Environmental destruction—more than a war crime?

The UN's International Law Commission currently has on its agenda an item concerned with protecting the environment in times of war. The commission has drawn up 28 draft principles, the purpose of which is, according to Principle 2, "enhancing the protection of the environment in relation to armed conflict, including through preventive measures for minimizing damage to the environment during armed conflict and through remedial measures."

Pursuant to this effort, 22 scientists from countries around the world have published a letter in the journal Nature which calls on governments to "incorporate explicit safeguards for biodiversity, and to use the commission’s recommendations to finally deliver a fifth Geneva Convention to uphold environmental protection during [armed conflict]." In effect, they are asking the international community to make environmental damage during military confrontations a possible war crime.

One signatory to the letter, Professor Sarah Durant of the Zoological Society of London, states, "The brutal toll of war on the natural world is well documented, destroying the livelihoods of vulnerable communities and driving many species, already under intense pressure, towards extinction." The "brutal toll" Professor Durant refers to has been well illustrated by the Americans' use of Agent Orange in the Vietnam war, Saddam Hussein's igniting hundreds of oil wells during the Iraqi retreat from Kuwait, and the collapse of animal populations in recent wars in Africa.

I wish the letter-writers luck in promoting an international convention to protect our fellow species during armed conflict, but why limit protection to wartime? Why not a Universal Declaration of Animal Rights to parallel the UN'S Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After all, we are not the only sentient beings on the planet. Reading books such as Beyond Words by Carl Safina and Mama's Last Hug by Frans de Waal has forced me to recognize not only the sentience other species possess but also what rich emotional lives many experience. And to recognize further the ridiculous inadequacy of the morality with which we treat them.

When the monsters among us exterminate a tribe of our fellow humans we refer to it in horror as a holocaust, yet we are exterminating entire species of our fellow animals—a cascade of holocausts—and are barely suffering a moral twinge. Since we invented agriculture, we have eradicated over 80 per cent of our fellow mammals on land and in the oceans, and the eradication accelerates. It is a sad thing to say about your own species, but it is a hard fact that if we were to become extinct it would be a welcome day for just about every other species on the planet. It is long past time we fully extended our moral sensibilities to our fellow species, our neighbours on this lonely planet.

Calgary and the hockey barons

On November 18th of last year, Calgary held a plebiscite which attracted an impressive 305,000 voters. The question on the ballot was whether or not the city would host the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. The answer was a decisive no, despite the Olympic opponents having far less money at their disposal than the bid committee promoting the games.

Next up on the sports agenda is whether or not the city should split the costs of building a new hockey arena with the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation (CSEC). The CSEC is a private company that owns the Calgary Flames and the Calgary Stampeders among other teams. On Monday of this week, the city announced a proposed deal with the sports barons which city council would vote to finalize in one week.

Public feedback would be accepted only until noon Friday, i.e Calgarians would have only three days to comment. The city had apparently learned from the Olympic experience—it wasn't taking any chances by allowing taxpayers the opportunity to take a good look at the deal.

So is it a good deal? To summarize, the city puts up $275-million for its share of the construction plus $12-million to demolish the Saddledome (the current arena) for which it receives $400-million in various goodies over the 35-year term of the deal. The city would own the arena and CSEC would maintain it. Owning the arena after 35 years isn't exactly a prize for the city. The Saddledome is 36 years old and if this deal goes through it will be torn down, i.e. it will become a $12-million dollar liability, not an asset.

The proposal suggested that after discounting the revenue to present value the city would suffer a $47-million loss. It appeared to me this was discounting at the inflation rate. I suggested in a letter to my councilor, Evan Woolley, that the city could do better than that with its money and ran out my own numbers. I discounted the $400-million revenue at six per cent over the 35-year period and got a present value of $166-million. Subtracting this from the city’s $287-million for construction and tearing down the Saddledome results in a loss of $121-million. Financially, this looks like a very bad deal for Calgarians.

The mayor justified the loss by explaining “It's about bringing community together. It's about uniting people.” Uniting who? Not me. I’m not a hockey fan. If the idea is to unite hockey fans, perhaps they could add an appropriate surcharge to the ticket prices.

I emphasized to Mr. Woolley that I am by no means opposed to spending public money on culture. For example, I strongly support providing facilities for amateur hockey. But this deal isn’t about funding culture; it’s about funding big business. The CSEC pays its players (employees) millions of dollars a year. It doesn’t need a handout.

Furthermore, Calgary's economy remains sluggish because of low oil prices. The city announced the arena deal practically in the same breath as it announced a budget cut of $60-million that will result in 100 layoffs of city staff.

