Regarding the “flawed” (in Stephen Harper’s words) Bill C-311, the Climate Change Accountability Act, I am, quite frankly, mad as hell at this failed and corrupt political system and the deluded souls who say anthropogenic climate change is a “fraud,” or that any “problems” can be “fixed” with dangerous technologies like “geoengineering,” and who deny our current abilities to rapidly evolve to a post-carbon economy, spewing their dangerously childish anti-Earth hate and apathy towards any positive and recreative discussion.
I’m not going to take it anymore.
Most of our planet’s best (i.e., respected and peer-reviewed) scientists and climatologists (i.e., those not paid off by the petrothugs) tell us global warming is the greatest problem ever to face humanity, trumping all the myriad issues facing us, that we now have about a “five-year window” to even “begin” to “mitigate” the now irreversible effects of unprecedented and catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
The World Health Organization already attributes 150,000 deaths annually to global warming.
Given current projections, with no action taken now, around 2100 only the northernmost 20 per cent, or so, of Earth will be habitable by any plants or animals, including humans.
The 2100 climate in the North may be something like the current temperate climate in southern British Columbia, but by 2100, both polar ice caps will have largely melted, most glaciers gone and a large chunk of the planet will resemble a desert.
The present human population of seven billion will have been reduced to possibly between a few hundred thousand to around 1 billion, due to mass starvation because of myriad cascading systemic failures, e.g., desertification, little fresh water and acidified oceans. This will cause mass extinctions, including among human society.
Keep in mind that these are “worst case” scenarios, based on extrapolation from current data, but scientists have already surprised themselves at the rapidly increasing rates of overall global temperature and decreasing rates of sea ice, and even these “conservative” numbers may soon likely be in need of revision.
Perhaps billions of dead by 2100 is some idiot’s idea of “adaptation,” like the latest con solution to anthropogenic climate change, e.g., this apparent joke known as the Conservatives’ Climate Prosperity à National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, which seems to be all about adaptation and nothing else, or how to make a buck while the planet burns.
While the Libs with their nonenforcement of the Rio and Kyoto protocols have been little better, it is Harper and the plutocratic planet-killing cons here, in the US and elsewhere who are, quite frankly, the ones who are the most “flawed,” thinking they can run our country on the basis of the most recent “first-past-the-post” election, where more than two-thirds of us opposed them.
It frustrates me to no end how dysfunctional our electoral/political system is, e.g. the constant bickering between the relatively progressive Greens, NDP, Bloc and “red” Tories/Liberals.
Urgent debate on a fundamental retooling of our antiquated and traditionally adversarial sociopolitical systems is required.
For anthropogenic global warming deniers and those otherwise still requiring basic education on this subject, I suggest http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming and, in particular, follow the links on Global Warming Controversy and Climate Change Consensus.
I also highly recommend movies which do a fantastic job of truly informing while entertaining, such as An Inconvenient Truth, Who Killed the Electric Car?, A Sea Change: Imagine A World Without Fish, Koyaanisqatsi, Manufactured Landscapes
and lastly, The Age of Stupid, which perhaps best summarizes the Conservative environmental nonpolicy for the last several elections.
I have briefly compared and rated the websites of all five mainstream parties on the details of their current environmental/climate change, social and economic platforms, the ease with which this information can be found, and their ability to emphasize in detail their positive plans as opposed to resorting to old and tired attacks on another person or party.
Information on the first four is relatively well detailed and easy to find.
1) Green Party of Canada http://greenparty.ca
2) NDP http://www.ndp.ca/home
3) Bloc Quebecois http://www.blocquebecois.org/English.aspx
4) Liberal Party of Canada http://www.liberal.ca/
5) the Conservative Party of Canada http://www.conservative.ca, where, after a relatively longer search, I found, under Founding Principles, “A belief that the quality of the environment is a vital part of our heritage to be protected by each generation for the next.” Then I rediscovered the new/old Environment Minister John Baird under Team/The Ministry, but still no comprehensive environmental statement.
Under History: “Improving the Environment and Health of Canadians à The Conservative government is taking comprehensive action to improve the environment and protect the health of Canadians. Canada now has tough new regulations against toxic chemicals and one of the most aggressive plans on earth to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
However, visit Environment Canada’s website and you begin to fathom the Conservative party’s delusion: “The government of Canada is committed to reducing Canada’s total greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020. This target is completely aligned with the US target (and completely aligned with the disaster projected by climatologists), and is subject to adjustment to remain consistent with the US target (which has precious little to do with the reality our climatologists present to us) É We are closely collaborating with the United States, recognizing that our economies are integrated to the point where it makes absolutely no sense to proceed without harmonizing and aligning a range of principles, policies, regulations and standards,” all of which makes absolutely no sense, given the bottom line from our climatologists, e.g., a study commissioned by Canada’s Pembina Institute, which says we have the ability now to achieve “a more ambitious target (25 per cent below the 1990 level by 2020) ... derived from analysis of the emission reductions needed to limit average global warming to two degrees Celsius à a limit supported by a broad scientific consensus.”
That is, we can have a robust economy without killing the planet and still be loved by America and the rest of Mother Earth.
Michael Eckford
Whitehorse