While there are lots of other issues for MPs and government to worry about these days, none is of greater long-term importance than the environment. Canada has just suffered more than a decade of inaction in which global warming had taken hold, our air quality deteriorated, and many species have sadly disappeared. This must end, and while governments have a major role, we as individuals count even more.
In response, I have rewritten and updated A Citizen’s Guide to a Better Environment, which I first authored several years ago, in at attempt to help the process, and demonstrate that everyday actions make a big difference. Please download it, and do what you can.
It’s my hope that this practical guide of immediate actions can supplement the Green Plan which the Conseravtive government will hopefully soon be releasing and implementing. As an MP I will support any environmental initiative with promise, and as a citizen, try to do my part within my own household. Please join me.
To download the Guide, click here.
27 comments ↓
What’s the apppropriate hyperbolic adverb for ‘evasive response’?
When I see all the things you do, Garth, I wonder what my MP does besides posing for photo-ops and sending out a self-serving blurb four times a year.
He’s a much younger man than you are.
And a Liberal to boot. Maybe the boot will come next time if the Conservatives nominate a viable candidate (instead of one in league with Chuckles McVety).
As a big C Conservative, I was disappointed at what I heard at the press conference. Realizing hurting Ontario’s economy will have some serious political repurcussions for the Tories and too late to cancel the already booked press conference, it seems that the ministers and the Prime Minister really had a lot of nothing to tell us.
This Green Plan II really should not have been released in parts. I’d like to say I’m cautiously optimistic about the details of the Clean Air Act and the rest of GP2, but I can’t.
Were you as disappointed as me?
This whole kerfuffle about the environment makes me think back to the 70s when the issue came and went quite quickly. Nothin but lip service was paid to the issue, just as is happening now.
There are two reasons for global warming: natural trends over centuries, and, the effect of our burgeoning human population and the abuse which we heap on the environment.
If governments were serious about the issue, we would not be building homes, factories, office towers etc. at such alarming rates. If citizens were serious about the issue, we would not be purchasing gas-guzzling vehicles, not flying all over the world in pollutant-belching aircraft, not cruising on the oceans, not buying plastic products or products packaged in tons of plastic. We would not patronize fast food restaurants which use an enormous amount of packaging materials (not to mention chemicals int he “food”). We would not be such conspicuous consumers.
So, this whole thing is just the usual lip service, tempest in a teapont type of thing. Lots of rhetoric and little actual behaviour change. I’m sorry – I cannot take any of this seriously (although I do know that our climate is changing as a result of our abuse of the planet) because all I hear is blah-blah and no concrete change in behaviour.
Having said that – Ontario hydro rates are about to change today. I have no problems with higher rates – I do have a problem with all the additional charges which more than double my bill. Once again, a lot of political hot air – yes, hydro rates are low when compared to the actual cost of producing it and when compared with other countries. What the lying politicians fail to ever mention are the exorbitant “other” charges.
That is my rant for today. Our present provincial government is total sleaze and yet Torontonians will most likely vote in another sleazy government in the next election.
Thanks! It seems like some of the info is a bit out of date (I’m pretty sure that you can’t buy leaded gas anymore, at least in Ontario), but the overall theme is excellent and provides a lot of great tips.
WIlliam Hane,
Re:
What’s the apppropriate hyperbolic adverb for ‘evasive response’?
There’s only one. It’s Liberally.
Garth that is what leadership is about, leading by example. Good for you.
Irate: When will you cons get it. It’s not about what the other guy didn’t do. It’s about what you’re doing. No one cares how you compare against the other guy, only how you compare against the ultimate goal.
Admit that the carbon intensity shuffle isn’t going to work and demand they actually do something that lowers GHGs, not raises them.
“This Green Plan II really should not have been released in parts.”
But when you have nothing to say, what other option do you have. If Harper and Blonde Rona were to release everything they don’t have after 8 months of working on it…oh hell, this is what I’m trying to say…the “Emperor has no clothes”
But if he flies enough of his cabinet to enough places around the country to hold press conferences to announce that he is going to be making announcements about announcements, maybe he can fool some into thinking he actually has an announcement to make.
Frank, you aren’t implying that our PM should not visit outside the Ottawa core, are you?
