speaker

ok now we're talking serious stuff here. I like this idea, the figure is actually thirty Billion in the article quoted. How much foriegn ownership could we buy back with that kind of money? And if instead of these inconsequential tax cuts we were to increase taxes by a similar amount, we could buy back that much more. I think you're on to something here Canuck E Stan.. Now if we could only get the prominent Canadian businessmen, like for instance Paul Martin to invest in CANADIAN companies instead of off shore tax shelters, man we'd be rolling in our own. I'm for starting up a lobby group to do this, anyone interested?

So do I. That's why I read the Economist and The Globalization Institute, to deal with realities, not some fantasy utopia. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> well there you go, getting rid of juries because of the OJ verdict might be somebodies idea of a fantasy but it's not mine. I think the economist and other reactionary political bodies like the Fraser Institute for example, have a feeling that money makes the world go round,mostly because money makes them go around. The reality is that the world is more complex and money cannot solve all problems. Of course it causes more than it solves, but who's counting. Utopias on the other hand are unattainable almost by definition. I think the only resolution is for each of us to come to a realization that "sustainable" is not a development issue, a money making opportunity, or a political catchall to justify political expediency, but literally a problem of life and death. So all those reactions to sustainability have their place in achieving it. Grand shemes like Kyoto which have the ability to sweep people up and make them understand the seriousness of the situation are a bonus as far as I'm concerned.

How does this sound, if you want to get rid of people like Haliburton just don't listen to them, don't buy their product, the difficulty or dare I say hypocrisy involved in someone from the right calling Moore a hypocrite comes from the number of times I have heard those same writers claim that the way to improve the world's environment is to make everyone rich enough that they can afford to care. If I owned stock in a copper mine in the Andes and got wealthy enough to have time to read about the labour conditions in the mine and as a result dumped the stock and bought into a recycling company, or better yet worked for the exposure of the injustice to less wealthy members of the N American public I would merely be fulfilling the corporate agenda.

I think that these right wing stink tanks, like the globalization institute quoted above have done enough damage with their fantasy type apologies for the market place. It is the direction the market place has led us that has brought on urban problems, global warming, disappearing fish stocks, forests, etc. Sure the marketplace can lead us out of this mess as well but not so long as it is so tenaciously explained and defended by institutes that are funded by the people who make their money causing injury to the planet. There is no, read no, credibility arising in the Economist, or the Globalization institute.

What is a "progressive" business? I think so. Two things must change: countries like China and India must be included and the agreement cannot be used to resolve unrelated issues of rich/poor.Kyoto failed because the rest of the world apprpriated ownership of the world's environment and then offered to sell it the US. The US government, understandably, refused to play that game. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> One sees so few progressive businesses that it's understandable that people don't know they exist. rather than give examples of companies that fit the description I think the idea of enlightened self interest in the future describes them. Companies that can see where we're headed if we don't improve our efforts for the environment and the population of the planet. The issue turns out to be one of equaliztaion between the rich and the poor, there is a news story, I saw it on the CBC website, saying that poor nations are suffering an unequal number of deaths because of global warming while being the people who contribute the least to the problem. In this small small world every opportunity should be taken to minimize the negative impact our actions have, especially when those impacts are distant from us

Then you'd support one of the two options, in fairness to your fellow Canadians, since none of the conservative outlets are publicly funded: - cut all public funding to the CBC - pour several billion in startup costs to a purely conservative national media outlet, plus a billion per year in operating costs in perpetuity I know you'd be happy to do either, you want to be fair to all Canadians, not just those who agree with your political viewpoint. Which one do you choose? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I think this is as big a red herring as you can find in the sea. of course the public pays for the conservative media why do you think there is a conservative media? if not to enrich the people running it. Mr. Black is one case in point. The trouble is that consecutive reactionary governments from trudeau through chretien, including our first american prime minister, Mr mulroney have taken a little piece of the heart of the CBC. At one time with intelligent investigative reporters the canadian public was treated to hard looks at politicians of all stripes. The reason that the right wing parties, grits and tories, are so paranoid now about any form of intelligent discourse about them is that for the most part they were in power when the CBC still had the wherewithall to give Canadians good work.

There's no point being pessimistic or paranoid about this, try to look on it as a natural turn of events and hope that it leads other progressive businesses to see that a little enlightened self interest in the future will be beneficial in the long run. Perhaps next we will hear of concrete proposals to reduce their own, or their own products emissions, it's all too the good.

is manning thinking of making a comeback as a green? I like the discussion that is going on in the red green blues, when it comes down to making the tough choices like whether to support the establishment of some kind of depletion charge to fossil fuels or investing more in alternativer forms of agriculture, transportation, consumer goods production Canadians will likely put the decision off for a little while.

have there been estimates of the conservation potential in ontario? conservation like any source of energy can be as cheap or expensive as anyone is willing to pay, and of course the more money that goes in the more potential there is. saving energy is still considered the cheapest especially if you take into account the environmental and social costs of the alternatives. if that is the case then whatever options are chosen to produce new energy society would need less resources spent to achieve the same end. I think that solar, passive, active and photovoltaic, in that order are the next options we will pursue, wind has it's place, small hydro, geothermal, tidal will all fit in in some quantities where the resource is abundant, perhaps we will move to where the energy is rather than create a demand on society to move it to us.