The fact is the future economic health of Calgary is uncertain. It continues to depend heavily on the oil industry and we have just elected a provincial government that is doubling down on oil. If good sense prevails and the world moves rapidly towards renewable energy, the city's future could be further threatened. Obviously this is a time for financial caution. It is not a time for bold expenditures.

A tar sands story

Canadian Natural Resources, Canada's largest oil and gas producer, has set an ambitious goal regarding greenhouse gas emissions. It has announced that by applying advanced technology, including carbon capture and storage, it will attempt to reduce the emissions from its tar sands operations to effectively zero. A laudable goal.

This reflects what supporters of the oil industry are saying. Bitumen producers are continually reducing the emissions intensity of their product, reinforcing their claim to be an "ethical" source of oil, thereby justifying increased production.

And it sounds like very good news indeed—the oil industry doing its bit to deal with global warming. Even the Pembina Institute, a leading environmental group, calls it "definitely a step in the right direction."

But it's only a part of the story. And a very small part at that. On average, production, transportation and refining only create about 20 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions from a barrel of oil. Production alone creates only seven per cent. Eighty per cent are created by the ultimate burning of fuel in internal (infernal?) combustion engines.

So this isn't quite the good news it might initially seem. Good news to some extent of course—every reduction in emissions is good news. And in Alberta it is especially good news. Canada is one of the top three per-capita emitters in the industrial world and Alberta is the major pollution province, in per-capita and absolute terms, so the province's reputation needs every bit of good news it can get. But even if companies did reduce production emissions to zero this is only tinkering around the edges. All the propaganda emanating from the oil industry and its supporters about reducing bitumen production emissions is so much dancing around the real problem—that eighty per cent.

To do that we must reduce more than production emissions to zero, we must reduce oil production to zero. That will be the real good news.

Britain has bullied Iran for centuries

Britain's imperial designs on Iran go back at least to the Great Game with Russia over control of trade routes through central Asia in the 19th century. Indeed, Iran's southern and eastern boundaries were set by the British during the Anglo-Persian War (1856-7). By the end of the century, Britain occupied a host of cities in southern Iran and the country needed Anglo-Russian approval of its government ministers.

British mischief continued into the 20th century. In 1921, a coup, aided by Britain, put Reza Shah Pahlavi on the throne. However relations with Reza Shah became strained when he cancelled the concession that gave the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company the exclusive right to sell Iranian oil. Shah Pahlavi was then deposed when Britain and Russian invaded Iran in1941 to secure the oilfields. His son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was placed on the throne. After the war and British withdrawal, the dispute over control of Iran's oil persisted, and in 1952 Iranians nationalized their oil under the leadership of democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. A year later, the British and Americans supported a coup overthrowing Mosaddegh and installing the Shah as absolute leader. The U.S. then took over from Britain as Iran's major imperialist bully.

Britain aroused some bad memories for Iran with its seizure of the supertanker Grace 1 off Gibraltar earlier this month. It claimed the tanker was heading for Syria and it was acting in response to EU sanctions against shipping oil to that tortured country. The justification was a bit thin considering that Iran is not a member of the EU and the EU, unlike the US, doesn’t impose its sanctions on others. A more likely explanation is that Britain was acting in response to pressure from the US, or perhaps more precisely, from US National Security Adviser John Bolton.

The world has changed, however. Britain is no longer lord of the seas and Iran is no longer a supine third world country. Iran has, therefor, retaliated by heisting a British tanker, using military tactics similar to that of the British. Tit for tat. If nothing else, this illustrates why Iran feels that it needs military muscle to deal with the Anglos. And why Britain might want to reconsider being the American's boy.

The ungrateful species

I consider myself fortunate beyond words for my opportunity to experience life on this planet. I am here for a mere moment in the vast expanse of both time and space, but what a moment. Not only to experience the universe but more particularly the pleasure of appreciating the infinite beauty, variety and mystery of life on Earth, possibly the only place in the universe it exists. And to witness it at precisely the time when we best understand it all, the understanding adding so much to the experience. It puzzles me why so few people seem to feel the same way.

We are systematically destroying life on our planet, species by species, while at the same time polluting it like vandals. Our cavalier attitude towards the health of Earth, our home, is inexplicable for seemingly intelligent and feeling creatures.

Is it religion? Do too many people feel that it is the afterlife that counts and not this one? That the Earth is simply to be used temporarily until the chosen are raptured up to heaven and the sinners left to roast as the world is consumed by fire? Or are people simply too occupied by their immediate lives to care about the big picture? I have no answers.

