With the daily publication of EnviroAb, I thought I would add a weekly commentary on some of the topics I found of most interest/value.
The relative roles and responsibilities of the federal and provincial committees reviewing oilsands monitoring was frequently discussed this week with questions of overlap, duplication etc.
The intent to establish aprovincial committee was announced Sep. 26:
http://alberta.ca/acn/201009/2920144932A4E-0BA6-6932-D9C0606CCBFE2BC1.html
And the names were made available this week:
http://environment.alberta.ca/03183.html
The committee is to report by Feb and is reviewing monitoring results and methods – to understand the apparently different results and to understand their significance historically.
The federal panel was announced Sep 30 and is to report within 60 days:
http://www.ec.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=714D9AAE-1&news=981D86D0-D3DB-4D71-8957-8EF52F85A05E
The mandate here seems broader – they are to review research and monitoring. The release actually mentions “of environmental effects” but I somehow doubt they will be limited to that.
It seems the federal panel is somewhat more oriented to the methods and systems in research and monitoring shill the provincial panel is more oriented to resolving some of the specific inconsistencies in observations. So, they are complementary but it would have been better if the provincial panel reported first.
James Hansen added significantly to the hearings about the Total oilsands proposal:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/oil-sands-should-be-left-in-the-ground-nasa-scientist/article1743844/
I found two things interesting about this intervention. First, I wondered about his appearance at such a hearing and being reported as from the Goddard Institute. I presume he wasn’t presenting a position of GISS but his own opinion. I wonder if that was made clear during the hearing.
More importantly, this whole hearing is a reflection of the reality that there is really no policy or law in place today to manage GHG emissions. One has to have the argument over each individual project or initiative.