speaker

That's cute, irresponsible practices in the past have been mostly remedied? well maybe some have but I can't think of any off hand. And what about the irresponsible practices of the present? We continue to overuse resources to the point that we are polluting the air, land, and water. The greatest white collar crimes may be crimes against the environment, and economics appears to be the defense. Population is a factor in our misuse of our kids inheritance, but more significant is what the population is consuming on an individual by individual basis.

I think that this is what environmentalists like Suzuki are arguing for. given that we are using up our resources like fuel faster than we should, how many ways are there that we can save energy, save expense, and save the environment at the same time. -Conservation first. -Developing appropriate energies for each specific location and use. -Minimizing costs to society and individuals That is not to say that we can make an ecologic/economic change without expense, but rather that the costs will be far worse if we don't.

I don't really see how your side feels about it, or more correctly I don't see how you can feel that way and yet completely ignore my comments to the effect that I would go through the normal channels to try and change your programming so that it was allowable on the air in Canada. There are normal channels and you have every right to try and change the programming at CBC or any other publicly regulated media, which at last word was all of them. I expect that the reason that you and others here haven't is that you feel powerless against the mainstream thought in Canada, and can see a pile of work in front of whoever tries to set the mandate of media acceptability. Well, you can fight city hall.

The real price of oil isn't dropping. The real price of oil includes not just recovery costs but a depletion allowance and environmental impact costs. The real price hasn't changed significantly since the first barrel bubbled up. This is another reason why gdp does not reflect the economic world, Of what use is a system of measurement that recognizes borrowed money as a benefit to society but does not recognize lent money as a debit item. The only net change is the interest. August 1991 is it the Calvinist that says "live not beyond your means" or is it the conservative. I can agree with your definition of sustainable. It must be that you haven't travelled much if you think we are leaving this place better than when we found it, that we may extend our princely lifestyle to other peoples.

August 1991 wrote "True enough, but known exploitable reserves always "seem" to keep growing. We can dig deeper, we can exploit more thoroughly, we can extract better, we find new deposits. But let's take oil as an example. We will never run out of oil. As oil becomes more rare (if it ever does), its price will rise. As its price rises, people will have a stronger incentive to find ways to manage without oil. ---- BTW, you may have noticed that rich people tend to be cleaner than poor people. That's also true for societies. The richer the world is, the cleaner it is." \ "Seeming to grow" is the best way to describe the illusion that our non-renewables are growing. but they aren't. Like your example of the oil. It's the same argument that we used as kids in grade seven math to describe the absolute fact that if we continuously move halfway to a tree we will never run into the tree. It is of course true but at some point it is also irrelevant. If the miniscule droplet of very valuable oil is left in the ground, our society has had to undergo the inflation caused by moving to energy sources that are more expensive than everything but that drop. This lifestyle is perfectly sustainable? and can be extended to others? maybe you could define sustainable for us.

The reserves of our non-renewables have not been increasing. The levels of recoverable quantities has increased because of technology but also because of that technology our reserves are being used up faster than before so the amount of oil or gas, copper or lead in the ground is truly decreasing. The pie is not that far off. The amount of sunlight that is coming in to drive the renewables is pretty much constant from centuries gone by, therefore the amount that we can count on the renewables to feed, clothe, and shelter us doesn't stand much chance of increasing. What with depletion of the non-renewables used to boost renewable production in the last sixty years, there is every likelihood that renewables will also be decreasing. Geoffrey..... what things more valuable to a corporation than fiscal policy would you think a corporation would try to influence through it's control of the media?

to me the obvious response is get off the Reserve. Go find work and a life with out the problems.

Getting back to the Question, I like Nixon, Let's bring back old Bluebeard himself. I'll bet he's tanned rested and ready to go. And He could probably follow the Bush act with a really big show. Let's not let the fact that he's long dead bother us, With the smell in Washington these days few would notice and fewer still would comment.

