poor one that wants to get rich. To do so, those billions of people will pass through an intermediate stage when their developing industries are much dirtier than their highly regulated rich-world counterparts. The global emissions problem is likely to get much worse before it gets any better…
No matter what rich-world economies do about their energy consumption, or what “moral leadership” they exert, people in the non-rich world are going to want to drive cars instead of walking; to wash their clothes in machines instead of in a river; to cool their houses with air-conditioning; to eat meat every day — in other words, to do and own all the things that make modern rich-world lives so safe and pleasant....
"McArdle is undeniably correct that poorer countries are not going to abandon their chance at a better future based on cheap reliable fossil fuels simply because the U.S. is doing it. They are going to take the fastest route to a better life no matter how green America gets.... The Green New Deal can’t work because, at best, it can only address a tiny fraction of the global problem....
"In reality, there’s only one way America can change the ball game: By doing the hard work to actually make green energy the shortest, quickest path to prosperity. You don’t need a cap and trade system if solar panels are 35% efficient and cheap to manufacture. You don’t have to twist arms in China or India if fusion is a workable, safe alternative to fission. So McArdle argues that if you want a greener, cleaner planet, the solution is not a WWII style mobilization toward efficiency here, but developing green technology that everyone in the world will eagerly adopt because it’s obviously better than any fossil fuel alternative.
"I think McArdle is basically right about why the Green New Deal won’t work... However, like many other commentators who’ve looked at the GND, she treats the social justice wishlist it contains as tangential to the real goal. I continue to think this is a mistake....
"[Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez believes the real source of the problem isn’t fossil fuels per se, it’s capitalism. That’s the system she ultimately wants to eliminate and that’s why all the extra stuff in the GND, such as job guarantees for everyone, makes perfect sense. AOC wants a greener future as a means to achieve a redder one. For her purposes, the GND will be a success if America is less capitalist and more socialist, whether or not the rest of the world goes green."
February 25, 2019 - "The Green New Deal — a brainchild of progressive Democrats... — has been controversial since it was released.... How much would it cost? At least $50 trillion and possibly in excess of $90 trillion, according to a report released ... by the American Action Forum (AAF).
"The AAF, a center-right think tank that focuses on economic issues, projected costs for six aspects of the Green New Deal: reworking the electricity grid in an environmentally friendly manner, revamping the nation's transportation network to reduce transmissions, and its guarantees of well-paying jobs, universal health care, affordable housing, and food security for each person in the U.S.
"One of the Green New Deal's goals is to meet '100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources' in the next 10 years. Achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in this area would cost at least $5.4 trillion by 2029, the AAF says — not including another $387 billion per year for things like operations and maintenance.... [T]otal electricity costs would go up by 22 percent for consumers, the AAF says. Residential customers, who paid an average of $111.67 per month in 2017, would pay an average of about $300 more per year for electricity.
"The Green New Deal also proposes 'overhauling transportation systems ... to eliminate pollution and 19 greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible.' The AAF's estimate of the cost for this proposal assumes that high-speed trains would replace air travel.... Doing so would cost between $1.3 trillion and $2.7 trillion, the AAF estimates....
"The Green New Deal's jobs guarantee would also cost a considerable amount. The AAF based its estimates here on a 2018 report from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, which found that reaching full employment would involve putting roughly 10.7 million unemployed or underemployed people to work [which] would cost a total of $543 billion.... The AAF updated some of those numbers with 2019 data, and found that a federal jobs guarantee would cost $547 billion in 2019, and $6.762 trillion from 2020 to [2029].. Both of those numbers would rise if, with a guaranteed job waiting for them, many of those who aren't currently looking for work decide to join the labor force....
"The report also estimates that providing universal health care 'will cost roughly $36 trillion between 2020 and 2029.' The AAF simply built off a 2016 estimate of Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I–Vt.) Medicare for All Plan, which the Center for Health and Economy said would cost $34.67 trillion over 10 years. It's likely an accurate projection, roughly in line with a July 2018 Mercatus Center report, which said Medicare for All would cost the federal government more than $32 trillion over 10 years.
"The fifth aspect of the Green New Deal that AAF addresses is its guarantee of 'affordable, safe, and adequate housing." Simply housing the homeless could cost under $12 billion, AAF estimates.... But the Green New Deal also calls for 'upgrading all existing buildings ... to achieve maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability, including through electrification.' Applying such costs to all housing units ... yields a potential cost of $1.6 trillion to nearly $4.2 trillion."
