Another fine day, which I contemplate with my dog at my feet after just arriving back in the riding. This morning Jim Flaherty blamed his crapped-out online budget poll on me; later this morning John Baird told reporters that statements I made on this blog support his anti-Kyoto position (holy cow!); during QP Baird did it again, and even sideswiped this web site; then in the afternoon Treaury Board boss Vic Toews accused me in committee of not caring for Canadian soldiers because I asked him where $650 million to buy new tanks was coming from.
As I’ve said before, if you want lessons on how not to be popular in Ottawa, pull up a chair.
Baird, of course, was over the top again today. His two-month-old veneer of civility and non-partisan concern for the environment has already worn off. Either that, or PMSH is using him up in order to set the goalposts for the coming election campaign. Sure sounded today like it will be The Economy (Canada’s New Government) vs The Environment (the opposition flakes). The Cons have – as you know by now – commissioned a big study to show the consequences of an effective climate change strategy would be economic devastation.
Massive job loss. A 60% rise in gas prices. Doubling the costs to heat your home. The flight of investment dollars. Everything but locusts – although I am sure they have a room of them there in the Fear Factory.
So, is this all spin, or are the anti-Kyoto arguments valid? Has PMSH shed his green mantle already, based on polling showing the Conservative support base cares more about jobs than drowning polar bears?
MPtv, enjoying 20-degrees and sunshine in Ottawa today, donned its Bermuda shorts, flip-flops, nose goop and shades, and went after the truth. That led to Green Party leader Elizabeth May, fresh off her tryst with Stephane Dion, and to John Godfrey, chair of the federal Liberal caucus environment committee. Here is what they had to say, moments after John Baird turned once again into the Partisan That Ate QP.
To view the video, click here.
174 comments ↓
Environment Minister John Baird speaks at a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday after his appearance at a parliamentary committee. (Fred Chartrand/CP)
“This minister has put forward no analysis on the related positive economic benefits [of Kyoto],†Mr. McGuinty said. “In fact, he deliberately ignored those benefits that come from better energy efficiency, lower energy use and jobs related to the benefits of emissions reductions.â€
The issue also arose in Question Period in the Commons, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper reiterated his opposition to Kyoto targets, as all three opposition parties united to criticize the government on its handling of environmental issues.
“This party has no intention of doing anything that will destroy Canadian jobs or damage the health of the economy,†Mr. Harper shot back.
A government-commissioned study released yesterday predicts 275,000 workers across the country would lose their jobs if Canada started attempting to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by one-third by 2012. Many plants would be forced to shut down, while energy bills and the price of gas would double, the study states.
Those bleak predictions, endorsed by some of the country’s leading economists, were aimed at discrediting a Liberal-sponsored bill that would force Ottawa to abide by its international obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. The report was also designed to prepare voters for the Tories’ announcement of their own greenhouse-gas reduction initiatives next week.
According to documents leaked to the news media, the Conservatives would bring the benchmark year for carbon cuts to 2006, instead of 1990, as prescribed by Kyoto.
Under the Kyoto Protocol, Canada must reduce carbon emissions between 2008 and 2012 by 6 per cent compared with 1990 levels, which amounts to a one-third reduction compared with current levels, the Tories say.
“There would be just one way to make this happen: The government would need to manufacture a recession,†Mr. Baird told the Senate environment committee.
But the report he presented also states that its calculations do not take into account the benefits of green technology infrastructure, or the jobs created by new investments in that technology. Neither does it consider the impact of monetary policies the government could implement to diminish losses.
And, when pressed by senators, Mr. Baird was unable to present the figures the government used to forecast its bleak predictions.
Critics also pointed out that the Kyoto Protocol provides for targets unmet to be transferred to post-2012 agreements.
“This is a rigged study,†Green Party Leader Elizabeth May told reporters. “The assumptions that went into this are created to reach economic disaster.â€
Mr. Baird replied that the benefits of respecting Kyoto would be long in the making and could not save Canada from a recession before 2012.
Yea, sure thing Johnny and Income Trusts needed to be nuked as well .
What is Mr. Baird doing talking economics???
Isnt he the enviroment minister???
I wonder where baird thinks all the middle easterners, indians (like the ones from india) and asians will go when it gets unsurvivably hot in their countries.
I’m sure that brewing war with denmark is going to be a bit of a problem for bairds plan too. How much has he allocated to fight for hans island. *laugh*
Seriously, the guy acts like there’s no cost for ignoring global warming.
I say some liberal guy should get up and ask the minister how much money he’s allocating for naturalizing climate displaced refugees (hey can i coin a term)
Maybe bairds plan is to build the next club med on hans island, but i’d rather keep the polar bears and the cute, fuzzy, tasty seals.
The worst criticism I have heard was that the report does not take into account “green” growth. I doubt any green growth will offset the negatives in the short term especially since most green industries are heavily subsidized by governments. The Ethanol industry is a perfect example.
What I heard the honourable minister to say is that when in power, the Liberals emphasized the economy to the detriment of the environment, and now that they are in opposition, what they are proposing is to emphasize the environment to the detriment of the economy.
What is needed is balance, and the avoidance of extremes which can end us up in the ditch on either side.
The polls strongly confirm that Canadians are willing to sacrifice a little for the sake of the environment, but not a drastic change in their lifestyles.
How far can we go down that road before the Canadian electorate will cry “Foul!” one more time?
Mossy,
Maybe Baird is giving us a clue….. he’s showing PMSH how good he is at Economics so he can be the next Finance Minister.
Bye-bye Flaherty !!
BTW, Garth, good picture of the pitbull….. he’s b-a-a-c-k
Excuse me, but if John Baird had a brain he’d be dangerous!!!
What a crock!!!!!
Another sign of an upcoming election. My PC MP is setting up his election HQ.
Shall I send pictures?
Yes, please! To garth@garth.ca. Thanks, — Garth
Dalton McGuinty’s brother, David McGuinty has to go over for a family dinner to preach his born again environmental views.
If onyone cared to know, is that the environmental responsibilities is under the provincial jurisdiction.
Dalton McGuinty, Ontario’s premier, promised to rid Ontario of ALL coal-fired plants in Ontario by 2007. Well, it’s 2007 and Ontario still have ALL coal-fired plants operating. Why didn’t he do it? Seems that David McGuinty should ask his brother and let us know.
If the McGuintys were that serious, surely, they would have agreed to levy a special tax on Ontarian citizens and businesses and build other power plants and closed down those nasty Hamilton steel mills.
But, hey, this is politics, and politicians don’t like reality, but, they sure like to spin and spin and spin.
John Baird presentation was doom and gloom should Canada complied with Kyoto. Maybe it did portray the extreme. But, let’s not portray the other side as a rosy business building endevour either. Logically it’s going cost money and jobs in the short term, and if the politicians were that serious, then they should start to look at how to mitigate the costs and job losses. But, DONOT buy other countries credits!
Just take a quick peek at Australia’s water and agricultural woes. I watched PM Howard on world news, painting a very grim picture … followed by an interview with an Aussie farmer who was, to put it mildly, desolate.
Then, I stepped outside, looked up, saw a beautiful clear sky and saw a SIGN flashing by. Sure enough, it was Sean P. Hogan’s handiwork. I could just barely make out the name on the side of the object. It read Flim-Flam Flaherty. It then appeared to be consumed by the white hot trailing fireball. Calls to mind the short life of some ‘new’ government incompetents.
Getcher portable electricity generators here!
Only $10 million for a 3-month high demand cycle. Can’t afford it? Gather some palm fronds, bolt them to the LR ceiling, tie a rope to your wife’s ankle, and then you’r all set for any contingency. That’s my plan!
http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/images/010707/010707_3_lrg.jpg
PMSH is a contributor too! He’s been working on a new species to be introduced to Canada. The WEST will be favoured first under the NAU agreement.
http://www.hww.ca/media_viewer2.asp?id=129&Language=E
All Canadian media has been bought out by Equity Interests, because Flim-Flam has thoughtfully permitted foreigners to deduct interest costs for their debt financing costs. So, while you think you might be reading Canadian News, you’ll really be seeing a ‘subtle’ change in Canadian News. We’ll be offering a new Kool-Aid flavour every week.
Mr. Garth TurnerMP,
I saw Mr. Baird’s press conference on why he won’t act to stop Canada contribution to global warming. Is he a sociopath? Does he have kids?
The PMSH Government needs to fall now!
Baird and PMSH are both Neo-Cons.
(For a good explanation of a Neo-Con, see, Neo-Conned! By Congrassman Ron Paul
speech given on the House floor July 10, 2003 parts 1-11 on YouTube ~1hour.total http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=neo-conned+ron+paul )
Doesn’t Mr. Baird know about the resent UN report on Global Warming that says we/man is the cause of Global Warming!
Or The UK cost analyses of not doing anything to stop the increase of green house.
(The UK is rebuilding there nukes for the climate war that will come when we can’t grow enough food for everyone on the planet, due the wild spread droughts.)
If we don’t fix the green house gas issue know, the saying,’ Hell on Earth’ will become a reality!
Two good book about global warming,-
The Weather Makers, by Tim Flannery 2005http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/search?keywords=tim%20flannery&pageSize=10
-Kicking The Carbon Habit, Global Warming and the Case for Renewable and Nuclear Energy, By William Sweet 2006) http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/search?keywords=tim%20flannery&pageSize=10
If we keep burning oil and natural gas at the present rate, the world will be ALL OUT in 40-50 years, around 2050. Isn’t that when PMSH original clean air act is going to start the make the air cleaner?
And why was PMSH in Huston the day after he was elected, signing deals to sell oil sands oil to the US?
How is he really look out for?
The world used 1 cubic mile of oil last year alone. Plus natural gas, coal, hydro to power the world.
.
Haven’t they heard of ‘Peck Oil’ or are they unable to comprehend its ramifications for modern society. The UK has pecked, USA has peaked, and Saudi Arabia has peaked.
Has Iran pecked? Maybe they know they are going to need nuclear power plants?
For an entertaining different perspectives see, ‘Robert Newman History of Oil’, 46min, May 26/06
http://Video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7374585792978336967
Are we in Afghanistan just to help the people? That’s a good reason, but could it also be to stabilizer the area enough so that a pipeline can be build to get access to the oil and gas in central Asia to the north?
I don’t want Canada to become a US colonel
We need to be alert or we could loose the Freedoms we all have now!
We need to make sure our government protects or freedom to access the net to find out
what is really going on. The Corporate run media don’t tell us the truth always!
The technology is ready to be deployed. RFID chips in our clothes and ID cards.
Things are starting to look more like what George Orwell talked about.
Do not vote or have your votes counted electronically. Haven’t you head of hackers!
Help count your fellow citizens votes by hand!
Make sure we have an independent court system and judges.
See, ‘America-From Freedom to Fascism’ by Aaron Russo 1hr 49min
The extra director’s interview is also interesting.
http://www.poodlecrap.com/Hateliars/HL_Video1.asp?Part=0
For more thought provoking stuff, have you seen the CBC show ‘9/11:Truth, Lies and Conspiracy’, ‘Loose Change’, or Why we fight..
http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/2006/09/091006_1.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7866929448192753501
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whywefight/
We need leader that use they brains to plan for the future well being of us all.
Not just scamming to win a majority in the next election, then force there own narrow shortsighted agenda. Who do they take their orders from? Are they really looking out for the little guys?
Maybe they drank to much Fluoridated water as kids, and it lowered there IQ’s?
See: http://www.flouridealert.org/
We need to urgently stop burning oil, gas and coal to make electricity as quickly as possible!
CANDU power plants can get the job done! The last few built were on time and under budget, no CO2 gasses when running, safe storage of waist. CANDU design can not melt down.
They’re safe,and clean! And they take about 4 year to build.now.
We need renewable energy also, but the wind and sun isn’t always available on the hottest days and coldest nights!
What are we waiting for?
For more info on CANDU see http://www.aecl.ca/Home.htm
http://www.cna.ca/ Canadian Nuclear Association
http://www.nuclearfaq.ca/ Canadian Nuclear FAQ
We could also build some extras to help the USA get off coal fire power plants.
The extra power could also be used to power my new plug in hybrid car with solar panels. See Toyota Prius 2009.
Maybe Miss Belinda Stronach could help build these kind of plug-in cars in Canada?
I am looking forward to voting for a real leader very soon! Not a Neo-Con
Sociopath that doesn’t truly understand global warning and the pressing seriousness of the issues and it’s harsh and brutal consequences if we do not act know to correct our
dumping of green house gasses into the atmosphere, that makes all life possible on this planet. We all have brains, lets use them, and help make this a better place to live for everyone. There is no one coming to save us from our selfs!
Come on opposition parties lets get on with it. I what to get ride of this PMSH once and for all. Before he and his gang do more damage, and while these is still time to keep the global warming issues form getting any worse than what we have already set in motion.
Remember, ‘Belief in myth, avoids the discomfort of thought.’
Yours Truly, Greg W., Oakville
PS, just for fun, ‘Monkeys’: ~4min, http://www.fugly.com/videos/5655/monkeys.html
Under this “New Government” how much time do they say we have before Global Warming will have an affect on us? How long can they put off doing something positive for us and our grandchildren. What is the effect of doing nothing??
I have been waiting for months for Baird to make his announcement and that is it? That Kyoto will not work.
Where is his plan? Or is the plan to announce Kyoto sucks and wait to see how the public reacts?
My advice to the cons is to get rid of your REPUBLICAN strategists .
They have to realize that Canadians are more aware than our southern cousins and do not fall for intimidation and fear mongering .They need a new plan , not George Bushs plan.
GETTING IT DONE. GETTING IT DONE.
What exactly are they getting done?
I’m not sure if this Ethenol from crops is really a good idea? Were will we grow our food?
Will it really save much energy and reduce CO2 very much?
See: http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jan07/4832
The next election will be about whether the public buys the spin on the disaster. May is right about the NDP. They hate the liberals more than they care about the environment.
Sorry, Garth. This is off topic, but:
New Democrat MP proposes bill to ban ATM fees
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070419/ATM_fees_070419/20070419?hub=Politics
How do you stand on this?
Best. title. ever.
That made my morning.
. A 60% rise in gas prices. Doubling the costs to heat your home.
What’s Mr. Bairds point? Europe have had gas prices double Canadian prices, in real terms, for decades. I don’t see their economy suffering because of it.
All the government has to do is gradually increase the “green tax.”
We’ll get the gas gusslers of the road.
If gas goes up 60%, but your vehicle (after you get rid of the gussler) get 20% better efficiency, you’ve only got a 40% increase.
As for heating/cooling costs, some folks have their houses like saunas in the winter and fridges in the summer.
Maybe they’ll adjust the thermostat!
Also of note, while Mr. Baird plays politics, provinces are getting on with the job…coming soon…no more incandescant in Ontario following the lead of other provinces.
And while Mr. Howard, the Aussie PM. says the ecomomy come before the evnvironment….incandescents are history down under! Move it Baird!
Garth,
Locusts? Hey, what about the frogs?
Baird is a minister of exactly what? Minister of FUD! Too bad his first name isn’t Elmer, then he could have been famous for chasing the rabbit!
The only thing Green about Baird’s special meeting yesterday was his tie.
Gets time card stamped. Checks watch, yup 8:00am. Spy ring, check. Invisible ink pen, check. CPC pin, check. Phone bugs, check. Binoculars, check. Okay, all ready for another day.
There, are you happy now Elias?
“Continental economic and security integration†with the U.S. as well as a “continental energy strategy†that should be broadened “to a range of other natural resources.â€
- Conservative leader Stephen Harper.
This is based on an opinion of “one” economist from the TD Bank??
I remember watching Donald Trump interviewed when pushing his latest book saying he doesn’t believe in economists – they are not in the real world and don’t know what they’re doing and that all they deal with is theory.
Funny, Japan and the EU Union haven’t collapsed using the Kyoto protocol.
I’ve absolutely had it with Harper and his bunch of bobble-heads.
Now I hear that they are looking into privatizing prisons.
When is Canada going to “wake up”?
For the old staunch Conservative supporters – please realize this is not the former “Progressive” Conservatives. This is Canada’s new Republican Party.
KPK: you are right on the Ethanol industry being subsidized by government (oh, and by the way, most of the players in that industry are die hard CPC members – just ask Peter Kent).
However, as to the rest of your comment, its pure bunk. Remember the Ozone layer – replacing CFC’s was supposed to bankrupt the country – in fact, the world made money from the whole thing. Remember Acid Rain – it was supposedly an “unsolvable” problem that would bankrupt us if we tried to stop it – turns out it was a lot easier to solve then we thought, and the net costs were negligible. I suspect that the same is true with global warming – the net effect will be INCREASED ECONOMIC PROSPERTITY, not finacial ruin. Baird was right in one thing however – we are headed towards a financial collapse – as long as the CPC are in charge missmanaging the economy!
We will probably end up eating out children in Kyoto is implimented.
Sure JB, you will prevent a recession with your enviroment plan.
But what about your buddies that are sinking Canada with blacked out tax leakage?
Diane Francis tells it thec way it is below. So, JB, don’t worry, you won’t get blamed for Canada’s economic woes.