On the other hand the principle of democracy is that people should select their own government and means of politics.

NO. If all the other criteria I mentioned are in place I would not fight the subsidies to your HBC, (HydraBoss Corp.) However I think that I might just go through normal channels, my MP, the CRTC, and of course the HBC public relations department, to ensure that you have a little more intelligent programming and more appropriate scheduling for what you would be allowed to put on the air in Canada., or internationally.,

I think thom PC is closer to the mark on who's who in the red blue split. Though I'm not sure about Preston Manning. The point that gets me though is that the whole idea as I understand it for removing the word progressive was to ease out the horrible left wing of the right wing party. Is there some suggestion somewhere that maybe this was a mistake and we're going to go back to the good old days of the Progressive Conservative majorities of Brian Mulroney?

geez, I thought you weren't going to get into whats good and bad programming. Will you also do movie reviews, music shows, business reports, political (non-biased of course) stories, weather, farm news, sports, international news and international broadcasting, science updates, health reports, local and global cultural, comedy, tragedy, and let's not forget the news, 24 hours a day, seven days a week? Other than the explicit sex stuff you might have a shot.

Well, I wouldn't want to invite every one of the people on the planet, that would likely be counter productive. I wouldn't really like to see us allow any more immigration at all if it comes right down to it, but I think that since we are so fortunate here it is our resonsibility to relieve some of the pressure. People can live in forests with out ruining them, we can make a sustainable society here. If not here there ain't noplace else that's for sure. I think that would be an example that would be very good to pass on so that the next generation worldwide would have the opportunity to pick up on it. The alternative might be having people come with considerably less good will and looking to get a piece of our good fortune as advertised.

It wasn't all that long ago that there was a study done that showed that if everyone could get by with 1 sqare foot of living space we could all "Stand on Zanzibar." Now there are studies around that say that we need multiple Earths to provide all of us with the ability to have the consumer habits of North Americans. And yet we have people who consider it to be traiterous, not to mention the height of un reason to suggest that we should scale back on our wants and needs on this continent. As if building an even more unsustainable society is somehow going to take us over the top. This is the kind of example that pro-growth activists would have us provide to the developing world, because their spending will get us through this tight spot? I believe that it is necessary for us to ease the population pressure in the world by allowing significantly higher immigration to Canada. At some point I hope that the pressures in the urban areas reach a point that people there can see their way clear to breaking free of the reservation system and moving out into the great country that we live in. It is time that we encouraged city dwellers to take responsibility for themselves and their actions. They're never going to be properly integrated into the nation until we do.

hahahahaha, a cultural comparison, sometimes I'm proud to be a citizen of the world.

Good article, right to the last line, "Solutions are in our Nature" Now there is a positivist. Kind of like a game of Monopoly where the only way the richest player at the game can get richer is if you extend the board to include a new set each time you pass Go. It's easier to extend a board game than it is to extend a planet. If we want sustainable human well being it is possible.

I'm not big on conspiracies, that suggests secretiveness. Some of the Americans on here are quite open about it. I'm willing to look at other options, Have any?

Unfortunately I have to agree with Margrace, There only seems to be the one explanation left. Logic and reason are ignored in the discussion, valid points are ignored and the re-iteration of invalid arguments, like ratings are trotted out. Who could this shadowy American threat consist of, could be the government itself with a perversion of the theory of Manifest Destiny ringing in their empty heads. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and some of us have given up on ever seeing it.

