I find it to be a very difficult day to be a proud Canadian. If you don’t agree with scientific fact that there is climate change from our pollution, you’ll probably be offended if you read this blog post. I hope you are offended, because I’m angry, and you should be too. It’s not everyday that your country’s leaders do something so profoundly stupid as for it to go down in history as a black mark against a country in history books. Yes, that’s a prediction, so if I’m wrong, please hold it over me with glee in a decade.
What’s even worse I think is that the stupid mistake of the Harperites isn’t an accident, it’s intentional and boldly ignorant. The Harper Conservatives have almost made good on their vague 2006 promise to have a “MADE IN CANADA” climate change plan instead of Kyoto, and as we know when we go shopping, next to nothing is made in Canada anymore. Our climate change “plan” is designed in the USA (like Apple products), and made in (blamed on) China, and forged in stupidity.
Now, let me tell you what I really think, if I haven’t been blunt enough yet. I think Stephen Harper doesn’t care that climate change is coming (or he thinks he’ll be rich[er] and dead before it harms people he cares about [AKA himself]), and that he saw no financial solution to convince China, the US, India, and Russia to curb their coal plant and industrial development, so he’s rollin’ with it all instead. Canada’s just an “ethical oil” tumbleweed, blown by the winds of energy greed, powerless to set its course in the eyes of vision-less Conservatives.
Illegal? Yes. Stupid? You bet.
Pressed about the government’s decision in the House of Commons Tuesday, Harper said the Kyoto targets were “stupid” and made no sense for Canada.
“What this government has never favoured is … the protocol that only controls a little bit of global emissions, not enough to actually make any difference but enough to transfer Canadian jobs overseas. And we will never agree to that.”
The Conservatives have committed to 17 per cent cuts from 2005 levels by 2020, a much lower threshold to meet than cutting below 1990 emissions levels.
Ouch, that contradiction should hurt, but factual-head-wounds don’t count when there are intellectual zombies at play.
Yes, Kyoto didn’t go far enough. But saying Canada quit because Kyoto wasn’t good enough, and then set targets that do less than good enough, is an example of insanity [or corruption]. Anyone who doesn’t realize that is insane or ignorant, so if you don’t think you’re crazy, it’s time you get educated. Don’t give me that BS that it’s about jobs. Whose jobs? It’s about destroying everything for everyone in the near future, to protect those with wealth today.
And we lie to ourselves when we tell ourselves that fixing climate change is someone else’s responsibility, or that the science is too uncertain to justify action, or that we’ll find a technology to solve the problem when it gets serious enough, or that it simply costs too much to do anything.
But most of all we lie to our kids. We tell them we’ve got the climate problem under control, while we’ve actually lost control of it completely. Worse, we tell them that we’re protecting their options for the future, while we’re actually closing down those options to protect powerful political and economic vested interests in the present.
It took a 17-year-old to tell the truth. The rest of us, supposedly adults, should be ashamed.
Thomas Homer-Dixon is the director of the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation and is the CIGI Chair of Global Systems at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ont.
And then we have the stupid commentators on the subject, making it more convenient for the intellectually “busy” [AKA lazy] to deny the facts:
Dave Rutherford @RutherfordShow:
Elizabeth May says Tuvalu is mad at us for pulling out of Kyoto. Who cares Liz? I’m proud that Canada took a stand.
Who cares? I do, you asshole. This kind of deadly arrogance from the political right-wing is so over the top it makes me sick. They pretend they are the defenders of liberty and personal property, and they are literally “proud” that Canada has a willing hand in destroying defenseless island nations with our extravagant pollution. If Tuvalu were destroyed by an Earthquake, Rutherford and Gormley would be the first to crow about what a great job DART is doing in disaster relief. There are no brains left between the ears of those talking heads. And if you’ve started nodding in agreement with Gormley and climate change deniers too, you should try a head shake as a test.
Saskboy's Abandoned Stuff 
I find it very sad when I see the brainwashing effect people like Gore and Suzuki have had on intelligent people like you. Common sense will eventually bring you back to reality , but it will take time. Hang in there.
Brainwashing? You’re not far off the mark, you just haven’t figured out who in this short conversation is actually brainwashed. Hint: It’s not the person who can cite scientific evidence for climate change, or historic events that demonstrate what happens to societies that run out of resources they feel they need.
Yea like on Easter Island when they ran out of trees. Its like Canada, in a couple of years all trees in Canada will be cut down due to climate change and Canadians will starve by the billions.
Just helping you out there Saskboy.
I still consider the Rebellion Against Common Sense to be the side currently misruling the country. Sadly, you’re right about the process of returning to reality taking time. Possibly time we can’t afford.
Certainly, my asthmatic lungs can’t afford it, whatever I may think of climate derangement.
Stop smoking then.
Every generation needs their fresh panic. This one is worn out.
groups.google.com/group/alt.global-warming/browse_thread/thread/4845d3def4c1832b?pli=1
Peterj, I’m not approving your POS copy/paste lies from Wattsupwiththat. If people want to read crap, they can go to Small Dead Animals instead. People come to my blog to get factual information, not climate change denier propaganda.
To address a few of the bogus claims in your copy/paste attempt:
CO(2) is not harmless just because it’s odourless and colourless gas. CO also has those properties. Mercury contaminated water is also that. Pollution is not by definition “dirty” in appearance, it’s the condition of a natural system having human-contributed contamination. Don’t lie about the definition to suit your propaganda’s purposes.
Later on you claim that nuclear power plant cooling towers only spew steam, then your rant admits that water vapour is a Green House Gas. No one also claims that cooling tower emissions give off CO(2), but coal plant stacks certainly do which is why you stepped around that point.
“Later on you claim that nuclear power plant cooling towers only spew steam, then your rant admits that water vapour is a Green House Gas.”
And that’s proof that all GH gases are bad. Gee I wish GH gases were good.
Care to put your money where your mouth is Saskboy? I’ll bet you that in 10 year it will be no warmer than it is now. You name the amount. I am serious.
Ward, all of our money is riding on this gamble already.
No warmer than it is on a December day, or do you mean on average globally?
I don’t believe in gambling money in prediction bets like this, but I am serious about my prediction (since it’s based on sound scientific data and reasoning). If in ten years the average temperature of the Earth is not warmer, I owe you a good supper.
Hmmm, and what scientific evidence would that be? Perhaps from Climategate 2.0? That the principal authors of IPCC assessment reports confessed to each other than their research was flawed? That they suppressed any evidence to the contrary? That they knew that Mike Mann’s statistical methods were simply wrong?
Oh, and please tell us all the scientific expertise that a failed railway engineer brings to climate science.
cgh, I don’t know what engineer you are talking about.
It’s not hard to comprehend that there is global warming from additional greenhouse gases added to our atmosphere, so it’s simple logic to conclude that those saying there is no warming are either lying or looking at faulty information.
I think he’s referring to good ol’ Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, aka Patches, head of the IPCC.
As I said to peterj, my lungs and personal health are among the stakes in play here. In addition to All The Money. And I didn’t agree willingly to make that bet against the Oil Industry.
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Leave saskboy alone.
He learns that Santa’s workshop is melting one week,and the next week his gov’t betrays him. Enough,the fragile mind must be coddled.
I see my last post of December 14, 2011 at 10:41 am is still waiting moderator approval. Why ?
Why? because you suck.
Signed Ban Ki-Moon.
I personally think that Canada should have played an active role. Please, germany signed onto it and it gets cold in germany and it certainly can get cold in other european countries. We create about 15% of the emissions, so we should take about 25% of the responsibility for cleaning them up!