A number of years ago I was asked to be a national director for the Sierra Legal Defence Fund. This Vancouver-based organization is dedicated to the monitoring, upholding and strengthening of laws protecting the environment. I agreed in a flash, and enjoyed the association, although my name was used more to raise money than to scare off corporate polluters.
As I got to know them, the SLDF folks were driven by passion and consumed by their goals, but also eminently practical and realistic. They may want a perfect planet, but they also understand we live in a real world where people drive cars, consume disposable everything and buy things they don’t need wrapped in plastic they don’t want. So, the Sierra people quietly write credible reports, shame governments and business into doing better and lobby for creatures at risk who can’t make it to Ottawa.
I thought of that winning combination of passion and reason when I heard of the election of Elizabeth May as the new leader of the Green Party. Haven’t met the woman, but she sure comes across as being charismatic, political, savvy and connected. Those are skills a leader needs, even if most of her supporters have long grey ponytails, wear sandals and worry about fair trade coffee beans.
The fact is, Greens are on a roll. Party membership has doubled to almost 9,000 in the last seven months. The leadership convention was not only populated by reporters for the MSM, but actually made it live onto TV. And, yeah, they picked the right person. May is articulate, engaging, telegenic and, best of all, she is a Maritimer, albeit a transplanted one. Rumour has it she even was a PC once upon a time, as a policy advisor to Mulroney environment minister Tom McMillan.
Meanwhile a new poll shows that fully a third of people who vote Conservative now hold the Greens as they second choice. No wonder May is making bold noises about getting some Green MPs into the House of Commons soon – something which was only a wild dream back on the night of January 23rd.
So, what has changed in that flash of time? Lots, actually. The climate is obviously screwed up, and people notice. Forty degree summers, more freak weather, more prairie drought, punctuated by flooding. The Arctic ice cap is melting and polar bears are drowning. Suddenly the power system is balky and Ontario is building new nukes. We are wallowing in garbage and actually exporting trash to the States. Kyoto is toast, and that worries people who have no idea what Kyoto was. Overall, it seems like there is no cohesive plan – and I haven’t even mentioned Al Gore.
We are also at one of those unique points in the economic cycle – ten years or so into an up-phase, after retail and real estate spending have been at historic levels – when consumerism turns into altruism. People are just maxed out on DVD players, cars with GPS dashboards, granite countertops and cellphones that take pictures and upload them. Environmental awareness is peaking again, for the first time in almost twenty years, and Canadians are looking for ways to be proactive.
Enter Liz. The timing could not be better. The woman, and the party, could be the sleeping giant of Canadian politics, if the current giants do not heed the growing passion of voters to be part of the solution. May still has granola-snorting enviro-kooks to deal with, but she is well on the way to Main Street acceptance with statements like, you can drive a car and still be green. It’s a simple message of hope. No hectoring. No guilt. Works for me.
The first major political party to see what’s happening here, and embrace this woman, will prevail.
39 comments ↓
Garth, you’re right. We’re waiting to see what’s up Rona’s sleeve. Hope it’s workable.
I’m not so sure about her, Garth.
May is an environmental activist and she’s dedicated to encouraging activism. Read her article titled “How To Become An Activist” on the Sierra Club website if you don’t believe me. Her message is “Be polite but never give an inch.”
She’s a lawyer and the former Executive Director of the Sierra Club… not to be confused with the Sierra Legal Defence Fund.
Her first policy positions were to pull Canada out of NAFTA and to pull Canada out of Afghanistan. It sounds to me like the Green Party just took a long step to the left where they’ll be competing with the NDP.
See the Greens ideology is admirable enough but to me they have about as much credibility as the Bloc. Why in the WORLD should i vote for a party that has exactly one reason for existing? One issue that is all consuming? What will they do if they were ever faced with being part of government?
Nobody is against environmental protection but there are a LOT of other concerns that need to be balanced. Do we decimate the economy to bring about some unacheivable Utopia? Do we decimate industries and eliminate jobs? Do we increase prices on just about everything in order to accomodate unrealistic expectations?
I’m really hoping Rona’s plan can balance the needs of the environment with the needs of the economy and the average person. Green at all costs is not an acceptable solution.
Drive a car is fine – but what type of car? Investing in Camaros is not my type of environmental investment.
Living in homes is fine – but what type of homes? 2000+ 2 1/2 baths, high ceilings is not the type I would consider as environmentally friendly. Our homes run ACs from May to September – even though the temperatures during this times usually doesn’t warrant it. Many of the postage size lots have pools with tons of chlorine emitting into the air.
