Archive for Shameless fawning

Green growth or stability?

You can hear Tim Jackson and Peter Victor argue for a steady-state economy while Paul Ekins and Richard Lipsey promote green growth.

An audio recording of the debate is available online, and it will be rebroadcast on the CBC:

No Growth vs Green Growth debate
Tuesday, 2011 February 2, 9pm
Ideas on CBC Radio One

I want to thank a local supporter for alerting me to Tim Jackson’s presence in Canada.  Jackson is an economist working with Canadian economist Peter Victor on modeling an economy not built around constant growth.     Read more »

COP16 — Hope for the holidays

Something truly magical is happening in Cancun.  Patricia Espinosa got a standing ovation when she returned after giving people a couple of hours to peruse the text.     Read more »

COP16 — Green family breakfast

This morning, a group of 30 Greens from all over the world gathered for breakfast in Cancun.  Most were officeholders in Europe, either in the EU Parliament or in country governments.  But municipal councillor Cathy Oke arrived from Melbourne, Australia, former Santa Monica mayor Mike Feinstein came from the United States, and four Canadian Greens joined in with three Brazilians, including the leader of the Brazilian Greens, Senator Marina Silva, who gathered 20 million votes in the last presidential election, earning 20% of the popular vote, 30% of the urban vote and winning the popular vote outright in Brazil’s capital city of Brasilia.

Green family breakfast
From left to right: Ronan Dantec, Deputy Mayor of the city of Nantes (France); Marina Silva, Presidential Candidate (Brazil); Dr Cathy Oke, City of Melbourne Councillor (Australia); Adriana Mugnatto-Hamu, Green Party of Canada Climate Change Critic; Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada

I had wanted to meet Marina ever since she left Lula’s government over disagreements about dam-building and other environmentally damaging policies and began to consider running for the Greens.     Read more »

COP16 — Sad and uplifting moments

I’ve never been to a COP before, but I’ve been involved in climate change issues long enough to recognize a very sad trend from fighting to prevent it to squabbling over the money to deal with it.  Far more energy is being spent today to discuss the costs of adaptation, primarily for countries that have had very little to do with causing it.  More and more effort is spent by scientists not in evaluating the broad implications of a warming planet, but in evaluating the much more narrow human-scale impacts it will cause.     Read more »

Green Party of Canada Shadow Cabinet


First time I’ve met with Shadow Cabinet in person. A collegial and productive meeting, preparing for the convention, preparing to absorb policy changes and preparing for a possible upcoming election.