Planet Haliburton

This episode looks at the growing calls for urgent Climate Change Adaptation action as the climate emergency deepens. The failure to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions has come home to roost in the form of more frequent and intense extreme weather events including increased flooding, droughts, heat domes, and wildfire with all the associated increased risk to human health and safety that entails. Jennifer Penney, a longtime health policy advocate, activist and chair of the Adaptation Working Group of Seniors for Climate action Now (SCAN!), joins me for this timely conversation.

Virtually everyone these days has a story about being forced to throw away an otherwise perfectly serviceable appliance, tool or device simply because one small part has failed. You know the line … “it’s more ‘cost-effective’ to waste it and buy new than repair it. Few of us, though, are aware of the extent to which planned obsolescence has been extended into every aspect of our lives in an era dominated by an ubiquitous, digitally-connected always on “Internet of Things”. To help shed some light on how the rise of digital mega-corporations, like Apple, Google and Meta, is linked to new forms of planned obsolescence and the production of digitally-driven waste, I’m joined by Dr. Natasha Tusikov , co-author of a 2023 book entitled “The New Knowledge: Information, Data, and The Remaking of Global Power”.

This week on Planet Haliburton, Charlie Angus, the NDP Member of Parliament for the current Federal Riding of Timmins, James Bay, which covers an area greater than a quarter of Ontario’s entire land mass is our guest. In addition to that “day job”, the Honourable Member is a practicing musician – with the iconic band The Grievous Angels - and the author of 8, soon to be 9, books. His 8th book entitled “Cobalt: The Making of a Mining Superpower”, is a fascinating look at the role his adopted home town of Cobalt, Ontario played in making Canada the world’s preeminent resource extraction superpower it is today. This interview highlights some of the key themes in Cobalt including the outrageous power and excess of wealthy mine owners and related state-sponsored attempts to steal Indigenous Lands. At the same time, Angus foregrounds the amazing level of solidarity and resistance to corporate power and colonialism put up by Indigenous People, miners and the Union they built to defend themselves. This is not the “Empire Ontario” history we were taught in school that's embedded in our national myths and the truths they hide. This is the Real Deal.

Abhilash Kantamneni (Abhi) is an Efficiency Canada research manager specializing in energy poverty and low-income energy efficiency. His community-based approach to energy efficiency, civic engagement and capacity building has earned him wide recognition including being named a ‘40 Under 40 Energy Leader’ by the Midwest Energy News and a Canada Storyteller Award by SSHRC-CRSH. Abhi has a Master of Science in Physics, and in Computer Science from Michigan Tech, and a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from Anna University. Resource list. https://canoefm.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/PH-Resource-List-for-Energy-Poverty-and-the-Climate-Emergency-Final-Mar-14-2024.pdf

This episode features a conversation about approaches to dealing the mountains of garbage being generated by our linear “Take, Make, and Waste” economy with Dr. Calvin Lakhan, Director of the “Waste Wiki Project” at York University. As calls for a “circular” economy that views “garbage” as a wasted “resource” have gained popularity, the notion of “Extended Producer Responsibility” or EPR has become a key waste management strategy. But so far EPR has failed to live up proponent claims and Ontario’s recycling rate is tanking. The question is why and what can be done about it? Issues discussed include EPR and Ontario’s Blue Box Program, incineration, “planned obsolescence’ and “The Right to Repair” movement. This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm

The 28th annual UN-sponsored Climate Summit or COP28 is now history. These annual spectacles are chocked full of contradictions and there’s no shortage of controversy about was – or wasn’t - accomplished by thousands of conference delegates from close to 200 countries between November 30th and December 13th in Dubai. While the last episode of Planet Haliburton was a COP28 “Pre-Mortem”, this one is its “Post-Mortem” sequel. Mitchell Beer, the publisher of The Energy Mix, Canada’s preeminent source on climate news and opinion, returns to help take stock of the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of COP28.