We kind of like to think we have something to offer this country too, and luckily, so does he and his government;)
Sounds like Willy, Frank & Friends need something to help lighten up their moods! They sounds awfully cranky. I’ll help out:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=u9RljvoWlao
and the new classic:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=zDGEGnIHiWU
Enjoy!
“Sounds like Willy, Frank & Friends need something to help lighten up their moods! ”
Now Wesley, why am I not surprised that it would be a couple of American videos you would link to. Mule Skinner Steve and Simple George make quite a team and it looks like you are going to fit right in. Keep slurpin’ that Kool Aid Wes.
Oh well, just a few more months and the pain will be gone….
William Hane,
The jury is still out on the cause of GHG. The scientific community on one hand, is at odds with hidden agenda politicians and Chicken Little bird brains on the other. I am not convinced that humanity is the SOLE or MAIN cause of alleged environmental concern. Nor that it alone can reverse or retard an unsubstantiated problem.
In fact, much information to the contrary has been posted here several times. Defying logic, some blindly reject it and instead choose to believe pronouncements of demigods such as Al Gore, who recently informed us that cigarette smoking contributes to temperature increase. Perhaps to do so allows them to criticize, for inaction, a government that has accomplished more in 8 months than the last one did in 156 months.
OOPS; sorry William for making an unavoidable comparison. Is it true that Liberals don’t like comparison because few if any are favourable ?
I understand Al Gore has now commissioned a BTU study of matches and lighters, to determine which poses the greater threat to ice cubes during happy hour.
Irate: When will you cons get it. It’s not about what the other guy didn’t do.
13 years of all talk from a Liberal government. 13 years of election promises and ‘Red Books’. 13 years of “Run Left – Govern Right”. 13 years of Liberal hot air and very little action.
Bill Hane wants the Conservatives to solve the problems in eight months.
I am hopeful that the Conservatives will move in the right direction, instead of no direction. In the brief time they have been in power, I believe that progress is being made. Unlike that old government…
William, Frank & Friends have deep personal issues, which they need to resolve.
In the meantime, Canada is enjoying a true leader, which has not seen in a very long, long time.
Garth, thank you for making this available to us. This illustrates that WE should take responsibility for our own actions.
I see that you mentioned the disposable diapers. I wonder how much of Toronto’s landfill (wherever it may be) contains diapers? It would truly be an amazing stat!
You may also add that driving with the cruise on does also save on gas usage.
In fact, Irate, it is very provable that much of the increase of CO2 (a GHG) is caused by the burning of gas/oil/coal (ie old carbon) rather than the naturally created CO2. You have heard of carbon dating right? One can estimate how old something is by measuring the amount of carbon isotopes present, which decay over time; the lower concentration of isotopes, the older the carbon. The CO2 increase in our atmosphere is old carbon. It is proven that WE are increasing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
As for global warming… there is a definite correlation between the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and the amount of global heating. It hasn’t been proven that it’s a direct cause and effect relationship (yet) but there is a correlation. So, in order to perform the least amount of effort, it’s easier simply to turn away from the problem. It probably won’t affect you anyways, so why worry.
If all teachers were good ones and all politicians were like Garth Canada would be a shining example for the world. Thanks for all you do Garth.
Maybe one day your work ethic and honesty will rub off on your party’s leadership.
Here’s an idea. Let’s get proportional rep, then revice the PCs, then Garth take a run at leadership and voila we have the makings of real change.
They haven’t just had 8 months, they’ve had 13 years as well. Were they just sitting on their hands, thinking of no solutions, waiting to get in to power before they decided to contribute or were they no interested in the problem until it became important to their re-election.
They were either apathetic or ignorant of the problem before and now despite an unwillingness to accept the science of climate change (not necessarily warming in all places remember) they’re showing their greed in trying to piece together a plan but their not even doiong that effectively so their friends in the patch and 905 voters can be protected while the fail to get a this new Clean Air act through when all the powers they require to actually affect change are in CEPA.
When you stand around for 13 years criticizing and still don’t have an alternative, that’s pathetic.
