Colin Campbell's Posts
The Business of Ocean Management: Reflections on the World Oceans Summit
Ocean leaders gathered in Singapore to assess ways forward that might simultaneously allow our seriously threatened oceans to recover and provide increasing services to humanity as demands increase with growing population and appetites.
World Oceans Summit 2012
The agenda is comprehensive, the cast of speakers inspiring, and while it is laudable that the Economist has convened this summit – for the oceans are clearly in need of high-level attention – there is a seed of concern.
Ziggy’s Premonition
Last year the International Energy Agency (IEA) found itself unwittingly reinforcing David Bowie’s prediction from 1972, stating in effect, “We’ve got five years, that’s all we’ve got.”
Down and Out in Durban
Durban has been damnably disappointing. Something like being re-incarnated into a previously unsuccessful and frustrating life. It’s pre-1993 again.
Enbridge and the Climate Facts of Life
The actual amount of CO2 that emerges from a Keystone XL or Northern Gateway pipeline (each about 500,000 barrels oil/day = to 2 billion tonnes of carbon (GtC) per 100yrs) constitutes a climatically significant, but not in itself catastrophic ‘carbon bomb’.
Rays of Ocean Light
Not all is shadows in the conservation game, the sun can shine and when it does the warmth and light are particularly sweet.
B.C. Liberals' 'green' policy hurts kids, gifts big business
Offsets for Encana are not part of the solution to fight global warming, but rather part of the problem that causes it.
Sockeye, Genomics and “Mortality-Related Signature”
The stakes are high, and for the moment we must hope that the apparent tardiness in testing farmed fish stocks is simply a matter of logistics and developing the necessary agreements and not due to any undue impact of commercial interests on the process. We have seen what happens when industry drives policy and policy drives science – the cod collapse.
An Oceans Collation
The ocean is not a place apart from us. Direct lines of chemical supply and energy transfer pass from each of us to other species and processes in the ocean, as well as the land, the atmosphere – everywhere. We are not visitors here.
Visiting Juan de Fuca's Bear Beach
To bring more than 250 residences into close proximity with this remnant recovering wilderness would fundamentally change the place, and the experience of the place. People who want a retreat in this lovely part of the island will find many good options already on the market.
Elusive Eulachon
The question is: what can be done to improve the survivability of a species when both the reasons for its decline and key characteristics of its life cycle are unknown? We can expect many more such dilemmas in the years to come as warming increases in northern latitudes. Eulachon offer a timely opportunity to rehearse and evaluate our responses.
Selling Offsets and Ecosystem Services
Preventing emissions and sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or ocean are arguably the most valuable of all possible services, given CO2’s intractable role in global warming and ocean acidification, and the dangerous changes they will impose on the living world.
Unethical to Brand Oil Sands Ethical?
It's human nature to seek an honourable reason to avoid a pressing problem. But this distraction is deadly.
Shameful Decision Lets Us All Down
The Chamber of Review has let its country down. By not reviewing Bill C-311 a key obligation to Canada's citizens and to the world has been forfeited. This action has repercussions beyond the national politics of Canada, and will shame us forever in the future unless a reversal is made.
Conventional Wisdom & Climate – the Moral Moment
Climate ethicist Donald Brown of Penn State University has developed this line of thinking by asking if the fossil fuel industry's disinformation campaign on climate change in fact constitutes a new kind of crime against humanity?
No Fanfare over BC’s 2008 GHG Emissions
BC has a massive challenge if it is to meet its own legally binding greenhouse gas emission reduction targets (33% by 2020 and 80% by 2050 below the 2007 level). The challenge becomes more stringent if strict adherence to a less than 2 degree warming target with equitable access to carbon for all is invoked.
Another Sock in the Eye
Among the sockeye salmon that return to the Fraser River every year are members of more than 40 genetically distinct populations, some heading home to small streams, others to particular gravel reaches of great rivers.
Oceans Day 2010 Update
The great ocean brought life to this planet and sustains it. We must wake up about its real needs.
The Sea, the Senate and Canada’s Climate Change Accountability Act
In these uncivil days we often forget that good democratic governance relies on healthy input from the opposition. The ruling Federal Conservatives have a systemic reluctance to bring Canada into compliance with its climate change obligations under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the case made internally for deep reductions by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.
Discharge Only Duty – Help the Ocean
The greatest blessing to indoor living was the perfection of the flush toilet, by the eponymous Thomas Crapper in the late 1800's. It does so much for our convenience, who would be without one? But what about the ocean?