Geoffrey wrote, "I'm a big environmentalist because I personally enjoy it at least 2 days a week in the mountain parks. I know how much effort we need to put into protecting these areas. I'm just saying that any program that puts a dollar value on pollution won't work as businesses will just include it as an expense. Legal restrictions on development, ones that actually stand up, need to be in place instead. Like no development in national/provincial parks. Like no sour gas flaring (which is banned in Texas but not Alberta). Things like these are the first steps we have to make to have a clean and vibrant environment in Canada. Alberta is the national leader in green energy suprisingly, with more power derived from wind than anywhere else in the country! My conclusion on oil prices and its eventual invalubility is rather complex, and I really don't feel like writing out a few pages of my thoughts on this forum, so I'll try to sum it up as best I can. As oil prices continue to climb based on reduced supply and increased demand (we are nearing peak output), alternative energies become cheaper and cheaper relative to oil. When this happens, we'll obviously switch to the cheaper alternatives, eventually reducing oil demand to near zero (except for production of certain plastics which will probably stay petroleum based) and oil will become nearly worthless (compared to today's prices). Nuclear and wind power are two very viable alternatives to fossil fuels in the very near future. In fact, they can pay for themselves over a not so distant timeframe! It's truly an exciting time when businesses can be profitable and efficient and the environment can be protected to greater extremes. It's true progress what we are seeing now, and I feel like we are going to continue towards this greater, greener and cleaner society." .... Me too, although I try not to sound like a poster boy for Chairman Mao when I talk about it. You may be right about the future of supply and demand for oil, I'm just wondering if there is anything about future option value taught these days about resources like oil in economics class? If we don't recognize that oil is actually more expensive than we are paying now, because of the other values which it's overuse is impacting, and in some way have business pass on those costs as expenses we face, we are ripping off our kids and our grand kids. This is the economics that a large part of Wilsons generation of economists some how missed. This is why Canada should send someone to the States who is able to use his major ability in a positive way for Canada.

I don't think that the CBC inhibits anyones choice in viewing. As anyone whose head isn't on fire can see the CBC does display a varied set of viewpoints depending on who is working on any given show, at any particular time. The cuts that the CBC has already gone through since the early '80s do have a limiting effect on who those individuals are however. Lloyd Robertson didn't leave CBC because he suddenly wanted a change of scene. He left because the CBC could no longer compete for his services with an organization like CTV. The cuts have done similar damage to the quality and longevity of the CBC staff from one coast to the other and from one medium to the other. For the right to now turn around and complain that their minimal amount of tax dollars are being used to produce poor shows is just a tad.......... , you know I can't think of a word for that kind of mentality, other than self-serving. It is however an indication that we are paying more for private broadcasting than we are for public. I for one am fed up to here with it because frankly I don't see it as being as good. Other countries don't have publicly paid for broadcasting? The US pays for it's armed forces media. I think I saw that it has ten different services completely blanketing the world. A pretty penny I expect is paid for by American Taxpayers. The CBC also provides this service as well as giving us some humour that mature minds can take or leave.

