Environmental groups are gloating over the conviction last week of Syncrude Canada Ltd., which now faces fines totalling $800,000 for failing to prevent the deaths of 1,606 ducks that alighted on a company tailings pond two years ago.
Yet the fact a great many more birds and bats are mangled by wind turbine blades each year draws scant attention, much less prosecution. This double standard highlights the widespread misperception that so-called “renewable” energy sources do not demand environmental trade-offs.
That they do was made plain with the recent release of a bird and bat monitoring report from Canada’s second-largest wind farm, the Wolfe Island EcoPower® Centre. In the first eight months of operation, the centre reported 1,962 bird and bat deaths involving 33 bird species and five bat species. Such numbers earned wind power generators the moniker “Cuisinarts of the Air,” but not indictments.
These findings were largely ignored by the same media outlets that for months featured front-page headlines about dead ducks. But the wind power industry enjoys a degree of political favour that would make most other energy executives green with envy. The province of Ontario, for example, actually requires utilities to purchase wind power at inflated rates, while British Columbia mandates an annual quota of electricity from “renewable” sources.
The sprawling $475-million Wolfe Island facility in Frontenac Township off the shores of Kingston, Ont., features 86 wind turbine generators capable of producing 197.8 MW at full capacity — which never occurs because wind is intermittent. The first of two monitoring reports to date, released in February, documented 45 bird fatalities and 45 bat fatalities during May 2009 and June 2009.
Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
By failing to control immigration the U.S. imports poverty and low skills, placing a long-term drag on the economy
Since 1970, America's largest source of immigrants has been Latin America, especially Mexico. More than half of these Latino immigrants lack a high school diploma.
Compare the U.S. experience with Canada's. More than half of all immigrants to Canada possess a university degree. Half of all Canada's Ph.D.s are foreign-born.
Why does America choose poorly educated immigrants? The short answer: America does not choose them. They choose themselves.
In the last decade, half of all the immigrants to the United States arrived illegally. Even many of the legal arrivals gained entry courtesy of relatives who originally slipped into the country against the law, then somehow regularized themselves.
By contrast, Canada (a country of 1/10 the U.S. population that takes proportionately many more immigrants than the United States) allows almost no illegal immigration.
The result: While immigration has enhanced the average skill level of the Canadian population, it has detracted from the average skill level of the U.S. population.
Many Americans carry in their minds a family memory of upward mobility, from great-grandpa stepping off the boat at Ellis Island to a present generation of professionals and technology workers. This story no longer holds true for the largest single U.S. immigrant group, Mexican-Americans.
Stephen Trejo and Jeffrey Groger studied the intergenerational progress of Mexican-American immigrants in their scholarly work, "Falling Behind or Moving Up?"
They discovered that third-generation Mexican-Americans were no more likely to finish high school than second-generation Mexican-Americans. Fourth-generation Mexican-Americans did no better than third.
If these results continue to hold, the low skills of yesterday's illegal immigrant will negatively shape the U.S. work force into the 22nd century.
The failure to enforce the immigration laws in the 1990s and 2000s means that the U.S. today has more poorly skilled workers, more poverty and more workers without health insurance than it would have generated by itself.
Arizona's new law against illegal immigration can do only so much to address the problem:
Compare the U.S. experience with Canada's. More than half of all immigrants to Canada possess a university degree. Half of all Canada's Ph.D.s are foreign-born.
Why does America choose poorly educated immigrants? The short answer: America does not choose them. They choose themselves.
In the last decade, half of all the immigrants to the United States arrived illegally. Even many of the legal arrivals gained entry courtesy of relatives who originally slipped into the country against the law, then somehow regularized themselves.
By contrast, Canada (a country of 1/10 the U.S. population that takes proportionately many more immigrants than the United States) allows almost no illegal immigration.
The result: While immigration has enhanced the average skill level of the Canadian population, it has detracted from the average skill level of the U.S. population.
Many Americans carry in their minds a family memory of upward mobility, from great-grandpa stepping off the boat at Ellis Island to a present generation of professionals and technology workers. This story no longer holds true for the largest single U.S. immigrant group, Mexican-Americans.
Stephen Trejo and Jeffrey Groger studied the intergenerational progress of Mexican-American immigrants in their scholarly work, "Falling Behind or Moving Up?"
They discovered that third-generation Mexican-Americans were no more likely to finish high school than second-generation Mexican-Americans. Fourth-generation Mexican-Americans did no better than third.
If these results continue to hold, the low skills of yesterday's illegal immigrant will negatively shape the U.S. work force into the 22nd century.
The failure to enforce the immigration laws in the 1990s and 2000s means that the U.S. today has more poorly skilled workers, more poverty and more workers without health insurance than it would have generated by itself.
Arizona's new law against illegal immigration can do only so much to address the problem:
Saturday, May 15, 2010
How to hit a big fat belt-high pitch that's right down the middle
Erin McLeod is the goalkeeper for the Washington Freedom, the women's pro soccer team. She is also the goalkeeper for Canada's national team. A week from tomorrow, the Freedom play the Canadians in an exhibition. That means McLeod has a decision to make: Freedom or Canada?