Blasting rockets upon rockets into space is not environmentally friendly.
Disposing of major electronics every 3-5 years is not environmentally friendly. Not great use of raw resources and not great for our dumps.
Over packaging of food products (ready to go) is not environmentally friendly. Not great use of raw resources and not great for our dumps.
We see more flying to conferences, more cars on the roads to go to an office to sit in front of net ready computer, etc. We do have the technologies for remote working. We do have the technologies for tele-conferences. Yet we don’t take advantages of these as much as we should.
We talk a lot about investing in alternative fuels, yet we still don’t see a huge push into heavy investments in this area.
This is the same Green Party who voted to shut down NAFTA right?
I sometimes think of the Green Party’s name as a double-entendre, but I look forward to them getting parliamentary “seasoning†to temper and mainstream some of their policies, to make it less so. I heard yesterday that they want to revamp their website, add blogs and whatnot, get feedback directly from the people (sound familiar – wonder what trailblazer they got that inspiration from?). May have to pay them a visit when they do. Who knows, they might just earn my dollar next time around.
I am beginning to believe that the only thing up Rona’s sleeve is a bracelet! Go Greens!!!
Green on the outside and red on the inside just like watermelons and commies. Most of their policys are anti business. The hype about the enviroment is way overblown. Garths talking about 40 degree summers we never came close to 40 once this year. The enviroment is a lot cleaner than 50 years ago.
Gary V your post is only 5 lines long and you still managed to fill it with errors. The first line is opinion and the last four are laughable. Sadly there are a lot of people that think like Gary. We are killing the planet at an accelerating rate and yet so many don’t consider it a problem. I really recommend reading the book “Ishmael†by Daniel Quinn.
Anyway, Garth I really hope your party’s “made in Canada” environmental plan is a good one because team blue is on thin ice with those of us with an ecological conscience. The phrase “made in Canada†is always scary when used by politicians. It usually means they are stalling but need to say something positive to calm/fool the proletariat. Appealing to the patriotic side of us plebes is a cheap trick. So far the big blue machine has cancelled EnerGuide and killed Kyoto. The former has been a very effective way for Canadians to get advice on which improvements would provide the maximum amount of energy savings in their homes. It also labeled every appliance with an efficiency rating that allowed consumers to directly compare the energy usage of appliances. As for out Kyoto commitments you have decided the goal is unattainable so we won’t even try. A piss poor start for sure, hopefully you can redeem yourselves. Like you have said before it is a do or die time in parliament this fall.
Gary
My Dad used to call people that if their hair was below their collar! The environment is not clean at all. It’s just that the coal mines now have lawns out front. The nuclear guys have cute commercials and the oil guys just “shut-up”!
What is a “commie”
Only the car people are starting to find ways to make “Green” pay. THe air is cleaner in California, but not in Ontario … And there is practically no Rain forest left. Yeah, we are in trouble … and “commie” is not going to change that.
I hear you Gary. It’s the middle of August (Summertime)and my kids will not even go in the pool. Too Chilly.
I believe in conservation and giving our kids a cleaner planet. I recylce(I hate all that packaging too), I’ve added little swirly bulbs in every socket in the house, got rid of the 30 year old beer fridge with a new efficient one, added more insulation in the attic, open my windows on 80 deg days, don’t water my grass(it’s a little yellow right now but hey it’s green in the spring a little yellow in the summer and nice and green in the fall)and plan my trips a little better around town. Get my drift. I’m conservative and I too believe in conserving and cleaning up our environment. I believe in leaving our kids a cleaner, smog free future. However Garth what really global warms my blood, Is when the temp breaks 90 deg for a week or so (in the summer time) all hell breaks loose in the media and with the global warming folks. They make it sound like we are living in the desert and the end of the world is near.
People head to there even cooler basements, lay on the couch watching t.v. with there goose down filled comforter.(in the middle of summer)
It’s now 95 deg outside, don’t let your kids go outside and run around in the sprinkler and squirt each other with squirt guns (in the middle of summer). Don’t let them set up a lemonade stand (they might get sunburnt). I have an idea, Let them too go down the ice cold basement and play X-box for hours and hours.
Yes Garth we need to do work on environmental issues. Let’s do our part to make the planet cleaner. But remember this, next time you see a Lib drinking a $2.50 bottle of water, this conservative is letting his kids drink from the garden hose on a hot summer day.
