by Deborah Carr
President, New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance
There are few people in public service who hold my respect as much as Dr. Eilish Cleary, our former Chief Medical Health Officer. To say I’m shocked and saddened at her death is an understatement. We had some wonderful conversations. She was one of my heroes.
[February 2, 2024, NB Media Co-op Commentary by Jim Emberger]
Premier Blaine Higgs’ continuing desire to exploit shale gas and LNG can only be described as “perverse,” which the dictionary defines as “showing a deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unreasonable or unacceptable, often in spite of the consequences.” Higgs referenced LNG development during his State of the Province address on Jan. 25.
“We have so many advantages with our direct access to the U.S. and international markets along with our rich natural resources including wind, minerals, water, forestry, and natural gas,” he said. “That’s where I believe we have a tremendous opportunity to punch above our weight and really impact global emissions.”
His obstinate, decade-long pursuit of shale gas, can reasonably be called obsessive. It begins with his continuing promotion of gas even after citizens voted out the Alward government, which ran on the issue.
Jim Emberger | Commentary | TJ.news | 24 April 2023
(Short form ‘Letter to the Editor’ follows)
Premier Higgs likes to project the image of an experienced business leader, but his current effort to resurrect shale gas reveals that he more closely embodies his other reputation as a, “Data, my ass,” decision maker.
There is unequivocal data in the latest report from the International Panel on Climate Change, which shows that we cannot develop any new fossil fuel source if we hope to escape the dire consequences of a warming climate. This data was researched by virtually the entire global community of climate scientists and institutions.
Letter to the Editor by Jim Emberger, Telegraph-Journal / Feb.21, 2023
While a legislature committee holds hearings on the province’s energy future, Premier Blaine Higgs proposes a return to the past with a shale gas revival. The committee’s agenda doesn’t mention shale gas. Perhaps it has accepted that virtually every global scientific body agrees that to avoid the worst of the climate crisis, new fossil fuel projects must not proceed. Fracked gas and LNG export terminals, like the one being contemplated for Saint John, are huge greenhouse gas producers.
The 2015 moratorium contains conditions that require scientific evidence that threats to health and the environment from shale have been resolved, before lifting the moratorium.
A multitude of public health studies have associated water and air pollution from shale gas with birth defects, cardiac and neurological problems, cancers, asthma and more. Proposed safe distances between gas infrastructure and human habitation exceed current provincial regulations.
Report by Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment highlights serious health and environmental dangers associated with fracked natural gas, including links to birth defects, cancer, air pollution, and global warming
The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE) recently released a new report calling for a moratorium on all new fracking development across Canada, along with the phase-out of existing fracking operations.
The New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance initially gave Premier Blaine Higgs’s throne speech a decent review. We’re now having second thoughts. In the speech, the new government made a strong statement against “inter-generational theft,” which it defined as stealing the future from our children by creating debt today that they would have to pay back.
That being a moral principle, we assumed it would be applied universally. The most poignant example of “inter-generational theft” is the failure to address climate change and environmental degradation by continuing our profligate use of fossil fuels.
(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.
Commentary by Jim Emberger, Telegraph Journal, June 14, 2018
Last winter the New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance asked the provincial party leaders for their views on energy, climate change, and the fracking moratorium. Everyone but the Progressive Conservatives responded. Additional requests to PC Leader Higgs for evidence to justify his plans to lift the moratorium, and to explain the process for lifting it, went unanswered.
Fortunately, Mr. Higgs was the first speaker in the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce’s series featuring party leaders, so last week I went there seeking answers.
Commentary by Jim Emberger, Telegraph Journal, 4 May 2018
The New Brunswick Progressive Conservatives’ plan to lift the moratorium on shale gas paints a disappointing portrait of a party unable to exercise even minimum due diligence on this issue.
The NB Anti-Shale Gas Alliance filed a lawsuit challenging the province’s embrace of shale gas in 2014, and unlike the PC’s, we have tracked every scientific study since then, from a handful to over 1,300 today. All can be found in the, “Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking.”
The evidence presented to the Commission on Hydrofracking from even the modest number of studies available in 2014 was strong enough to lead to our moratorium. Accumulating evidence presented to commissions in Nova Scotia, PEI, Newfoundland, New York, Maryland, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, and others, likewise led to moratoriums or bans.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Fredericton, NB (April 26, 2018) – It was with great surprise and disappointment that the New Brunswick Anti-Shale Gas Alliance learned that the Progressive Conservative Party has decided to make shale gas an issue in the 2018 election.
“There is absolutely no basis on which to reconsider the current moratorium,” says spokesman Jim Emberger. “There is not a single one of the five conditions for lifting the moratorium that can be met.” He also noted that a partial lifting is illogical saying, ”the problems associated with shale gas do not stay local. The air and water pollution, health problems, earthquakes and climate change effects of shale gas travel far from the well, and further than originally thought.”