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/columnists/story.html?id=18edc85d-e88c-48a2-b925-685cd6f8b733
What I heard Baird say was, my translation here: “We don’t give a S about your children or your grandchildren (he’ll never any afterall). They can all die of asthma and lung problems. Don’t worry about the CHA we can afford to treat them all. Oh and we can’t think ahead with any imagination cuz we’re still stuck in C20. And anyway aren’t we the New Alliance Party, I mean we took the word progressive out of our name, doesn’t that explain it?” I’m not the only grandparent to have heard this. Okay, I’m in, I want an Election! Those people are truly nuts.
Sorry….meant to say “eating ouR children” …. oops.
What’s Mr. Bairds point? Europe have had gas prices double Canadian prices, in real terms, for decades. I don’t see their economy suffering because of it. – JAMES
Great! We have a volunteer. Your job will be the first to go when Kyoto is implemented.
Any more volunteers?
I heard a very good proposition put forward today by an enviromentalist this morning on Canada AM: we roll over our Kyoto shortfalls into the next round of Kyoto targets. This way, even if we fail to meet our Kyoto targets by a wide margin, we can still strive towards meeting the next rond of Kyoto. It’s a good idea that will effectively deflate those false claims out their that we will have to pay money to China (or what ever nonesence the neoCONs are trying to sell the public).
What is amazing about Baird’s comments yesterday, is that he went out and gave full support to Kyoto! Amazing really – Kyoto is bad (if the liberals do it), but Kyoto is good if the CPC does it. Apparently, the CPC will wave their magic wand and suddenly the costs of Kyoto will dissappear. In other words – Baird, Harper and the CPC have no idea what the hell they are doing!. Not surprising really, this was the same incompetent idiot (Baird) who so grossly missmanaged Ontario Hydro when he was Energy Minister in Ontario, that he let corrupt Hydro executives make all kinds of political contributions to the PC Party while they were running OH into the ground. Example 1. – Mike Harris recieved tens of thousands of dollars in payments from Hydro for “consulting services” (Harris didn’t even know enough about electricity to screw in a light bulb). Example 2 Elenor Clithero (former CEO of Hydro 1) gave tens of thousands of dollars to Ernie Eves political campaign (she also authorized spending about 200,000 on a company yacht!). Great management skills these neoCONs have.
Elias,
CFCs were banned over a 9 year period. Because of government inaction, we have less than 5 to implement Kyoto targets. Good luck with that. I bet when push comes to shove most Canadians will side with government on this – as long as they come up with a plan with reasonable targets even if it is a few years after 2012. Don Drummond is one of Canada’s leading economists. His predictions can’t be dismissed so easily. The fact that the Liberals NEVER did an economic impact assessment bolsters the governments case. You should ask the people working at Environment Canada what they know. I have. You will find most of them agree with the government when it comes to not meeting our targets by 2012.
Most of the proponents of meeting our targets are wishful thinkers. They use past examples of success to bolster their case. In reality you can’t do this as each situation is completely different. The government’s report is based on actual work done by economists who dismiss “green” benefits in the short term. Jobs created in the green industry will NOT offset those lost in the SHORT term.
I just heard one environmentalist on CTV claiming Canada can follow Norway’s example. The problem is Norway doesn’t have anything like the tar sands. So much for her credibility. They also report it would cost only 1% of GDP which is a lie. The Stern report was based on worldwide economic projections. In Canada it will cost around 3% of GDP.
Inevitably in any event, it will be up to Canadians whom to believe.
My issues with the conservative approach to this file is:
1) Instead of spending the last month + coming up with a plan, they spent the time (and money) telling me why Kyoto won’t work
2) We still have no details on what they want to do
3) This report is not balanced in any way. With every side, there are negatives and positives. Present me with both and let me make my decision. Only the negatives were given
4) While the Liberals were “doing nothing” for the past 13 years, where was the opposition THEN? It’s their job to hold the government responsible for their actions, is it not? Calling fowl now is too little, too late.
5) Will we be able to see the calculations, or will they be blacked out ala IT calculations?
I have absolutely no confidence, trust or respect for this current government.
Garth which committee was this? Are you back on the finance committee?
That might expalin their (cons) fear of you and dire need to attack you at every op?
God help them if intelligent financial people are on that committee! I mean if the window salesman says something silly you might actually retort with a logical response/statement/question.
By golly, methinks I just found a nomadracis septemfasciata!
So one must ask, why is the government clamping down on the retirement savings of seniors and investors?
But it gets worse. Instead of immediately moving to assure markets that income trusts are here to stay, the Liberals are justifying their actions in the coldest political terms. As one government member was quoted in the media as saying about income trust investors, “They have no constituency. They don’t count politically.”
That kind of arrogance cannot go unanswered. There is just no justification for what amounts to a Liberal government attack on investors, and especially on seniors.
The government continues to overtax Canadians and run multi-billion dollar surpluses, yet their first instinct is to attack an investment vehicle that can make the difference between bare survival and a dignified retirement for millions of Canadians.
The government claims that income trusts enjoy an unfair tax advantage over corporate dividends. If they believe this, then the answer is not to shut down a valuable investment vehicle, but to cut the double taxation of dividends. In short, level the playing field and let the market decide between income trusts and dividend-paying companies.
Words of Stephen Harper National Post Oct 26, 2005
Ah, Lorraine – do you not realize that the money that was to go to Dalton McGuinty is aid of getting rid of the coal plants WAS HELD BACK by Harper and used for an election ploy a few weeks ago? Wake up.
Baird wants McGuinty to lose and you know it.
I do not intend to dispute in any way the need for defence cuts and the need for government spending cuts in general. … I do not share a not in my backyard approach to government spending reductions.
Words of Stephen Harper
“In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don’t feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don’t feel bad about it themselves, as long as they’re receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.â€
- Conservative leader Stephen Harper
“What is Mr. Baird doing talking economics???”
Mossy, I’m not sure what he is doing talking at all. Has the guy ever had a real job or experience in the real world or is he just a professional (sic)politician – the likes of which average citizens loathe and acuse of being liars, cheats and puppets?
Do their estimates include greater efficiencies brought on by using less foreign oil, and lower energy intensities?
I’m going to guess: probably not.
We also need stronger intellectual rights protections vis-a-vis China if we’re going to fully realize all the benefits of our R/D efforts on this front right here in Canada.
It’ll be one thing to research more efficient home heating technologies…quite another when the plans are illegally copied and manufactured in China.
(Though, the whole world would benefit, we wouldn’t benefit as much as we should)
‘morning Garth,
If the Libs are interested in promoting ethanol, I suggest you read an awesome study by Jeff Dukes, from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, entitled “Burning Buried Sunshine.”
Basically, he shows that “Every day, people are using the fossil fuel equivalent of all the plant matter that grows on land and in the oceans over the course of a whole year” and that there is no way we should continue our current trend of resource depletion without huge diversification of energy resources (and I would add, huge changes in mentality).
His study adds more proof to the sustainability pudding that your team is promoting.
Here it is; it’s a PDF.
http://globalecology.stanford.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1.pdf
-R
Ah, TGIF!
The inmates are running the asylum, and the world goes about its daily chores.
Tomorrow will Saturday, SSDD except, some will not be commenting because they will be enjoying the beautiful weather we have, or they are not at their assigned terminal because they have the day off. If I were Garth I would be out and about on my scooter enjoying life…a little R&R well earned.
Today will be another day of lies and denials buy Harper. There will be genuflecting in QP, and no progress made on anything.
Let me know when the Parliament actually accomplishes something!
Anyone have a actual solutions to any of the problems? All that is being dealt with are the symptoms, not the disease.
So, anyone care to take a risk and state what they think the disease is?
I will look back to see later today!
Have a nice day!
Oh, how many would support cutting off all imports from China until they release the Canadian sentenced to a life imprisonment, just on the principle of it?
Mull that over…check your ethics gauge and see where it is!
By Elias on 04.20.07 8:50 am
That Hydro yacht you spoke of was named Defiance. Ms. Clitheroe later went into the theological world … I guess she’s now promoting the missionary position for all those of us who were ‘screwed’ by the incompetence during the Harris &
Eves years.
To reinforce PMSH’s comments, “Don’t forget, Don’t forget, Don’t forget,”
….etc. We now have THREE of that clown team of incompetents in Finance, Health & Environment.
They WRECKED Ontario under the Professional Criminals’ Party of Ontario. So, “Don’t Forget,” PMSH.
Ah, one more thing before I leave this morning.
What are your thoughts on the fine management of Toronto that is now evident?
City about to go broke, staff say
Seems the ‘Centre of the Universe’ is turning into a BIG BLACK HOLE!
More symptomatic evidence, but still not the definitive disease. We need to isolate the actual disease and its cause.
What say you citizens of Canada?
Oops…botched the link. Sorry, here it is:
City about to go broke, staff say
So, is this all spin, or are the anti-Kyoto arguments valid? Has PMSH shed his green mantle already, based on polling showing the Conservative support base cares more about jobs than drowning polar bears?
MPtv, enjoying 20-degrees and sunshine in Ottawa today, donned its Bermuda shorts, flip-flops, nose goop and shades, and went after the truth. That led to Green Party leader Elizabeth May, fresh off her tryst with Stephane Dion, and to John Godfrey, chair of the federal Liberal caucus environment committee. Here is what they had to say, moments after John Baird turned once again into the Partisan That Ate QP.
What polar bears are drowning? Where? Methinks this is a teeny weany bit exaggerated.
Why does the truth consist of going to people that you support? How partisan is that? Garth, you can’t state that John Baird is partisan and yet do the exact same thing. That’s just political gamesmanship on both you and Baird.
I found the report very interesting, if you actually read the contents instead of the spin coming from the media and the government:
- A $195/tonne carbon tax would be offset by a nearly equivalent reduction in income and business tax.
- That combination, according to Baird and the economists that helped with the report, will make the economy stronger in the long term.
- The report did not attempt to make any comparison with the economic impact of NOT adopting Kyoto.
- The recession that is predicted (although the report shows no figures to back up the link between the carbon tax and decreases in GDP) is a short-term impact, after which the economy grows at a normal rate.
- It’s spelled out right there in the report – the long run benefits to the economy were NOT considered.
- Also not considered: the impact of changing citizen (I hate the word consumer) behavior towards conservation.
Everything I read in that report makes me even MORE in favour of working to meet our Kyoto obligation. Not only is it morally right, but the short term impact leads to a long-term stronger economy for Canada.
I am in favour of the $195/tonne carbon tax, as long as it’s offset with personal income tax reductions. With an income tax cut, I’ll gladly pay $2 per litre for gas. It’s apparant we’re nearing or past peak oil, so $2/litre is inevitable in the short run even without any carbon taxes. We’ll be better off speeding up the process of shifting taxes towards consumption.
The CPC, based on their recent budget, and by the spin on this issue seems to only focussed on governing up until the next election, and not on the future of the country beyond the next mandate.
Is that really what the future of Canada deserves?
I remember watching Donald Trump interviewed when pushing his latest book saying he doesn’t believe in economists – they are not in the real world and don’t know what they’re doing and that all they deal with is theory.
Um, isn’t Garth Turner an economist?
Oops.
Then, I stepped outside, looked up, saw a beautiful clear sky and saw a SIGN flashing by. Sure enough, it was Sean P. Hogan’s handiwork. I could just barely make out the name on the side of the object. It read Flim-Flam Flaherty. It then appeared to be consumed by the white hot trailing fireball. Calls to mind the short life of some ‘new’ government incompetents.
By Pyotr Petrobitch on 04.20.07 5:54 am
BTW, what is the colour of the sky in your world?
Speaking of “inmates running the asylum” – I heard that Harper is looking into privatizing our jails.
Is that true?
If you want to be a government in a minority Parliament, you have to work with other people.
Stephen Harper
As a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed. It has led to no fairness, produced no unity, and cost Canadian taxpayers untold millions.
Words of Stephen Harper
By golly, methinks I just found a nomadracis septemfasciata!
See also the monkey trials in Tennessee, compliments of the religious ‘foot chase’ directed at a school teacher, (Scopes) defended by Clarence Darrow and prosecuted by Wm Jennings Bryan and the ‘rattle-rattle’ religious community.
By OV on 04.20.07 9:08 am
Excellent biblio reference to the Origin of Species which was partially covered by:
PS, just for fun, ‘Monkeys’: ~4min,
http://www.fugly.com/videos/5655/monkeys.html
By Greg W. on 04.20.07 6:31 am
Keep up the good [WORK]ings, Gang! Say hello to ALL the supposedly ‘unbiased’ CRAP adherents who post here.
Inflation, The Price of Prosperity – 20%-25% and climbing
Proposed project building costs have climbed 20%-25% on planned construction projects in Alberta.
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=6026f2d4-1f64-4d5c-b5a5-264c89076228
It is imperative to take the initiative, to build firewalls around Alberta, to limit the extent to which an aggressive and hostile federal government can encroach upon legitimate provincial jurisdiction.
Words of Stephen Harper
Interesting points KPK. Yes, people will base their judgment on the following: John Baird – a history of corruption and doing nothing, who’s “plan” is nothing more than “duhh…..its the liberals fault”. Vs – a mountain of scientific evidence which points to the fact that we MUST DO IT and the fact that MANY OTHER COUNTRIES ARE DOING IT. (if it can’t be done, why is Europe doing it? answer: they don’t have twits like Baird running their countries).
As for the 5 years you keep harping on – there are 5 years remaining in THIS ROUND OF KYOTO – KYOTO is an ongoing processes (well beyond 2012). Now, read this next part carefully WE DON’T HAVE TO ACTUALLY MEET OUR KYOTO TARGETS – all that is being asked is that we sincerely try to meet them. Harpo has made it clear that he is not sincere.
As for “economic” analysis: right wing neoCON “think tanks” and various economists (paid for by the oil, gas and coal industries) are saying that the sky will fall if we implement Kyoto. Wow…what a surprise, economists who were paid to predict that the world would end, actually predicting that the world would end. I believe the cigarette companies have “studies” that tell us that cigarette smoking is actually good for our health. And by the way, please tell me where I can buy one of the crystal balls that these “economists” use to foretell the future. 20 years ago did any of these “economists” see that China would become the 800lb gorilla of the world economy? Did any of them predict the world wide web? Did any of them predict the war in Iraq, the rise in Islamic terrorism, the world trade center collapse? No. Why not – because economists are totally incompetent to predict the future. If they could predict the future (i.e. next week) with even 51% accuracy, they would each be earning a million dollars a year on Bay street picking winning and losing stock. Instead, most of these “economists” make an OK wage (some not so OK) working for governments, the banks, and the chorus of special interest groups.
Lastly, when have governments, particularly right wing governments, start giving a damn about what economists said before they did something? What economic analysis was done before we implemented free trade (I know the people who worked on the “study”…I can tell you for a fact, that virtually no credible economic studies were done). What economic studies were done before we committed billions to the war in Afghanistan? What economic analysis was done before George Bush invaded Iraq? None. What economic studies were conducted before we banned thalidomide – none (we didn’t need one). What economic studies were done before we entered World War II? How about implementing child protection legislation? Gun control? The highway traffic act? The charter of rights? let me tell you – NONE. Why? BECAUSE GOVERNMENTS KNOW THAT ECONOMISTS DON’T HAVE A CLUE AS TO WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN THE FUTURE AND ARE TOTALLY INCOMPETENT TO RELIABLY TELL US WHAT WILL HAPPEN. Governments bring out the economists to back up a decision they have already made, not to help them predict the future.
Bottom line:
(1) Should we cut greenhouse gases – that’s a scientific question, not one for “voo doo economists” like Baird and Harpo. By the way, the answer is yes.
(2) Is Kyoto a good way of doing it? Answer, its the only way the world will get on board to do it. The “go it alone” approach is just an excuse to not go at all.
“Anyone have a actual solutions to any of the problems? All that is being dealt with are the symptoms, not the disease. So, anyone care to take a risk and state what they think the disease is?” –Bill Muskoka.
Bill, your point is well made and well taken. I agree that we are looking more at the symptoms than at the disease.
I would say that the disease is self-interest. Every polititian (and I mean every polititian) goes at this from a motive of self-interest–promoting what will best be in his own interest, or in the interests of his or her party, rather than to objectively look at the facts, and accept the reality that we need to listen to others outside of our own box.
I would go so far as to say that John Baird has a point of view that should be listened to as well, but when we become partisan and self-centred, our little part of the truth quickly becomes distorted, and can lead us astray.
The key problem is that we’re addicted to really cheap energy. We’re so used to just drilling right into the ground and extracting really cheap, high energy per volume, material. It’s transported cheaply, and, as a result, we treat it cheaply.
If something is cheap, you’re going to treat it cheap — simply because there’s no incentive to treat it any other way.
Case in point — water. We treat so much of it in this country, defecate a little bit into a couple of liters of it, and flush it right back.
Would we be treating it that way if it was scarce? What if we had to fight for every litre through desalinization?
If the price of water in Canada were to rise, what do you think would happen? Howls. Louder howls than a Garth constituent filling up their hummer at an ‘outrageous’ dollar a litre.