I’ve followed the greens with some interest over the last couple of elections, since their former leader (foolishly IMO) ran in Jack Layton’s riding – like he had a chance!
Anyway, before people bash the green party’s policies, try reading them. I’ve gone through their policies from start to finish, and while I don’t agree with everything they stand for, their basic principle is correct: Sustainable practices for both the economy AND the environment.
Steve, I am sure you know but please don’t throw those swirly bulbs into the garbage when they burn out. The amount of mercury in those can be dangerous for the ground in a dump. They can be recycled at the store of purchase. Regards
Matt:
I HAVE read their policies – note that they haven’t even updated their policy pages since the Libs were in power. Anyway… Like you I don’t agree with a lot of their ideas BUT I would very much like to see them included in the next leaders’ debate. If the Bloc is allowed to be there even though they have nothing to really add other than “Kaybek weel ‘ave a referenDUM… again!” then I think the Greens should have their moment to ask good questions and answer some tough ones fired back at them.
Marc,
Thanks for the information in your message to Steve.
I wasn’t aware of mercury in those swirly bulbs that are throughout my house. In dealing with one problem another is created. Typical catch 22.
Thanks again,
Gene
On another subject..
A week or so ago Garth posted a letter regarding delay at hospital emergency and there was some discussion of doctor shortage. Yesterday, the Fraser Institute released a study called Canada’s Physician Shortage. Thought some here may be interested. 180kb pdf file.
http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/files/Physician%20shortage.pdf
One conclusion of the study is “Canada’s shortage of physicians arose because of government intervention”.
still laughing about this post: polar bears drowning and 40 degree summers. I think Garth has been spending too much time in the sauna!
Hey, bud, it was over 40 degrees with the humidex at my house for w-a-y too long this summer. And the polar bear distress is pure scientific fact. Say, is this George Bush? — Garth
“So, what has changed in that flash of time? Lots, actually. The climate is obviously screwed up, and people notice. Forty degree summers, more freak weather, more prairie drought, punctuated by flooding. The Arctic ice cap is melting and polar bears are drowning. Suddenly the power system is balky and Ontario is building new nukes. We are wallowing in garbage and actually exporting trash to the States. Kyoto is toast, and that worries people who have no idea what Kyoto was. Overall, it seems like there is no cohesive plan – and I haven’t even mentioned Al Gore.”
SOUNDS LIKE YOU FELL FOR IT HOOK LINE AND SINKER!
“It’s a simple message of hope. No hectoring. No guilt. Works for me.
The first major political party to see what’s happening here, and embrace this woman, will prevail.”
GARTH, ARE YOU ABOUT TO BE THE FIRST ONE TO CROSS THE FLOOR? YOU MAY FIT IN. I WATCHED THE EVENT ON CPAC AND A MEMBER FROM CALGARY GOT UP TO TRY TO DEFEAT A BILL THAT IS TO GIVENFRE BUS RIDES TO EVERYBODY. HE STATED THAT THIS WAS TO SOCIALISTIC FOR HIM. OF COURSE WITH THAT BUNCH THAT SEALED THE DEAL AND THEY PASSED IT!
ELIZABETH WATERED HER COMMENT’S DOWN, BUT SHE COULD HAVE MADE GOOD USE OF A BUSH DOLL TO STOMP ON.
THEY OBVIOUSLY LOVE MARIJUNA AND ABORTION ACCORDING TO THEIR HIGHLIGHT SPEAKERS!
Critique of green policy
Critics sometimes claim that the universal and immersive nature of ecology, and the necessity of converting some of it to serve humanity, predisposes the movement towards authoritarian and intrusive policies, particularly with regard to the means of production, as these sustain human life. These critics often see Green programs as just a form of socialism or fascism
I GUESS I AM A CRITIC. I GUESS YOU AREN’T GARTH. OH WELL TO EACH HIS OWN.
MAYBE YOU ARE JUST A SUPPORTER WITH SOON TO BE – long grey ponytails, wearing sandals and worrying about fair trade coffee beans.
Hopefully May can provide more focus on environmental issues and force the other parties to be clear on what their “plan” is. I’d imagine one of her biggest challenges will be to keep the lunatice fringe “all or nothing” types from getting too much clout. Apparently Jim Harris, who set the stage for much of the Greenies success, was often slagged for even having contact with the Corporate sector. There’s a clique in the Greens who prefer glorious failure to compromise.
What do you expect John, they are the Greens!
Platforms
Green platforms draw terminology from the science of ecology, and policy from Eco-socialism, Feminism, left-liberalism, libertarian socialism, Social Democracy (Social Ecology) and even sometimes libertarian survivalists.