March 22, 2019 - "The Heartland Institute was among 37 organizations and 112 individuals who signed a letter strongly urging President Donald Trump to move forward with rumored plans to form a President’s Commission on Climate Security (PCCS) with distinguished physicist Dr. William Happer, the administration’s senior director of the National Security Council (NSC) office for emerging technologies, to head it. The panel would conduct an independent review of the science that underpins official government climate reports, such as the latest National Climate Assessment....
"It’s a common misunderstanding, due to the fawning portrayal of its work by the mainstream media, that the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has objectively studied and presented the facts about climate change.... IPCC, as the name implies, is a political organization, not a scientific one. As such, IPCC was not charged with examining the causes and consequences of climate change but was instead directed from its founding to limit its enquiries into the 'human causes' of change....
"Many scientists have advanced their careers and raked in big government research grants by toeing the IPCC’s party line that humans are causing dangerous climate change and we need a government takeover of the economy, something like the Green New Deal, to fix it. Time and again, researchers and organizations have manipulated or altered data, and they have suppressed research ... to make the facts conform to their politically convenient theory....
"As the letter states: 'In our view, an independent review of these reports is long overdue. Serious problems and shortcomings have been raised repeatedly in the past by highly-qualified scientists only to be ignored or dismissed by the federal agencies in charge of producing the reports.... The conclusions and predictions made by these reports are the basis for proposed energy policies that could cost trillions of dollars in less than a decade and tens of trillions of dollars over several decades....
"'We note that defenders of the climate consensus have already mounted a public campaign against the proposed commission. We find this opposition curious. If the defenders are confident that the science contained in official reports is robust, then they should welcome a review that would finally put to rest the doubts that have been raised'....
"In the end, from the perspective of climate alarmists opposed to the PCCS, Trump’s big sin in forming PCCS is to question the claim climate science is settled, and Happer’s big sins are to defend the need for high-quality data and to point out a modestly warmer world and increased atmospheric carbon dioxide will bring benefits as well as costs. All the panic, hyperbolic gnashing of teeth, and name-calling accompanying speculation concerning [PCCS] in recent weeks comes down to this.
"This is certainly not an anti-science conspiracy. Neither good science nor sound policy can be advanced without an unbiased examination and debate of the facts, the cornerstone of scientific discovery."
January 4, 2019 - "If we’re going to have a discussion about the ethics of climate action we need to ensure we have the same underlying values.... If you agree with me that human life is our highest value then we want to look at human activity as it pertains to human life..... So if we want to determine whether human activity is dangerous we need to look at metrics of human flourishing.
"Over the past 90 years while CO2 emissions have escalated we have seen climate related mortality drop by 98%. This is because Earths climate is full of unpredictable extremes; drought, flooding, heat waves, cold snaps, hurricanes, weather extremes. To protect against an adverse climate humans need a civilization powered by energy and thanks to fossil fuels we now have abundant energy.
"At the same time climate deaths have plummeted, we have seen dramatically improved food production, distribution and access worldwide. We’ve seen dramatic improvements in sanitation, clean drinking water, medicine, poverty, morbidity and mortality rates. As our physiological needs have dramatically improved the need for violent conflict and struggle has diminished and we have seen liberal democracy spread worldwide.
"So if you are a catastrophist, you ... should consider the catastrophe that would happen if fossil fuel use was cut by 45% over the next 12 years and completely eliminated by 2050 (IPCC goals). If this were to happen right now we would kill millions if not far more....
"The National Climate Assessment speculates that the worst-case economic cost of climate change will be 10% of US GDP by 2100... Noticeably absent is any mention of the cost of climate action.... What would raising the cost of everything that relies on energy have do to the economy? Crickets. What affect would these costs have on people living on the margins? Crickets....
"All of the solutions to mitigating the harm of climate change are focused on global collective consequences and none recognize the individual. We wouldn’t say that if my pollution has adversely affected a nameable individual then I ought to pay a tax to government. This does nothing to protect the individual, but rather sets up a system of payment to governments for the right to harm individuals and funds more government jobs and power in perpetuity. We wouldn’t say that I should pay money to a company working on green energy either. Again, this does nothing to repair the harm I’ve done or bring justice to the individual....
"Tort is a far better solution to mitigating climate harm than a tax or subsidy. Tort helps us derive the actual cost of CO2 emissions rather than having government funded institutes guess at the cost of carbon dioxide emissions while failing to take into account the unseen costs of climate action.
