By Liane Thibodeau, LTE, Telegraph Journal, 5 December 2018
Speaking as a retired New Brunswick business owner, one of my concerns about our government’s renewed interest in shale gas development is the cost of lost opportunities in the clean energy sector that will result.
(Press Statement 21 November 2018)
(le français suit)
FREDERICTON — After reviewing Premier Higgs’ throne speech, Jim Emberger, Spokesperson for the New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance (NBASGA), stated that the organization is “cautiously optimistic about the willingness and ability of the minority government to act sensibly in its approach to our mandates of preventing unconventional oil and gas in the province and slowing climate change by developing a green economy.”
The speech made a strong statement against ‘inter-generational theft’, or stealing the future from our children.
CHRIS MORRIS Telegraph Journal, Daily Gleaner, Oct.20, 2018.
The clock is ticking towards the Jan. 1, 2019, deadline for Ottawa to impose carbon taxes on provinces without their own plans, and it remains unclear what will happen in New Brunswick.
It’s an important issue and probably played a bigger role in the outcome of the Sept. 24 election than most realize. The Liberals studiously avoid calling the price on pollution a tax, but that is how many view the extra costs it is expected to add to already-stretched household budgets.
Commentary by JIM EMBERGER – Telegraph Journal April 26, 2018
In Canada, there is consensus that climate change is a threat, and certainly many of us have experienced its first effects – bizarre weather, flooding, wildfires, heat waves, droughts and displacement in the case of the Inuit. The World Health Organization tells us that climate change is the greatest threat to public health in this century.
Our federal government tells us we must severely limit the rise in the earth’s temperature. The Trudeau government even persuaded the international climate gathering in Paris that its proposed warming limit of 2°C was too risky. Canada asked to limit warming to 1.5°C.
by JIM EMBERGER COMMENTARY (Telegraph Journal/Miramichi Leadre, 29 Sept 2017)
On Aug. 31, the New Brunswick Minister of Health announced the transfer of many of the public health functions of the Office of Chief Medical Officer of Health to other government departments.
The government’s stated reasons are to streamline operations, increase efficiency, save taxpayer money and increase uniformity with other Atlantic provinces. This issue is now back in the news with a national group of doctors, affiliated with the Canadian Journal of Public Health, opposing this reorganization plan for New Brunswick.
However, then-minister Victor Boudreau did not furnish examples or explanations as to how these goals would be accomplished. The new minister, Benoît Bourque, must do so, because common sense and experience suggest that this move will have exactly the opposite effects.
Commentary by Keith Helmuth, Woodstock Sustainable Energy Group
Telegraph Journal, 18 March 2016
What kind of economy will New Brunswick have in the new energy future? A renewable energy platform is clearly coming and new energy platforms create new economies. The extraction and refining of hydrocarbons launched a new energy platform, which has created the modern economy and its many benefits. However, the growth of the hydrocarbon economy has now developed to such a scale that it has burst through the safe operating limits of earth’s geochemical and ecological boundaries, with increasingly negative effects. This is an unwelcome thought. We used to think that hydrocarbon energy paved the road to a better life. Up to a point, this idea made sense, but a threshold of reversal has been crossed.
The New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance provides the following statement about the report issued last Friday by the New Brunswick Commission on Hydrofracturing.
The Commissioners recognized that the discussion about shale gas had to be looked at in the contexts of the immediate need to combat climate change, the lack of a coherent and forward-looking energy policy for the province, and the inadequacy of current institutions and procedures in New Brunswick to deal with either shale gas or with the new realities of a low-carbon world.
On October 3, 2015, NBASGA member, Liane Thibodeau, presented ‘Green Energy Solutions‘ to an appreciative audience at the Union of Municipalities of New Brunswick Annual General Meeting in Fredericton, NB. Thanks to Rob Turgeon (Apple Hill Video), we are able to provide the full presentation for you here.
by Jim Emberger
While Premier Gallant develops the government’s moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, shale gas supporters continue to voice their same one-theme message that we are losing out on an economic miracle. Recent events provide a good lens through which to examine that claim. As our Premiere announced our moratorium, the leaders of both Quebec and New York announced similar decisions.
Quick Link: Version française
The New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance (NBASGA) applauds Premier Brian Gallant for following through on his election promise to impose a moratorium on the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from shale.