It is rare for a Green platform to propose lower fossil fuel prices, unlabelled genetically modified organisms, tax, trade and tariff liberalizations that remove protections for ecoregions or communities.
This would be funny if lib-left wasn’t the mindset of most Canadians.
I found it interesting that in the last election the Green Party actually had the most expensive platform of all parties – I believe it was costed at 94 Billion! I don’t think we can afford the Greens!! Of course, it’s easy to promise the moon and the stars when you have absolutley no hope of getting into power…
I think that Elizabeth May’s Green Party will be good for the Conservative Party because she has moved the party way left and now there is not much difference between them and NDP from what I can tell. This will further split the left vote and will, hopefully, leave a big open door for a majority for the Conservatives the next time around! Especially if their upcoming environmental platform is strong (as I expect it will be since they know full well that this will be the next election issue).
The only party the Greens will hurt will be the NDP and that’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned!!.
It’s not going to take oppressive “green” laws to turn things around. Like everything else it will all stem from private industry. For example, the single greatest source of greenhouse gasses in the US is power generation plants. We now have available CFB’s – compact flourecent bulbs. You’ve seen those cute little ice cream cone-like bulbs in the stores. Well those bulbs use 70-80% less electricity than incandescent bulbs.
If every one of 110 million households in the US bought just ONE of those bulbs and swapped it out in place of a regular 60w bulb, the energy saved would be enough to power a city of 1.5 million people. JUST ONE BULB per household! That’s enough energy saved to turn off two whole power plants.
Wal-Mart, despite their other flaws, wants to change energy consumption in the US. So in the next 12 months they’ll be pushing the CFB’s with the goal of selling every one if its regular customers (about 100 million) one bulb. And it pays off for them too… by changing all the incandescent bulbs in their ceiling fan displays to CFB’s (40 bulbs per store, 3200+ stores) they will save over $6 MILLION a year.
It’s interesting that if they’re sucessful in getting CFB’s propagated widely it will shatter their own business when it comes to regular incandescent bulb sales since CFB’s last upwards of 10 years.
ANYWAY… I’m not a Wal-mart booster but it’s a perfect example of how private industry can and will make a difference. The more green products are available to consumers that reduce energy consumption the better it is for everyone! Consumers win with lower electrical bills and bulb replacement costs, retailers and producers win with more sales of the green products, and the environment wins with less greenhouse gasses being belched out by overworked power plants.
Garth come on you are a elected MP and the science you are using is it was too hot at my house,thats too funny. I can just see you on a warm July summer night saying to Dorthy yup sure is humid and hot darn Global warming flaring up again pass me another cold one. You are elected to represent the people please do a little more research then that. PS howd you guess it was GW?
I agree with Chaley’s point above.. The left is now the crowded part of the political spectrum in Canada. And that’s only a good thing for the Conservative party.
As for the whole ‘Greens’ and environmental issues, I would recommend taking a read of Bjorn Lomborg’s book “The skeptical environmentalist”. I believe this individual used to be part of Greenpeace, but decided to leave when they decided to abandon science for activism. Unfortunately, I think many Canadians are doing the same — many are completely unable to accept debate on issues like global warming, pollution, garbage and landfills, etc. When this occurs, coupled with fear mongering, unreaonsable and wacky policies will emerge. Let’s hope that this isn’t how the Green party wants to conduct itself — we already know that’s how the NDP prefers to conduct business…
A few notes on the book:
In The Skeptical Environmentalist Bjørn Lomborg challenges widely held beliefs that the global environment is progressively getting worse. Using statistical information from internationally recognized research institutes, Lomborg systematically examines a range of major environmental issues and documents that the global environment has actually improved. He supports his argument with over 2900 footnotes, allowing discerning readers to check his sources.
Lomborg criticizes the way many environmental organizations make selective and misleading use of scientific data to influence decisions about the allocation of limited resources. The Skeptical Environmentalist is a useful corrective to the more alarmist accounts favored by green activists and the media.
“… probably the most important book on the environment ever written.”
review in The Daily Telegraph, UK, 27-8-01
“This is one of the most valuable books on public policy – not merely on environmental policy – to have been written for the intelligent general reader in the past ten years. … The Skeptical Environmentalist is a triumph.
review in The Economist, 6-9-01
“The Skeptical Environmentalist is the most significant work on the environment since the appearance of its polar opposite, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, in 1962. It’s a magnificent achievement.”
review in Washington Post Book World, 21-10-01
If there’s one thing people should learn very early on is that you can bend statistics to say just about anything you want. The media will sensastionalize any little sound byte they can get but provide no context whatsoever. Lying with statistics is abundant just about everywhere…
Thanks for the book suggestion Wesley… I might pick that one up. It sounds really interesting.