On issues of environment, interesting words from Dr. Patrick Moore, formerly of Greenpeace, here are a few excerps:
I am often asked why I broke ranks with Greenpeace after fifteen years as a founder and full-time environmental activist. While I had my personal reasons—spending more time with a growing family rather than living out of a suitcase most of the year—it was on issues of policy that I found it necessary to move on.
Beginning in the mid-1980s, Greenpeace, and much of the environmental movement, made a sharp turn to the political left and began adopting extreme agendas that abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism. I became aware of the emerging concept of sustainable development—the idea that environmental, social, and economic priorities could be balanced. I became a convert to the idea that win-win solutions could be found by bringing all interests together around the same table. I made the move from confrontation to consensus.
Since then, I have worked under the banner of Greenspirit to develop an environmental policy platform based on science, logic, and the recognition that more than six billion people need to survive and prosper, every day of the year. The environmental movement has lost its way, favoring political correctness over factual accuracy, stooping to scare tactics to garner support. Many campaigns now waged in the name of the environment would result in increased harm to both the environment and human welfare if they were to succeed.
So we’re faced with environmental policies that ignore science and result in increased risk to human health and ecology. To borrow from the vernacular, how sick is that?
Environmentalism has turned into anti-globalization and anti-industry. Activists have abandoned science in favour of sensationalism. Their zero-tolerance, fear-mongering campaigns would ultimately prevent a cure for Vitamin A deficiency blindness, increase pesticide use, increase heart disease, deplete wild salmon stocks, raise the cost and reduce the safety of health care, raise construction costs, deprive developing nations of clean electricity, stop renewable wind energy, block a solution to global warming, and contribute to deforestation. How sick is that?
Full story here:
http://www.greenspirit.com/logbook.cfm?msid=83
“When you stand around for 13 years criticizing and still don’t have an alternative, that’s pathetic.”
Well said William…..13 years of thinking time and now it may take up to 5 years more before their plan for the environment is done? (They’ll be lucky to have another 5 months….)
Charley, too many politicians have blown the science out of proportion; no argument there. Sensationalism sells (just ask Garth… in reference to his Turner Reports on TV way back when).
Regardless, the science still suggests that the road ahead is not pretty and it isn’t getting any better.
Can you give me one example of a television report that was not based in fact, or is this just a gratuitious, mean-spirited, throwaway line from a loser? — Garth
“Activists have abandoned science in favour of sensationalism.”
Couldn’t agree more Charlie.
“Turner Reports on TV way back when”
Ya, Paul I am interested as well. I might agree
but I better read it first.
“the science still suggests that the road ahead is not pretty and it isn’t getting any better”
Maybe Rona Ambrose should start “meeting the challenge” by closing down all industry, power generation and transportation in Liberal, Bloc and NDP ridings, then raid the homes and bank accounts of the people in those ridings and donate them to China.
Maybe then, people will finally understand what Kyoto is all about!
You guys believe everything you hear from Rona, the arts major while ignoring climate change scientist?
I’m reading Richard Dawkins book “The God Dellusion” and he quotes a study that found that religiosity is negatively coorelated to education. The more you learn the more you rely on reason to explain the natural world and the reverse.
I can only assume you’re a staunch believer.
William
You are joining the ranks of franke that can’t tell hair color as he is to use to looking at ugly lieberals!
Rona Ambrose was elected as the Member of Parliament for the riding of Edmonton-Spruce Grove on June 28, 2004 and was re-elected for a second term on January 23, 2006. She was subsequently appointed as Minister of the Environment on February 6, 2006. Prior to the election, she served as Critic for Intergovernmental Affairs.
In addition to serving her constituents, Ms. Ambrose has been a member of a number of parliamentary committees and related subcommittees, including the Standing Committees on Finance, and on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the Subcommittee on the Fiscal Imbalance, and the Legislative Committee on Bill C-38.
Prior to her election, Ms. Ambrose held the post of Senior Intergovernmental Officer with the International and Intergovernmental Relations department of the Government of Alberta. Ms. Ambrose was a political columnist and has worked as an independent consultant on public policy issues.
Ms. Ambrose holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Victoria and a Masters of Arts from the University of Alberta. Ms. Ambrose speaks Spanish, Portuguese and intermediate French.