In any case, we are an ungrateful lot. If this is indeed the only planet with higher life forms, then we may be the only organism in the universe with the opportunity to appreciate life's wonders. Yet most people apparently never seriously do. If they did, we wouldn't be despoiling the planet. But we are, and that's a damn shame.

Alberta isn't immune to global warming

Living in Alberta one often gets the impression that when it comes to energy and the environment, promoting the oil industry is top priority while dealing with global warming is an afterthought. The premier has said he accepts that anthropogenic climate change is real, but he never shows much interest in doing anything really serious about it. Like a great many Albertans, he stresses the harm to Albertans of a slumping oil industry—and these are certainly substantial—but never mentions the harm being done by global warming, leaving the impression only the former is worth taking seriously. The fact, of course, is that Albertans are already being adversely affected by climate change and it's only going to get steadily worse.

For example, In 2016, we experienced the Fort McMurray wildfire, with an estimated damage cost of $9.9-billion, the costliest disaster in Canadian history. Eighty thousand people were driven from their homes, thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed, and tar sands operations were shut down. According to University of Alberta wildfire expert Mike Flannigan, "We are seeing climate change in action." According to Professor Flannigan, the Fort McMurray fire was 1 1/2 to six times more likely because of climate change. In other words, much of the suffering, damage and cost can be attributed to global warming.

This year, northern Alberta has been battling wildfires that have already burned four times the 5-year average acreage. A major reason is that much of the north has suffered severe or extreme drought. According to Environment Canada, 2019 has been the driest spring on record in several parts of the province. Flannigan states there are three reasons for more and bigger fires: longer fire seasons, drier fuels and more lightning, which is increasing by 10 to 12 per cent with every degree of warming. Last year Calgary had its smokiest summer ever, largely from B.C. fires, with all the attendant health costs.

Flannigan emphasizes global warming's feedback loops. “The warmer we get, the more fire we have. The more fire we have, the more greenhouse gasses that are released. The more gasses that are released, the warmer we get. A vicious cycle.” The increasingly fierce fires are burning deeper into the soil where most of the boreal forest’s carbon is locked.

Increasing frequency and severity of drought will also adversely affect agriculture which will be further affected by the receding of Alberta's glaciers. Glaciers act as natural reservoirs for snow, ice, and meltwater. As much as 70 per cent of the ice is expected to disappear by the end of the century. Glaciers are a prime supplier of the province's drinking water and play an important role in providing water for irrigation, hydroelectric power and mining.

One of the problems in dealing with global warming is the temptation to pass the buck. Many Albertans, and other Canadians, say that as Canada produces far fewer greenhouse gas emissions than, say, China or the United States, we shouldn't be as concerned. In fact, Canadians are, along with the U.S. and Australia the world's top three polluters per capita among the industrial nations. By far. And among the provinces, Albertans are by far the worst, either in total emissions or per capita. Considering we are also among the world's richest jurisdictions, our irresponsibility is shameful. We ought to be leaders, not reluctant followers.

The costs of the above phenomena are not, of course, included in the price of a barrel of oil or a litre of gas, even though they are real costs, thereby reinforcing the idea that global warming is less of an issue than oil production. We Albertans need to fully open our eyes to both sides of the debate, even if only for our own sake.

We can pass the buck all we want, but we can't escape paying the price.

Canada finally accedes to Arms Trade Treaty

Ottawa has finally announced that Canada will become a party to the UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) later this year. The government has introduced Bill C-47 which amends the Export and Import Permits Act to ensure full compliance. In a press release on June 19, Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs, announced, "We are taking a stronger and more rigorous approach to the export of Canadian arms. Today’s announcement is a significant milestone in Canada’s contributions to international efforts to combat the illicit trade of weapons."

The Arms Trade Treaty's aim, as expressed in Article 1, is to "Establish the highest possible common international standards for regulating or improving the regulation of the international trade in conventional arms" and to "Prevent and eradicate the illicit trade in conventional arms and prevent their diversion." The treaty applies to all conventional arms in eight categories: battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, artillery and combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers, and small arms and light weapons. Various Canadian gun groups, including the National Firearms Association, unsurprisingly oppose Canada signing the treaty.

Until the treaty was negotiated there was no effective international legislation on the global arms trade. There were nuclear, chemical and biological weapons treaties but nothing on the conventional weapons that kill hundreds of people around the world every day and provide the major weaponry for terrorist and other violent groups. National regulations are generally inadequate or absent in dealing with a globalized trade.

