Conservatives Create Green Smokescreen

All through this week, the Conservative government has been occupied in busily painting itself Green. But like most slapdash jobs, they have done a bad job of it. The government seeks to convince the people that it is truly concerned about global climate change, and is taking action to fix it. That is just a bit difficult to swallow, because these are the same people who just a few years ago were denying that global climate change was occurring at all.

This week, the Conservatives announced three new measures:

1. $230 million for clean energy research over the next four years.
   
2. $1.5 billion for the construction of renewable energy projects over the next ten years.
3. $300 million for home and business energy efficiency incentives over the next four years.

This might be all well and good if it wasn't backloaded to hell and gone. None of this is going to be done now. And now is when we need it. These projects are clearly not going to accomplish much of anything. On the clean energy research, we already have commercially viable clean energy technologies, most prominently wind power. On the second, the funding will be backloaded into the final years, when the Conservatives will no longer be in power. They will not do anything, beyond pointing to this plan. The third part of the plan is the best part. Unfortunately, the Conservatives canceled a Liberal programme exactly like this one when they got into office and we have lost a year's worth of progress. Most importantly, none of these proposals include regulation to ensure that our greenhouse gas emissions continue to go down.

These proposals stink of voluntary measures. We have seen that these don't work. The previous Liberal government set voluntary targets for industry to cut emissions, and the emissions went up instead. What we need is immediate hard-cap targets for industry. If we really work at it, I believe that we can still meet our Kyoto Accord commitments. But of course, the Conservatives don't want that to happen. They are too beholden to the oil and gas industries to ever do anything that would threaten the profits of those industries. All the Conservatives want to do is bamboozle the Canadian people into believing, even for a minute, that Conservatives care about the environment. It simply isn't true.

What is equally true is that the Liberals are no better. They had years, and years, in government to make the decisions, enact the regulations and fund the programmes that would have allowed us to reach and surpass our Kyoto Accord targets. And now they cry crocodile tears for the environment, using it as a cynical means to regain power. As environment minister, Dion presided over some of the most dramatic growth in Canadian CO2 emissions in our history. People should know better than to think that the Liberals will take any action on the environment that is more than mere window dressing.

What we need to do is change our way of life. In Canada, we are one of the most dramatically wasteful societies in the world. We have per capita CO2 emissions higher than the United States. We need to use less energy and live in a much more sustainable manner. This means using energy efficient light bulbs, improving insulation, not driving nearly as much (instead choose to walk, bike or take public transit) and a whole host of other changes. Combined with that, we need to help the developing countries of the world to develop in a clean manner. We need to provide help to China and India to develop an economy driven not by fossil fuels but rather by renewables like wind, solar, tidal and geothermal power.

It is not to late, but we have got to do something soon.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 733

Winter! Finally!

Winter has finally come to central Canada. Last night we got 15cm of snow here in Peterborough. It was a total 0-60 moment when I looked out my window this morning. Up till now, we have had very little snow, and it never stuck around for more than a few days. This snow looks like it will hang around for a while. And it is about bloody time.

This is the weirdest "winter" that I have ever experienced. No real snow until January, and then it all comes in one eight-hour period. Global climate change anyone?

The lack of cold weather and snow in central Canada, and the volatility of the weather in BC have helped to put the screws to the federal government to finally take some real action on reducing our carbon dioxide emissions. I hope that the advent of winter weather is not going to stop the momentum that has been building. After all, when there is no meaningful snow until January in Peterborough, something is deeply wrong.

I really, really, hope that when Parliament resumes in two weeks they can get past partisan bickering and get some real work done on the rewriting of the so-called Clean Air Act. I am deeply afraid that Conservatives will use Cabinet powers to try to scuttle any changes that are made (because most of them don't really accept that global climate change is happening) and that the Liberals will scuttle any attempt to make real progress on the bill because they don't want it to be something that the Conservatives can campaign on in the next election. We need action and we need it now. Ultimately, it will be up to the NDP and the Bloc to keep this issue in the public eye and shame the other two parties into taking real action. What has to happen is that the bill must be given real enforcement teeth, and the targets to be met (which must include the Kyoto targets) must be written into the act, not left to Cabinet to enact (or not enact). Minority Parliaments present a wonderful opportunity for the Parliament to control the power of the Cabinet, and this Parliament must seize the opportunity to do precisely that.