Fanatics, Heretics and the Truth about Global Warming
“Oceans lash our coasts. Deserts Burn. The sky provides no shelter. Turmoil of Biblical proportions threatens not just our weather but life itself. Global Warming is upon us.” SOUNDS LIKE GARTH!
You hear it everywhere. Global Warming is a fact. It is here. It is now unstoppable. The Polar Ice Cap is melting. Polar Bears are endangered. Greenland is actually turning green! Hurricanes are blowing with more force. Tornadoes are growing in numbers. Water levels are increasing, threatening to flood New York City. Human existence is threatened. And, of course, the deserts are starting to burn. We are assured that scientists are in near total agreement with the assessment.
The media is in a frenzy, rushing to report the latest news release from special interest groups with the latest report or prediction. Al Gore is rushing his hi tech docudrama to the theaters to whip up more frenzy. Corporations are being forced to turn “green” to show their “corporate social responsibility” in the wake of the coming disaster.
Global Warming has become a euphemism for a political agenda. There is Socialism, Capitalism and Global Warmingism.
http://magic-city-news.com/printer_5888.shtml
Good news Garth I just checked Sudbury weather and its going down to 3 tomorrow night with a risk of frost. I think global warming is improving already on account of your bold efforts!
CLIMATE CHANGE- THE KYOTO AGREEMENT
It is very obvious that in recent history – 40 years? we at least in north America, have global warming occurring. I don’t know of any politicians, of any stripe, contrary to what our ‘resident contrarian’ Judy has to say on the subject, who say that there is not global warming at this time. There was also global warming however, coming out of every other ice age, this is not a new world phenomena, they are known as interglacial periods and without which, we would still be in an ice age yet today. Those previous ice ages ended without ‘man made’ global warming. It is and has always been, and always will be, an evolutionary process. What we need to know is, to what extent we as humans accelerate the process and conversely, to what extent can we, if at all, retard the process. I am of the belief that we of course can influence the changes in terms of reducing the rate of increase. I question however the benefits of doing so when eventually we will be powerless in preventing the continuing series of ice age- global warming- interglacial period- ice ages. There have been estimates made by the IPCC, however many world class scientists dispute the validity of those estimates, in particular, the so called ‘hockey stick’ curve.
What we need to know and the IPPC have not given us the information, nor has the David Suzuki Foundation who I presented the question to, is what is the incremental “human made†addition to global warming in terms of what it otherwise would have been had we as humans not inhabited the planet. It is also obvious that all previous ice ages ended by virtue of global warming; with out any human caused additions, as of course there were not any significant numbers of homo sapiens present at the time.
There are other unanswered questions that the IPPC have not even addressed at this time, such as the recent discoveries made by some British scientific researchers regarding the changes which may be occurring in the ocean currents, in the Atlantic Ocean in particular, caused by the increase in water temperatures. These scientific researchers installed temperature and ocean current measurement devices across the Atlantic, from early data, they believe that it may be, that such ocean current changes, EG ‘the Gulf Stream’, may in time cause and may have in past history, been the cause of Europe’s ice ages. This suggests that it may just be too early for the world to be jumping on the Kyoto band wagon and that we as a world society should do more due-diligence (scientific study) before renegotiating then implementing this extremely out of balanced agreement on world action against climate change.
For those gullible, save- the- planet people, who blindly believe in the potential positive affects of the Kyoto agreement and have not considered the enormous negative economic effects to our country by meeting the ridiculous commitments in terms of our country’s GHG reduction commitments, it is a fact that the vast majority of signature countries to the Kyoto agreement stand to benefit considerably from it whether or not it is successful in slowing the rate of global warming.
I believe that we as a nation, were far too quick to jump on board with the Kyoto Agreement, in particular the ridiculous unattainable reductions in GHG that we are obliged to make. The fundamental problems that we had at the time, were a Prime Minister who as an intelligent lawyer, saw only the political benefits of signing on to Kyoto but did not question his very incompetent enviro-dreamer, Minister of the Environment, David Anderson. We were very badly out negotiated at the bargaining table when the formulas for reduction levels of GHGs were made. Today we have the choice of becoming a third world country if we are to reach the Kyoto levels in the time frames stipulated, or breach the terms of the agreement.