There’s a long history of gas taxes which I doubt many policy-makers are aware of. The first gas taxes in the United States were linked to road improvements. Whenever a state tried to go outside of that paradigm, the politicians got clobbered. Psychologically, at least, in the United States, gas taxes are traditionally linked to road infrastructure funds (not general revenue)
I think one way that policy-makers in Canada can increase the cost of gasoline in a way that taxpayers can psychologically accept would be to divert the remaining federal tax points within the price of gasoline (those points that aren’t already going to municipalities) and use it to fund high-energy efficient public transit and regional infrastructure.
Then introduce chunks into it — a five cent a litre federal tax for joint provincial-federal commuter rail initiatives. A five cent tax for streetcar improvements and capacity enhancement, and so on.
Demand for gasoline might be inelastic in the short run, but it is very elastic in the long run. One way to keep the positive elastic effects in the long run is for government taxation intervention.
In fact, I’d time the interventions whenever OPEC tries to keep that in-elasticity with steep price declines. (Yeah, I think the industry actually does that to keep too many people from permanently changing their commuting behaviour…seriously)
Those are my thoughts — make gasoline cost what it’s actually worth, and that’s how I’d make it more politically edible.
March 1, 2007 Harper says:
We are putting in place a new selection system so we do not have what we had before like the member for Westmount Ville-Marie appointing her former husband as a member of the board, like the husband of the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine as a member of the board, and a number of members who were under serious allegations and criminal charges.”
Mar 2, 2007
This morning the Toronto Star reports: If either (accusation) were true, it would represent a serious ethics breach, especially on Robillard’s part, since she was the minister responsible for the board.
In fact, Robillard’s ex-husband, Jacques Lasalle, was appointed to the board in 1990 when Brian Mulroney was prime minister, and Jennings’ husband, Luciano del Negro, joined the board in 1996, before his wife was first elected to the Commons in 1997.
Canada is a resource based economy. Not only that, it is also several orders of magnitude larger than both Japan & Europe combined. Ie. we need cars to get around, and business need cars to get their products to stores.
Comparing Canada to Europe and then saying, “see, they’re doing it”, is just not very smart. I won’t even go into the fact that Europe’s unemployment rate is several percentage points above Canada’s and nobody in this country would be very happy with their regressive tax rates.
Catherine:
“DONOT buy other countries credits!”
I don’t agree.
If we are committed to Kyoto, we have to play by the rules. I think there should be a number of ways to buy credits other than just giving cash out. For example, we could give free green technology and knowledge as an alternative. I am sure you are smart enough to notice the benefit to Canada.
Again, ultimately, how much we can maneuver within the scope is up to ourselves. If we are a leader in building Green economy and society, we will be much capable of creating different choices.
PMSH shows his arroagance again in not being to meet personally with Canada’s #1 conservationist.
from
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2007/04/19/4069198-cp.html
Suzuki said he will meet with Baird on Friday to present a petition with the names of 30,000 Canadians for whom the environment is the top priority. He said Harper refused to meet with him in person.
Also, in this article regarding Baird’s latest, David Suzuki says,
“First of all, let’s stop listening to the goddamn economists,” he said.
Suzuki said Baird has not taken into account the cost of ignoring global warming.
“Twenty per cent of the economy will disappear,” Suzuki told reporters. “It will cost more than World War I and World War 2 put together. We’ll go into a kind of depression we’ve never, ever had in all of history.”
In my opinion, bully baird is not the man for his important position.
It seems to me that Stephane Dion and Elizabeth May are the people we NEED if we are to begin to do Canada’s part in saving the planet.
The disease is our western sense of entitlement. We’re all happy to buy a few more compact fluorescents or turn down the thermostat a degree or two. But when anyone suggests that we give up our cars in favour of riding buses or bikes, or abandon our 3,000 square foot single family houses in favour of townhomes or apartments… well, that’s just crazy talk!
(and BTW, I’m no angel in this regard)
The fact is, if we don’t choose to make some fundamental changes in our North American lifestyles, the choice will be made for us.
Those who lived through the last World War remember food and gasoline rationing. There was a common understanding that the need was great and sacrifices had to be made, and so they made them.
Now imagine energy rationing. Everyone gets X number of kw/hrs of electricity and Y amount of heating fuel per day, and then… you’re cut off. Period. Want to take a road trip? You’ll have to walk to the grocery store and back for the next month to save up enough gas coupons. Want to fly to Mexico for Spring Break? Forget it, unless you can prove that there is some vitally important reason for you to do so.
Fantasy? Probably, because dammit, we’re ENTITLED to our two cars and our central air, and no government that wanted to get re-elected would dare try to take them away from us. And so we will just keep going the way we’re going until most of the world becomes uninhabitable and we find ourselves at war with hoards of sweaty, displaced Americans.
(sorry – I guess pessimism is contagious)
So Foreman and Hogan are here .
Time to hit the snooze button .
Zzzzzzzzzzz !
Ah, Lorraine – do you not realize that the money that was to go to Dalton McGuinty is aid of getting rid of the coal plants WAS HELD BACK by Harper and used for an election ploy a few weeks ago? Wake up.
Baird wants McGuinty to lose and you know it.
By slg on 04.20.07 9:12 am
Ahh slg, Stephen Harper formed government Feb 6th, 2006 a full 2 1/2 years AFTER Dalton came into power. So guess which federal party was in power before Feb 2006 – the Liberals! BTW, Dalton had no bleeping plan in place to even go after his federal Liberal brothers.
Next.
I can’t even begin to express how ashamed I am that Baird represents my riding.
A government that has genuinely embraced the green ideology shouldn’t be presenting all the reasons it can’t be done but all the ways it could be accomplished.
It’s never going to happen if they keep fighting against it.
This is the only time the Cons have been transparent about anything. As in, we can see through this performance of pretending to be green.
AHA! I have one answer to QP! There are three official languages spoken there:
English, French, and Harperese! That explains why no matter what question the opposition asks the government, the government never answers the question with anything even remotely responsive.
Carry on folks. It’s a gorgeous day!
Baird and the Cons have ventured into Terra Incognita now that the Environment is taking centre stage.
NOW is the time for Dion, the Liberals, Elizabeth May, the Bloc and the NDP to bring the elections on…. and fight it on the Environment.
Garth,
Could you ask Mr Baird if he has counted into dire predictions the cost of rescuing the seal hunter, retrieving their boat or the replacement of the houses that fell into the sea in Newfoundland. These costs are a direct result of the Neocon doing nothing for the past fourteen months. When I listened last night to the conservative senator explain how he was going to hold up C288 and probably the new Clean Air Act would you also ask Mr Baird just how long we will have to wait for his new plan? Until the next election would be my bet.
Sorry that should read his dire predictions. Some errors are due to old age, vision problems and hand not connected to brain that’s my excuse what’s John Baird’s
This is a long article but please read it.
Fear tactics and outright propaganda are the neo-cons latest arrows in the governents (?) quiver on the Kyoto debate .
Baird as per usual is out of his depth and has no real knowledge of economics nor environments .
As the neos braintrust (total oxymoron)is incapable of fiscal planning after inheriting the best run economy in the G-8,thanks to the Liberal party,it is little wonder they are flailing about like a drunken man in a windstorm trying to erect a pup tent. With apologies to Yogi Berra .
They have no fiscal plan nor an environmental plan .
They had ‘Bunny, Stepford Wife’ Ambrose to distract the nation with her so called wicked smile .While she embarrassed Canada on the world stage by saying we would meet all our targets except the Kyoto protocols .Fiddling while Rome burns and trying to steam the international community with bafflegab and Ambrosespeak .
The latest study
“This is a rigged study,” Liberal Sen. Grant Mitchell told Baird. “The one thing that it demonstrates is how effective you are at spinning the media. And in fact, if we could just capture that spin, we’d have an alternative energy source.”
Predictions
Gasoline will cost more than $1.60 a litre over the 2008-to-2012 period
*
275,000 Canadians working today will lose their jobs by 2009
*
Job loss will cause unemployment rates to rise 25 per cent by 2009
*
The decline of economic activity in the range of $51 billion
The multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) report recently concluded that in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia, average temperatures have increased as much as 4 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 4 degrees Celsius) in the past 50 years. The rise is nearly twice the global average. In Barrow, Alaska (the U.S.’s northernmost city) average temperatures are up over 4 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 to 3 degrees Celsius) in 30 years.
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projects that global temperatures will rise an additional 3 to10 degrees Fahrenheit (1.6 to 5.5 degrees Celsius) by century’s end.
• Over the last million years the Earth has fluctuated between colder and warmer periods. The shifts have occurred in roughly 100,000-year intervals thought to be regulated by sunlight. Earth’s sunlight quota depends upon its orbit and celestial orientation.
But changes have also occurred more rapidly in the past—and scientists hope that these changes can tell us more about the current state of climate change. During the last ice age, approximately 70,000 to 11,500 years ago, ice covered much of North America and Europe—yet sudden, sometimes drastic, climate changes occurred during the period. Greenland ice cores indicate one spike in which the area’s surface temperature increased by 15 degrees Fahrenheit (9 degrees Celsius) in just 10 years.
• Where do scientists find clues to past climate change? The tale is told in remnant materials like glacial ice and moraines, pollen-rich mud, stalagmites, the rings of corals and trees, and ocean sediments that yield the shells of microscopic organisms. Human history yields clues as well, through records like ancient writings and inscriptions, gardening and vintner records, and the logs of historic ships.
• Rising temperatures have a dramatic impact on Arctic ice, which serves as a kind of “air conditioner” at the top of the world. Since 1978 Arctic sea ice area has shrunk by some 9 percent per decade, and thinned as well.
ACIA projects that at least half of the Arctic’s summer sea ice will melt by century’s end, and that the Arctic region is likely to warm 7 to 13 degrees Fahrenheit (4 to 7 degrees Celsius) during the same time.
More facts for those in denial
• Over the very long term, Greenland’s massive ice sheet holds enough melt water to raise sea level by about 23 feet (about 7 meters). ACIA climate models project significant melting of the sheet throughout the 21st century.
• Vast quantities of fresh water are tied up in the world’s many melting glaciers. When Montana’s Glacier National Park was created in 1910 it held some 150 glaciers. Now fewer than 30, greatly shrunken glaciers, remain. Tropical glaciers are in even more trouble. The legendary snows of Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro 19,340-foot (5,895-meter) peak have melted by some 80 percent since 1912 and could be gone by 2020.
* Earth Becomes Greener as Climate Changes
* By 2050 Warming to Doom Million Species, Study Says
* Melting Arctic Bogs May Hasten Warming, Study Says
* Arctic Melting Fast; May Swamp U.S. Coasts by 2099
* Warming to Cause Catastrophic Rise in Sea Level?
* You Can Fight Global Warming, Authors Urge
• Sea levels have risen and fallen many times over the Earth’s long geological history. Average global sea level has risen by 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20cm) over the past century according to the IPCC.
The IPCC’s 2001 report projects that sea level could rise between 4 and 35 inches (10 to 89cm) by century’s end. Such rises could have major effects for coastal dwellers. A 1.5-foot (50-centimeter) sea level rise in flat coastal areas would cause a typical coastline retreat of 150 feet (50 meters).
Worldwide some 100 million people live within 3 feet (1 meter) of mean sea level. Rises of just 4 inches (10 centimeters) could promote flooding in many South Sea islands, while in the U.S. Florida and Louisiana are at risk. The Indian Ocean nation of Maldives has a maximum elevation of only 8 feet (2.5 meters). Construction of a sea wall around the capital, Male, was driven by vulnerability to the rising tides.
• The ocean’s circulation system, known as the ocean conveyor belt, moderates global temperatures by moving tropical heat around the planet. Global warming could alter the balance of this system, via an influx of freshwater from melting ice caps for example, creating unforeseen and possibly fast-paced change.
Climate models suggest that global warming could cause more frequent extreme weather conditions. Intense hurricanes and storm surges could threaten coastal communities, while heat waves, fires and drought could also become more common.
• Since the 1860s, increased industrialization and shrinking forests have helped raise the atmosphere’s CO2 level by almost 100 parts per million—and Northern Hemisphere temperatures have followed suit. Increases in temperatures and greenhouse gasses have been even sharper since the 1950s.
Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide also contain heat and help keep Earth’s temperate climate balanced in the cold void of space. Human activities, burning fossil fuels and clearing forests, have greatly increased concentrations by producing these gases faster than plants and oceans can soak them up. The gases linger in the atmosphere for years, meaning that even a complete halt in emissions would not immediately stop the warming trend they promote.
• In the Arctic the impacts of a warming climate are being felt already. Coastal Indigenous communities report shorter periods of sea ice, which fails to temper ocean storms and their destructive coastal erosion. Increased snow and ice melt have caused higher rivers while thawing permafrost has wreaked havoc with roads and other infrastructure. Some communities have had to move from historic coastline locations.
Sea ice loss is devastating for species that have adapted to the environment, such as polar bears and ringed seals in the Arctic and Antarctic penguins.
• Studies show that many European plants now flower a week earlier than they did in the 1950s and also lose their leaves 5 days later.
Biologists report that many birds and frogs are breeding earlier in the season. An analysis of 35 nonmigratory butterfly species showed that two-thirds now range 2 to 150 miles (3.5 to 240 kilometers) farther north than they did a few decades ago.
• By 2050, rising temperatures exacerbated by human-induced belches of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could send more than a million of Earth’s land-dwelling plants and animals down the road to extinction, according to a recent study.
• Coral reefs worldwide are “bleaching”. losing key algae and resident organisms, as water temperatures rise above 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29.5 degrees Celsius) through periods of calm, sunny weather. Scientists worry that rapid climate change could inhibit the ability of many species to adapt within complex and interdependent ecosystems.
• The effects of a warming globe may not be entirely negative. Heating costs could decline for those in colder climates, while vast marginal agricultural areas in northern latitudes might become more viable. Arctic shipping and resource extraction operations could also benefit—summer sea ice breakup in Hudson Bay already occurs two to three weeks earlier than it did half a century ago.
But many species could be hit hard—including humans. The most vulnerable are peoples living in the far North, those perched along the world’s coasts, and millions dependent on subsistence agriculture subject to the vagaries of a changing climate.
MYTH: Even if global warming is a problem, addressing it will hurt Canadian industry and workers.
FACT: A well designed trading program will harness Canadian ingenuity to decrease heat-trapping pollution cost-effectively, jumpstarting a new carbon economy.
MYTH: Water vapor is the most important, abundant greenhouse gas. So if we’re going to control a greenhouse gas, why don’t we control it instead of carbon dioxide (CO2)?
FACT: Although water vapor traps more heat than CO2, because of the relationships among CO2, water vapor and climate, to fight global warming nations must focus on controlling CO2.
MYTH: Global warming and extra CO2 will actually be beneficial — they reduce cold-related deaths and stimulate crop growth.
FACT: Any beneficial effects will be far outweighed by damage and disruption.
MYTH: Global warming is just part of a natural cycle. The Arctic has warmed up in the past.
FACT: The global warming we are experiencing is not natural. People are causing it.
MYTH: We can adapt to climate change — civilization has survived droughts and temperature shifts before.
FACT: Although humans as a whole have survived the vagaries of drought, stretches of warmth and cold and more, entire societies have collapsed from dramatic climatic shifts.
MYTH: Recent cold winters and cool summers don’t feel like global warming to me.
FACT: While different pockets of the country have experienced some cold winters here and there, the overall trend is warmer winters.
MYTH: Global warming can’t be happening because some glaciers and ice sheets are growing, not shrinking.
FACT: In most parts of the world, the retreat of glaciers has been dramatic. The best available scientific data indicate that Greenland’s massive ice sheet is shrinking.
MYTH: Accurate weather predictions a few days in advance are hard to come by. Why on earth should we have confidence in climate projections decades from now?
FACT: Climate prediction is fundamentally different from weather prediction, just as climate is different from weather.
It is often more difficult to make an accurate weather forecast than a climate prediction. The accuracy of weather forecasting is critically dependent upon being able to exactly and comprehensively characterize the present state of the global atmosphere. Climate prediction relies on other, longer ranging factors. For instance, we might not know if it will be below freezing on a specific December day in New England, but we know from our understanding of the region’s climate that the temperatures during the month will generally be low. Similarly, climate tells us that Seattle and London tend to be rainy, Florida and southern California are usually warm, and the Southwest is often dry and hot.
Today’s climate models can now reproduce the observed global average climates over the past century and beyond. Such findings have reinforced scientist’s confidence in the capacity of models to produce reliable projections of future climate. Current climate assessments typically consider the results from a range of models and scenarios for future heat-trapping emissions in order to identify the most likely range for future climatic change.
MYTH: As the ozone hole shrinks, global warming will no longer be a problem.
FACT: Global warming and the ozone hole are two different problems.
The ozone hole is a thinning of the stratosphere’s ozone layer, which is roughly 9 to 31 miles above the earth’s surface. The depletion of the ozone is due to man-made chemicals like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). A thinner ozone layer lets more harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation to reach the earth’s surface.
Global warming, on the other hand, is the increase in the earth’s average temperature due to the buildup of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from human activities.
Some facts for you to digest as our world implodes around us from a lack of caring and action on the part of our government(?)
John Baird is not the man to save Canada. Elizabeth May and Stephane Dion are the people we need to bring dramatic and long lasting solutions to our predicament .
Please elect the Liberals as a majority with the ‘Greens’ in opposition .
