There are three things we can apply now rather than waiting for the next big rendez-vous of world leaders:

1. Start capping emissions from both industrial and transportation/building sources now - we know who the emitters are
2. Temperatures in the Arctic vary but some have already reached 3 degree Centigrade increase; capping at 2 degrees as rec ommended at Copenhagen is no longer possible
3. Charge the CEOs, board of directors of the fossil fuel industries and delinquent government leaders with crimes against humanity.  They have known of the problem for decades and stalled while millions suffer and die from the effects 

 CALGARY - Jason Markusoff, www.edmontonjournal.com -  The Alberta Tories won't decide for months on a request from several major oilsands companies to halt development leases in three huge and environmentally sensitive swaths of the Athabasca oilsands region, Conservative Leader Ed Stelmach said today.

Under the NAFTA trade agreement, Canada is prohibited from cutting off oil exports to the United States if there is a worldwide shortage or supply disruption unless supplies are also rationed to Canadian consumers by the same amount.

We can refuse the export of oil to the US on grounds that we need the oil for our future and plan to ration it to allow us to convert away from fossil fuels to non-fossil, green alternatives.

Renegotiation of NAFTA with the US as both Obama and Clinton suggest would be good for Canada.  There is no way that one NAFTA country or their corporations should be able to force another members resources.   The document itself is an invasion of a countries sovernity and should be perceived as an Act of War.

 This article appeared in the Guardian on Thursday April 03 2008 on p4 of the UK news section. It was last updated at 00:41 on April 03 2008.

Britain's leading scientists have told ministers that plans for a new generation of coal power stations pose an unacceptable climate risk, unless greater efforts are made to trap and store the carbon pollution they produce.

The ocean  level rise caused by climate change is proceeding faster than UN scientists predicted only five years ago, Professor Chris Rapley, director of the British Antarctic Survey, said yesterday.

The present prediction of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, from its third assessment report in 2001, is that global sea levels will rise by between 9cm and 88cm by 2100..

New evidence, from a series of scientific papers published this year, indicates that this rate would be exceeded, said Professor Rapley who was speaking at the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton, at a meeting of the Climate Clinic, formed by Britain's leading green groups.

Last week, two American studies showed that the melting of the winter sea ice in the Arctic had accelerated  with a section the size of Turkey disappearing in just 12 months. 

"The federal Liberals are calling for an investigation to determine who paid for a radio ad campaign in Ontario that attacked the federal government's action to fight climate change in the 2006 election," CanWest Global's Mike de Souza reports here.

Further to our story of yesterday (see post below) about an Elections Canada investigation into potentially illegal interference by the Friends of Science (FOS), federal Liberal Mark Holland, inset, is now suggesting that a Parliamentary hearing may be necessary to find out who funnelled money into Barry Cooper's University of Calgary FOS slush fund .

The oily origin of that money has been well-documented, by the Globe and Mail, but it would still be fun to see the cancelled cheques - and to have Cooper and the FOS organizers called to account. 

Alberta?s reserves of bitumen are among the largest oil deposits in the world, second only to Saudi Arabia. Production of these reserves is expected to double within five to seven years, and to triple by 2020.

Unless policies and practices change, this will create huge new demands for water.  The trends are troubling.  In some parts of the province, Alberta will soon have to decide which is more important: water or oil.

 
The Montreal Climate Change Conference 

CBC News Online | Dec. 12, 2005

Climate change experts are far-sighted. They are thinking 20, 30, 40 years into the future. So with the Kyoto Protocol expiring in 2012, there's a sense of urgency when it comes to reducing the emissions that are cited as causing climate change

Low-speed electric cars hit too many speed bumps in Canada Two years ago a Vancouver company called Dynasty Electric Cars sells four of its low-speed electric vehicles to Ontario Parks, which is part of the Ministry of Natural Resources.

They're a perfect fit for parks staff, but then suddenly an e-mail from the Ministry of Transportation arrives early this year saying the Dynasty cars are against the law: Get them off the road!

Bottom line is there's no real reason to keep these cars off low-speed roads in Ontario, yet the province refuses to move forward with new rules that permit them. As if the move toward cleaner vehicles doesn't face enough challenges already...

Sep 20, 2006 ? By Gerard Wynn

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's national academy of science, the Royal Society, has accused U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. of misleading the public into thinking that the role of humans in climate change is still open to doubt.