Two new motions on climate change head to city council next week while citizen groups prepare to picket a local MP’s office over the threat of the Kinder Morgan pipeline to a stable climate and clean water. The local activity comes in the wake of an unprecedented heat wave across the North Pole and sea ice levels in both the Arctic and Antarctic at their lowest ever recorded levels.
In late February, near the end of nearly five months of darkness, temperatures at the North Pole suddenly soared 30C above normal to a point higher than the freezing mark. The director of the US snow and ice data centre called it “just crazy, crazy stuff” as the northern tip of Greenland hit 6.1C. It has been by far the warmest ever Arctic winter with temperatures since the start of the year averaging six Celsius degrees above normal.
“This is an anomaly among anomalies. It is far enough outside the historical range that it is worrying – it is a suggestion that there are further surprises in store as we continue to poke the angry beast that is our climate,” said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Centre at Pennsylvania State University.
Hamilton city staff recently have linked climate change to the unusual number of potholes on city streets and to the increasing danger from tick-borne diseases. And Hamilton was also formally part of a Mohawk-organized “climate summit” in Burlington this month, although no councillors participated.
Taking the advice of Ontario’s environmental commissioner, ward three councillor Matthew Green now wants the city to consider adding climate implications to each staff report, and to include carbon footprints in procurement decisions. Objections and “reservations” to Green’s initial Board of Health motion were voiced by councillors Tom Jackson, Lloyd Ferguson and Donna Skelly.
“If there’s a new business up in the Red Hill business park which is to expand its footprint to provide more jobs but that footprint will possibly affect climate change negatively are we going to hold up that expansion and the jobs and commercial taxes?” wondered Jackson. “I just want to make sure as the environment is so important that it also doesn’t put unnecessary impediments on other areas of our city as we are moving forward.”
Ferguson took aim at the procurement aspect which he said “has been tried, tested and true” and argued a climate lens would “put us at risk of getting competitive bids”. Skelly focused on “the amount of red tape that we’re adding to a project” which she says is one of the biggest concerns she hears already about doing business with the city.
Green’s initiative was supported by Sam Merulla who seconded the motion, and also by Mayor Eisenberger.
“I do see complications potentially,” the mayor noted, “but at some point if we’re going to be serious about greenhouse gas emissions we have to start thinking about how that fits into our overall operations.”
Final wording and a vote on Green’s motion were pushed off to city council. A separate motion by Eisenberger directing staff to test electric buses is also likely to be on the March 28 council agenda after debate at the public works committee. The mayor argues electric vehicles are “environmentally sustainable” and will reduce greenhouse gas emissions among other benefits.
Citizen climate action this week is focused especially on protection of water from oil pipelines. Several groups are holding a 4 pm Friday picket outside Filomena Tassi’s west end office as part of a National Day of Action to Defend the Water in conjunction with BC actions against the Kinder Morgan trans-mountain pipeline.
Ten thousand people marched in Vancouver last week against the Texas-based company’s project that will produce a seven-fold increase in oil tankers in the BC city’s harbour. Civil disobedience is already underway with arrests occurring almost daily. BC’s opposition to the pipeline won the support last week of the governor of Washington State, but continues to face threats from Alberta where the Conservative opposition leader has suggested that the protestors are Russian stooges.
The Kinder Morgan pipe has been approved by the National Energy Board and was given a green light last year by Prime Minister Trudeau, although he subsequently has acknowledged that was a “trade-off” to gain Alberta support for Ottawa’s national carbon tax.