This is the only way Canada will survive this global catastrophe .
By Rob W on 04.20.07 9:30 am
I agree with ya there Rob.Ethanol,will erode much of what poorer countries depend on for food.Also it will produce cleaner air which will only enhance global warming.Dirty air which adds to health problems also slows down the warming of the planet.
Someone else mentioned ‘PEAK OIL’.This is oil that is easy to get at.And the supply is running out.The cost of getting to the other oil is much more expensive and it’s gonna cost more to use it.
Dick Cheney knows all about peak oil.
If ya cross reference peak oil with 9/11
ya might find out who the real commander in chief was on that Sept. Morning that changed the world as we knew it.Clue:It wasn’t GWB.He was reading story books somewhere in Texas.
Oh, and I agree: ethanol looks great until you dig a little deeper. Then it starts to stink.
Our first clue should have been those annoying CRFA ethanol ads that make such a point of thanking PMSH. Gee, I wonder why?
Just read online that Dr. David Suzuki, our Canadian environmental guru, is going to be meeting with Minister Baird. Do you think they’ll be talking about the environment? In their first meeting this past January Mr. Baird told Dr. Suzuki that he was not a member of the flat Earth society! Ha!! Should be interesting.
“The Conservative support base cares more about jobs than drowning polar bears?”
What do you know about “drowning polar bears.” This is an absolute myth.
You obviously are repeating something that you have heard that is without credence.
I personally know many of the people who live in the communities of Nunavut, including the High Arctic. The people who actually live in these communities tell us that the polar bears have never been so plentiful.
The traditional people who live in these communities year round actually know more about polar bears than the so-called “experts” who come up for a week or so at a time, and base their conclusions on their limited observation.
This misinformation is just too obvious. I must ask the perpetrators of this myth what sort of evidence that they are going to give based on long-term observation (of more than 30 years) which can give credence to the notion that the polar bear population is declining.
In point of fact, Nunavut ‘s polar bear hunting quotas were raised 28 percent in January of 2005 in response to growing polar bear populations.
Um – while we enjoying a much delayed nice day (notice how little sun we had all winter) Edmonton is having a terrible snow storm – power outages and all.
Another denior – John Howard, neo-con MP of Australia and a man worshiped by Harper is facing the worst draughts in Australian history.
Baird – a man of good decisions. Uh huh. Remember he arranged for a pregnant woman to remain housebound as punishment for welfare fraud – the woman died during a heat wave – way to go Baird.
Unfortunately, other provinces don’t have a clue how bad Huey, Dewey and Louie (Baird/Flaherty/Clements) were during the Harris government tenure.
God help us.
So Foreman and Hogan are here .
Time to hit the snooze button .
Zzzzzzzzzzz ! – JCLH
Funny. I thought you’re always asleep. At least, you’re always dreaming.
Hi Garth et al: I think it’s critical that the Liberals start including a strong economic message in with the environmental one.
I am sure that when the Liberal leadership race first got started last year, that I heard Dion say the economy was foremost in his mind, and that all other issues were connected.
I have no doubt that there is a plan ready to be unveiled for the election, but I think the messaging needs to start now — yes, the Cons are fear mongering, and don’t want to act. I don’t actually understand why (or why not) but it may be, as Elizabeth May suggested, because Steve Harper doesn’t really believe or understand the science.
I respect and admire Mr Dion, and he has my support (just hoping the Libs don’t run a turkey in my riding because Liberals are scarce in SK, and a couple of elections ago, I was expected to vote for Tony Merchant, and that’s kind of hard…
Even so, I will hold my nose and vote, but I’d rather see a Liberal candidate who I can feel comfortable enough with to help with the campaign.
He was reading story books somewhere in Texas.
By Ted Browne on 04.20.07 11:31 am
So that’s his stratage[r]y now! I saw him playing golf-frizbee with Condi while admonishing a media type about confusing the issue with ‘FACTS.’
Anybody hear whether Condi will get a raise based on Wolfowicz’s girlfriend getting more than $186K tax free? Kinda gives a whole ‘new’ as in government spin to abuse of power.
Sorry to bust your bubble on ethanol but Prudue University has made a breakthough in biofuel research. So plse stop making poor assumption if ethanol or biofuels are bad .
Iogen has can make biofuels from straw
http://www.iogen.ca
Their are alot of companies in solar technology which has improved the amount of electricity from a silcon chip though a sypherical design (ATA automation) — Most environmentalists still think that solar panels are still bulky. In fact solar cells can be installed into roof shingles
Cars can run on super polymer density batteries — (electrovayla)
Electrovaya’s Breakthrough Zero-Emission Transportation
• Powered by the award-winning lithium ion SuperPolymer® battery
• Up to 230 mile / 360 km range
• Lightweight, with excellent handling and acceleration
• Proprietary lithium battery,-five times the energy density of lead acid batteries at less than one-third of the weight.
• Unique battery design allows for hill climbing, and cold weather operation.
• Top speed (regulated) of 140 kph / 80 mph
• The pure battery ZEV features very low maintenance costs and operating costs at less than cent per kilometer.
Biofuel breakthough
global-warming.accuweather.com/2007/03/huge_biofuel_breakthrough.html – 119k
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/06/07/biofuel.vision/index.html
By Nike Nichols on 04.20.07 11:42 am
Nichols member in good standing of the ‘Flat Earth Society ‘
Chris Ariens ,
So are you saying you support the report findings? I’m not sure why you are dissing the government if the report’s findings are legit.
Drownings in Alaska
Stirling sees the Hudson Bay population as part of a larger picture of Arctic climate change. Beaufort Sea bears, for example, including the four drowned bears recently found off the coast of Alaska, are also feeling the effects of warmer temperatures.
“There’s a direct relationship between the date of the ice break-up and survival.â€
- Dr. Ian Stirling
The scientist explains that the minimum ice-to-land distance used to be about 100 kilometers (60 miles). “Now it’s 200 to 300 kilometers,” he says. “Swimming 100 miles is not a big deal for a polar bear, especially a fat one. They just kind of float along and kick. But as the ice gets farther out from shore, it’s a longer swim that costs more energy.
“The distance also leaves the bears more vulnerable. When there’s a lot more water, there’s a lot more fetch [surface area] for a storm to build up with big waves and rollers. The point is that the bears were out there in a big storm and what we saw is what we predicted would happen.”
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Just popped by to see what new comments have been made worthy of comment. I see two that have actually addressed the ‘disease’ causing the problems. Kudos to to those two commenters.
As to petrol prices, here are a couple of things to think about, and maybe be thankful for, maybe not!
In 1998 I travelled to Germany for Christmas with my son, who was stationed there. Petrol was $1.15 per litre there. Petrol in the NWT’s capitol was $0.79 per litre at the same time. Petrol in Edmonton was $0.459 per litre.
A driver’s license in Germany costs about $3,500 Deutsch Marks, which at that time was equal to $0.976 cents Canadian. The Euro has increased in value so people are paying even more now I would suppose.
How many people would pay that for a license to drive? Not many I think, they would take public transportation instead.
Anyway, see you when I do, maybe later today, maybe tomorrow afternoon, maybe Sunday! The one thing I know is nothing will actually get done by this government, and they will not listen to the people.
What will you do Canadians?
The conservatives don’t really care about the environment. Their climate plan consists of doing the absolute minimum they think they can get away with and is far less than we actually need.
However, the Conservatives are right about one thing, we can’t reach Kyoto, at least not without bearing an economic cost that I doubt the other parties are willing to bear. Simply saying that you’ll achieve Kyoto and putting that in a bill doesn’t make it true anymore than signing the treaty did. Now given a few more years (not nearly as many as the conservatives plan) and only a moderate about of pain we can meet and exceed the Kyoto targets. Unfortunately the opposition parties insistence that they can reach Kyoto without serious economic concequences makes me doubt that they care about the environment much more than the conservatives.
If the other parties really cared about the environment they had a chance to do something about it. They had control of the environmental bill in the comitte and they could have inserted some good strong environmental policy that was still platable to the conservatives. Instead they deliberatly ensured the conservatives would make sure the bill would never pass by inserting the Kyoto obligation. Thus they sacrified the environment for political gain and made sure we still don’t have any environmental legislation on the way.
As per usual Nichols is clueless and doesn’t know what he is talking about .
Doesn’t know his ass from his elbow .
The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) Report—the most comprehensive regional climate change assessment ever undertaken—was released on November 9, 2004. It was presented on that day to the ACIA International Scientific Symposium on climate change in the Arctic in Reykjavik, Iceland. The report is the outcome of a four-year international project led by the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) and the Arctic Council, an organization that includes European and North American nations bordering the polar region, as well as representatives of indigenous peoples.
Off Site Resources
The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) Report
ACIA International Scientific Symposium
International Arctic Science Committee
There is a more indepth list of off site links relating to the ACIA in our environment links section.
The findings from this report outline what Inuit have known for decades: that the climate and environment in the Arctic is changing at an alarming rate and that communities and the Inuit way of life will be inevitably severely affected.
The Arctic climate is changing at a rate almost twice as fast as that experienced in the lower latitudes. The key message of the ACIA is that climate change is, above all else, a human and cultural issue. The report predicts that “For Inuit, warming is likely to disrupt or even destroy their hunting and food sharing culture as reduced sea-ice causes the animals on which they depend to decline, become less accessible or possibly go extinct.â€
The conclusions of the ACIA are very worrisome with the projection of Arctic sea-ice in summer to virtually disappear by the middle to the end of the century. The ACIA summary volume concludes, “Marine species dependent on sea-ice including polar bears, ice living seals, walrus, and some marine birds are very likely to decline, with some facing extinction.â€
The assessment concludes that relocation of coastal villages, threats to food security and traditional lifestyles and damage to infrastructure due to thawing permafrost and coastal erosion will cause substantial social impacts. Certainly the survival of Inuit as a hunting culture is at stake raising important questions on the communal, national and international levels.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time Inuit have to deal with bad news concerning the state of our source of living, or our environment. Inuit have dealt with serious environmental impacts, namely the contamination of our food sources by persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
Inuit have learned that taking action early can have an impact on international negotiations. Through the International Circumpolar Conference (ICC), Inuit have worked hard and were active participants in Canadian and circumpolar programs that convinced Arctic states of the need for action. The result was the establishment of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.
Inuit are willing to take action and work hard on yet another challenge. With similar commitment, we will work with the world to face yet another global environmental health threat. We will use our experience on other issues like persistent organic pollutants (POPs) to move forward.
The assessment’s findings undoubtedly signal that we can no longer afford to wait. We need to act now, as changes have already taken place. We must act at home, nationally and internationally, at all three fronts simultaneously.
In the future, ITK and ICC will be lobbying very hard on the national and international level, as we have been doing so far. Specifically at the national level, we will be working at encouraging the federal government to establish significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and to announce a Northern Climate Change Programme. On the international front, we believe Canada should encourage other countries to emulate these efforts with a focus on the post-Kyoto commitment period under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
In reaction to the release of the ACIA Report, ITK released a press kit on the ACIA that included a press release, a backgrounder, a Question & Answer document and an opinion-editorial. The press release with backgrounder on the ACIA was issued on Monday, November 8, 2004. A letter to the Prime Minister was also sent on November 8, 2004.
Well, I suggest a good read today is on blogger “Cerberus”.
Lorraine – it is well known that Dalton McGuinty and John Baird are arch rivals. McGuinty closed down one plant already and it was promised by Paul Martin to help fund the closing of the others and then, well guess what. The Liberals were brought down. During the campaign Harper promised to honour that funding. Now 1-1/2 years later he comes across with it? Why not as promised – the money was there.
MR. BAIRD OCCUPIES A POSITION OF TRUST
That is what scares me. Read on.
http://www.now.carleton.ca/2007-2/1508.htm
“In the Arctic the impacts of a warming climate are being felt already. Coastal Indigenous communities report shorter periods of sea ice, which fails to temper ocean storms and their destructive coastal erosion. Increased snow and ice melt have caused higher rivers while thawing permafrost has wreaked havoc with roads and other infrastructure.”
First of all, except for a 20 mile stretch between Nanisivik and Arctic Bay in the northern part of Baffin Island, there are no roads or highways in Nunavut or in Nunavik (northern Quebec).
The other thinag that the prophets of gloom and doom are not mentioning is that there are a greater variety of plants, as well as larger plants growing in Nunavut now than ever before.
The berry crops this past year have never been so plentiful, or in such diversity, and in such large size. The cranberries in Rankin Inlet this past year, for example, have never been of such a huge size and number. This has been a blessing for the Inuit.
Up in Axel Heiberg on Ellesmere Island, they are starting to discover that what was at one time to believed to be a petrified forest of many eons ago, that some of these trees are still alive, and that trees may once again grow in the Arctic.
I simply mention this to say that it is not all doom and gloom.
The former Liberal government was all set to pass a law a couple of years ago to greatly restrict the Inuit in their hunting of the peary caribou, the staff of life for the Inuit.
Nathaniel Kulluk, a hunter from Resolute Bay in the High Arctic has told me personally that the peary caribou are coming back in abundance. Last year, every caribou mother had at least one, and some two or three calves. This is very unusual.
This is all to say that we need to be cautious in making long-term predictions. I am NOT saying that there is nothing to global warming, but I am saying we need to be careful about all of the spins that these prophets of doom and gloom, and fear-mongers are trying to put on to it.
The traditional people who live on the land know a lot more about the cycles of nature than the limited viewpoints of those “experts” who are basing their fears and predictions of gloom on a limited observation that does not understand the knowledge of those who have lived on the land with their ancestors for millennia.
JCLH,
Isn’t there an unwritten quota post length here?
Yo, help me out decifer Pyotr- Petro dude? I can’t make heads or tails of his/her posts and he quotes me improperly- I hate that! Slice & dice pls?
Billybob- How’s the dock this fine day? Any ice left?
As a religion, bilingualism is the god that failed. It has led to no fairness, produced no unity, and cost Canadian taxpayers untold millions.
Words of Stephen Harper
By PJW on 04.20.07 10:01 am
Right on! I agree 100%. Untold is right, because when asked, the Liberals couldn’t state how much money is spent on this beast.
People also should know that coal with clean coal technology can reduce emissions less then Natural gas power plants
Tom Adams, executive director of think-tank Energy Probe, says next-generation nuclear technology being proposed by Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. is untested, unproven and carries the same cost-overrun risks as clean coal. The only difference, he points out, is that the poor track record of nuclear in this province is already known.
On the other hand, he says, Shell and General Electric Co. seem prepared to offer comprehensive guarantees on their clean-coal “gasification” technologies, something the province appears unwilling to recognize.
“The McGuinty government talks about how there’s all this risk, but they’re not prepared to take the same risk by going to cleaner coal,” he says. “That just shows they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
EU wants to speed up zero-emission coal technology (12 October 2006) … and ecological point of view, natural gas is far more interesting than coal, …
http://www.euractiv.com/en/energy/coal-clean-energy-source-future/article-156397 – 52k
Canada has three companies that can be used in clean coal process
1) Thermal energy (TMG-T)
2) HTC (HTC-t) and
3) MARSULEX INC. MLX-t
THERMAL ENERGY INTERNATIONAL INC. develops and provides energy and emission reduction solutions for industrial, commercial and institutional applications
HTC HYDROGEN TECHNOLOGIES CORP. is engaged in the development of cost effective production of hydrogen and CO2 capture technologies.Thecompany operates under the name HTC Purenergy.
MARSULEX INC. is an industrial services company with a focus on outsourced environmental compliance services.
Who wants to bet Garth is full throttle on the escarpment at this very moment?
If not he should be.
Well, since neo-lib Jackie is allowed to produce a long-winded argument.
This is a long article but read it.
The debate over global warming is important because implementation of the Kyoto Protocol would have significant negative effects on American workers and consumers. In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the United States government would need to adopt policies that would raise energy costs by the equivalent of $0.60 per gallon of gasoline or more. Higher energy costs, in turn, would result in substantially higher prices paid by consumers for electricity and home heating oil, some 2.4 million lost jobs, and lost income averaging $2,700 per year for the typical American family.
The cost of the Kyoto Protocol might be worth bearing if we knew three things for sure: (1) that man-made greenhouse gases are truly causing global warming; (2) that global warming is or will be bad for the natural environment and for human civilization; and (3) that the emission reduction schedule that is contained in the Kyoto Protocol is the best or most effective way to stop the threatened global warming from occurring. It is the contention of this author that all three necessary conditions for accepting the treaty are either false or we currently lack sufficient knowledge to know whether they are true.
The discussion that follows has the goal of imparting a basic understanding of the issues related to global warming. Believe it or not, it is possible for a person who is not trained in physics or climatology to reach an informed opinion about the science behind the global warming debate. On issues where the science is too complicated or the jargon too dense, there are reliable sources to turn to for an objective and informed opinion.