The US government has done nothing on emissions, the American people have though in pressuring businesses to be more responsibile. You can be responsible and profitable. Your also right in saying that much of the pollution decrease is due to moving manufacturing overseas (because of those wages we previously mentioned). I am an economics (energy is my focus of all things) student currently, and I've come to all these same conclusions. Don't take out the anger on all of us! There are lots of economists that do see beyond just dollar value. Lots of people lose sight of the fact that economics is a means to an end, and that end is a higher standard of living... and standard of living does go beyond how much you make. You bring up some very important ideas on future reserves of energy and the concerns about having nothing left for future generations. Remember though, oil will only be valuable for a short time, before it becomes so expensive we move to other forms of energy! We've got a limited timeframe for extraction before it becomes worthless. Oil is also one of the least environmentally harmful energies to extract, when from traditional sources. Oil sands are a bugger, coal is horrible and natural gas has flaring issues with sour gas which haven't been researched fully enough (though lots of oil extraction in Alberta shares these problems). Oil is one of our cleanest energy forms environmentally, at least until people drop irrational fears about nuclear power. The problem with your approach is your trying to, using your terminology, internalise externalities to businesses. I find issue with this because these aspects of our well being are virtually priceless. I can't put a price tag on environmental destruction, can you? This makes it impossible to internalise these policies, and instead, we need to help out proactive business leaders that decide to make ethical choices in their operations... and most of these people are in the small business sector. I have faith that with the right tax system, and subsidies to companies that make ethical choices, we can all be both better off environmentally and be more wealthy! ADDITION: Speaker, you mentioned that you'd calculate our wealth based on an estimate of our resources, and not GDP. Your partially correct... GDP is a very accurate measure of how productive the economy is, and how much money people have. Our actually inherent wealth is not at all portrayed by this. Looking at your system though, countries that have next to zero resources, say Luxembourg, would be the poorest in the world... where as countries that are underdeveloped but resource rich, say... Zaire, would be labelled as rich. There is a fundamental problem with your method. I didn't say that natural resources are the only resources that should be attributed to "wealth" or worth. However when you consider that lung cancer is considered a contributor to GDP through the sale of cigarettes and the hospitalization costs and desparation cures and the funerals of course..... then there is the car accidents, political contributions, environmental clean-up, et cetera. I don't think I have that fundamental problem. It's good to hear that there are some economists who are recognizing that there is nothing external about environmental impacts. It, the damage, is all right here and we have to live with it. I've heard the argument about the pricelessness of our environment too. Usually however I hear it from people who are saying that we can't take it into account in our business decisions simply because of that. I think there are a couple of different options for determining the cost of at least some of the more major impact areas. Let's try aesthetic value of a piece of wildlife habitat, forest/ river mix, fish habitat, and someone wants to put a mine in the valley. What you're going to do is transfer the proposal to the Elbow river valley as it goes through Calgary and see how much Calgarians are giving up so that the park doesn't get developed. Not precise but an estimate of the worth of the other valleys aesthetic worth. I really don't understand your conclusion that oil is going to become so expensive that it will be worthless, In an effort to keep our economy from foundering we should be looking at our least expensive energy for development. Kyoto is an attempt to put a value on fossil fuel use, as one of the culprits in green house gas, Is the cost of oil way to high then? so be it. It's not that oil doesn't have that cost already, right? This is the externality that we are avoiding rather than being honest with ourselves. Maybe some of the less environmentally damaging, ie renewable, energy sources are more economically responsible already. I don't care whether business actually pays in hard cash for the environmental damage that they would propose doing but I think it's only appropriate that when the externalities are calculated that the people affected have a commensurate impact on the decision to proceed.

What I was looking for was a number that you seem to feel is valid. I'd be willing to bet but who do we get to give an unbiased examination of each sides figures ? If you can figure a way around all the figuring i'm willing to bet. in the mean time how have the Americans as a people spent ludicrous amounts, let alone more than the kyoto signers.

Dump Kyoto and don't spend the ludicrous amounts of money the Americans spent in order to keep their air pollution down to only an extra 12% compared to what it was 5 or so years ago. We haven't lifted a finger, yet our pollution went up only 13 measily percent more than theirs. Besides ... it's all about second hand smoke anyway. As long as we keep smokers at least a mile away from nonsmokers lung deseases will plummet! And that's a fact that both, the U.S. and Canada, swear by. There ought to be a law! :angry: Lawless said as well "I don't see that time coming soon and until we can fiqure out how to exist without polluting ( in a meaningful way) then forget it and accept the fact pollution is part of the makeup that allows our existence on this planet." It would be my suggestion that the anger that is turned toward the Liberals not be directed to throwing out the good with the bad. We might as well keep Kyoto and try and improve on it. Starting fresh, especially with a made in Canada solution for a global problem, would likely initiate massive laughter from anyone who can read. The trouble with accepting the present level of damage that we do to the environment as what allows our existence on the planet is that the present level is what is going to make our continued existence questionable. This is why a pile of very concerned people have discussed over years some compromise that came to be known as Kyoto. I've been accused if having my head in the sand on a few things over the years but this is getting ridiculous. Biblio Bibuli, what ludicrous amounts have the Americans spent, and what Americans have spent it?

Seems like just another case of the poor little sheppard boy who cried wolf one too many times.