Some points of interest:
• The only groups in the scientific community, who have studied and monitored world climate change for more than recent history, are the geologists.
• The vast majority of so called “climatologists’ do not have a BSc in “climatologyâ€, they are a mish-mash of mostly well meaning engineers, mathematicians, geneticists (like D. Suzuki), horticulturists, biologists, environmentalists, meteorologists and countless other ‘ists’.
• Until a couple of years ago, there was only one university in the world that offered a BSc in Climatology; I believe that it was the University of South Wales in Australia.
• How many of the Kyoto fear mongers were also in panic mode with the Y2K bug?
One thing that I want to share with you that I mentioned earlier, is the suggestion (hypothesis) that an accelerated melting of the Greenland ice cap – could put a cover of fresh low density water over the adjacent northern ocean – thereby shutting down the gulf stream – as the present salty dense cold water would not be able to drop down to bottom of the ocean, which presently allows the warm gulf to extend to the north. If true then global warming could shut down the N. Atlantic circulation and precipitate the next ice age. Then of course Europe and maybe even us, might just be wanting global warming. But this is only one the many hypotheses out there.
We need more studies.
Lewis
If there’s one thing people should learn very early on is that you can bend statistics to say just about anything you want.
People hear what they want to hear. There are ‘experts’ lined up on both sides of the issue, saying what they are paid to say. Us poor peons can’t be sure what to believe.
However, based on observation, the weather has been a little freaky the last couple of years.
Man-made disaster, or Mother Natures’ cruel disposition? Damned if I know.
David Phillips loves to ask people whether Canada, Venezuela, Lebanon, Cuba or Bangladesh has had the highest recorded temperature.
For Phillips, a senior climatologist with the Meteorological Service of Canada, the best part of the question is watching people’s reactions to his answer: Canada, with a record of 45 C set on ***July 5, 1937***, in Yellowgrass, Sask.
http://www.recorder.ca/cp/National/060709/n070921A.html
For Phillips, a senior climatologist with the Meteorological Service of Canada, the best part of the question is watching people’s reactions to his answer: Canada, with a record of 45 C set on ***July 5, 1937***, in Yellowgrass, Sask.
Other Weather Facts – Coldest Recorded Temperatures:
Province / °C / Date / Place
Newfoundland / -51.1 Feb. 17, 1973 / Esker 2
Prince Edward Island / -37.2 / Jan. 26, 1884 / Kilmahumaig
New Brunswick / -47.2 / Feb. 2, 1955 / Sisson Dam
Nova Scotia / -41.1 / Jan. 31, 1920 / Upper Stewiacke
Quebec / -54.4 / Feb. 5, 1923 / Doucet
Ontario / -58.3 / Jan. 23, 1935 / Iroquois Falls
Manitoba / -52.8 / Jan. 9, 1899 / Norway House
Saskatchewan / -56.7 / Feb. 1, 1893 / Prince Albert
Alberta / -61.1 / Jan. 11, 1911 / Fort Vermilion
British Columbia / -58.9 / Jan. 31, 1947 / Smith River
Yukon / -63.0 / Feb. 3, 1947 / Snag
Northwest Territories / -57.2 / Dec. 26, 1917 / Fort Smith
Nunavut / -57.8 / Feb. 13, 1973 / Shepherd Bay
So what does this tell us? Isolated as they are, nothing. I suspect the intent of the post that identified the warmest recorded temperature in Canada to be decades in the past, adorned in asterisks, was to somehow imply that warming is not happening because the hottest day recorded was some 70 years ago. Using the same technique with the dates I’ve listed, I could say look, half are prior to the 1937 warmest date, particularly the one in Saskatchewan, so does that somehow imply that the temperatures are getting warmer? In statistical parlance, these blibs are known as “outliers”and to use them to prove the implied point amounts to no more than a parlour game.
The statistic of real signifance is the long term trend. As each of these Environment Canada seasonal charts show, covering the trend for the past 60 years, the average temperature has increased by 1 ½ degrees. This spans multiple 11-year solar cycles, so that factor can be discounted as a cause in the variations.
http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/ccrm/bulletin/figchartt_e.html?season=Spring&date=2006
http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/ccrm/bulletin/figchartt_e.html?season=Summer&date=2006
http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/ccrm/bulletin/figchartt_e.html?season=Fall&date=2006
http://www.msc-smc.ec.gc.ca/ccrm/bulletin/figchartt_e.html?season=Winter&date=2006
Just to clear something up written by Charley, the cost of the Green platform was and is severly mis-stated and generally misunderstood.
