So…I just finished reading about the Harper-Obama meeting, and the agreement that Canada and the U.S. begin to work together investing in new technologies to save the environment (from today’s Toronto Star: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/590043)

The Toronto Star article indicates that the oil sands are an important economic and energy resource for Canada, in the same way that coal resources are in the United States. This seems to me to suggest that Obama and Harper have put the writing on the wall for all to read: Oil and Coal are here to stay as mainstream parts of our energy supply mix.

So…to address (“window-dress” might be a better term) this reality, it looks like both nations are going to do some heavy investing in carbon capture and storage technology, in order to pump the tar out of the tar sands, and to sequester carbon from “clean” coal generating plants. They also announced plans to build a fully-integrated digital energy grid.

They did not announce how much this all might cost. But the Conservatives have already committed over $2 billion towards carbon capture and storage in the same budget in which they cut matching funds for wind generation projects.

I’m very disappointed, but not at all surprised, that the messages from Canadian environmental organizations urging Obama to stand up to the oil sands went unheeded by the U.S. President. Many people in our party have been praising Obama of late, because he appears ready to act against climate change. Certainly, he’s been talking that way, and he has been taking some steps which will assist. But take heed: Obama is not going to be the environmental saviour that many have hoped he would become. At the end of the day, he will continue to put the perceived interests of American business over those of the environment. For every small green initiative, watch out for the major greenwash proposals. And folks, clean coal is just that: greenwash.

For the benefit of the rest of us, can someone out here in blog-land quickly and concisely tell us all why investing in carbon sequestration technology is not an “environmental strategy”, and why there is no such thing as clean coal. And if you can do so in point form so that points can more easily be included in a letter to the editor of local newspapers across the country or in letters to MP’s, that would be really appreciated.

I can not believe the money that we are about to waste on what the media keeps reporting as the “green” technologies of carbon sequestration and burning clean coal.