Jim Hoggan, DeSmogBlog co-founder and president, has an op-ed in the Vancouver Sun today discussing the "ethical oil" crowd's attacks on democracy in the Enbridge Northern Gateway public hearings. Head over to the Vancouver Sun to read it: "Who gets a say in our democracy?"

Here is an excerpt from the ending:

If [Joe Oliver or Stephen Harper] is concerned that over the years the California-based William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has given $1.3 million to the Pem-bina Foundation for Environmental Research and Education, then they should be even more troubled that, during the same period, the Hewletts gave $40 million to the government's own International Development Research Centre. Apparently, Oliver's "radicals" fuelled by "foreign special interests" are as close as the nearest mirror.

If Enbridge or its political boosters wants to pipe unrefined Canadian bitumen directly to the most treacherous waters in the north Pacific - and then, by supertanker, into the hands of the Chinese - they should make their case. Attacking the rights of others to have input is a dodge unworthy of a democracy as advanced and robust as ours.

Read more at the Vancouver Sun.

http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/Oilsands+dirty+secret+they+billions+... ">Barbara Yaffe’s outrageous opinion piece in the Vancouver Sun argues that environmentalists ought to shift their focus in their rallying calls against the tar sands. Yesterday, the Pembina Institute, Equiterre and Environmental Defence made a united call to the Harper government to start being more stringent in its enforcement of environmental laws, and to do more to respect aboriginal treaty rights in Canada’s tar sands. 

The environmentalists’ report, Duty calls: Federal Responsibility in Canada’s Oilsands aptly argues that filthy tar sands development is on track to derail any and all of Ottawa’s targets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Duty Calls outlines Ottawa’s responsbility for environmental management in the oil sands and explores what’s at stake if Ottawa continues to neglect this responsibility.  

Our political leaders have been more talk than walk in terms of managing the tar sands, but the Vancouver Sun’s Yaffe argues that politicians must have their reasons. She refers to William Kimber of the Alberta-based Canada West Foundation, who argues that, as filthy as the Fort McMurray enterprise is, we can’t dispute that it’s fuelling the economy. It’s the age-old, foolish ‘economy vs. environment’ positioning that is a non-starter when you consider that there would be no economy without the value of environmental resources.

What the Vancouver Sun fails to note is that the ongoing deregulation of the tar sands benefits Big Oil more than the residents of Alberta or the environment, and that’s a serious problem in the long term, both for the environment and the economy. Failing to regulate the tar sands leaves the federal government exposed to ongoing and sustained legal challenges, and exposes the oil sands industry to tougher environmental restrictions in the international marketplace. Continued federal absence leaves Canadians vulnerable to the economic uncertainty resulting from tying the value of the Canadian dollar to the price of oil.

The Vancouver Sun also fails to highlight the tar sands’ flagrant use of water, the toxic tailings ponds, and their role as the highest source of greenhouse gases in Canada. And these woes are only going to increase. According to the report, projects that have already been approved will see tar sands production increase to 4 million barrels a day. If all projects currently in the approval process proceed, we’ll be looking at nearly twice that.

There is a great B2 front page review of Climate Cover Up in the Vancouver Sun today by columnist Stephen Hume. You can check it out here: New book outlines the PR effort behind climate-change skeptics.

My favorite quote:

“Climate change skeptics regularly denounce me as a disgrace to journalism for declining to accept their dogma, which is mostly received wisdom from sources that I’d trust to evaluate the published science about as much as I’d trust a plumber to perform open heart surgery.

Nothing against plumbers, mind you. They’re just not heart surgeons. And the economists, statisticians and agenda-driven politicians routinely cited by the skeptics aren’t glaciologists, botanists, biologists, oceanographers, atmospheric physicists or computer modelling specialists.”

Sun columnist Barbara Yaffe writes today in her piece, Action, not PR, will help make the oil sands look good:

The companies' record on land reclamation speaks for itself. And only baby steps have been taken to date to develop carbon capture and storage technology. PR campaigns, advertising and websites will not take the oilsands where the petroleum producers hope to go, and where Canadians have a vested interest in seeing them go."

Solomon at least admits that the whole exercise is a parlour game, a work of sophistry.

Check out DeSmog Senior Writer Richard Littlemore's column in the Vancouver Sun today, in response the column written last week by Mark Milke on Lawrence Solomon's book, The Deniers.

We've said it, Boykoff and Boykoff have said it, and now the Nobel Prize winning Al Gore has stated the obvious: that North American media members have been played for fools, reporting climate change as an "on the one hand, on the other hand" issue.

It's hard to track whether this faulty substitute for real impartiality is a reflection of mass media stupidity or if it's a tribute to the cleverness of the people for whom it is economically advantageous to deny climate change. Personally, I think there is something deeply flawed in the media psyche - this addiction to balance that is at once insistent and careless.