» 2009 » December

The Copenhagen talks on climate change are going badly, which doubtless pleases the federal government. It thinks a weak agreement or none at all will serve Canada’s economic interests better. It is wrong.

There are only two likely scenarios, really. One is the “business as usual” scenario, in which the developed countries do not reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions fast enough and the developing countries just let it rip. In the other, the rich countries make big emissions cuts in the next 10 or 15 years, and the developing countries at least cap their emissions. That better future is still ugly in many places—but not in Canada.

Nobody gets away unscathed in the “business as usual” scenario. When British foreign secretary David Miliband revealed the latest numbers from the Met Office’s Hadley Centre (the U.K.’s national weather service) last October, predicting that a world in which emissions go unchecked may see a 4-degree-Celsius rise in average global temperature by 2060, he simply said: “We cannot cope with a 4-degree world.”

Source: www.straight.com/…

LS » So basically the choices are to do nothing and hope that this global warming stuff is really just some big lefty-liberal conspiracy BS or to do something about it and suffer short term economic consequences as we change our civilization from a destructive one to a sustainable one.

If we do nothing and the lefty-liberals are correct then we are fucked and will be known historically as the idiots who let our planet be destroyed. Our kids will really appreciate that, if they are around to even care about it.

If we do something about global warming and the lefty-liberals are correct then we are saviours and it will of course be worth the short term costs. If we do something and the lefty-liberals are wrong then the short term costs will be unfortunate but at least we will have improved our civilization in the mean time. Sustainability and industry don’t have to be anathema concepts.

Seems to me then that there is only one option. Time to buck up and do something about this lefty-liberal global warming conspiracy BS.

The tar barons have held the nation to ransom. This thuggish petro-state is today the greatest obstacle to a deal in Copenhagen

When you think of Canada, which qualities come to mind? The world’s peacekeeper, the friendly nation, a liberal counterweight to the harsher pieties of its southern neighbour, decent, civilised, fair, well-governed? Think again. This country’s government is now behaving with all the sophistication of a chimpanzee’s tea party. So amazingly destructive has Canada become, and so insistent have my Canadian friends been that I weigh into this fight, that I’ve broken my self-imposed ban on flying and come to Toronto.

So here I am, watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petro-state. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man. The price of this transition is the brutalisation of the country, and a government campaign against multilateralism as savage as any waged by George Bush.

Until now I believed that the nation that has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada. Unless we can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a century of good works.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk/…

LS » Sorry folks of the rest of the world. I nor anyone I know under the age of 44 voted for Stephen Harper and the Conservatives who have allowed this travesty to propagate for the past few years. It is embarrassing to have that Albertan tar sand licker as our leader. The problem is he has no competition, we had no Obama for the last election. It is rather hard to oust a democratically elected government. If you have any suggestions, by all means feel free to help us out.

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Source : www.google.org/powermeter/

LS » This should be standard technology in every house, it would really help in getting my kids to turn the lights off once in a while, my wife to put a sweater on and my neighbour to ease up on the damn leaf-blower. Of course can you not just see some less than altruistic people abusing it by seeing how much energy they can consume.