"It is estimated that 80% of CO2 emissions come from 122 corporations. A few high profile class action lawsuits brought by individuals who have been harmed by CO2 emissions could dramatically change the game.
"A focus on promoting property rights and installing legal institutions to defend those property rights seems like a superior approach on all levels of analysis. It gets individuals who have had their property flooded by the ocean or their arable land made barren by climate change access to restoration. It passes the cost on to corporations and the consumers of their products and sends a price signal that allows them to weigh the actual cost versus benefit of their activity. It incentivizes innovation towards lower CO2 emitting energy alternatives.
"It avoids the growth of government. It gives scientists their day in court and clarifies and communicates the actual state of climate science free of ideological spin. It focuses science on measuring metrics of human flourishing rather than metrics that get them government funding....
"Recognizing the individual and protecting property rights (aka liberty) seems like the best path forward to a future that both liberals and conservatives can endorse."
November 23, 2018 - "In a wooden barn on the edge of campus at the University of California, Davis, ... Holstein dairy cows participated in a study to test a promising path to reducing methane emissions from livestock, a huge source of the greenhouse gases driving climate change. By adding a small amount of seaweed to the animals’ feed, researchers found, they could cut the cows’ methane production by nearly 60%.
"Each year, livestock production pumps out greenhouse gases with the equivalent warming effect of more than 7 gigatons of carbon dioxide, roughly the same global impact as the transportation industry. Nearly 40% of that is produced during digestion: cattle, goats, and sheep belch and pass methane, a highly potent, albeit relatively short-lived, greenhouse gas.
"If the reductions achieved in the UC Davis study could be applied across the worldwide livestock industry, it would eliminate nearly 2 gigatons of those emissions annually — about a quarter of United States’ total climate pollution.... Ermias Kebreab, an animal science professor at UC Davis who leads the work, is preparing to undertake a more ambitious study....
"In 2014, Australian researchers found that low doses of a red algae known as Asparagopsis taxiformis virtually eliminated methane production in lab experiments. Field trials with live sheep cut emissions as much as 80%, while the UC Davis experiment, the first on live cattle, showed a 58% reduction on average when a related seaweed made up 1% of their diet....
"Australis Aquaculture, a producer of ocean-farmed Asian sea bass based in Greenfield, Massachusetts, is attempting ... through a research project in Vietnam, dubbed Greener Grazing ... to grow seaweed off the coast of Vietnam. The plants would be placed within the type of plastic tube netting used to grow oysters, and suspended a few feet underwater — just deep enough to be protected from waves, but close enough to the sun for photosynthesis to drive growth.
"Meanwhile, DSM, the giant Dutch conglomerate, is working on a synthetic additive for the cows. A paper its researchers coauthored found that a methane inhibitor known as 3-nitrooxypropanol, or 3NOP, cut emissions by 30% in lactating Holsteins ... milk production wasn’t affected during the 12-week experiment, and as a bonus, the “spared methane energy” helped generate tissue, resulting in higher body weights. DSM Nutritional Products ... has already applied for US Food and Drug Administration approval to sell it in the United States."
February 6, 2019 -"Colorado Democrats and progressives [are] ... introducing a version of a bill banning plastic straws that garnered plenty of memes last year when it was brought forward in Santa Barbara, California.... While the proposed legislation in Colorado will not fine or jail servers, it is within the realm of possibility that what happened in Santa Barbara is ... going to be the law of the land for all of Colorado.
"The ordinance in California made instant criminals out of all the waitstaff in the city if they give a patron a straw — any straw, compostables included.... [They] could face up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. The restaurant would not pay this fine. No, the server who dared hand you a straw without a request ... is personally fined.
"While the Libertarian party of Colorado supports environmental conservation through privatization and respect for property rights, it is always an occasion for concern when 'big brother' attempts to legislate morality, even if the legislation is not — for the moment — intended to be enforced. There will be calls for this legislation to be amended so that it can be enforced, and that enforcement will always come with some sort of threat. Therein lies the Libertarian opposition to this legislation. Maybe you were a server once upon a time. Maybe you agree that single-use plastic is wasteful and destructive, but do you honestly believe that workers should be jailed for providing straws? Do you trust government officials to stop there? Are you comfortable with the possibility of our government exercising the Machiavellian idea of rule through fear?
"We entrust our lives to those we elect to government. You vote for them because you believe that they will behave and act as you would, if you were in their shoes. You must then ask yourself: Would I be willing to separate my neighbor from their family, lock them in a cell and take their money, simply for using a straw after I politely asked them not to? This is the kind of self-reflection that we expect our representatives to also undertake. And it is the kind of self-reflection that we should all practice when we ask government to intervene in our lives."
