speaker

I think it's quite possible that it's part of the Conservatives plan. If it brings us closer to the American style two party/one party state it brings us closer to a nation that has no real opposition and I believe this would be a bonus for the supporters of the conservative party.

This would be a good thing. All they have to do is come to their, or preferably some kind of common senses. Isn't it amazing how quickly things have gone downhill after all that beautiful talk about co-operation? I too would like to be able to say that I can let bygones be and move on. But I can't, on the other hand I haven't been elected to put the needs of the country ahead of my own, what I can do is feel a lot of anger about what the conservatives tried to do by taking advantage of the perceived weakness of the opposition. I can readily imagine what they would have pulled if they had gotten a majority. Knock on wood.

I just assumed that this was about the Alliance party, the old reform, the progressive, the conservatives, and those terrible Bloc supporters that the Conservatives relied on for so long in earlier parliaments.

I haven't seen any news of any serious talks about a coalition until the conservatives decided to try and take advantage of the country during the oppositions dis-array by making the country less democratic and less egalitarian. I think it would be a good idea to abolish any funding for parties other than government funding. The only thing the coalition has to do to get my support is to bring in proportional representation. I have also noted that our government, for a short time, was busy bailing out the banks. The record breaking profits every quarter for as long as I can remember banks.

unfortunate, eh? at a time when the concept of eating closer to home, like the hundred mile diet etc., seem to be taking off. It would be too bad to see what little fruit production we have go down the tube just when it looks like we are going to need it.

It is true that many farmers see ethanol and biodiesel as a fix for what were, up til a few months ago, a thirty year devastation of lousy prices. I think that a lot of farmers also recognize that very unsustainable practices like ethanol can't be carried on. With concerns like peak oil, climate change, economics that are tanking etc., there may be a bit of an attitude of if the world is going to hell in a handbasket the least I can do is hold on to the land as long as possible. And if that means growing fuel instead of food so be it. That said, there is the option of growing fuel crops sustainably. Not with massive use of existing oil and gas stocks in fertilizers and pesticides and tractor fuel, though some will be needed. However it requires using manure and green manure to keep the soil from getting depleted. It would mean that more land would be needed per bushel of grain or litre of fuel. That is going to take even more away from food production. I agree with Bonam, we need more efficiency, not just in vehicles but all our energy uses. We need vehicles that generate their own fuel, (solar), or consumers who get their own fuel from nature, wind, solar, geothermal, wave, what have you?

There are now about six and a half billion people on the globe, that is the same one that you might concede is actually warming. On this globe there is a history of migration when things get tough, either too hot, too cold, too dry, etc. Up until now there has been land that was not already populated to the max. Let's assume just for a minute, as the UN and World Health Organization, and all of the other scientific and political organizations mentioned earlier in this thread do, that there will be areas hit by serious drought, where do you think that migration is going to go this time and what shape will it take? There will be areas where the warmer temperatures could concievably encourage more crop production from existing farmland, (there is no likelihood of it creating additional farmland for the foreseeable future), so it would be possible to grow more food to send to areas starving if the fortunate ones are so inclined. However there is a serious problem with fertilization, chemicals and fuels for farm machinery that all combined to give us the green revolution, and provided us with our current food wealth. Unless we cut back on our wastage of fossil fuels there may not be such assistance for future crop production. Not only will we be short of our present capability but we will have the expanded problems of drought, untimely storms, earlier snowmelt, possibly glaciation in northern Europe. Talk about your basic industries.

jester, I think if you check out the IPCC site here , http://www.ipcc.ch/ ,, you will find that they also are trying to figure out how to mitigate the impacts of climate change, the knowledge of the extent of impacts from global warming will help us to figure out what adaptations will work best and most economically.

That's an interesting piece of journalistic , what's the expression?, gobbledy gook? yah that's it. Ok so tree rings all around the world have grown faster over the last seventy years and this is sometimes attributed to CO2 forced global warming, but the hypothesis here is that it has nothing to do with global warming but primarily to do with human caused CO2 increases which coincidentally increase global warming. The editorial staff then speculates that there may be some other factors which are keeping CO2 induced global warming down. I wonder if it could be that trees are taking in more CO2 thereby relieving some of the forcing from global warming? Now wouldn't it be nice if forests weren't being harvested at rates which are wiping out forests which are helping with global warming. cause and effect, it's just that some can have it right in front of them and not see it.