As a next step, it would be nice to see the government halt its export of light-armoured vehicles (LAVs) to Saudi Arabia, particularly considering there are credible reports they are being used in Yemen. But for the moment, hearing that we will sign the ATT is welcome news indeed.

Canada: relatively equal in an unequal world

The world is a very unequal place. As can be seen graphically on the figure to the right. The world's lowest ten per cent of income earners average $266 US per year, the highest 10 per cent average $89,703 US. The average wage in Canada is $51,000. Not only is there a huge discrepancy between the world's rich and poor countries but the poorest countries also have the greatest inequality.

As to the income split between capital and labour, according to the International Labour Organization, 51.4 per cent of total global income went to labour and 48.6 per cent to capital. Canadian workers do much better than that, however, taking 61 per cent of the pie. This is the third highest among the developed countries behind only Switzerland and Belgium.

The labour portion is distributed very unevenly across the globe with the top 10 per cent of workers earning almost half of it while the share of the bottom 50 per cent is just over six per cent. In Canada, the top 10 per cent are much harder done by, earning only 24 per cent, half the world average. Furthermore, Canada's middle class is increasing its share while in the U.S. and the U.K. their share is declining. The top 10 per cent in the U.S. and Britain get about a third of the income.

Canada is doing well both in the amount of income and the distribution of it relative to most other nations. But then that's an easy standard to meet.

The irony of Italy's immigration policy

Italy has a baby problem. Apparently Italians aren't making enough of them. The country's birth rate is the lowest it's been since Italy itself was born in 1861. With deaths now greatly exceeding births, the population is shrinking. "We are in a terrible state," says Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing League, the major force in Italy's coalition government.

And this is indeed a problem. According to economists, a shrinking population and aging workforce is one reason for Italy's chronically stagnant economy.

There is, of course, an obvious solution. And it's sitting on Italy's doorstep. Immigration. As we know, the world is awash with refugees desperate to get into safe countries with opportunities. And most of these people are young and eager for work. And Italy has lots of room. Only 8.7 per cent of its resident population is immigrant, compared to about 21 per cent in Canada. And that 8.7 per cent pays its dues, contributing around nine per cent of Italy's GDP and paying billions of euros in social security payments and taxes.

But Salvini and his populist government will have none of it. The deputy PM is opposed to large-scale immigration and oversees the government's hard-line approach to refugees. The country refuses landing to boats carrying migrants across the Mediterranean.

So Salvini and his government will remain stuck with his country's "terrible state," complete with shrinking population and stagnant economy, barred from the solution only by his own bigotry.

How much crap should Iran be expected to take from the U.S.?

Iran under the Ayatollahs is hardly a model nation. Domestically, it is repressive and, due largely to sanctions imposed by the United States, impoverished. Its foreign policy is aggressive. It supports groups that Canada has labelled terrorist, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, aids President Bashar al-Assad in Syria's civil war, and does not recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a state. And it has been accused, but denies, that it intends to develop nuclear weapons. In short, in Western eyes it is a bad actor and, because of its suspected nuclear intentions, has long been subject to sanctions.

The sanctions were greatly eased after the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an agreement by which Iran promised not to develop nuclear weapons in return for the relief of sanctions. Signatories include Iran, China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and the European Union. Iran has, up until very recently, kept its part of the bargain.

Nonetheless, the United States backed out of the deal and has since imposed crippling sanctions. The Americans want not only to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons but also to confine its foreign policy to what the U.S. considers acceptable.

Certainly Iran pursues an aggressive foreign policy, but it has certain justifications for doing so. As the major Shia nation it sees itself as a defender of Shia interests in a largely Sunni Middle East. It is also a nation that has a history of abuse by foreign powers, specifically Great Britain and the United States, and therefor has a legitimate fear of the West. This also partly explains its antipathy toward Israel which it sees as a colonial intrusion in the Middle East and Hezbollah and Hamas as legitimate opponents of that intrusion. And this is, after all, Iran's backyard. The United States has certainly never shrunk from interfering in affairs in its backyard, to say the least.

The U.S. sanctions amount to putting Iran under siege. The question arises: how much should a nation stand when another nation attempts to strangle it into submission? Must Iran simply accept that might is right?

The Americans have accused Iran of attacking two tankers in the Gulf of Oman, without producing any evidence. Iran denies the attacks. Iran has freely admitted to shooting down an American drone, but it claims the drone was in its air space. More recently, it has announced it would enrich its uranium above the limit in the agreement unless European powers do more to protect its economy from the U.S. sanctions.