Ms. Ambrose has a long history of volunteering in the Edmonton area, particularly for the Edmonton Women’s Shelter.
Rona Ambrose was born in Valleyview Alberta, and grew up both overseas and in Parkland County, Alberta. She lives in Edmonton with her husband Bruce.
======================
ignoring climate change scientist
You just knew this was coming!!! Comparing individuals not in agreement with climate change theory with Holocaust deniers and putting them on trial for crimes against Humanity.
A U.S. based environmental magazine that both former Vice President Al Gore (http://gristmill.grist.org/print/2006/9/19/11408/1106?show_comments=no ) and PBS newsman Bill Moyers, for his October 11th global warming edition of “Moyers on America†titled “ Is God Green?â€
(http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2006/05/09/roberts/index.html ) have deemed respectable enough to grant one-on-one interviews to promote their projects, is now advocating Nuremberg-style war crimes trials for skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming.
Grist Magazine’s staff writer David Roberts called for the Nuremberg-style trials for the “bastards†who were members of what he termed the global warming “denial industry.â€
Roberts wrote in the online publication on September 19, 2006, “When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.†(http://gristmill.grist.org/print/2006/9/19/11408/1106?show_comments=no )
Gore and Moyers have not yet commented on Grist’s advocacy of prosecuting skeptics of global warming with a Nuremberg-style war crimes trial. Gore has used the phrase “global warming deniers” to describe scientists and others who don’t share his view of the Earth’s climate. It remains to be seen what Gore and Moyers will have to say about proposals to make skepticism a crime comparable to Holocaust atrocities.
The use of Holocaust terminology has drawn the ire of Roger Pielke, Jr. of the University of Colorado’s Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. “The phrase ‘climate change denier’ is meant to be evocative of the phrase ‘holocaust denier,’†Pielke, Jr. wrote on October 9, 2006 (http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/author_pielke_jr_r/index.html#000952).
“Let’s be blunt. This allusion is an affront to those who suffered and died in the Holocaust. This allusion has no place in the discourse on climate change. I say this as someone fully convinced of a significant human role in the behavior of the climate system,†Pielke, Jr. explained.
The article Global Warming: The Chilling Effect On Free Speech (www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/1782/ )last week in Spiked Online addresses this new found penchant by environmentalists and some media members to charge skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming with “crimes against humanity†and urge Nuremberg-style prosecution of them.
So gas me!!!
http://www.climatescience.org.nz/assets/20060428_I_Lingen_AGW.pdf
http://www.climatescience.org.nz/assets/20067232056310.ScienceIsntSettled.pdf
So gas me anyway!!!
William Hane,
Re:
“When you stand around for 13 years criticizing and still don’t have an alternative, that’s pathetic.”
Even more pathetic is 13 years of arrogant Liberal dismissal of valid Conservative criticism.
How pitiable they are now, losers, in desperate search of meaningful criticism.
Paul A,
Your post directed to me is unsubstantiated opinion. I’m not in denial about global warming. Neither did I dispute that a Y2K problem existed. Alarmists didn’t panic me then; they have yet to provide conclusive proof that the end of the world is upon us now. Thanks to Charley’s 10.12.06/1:17pm post, my position is reinforced by Dr. Patrick Moore’s revelation.
I’ve been unable to download Garth’s Citizen’s Guide, but I understand a problem of disposing, disposable diapers exists. A quaint, ironic oxymoron.
Without doubt, all the Lieberals and Dippers that constantly change their MINDS are huge contributors of soiled diapers to a stressed disposal mechanism. However, I would not support an opinion that the diaper problem would be alleviated once Lieberals and Dippers stopped flip-flopping.
Finally Paul, you gratuitously wrote in dismissal of my view:
“So, in order to perform the least amount of effort, it’s easier simply to turn away from the problem. It probably won’t affect you anyways, so why worry. ”
It’s true that I’m on the slippery downslope of life and gaining speed. But just as yourself, I have concern for my descendants; and was an environmentalist many years before it became fashionable. I’ve heard innumerable predictions of doom over several decades, and yet humanity has mamaged to keep our fragile world intact.
I gave up tilting at windmills January 1st last, and have placed my trust in the scientific community for a solution. While we await, DEUS MISEREATUR.