ERS315 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Indigenous Rights, Environmental Values, Bounded Rationality

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Environment and Resource Studies
• Course: ERS315
• Professor: Dan Mc Carthy

Document Summary

Bob gibson presentation: possibilities for new ea legislation in january. National energy board leads federal ea review process. Public hearing but with constraints on public engagement. Unsuccessful major assessment: site c, lower churchill dams, trans mountain pipeline. Projects approved by government but otherwise blocked by indigenous authorities and other affected interests. Ceaa 2012: the previous governments effort to weaken the law to deliver faster and more certain approvals, actual effects more delays, less credibility, overlapping problems with provincial processes, ex. Site c and prosperity mine cases in bc. Constrained scope federal, biophysical versus overall. Inadequate respect for: cumulative effects and broad alternatives, complexity and uncertainty, indigenous rights, climate change, meaningful public engagement. Internal debates within government on what to do. Mitigate significant adverse environmental effects or make positive contributions to sustainability. If sustainability scope, then social, economic, ecological biophysical, health, culture and their interrelations. Lasting as well as more immediate effects.