On the eve of the Copenhagen conference, climate activist George Monbiot is damning Canada as "the real villain" determined to sabotage serious efforts to combat global warming.
Writing in the Guardian, Monbiot said:
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.
Monbiot cites the development of the tar sands as the reason for this problem, and warns that "In Copenhagen, this country will do everything in its power to wreck the talks."
Timber firms were licensed to log the old-growth forest in Clayaquot Sound; fishing companies were permitted to destroy the Grand Banks: in both cases these get-rich-quick schemes impoverished Canada and its reputation.
But this is much worse, as it affects the whole world. The government's scheming at the climate talks is doing for its national image what whaling has done for Japan.
Meanwhile, the Environment Canada web page on climate change doesn't even mention the tar sands:
The Government of Canada is committed to reducing Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent from 2006 levels by 2020 and by 60 to 70 per cent by 2050.
We are also committed to:
•the goal of having 90 percent of Canada's electricity provided by non-emitting sources such as hydro, nuclear, clean coal or wind power by 2020;
•introducing tough new regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the automotive sector;
•continuing to advance the Clean Energy Dialogue with the U.S. Administration;
•investing more than $2 billion through our Economic Action Plan to protect the environment, especially through technological transformation, while stimulating our economy; and
•playing an active and constructive role at the UN climate change talks leading up to the Copenhagen conference in December.
Crawford Kilian is a contributing editor of The Tyee.
No, CRU is the real villain
Here's a primer on the myth of anthropogenic global warming:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100017393/climategate-the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/
Indeed our climate is changing but then it always was and will be. What we don't need is Canada signing away even more of our sovereignty to some ineffective global climate treaty.
Climate based taxes are an easy sell on ignorant populations. Yet has our gas tax here in BC done anything to improve the environment?
O Canada...
...our home and thuggish petro-state!
(Better swap the good old maple leaf sticker on the backpack for the stars & stripes next time we head across the pond...)
kl - check this site
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense
Sorry!
I guess the problem has not been solved.
Redundant Posts
Well, the problem's not solved, but it's understood: Something about our system doesn't like comments coming via Safari 4.04. I nearly committed the same error again in writing this response, because Safari is my preferred browser. But I remembered in time and switched to Firefox.
Meanwhile, KL, the CRU scandal doesn't demolish anthropogenic global warming, which has decades of evidence behind it. If you seriously suppose all climate scientists are cooking their evidence, that would be a strong claim demanding stronger evidence than a few hacked emails from one lab. (Monbiot, by the way, has loudly called for the resignation of the head of the CRU.)
Canada nuke's climate change
Good news George, Harpo's new nuclear deal with India and presumably the ongoing negotiations in his China trip, potentially at least, show Canada will shortly and inadvertently be on its way to number one in the world in the climate battle. Europe and the Obama along with Canada's Greenies and Dippers are still mired in that nonsensical “renewable” religion and on track to creating the maybe ten years away civilization ending peak oil/climate crisis. These foolish folks like to kill others in the millions with their ignorance - always have I guess.
Fossil fuel use would pay for its own end with worldwide build of 10000 nuclear plants. With mass production, Atomic Energy Canada is telling Harpo, nuclear power costs drop from the current Asian $1.5 to under $1B a Gw cheaper than coal and 10% the least cost renewable.
www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-kirsch/add-a-gigawatt-a-day-to-k_b_261728.html
A $150 billion investment in mass produced nukes, would be paid for by and would end Canada's $100 billion annual fossil fuel bill- a two year payback using only a small fraction of our industrial capacity.
Similarly, the US needs 2500 new reactors but is crippled by inefficient private power companies, a biased Nuclear Rejection Commission and corrupt and litigious political and legal systems, quadrupling nuclear costs and time frames.
By rimming the border with AECL reactors, Canada's public power companies would make $trillions selling the US nuke power at premium rates.
In Canada it would create hundreds of thousands of hi tech jobs making Canada the world leader in booming nuclear tech with massive orders for AECL ACR-1000 nukes. Unlike the US, Canada could easily legislate a one time environmental all sites anywhere permit for any and all reactors - no local input needed - 36 months start to service.
Canadian neocon governments have historically chosen the hewers of wood drawers of water route refusing to support Canadian hitech from the Arvo Arrow to most recently Nortel but this a huge employment booster and may be Harpo's ticket to that elusive majority government.
Iggy's also is way sympatico with nukes too so maybe we've got something going.
The NDP and Greenies are still being so last century and want to nuke the nukes.
Well Crawford. Who is the "Denier" now?
Nice try on spinning this.
Decades of <> data more like it.
Jones et al were instrumental in the AGW push and their doctored data is the underpinning of IPCC policy, notwithstanding the fact that Jones and so many of his corrupt colleagues were directly involved with IPCC policy making.
Now, as far as Monbiot's opinion is concerned:
I couldn't give a rat's behind.
Sorry Crawford. If you are going to tell us that the globe is warming and we are the cause of it, then the onus is now on you to prove to us that the data, theories, models and projections that you are presenting or relating are based on uncorrupted data and unbiased analysis.
Seeing how so much of the deception originated out of the UK, those folks at CRU should have heeded on of their countrymen.
Sir Walter Scott, namely "Marmion" Canto vi, Stanza 17
'Oh What a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive'
Computerized modeling
Well when thousands of scientists are using computerized modeling as truth then they have a ways to go before they can convince me that global warming is anthropogenic in nature.
Crawford
I have far more faith and place far more trust in the peer-reviewed science, that is accepted as unassailable, settled, acknowledged worldwide by governments and academics; namely, that published by the hundreds of Environment Canada scientists - than by one carpetbagging denier (Monbiot) that has only this week had to furiously backpedal after admitting that for years his profound postulations were a sham and he had been thoroughly duped.
Credibility man!
seth
"Unlike the US, Canada could easily legislate a one time environmental all sites anywhere permit for any and all reactors - no local input needed - 36 months start to service."
How can you think that this is a good thing? No local input needed, indeed. That is the antithesis of democracy and, in this situation, particularly stupid considering the potential variance of effects of local conditions on a standardized design, which could lead to disaster without adequate scrutiny.