2023 is shaping up to be the hottest year on record with all the consequences that holds for all life on the planet. With the 28th annual UN-sponsored “Conference of the Parties” or COP28 under the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), delegations from the 197 countries will be descending on Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), from November 30th – to December 12th. In the lead up to this year’s climate spectacle, there’s been a veritable avalanche of climate-emergency related studies and messaging in the media all competing for limited air time and attention. To help listeners get a handle on the state of the climate science and politics on the eve of COP28 as well as the key issues in contention in Dubai, Planet Haliburton invited Mitchell Beer, the publisher of The Energy Mix, Canada’s preeminent source on climate news and opinion, to join us for both pre and post-COP28 conversations.

2023 is on pace to be the hottest year in Earth’s climate record and the list of climate-driven extreme weather events and other disasters is growing by the day. The human toll has been astonishing and promises to only get much worse as warming, driven by the highest concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in at least 4 million years, continues to rise year after year. The gap between the emissions cuts climate scientists warn must happen versus those our political and economic leaders are prepared to deliver, pushes us ever closer toward climate system tipping points and hostile climate regime changes humans haven’t had to endure since the end of the last ice age, almost 12,000 years ago. This episode of Planet Haliburton focuses on the climate change risks to human health and the urgent need for emergency climate action, with Dr. Nell Thomas, a family doctor and climate activist resident in Haliburton County, Ontario.

Few issues have galvanized opposition to the Doug Ford government’s climate and environmental policies as his messing with the boundaries of the Greenbelt - despite his repeated promises not to do so. This episode of Planet Haliburton challenges Ford’s affordable housing rationale for withdrawing 7400 acres from the Greenbelt and delivering over $8 billion in increased land value to a few well-connected developers. In addition, we look Ford’s recent proposed changes to municipal planning rules and the campaigns fighting to save the Greenbelt from Doug Ford’s “Tall and Sprawl” urban agenda. The featured guest is veteran environmental activist and campaigner Franz Hartmann, executive director of the Alliance for a Liveable Ontario (ALO). Resource List link https://canoefm.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/PH-Resource-List-for-Saving-the-Greenbelt-From-Doug-Ford-and-Friends-August-2023.pdf

This episode features a conversation with Dianne Saxe, an environmental lawyer for over 50 years, who became Ontario’s 3rd (and last) independent Environmental Commissioner in 2015 with the unanimous support of all members of the Legislative Assembly. Before being fired by Premier Doug Ford in 2019, Saxe and her team produced some 17 climate, environment, and energy reports and conducted hundreds of public educational presentations. Not content to merely investigate and speak truth to power she encouraged people to become more climate change literate and engaged in the fight for the urgent changes required to protect people and the planet. In the years following Ford’s elimination of her position 2019, Saxe has taken a deep dive into electoral politics, becoming Deputy Leader of the Ontario Green Party in 2021 and a candidate for the Green Party in the Toronto riding of University/Rosedale in the 2022 provincial election. While unsuccessful provincially, Saxe won a seat on Toronto City Council representing University-Rosedale, or Ward 11, in November 2022. With her experience as an environmental lawyer, the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, Deputy Leader of the Ontario Green Party and now a municipal councillor in Canada’s largest city, Dianne Saxe has a unique vantage point from which to view our unfolding climate emergency and the actions required to address it. https://canoefm.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/PH-Resource-List-for-From-Environmental-Commissioner-to-Toronto-City-Councillor-Perspectives-on-the-Climate-Emergency-with-Dianne-Saxe-July-27-2023.pdf

On this episode of PH we look at the impact of climate change on the Trent Severn Waterway, the risks posed by increased extreme weather events, less predictable water levels and what can be done to minimize the associated risks. Bruce McClennan, the vice chair of the Coalition for Equitable Water Flow, discuss two new videos on these issues produced by the Coalition to raise awareness and encourage active adaptation planning. The Trent Severn Waterway - TSW for short - is a 386-kilometre-long canal route connecting Lake Ontario at Trenton to Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, at Port Severn. To maintain navigation and hydro-electric power generation in the lower or navigational portion of the waterway, water is stored and released as needed in the so-called RAFT (or Reservoir and Flow Through Lakes) in Haliburton and Peterborough counties. The reservoir system is complex to manage with historic seasonal water level changes of up to 10 feet (3.4m) on some lakes combined with severe water flow bottlenecks at high flood risk locations along the way, like in the Village of Minden and City of Peterborough. The changes in the timing and amount of precipitation, as well as periods of drought that a changing climate brings, adds to the complexity of managing a system that was not primarily built for flood control.