Seven Things You Should Know
About Global Warming
1. Most scientists do not believe human activities threaten to disrupt the Earth’s climate.
Over 17,000 scientists have signed a petition saying, in part, “there is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.” The petition is being circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, an independent research organization that receives no funding from industry. Among the signers of the petition are over 2,100 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, and environmental scientists who are especially well-qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on the Earth’s atmosphere. Another 4,400 signers are scientists qualified to comment on carbon dioxide’s effects on plant and animal life. Nearly all of the signers have some sort of advanced technical training. The qualifications of the signers of the Oregon Institute Petition are dramatically better than the qualifications of the 2,600 “scientists” who have signed a competing petition, circulated by Ozone Action, calling for immediate action to counter global warming. An investigation by Citizens for a Sound Economy found that more than 90 percent of that petition’s signers lacked credentials to speak with authority on the issue. The entire list included just one climatologist. Over one hundred climate scientists signed the 1996 Leipzig Declaration, which stated in part, “there does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of carbon dioxide. On the contrary, most scientists now accept the fact that actual observations from Earth satellites show no climate warming whatsoever.” A survey of 36 state climatologists–scientists retained by state governments to monitor and research climate issues–conducted in September and October 1997 found that 58 percent disagreed with the statement, “global warming is for real,” while only 36 percent agreed. A remarkable 89 percent agreed that “current science is unable to isolate and measure variations in global temperatures caused only by man-made factors.”
The same survey found that none of the climatologists strongly agreed, and only 11 percent “somewhat agreed,” with the following statement: “Reducing anthropogenic or man-made carbon dioxide emissions among developed nations such as the United States to 1990 levels will prevent global temperatures from rising.” Eighty-six percent disagreed with the statement. Global warming alarmists have sought to silence their critics by calling them a small group of industry-funded dissenters from the “scientific consensus.” The Oregon Institute Petition, the Leipzig Declaration, and the survey of practicing climatologists prove these claims are false. We should keep in mind, however, that scientific truths are not found by polling scientists, but through rigorous debate recorded in peer-reviewed journals. As the following points show, global warming skeptics can win that debate, too.
2. The most reliable temperature data show no global warming trend.
It is an article of faith among those who warn of catastrophic global warming that temperatures are already rising. They point to surface-based measurements produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to declare 1997 the warmest year on record. But U.S. weather satellites and radiosonde (weather) balloons rank 1997 as the seventh coolest year since satellite measurements began in 1978. The actual balloon and satellite record, provided by NASA, is shown on the following page. Which record is more reliable? Modern surface-based temperature records began in 1880. Although useful for compiling regional data, such measurements are too few in number and too unevenly spaced to generate global temperature maps that are useful. Only 30 percent of the world’s surface is land, so land-based temperature measurements account for less than one-third of the Earth’s climate. Arctic and oceanic temperatures are under-represented. Data collected outside of the United States and Europe are poorly distributed. Urban stations, which are influenced by city heat anomalies, are over-represented; deserts, mountains, and forests are under-represented. The result is a set of measurements that understate some global trends and overstate others. The global temperature record produced from satellite data has none of the problems faced by surface-based thermometers. Orbiting satellites cover 99 percent of the Earth’s surface, not less than a third, and measure a layer of the troposphere that is unaffected by urban heat islands. Moreover, satellite data agree almost exactly with those recorded by weather balloons, even though the latter use different technology. While the satellite record extends back only to 1979, weather balloon data go back 38 years to 1960. “A look at the trends in the satellite data–our only truly global record of lower atmosphere temperature–is remarkably revealing,” said Virginia State Climatologist Dr. Patrick J. Michaels in testimony before Congress. “There is a statistically significant global cooling trend over the entire 18.8 year period.” After Michaels testified, El Niño (a recurring weather phenomenon not caused by global warming) raised global temperatures in 1997 and 1998, so the 19-year record now shows neither a warming nor a cooling trend.
Dr. Roy Spencer, a meteorologist and team leader of the NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, says “the temperatures we measure from space are actually on a very slight downward trend since 1979 . . . the trend is about 0.05 degrees Celsius per decade cooling.”
Dr. Vincent Gray, a New Zealand scientist and member of the peer review board of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, writes: “There is no evidence of a global warming trend over the past 37 years if the radiosonde [weather balloon] measurements are considered, or over 18 years if the satellite measurements only are considered.”
Dr. Robert Balling, Director of the Office of Climatology at Arizona State University, summarizes the temperature data of the past two decades as follows: “The trend is statistically significant, and it’s downward. . . . Two of the three methods we use to measure planetary temperature show cooling, and one shows nothing at all. …”
It is sometimes argued that satellites measure temperatures too far above the surface to be said to contradict the record of surface-based weather stations. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change strongly rejected this notion in its 1990 report: “It is not the change in thermal infrared flux at the surface that determines the strength of the greenhouse warming. The surface, planetary boundary layer and the free troposphere are tightly coupled via air motions on a wide range of scales, so that in a global-mean sense they must be considered as a single thermodynamic system. As a result, it is the change in the radiative flux at the tropopause, and not the surface, that expresses the radiative forcing of climate system.”
3. General circulation models are too crude to predict future climate changes.
Predictions that rising concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause global climate change are based on general circulation models (GCMs), complex computer programs that attempt to simulate the Earth’s atmosphere. GCMs were created to help scientists learn more about atmospheric physics, not to predict future climates. When put to such an unintended use, they are unreliable. For example:
GCMs are unable to replicate past climate trends. While global temperatures have risen between 0.3 and 0.6 degrees Celsius over the past one hundred years, computer models predict that global temperatures should have gone up between 0.7 and 1.4 degrees by 1990. The two ranges do not even overlap. The ability to explain historical data is a critical test for any theory or computer model. GCMs flunk that test.
GCMs use “fudge factors” that are larger than the variables they are supposed to be measuring. In order to get their models to produce predictions that are close to their designers’ expectations, modelers resort to “flux adjustments” that can be 25 times larger than the effect of doubling carbon dioxide concentrations. Dr. Richard Lindzen, a meteorologist at MIT, notes that “one cannot even calculate the temperature of the Earth without models that accurately reproduce the motions of the atmosphere,” yet “present models have large errors here–on the order of 50 percent.” Richard A. Kerr, a writer for Science, says “climate modelers have been ‘cheating’ for so long it’s almost become respectable.”
GCMs inaccurately model the effects of clouds. Most climate models assume that clouds absorb roughly 3 percent of the sun’s radiation, but more recent estimates, published in Science in 1995, indicate that the absorption rate may be closer to 19 percent. This means past predictions were based on data that “were off by more than 600 percent.”
GCMs do not take into account fluctuations in solar energy. Scientists can only estimate the amount of solar energy that enters the Earth’s atmosphere (an amount called the “solar constant”) as well as the amount of sunlight reflected back into space by the Earth’s surface and atmosphere (called the “reflectivity of the Earth”). Estimates for these values vary considerably over time, and some experts believe natural variations are closely related to changes in climate.
GCMs are only as good as the data fed into them. The GCMs used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were programmed to assume an increase in greenhouse gas concentrations of 1 percent per year, even though the historical data show an annual increase of only 0.3 to 0.4 percent. Population growth and coal production figures were similarly exaggerated. After correcting for these and other errors, Dr. Vincent Gray concludes “we can expect the maximum temperature rise between 1900 and 2100 to be 1C.” (Emphasis in the original.) Other scientists report similar results when the GCMs are run with accurate data.
General circulation models have become more complex over time, but this doesn’t mean they are becoming more accurate. Richard Kerr quotes an anonymous senior climate modeler as saying “the more you learn, the more you understand that you don’t understand very much.” Kerr reports that “most modelers now agree that the climate models will not be able to link greenhouse warming unambiguously to human actions for a decade or more.”
4. The IPCC did not prove that human activities are causing global warming.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created by the United Nations to act as a source of scientific advice on global warming. Its latest assessment, Climate Change 1995, predicts a global temperature increase of between 0.9 C and 3.5 C by the year 2100, with a “best estimate” of 2.0 C.
Climate Change 1995 is the source of perhaps the most often quoted sentence in the global warming debate: “[T]he balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on the global climate.” Upon this slender reed is hung the claim of a “scientific consensus” on the need to “stop global warming.” Yet, how meaningful is this sentence?
“Balance of evidence” is a phrase used by scientists when evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship is unavailable. It is an admission that genuine proof is not possible. The word “suggests” indicates that different people looking at the same data can disagree on their meaning. And “discernible” means detectible but by no means large or significant. It certainly does not mean “major,” “troubling,” or even “bad.”
Climate Change 1995 is controversial for a second reason: Many revisions to the report were made after peer review was completed. Dr. Frederick Seitz, president emeritus of Rockefeller University and past president of the National Academy of Sciences, has publicly denounced the published document, writing “I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the events that led to this IPCC report.” Dr. Vincent Gray has written that the final version of the IPCC report he saw as a reviewer did not claim to have found “a discernible human influence on the global climate,” but instead ended with the following words:
When will an anthropogenic effect on the climate be identified? The best answer is “we do not know.”
There is still more evidence that the scientists who wrote the IPCC report did not believe they had proven that man-made emissions were influencing the global climate. Dr. Benjamin Santer, the lead author of the science chapter of the IPCC report, coauthored an article on the same subject for a peer-reviewed scientific journal around the same time as the IPCC report was written. In that essay, Santer et al. say it is not possible to get the general circulation models to replicate the past climate record, and until this is resolved, “it will be hard to say, with confidence, that an anthropogenic climate signal has or has not been detected.”
Recent comments made by spokespersons for the IPCC also suggest concern that their findings are being misrepresented. Dr. Santer has said “It’s unfortunate that many people read the media hype before they read the chapter. … I think the caveats are there. We say quite clearly that few scientists would say the attribution issue was a done deal.” In a June 2, 1997 debate, IPCC chairman Dr. Bert Bolin said, “the climate issue is not ‘settled’; it is both uncertain and incomplete.”
5. A modest amount of global warming, should it occur, would be beneficial to the natural world and to human civilization.
Because so little is known about how the atmosphere functions, it is impossible to rule out the possibility that man-made greenhouse gases might cause some amount of warming (or cooling). Would some degree of warming be bad for most societies and natural environments? Probably not.
“During the 20th century,” writes Dr. Patrick Michaels, “we have already proceeded more than half way to doubling the natural carbon dioxide greenhouse effect. Here is what resulted: Life expectancy doubled in the free and developed world. The developing world is catching up as their emissions rise. Corn production per acre increased five-fold. The growing season in the coldest latitudes increased slightly, but enough to increase greenness by 10 percent.”
The small amount of warming that occurred during the past century consisted primarily of increased minimum temperatures at night and during winters. This means higher average temperatures, should they occur, would not result in more daytime evaporation, which some claim would lead to droughts and desertification. Warmer winters would mean longer growing seasons and less stress on most plants and wildlife, a substantial benefit for the global ecosystem. Finally, past warming has been accompanied by increased cloudiness, a phenomenon also predicted by most global climate models. This means a warmer world would probably be a wetter world, which once again is beneficial to most plant and animal life.
Not everyone believes a warmer world would be benign. In his 1993 book, Earth in the Balance, Vice President Al Gore claimed that “the climate changes that we are now bringing about by modifying the global atmosphere are likely to dwarf completely the ones that caused the great subsistence crisis of 1816-19, for example, or those that set the stage for the Black Death. … [H]undreds of millions of people may well become even more susceptible to the spread of diseases when populations of pests, germs, and viruses migrate with the changing climate patterns.”
Later in his book, Gore warns, “every coastal country will suffer adverse effects” from rising sea levels caused by melting polar ice. Gore and others also claim that global warming will cause more floods, more droughts, more “torrential” rainfalls, and heavier snowfall.
Gore’s claims are at odds with much scientific research. The bacterium responsible for the epidemic episode called the Black Death was transmitted by rats, which flourish in cool as well as warm climates. Cholera, another disease mentioned as a potential threat, is readily brought under control by treating water supplies with chlorine. Like most other bacteria-based diseases, the problem is not a difference in average temperatures of one or two degrees, but a lack of sanitary living conditions, food, and water.
The latest research suggests that sea levels would decline, not rise, if temperatures rise, due to increased evaporation from the oceans and subsequent precipitation. Increasing polar temperatures by a few degrees would not cause ice or snow to melt because the original temperatures are so low the new temperatures would still be well below freezing. However, the slightly warmer air would be able to retain more moisture, meaning more snowfall in polar regions and more, not less, water locked up in snow and ice.
“Torrential” rainfalls turn out to be any rainfall of 2 inches or more in a 24-hour period, something every farmer knows would likely be a blessing rather than a curse. The number and intensity of hurricanes occurring in the Atlantic (the ocean basin with the highest quality data) has steadily fallen since aircraft reconnaissance began in 1944. The IPCC itself found “no evidence that extreme weather events, or climate variability, has increased, in a global sense, through the 20th century,” noting that some regions exhibit greater variability and others less.
In short, a slightly warmer world would probably be greener and a little cloudier than our world today, but otherwise not much different. As Dr. Patrick Michaels asked members of Congress during his 1997 testimony, “How much of the money of the citizens of this nation are you willing to spend to stop this? How much to stop a slight amelioration of the coldest temperatures, in the air-masses most inhospitable to unprotected life? How much to stop making the Earth greener, more productive, and human life increasingly long over the mass of the planet that still finds us the envy of history?”
6. Quickly reducing our greenhouse gas emissions would be costly and would not stop global warming.
Attempting to reduce emissions quickly requires retiring existing capital stock (tools, equipment, machinery) before the end of its useful life. Forcing more rapid technological change is possible, but it is costly. The cost to only one country–the United States–of reducing and stabilizing only one greenhouse gas–CO2 –to 93 percent of 1990 levels ranges from 2.4 million to 3.1 million jobs lost and an annual reduction in gross domestic product of between $177 billion and $318 billion. Alone, this would be a staggering cost. But it is only a fraction of the amount the entire world would have to spend each year to implement the Kyoto Protocol.
Another cost of the Kyoto Protocol is more difficult to quantify but no less real. Virtually all economic activities, and many purely recreational or consumptive activities, involve the use of energy and consequently the release of greenhouse gases. A treaty that proposes to limit greenhouse gases therefore is a license for governments to monitor, tax, regulate, or ban virtually any activity. That this is an international treaty giving vague enforcement powers to a new United Nations bureaucracy is especially disturbing. “It would be the first time in history,” said Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), “that an American President has allowed foreign interests to control and limit the growth of the U.S. economy.”
For all this pain, there would be little gain. “Actions by the industrial countries alone,” says Eugene Trisko, a spokesperson for the United Mine Workers of America, “cannot achieve any of the target [greenhouse gas] concentrations that are now frequently discussed within the scientific community … [I]n order to approach those targets, emissions from the industrial countries have to go below zero. We have to more than disappear from the map to achieve any of them.”
Tom Wigley, a climate researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), says “a short-term target and timetable, like that adopted at Kyoto, avoids the issue of stabilizing concentrations entirely.” Similarly, Jerry Mahlman, director of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University, believes “it might take another thirty Kyotos over the next century” to slow down or stop global warming.
Bert Bolin, Chairman of the IPCC, admitted in 1994 that the Kyoto Protocol would not stop global warming. In an address to the Conference of Parties in Geneva, he said: “Preliminary estimates using the central IPCC 92 scenario suggest that stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions at 1990 levels through 2100 by all Annex I [i.e., developed] countries would reduce annual emissions in 2100 by less than 15 percent and cumulative emissions by less than 10 percent.”
Dr. Michaels recently computed the “temperature saving” if the entire world reduced greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels by 2010. (So long as developing countries refuse to limit their emissions, there is simply no way this could happen.) Using the NCAR model and the latest IPCC estimates of CO2 increase rates, he finds the global temperature increase would be just 0.18 C less than baseline in 2040, a mere 7 percent of the IPCC’s “best estimate” temperature increase.
7. The best strategy to pursue is one of “no regrets.”
Some environmentalists call for a “save-the-day” strategy to “stop global warming,” saying it is better to be safe than sorry. Such a position seems logical until we stop to think: Immediate action wouldn’t make us any safer, but it would surely make us poorer. And being poorer would make us less safe.
Researchers have found a close relationship between a nation’s standard of living (its wealth) and many measures of public health and safety. Wealthier societies are able to invest more in things that ensure safety, such as guardrails on highways, vaccines against diseases, and safe drinking water. Simply put, wealthier is healthier.
The “save-the-day” strategy will definitely make us poorer, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars each year. If that money is no longer available to purchase safety-enhancing devices, plainly we will be less safe as a result of our efforts to “stop global warming.” We would, moreover, be depriving our children and grandchildren of the capital and new technologies that would enable them to live better lives than we did.
CO2 stays in the atmosphere for decades, meaning each year’s emissions are only a small percentage of the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Consequently, immediate large reductions in emissions have relatively small effects on concentrations of greenhouse gases. Whether emission reductions occur now or thirty years from now, they will have the same overall impact. If it proves necessary to make reductions, the cost of making reductions later, after new technologies now under development become available commercially and after current capital stock has come up for replacement, is likely to be much less than the cost of making reductions today. The best strategy is to invest in atmospheric research to determine whether a genuine threat exists, and to invest in reducing emissions only when such investments make economic sense in their own right. Reduced emissions, then, are an added benefit. This strategy is called “no regrets.” It positions us to respond quickly to bad news while avoiding the mistake of spending too much, too soon, preparing for a threat that never materializes. Some of the activities that would form part of a no-regrets strategy include:
Fund research on the effects of higher CO2 concentrations on plants and agriculture. Break the federal monopoly over global warming research, which currently has the effect of funding only those researchers who support the catastrophist view of global warming.
