Tag Archives: Economy

Martin Mars Water Bombers finding work overseas

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The Giant, Iconic, Martin Mars Water Bombers that live on Sproat Lake here in Port Alberni, BC are going to keep on working.

Unfortunately, not at home.

Martin Mars

On Friday, March 27, owner Wayne Coulson signed a multi-million dollar deal with the United States Forest Service to send the Hawaii Mars to Lake Elsinore, California to fight fires from June 15 to Nov. 15.

“We successfully negotiated a one-year contract with two one-year renewals,” said an obviously pleased Coulson. “This is a performance-based contract, and it’s an honour to have been chosen as the main supertanker in the United States.”

and as for the Phillipine Mars:

While the well-tested bottom-dropping Hawaii Mars works in California, the less-studied side-dropping Phillipine Mars could see service in Australia, where wildfires have devastated entire towns over the past year.

Coulson Aircrane has had three Sikorski helicopters fighting fires in Australia, and negotiations are underway to put the Phillipine Mars to work Down Under.

Am I being selfish when I say I am very sad that the bombers will not be a summertime fixture at Sproat Lake? Absolutely. But I am also realistic, and the best for these planes is that they are flown in the purpose for which they have evolved. They are incredibly good fire fighters and I am proud that a little bit of Port Alberni history, a little bit of *my* family history (my dad served as a copilot on them briefly in the 70s) and a successful Port Alberni company, will be flying these bombers around the world. Protecting thousands of homes, businesses and people.

France threatens to take their wine and cheese and leave the party

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France is threatening to pull out of G20 talks without real changes to world financial regulations.

Christine Lagarde told Hardtalk that President Nicolas Sarkozy would not sign any agreement if he felt “the deliverables are not there”.

Strengthening financial regulation will be one of the key issues at the G20.

France wants a stronger global financial regulator than the US and the UK would like.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Ms. Lagarde sets up a picket, god knows the French are good at strikes…

Seriously though, the French minister is right. All the gnashing of teeth will not help one iota without real changes to the financial system. Changes that actually put limits on the powers of corporations to manipulate imaginary sums of money in ways that even they can’t keep track of.

While they’re at it, maybe they can come up with a way of breaking it to the citizens of the world that infinite growth economies simply don’t work and we’re going to have to find a way to live in a more flat-lined economy that is actually self-sustaining.

Live Blogging the Public Forum on Climate Change in Port Alberni

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Echo Center 7PM tonight is the Public Forum on Climate Change in Port Alberni…

I didn’t realise they had Internet in here until now… I’ve missed the 1st speaker, who was amazing… but he will be back for QA and i will start with the second speaker who is talking right now.

The current speaker is talking about a 100 Year plan that was done for Greater Vancouver… for the “Plus Network”. She is a psychologist….

She is part of the Sustainable Cities Network, which is a network of 300 cities including Vancouver and Port Alberni.

A City needs a Plan… for 5 years with financial plan…. a Strategy for 30 years… a Vision for 50-100 years.

Cities Copy each other… large Cities (Calgary) learn from medium cities that learn from small cities… smaller cities can implement change faster because there is less complexity and more attachment to the ground-level.

Lighthouse projects… that might not be economically feasible, like the Million dollar solar bus “Tindo” in Adelaide Australia, “shine a light” for others to follow. Someone has to make a prototype… there needs to be a leader to follow.

Talking about going to Iqualuit… talking to the Elders who are seeing things they have never seen before. Robins, bumblebees. Never seen before that far north, were there in 2007.

……. Now it’s question period…. here are just my notes from the previous speaker, who was incredibly good if a little disjointed due to time.

Bruce Sampson former BC Hydro :

Growth with less Impact…

With worst case (mst likely scenario) Cedar growth on VI is wiped out by 2080.

He just explained Peak Oil in a nutshell

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report

Largest basekine study of the pplanet ever done

Over 60% of the planets ecosystems are not sustainable
Among the outstanding problems-dire state of many of the worlds fish stocks; the intense vulnerability of the 2 billion people living in the dry regions.

Put a price on carbon:

We abuse the Earths Natural Capital because we don’t price it

Carbon Offsets —–> Ecosystem Offsets

………………………..

QA: From Ken Whiteman (Councillor). How do we reconcile Canadian carbon emissions in the world (2%) which 50% comes from tar sands… with China where they are building a coal plant “every day”.

