It must have been something in the water

that led to two of my least favorite people who both work for globalism, being nurtured in the same area of Toronto.

The Rockefeller Bros Fund bankrolled McKibbon/350.org. The grand-poohbah of AGW, Maurice Strong, who now resides in China due to a little problem with the UN Oil for Food scandal, has been close to the Rockefellers since the late 1940s.
http://the-classic-liberal.com/maurice-strong/
You don't suppose the Rockefellers might have preferences about where Canadian oil is sold, do you?

Environmentally speaking,shutting down Keystone makes no sense when the alternative is so much worse, unless there is far more to the story than we have been led to believe. According to this map, Northern Gateway will increase tanker traffic along the US West Coat too.
http://oilsandstruth.org/2015-proposed-pipelines?size=large

Meanwhile, Canada still imports 50% of its petroleum needs. None of this works for us.

I effectively make Harper meaningless in my life

He has nothing to say of merit, ever. Most interesting of all, however, is how the people least concerned with others can routinely get themselves elected into office. I understand some support from like-minded folks, but that doesn't account for the remainder.

No doubt we are an ignorant and stupid lot, and not about to get any wiser. Proof is in the pudding. Go vote folks, its working wonders :)

Nothing has changed

The Americans, through their corporate funded foundations are STILL trying to tell US what we should do.Even as they slide down the rail of debauchery and degradation, fraud and grand theft economics, totally corrupt "democracy", they STILL think they can siphon off our resources for next to nothing.

Oil

The oil will still be there in 100 years if we leave it there. There are thousands of uses for oil in addition to use as a vehicle fuel.

If we are going to start using it right now then build a big refinery in Alberta and ship "finished products" to usa.

Response to Ed Deak

You state in your post above: “…environmentalism, which is the science of physical realities is the real science of economics.”

Environmentalism has nothing to do with science, but rather is a direct manifestation of the academic field of environmental ethics, which is a branch of the field of philosophy. In other words, environmentalism is based on ideology and not on science. Any first-year philosophy student who's taking an environmental ethics course will tell you that this field developed from the work of a Norwegian philosopher, Arne Naess, in the early 1970s. Subfields within the field of environmental ethics include ecocentrism, biocentrism, zoocentrism, ecofeminism and ecojustice. A common term for people buying into this ideology are deep ecologists.

While they seem loath to admit it, the leadership of every multinational environmental group is driven by this ideology. The Encyclopedia of Ethics, by Becker is an authoritative academic text on the subject and says this about ecocentrism and ecojustice:

“Eco-centric environmental ethics, ecojustice theorists claim, will remain a mere academic pastime unless it unites with an equally new and revolutionary economic and political theory that offers an alternative to the prevailing identification of development with industrialization, freedom with unrestrained consumption, and democracy with corporate oligarchy.”

Put it in that context, and deep ecologist McKibben's approach to the Keystone pipeline becomes more understandable.

response to x4estworker

"Any first-year philosophy student who's taking an environmental ethics course will tell you that this field developed from the work of a Norwegian philosopher, Arne Naess, in the early 1970s. "

And any first-year philosophy student will also be able to tell you that the hard sciences originated in philosophy. So is this your point?:

Eco-centric environmental ethics, ecojustice theorists claim, will remain a mere academic pastime unless it unites with an equally new and revolutionary economic and political theory that offers an alternative to the prevailing identification of development with industrialization, freedom with unrestrained consumption, and democracy with corporate oligarchy.”

If so, isn't thermodynamic economics a revolutionary economic theory which would transform our prevailing outlooks on commerce and government?

Just because the politics is lagging, as it always does, does not diminish the fact that environmentalism (and its historic ideology) has made substantive inroads from mere philosophy.

Igbymac: Hard sciences originated in philosophy? Nice try!

So what evidence do you have to support that bold statement? The role of science is to increase man's knowledge and understanding, whether it be of the natural world or of nuclear physics or some other field.

The Encyclopedia of Ethics defines the field of environmental ethics as a theoretical and not an applied field. It states that the "primary goal of environmental ethics is to rethink moral philosophy and reformulate ethical theory so that nonhuman natural entities and nature as a whole may be directly enfranchised."