Lower capital gains taxes and make other changes to tax policies and regulations to encourage new investments in capital and technology, thereby speeding up the process of phasing out inefficient machinery.
Repeal regulations that stand in the way of energy efficiency, such as restrictions on operating small businesses at home, and zoning ordinances that lead to urban sprawl.60 Carefully target investments where they are needed to accommodate climate change. For example, higher sea levels, should they occur, could be addressed by modest improvements to dikes and seawalls in some areas, and by relocating homes and businesses in other areas. This cost–spread out over the course of a century–would surely be less than the cost of attempting to prevent climate change through energy taxes or emission caps. Replace “command and control” regulations, which tell businesses what they must do to reduce emissions, with flexible and incentive-based rules that allow the use of lowest-cost options. This would end the pure waste of billions of dollars a year, allowing some part of that savings to be invested in research or ways to accommodate climate change.
The alternative to the Kyoto Protocol is not to do nothing. The “no regrets” strategy is a comprehensive alternative that promises much superior results without the enormous social costs and losses of liberty that would accompany implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.
Good Link. Friends of Science
http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php
“The people who actually live in these communities tell us that the polar bears have never been so plentiful.”
Nike, could this be because they are walking down mainstreet and helping themselves to colas right out of the fridge cuz they can’t exactly walk up to a seal breathing hole when there is a lot less ice?
Why don’t you invite your knowledgable northern pals to post here for us and tell us all about the fat furry white critters.
Nike Nichols, thank you for putting some truth into this discussion. Makes you wonder what is behind all of this fear-mongering, is it control, power, money? What is it?
Implementing all immediate changes by 2008 to reach our Kyoto targets by 2012 as Baird’s report implies is fiscally irresponsible and very likely impossible.
That being said, we do not have to implement ALL immediate changes by 2008 in order to reach our Kyoto targets by 2012. The target is a four year average. We simply have to start building the infrastructure that will provide the momentum to reach our 2012 targets. This would be fiscally responsible and very possible.
Even if we do not meet our first round targets, we have the option to either buy credits, and/or have our targets inflated for the next round of Kyoto targets.
If gas prices have allready increased by about 100% in roughly five years, and our economy is still ticking along, then $1.60/ltr in 2012 sound like a deal!.
What also disturbs me is the reality of Alberta’s “Economic Prosperity”. The dilapidated roads, hospitals, schools, social programs, environment, etc. have all taken a back seat to the economy. If this is the ideological free market vision for Canada the Conservatives are selling, I’m not buying!
This setup to release “Hot Air Act – version 2.?” is very disappointing. The simplest indicator to reveal genuine Conservative concern for the Environment will be hard caps vs. intensity based caps.
Nike Nichols: oh…so you personally know a bunch of Polar Bears and they are doing fine, are they? Hmmm…then I guess you have not heard about the recent study by the Canadian Wildlife Service which showed that in the past 10 years the population of polar bears in the west coast of the Hudson Bay has decreased by 17% and that the average weight of polar bears has decreased by 15% over the past 30 years. Here’s just one link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/06/AR2005070601899.html
Furthermore, the U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
Open-File Report 2006-1337 on the population of Polar bears in the Beaufort Sea concluded that there has been a major decrease in the health of the polar bear population, due to global warming, here is the link:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2006/1337/
I fond several other scientific studies which say substantially the same thing – declining population and declining health.
I found this information after maybe 3 minutes of googling. How long have you been “talking with people in Nunavut and the High Arctic” (God, you neoCONs can’t even tell remotely convincing lies).
P.S. – AT LEAST HAVE THE CREATIVITY OF TELLING LIES THAT HAVE A REMOTE POSSIBILITY OF BEING TRUTHFUL.
What’s Mr. Bairds point? Europe have had gas prices double Canadian prices, in real terms, for decades. I don’t see their economy suffering because of it. – JAMES
Great! We have a volunteer. Your job will be the first to go when Kyoto is implemented.
Any more volunteers?
By ERIC FOREMAN on 04.20.07 8:48 am
Yeah Eric, you saucy buggar, I’ll offer up my job too! SOMEONE has to have the guts to say they will sacrifice something to help the environment that has sacrificed soooo much for us. Geez…
Only after the last river has been poisioned
Only after the last tree has been cut down
Only after the last fish is caught
Only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten.
-Cree Prophecy
I used to think that was just a quote; I’m beginning to belive it really is Prophecy.
The President of Lloyd’s of London insurance spoke at the Board of Trade in Vancouver and said the costs of not dealing with climate change will be astronomical, in fact, already are. Insurance companies have gone bankrupt in Florida. Look at the pine beetle infestation in BC now arriving in Alberta, BC salmon, now concerns about bee populations – it’s not just about honey – they are needed to cross polinate. Baird can preach doom and gloom but the reality is that the average cdn citizen is way ahead of politicians. They are only concerned about votes. BC is joining up with Oregon and California and starting to work on sustainability. Australia has banned plastic bags. The UK has Inconvenient Truth in every high school. It’s true Mr. Baird “it is an inconvenient truth” but we must act now if we care about the future of our children. Would someone speak to Baird’s mother and tell her to tell him it is rude to point.
The increase was based on faulty data .
This is the latest from 07′ .
Sheesh ! Quoting from something two years old .
You should be ashamed of yourself Nichols.
http://tinyurl.com/2rzp9r
I am in favour of the $195/tonne carbon tax, as long as it’s offset with personal income tax reductions. With an income tax cut, I’ll gladly pay $2 per litre for gas. It’s apparant we’re nearing or past peak oil, so $2/litre is inevitable in the short run even without any carbon taxes. We’ll be better off speeding up the process of shifting taxes towards consumption.
They interviewed a British climate scientist yesterday and he said the $195.00 price tag was wildly exaggerated.
His estimate was tens of dollars not hundreds .
And I think the real problem that we’re facing already is that the government doesn’t accept that it got a minority.
Words of Stephen Harper
It’s the government’s obligation to look really to the third parties to get the support to govern.
Words of Stephen Harper
OV,
Who wants to bet Garth is full throttle on the escarpment at this very moment?
If not he should be.
Spot on! No ice left BTW! Came in to get some ice for my cool drink actually!
I see some are going for the record post length here. Funny how links to sites, and pdf files are far better, cause no body is gonna sit and read all that!
Ya’ll have fun now, hear?
KPK – in response to your question – the report is mostly spin, and spreads fear about the short-term impact, while directly admitting that there are long- term economic gains to taking action.
I have to conclude from the statmeents here that next year’s economic growth is more important to this government than continued economic growth and sustainability 10, 20 or 50 years forward. That’s the real tragedy.
Lisa,
Worth repeating, and repeating again. Maybe it will sink in! There will be a White Eagle flying soon I think!
Only after the last river has been poisioned
Only after the last tree has been cut down
Only after the last fish is caught
Only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten.
-Cree Prophecy
I used to think that was just a quote; I’m beginning to belive it really is Prophecy.
Have a pleasant day and weekend!
No trees were killed in the transmission of this message but, several million electrons were inconvenienced.
Elias : Nichols et al are using outdated data to formulate their non-sensical arguements .
I call them :
“The deniers of the Global Holocaust ”
Nichols quoted from a study some 3,years old .
We know the truth .
I just wish those that accept lies and damned lies as the truth would do us all a favour and take a long walk off a short pier .They are a waste of perfectly good oxygen .
Lisa,
I forgot to say You make number three that has talked abou the ‘disease’, rather than the symptoms.
P.S. – AT LEAST HAVE THE CREATIVITY OF TELLING LIES THAT HAVE A REMOTE POSSIBILITY OF BEING TRUTHFUL.
By Elias on 04.20.07 1:28 pm
Hey, I find I’m a totally ok ‘dude’ wit’
dat! He must be a sociopath like all the rest of them. If Birdy-Bard gets his way, SNOW from Ottawa will persist until they are forced to exit. The only problem is, Harper’s Bizarre will not walk the short distance required to have the writ dropped.
Need ‘decifering’ anyone. Pyotr has a bad cold, out getting medicine fu cough.
From NASA . I am sure Hogan is a whole lot smarter than a whack of NASA scientists.
Just ask him .
Some travel agencies touting Arctic tours have been revving up their recent promotions to tourists about the increased likelihood they will spot polar bears in this region where several populations of polar bears live. According to scientists from NASA and the Canadian Wildlife Service, these increased Arctic polar bear sightings are probably related to retreating sea ice triggered by climate warming and not due to population increases as some may believe.
Image showing changes in sea ice that might be affecting polar bear populations in five regions. Image right: NASA has teamed with the Canadian Wildlife Service to examine how changes in sea ice might be affecting polar bear populations in five regions: Baffin Bay, Davis Strait, Foxe Basin, Western and Eastern Hudson Bay. Sea ice data for the following map come from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSMI) for June 2000. Credit: NASA/Canadian Wildlife Service
The new research suggests that progressively earlier breakup of the Arctic sea ice, stimulated by climate warming, shortens the spring hunting season for female polar bears in Western Hudson Bay and is likely responsible for the continuing fall in the average weight of these bears. As females become lighter, their ability to reproduce and the survival of their young decline. Also, as the bears become thinner, they are more likely to push into human settlements for food, giving the impression that the population is increasing. The study will be published this week in the September issue of the Journal Arctic.
Claire Parkinson, a scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., and Ian Stirling, a senior scientist with the Canadian Wildlife Service, Edmonton, Alberta, used NASA satellite observations captured from 1979 to 2004 to show the reduction in sea ice cover in several specific areas where there are known polar bear populations. In most of the areas studied, they found that ice break-up in these areas has been occurring progressively earlier.
“Our research strongly suggests that climate warming is having a significant and negative effect on a primary species reliant on the sea-ice cover for survival,” said Parkinson.
Photo of a polar bear Image left: Polar bear photograph courtesy of Robert Taylor
The researchers studied the sea ice in regions that are home to five different polar bear populations: western Hudson Bay, eastern Hudson Bay, Foxe Basin, Baffin Bay and Davis Strait-Labrador Sea. “Polar bears live much of their lives on the sea ice, which is fundamental for their survival, at least in terms of their traditional lifestyles,” said Parkinson. “It’s the sea ice surface that provides them a platform from which to hunt seals and other marine mammals for food.”
Sea ice is most scarce during the summer months, causing the bears to retreat to land and fast on their stored fat reserves until sea ice comes back in the fall. “Our concern is that if the length of the sea ice season continues to decrease, then the polar bears will have shorter periods on the ice, when they can feed, and longer periods on the land, during the open-water season in summer and early fall,” she said. “Their stored fat from life on the ice will likely not provide enough nourishment for the fasting period on land, posing a clear danger to their health and, in the long term, possibly to their species.”
Sea-ice cover in these regions has decreased since at least 1978, the beginning of consistent satellite monitoring. The researchers used 26 years of satellite data using data from NASA’s Nimbus 7 satellite and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program’s Special Sensor Microwave Imager.
“By reviewing satellite data, we found that sea-ice cover break-up in western Hudson Bay took place about seven to eight days earlier per decade,” said Stirling. “An extra month of fasting resulting from this phenomenon over four decades can significantly impact the polar bears’ eating habits and survival.”
Image that shows the August 5, 2005 – August 5, 2006 annual cycle of sea ice coverage
Image above: Polar bears depend on sea ice for survival. Climate warming in the Arctic has caused significant declines in overall Arctic sea ice cover and progressively earlier breakup in some areas, including western Hudson Bay. This visualization shows, twice, the August 5, 2005 – August 5, 2006 annual cycle of sea ice coverage as determined from data from the Aqua satellite’s Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observing System (AMSR-E). Click on image to view animation. Credit: NASA/JAXA
“One of the most important things that enabled us to do this study was our ability to draw on long-term satellite databases on Arctic ice,†said Stirling. “NASA has maintained an extensive and invaluable database of these observations that made it possible for us to combine our different expertise on this study.”
In addition to monitoring sea-ice changes, the researchers incorporated data from previous polar bear studies in the same Arctic regions that also indicated the likelihood that progressively earlier break-up of sea ice was likely to cause problems for polar bears. “In 1980 the average weight of adult females in western Hudson Bay was 650 pounds. Their average weight in 2004 was just 507 pounds – a 143-pound reduction,” said Stirling. A 1992 study in the Canadian Journal of Zoology indicated that no females weighing less than 416 pounds gave birth the following spring.
According to Stirling, if the climate continues to warm as projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the ice continues to break up progressively earlier, it is likely that in 20-30 years polar bear reproduction in western Hudson Bay will be significantly limited. Similar events may eventually happen in other areas included in the study.
Researchers funded by the federal government want to shut down the internet and start over, citing the fact that at the moment there are loopholes in the system whereby users cannot be tracked and traced all the time.
Time magazine has reported that several foundations and universities including Rutgers, Stanford, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are pursuing individual projects, along with the Defense Department, in order to wipe out the current internet and replace it with a new network which will satisfy big business and government.
From the Information Clearing House website.Sorry I couldn’t post the comments.
Actually Bill, the cost of getting a license in Deutchland is now about 980 C Dollars in 2004.
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/german_interest/110661/2
Once again, all that Jackie Chan’s Left Hand does is to resort to put-downs, personal attacks, insults, ad hominem assults, diatribes.
I am basing my perspective on personal knowledge. I know the people who have lived in the far North for generations. They know something about hunting and the cycle of animals that our governments in the south know nothing about in all of their “superior” wisdom and pride and attempts to impose the dominant culture on an identifiable minority.
I personally know the mayor from Canada’s second most northern community who has to stand up for her people against government interference all of the time. I have already given you the name of one of the North’s greatest hunters–Nathaniel Kalluk, who together with his wife Martha, spend more time on the actual land than all of the so-called “experts” put together.
They understand the cycles of the animals. Quite frankly, some of you are pushing the alarm bells for your own political purposes. You want to push governments to take the type of action beyond what the economy can afford based on a scenario that is far from a closed case.
In our arrogance, we southerners sometimes think that our ways, and our knowledge is superior to that of the Inuit, the indigenous peoples of the land.
It is we who have overhunted their whales, making it necessary to put a quota on the hunting of the Bowhead and the the Narwhale and the Beluga.
These people know more about land and animal preservation and conservation than we do. Yet, in negotating the terms of the Nunavut Land Claim’s Settlement, the chief negotiator, David Aglukark (Susan Aglukark’s father) has told me personally that the government officials were at first reluctant to give autonomy to the Inuit, thinking that they could not be trusted to conserve the land and the animals.
What they were trying to say, and what they are still trying to say, is that they know something about conservation that people in the south know nothing about. Before the coming in of the later groups, the Inuit never overhunted the whales (that was done by the whalers). They did not overhunt the caribou, the walrus or the musk-ox.
They also know that these animals are a part of their very staff of life, and the more that the government in the south continues to try to control their lives, the harder they make life for people who live in the far North.
These people have a personal way of knowing that is many times more accurate than the dominant culture’s way of knowing which is based on books and theories and second=hand information instead of the personal, experiential way of knowing based on thousands of years of experience.
Jackie Chan’s Left Hand (as an Animist)should know that the experiential way of knowing has to be integrated and unified with the scientific way of knowing to get at the whole truth.
Could someone please correct me if I am wrong. This whole press release was a case of these are the possible numbers to reach the Kyoto goals by 2012 and to stay in compliance with Kyoto. This was brought on in a response to a bill, now almost a law that says the govt had to meet the targets by 2012.
Jackie, read this:
Just how much of the “Greenhouse Effect” is caused by human activity?
It is about 0.28%, if water vapor is taken into account– about 5.53%, if not.
This point is so crucial to the debate over global warming that how water vapor is or isn’t factored into an analysis of Earth’s greenhouse gases makes the difference between describing a significant human contribution to the greenhouse effect, or a negligible one.
Water vapor constitutes Earth’s most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth’s greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many “facts and figures’ regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.
Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC’s, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).
Human activites contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small– perhaps undetectable– effect on global climate.
For those interested in more details a series of data sets and charts have been assembled below in a 5-step statistical synopsis.
Note that the first two steps ignore water vapor.
1. Greenhouse gas concentrations
2. Converting concentrations to contribution
3. Factoring in water vapor
4. Distinguishing natural vs man-made greenhouse gases
5. Putting it all together
Note: Calculations are expressed to 3 significant digits to reduce rounding errors, not necessarily to indicate statistical precision of the data. All charts were plotted using Lotus 1-2-3.
Caveat: This analysis is intended to provide a simplified comparison of the various man-made and natural greenhouse gases on an equal basis with each other. It does not take into account all of the complicated interactions between atmosphere, ocean, and terrestrial systems, a feat which can only be accomplished by better computer models than are currently in use.
http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
I notice in her latest post, Jackie Chan’s Left Hand again uses as her authority outsiders who do not live in the North. She states, for example, “According to scientists from NASA and the Canadian Wildlife Service…”
No reference here whatsoever to people who actually live on the land permanently, and who have survived on the land and conserved it for thousands of years, and now outsiders are trying to impose restrictions on their hunting, and on their traditional way of life.
This is just plain wrong, and is based on policies of patronism and assimilation which have never worked, and will not work today. It is based on the premise that with all of our education, and all of our book learning and head knowledge, that we know more than the people who have personally experienced the land for millennia.
