Stephen Leahy

Stephen Leahy is an environmental journalist based in Uxbridge, Ontario.

His writing has been published in dozens of publications around the world including New Scientist, The London Sunday Times, Maclean's Magazine, The Toronto Star, Wired News, Audubon, BBC Wildlife, and Canadian Geographic.

For the past few years he has been the science and environment correspondent for Inter Press Service News Agency (IPS), a wire service headquartered in Rome that covers global issues, and its Latin American affiliate, Tierramerica, located in Mexico City.

Stephen Leahy graciously allows Straight Goods to reprint his articles. However, he earns very little compensation for his valuable work. His solution is Community Supported Journalism.

If you'd like to invest in environmental journalism, contributions can be made safely and easily via PayPal or Credit Card online or by mail:
Stephen Leahy, 50 Enzo Crescent, Uxbridge, ON L9P 1M1

Please contact Stephen if you have any questions. This article previously appeared on the InterPress Service wire. Website: http://stephenleahy.net

Apr 152013
 

Once known for environmental concerns, Canada now lone hold out on important treaties.

by Stephen Leahy

Canada's opposition to anything that might help developing countries is “mind-boggling,” a delegate from Mali told me during a UN conference to slow the widespread extinction of species. “Canadians are known to protect the environment. I cannot understand why they are pushing policies that are clearly unsustainable," he said.

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Apr 072013
 

The bigger Canada's energy sector grows, the poorer most people become.

by Stephen Leahy

Few people are aware Canada's GDP shot up from an average of $600 billion per year in the 1990s to more than $1.7 trillion in 2012. This near tripling of the GDP is largely due to fossil fuel investments and exports. However not many Canadians are three times wealthier. For one thing GDP is only a measure of economic activity, not necessarily of wealth. The other reason is that little of this new wealth stayed in Canada. And what did stay went to a small percentage of the population, worsening the gap between rich and poor.

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Apr 012013
 
Petro state.

Canada's poverty rates have skyrocketed in step with the growth of the energy sector.

by Stephen Leahy

Few are aware Canada's GDP shot up from an average of $600 billion per year in the 1990s to more than $1.7 trillion in 2012. This near tripling of the GDP is largely due to fossil fuel investments and exports. However not many Canadians are three times wealthier. For one thing GDP is only a measure of economic activity. The other reason is that little of this new wealth stayed in Canada. And what did stay went to a small percentage of the population, worsening the gap between rich and poor.

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Mar 252013
 

Pipelines, exploration to increase annual emissions by 2020, creating giant carbon bootprint.

by Stephen Leahy

Like every other country in the world, Canada has promised to help keep global warming to less than 2 degrees C. However Canada's political and corporate leadership are committed to turning the country into a fossil-fuelled “energy superpower.” With a drug lord's just-providing-a-service hypocrisy Canada has openly declared it's future is tied to the profits from dumping hundreds of millions of tonnes of climate-heating carbon into the atmosphere every year.

And the world's new energy superpower plans to grow those annual emissions to 1.5 billion tonnes by 2020, giving one of the least populated countries a gigantic carbon bootprint.

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Mar 142013
 
Fukushima radiation in the Pacific.

Consumers pay, while power company profits.

by Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, March 12, 2013 (IPS) — Two years after Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the country faces 100 to 250 billion dollars in cleanup and compensation costs, tens of thousands of displaced people and widespread impacts of radiation.

The nuclear industry and its suppliers made billions from building and operating Fukushima’s six reactors, but it is the Japanese government and its citizens who are stuck with all the costly “fallout” of the disaster.

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Mar 112013
 

Canada drills while the world swelters.

by Stephen Leahy

What's happened to Canada? To the dismay of many, a country with an international reputation for relatively progressive environmental policies (at least compared to the United States) is rushing headlong to dig up all the oil, gas, and coal it can.

The country’s leaders can scarcely muster the effort to pretend to want to limit climate-heating carbon emissions. And the Canadian business establishment and media have largely gone along with the program. Put it all together, and you have a country that has become a full-blown “petrostate.”

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Mar 072013
 

UN Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All)  initiative maps out path to recovery.

by Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Feb 25, 2013 (IPS) — Green energy is the only way to bring billions of people out of energy poverty and prevent a climate disaster, a new study reveals. Conservative institutions like the World Bank, the International Energy Agency and accounting giant Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC) all warn humanity is on a path to climate catastrophe unless fossil fuel energy is replaced by green energy.

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Feb 212013
 
Feb. 17 climate change rally.

Sierra Club suspends 120-year ban on civil disobedience due to imminent danger.

by Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Feb 16, 2013 (IPS) — The largest climate rally in US history occurred Sunday in Washington DC, with the aim of pressuring President Barack Obama to reject the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.

Activists are calling Keystone “the line in the sand” regarding dangerous climate change, prompting the Sierra Club to suspend its 120-year ban on civil disobedience. The group’s executive director, Michael Brune, was arrested in front of the White House during a small protest against Keystone on Wednesday.

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Feb 152013
 
Climate change demonstration.

Security forces view all protesters as extremists.

by Stephen Leahy

Monitoring of environmental activists in Canada by the country's police and security agencies has become the "new normal", according to a researcher who has analysed security documents released under freedom of information laws.

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Feb 042013
 

January's freakish weather conforms to global warming predictions.

by Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Jan 29 2013 (IPS) — Weird is the only way to describe the way January temperatures whipsawed between record warm and arctic cold over a span of a few days. Experts say that is what climate change looks like: weird, record-shattering weather.

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