¶ Published Monday, November 30th In Announcements - No Comments »
We are phasing out one of our plans, the Basic Plan. The basic plan offered access to updates, topics and legislation – but no legal register functionality. Over the past year and a half we have found all of our new clients have required legal register functionality and the clients on the basic plan were not completely satisfied with their service. For clients who are on the basic plan, we will keep it active until your subscription comes up for renewal – you will then be able to upgrade or downgrade your account. Shortly we will be adding a newRead the Rest…
¶ Published Friday, November 27th In Environment - No Comments »
Should the Climategate revelations change our views about global warming? Robin Hanson (an expert on idea futures) thinks not. Sure, the scandal has exposed the ugly side of academics caught distorting research for political ends, but as Hanson puts it: “It is a shame that academia works this way, and an academia where this stuff didn’t happen would probably be more accurate. But even our flawed academic consensus is usually more accurate than its contrarians, and it is hard to find reliable cheap indicators saying when contrarians are more likely to be right.”
¶ Published Friday, November 27th In Environment - No Comments »
Just a quick note that Copenhagen might yet still have some life in it. With President Obama announcing his forthcoming presence, Canada and China are following suit with their high leaders, Harper and Wen Jiabao respectively. China seems to be serious about reducing the greenhouse gas emissions, simply for the reason that they are very energy wasteful and have lots of room to improve efficiencies. Outline of commitments can be found here. One note that stood out in the above article was that over a quarter of Chinese wind-farms (some of the largest in the world) are operational, but notRead the Rest…
¶ Published Friday, November 27th In Environment - No Comments »
The United States throws out 40% of their food (article). With the world under greater and greater ecological pressure, many parties state the obvious: efficiency improvements are the low hanging fruit. Lowering your house temperature in the winter, raising it in the summer, buying a fuel-efficient car or changing your light bulbs saves a great deal of energy at very low-cost. A major, but overlooked, contributor to environmental degradation is food production, transportation, and preparation. Not only is over food over consumption bad for the environment and your health; in a world where people still go hungry it is immoralRead the Rest…
¶ Published Thursday, November 26th In Environment - No Comments »
No question that Climategate is damaging for proponents of global warming theory. But more worrisome is that mainstream media will respond by giving credence to the fevered ravings of conspiracy theorists. So far reactions betray the lack of political will in this world to do what it takes to set the us down the right path — probably owing to public fatigue with the threat of climate change. For those outside Quebec who don’t know him, Jean-François Lisée is a well known author and was once special advisor to the former Quebec premiers Jacques Parizeau and Lucien Bouchard. He’s alsoRead the Rest…
¶ Published Thursday, November 26th In Announcements - No Comments »
At Nimonik, we are currently developing an NPRI reporting tool that will help Canadian companies easily calculate emissions from multiple facilities and, if thresholds are met, report their findings to the government. This release is intended to gauge interest from potential clients who would be willing to subscribe to such a service and solicit any feedback about their expectations on how an NPRI reporting tool can work best. Typically, NPRI figures are calculated in excel, compiled for multiple facilities and reported to the government via their OWNERS website. Our tool would be conceived to allow you to easily calculate NPRIRead the Rest…
¶ Published Tuesday, November 24th In Announcements - 1 Comment »
We are very pleased to announce that the ISO 14000 Store, which offers useful tools for building and maintaining an ISO 14001 EMS, is working with us to deliver EMS documentation and environmental regulation to our clients. They have graciously provided us with a number of EMS documents you might find useful, these documents are part of a larger package they offer on their website. 4 Procedures: Environmental Aspects Legal Requirements Objectives & Targets Environmental Programs and 1 Work instruction Water Conservation More documents just added: Powerpoint presentation on ISO 14001 Initial environmental review Gap Analysis Tool Full List ofRead the Rest…
¶ Published Sunday, November 22nd In Environment - 1 Comment »
In this weekend’s La Presse, François Cardinal wonders why governments always play with words when making policy for what to do with our waste. After several revisions to its policy on “residual materials” (read waste), the Quebec government has reinvented the language of waste management. Instead of “dump” we say “sanitary landfill”. We no longer “recycle”, we “valorize”. Yes, it’s as silly as calling bald people follicly challenged, but the sad reality is that many governments (Quebec is by no means the only one) aren’t just playing with names, they’re fudging numbers too. In 1989, Quebec adopted an Integrated SolidRead the Rest…
¶ Published Sunday, November 22nd In Environment - No Comments »
Just came across an interesting article discussing the ecological disaster that is shipping. This largely has to do with the use of “bunker fuel” – a very low grade, high sulphur, diesel that is used by ships around the world. The article claims 16 large tankers produce more pollution than all the cars in the world. See the article here.
¶ Published Thursday, November 19th In Environment - No Comments »
Progress is being made on reducing deforestation in the Amazonian rainforest. This is being done through satellite monitoring of ranches and the enforcement of laws and regulations. In fact, deforestation in 2008 was at its lowest level since monitoring began in 1988 – promising news. The reality is that the enforcement of laws drives behaviour and to have a real impact the government must be tough. Article in the New York Times here. Money quote from Robert Cleary, author of a report on deforestation, “Many of the more forward-looking farmers are already looking to protect themselves against worries that theirRead the Rest…
¶ Published Wednesday, November 18th In Legal Issues - No Comments »
Google has just unveiled a system to display laws, case rulings and citations. Modelled after much of the work at the various LIIs around the world, this system helps make american legal opinion much more accessible. From Google, We think this addition to Google Scholar will empower the average citizen by helping everyone learn more about the laws that govern us all. To understand how an opinion has influenced other decisions, you can explore citing and related cases using the Cited by and Related articles links on search result pages. As you read an opinion, you can follow citations to the opinionsRead the Rest…
¶ Published Wednesday, November 18th In Environment - No Comments »
No big surprise here, but our government is saying climate change laws will likely not be put in place for a few years. I suppose that is what they said in 2000 as well. It seems our government and Canadian society has little appetite for regulating climate change, with the forthcoming Copenhagen, it seems inevitable many climate change hopes will not materialize. CBC article here.
¶ Published Tuesday, November 17th In Environment - No Comments »
Out in the pacific ocean, there is a garbage field larger than continental America. Composed of plastic waste – bags, bottle caps, lighters, etc. the garbage, a testament to our wasteful ways, is growing in size. Chris Jordan, a famed photographer, just posted some horrifying pictures of dead birds who eat the garbage and then die. Here are his photos and one sample below. Article on the patch here.
¶ Published Monday, November 16th In Environment - No Comments »
A lot of bleak headlines today about how climate change talks in Copenhagen will fail. But the eulogies are a bit premature. True, over the past year, world leaders have really been lowering the bar. Today, another round of dampening expectations made headlines, as leaders at this week’s APEC meeting are saying that a binding global accord in Copenhagen is out of reach. No one in their right mind believes that next month’s conference will produce a final treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. But let’s not fool ourselves. Those leaders were only saying out loud what everyone has beenRead the Rest…
¶ Published Monday, November 16th In Environment - No Comments »
Last week in Hong Kong, a friend and I received tickets to an Intelligence Squared debate on climate change. Intelligence Squared is a non-profit organization that holds debates with leading experts around the world on pressing issues. Many of these debates are aired on BBC. The debate I attended concerned the following statement, ““THE WEST IS FULL OF HOT AIR; ASIA IS SAVING THE WORLD FROM CLIMATE POLICY DISASTER”. Coming into the debate, the crowd was already against the motion, but after 90 minutes of discussion, the crowd had become even more against. The panelists for the motion argued thatRead the Rest…