You also fail to distinguish environmentalism and its associated ideology from a desire by the still largely anthropocentric world to leave a softer footprint while still maintaining a human centered way of life. Those true believers who believe that the Western way of life should be replaced seem to believe that the world should go back to a much earlier time and we should reject our current lifestyles.

Ask the vast majority of people which of their urban comforts they'd willingly give up, and I'm sure the answer would be "not much".

Not so fast

Environmental science is something quite different from 'environmental ethics'.

Anyone who tries to limit the scope of 'environmentalism' to nothing more than an 'ethical' or philosophical debate is attempting, at first principles, to ignore the reality of what modern science is all about.

One cannot ignore the implication of such an exercise in diversionary obfuscation.

Environmentalism is not and

Environmentalism is not and ideology, but a hard science, based on physical laws.

The only people who are trying to deny this are so called "economists" and their employers who maintain that perceived monetary values can overrule the laws of thermodynamics, reaction and speed.

Wealth can not be created, only taken from others, the environment and from future generations.

This is not and ideology, and I have lived under all of the ideological idiocies burped up by "theorists", by a hard fact.

There are still millions and billions who believe that the Earth was "created 7,000 years ago and "the Lord put the fossils and rock formations there to test our faith"

Ideologies and monetary economic theories are pseudo religions based on "faith"

Environmentalism is based of physical facts.

I wrote a short paper on this on the request of a world class professor friend in the field of sustainability, for his PhD class, to be debated next month. We'll see what they say ?

If you're an x forest worker, you should also know that tree plantations usually die after 3-4 years on wide open clearcuts and when they're replanted, they're reported as "new plantations"

Our whole economic system is built on such frauds.

Ed Deak

what choice?

Exercises in obfuscation always have one purpose: ignoring reality. Unfortunately it’s a choice most of us have made, and continue to make despite facts that show otherwise.

Those that believe the Western way of life will continue, presumably making our lives easier by providing an ever-increasing array of creature comforts the producers tell us we ‘need’, have chosen to ignore the fact that the trend in global economic growth, beginning in the 70s, has been on a downward slope. Looking south the numbers tell us that more of the middle class are suffering and those numbers are increasing not decreasing.

The truth behind this decline is highlighted by the fact, in an increasing number of countries, the ratio between debt and GDP is now so out of line that some countries are unable to make payments on their debt. Forget about the hope of repaying outstanding debts. In order for economies to pay the debt, at some point in the future, they need growth.

Unfortunately that growth will not happen. Even China is looking at a decline in economic growth. We’ve run into a number of realities and limiting factors that guarantee present economic strategies will come unglued. Worker wages have stagnated or declined; job scarcity has increased; individual and government debt has become unmanageable; nonrenewable resource scarcity is increasing; food scarcity is hitting developing nations; potable water supplies and aquifers are drying up; and traditional petroleum supplies have peaked. The move to nontraditional, costly sources of energy, like the tar sands, and nontraditional methods of extraction, like “Fracking” must tell us we are going to have to rethink our use and abuse of the limited resources that remain.

Given the realities faced by the West’s privileged majority it’s little wonder, if given a voice, they would prefer to hang on to existing urban comforts. Of course the irony behind this is the fact they weren’t given a choice in the developmemt of those comforts: the middle classes either bought and used what was offered or they did without.

Doing without will become the new norm. Having a choice won't be an option.

Agreed, G. West

You stated: "Environmental science is something quite different from 'environmental ethics'."

That is a true statement. I am simply talking about the ideology and how it is not scientific but philosophical. Environmental science I would agree is a broad field and is related to the objective study of the environment and related issues. It is not necessarily related to environmentalism.

But then you have to also distinguish between environmental science and environmentalist science, the latter of which attempts to fit scientific principles to the ideology of environmentalism. Basically, let's try something that adopts the environmentalist ideology and see if it works scientifically. When I worked in forestry, we called it "adaptive management". That was a rather flimsy attempt to appease those carrying out environmental campaigns against the forest sector and those calling for the adoption of so-called "ecoforestry".

Ecoforestry exists with the

Ecoforestry exists with the woodlots, controlled for sustainability. We have some next door, with our friend logging and using 2 sawmills, by himself, making a good living with a minimum investment..