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Heart surgery for provincial premier, in the U.S.
ST. JOHN'S, N.L.—Premier Danny Williams of Newfoundland and Labrador is undergoing heart surgery in the United States later this week because the treatment he is seeking was not available in his home province, his deputy premier said Tuesday.
Williams, 60, decided to go to the U.S. for surgery after weeks of consultation with his doctors, Kathy Dunderdale said.
"Having the surgery done in the province was never an option," Dunderdale said.
"Obviously, it's taken some time to have the diagnosis, progress, consultation with a number of medical experts, so it has taken several weeks."
Dunderdale would not reveal what the surgery was beyond the fact that it was heart surgery. She also declined to say where and what day it will take place and whether the type of surgery Williams is having was available elsewhere in the country.
Williams, 60, decided to go to the U.S. for surgery after weeks of consultation with his doctors, Kathy Dunderdale said.
"Having the surgery done in the province was never an option," Dunderdale said.
"Obviously, it's taken some time to have the diagnosis, progress, consultation with a number of medical experts, so it has taken several weeks."
Dunderdale would not reveal what the surgery was beyond the fact that it was heart surgery. She also declined to say where and what day it will take place and whether the type of surgery Williams is having was available elsewhere in the country.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Escape the silk stocking radicals; move to Canada
Just as the United States appears to be squandering its legacy of individual freedom and opportunity in favor of rule by silk stocking radicals, a safety valve appears to be opening up on our border.
Canada, it seems, is on course to run out of people.
Like other developed societies, Canada has a low birth rate. It isn't just that Canadian couples are wary of child-rearing; it's that, for many, hockey wins out over sex.
For years, Canada has been trying to deal with the problem by welcoming immigrants. But this hasn't worked very well because immigrants often choose the United States. The health care here is better. No long waits for service. Just show up at the emergency room door. Illegal immigrants get faster care in the United States than legals do in Canada.
The result is that immigration can't make up for the shortfall in Canadian births attributable to the popularity of childlessness and hockey.
How bad is the prospect of depopulation?
A new study shows that "the current influx of immigrants — about 0.67 per cent of the resident population — barely makes a dent.
The data show that the only way immigration could offset the declining birth rate is if Canada dismantles border controls and floods the country with well over a half million immigrants a year.
Even then, the government would need to impose rigid "age filters" to ensure that only young people are among the new arrivals."
Chances are, however, that the study did not embrace the possibility of mass migration of Americans to Canada, Americans who are appalled as the silk stocking radicals grab more and more power through the big lie of global warming and the over-hyped flaws of the world's best medical care.
Journalist Mark Steyn is a student of demographics. Here he is on National Review's Corner:
"The transformation of developed societies - either into old folks' homes (like Japan) or semi-Islamized dystopias (like Amsterdam, Brussels, etc) - will lead, in fact, to emigration. A young German or Japanese circa 2040 will have no reason whatsoever to stay in his native land and have most of his income confiscated in a vain attempt to prop up an unsustainable geriatric welfare system. So many will leave. Where will they go? At one time the obvious answer would have been America - but Good King Barack seems determined to saddle us with the same unaffordable entitlements that have scuttled the rest of the west.
"For much of the developed world, the 'credit crunch', the debt burden, and the rest are not part of a cyclical economic downturn but the first manifestations of an existential crisis."
Canada, it seems, is on course to run out of people.
Like other developed societies, Canada has a low birth rate. It isn't just that Canadian couples are wary of child-rearing; it's that, for many, hockey wins out over sex.
For years, Canada has been trying to deal with the problem by welcoming immigrants. But this hasn't worked very well because immigrants often choose the United States. The health care here is better. No long waits for service. Just show up at the emergency room door. Illegal immigrants get faster care in the United States than legals do in Canada.
The result is that immigration can't make up for the shortfall in Canadian births attributable to the popularity of childlessness and hockey.
How bad is the prospect of depopulation?
A new study shows that "the current influx of immigrants — about 0.67 per cent of the resident population — barely makes a dent.
The data show that the only way immigration could offset the declining birth rate is if Canada dismantles border controls and floods the country with well over a half million immigrants a year.
Even then, the government would need to impose rigid "age filters" to ensure that only young people are among the new arrivals."
Chances are, however, that the study did not embrace the possibility of mass migration of Americans to Canada, Americans who are appalled as the silk stocking radicals grab more and more power through the big lie of global warming and the over-hyped flaws of the world's best medical care.
Journalist Mark Steyn is a student of demographics. Here he is on National Review's Corner:
"The transformation of developed societies - either into old folks' homes (like Japan) or semi-Islamized dystopias (like Amsterdam, Brussels, etc) - will lead, in fact, to emigration. A young German or Japanese circa 2040 will have no reason whatsoever to stay in his native land and have most of his income confiscated in a vain attempt to prop up an unsustainable geriatric welfare system. So many will leave. Where will they go? At one time the obvious answer would have been America - but Good King Barack seems determined to saddle us with the same unaffordable entitlements that have scuttled the rest of the west.
"For much of the developed world, the 'credit crunch', the debt burden, and the rest are not part of a cyclical economic downturn but the first manifestations of an existential crisis."
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