If I have children, I want them to believe me about winter. I want them to know what snow is, and what winter is. If we don't work fast, climate change will be beyond our power to fix, and if that comes to pass, we are all in very deep trouble.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 738

More on the Explosion in Athens

It seems that the explosion at the American embassy in Athens was the result of a rocket (presumably a rocket-propelled grenade) that was fired at the embassy. The Athenian police are saying that the intended target of the attack was the American logo at the front of the embassy, but that the rocket missed, and instead went into a third-floor bathroom and blew up a toilet. No injuries are reported. More information is available from various online news sources, for example an article in the International Herald-Tribune.

Cheers,

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 742

Breaking News: Explosion at the U.S. Embassy in Athens

According to what cbc.ca is calling a "senior police source" a rocket was fired at the U.S. embassy in Athens, Greece this morning at 6 am local time. Apparently the rocket shattered glass and struck near the toilets in the embassy building. No one is reported hurt. The story is still developing and I will have more to say when more details are known.


Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 742

Gordon Brown Plans "Independent" Foreign Policy

According to an article in the Guardian (available here) Gordon Brown, the likely successor to Tony Blair as Prime Minister of Great Britain, is planning to have an "independent" foreign policy. According to the article, Brown acknowledges that "mistakes had been made in the aftermath of Iraq" and plans to initiate a round of "frank" talks with the U.S.

Riiiiiight.

Unless and until he is willing to admit the entire war in Iraq was an enormous catastrophuck (to use Jon Stewart's word) I will not have any sympathy for him. He was a part of the government that actively lied to the people of Britain and to the people of the world. He needs to apologize for the lies of the government before he is likely to gain any traction on that front.

As for frank talks with the U.S., I won't believe it until I see some good solid evidence for it. Brown has not earned the benefit of the doubt, and to the people of the world, he will continue to bear the odium of the British government's active participation in a gargantuan scheme of lies and armed robbery.

If Brown forges a good, truly independent, foreign policy for Britain, then I will applaud him. Until then, the U.K. sadly remains a puppet for Washington's village idiot.

Cheers
Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 746

Wajid Khan Crosses to the Conservatives

Wajid Khan, the MP for Mississauga-Streetsville has crossed the floor from the Liberals to the Conservatives. Isn't it wonderful how little respect these floor-crossers have for the people who elected them? It is so dishonest to seek election under the banner of one party, and then cross the floor to sit as a member of another party, which campaigned on a different set of principles. Mr. Khan ran under the Liberal banner, and did not seem to have any qualms with the LPC's platform. Yet now he is prepared to endorse the platform of the most right-wing government in Canadian history? It just doesn't figure. How the Conservatives can accept him in, after the stink that they raised over Belinda Stronach's crossing to the Liberals is beyond me. And how the Liberals can have the nerve to protest, after they accepted Belinda Stronach in is beyond me too. Just goes to show that in those two parties (at least in the Parliamentary leadership) political expediency is more important than principle. If you feel this is wrong (be you an NDPer, a Liberal, a Greenie, a Conservative or what have you), I urge you to sign the petition that can be found here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/khanout/. What Khan has done is undemocratic and totally disrespectful of the will of the voters who elected him. For shame.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 748

Harper's Cabinet Shuffle

This morning, Stephen Harper shuffled his cabinet. Seven senior ministers had their portfolios changed. The changes are as follows:

• Rona Ambrose moves from environment (as everyone expected) to Intergovernmental Affairs
• John Baird moves from the Treasury Board to Environment
• Vic Toews moves from Justice & Attorney-General to Treasury Board
• Rob Nicholson moves from being Government House Leader to Justice & Attorney-General
• Peter Van Loan moves from Intergovernmental Affairs to be Government House Leader
• Monte Solberg moves from Immigration to Human Resources and Social Development
• Diane Finlay moves from Human Resources and Social Development to Immigration
  

If Harper thinks that this shake-up is going to fix anything, he is sorely deluded. What the environment needs is new policy, not a new face for the old, bad policy. Perhaps Harper thinks that because Baird had so much success moving the Accountability (HA!) Act through the House of Commons, he will have similar success moving the so-called Clean Air Act along. Fat chance. The opposition is going to essentially re-draft the Clean Air Act, and the oil barons will be apoplectic (and thus so will be their stooges in the Conservative Party of Canada and Canada's New Government^tm).

The one move that is in any way encouraging is the move of Rob Nicholson into Justice. He is not nearly as extreme as Mr. Toews and will hopefully have the sense to scrap the insistence on draconian penalties and theatrics that Mr. Toews was so fond of.

This is not a team that will win Harper a majority in the next election, thank goodness. Frankly, I would be surprised to see Harper win the next election at all. He has not learned the lesson of Rona Ambrose's failure at Environment. Canadians do not want empty rhetoric and blaming previous governments that failed to act. They want action, and they want it NOW! All Harper is doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Cheers

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 748