On this episode of PH we look at the impact of climate change on the Trent Severn Waterway, the risks posed by increased extreme weather events, less predictable water levels and what can be done to minimize the associated risks. Ted Spence , the chair of the Coalition for Equitable Water Flow, discuss two new videos on these issues produced by the Coalition to raise awareness and encourage active adaptation planning. The Trent Severn Waterway - TSW for short - is a 386-kilometre-long canal route connecting Lake Ontario at Trenton to Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, at Port Severn. To maintain navigation and hydro-electric power generation in the lower or navigational portion of the waterway, water is stored and released as needed in the so-called RAFT (or Reservoir and Flow Through Lakes) in Haliburton and Peterborough counties. The reservoir system is complex to manage with historic seasonal water level changes of up to 10 feet (3.4m) on some lakes combined with severe water flow bottlenecks at high flood risk locations along the way, like in the Village of Minden and City of Peterborough. The changes in the timing and amount of precipitation, as well as periods of drought that a changing climate brings, adds to the complexity of managing a system that was not primarily built for flood control.

On this episode of PH we look at the impact of climate change on the Trent Severn Waterway, the risks posed by increased extreme weather events, less predictable water levels and what can be done to minimize the associated risks. Ted Spence and Bruce McClennan, the chair and vice chair of the Coalition for Equitable Water Flow, discuss two new videos on these issues produced by the Coalition to raise awareness and encourage active adaptation planning. The Trent Severn Waterway - TSW for short - is a 386-kilometre-long canal route connecting Lake Ontario at Trenton to Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, at Port Severn. To maintain navigation and hydro-electric power generation in the lower or navigational portion of the waterway, water is stored and released as needed in the so-called RAFT (or Reservoir and Flow Through Lakes) in Haliburton and Peterborough counties. The reservoir system is complex to manage with historic seasonal water level changes of up to 10 feet (3.4m) on some lakes combined with severe water flow bottlenecks at high flood risk locations along the way, like in the Village of Minden and City of Peterborough. The changes in the timing and amount of precipitation, as well as periods of drought that a changing climate brings, adds to the complexity of managing a system that was not primarily built for flood control.

Canadians have been told time and again by government and industry reps that the country’s vast crown-held forests have huge surplus carbon storage capacity for sequestering the country’s ever-growing volumes of extracted, transported, burned and/or exported oil and gas production. Michael Polanyi, with Nature Canada, joins me for a discussion about his research demonstrating that the government’s own numbers fail to add up and, in fact, support the opposite conclusion - that our forests are and have been net sources of GHG emissions for decades. This trend must be reversed if Canada is to succeed in meeting its emission reduction targets under the Paris and subsequent UN Climate Agreements. This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm

Big Foreign Oil’s Canadian Political Meddling The political fallout surrounding China’s alleged interference in Canadian elections has taken up a lot of media airtime recently. But there is a one very powerful source of foreign political interference that has so far escaped any significant scrutiny – Big Foreign Oil’s efforts to shape Canada’s climate and energy politics. This episode of PH features a conversation with Gordon Laxer, professor emeritus of political economy and author of a 2021 study entitled “Posing as Canadian: How Big Foreign Oil Captures Canadian Energy and Climate Policy”. The conversation includes a discussion about how Big Foreign Oil exercises its power and influence but also what needs to be done to curtail it. https://canoefm.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/PH-Resource-List-for-Big-Foreign-Oils-Canadian-Political-Meddling-Mar-30-2023.pdf

BirdLife's State of the World's Birds 2022 report documents that “nearly half of the world's birds are on the decline, and the National Audubon Society warns that two-thirds of the over 600 North American species it recently assessed are, and will continue to be, threatened by the climate we are in the process of seriously disrupting. Birds Canada identifies 5 major on-going threats to bird populations in this country, including: the Climate Crisis, Habitat Loss, Pesticides and Contaminants, Invasive Species and Cats, and the one we focus on in this episode of Planet Haliburton: birds colliding with the buildings we erect in their path. Join me for a conversation with Michael Mesure, from the Fatal Light Awareness Program or (FLAP) Canada, about bird/building collisions and what we can do to reduce the toll This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm

This episode features an update on the Highlands Corridor Project, an ambitious local undertaking to create and protect a continuous wetland and wildlife corridor across the southern part of Haliburton County and beyond. Canada has committed to increasing its protected spaces and intact ecosystems from the current level of 12% to 25% by 2025 and 30% by 2030. Currently, less than 11% of Ontario’s land mass is protected, so we have a very long way to go. The Haliburton Highlands Land Trust’s Sheila Ziman, and wildlife biologist Paul Heaven, join me for this conversation focused on how the Highlands Corridor Project will bolster local biodiversity, keep wetland-sequestered carbon in the ground and help build ecological sustainability in Haliburton County and beyond.

In this episode of Planet Haliburton we take a close look at hope - what it is, where it comes from and the central role it can play in challenging the devastating impact human extractive practices can have on a vulnerable biosphere that supports all life on the planet. And we do that with one of Canada’s most well-known and revered progressive author/activists, Maude Barlow. Maude has been on the front lines of many of the key civil society-based campaigns that have helped reshape the face of Canadian and international economic, social and environmental politics for more than 40 years. Barlow has played central roles in the Womens’, Anti-Globalization, Anti-privatization, Water Justice and Rights of Nature campaigns, to name but a few. Each of these movements have energized efforts to create more equitable human societies that understand, respect and live within natural ecological boundaries. Maude has written more 20 books including her latest entitled “Still Hopeful: Lessons From a Lifetime of Activism, on which this conversation is centred. This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm

This week,Terry Moore speaks with Elizabeth Fournier author of f The Green Burial Guidebook: Everything You Need to Plan an Affordable, Environmentally Friendly Burial. In many respects the only real certainty in life is death. All living things die and human beings are not exceptional in that regard. That hasn’t stopped many humans, however, from thinking and behaving as if we are somehow outside of the rules governing the larger “natural world” - in particular, that we’re fully capable of indefinitely living beyond the biogeophysical limits all other species face. With the increased awareness of human-caused ecological crises since the 1960’s and the parallel growth of environmental movements over the same period, the notion of human exceptionality has come under increasing pressure. A reassessment of our relationship to the larger natural world has in more recent times focused on not only the larger existential crises such as climate change but has also broadened into taking a critical look at conventional high impact, end-of-life practices such as conventional burial and fire cremation. To discuss the Ecological impacts of those conventional practices as well as the efforts being made to create more environmentally-friendly alternatives, I’m pleased to welcome Elizabeth Fournier to Planet Haliburton. Elizabeth is the owner/operator of the Cornerstone Funeral Service in Boring, Oregon, the author of “The Green Burial Guidebook” and an Advisory Committee member with the largely-US based, Green Burial Council. Link to resources for this program. https://canoefm.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/PH-Resource-List-Why-Green-Burial-with-Elizabeth-Fournier-April-28-2022.pdf This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm

This episode of Planet Haliburton, features a conversation about “energy poverty” with Tina Jackson, the Executive Director of the Central Food Hub and co-founder of Heat Bank Haliburton County. It’s no secret that Haliburton County has one of the highest rates of poverty in Ontario, if not the country, as well as serious levels of food insecurity, precarious employment and a crisis in the supply of affordable housing. Less recognized and discussed is the level of “energy poverty” being experienced throughout the county, which has been estimated to be an astounding level 65% of households by the NGO CUSP, the Canadian Urban Sustainability Practitioners. Report after report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), reiterates the growing urgency of driving down GHG gas emissions and breaking our dependency on fossil fuels, while making as fast as possible a transition to a low-carbon energy system, at the same time. Addressing both energy poverty and the climate emergency, without leaving anyone behind, will require Just Transition programs designed to address not only the displacement of oil and gas workers but precarious employment and housing affordability crises as inter-related challenges. The conversation concludes with some initial thoughts on how to create the political will for urgent action at the provincial and municipal levels as we head into a June 2nd provincial election and October 24th municipal elections.