The events in the Gulf could be Iran's doing or they could be the usual American strategy of creating an incident to justify an assault. Remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident in Vietnam? Or the babies and incubators scam in Kuwait? Or the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

In any case, the Americans are the ones who reneged on the agreement. They are the provocateurs. The Trump administration has said it will negotiate but why should the Iranians negotiate a new agreement when a perfectly good one is already in effect? And to negotiate under the U.S. sanctions would be negotiating with a gun to their heads. The U.S. demands humiliation. Iran can be forgiven for seeking leverage.

The United States is perhaps the world's most belligerent country. Its military has caused more death and destruction since the end of WWII than any other. By reneging on the JCPOA and imposing brutal sanctions on Iran, it has now thrown a match into the most volatile region in the world. If the Middle East suffers another conflagration as a result, the Americans will have a lot to answer for.

Are we capable of creating a sustainable future?

Reading an intriguing book the other day, I was reminded of our species' inability to restrain our use of technology. The book is Bison and People on the North American Great Plains and contributors include historians, archeologists, anthropologists, paleontologists and Native American perspectives. It describes the history of the buffalo including its near demise in the 19th century.

It was somewhat of a surprise to me that the great herds were decimated chiefly by Natives, not by Whites. The White hunt and the pressures of settlement in the U.S. did indeed finish the buffalo off, but by the that time the southern herds had been reduced to half their original size through over-hunting by Natives. White hunters delivered the coup de grâce so to speak. In Canada the northern herds suffered no White hunt. The Indians, with the help of the Métis, managed to exterminate the herds entirely on their own.

When the horse arrived in North America, courtesy of the Spanish, the buffalo were doomed. The Indians embraced this new technology with unalloyed enthusiasm. It utterly changed their culture. Both horse and man pressured the buffalo. The hunters became more efficient killers and the horse herds, domestic and feral, competed with the buffalo for grazing. As markets for hides and pemmican flourished, killing buffalo became highly lucrative enabling a hunter to become rich in horses and trade goods.

Native North Americans had achieved a balance with the buffalo for thousands of years, but this was not a matter of choice. They had simply met the limit of their technology. Once they gained new technologies, the horse and then the gun, they did what we all do and immediately pressed their advantage.

We tend to push our technology to maximize our exploitation of nature, only occasionally restrained by conscience. Rarely do any people live in balance with nature voluntarily. Will we carry on like this until we have exhausted the entire planet's resources?

The Indians thought the buffalo were inexhaustible. If they disappeared for a while into the earth from whence they came, they would return. We know better. We know resources are limited, the planet is finite, yet we race on, consuming as if the Earth has no limits. In 1871, Cree chief Sweetgrass told a Hudson's Bay official, "Our country is no longer able to support us." Unless we recognize limits, one day a future leader may say to no one in particular "Our planet is no longer able to support us," and we will wind up like the Plains Indians, destitute and starving.

What's wrong with our Conservatives?

If this country were any example, one might conclude that Conservatives cannot, or will not, grasp the severity of the global warming threat. In Alberta, for example, the UCP has trashed what was a decent climate change program and set a course for all out expansion of the tar sands. At the same time, it has budgeted 30 million taxpayer dollars for a "war room" to attack critics of the oil industry. The new Conservative government in Ontario similarly gutted an effective climate change program, including cancelling a cap and trade agreement. The federal Conservatives have laid out a plan that could have been created by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (and perhaps was) that is hopelessly ineffectual.

Indeed, the major focus of Canada's Conservative parties is not on ways to deal with the crisis, but rather on attacking one of the best instruments we have. They oppose carbon taxing, even to the point of fighting it in court, despite economists across the philosophical spectrum, including the two winners of this year's Nobel prize, strongly supporting its efficacy. This is perverse.

But to tarnish all conservatives with this brush would be most unfair. Britain's Conservatives, for instance, seem to grasp the urgency. Or at least some of them do. Prime Minister Theresa May has stated, “We are the last generation of leaders with the power to limit global warming.” You can't make it any clearer than that. She has declared a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and encourages other countries to be more ambitious. She has even promised that Britain's overseas aid budget will be spent in a way that contributes to transitioning to a low-carbon global economy. Of course all this could be undone if her successor is a denier and that is quite possible, but we must be positive.

May says that she grasped the seriousness of the crisis while walking in the Swiss mountains. "There’s a particular place we go to where over the last decade you can see the glacier retreating quickly—and this has brought home to me the importance of climate change," she said. Perhaps we need to send Kenney, Ford and Scheer for a hike in the Rockies.