There are others in this area. At one time a Master forester, also with woodlots and sawmills, in Beaver Valley, told me that 2 people can make a good living with a small mill and 50 truckloads of timber per year. He's doing it himself.

In the automated mills, using clear cut logs,
each millworker needs about 4 to 500 loads per year to pay for the wages, executives and the obscene investment, which is up to about $70. million per worker.

There's no need for ideological hair splitting between environmental sciences and environmentalism, to prove "conservative" ideology, because are both the same, at least in logic and with my professor friends, when we can see that the destruction is caused mainly to service the capital investment with these destructive, albeit "economically efficient" "growth" projects.

I was talking to a young guy some years ago, who wanted to study forestry but was advised by a UBC forestry prof to go to the U of Colorado, because all they were teaching at UBC was the exploitation of the resource.

All empires in history have self destructed, because they ignored simple, physical realities.

Like "wealth creation" with our idiots, who forget that "we can neither create, or destroy anything, only convert resources into other forms." Like pollution, unemployment and climate change.

Ed Deak.

I disagree

Environmental ethics is NOT the same thing as pure ideology...any more than philosophy and religion are co-equal.

In my view you were, and still are, playing with words.

The degradation of the environment and the ecology continues at an increasing and likely irreversible pace - if it requires a few so called 'environmentalists' to bring that to the attention of a somnolent population - just as it seems to have required a similar kind of eruption of emotionalism to point out whats wrong with the current financial and investment worldview - I think nitpicking about it is silly.

In fact, we need a lot more of that kind of 'ism' and we need them now.

Typo error.....I was going to

Typo error.....I was going to write up to $7. million per mill worker, but was called away by my boss of 61 years and when she calls I jump and didn't proofread.

Ed Deak.

x4estworker

QUOTE: So what evidence do you have to support that bold statement?

I am puzzled. My statement is hardly bold,

It's called the history of science, something most reasonably educated people in the area would take as common knowledge.

The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton's great work was called 'the mathematical principles of natural philosophy'. Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the science of psychology. Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy.

http://www.experiment-resources.com/history-of-the-philosophy-of-science.html

End of the line

When we start using fuel from fracking and the Tar Sands, we must realize we are at the end of the line for fossil fuels. Unless you want to use coal. But for liquid fossil fuels, this is it. Now we still get some "sweet crude" but when our future is for the Tar Sands and "fracking," we got to seriously look to other sources for our energy. These sources for fossil fuels are very dirty and harmful to the environment. It is time to move away from them and start to use clean, sustainable energy sources. Actually we have no choice except for coal. Our governments and think tanks, actually society in general, MUST start to develop ways to use sustainable energy sources. There may be major life-style changes.
Get ready for them.

G. West and Ed Deak - I disagree

Environmental ethics is a purely theoretical field, and we don't have to go to the extreme proposed in that field to have the kind of changes that are needed. In the field in which I am most familiar, forestry, there has been very significant changes over the last 30 years for the better.

I remember back in the 1980s, when the Social Credit government was in power, the amount of silviculture work done in B.C.was abysmal and forest practices were almost non-existent. I spent a lot of time lobbying that government, meeting with MLA's and writing critical pieces in the newspaper, trying to change that. That did change in the 90s with the election of the NDP and the introduction of the Forest Practices Code. There has been serious backsliding over the last 10 years of the Liberal government, and I don't see any environmental groups complaining about that; I guess they're still too busy patting the Liberals on the back over the carbon tax.

Anyway, my point is that there is no need to go from one extreme to another in order to ensure sustainable forest practices.

And Ed, your claim that most "tree plantations usually die after 3-4 years on wide open clearcuts" is absolute nonsense. There is a good survival rate on the vast majority of plantations. I have been in hundreds of them and have carried out province wide studies of plantation survival, so I speak from experience.

x4estworker

Except for that "pesky" pine beetle, eh?

Rick W - the pine beetle does not attack plantations.

The pine beetle is an irrelevant consideration on plantations. By definition, plantations are young stands of trees.

The pine beetle attacks mature pine forests, or those approaching maturity. It does not affect plantations.

x4estworker

You haven't bothered to read Nikifruk, have you.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/empire-of-the-beetle-by-andrew-nikiforuk/article2186307/