January 29, 2019 - "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ... turned her wrath on big tech companies last week.... AOC, as she’s popularly known, is mad that they sponsored a libertarian student conference.
"She responded to a report by the progressive magazine Mother Jones that Google donated $25,000, and Facebook and Microsoft $10,000 each, to sponsor Students for Liberty’s LibertyCon. That is unacceptable ... because LibertyCon’s other sponsors include 'three groups known for their work attacking climate change science and trying to undermine efforts to reduce carbon emissions,' including the CO2 Coalition, which ran an exhibit and sponsored a panel discussion on the benefits of carbon dioxide.
"In her Friday letter to the three tech CEOs, jointly written with Maine Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree, Ocasio-Cortez scolded the companies for going off-message by sponsoring a conference 'that included a session denying established science on climate change.... [T]he example you have set promoting sustainability and evidence-based science is compromised by your implicit support of the session organized at LibertyCon,' they wrote.... 'As you are well aware, the spreading of misinformation can be dangerous to our society.'
"Students for Liberty responded ... Tuesday, accusing Ocasio-Cortez and Pingree of [trying] to 'control what dialogue is acceptable within society.... Trying to denormalize Students For Liberty and pressuring our generous sponsors to stop engaging with us at LibertyCon is a common tactic of extremist ideas and actors. Attempting to discredit those who are willing to participate in civil and open discussion across the political spectrum is a tactic to ensure there is only one side represented.'
"CEO Wolf von Laer said the tech companies sponsored the conference 'to participate in our technology policy sessions, not to debate climate change solutions, or the countless other topics covered at LibertyCon'.... The lawmakers should 'engage in productive debates about pragmatic climate change policies rather than using their positions of power to execute a smear campaign,' he said.
January 7, 2019 - "Dozens of Libertarian Party members met on the National Mall in Washington, DC yesterday to pick up the litter and garbage piling up around some of America’s most famous monuments. With no regular litter collection happening on federally-owned land during the government shutdown, the burden of keeping much of the city clean has fallen to private citizens.
"Officially sponsored by the Libertarian Party of DC and the Libertarian Party of Northern Virginia, the event drew patriotic LP members from as far away as Pennsylvania. A total of seven teams, each equipped with a roll of garbage bags, fanned out across the Mall on different pre-assigned routes.
"Effort was concentrated on areas most likely to be visited by tourists, which included the Mall itself, the Capitol building, the Lincoln Memorial, and the various war monuments in the area.
"Besides general litter, the Libertarians found debris left over from protesters, and even a bottle of human urine....
“'It’s an example of us practicing what we preach. We want the private sector to step up when government can’t, so that’s what we’re doing here,' said LP of DC chairman and Libertarian National Committee member Joe Bishop-Henchman.
"Libertarian Party national membership manager Jess Mears ... explained. 'Obviously, the federal government does maintain the parks. While it is shut down right now, we’re trying to exemplify other ways that we could have these services without federal dollars contributing to them. Also,' she added, 'it’s getting your hands dirty in politics. Literally'....
"After completely filling a van with full garbage bags a pickup truck was brought in to take away the remainder.
"With no end [to] the government shutdown in sight, provisional plans for the Libertarians to return to the same area next week are in discussion.
"'I think we all have a mutual responsibility to take care of our public spaces, and government doesn’t necessarily need to pay for that,' said participant Ethan Bishop-Henchman. 'It’s definitely not paying for it right now.'”
January 8, 2019 - "A prominent libertarian think tank is warning Congress that a real humanitarian crisis, in the U.S. and abroad, would follow if lawmakers move forward with proposals like the progressive-backed 'Green New Deal' that would restrict access to fossil fuels and thus raise the cost of living.
"The Competitive Enterprise Institute on Tuesday released its wish list of recommendations for the new 116th Congress, calling on the leadership in the House and Senate to apply a 'do no harm' principle before moving forward with climate legislation.... The group challenges the renewable energy mandate of the Green New Deal, which is being pushed in the House by left-leaning freshmen....
"CEI ... had been subpoenaed as part of an investigation launched by Democratic attorneys general in recent years into whether ExxonMobil had suppressed climate data from its own scientists. The attorneys general wanted documentation on how the think tank advised energy firms like Exxon on climate change. CEI fought the subpoena requests in court, arguing that it infringed on the organization's constitutional speech protections.