The article that “costed” the various platforms accounted only for the spending side of the Green platform and did not estimate the savings side of the equation.
This relates to the “Green Tax Shift” which has long been part of the Green Party platform. In generalities, it means taxing more heavily (or at least removing subsidies) from those things that contribute to waste and environmental degradation, and decreasing taxes (or subsidizing) those that are more environmentally friendly.
An example of this would be a revenue neutral shift of removing all subsidies from the oil & gas sector (which admittedly would increase prices) and instead decreasing personal income taxes with that money.
The Green Party’s internal costing of this platform was in the $18 billion range when all of the plusses and minuses were taken into account.
As for the “Commie” comment, I must raise an objection. I am a professional engineer and have working my entire career in the energy sector; my hair may be grey but is cut WAY too short for a pony tail; I don’t really like granola; and I have never owned a pair of birkenstocks in my life.
So you can imagine the confusion that must have been created during the 2006 election when I ran as a Green Party candidate.
Imagine the press saying, “Wait a sec, where’s the development-hating enviro-kook we were expecting?
Yes Dube,
“The statistic of real signifance is the long term trend.”
Greenland’s glaciers have been shrinking for 100 years: study
August 21
Greenland’s glaciers have been shrinking for the past century, according to a Danish study, suggesting that the ice melt is not a recent phenomenon caused by global warming.
Danish researchers from Aarhus University studied glaciers on Disko island, in western Greenland in the Atlantic, from the end of the 19th century until the present day.
“This study, which covers 247 of 350 glaciers on Disko, is the most comprehensive ever conducted on the movements of Greenland’s glaciers,” glaciologist Jacob Clement Yde, who carried out the study with Niels Tvis Knudsen, told AFP.
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/08/21/060821191826.o0mynclv.html
Glenn
As I understand it the tax shifting idea would increase the cost of driving a gas guzzler, reduce the cost of driving a car with good mileage and be, more or less, neutral for vehicles in the middle of the pack. essentially drivers who choose a more fuel efficient vehicle will be further ahead financially. Hardly a crazy concept, I think.
Sure, and lets give everybody free bus rides. That’s not such a socialist idea that we can’t sell it in Canada. Atleast that is what the Greens are planning.
Jerry,
I’ve read the article at your link, and aside from their opening statement … :
Greenland’s glaciers have been shrinking for the past century, according to a Danish study, suggesting that the ice melt is not a recent phenomenon caused by global warming.
… I find nothing inconsistent with the warming trends that have been observed to coincide with the latter part of the Industrial Revolution, which began in the late 1700’s and saw significant growth after 1850 (see chart at this link):
http://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/climate.html
The first Industrial Revolution merged into the Second Industrial Revolution around 1850, when technological and economic progress gained momentum with the development of steam-powered ships and railways, and later in the nineteenth century with the internal combustion engine and electrical power generation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
In fact this statement from your cited article runs counter to that article’s opening sentence:
The shrinking of the glaciers since the 19th century is “the result of the atmosphere’s natural warming, following volcanic eruptions for example and greenhouse gases, created by human activities, which have aggravated the situation further,” he said.
Now you and I can go back and forth on this and probably get nowhere; that’s fine. But I’d really be interested to see a plot of glacial melting rate over time, carbon content in the core samples over time (examine the layers like growth rings), and mean temperature over time, particularly for any of those measures that extend prior to the start of the Industrial Revolution prior to the late 1700’s.
SAYING NO TO CLIMATE PORN http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=081606E
Alarmism remains the most common form of climate change reporting: stories focus on disappearing species, uncontrollable pests, rising seas, floods, droughts, heat waves, fires, violent storms, scarce food/jobs/resources, and forecasts of millions of human deaths.
Articles and books by renowned scientists are routinely menacing with titles like The End of Nature (Bill McKibben, Bloomsbury 2003) and The Threat to the Planet (Jim Hansen, New York Review of Books, July 13, 2006). Supposedly serious British media outlets don’t think twice about reporting the absurd, like the Amazon rainforest incapable of sustaining a couple of years of drought (The Independent, July 23, 2006) or coral reefs needing water temperatures not to vary more than 2 degrees Celsius (BBC News, Feb 21, 2004).
It is not clear why CLIMATE PORN should be the norm. Are newspapers attracted by the “titillation” consciously or otherwise, to increase sales? Are some scientists attempting clumsy forays into policy making? Perhaps, or perhaps it’s also about getting one’s “pet issue” recognized in a world full of other scares.
