Kenneth P Green

Canada following the wrong ‘emissions’ example

The Trudeau government, like other governments in the World Trade Organization/G8 orbit, has set Canada on an ambitious path to neutralize the impact on the global climate by 2050. By that arbitrarily date, Canada will theoretically have regulated…

Canada must come back down to ‘energy’ reality

The wind and solar power obsession of the last 20 years is failing to live up to its hype—the power hasn’t scaled, the storage technology hasn’t appeared, the negative environmental impacts have been larger than expected and, of course, the wind does…

Ottawa takes ‘plastics’ policy to the extreme

Eat with your fingers, cretin! I’m paraphrasing, but not by much, from the Trudeau government’s new Guidance for Selecting Alternatives to Single-Use Plastics. Yes, your government has offered detailed advice about alternatives to all kinds of…

Canada did not ‘miss’ its LNG window—it was nailed shut

Ever since I started focusing on Canadian energy policy some 15 years ago, the conversation has been about Canada “missing windows”—missing economic windows for the production of oil and/or gas, missing infrastructure-construction windows, and…

Ottawa’s nitrous oxide plan—no laughing matter

The Trudeau government, as part of its “net-zero” framework, has set its sights on one particular greenhouse gas that’s near and dear to the hearts, lungs and stomachs of Canadians—namely nitrous oxide, a gas species composed of two atoms of…

Net-zero—the pathway to Canadian decline

A new (and profoundly bad) policy idea has gripped the world’s climate-obsessed leaders to address scenarios mostly generated by their own imaginative (and often wrong) predictive climate models. Basically, economic development must stop in 2050, and…

Ottawa’s war on agriculture must stop

The Trudeau has committed to “net-zero” greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050. This ill-advised commitment will make for a poorer less-economically-free Canada today and in the future. For example, the government’s path to net-zero calls for a 30…

Federal government continues nonsensical ‘net-zero’ policy

In the dog days of summer, the Trudeau government has announced another step in its plan to achieve “net-zero” greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in Canada by 2050. Of course, this remains a costly and unattainable goal. Still, the plan requires oil and…

Ottawa wages costly war on ‘plastics’ problem

While Canadians may be distracted by little things—post-COVID economic havoc, sky-high energy prices, long wait times for treatment in Canada’s cherished (but globally underperforming) health-care system, unaffordable housing and raging…

Canada’s Wasteful Plan to Regulate Plastic Waste

At the end of 2021, the government of Canada launched a regulatory campaign against plastic waste—Zero-Plastic Waste 2030 (ZPW2030)—that will, in the estimation of its own Regulatory Impact Assessment, impose costs on Canadian society exceeding…

Bay du Nord approval underscores politicization of environmental policy in Canada

In April, with Earth Day only weeks away on the calendar, Steven Guilbeault, federal environment minister, formally approved the Bay du Nord project, a major oil and gas development project in the Flemish Pass, some 500 kilometres northeast of St.…

Canada can promote world peace by reorienting climate policy

The sudden reappearance of a blatant “hot” large-scale war of conquest in Europe has shocked a Western world grown complacent about the prospect of such things. What Vladimir Putin has once again unleashed on Ukraine and the world is an abomination,…

‘Net-zero’ electricity policies promise high costs, scant benefits

It’s no secret that the Trudeau government wants Canada to be “net-zero” by 2050—meaning Canada’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the atmosphere will be offset by other activities, which will essentially withdraw GHGs from the atmosphere. Among…

Is Climate Catastrophe Really 10 Years Away?

Summary The dominant narrative behind the promotion of aggressive climate change policies is that humanity is always about 10 years away from either catastrophic climate change, or some greenhouse gas emission “tipping point” at which such change…

Canadian governments should discard ‘climate policy’ stew and start over

In the grand Hollywood musical, Man of La Mancha, protagonist Don Quixote sings of his quest “To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to bear with unbearable sorrow, to run where the brave dare not go.” It’s from Don Quixote that…

Federal government continues misguided war on plastic

In a recent speech to post-secondary students in Winnipeg, federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced a new phase in Canada’s war on plastics. According to published reports, the minister said “Cabinet must consider penalties to meet…

Death of Keystone increases risk to people and the environment

Last week, TC Energy (formerly TransCanada Pipelines) announced it will shut down activities and disengage from the Keystone XL pipeline. The thousand-mile bone of contention, in both the United States and Canada, is officially dead. And that’s sad…

The Texas Power Fiasco Shows Need to Find a Balance With Wind Power and Other Renewables

Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel Neither ending nor beginning, on an ever-spinning reel… The story of wind power has never been written so well as in the song “Windmills of Your Mind,“ by Michel LeGrand, with English…

Texas provides cautionary tale for Alberta and the planet

Alberta and Texas have a lot in common. Vast expanses of sunny wind-swept plains, vast oil and gas reserves, and a fabled history as oil and gas producing jurisdictions. Both have rodeos and at least tip their hat to frontier cowboy culture. Of…

Keystone XL—perhaps Canada’s last great pipeline project

The Biden administration’s long-anticipated termination of the Keystone XL pipeline project puts the cap on what may become the definitive icon of environmental project killing. Much has already been written, but let’s recap. Proposed in 2008, the…