"The Green New Deal calls for ... a phase-out of fossil fuels, transitioning to renewable energy in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change. Such a plan would drive up prices for low-income households, while raising 'serious humanitarian concerns,' says the group.... The result would be that low-income households would have to cut back on spending on food, medicine, education, and more.
"The recommendations also say that moving ahead with the goals of the Paris climate change accord — limiting global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius — cannot be achieved without painful cuts in developing countries’ use of fossil fuels like gasoline, coal, and oil. Likewise, the cuts in fossil energy use would make developing nations more dependent on expensive renewable energy, affecting the health and well-being of people across the globe, according to CEI.
"The group ... wants lawmakers to ... hobble EPA’s authority by making changes to the Clean Air Act, which. .. would make it harder for the agency to revisit climate regulations in the future.... The group also wants Congress to ... pass legislation that freezes and then sunsets the nation’s ethanol mandate and biofuel program, known as the Renewable Fuel Standard, in 2022."
December 4, 2018 - "The single most effective weapon in the fight against climate change is the tax code — imposing costs on those who emit greenhouse gases, economists say. But as French President Emmanuel Macron learned over the past three weeks, implementing such taxes can be politically explosive.
"France delayed for six months [and later abandoned - gd] a plan to raise already steep taxes on diesel fuel by 24 cents a gallon and gasoline by about 12 cents a gallon. Macron [had] argued that the taxes were needed to curb climate change by weaning motorists off petroleum products, but violent demonstrations in the streets of Paris and other French cities forced him to backtrack — at least for now.... It was a setback for the French president, who has been trying to carry the torch of climate action in the wake of the Paris accords....
"Leaders in the United States, Canada, Australia and elsewhere have found their carbon pricing efforts running into fierce opposition....
"In the United States ... energy-related taxes are among the lowest in the developed world.... Bill Clinton proposed a tax on the heat content of fuels as part of his first budget in 1993. Known as the BTU tax, for British thermal unit, it would have raised $70 billion over five years while increasing gasoline prices no more than 7.5 cents a gallon. But Clinton was forced to retreat in the face of a rebellion in his own party.... The state of Washington has also tried — and failed twice — to win support for a carbon tax or carbon 'fee'....
"To be sure, some climate-conscious countries have adopted carbon taxes, including Chile, Spain, Ukraine, Ireland and nations in Scandinavia. [But] Only around 12 percent of global emissions are covered by pricing programs such as taxes ... or permit trading....
"But Canada is about to offer a test case. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has unveiled a 'backstop' carbon tax of $20 a ton ... for the four Canadian provinces that do not already have one. Trudeau was elected partly on a promise of this sort of measure, but it’s costing him more political capital than expected. Conservative premiers oppose the plan, which looks set to become an election issue.
"Trudeau’s policy, however, is designed to withstand criticism. About 90 percent of the revenue from the backstop tax will be paid back to Canadians in the form of annual 'climate action incentive' payments. Because of the progressive tax rates, about 70 percent of Canadians will get back more than they paid....
"The first checks will arrive shortly before Canadian elections."
Dec. 5, 2018 - "In the face of ongoing protests and rioting, the French government now says a planned fuel tax increase that President Emmanuel Macron argued was crucial to fight climate change won't happen at all in 2019.
"The government had announced a six-month suspension of the tax just yesterday.... But 24 hours later, amid continued anger on the streets and a parliamentary debate on the 2019 budget, French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe suddenly told his fellow legislators that 'the tax is now abandoned' in the 2019 budget....
"The budget can be renegotiated through the year, but given the scale of the recent protests, Macron is unlikely to revive the added fuel tax idea anytime soon.
"French protesters are welcoming Macron's decision to scrap a fuel tax rise — but say it may not be enough to contain public anger.... Three weeks of protests have left four people dead, hundreds injured and central Paris littered with burned cars and shattered windows.
"The so-called 'yellow vest' movement was mostly peaceful to begin with. People angry about the planned tax increase donned the yellow emergency vests all French drivers must have in their cars in case of a breakdown and took to the streets in mid-November.
"The past two weekends, though, saw outpourings of violence and rioting in Paris, with extreme far-right and far-left factions joining the demonstrations. It was the worst anti-government rioting since 1968. At least four people died, and police feared more violence would come this Saturday in the French capital."
"On Wednesday, France's largest farmers' union said it will launch anti-government protests next week, after trucking unions called for a rolling strike.
"Trade unions have not so far played a role in the yellow vest protest movement but are now trying to capitalize on the growing public anger."