Here’s a little tidbit from this site:
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20549
Written By: Joseph Bast
Published In: Heartlander
Publication Date: February 1, 2007
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
——————————————————————————–
The temperature on New Year’s Day in Chicago was a balmy 50 degrees F. More evidence of global warming? Hardly.
The five New Year’s Days with the highest temperatures occurred in 1876, 1897, 1892, 1890, and 1891, all long before human greenhouse gas emissions could have played a role in changing climate. The one thing we know for sure about the weather is that it is always changing.
But the warm weather will fuel more hot rhetoric about global warming, a public policy issue that could have a major effect on our freedoms and our pocketbooks in the coming years.
I am basing my perspective on personal knowledge.
By Nike Nichols on 04.20.07 2:54 pm
Geez, a Jeremiah Jones of the Arctic. Does the Harper’s Bizarre acknowledgement of what’s happening in the Arctic not recognize the Canadian polar route as a shortcut?
Else, why is he talking about a deep-sea
port in Iqaluit? He’s like a DIM weather forecaster, wearing a glove on his left hand and nothing on his right hand. “On the one hand, it might be cooler, but, then again, it might be warmer.” The analogy is not meant to confuse … Cooler meets the need of blocking the interests of those who are concerned … while paying lipservice to the overall problem. Birdy-Baird is the man for that assignment.
If we can’t have an election immediately
I would at least recommend that we microchip these boys.
They interviewed a British climate scientist yesterday and he said the $195.00 price tag was wildly exaggerated.
His estimate was tens of dollars not hundreds .
By Jackie Chan’s Left Hand on 04.20.07 2:02 pm
Thats utter bunk. Even Dion advocates a $35 per tonne penalty. The $195 per tonne cost was to ensure that targets are met by 2012. $35 per tonne doesn’t cut it. Even environmentalists say that the current price of carbon is too low for industry to bother changing anything. That is why Dion inflated the price to $35 / tonne but even that is too low to reach Kyoto goals by 2012. BTW the $195 per tonne isn’t the government’s figure it’s Drummond’s.
I just read of CTV’s “David Akins” online – this is based on a “US Gov’t study”. He also has the study on the site. This is a “US” government study for heavens sake.
Bush people – uh,huh.
Sean,
Nice to see that are continuing to spout the climate change deniers B.S. However, it would be nice if you provided the source of your data.
First, the Seven Things list was developed by the Heartland Institue of Chicago which supports the “free market” (aka American dominace).
Second, the Oregan Institute for Science and Medicine is a highly suspect think tank.
Here is some material from Source Watch about OISM:
“The Oregon Petition, sponsored by the OISM, was circulated in April 1998 in a bulk mailing to tens of thousands of U.S. scientists. In addition to the petition, the mailing included what appeared to be a reprint of a scientific paper. Authored by OISM’s Arthur B. Robinson, Sallie L. Baliunas, Willie Soon, and Zachary W. Robinson, the paper was titled “Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” and was printed in the same typeface and format as the official Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Also included was a reprint of a December 1997, Wall Street Journal editorial, “Science Has Spoken: Global Warming Is a Myth, by Arthur and Zachary Robinson. A cover note signed “Frederick Seitz/Past President, National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A./President Emeritus, Rockefeller University”, may have given some persons the impression that Robinson’s paper was an official publication of the academy’s peer-reviewed journal. The blatant editorializing in the pseudopaper, however, was uncharacteristic of scientific papers.
Robinson’s paper claimed to show that pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is actually a good thing. “As atmospheric CO2 increases,” it stated, “plant growth rates increase. Also, leaves lose less water as CO2 increases, so that plants are able to grow under drier conditions. Animal life, which depends upon plant life for food, increases proportionally.” As a result, Robinson concluded, industrial activities can be counted on to encourage greater species biodiversity and a greener planet:
As coal, oil, and natural gas are used to feed and lift from poverty vast numbers of people across the globe, more CO2 will be released into the atmosphere. This will help to maintain and improve the health, longevity, prosperity, and productivity of all people.
Human activities are believed to be responsible for the rise in CO2 level of the atmosphere. Mankind is moving the carbon in coal, oil, and natural gas from below ground to the atmosphere and surface, where it is available for conversion into living things. We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of the CO2 increase. Our children will enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life as [sic] that with which we now are blessed. This is a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Industrial Revolution.
In reality, neither Robinson’s paper nor OISM’s petition drive had anything to do with the National Academy of Sciences, which first heard about the petition when its members began calling to ask if the NAS had taken a stand against the Kyoto treaty. Robinson was not even a climate scientist. He was a biochemist with no published research in the field of climatology, and his paper had never been subjected to peer review by anyone with training in the field. In fact, the paper had never been accepted for publication anywhere, let alone in the NAS Proceedings. It was self-published by Robinson, who did the typesetting himself on his own computer. (It was subsequently published as a “review” in Climate Research, which contributed to an editorial scandal at that publication.)
None of the coauthors of “Environmental Effects of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide” had any more standing than Robinson himself as a climate change researcher. They included Robinson’s 22-year-old son, Zachary, along with astrophysicists Sallie L. Baliunas and Willie Soon. Both Baliunas and Soon worked with Frederick Seitz at the George C. Marshall Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank where Seitz served as executive director. Funded by a number of right-wing foundations, including Scaife and Bradley, the George C. Marshall Institute does not conduct any original research. It is a conservative think tank that was initially founded during the years of the Reagan administration to advocate funding for Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative–the “Star Wars” weapons program. Today, the Marshall Institute is still a big fan of high-tech weapons. In 1999, its website gave prominent placement to an essay by Col. Simon P. Worden titled “Why We Need the Air-Borne Laser,” along with an essay titled “Missile Defense for Populations–What Does It Take? Why Are We Not Doing It?” Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, the Marshall Institute has adapted to the times by devoting much of its firepower to the war against environmentalism, and in particular against the “scaremongers” who raise warnings about global warming.
“The mailing is clearly designed to be deceptive by giving people the impression that the article, which is full of half-truths, is a reprint and has passed peer review,” complained Raymond Pierrehumbert, a meteorlogist at the University of Chicago. NAS foreign secretary F. Sherwood Rowland, an atmospheric chemist, said researchers “are wondering if someone is trying to hoodwink them.” NAS council member Ralph J. Cicerone, dean of the School of Physical Sciences at the University of California at Irvine, was particularly offended that Seitz described himself in the cover letter as a “past president” of the NAS. Although Seitz had indeed held that title in the 1960s, Cicerone hoped that scientists who received the petition mailing would not be misled into believing that he “still has a role in governing the organization.”
The NAS issued an unusually blunt formal response to the petition drive. “The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the manuscript was not published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or in any other peer-reviewed journal,” it stated in a news release. “The petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy.” In fact, it pointed out, its own prior published study had shown that “even given the considerable uncertainties in our knowledge of the relevant phenomena, greenhouse warming poses a potential threat sufficient to merit prompt responses. Investment in mitigation measures acts as insurance protection against the great uncertainties and the possibility of dramatic surprises.”
Notwithstanding this rebuke, the Oregon Petition managed to garner 15,000 signatures within a month’s time. S. Fred Singer called the petition “the latest and largest effort by rank-and-file scientists to express their opposition to schemes that subvert science for the sake of a political agenda.”
Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel called it an “extraordinary response” and cited it as his basis for continuing to oppose a global warming treaty. “Nearly all of these 15,000 scientists have technical training suitable for evaluating climate research data,” Hagel said. Columns citing the Seitz petition and the Robinson paper as credible sources of scientific expertise on the global warming issue have appeared in publications ranging from Newsday’, the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post to the Austin-American Statesman, Denver Post, and Wyoming Tribune-Eagle.
In addition to the bulk mailing, OISM’s website enables people to add their names to the petition over the Internet, and by June 2000 it claimed to have recruited more than 19,000 scientists. The institute is so lax about screening names, however, that virtually anyone can sign, including for example Al Caruba, a pesticide-industry PR man and conservative ideologue who runs his own website called the “National Anxiety Center.” Caruba has no scientific credentials whatsoever, but in addition to signing the Oregon Petition he has editorialized on his own website against the science of global warming, calling it the “biggest hoax of the decade,” a “genocidal” campaign by environmentalists who believe that “humanity must be destroyed to ‘Save the Earth.’ . . . There is no global warming, but there is a global political agenda, comparable to the failed Soviet Union experiment with Communism, being orchestrated by the United Nations, supported by its many Green NGOs, to impose international treaties of every description that would turn the institution into a global government, superceding the sovereignty of every nation in the world.”
When questioned in 1998, OISM’s Arthur Robinson admitted that only 2,100 signers of the Oregon Petition had identified themselves as physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, or meteorologists, “and of those the greatest number are physicists.” This grouping of fields concealed the fact that only a few dozen, at most, of the signatories were drawn from the core disciplines of climate science – such as meteorology, oceanography, and glaciology – and almost none were climate specialists. The names of the signers are available on the OISM’s website, but without listing any institutional affiliations or even city of residence, making it very difficult to determine their credentials or even whether they exist at all. When the Oregon Petition first circulated, in fact, environmental activists successfully added the names of several fictional characters and celebrities to the list, including John Grisham, Michael J. Fox, Drs. Frank Burns, B. J. Honeycutt, and Benjamin Pierce (from the TV show M*A*S*H), an individual by the name of “Dr. Red Wine,” and Geraldine Halliwell, formerly known as pop singer Ginger Spice of the Spice Girls. Halliwell’s field of scientific specialization was listed as “biology.” Even in 2003, the list was loaded with misspellings, duplications, name and title fragments, and names of non-persons, such as company names.
OISM has refused to release info on the number of mailings it made. From comments in Nature:
“Virtually every scientist in every field got it,” says Robert Park, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland at College Park and spokesman for the American Physical Society. “That’s a big mailing.” According to the National Science Foundation, there are more than half a million science or engineering PhDs in the United States, and ten million individuals with first degrees in science or engineering.
Arthur Robinson, president of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, the small, privately funded institute that circulated the petition, declines to say how many copies were sent out. “We’re not willing to have our opponents attack us with that number, and say that the rest of the recipients are against us,” he says, adding that the response was “outstanding” for a direct mail shot. [5]
Is there a scientific basis for Robinson’s claim that increased carbon dioxide levels will contribute to increased growth of some plants? Some research has gone into investigating this possibility, but the evidence does not point to the type of reassurance that the OISM is peddling. Fakhri Bazzaz, a plant physiologist at Harvard, has found that carbon dioxide-enriched air accelerates short-term plant growth, but his studies were carried out under controlled greenhouse conditions and are difficult to translate to a larger scale. Plant growth in natural systems may be constrained by a shortage of soil nutrients despite the greater availability of carbon dioxide. Moreover, Bazzaz’s experiments involved carbon dioxide concentrations at levels 100% greater than those now existing in our atmosphere, whereas the greenhouse warming we are experiencing right now results from only a 20% increase in world carbon dioxide levels. Clearly, it is irresponsible to predict “benefits” from increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere when such “benefits” may only appear after we suffer the consequences of a five-fold increase over current anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. Finally, Bazzaz found that different plant species vary dramatically in their response to increased carbon dioxide. Plants such as sugar cane and corn were not improved, but weeds were stimulated. There is not much real benefit in warming the planet by several degrees just so we can maybe make it easier for weeds to grow.
Notwithstanding the shortcomings in Robinson’s theory, the oil and coal industries have sponsored several organizations to promote the idea that increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is “good for earth” because it will encourage greater plant growth. The Greening Earth Society, a front group of the Western Fuels Association, has produced a video, titled “The Greening of the Planet Earth Continues,” publishes a newsletter called the World Climate Report, and works closely with a group called the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. “
a public policy issue that could have a major effect on our freedoms and our pocketbooks in the coming years.
By Sean P. Hogan on 04.20.07 3:03 pm
Sounds to me like an excuse and willingness to do NOTHING Your Hollowness! Letcher eyes roll back, bring on the ‘rapture’ and say it’s our destiny. Might be yours, t’ain’t mine.
All the CRAP adherents are doing that.
Garth:
When Paul Martin said he would pay off our countries massive debt “Come Hell or High Water” he did it albeit many including me felt some pain. Should Dion & May say they will do everything and more to attack Global Warming via Kyoto will world support ” Come Hell or High Water” I am willing to give em a chance. I was driving over to Halifax this morning in the Sun! thinking so what if I had to take a bus, hey an electric bus, it was not long ago w had electric trolly cars. Perhaps good afordable mass public transportation, otherwords I was thinking. Please tell Mssr Dion to go for Kyoto full steam ahead like the the train ” I think I Can”…….
More ice needed. WOW! What a fantastic day!
Oh, all this talk about Polar Bears from people who have probably never seen one!
That’s okay, the bears know where to find food…a whole lot of food…to the south! Enjoy your summer camping! The Fall may be an even better time to see bears! A Polar bear stands about 10 feet tall and can yank a 700 pound seal out of the water with just a flick of its neck muscles. They weigh in about 1,500 pounds so screen doors and cars are not really much protection.
Back to the sunshine and cool breezes…while they last!
Oh, I wanted to remind everyone, make sure your air conditioner is working BEFORE summer hits…You might just need it if there is enough electricty available to power it, eh?
Keep all those Big Box Signs and empty offices lit now! Our economy depends on that advertising! We do not want a recession, people have mortgages to pay, car payments, etc.!
Laters!
Sean P. Hogan,
Weather IS NOT Climate!
The fact that the warmest temperatures for a single city, for a single day out of the calendar, happened to occur over 100 years ago means ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
What were the temperatures in New York? Boston? What were they on Easter?
The fact is that the change in average global temperature since 1900 has been less then 1 degree! Coupled with the extreme variation in temperature, and local climate, you’re pretty much certain to be able to find facts like that Chicago one regardless of the existance of climate change.
That being said a change of 1 degree has a severe impact on the environment, the minor ice age in the late 1500s was caused by temperatures less than 1.5 degrees cooler than we have now.
Thus you’re never going to be able to see the effects of climate change by looking at the thermometer, but you’re definitely going to be able to see it in the environment.
As to the article you’re quoting. It contradicts a lot of other sources I’ve seen (I’d really like to see those studies and surveys he’s quoting) and deliberatly takes a lot of other facts out of context. I’d be very hesitant about using it as a source of information.
By Sean P. Hogan on 04.20.07 3:03 pm
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
——————————————————————————–
The temperature on New Year’s Day in Chicago was a balmy 50 degrees F. More evidence of global warming? Hardly
The Heartland Institute created a website in the Spring of 2007, http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org, which asserts there is no scientific consensus on global warming and features a list of experts and a list of like-minded think tanks, many of whom have received funding from ExxonMobil and other polluters.
Jeeez Sean Hogan.All this funding by ExxonMobil and other polluters wouldn’t have one thing to do with this report now would it.
Oops gotta leave early today, puts spy ring back, phone taps turned off, invisible ink pen back in drawer in case it leaks, CPC pin back in drawer too, don’t want anyone to see so I can spy on the weekend, keeps binoculars for an emergency. Okay, Friday is over.
Oh, for those looking for some reading materials here are a couple of links that ‘clearly’ illustrate the impossibility that man has ever had any effects on the air and such silly stuff! Especially in the late 1800′s, because there was no possible way a little industialization that created jobs was ever a bad thing for mankind!
St. Louis Air Quality
Chinadialogue
Now back to the beautiful day sitting on the patio under a magnificent tree.
This weekend I am going to go re-read ‘John Ralston Sauls’ most excellent book ‘The Collapse of Globalism: and the reinvention of the world’, then maybe for a little humour I will re-read George Carlin’s ‘When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops?’
“I just wish those that accept lies and damned lies as the truth would do us all a favour and take a long walk off a short pier .They are a waste of perfectly good oxygen .
“By Jackie Chan’s Left Hand on 04.20.07 2:32 pm ”
How does this type of comment get by the censer, and how does it contribute to a civil conversation in a congenial, reasonble-type atmosphere. Where’s the reason? Where’s the level-headedness? Where’s the tolerance?
For the record, I was not referring to a study that is 3 years old, but to an act by the Nunavut Government that is based on the evidence, an act that is only 2 years old, but remains in effect until this day.
A driver’s license in Germany costs about $3,500 Deutsch Marks, which at that time was equal to $0.976 cents Canadian. The Euro has increased in value so people are paying even more now I would suppose.
How many people would pay that for a license to drive? Not many I think, they would take public transportation instead.
….
What will you do Canadians?
Yes Bill, why doesn’t the green party put it in their platform that if they get elected, the price of a license will cost 3500$, just like in Germany.
Go ahead. I dare you, put your money where your big mouth is. Canadians will do the right thing, I am sure.
Also, I assume that you will shrink the size of Canada to that of Germany with your magic green powers that you will invent just as soon as every government on earth redirects their tax money to your buddies for research.
Yeah, Sean P. Hogan, cite Monte Hieb, an uncredentialled, fossil hunting, mountain-top removal coal mining advocate, that’s intelligent.
I’m sure he knows more than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAS) whose survey article, btw, collating the conclusions of climate change research shows that 100% of articles published in peer-reviewed, SCIENTIFIC journals come to the same conclusion — Human activity substantially and measurably contributes to global warming.