Don’t panic – many reputable scientists believe that global warming may not be our fault. In fact, a considerable number believe there is no scientific basis to believe that GW exists, despite the doomsday scenario which worldwide organisations such as the UN promote for their own political and commercial reasons as “unanimous scientific fact.†To do your own research, I recommend starting by ***entering “Global Warming dissent†into your favourite search engine*** and reading some of the results. For those who are convinced that global warming is an issue, the results may surprise you and will certainly refute the myth of unanimous scientific opinion. For those who are sceptical, there is considerable ammunition to support your scepticism.
It comes as no surprise that the global warming movement does not like and works actively to suppress dissent, thus taking maximum advantage of the concern which we feel for the future of our planet. Nor is it a surprise to find that the UN is involved in what may just turn out to be a huge deception on a worldwide scale, for purely commercial reasons. But do not believe that there is irrefutable proof of the coming apocalypse through climate change.Meanwhile, be sceptical of those who want you to pay for their theories regardless of the cost in taxes, jobs, and standards.
http://www.abd.org.uk/env.htm
Slightly old, but
Additional Reading:
http://www.geopoliticalreview.com/archives/000595ignoring_global_warming_dissen.php
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/murray200407230903.asp
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv21n1/21-1f6.pdf
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=1188
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4066189.stm
I’ll steer clear for now of the arguments for and against global climate change in this forum, since there seems to be some here who believe the sources that predict dire consequences and some who want to believe the sources that say it’s all a politically driven ruse.
But there is something else to this discussion that needs to be addressed.
Consider “Meanwhile, be sceptical of those who want you to pay for their theories regardless of the cost in taxes, jobs, and standards.”
This is one of the central myths in the global climate change discussion, that doing something different than the status quo will automatically result in astronomical tax hikes, massive loss of jobs, and great social upheaval.
Whether you believe that global climate change is happening or not, whether you believe that it is caused by human activities or not, there are a few undisputed facts to consider.
1- The vast majority of our modern economy involves the extraction and transformation of non-renewable resources (oil, uranium, minerals, etc), and many renewable resources which are being used faster than nature can replenish them (forests, water, arable soil.)
2- The rate at which these resources are extracted increases yearly due to increasing population and undeveloped parts of the world striving toward our way of life.
3- A major part of the process of extracting resources and the subsequent commercial activities results in waste (packaging, CO2, pollution) which is dumped back into the environment in one form or another.
4- Items 1, 2, and 3 cannot continue forever on a finite sphere we call Earth.
The debate is not about whether these facts are true, but about when we must change the way we live. Some say now, some say later. (To those that say later I always ask if they have kids.)
But back to the point, changing how we live and how we view the world (currently as a vast storage of resources for our exclusive use as well as a vast dumping ground) does NOT have to result in massive misery due to economic hardship.
As one example, our governments give hundreds of millions to the car industry as incentives to locate plants in Ontario thus creating jobs and a tax base. OK. But what would be the harm on insisting that this taxpayer money be contingent on building only the most fuel efficient cars? Hybrids instead of the Chevrolet Camaro?
Why is a job created by building an unsustainable natural gas fired peaking power plant considered better than a job created by building a bio-fueled district energy plant? Could it be because the cost of power from the first is artificially lower since the waste and pollution is not factored into the equation?
All energy inputs into our economy are a cost, and increasing efficiency will decrease that cost, freeing up more money for investment and guess what, more jobs. Is this not a good thing?
You can ignore the global climate change advocates all you want, even try to find evidence that they are wrong, but the real illusion that needs to be dispelled is this misconception that doing something about it is not possible or will cost too much.
David Bellamy who sniffs that Gore’s theory is “Poppycock!”
“As a result of their ignorance, the world’s economy may be about to divert billions, nay trillions of pounds, dollars and rubles into solving a problem that actually doesn’t exist. The waste of economic resources is incalculable and tragic.”
Wrote Dr. Bellamy “It has been estimated that the cost of cutting fossil fuel emissions in line with the Kyoto Protocol would be [$1.3 trillion].
“If we signed up to these scaremongers, we could be about to waste a gargantuan amount of money on a problem that doesn’t exist – money that could be used in umpteen better ways: Fighting world hunger, providing clean water, developing alternative energy sources, improving our environment, creating jobs.
There is Socialism, Capitalism and Global Warmingism.
Well you have Socialism and Global Warmingism both going for you!