Answer: Burning up natural gas to produce tar sands is like “turning gold to lead”. There has to be a leader in transition coming from Canada. We have to move away from Tar Sand, which is larlgely impossible to due the momemtum, so our only hope is carbon sequestration.

As far as China… we have to be the leader… we can give our technology to China. But the challenge is gigantic. Youre looking at a massive switch to coal as fossil fuels decline…. there has to be a switch in mentality or CO2 will take off in emissions.

One comment from “the psychologist”… Refer to Tar Sands as “Tar” sands.. not oil. It is not Oil. It is a powerful psychological attachment to those words..

BOOK RECOMMENDATION: Agenda for a new Economy – by David Corten… only just published

Mike Carter: Brought up Transition Towns and how Bruce Sampsons talk very much mimics what Transition Towns is all about…. we need to act locally.. we need to act holistically and help everyone through it as well. This is a gigantic change, and it is goin to hurt, economically, socially, and psychologically.

Jen Fisher Bradley: How do we internalize the externalized costs that are manifest in a market based eonomy. (Whoa!)

Bruce Sampson: It comes down to Natural Capital and putting a cost on our effect on ecosystems. Until that is built into our economy by having companies understanding thier impact, and valueing their impact on natural capital. Not just carbon offsets. It is full, natural, ecosystems offsets. Companies have to pay for the impact they have. Not as a penalty, but simply as a matter of doing business.

Group conversation……..

Ken McRae Closing Comments:

- Councils Next Step will be to appoint a Sustainability Committee.

Economic turmoil a manifestation of hard-wired, human Darwinism?

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I had a great little discussion with a colleague yesterday about the economic troubles in the United States and around the world right now.

He mentioned that if you go to the Wiki for The Great Depression, many of reasons cited there correlate strongly with what is going on right now…. but more than that, apparently, and I don’t have confirmation of this yet, apparently in 2000, one of the last regulations on the stock market that was brought in by FDR and the New Deal, expired. 8 years later, here we are.

So that got me to thinking. Is this just a manifestation of human instinct? Left completely boundless, is our natural impulse simply to expand and grow and consume as much and as quickly as possible… moreover, is this Natures way of ensuring there is still some measure of Darwins theory of survival of the fittest embedded inside us? When food is bountiful, deer and caribou populations can explode, until finally when there is a lean year, a great percentage die, or are eaten by increased numbers of predators and in the end the deer or caribou diminish from their original number… humans do not have the benefit of that cycle to control population, so is this our built in cycle?

Humans are unique on the planet in being the only species capable of overcoming their instincts a great majority of the time through thought, desire, and most importantly, logic. When you really think about it, is it logical to have a stock market that is completely free of regulation?

Probably not right? Or at least not in certain ways.

So when we ignore that logic at some sort of level we remove one last barrier, and it sets off events in human interaction and behaviour that ultimately leads to our [economys'] demise.

Let us hope that the coming Recession, or Depression, does not take Darwinism any farther than our corporate beings.

A Day in History: Oil Consumers Blink

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So will today, June 22, 2008, be the day the world began to change?

Unless you’re living under a rock, you know that energy prices and anything associated with it (which i is everything) have been going through the roof.

You likely also know about the meeting today between Oil Consumers and Producers (or more precisely, “importers” and “exporters”) today in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Basically, the consumers of the world are starting to freak out. Especially the United States as they have had the easiest energy road in the past 60 years and are feeling the deepest effects in terms of affect on the economy. (There are other countries where people are unable to eat because of the energy prices, but whatever, they just need to suck it up right? *gag*)

Anyway, the crux of the post is this.

Saudi Arabia has pledged to boost production to 12.5mbd by 2009.

GREAT! We’re SAVED!

But wait… as you can see here they promised that in 2005 and again last year.

And the result? Since 2004, production has remained flat at around 9.5mbd.

So what does that tell YOU? I know what it tells me… it tells me that they’re just blowing smoke and are telling everyone (you, me, “speculators”) what they want to hear to keep prices down and the pressure off them from their allies, and biggest customers, in the West.

Well. Today, after all the gnashing of teeth by Presidents, Prime Minsters, Energy Ministers and Secretaries… we get more of the same… nothing. And today, the message our Presidents and Prime Ministers and the MSM are taking home is “conserve”. “Turn the lights off”.

This is called the energy plateau, folks. Lets hope the inevitable decline isn’t too steep.

addendum: and it looks like oil markets are currently agreeing with this sentiment as they opened a few hours ago in Asia.
June 22 Opening hours oil trading