BTW, info for Monte Hieb, the political tool.
Name: Monte Hieb
Email: mhieb (at) mines.state.wv.us
Title: Chief Engineer
Organization: WV Office of Miners Health Safety and Training
Address: 142 Industrial Drive
Oak Hill, WV 25901
Phone: (304) 469-8100
Website: http://www.wvminesafety.org
Don Drummond, Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist at Toronto Dominion Bank Financial Group
Jean-Thomas Bernard, Professor, Department of Economics, Laval University
Christopher Green, Professor, Department of Economics, McGill University
Mark Jaccard, Professor, School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University
Carl Sonnen, President, Informetrica Limited
The reviewers believe that Environment Canada’s report presents a reasonable representation of the cost
of meeting Canada’s commitments under the Kyoto Protocol
No economist slouches here..
By James – Chatham on 04.20.07 7:21 am
True some places in Europe does have fuel prices 3 times ours. However, those places that do, do not have -25 degree winters,nor do they have to drive the vast areas that we do in Canada.
Most of you must have been listening to someone other than Baird. I don’t recall him ever saying that the Conservative will do nothing on climate change ~ just the opposite. However, since you are all having such a good bias-fuelled hate on, I won’t spoil it by actually talking fact.
I know ‘some people’ are worried about not cashing in on all those kyoto credits they’ve been buying on spec. I think you all if you think hard and honestly know who ‘those people’ are.
13 years. The liberals did absolutely nothing on climate change, now they want the Conservative government to throw us into a deep recession…yeah, right.
Sorry to bring this reality check to you on such a lovely day…and a Friday to.
Get BB-Q’s out…relax.
SD
Sean P. Hogan – How much is your posting costing me again? Wow…never has anyone ever paid someone so much to use “cut and paste”.
But your right…there is a big evil conspiracy of liberals, communists, environmentalists, scientists and the UN, none of whom have a dime to make from promoting Kyoto. And of course, the oil, gas and coal companies who are subsidizing the “research” and “studies” you quote are all above board and totally objective.
Honestly, use my tax dollars for something remotely useful like powdering Steven Harper’s nose or something. Perhaps you and Nike Nichols can go talk to the fat, numerous, over fed polar bears in Nunavut next time Nike is visiting his “friends” up there.
Sheesh. The Conservatives manufacture enough hot air to make Canada’s contribution to global warming a serious problem.
What also disturbs me is the reality of Alberta’s “Economic Prosperityâ€. The dilapidated roads, hospitals, schools, social programs, environment, etc. have all taken a back seat to the economy. If this is the ideological free market vision for Canada the Conservatives are selling, I’m not buying!
Another dude that’s never been outside Ontario’s borders and gets his news from the Toronto [Red] Star.
Well, at least Alberta, as a civilised, environmentally frendly province, doesn’t ask you to carry your dog’s poop home, we do have special green boxes for that.
Ontario, if you can’t even solve the dog poop issue, admit to your failure as a socialist province and promise the country that you’ll do better next time.
The mean temperature of the earth is up by .59 degrees C. Temperature on Mars is up .57 Degrees C and all the other planets (except Mercury) and moons have shown a temperature increase. Why? 1000 years ago temperatures were higher than they are today……600 years ago the growing season in Europe was 6-8 weeks shorter due to temperature drop occasioned by volcanic eruptions and people were starving. 20,000 years ago Canada was covered with ice….go back a few million years and Alberta was mostly a tropical sea. Nature is dynamic and a simple thing like a medium size volcano blowing its top can cause measurable cooling….a small number of volcanoes could have us freezing in the dark.
Ruminents (cows etc.) put considerable quantities of methane into the air as do insects such as termites(huge quantities of methane) and methane is 20 times more green house positive on a unit basis versus CO2. Perhaps we should all be vegetarians and kill all the insects. Canada can effect a change in aproximately .02% of Green house gasses. In other words we can do diddly squat other than trying to be an example to others and hitting yourself in the head with a hammer is not my idea ot the way to impress your neighbours. If we really want to do something we could purchase a million acres of the Amazon rain forest and care for it in perpertuity. The Amazon is considered the lungs of the earth and is being destroyed at an ever increasing pace with predictible dire consequences.
The sun will eventually consume the earth and that is indisputable so we are all going to be toast. In the meantime we can treat the earth with the same love and respect that we ought to treat each other.
http://tinyurl.com/2lqndn
Little off subject but…. I say go for it Harper, if you want to try and bully the opposition into getting your own way on senate reform go ahead and pull the plug and call an election over it. I sure don’t hear Canadians saying this is a top priority for them. This will be the one that will truly piss off Canadians calling a two hundred million dollar election over senate reform! Big mistake.
ANOTHER DAGGER …….RIGHT ON!
http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070420.wtrusts0420/GIStory/
Source :National Post Feb 5th, 2007.
Last summer Mr Dion himself specifically, told Mr. Ivison: “In 2008, I will be part of Kyoto but I will say to the world I don’t think I will make it.” However, now that Mr. Dion wants to convince voters he is Captain Kyoto – the most environmentally committed politician in the country’s history – he is claiming that he meant something completely different, and that he can still reach Canada’s Kyoto targets providing he becomes prime minister in 2007.
So what does the Liberal party propose to do in view of the above and since Mr Dion and I presume the Liberal Party believes that we can not meet Kyoto 2008 Targets?
Do we pay billions in credits to places like Russia in order to meet our targets or would it be better to pay the billions in our our country to cut green house gases and pollution?
Randy,
If you and other Liberal supports are so hot to have an election why don’t you tell Dion and other MPs to bring down the government? Maybe Dion can make a similar deal with the NDP and Bloc that he made with the May of the green party in exchange for support in a non confidence vote.
Now back to the beautiful day sitting on the patio under a magnificent tree.
I wish I could, but it seems that the planet isn’t warm enough yet as we are having a bit of a snowstorm right now in Alberta.
“Continental economic and security integration†with the U.S. as well as a “continental energy strategy†that should be broadened “to a range of other natural resources.â€
-Conservative leader Stephen Harper.
-
There is a Canadian culture that is in some ways unique to Canada, but I don’t think Canadian culture coincides neatly with borders.
Words of Stephen Harper
Congratulations Garth!
Now we see that people are paying attention to what is written on this site, even faithful members of the Conservative Party.
It’s funny what fear and desparation will do to the Party elite!! When’s the election???
Keep up your good work informing those you represent. At least you understand who you work for (i.e. the public), and I give you a lot of credit for that.
I think PMSH should pay for his looks, also, and not the taxpayer.
By Sean P. Hogan on 04.20.07 3:03 pm
Publisher: The Heartland Institute
——————————————————————————–
The temperature on New Year’s Day in Chicago was a balmy 50 degrees F. More evidence of global warming? Hardly
The Heartland Institute created a website in the Spring of 2007, http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org, which asserts there is no scientific consensus on global warming and features a list of experts and a list of like-minded think tanks, many of whom have received funding from ExxonMobil and other polluters.
Jeeez Sean Hogan.All this funding by ExxonMobil and other polluters wouldn’t have one thing to do with this report now would it.
By Ted Browne on 04.20.07 3:38 pm
Alright, this CRAP has GOT to stop here. You want to bring up the big bad oil companies? How about the OTHER side of the coin here? How about checking the creds of the professionals that are telling the other tale? Could they POSSIBLY be funded by green peace? Or some other environmentally crazed group?
Don’t get me wrong, there are probably scientists on the oil pay roll, but don’t delude yourself into thinking that the side you agree with are all saints. I can GUARANTEE you that there are plenty on both sides who are seeing some type of financial or otherwise gain from all of this.
The point being. Don’t bring up bullsh*te like bought off scientists when both sides are guilty.
There is so much freaking controversy about the climate, the weather, how we do or do not affect it all, NOBODY KNOWS for sure what the deal is one way or the other. That beyond anything else truly gets me. To state “facts” when there is no FACT about climate. We have not, by ANY means, been around long enough, nor have we been keeping records long enough to determine one way or the other.
All we know is that there is a warming trend going on and that there is some type of corroborating evidence to show a relationship between a and b. There is still WAY to much unknown out there to stop the debate on this issue.
But to get back to the original point, bringing up crap like “he’s being paid off by oil companies!”, will not now, nor ever help this argument.
/rant
KPK – in response to your question – the report is mostly spin, and spreads fear about the short-term impact, while directly admitting that there are long- term economic gains to taking action.
I have to conclude from the statmeents here that next year’s economic growth is more important to this government than continued economic growth and sustainability 10, 20 or 50 years forward. That’s the real tragedy.
Chris Ariens,
I can’t recall any government EVER adopting a policy of short term negative growth. Such a policy would be criticized as irresponsible and politically dangerous.
As for spin, I’m not so sure. The report does mention long term gains which would be unusual for government spin – to admit there are benefits. I don’t think Baird had much to do with this report. The information contained in the report is identical to what I have been told from contacts within Environment Canada. As a matter of fact, this information has been known for some time – even during Mr. Dion’s reign as Environment Minister. The report is also backed up by Canada’s most prominent economists. Incidentally, Mr. Jaccard was the individual who evaluated the Liberal’s Green Plan.
why don’t you tell Dion and other MPs to bring down the government?
By Van on 04.20.07 5:12 pm
That won’t be necessary … Peter van Mortgage Loan gave every indication that PMSH is prepared to self-immolate.
$275 Million for one man’s truculent intransigence … His travelling preener
will never compensate for that fault. That’s both cosmetic and internal. I think PMSH is tired of the engagement too.
Prime Minister Harper and his team must be doing something right contrary to all the Harper bashing and calling of names. Could there be envy rearing its ugly head. Again all these 9 year old kids that are posting here should be in school. Now here is the good news. New poll by Ipso-Reid will be out soon showing the Conservatives leading the Liberals 39% to 29%. Hope this doesn’t disturb all you tax and spend liberals sleep this weekend. Weather is nice and its a great day for the Party that gets the job done” eh?
By kallie on 04.20.07 10:43 am
““Twenty per cent of the economy will disappear,†Suzuki told reporters. “It will cost more than World War I and World War 2 put together. We’ll go into a kind of depression we’ve never, ever had in all of history.†”
And now look who is presenting an extreme view. Sheesh.
BTW: how did Suzuki get to Ottawa? by horse and buggy? Didn’t Susuki ever hear of the post office or Fedex? Didn’t Susuzki ever hear of the digital age? Surely he could have held his press conference out in BC? Surely he could have held his meeting via phone? Susuki is part of the problem!
I think PMSH should pay for his looks, also, and not the taxpayer.
By Riverview on 04.20.07 5:57 pm
Golly! First all the Lefties made fun of Mr. Harper’s clothes, hair and lips, now you are all complaining on him having a style consultant. Which is it? What do you want? BTW…who paid for Chretien’s & Martin’s?
I wonder if Ms. Dion will go on the payroll once our great dear leader is elected?
Mr. Speaker, let the record show that I dress myself. — Garth
But I’ve been very clear in this campaign – I don’t believe the party should have a position on abortion.
Words of Stephen Harper
TORIES change the definition of White Lie
“An unimportant lie especially one told to be tactful or to get votes.”
One White Lie is one too many for Seniors that believed PMSH would not tax Income Trusts as promised.
Seniors ..Stand up and be counted!
Thank Garth for all he has done for our cause!
“New poll by Ipso-Reid will be out soon showing the Conservatives leading the Liberals 39% to 29%.”
I would attribute that to the Dion-May debacle of this past week. It was a blunder of colossal proportions, and something must now to done to either get May to join the Liberals, or else for Dion to join the Greens.
Otherwise, it is going to be extremely difficult for both parties to survive the cynicism of the Canadian public.
This smells of backroom politics of the worst kind. If it smells like a rat, sounds like a rat, feels like a rat, it probably is a rat.
“Perhaps you and Nike Nichols can go talk to the fat, numerous, over fed polar bears in Nunavut next time Nike is visiting his “friends†up there.” –Elias.
Elias, you talk about “Nunavut” as if it were in a faraway land. Don’t forget that Nunavut is still a part of Canada, and even when I am in Nunavut, I will still make my voice heard loudly and clearly, and stand with the indigenous peoples of this land to make sure that your point of view is soundly refuted. You obviously know very little if anything about this part of Canada, nor the people who live there.
I have been to Nunavut a minimum of 40 times since 1993, and I know what I am talking about, and am not in the least impressed with your disdain for those whose view is different than yours, but is every bit as valid.
Those who stick up their noses at the personal and traditional knowledge of the original peoples of this land should be ashamed of themselves. As much as we would like to think that we do, those of us whose knowledge is based solely on book learning don’t know it all.
Those who have experienced the land for millennia have much to teach us.
Would you not agree?
Elias?
“and am not in the least impressed with your disdain for those whose view is different than yours,”
Like your remark to me on being Anti-Christian?
Of course Nike Nichols, you go up to Nunavut all the time. Sure. I date super models every Friday night myself. Whoops, got to get going…I’m meeting Naomi Campbell for drinks in London (UK) in about 2 hours. You and Sean have a good time feeding the polar bears.
Nike: The same rats that were in the room when this awful Con party was created? You know the rats that surrounded Peter McKay when he made the back room deal with Harper and Company to stab David Orchard in the back?
Are those the kinds of deals you are talking about?
And now we hear that Harper is not running a Con candidate in a Quebec riding??? Do you smell rats in that backroom deal, too?
Sandra Dee: Mr. Harper apparently has a full-time dresser-and he will not let anyone else apply his make-up or tell him what to wear. Which means this lady has to travel with him wherever he goes.
And as she is part of his government staff are we not entitled to know her salary? The Cons are refusing to release her pay. What’s up? How much are we actually paying someone to tell our Prime Minister what colours to wear?
Catherine: Your message to Suzuki should also be sent to Bev oda and our Prime Minister. Couldn’t he video conference all his important announcements from Ottawa?, Oh, I guess, not. Then he would only have to have his dresser dress him from the waist up and he would only need one change of clothes.
Burt: Are you looking into the same crystal ball as Harper?? How do you know what the unpublished poll will show?
“You know the rats that surrounded Peter McKay when he made the back room deal with Harper and Company to stab David Orchard in the back?” –Judy.
Of course, the prime instigator in all of this who brought Peter and Stephen together was none other than Belinda Stronach. Where is she now that we need her?
Oh, and here’s another scientist who states that global warming is not man-made. I heard him in an interview a few months ago and he said that when he was investigating up in the Arctic, he stated that the ice is melting far slower in the past 40 years than in the previous 50 years of scientific research.
http://www.earthsci.carleton.ca/personnel/faculty/Michel.html#p
Sean P. Hogan, your words are like a breath of fresh air, and a voice of sweet reason in the midst of many distortions, half-truths, fear-mongering for political gain, and emotionalism that is going on here.
“True some places in Europe does have fuel prices 3 times ours. However, those places that do, do not have -25 degree winters,nor do they have to drive the vast areas that we do in Canada.”
I am sure that the residents of Norway, Sweden and Finland appreciate your understanding of their countries. Also, while individual countries are small, Europe is not insignificant.
“bringing up crap like “he’s being paid off by oil companies!â€, will not now, nor ever help this argument.”
Okay, SJ, I will not. What I will say is that the vast majority of the experts in the field agree that climate change has been significantly and adversely affected by man’s activities. The majority of the nay sayers are not experts in the field, such as Mr Hieb who is a mining engineer employed by the state that earns a lot of revenue from coal.
Simply put, I will accept economists and engineers telling me about the climate when businessmen and conservatives accept climatologists telling them about economics.
Sean,
One of the key aspects of science is the publication of research and conclusions that are then challenged and either confirmed or refuted. Has Dr Michel published his observations about the ice melt in a peer-reviewed journal? Or was it an observation?
It would appear to me that ice melt is not Dr Michel’s area of expertise.
Kevin, he actually went there and did his research. I don’t know if Garth has deleted another post that contained a letter to Paul Martin from Dr. Michel and many other scientists who state that Global Warming is not man made. But I’m sure you can search for it on the net very easily.
All visitors should know I have lost my patience for those who post 2,000-word reprints. They will be routinely deleted. Use a link. — Garth
I don’t know Kevin if you’re old enough to remember but in the 1970′s, Suzuki along with many other leftwingers, claimed that there would be global cooling, and if man doesn’t change, there will be another ice age very soon. 30 years later, now he’s changed it to global warming. Anyways, look at Dr. Michel’s list of publications as I don’t think you looked at the link, here it is again. The publications are listed there.
http://www.earthsci.carleton.ca/personnel/faculty/Michel.html
Thanks Garth for the note, I just hope that you apply that to Jackie Chan’s Left Hand too. I mistakenly thought that since his was approved that I could do the same.
WOW,
Sean must be drawing overtime to post on a Saturday! There goes the Death Star’s budget! ROFLMAO!
Hi Sean…How are Ya? Bitchin’ being called in for Emergency Duty on a weekend I bet?
and, I am gone…like a wisp-of-the-willow!
Oh, and this post is to a friend of mine named Sean…there are many, many Sean’s in Canada! Hehehehehe!
Bill, just to let you know, this isn’t ignoring me as you stated you would. But then, you are a lieberal.