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British Columbia plays a special role in the pollution and warming of the atmosphere, according a new report from the Dogwood Initiative on BC’s rapidly expanding coal industry and its implications for the province’s contributions to climate disruption. 

The BC government plans to reduce emissions by 33 percent from 2007 levels by 2020. Yet BC is preparing to emit more than its fair share of climate threatening pollution due to the province’s steady increase in coal production and export.

As the Dogwood Initiative report shows, BC is outsourcing more than just dirty energy: the province’s carbon emissions are nearly doubled when you factor in BC coal burnt in other countries.

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According to Environment Canada’s peer-reviewed July report on Canada’s Emissions Trends [pdf], government action to date is not putting the country on track to meet the carbon emissions reductions it commited to in 2009.

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U.S. House Representative John Shimkus (Republican-Illinois), who has opposed cap and trade legislation because he believes God will not allow the earth to be destroyed by global warming, is running to become the House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman.

In 2009, at a congressional hearing on cap and trade legislation, Rep. Shimkus said, “The Earth will end only when God declares it’s time to be over.  Man will not destroy this Earth.  This Earth will not be destroyed by a Flood.”  This week in an interview with Politico, Shimkus reaffirmed these views:  when asked about climate change he stated once again that God will not allow the world to be washed away in a flood.

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Earlier this week, President-elect Barack Obama announced his picks for his energy team, with Dr. Steven Chu to head up the Department of Energy.

Dr. Chu is not the happy holiday gift the “clean coal” folks were hoping for.

The blogosphere has been abuzz with something Chu said about coal in an alternative energy talk he gave at UC Berkeley in April 2007. The video of the talk is nearly two hours long, but we snagged the important bit, where he talks about coal.

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Coal-energy powerhouse General Electric states in a May 28th, 2008 press release that "C02 is a possible contributing factor to climate change."

This claim by General Electric, one of the largest power producers in the world, was made despite the scientific evidence, and the world's governments (including the US) now in agreement that greenhouse gas emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels are heating our planet.

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About 125 million people could be made homeless by rising sea levels due to a projected four-to-five degrees Celsius increase in global temperature this century.

Research released by Greenpeace said Bangladesh, Pakistan and India have almost 130 million people living in the coastal zone most vulnerable to sea-level rise, erosion and drought.

The study comes at a time of rapid growth throughout South Asia, not only in energy consumption but also population. Not surprisingly, nobody is suggesting cutbacks on either front.