Well, it looks to me like that is settled then.. So we should move on to finding ways that we can act to slow down and turn the global warming issue around. Here's a couple of articles that came up when I googled for global warming solutions. The first is a personal and corporate responsibility initiative which is good to see. It'll be interesting to see if the American Government acts on it. The second is a reference guide for investing funds in responsible business activities. Personally I still think that our own use of fossil fuels and our daily behaviour is of primary importance. Let's plant some trees, recycle, re-use, and reduce consumption. http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/sgw_read....id=124703612006 http://dmoz.org/Business/Investing/Sociall...sible/Research/

This is an interesting site, has some good stats on the effect of handing too much control over. The heads of Mexico. US and Canada will be meeting in Montebello near Ottawa in August, , , 19th to the 21st I think, to discuss SPP etc. Might be interesting to show up there. http://www.art-us.org/node/232

The globe could do with a little more cool.

Well, when you got it flaunt it I always say. That is a good part of my point here, that when the politicians are giving such good ear to the corporate elite, and relying on good old trickle down economics, they are missing out on what people in other positions have to go through because of their ignorance. Ignorance achieved through missing out on more in depth discussions of societal benefits and costs. The reason I think the American money management is worried about a lower dollar is because the lower American dollar will reduce the American consumers spending power, which in my opinion would be a good thing. However it must just terrify politicians in the states because the whole structure is predicated on happy happy happy people buying buying buying. It's so entrenched at this point that elections are at stake because of it.

Moxie, A good part of the pollution of our air, water, and soil, is a result of our abusive use of fossil fuels, which coincidentally is also one of the driving forces within the total of anthropogenic global warming. By recognizing the need to change we can have many positive impacts. ScottSA, an interesting article on the effort by scientists to resolve Malaria. I think you will find that the scientists working on this problem have different educational backgrounds from those working on global warming and that this could be the reason the latter are not working on Malaria from the same point of view. Another article from the same source, http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/5-28-2006-97583.asp approaces the need for action now that the science is advanced enough to justify it. B Max, Do you realize that your little joke means you are probably a Marxist at heart? I'm sure Zeppo would be proud of you, hold on a second I have to twist my arm around to a more comfortable position, oh ah there we go, I'm going to have to get a mattress underneath my bed. It isn't weather changing that worries me, It really isn't global warming that worries me. If anything it would be the side effects, or as mentioned in this quote from a scientist who has difficulties with the IPCC work ,, We will adapt to climate change. The question is whether it will be planned or not? How disruptive and how much loss of life will there be because we did not adequately plan for the climate changes that are already occurring? Kevin Trenberth, Climate Analysis Section, NCAR His concerns about the shortcomings of modelling agm have been widely quoted by deniers as "proof" that the IPCC doesn't know what they are doing. But when he gets down to cases the point he is making is that while we can always use more study and better methodology, that doesn't detract from the very serious threat to our way of life and our economic system from global warming.

Feel free to have a look at an IPCC note on sea level rise, If you go to page 15 you will see a prediction of a .6 metre rise in sea levels. This would be about two feet, by 2100. http://www.ipcc.ch/15_wmo_congress_pdf/nicholls_cg15.pdf Where did you get your four inch quote from?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070702/sc_nm/...JgDRJny2qhrAlMA

Margrace, you are right, anyone who has not seen the waste has not been to our garbage disposal areas. It is also possible that such people just don't get out at all. Sitting shivering under blankets in their drafty homes because to do otherwise would be surrendering to the communist plot of efficiency. As they yell NO!! I will not buy a vehicle that I can actually afford to drive!! that would be Marxian!!! I can see it now as they steer their kids away from any form of public transit because that has the word public in it! Lordy, Lordy, Lordy, The green house effect of CO2 is an accepted thing. The greenhouse effect will bring cold to some areas, drought to others, excessive rain and violent storms capable of washing away topsoils or eroding banks under dangerously sited housing developments, increase the range of insects that spread disease or destroy forests because winters aren't cold enough to kill them anymore, heat waves like never before kill hundreds as they have this week in southern Europe. Perhaps some people are so afraid that this will catch up to them that they are in denial....

Alright already I will come clean... I am a Marxist, Groucho or Chico, I'm not sure which yet. I guess I'm leaning towards a synthesis of the two. This is a conservative philosophy, I wonder how many people out there can't see the difference. LOL You want to try to answer the questions your previous post initiated?

Ah yes, Need is always an interesting point. For example, succesive liberalconservative governments have consistently subsidized big oil developments because they say, that we need them. Without as far as I know ever having done an analysis of how we might alternatively need less. Perhaps the governments have a need for the tax money so that they can subsidize the oil companies. I don't think there are many Canadians who need to live in poorly insulated and drafty housing, and yet we need to use all kinds of energy to keep warm. There aren't many who can't fit on a bus and yet we need to build 16 lane freeways because we all need to drive alone to work or play or to the grocery store and back. Very few of us are going to be professional race car drivers but surprisingly many of us need 300 hp engines to drag our sorry butts through town. And the need to get people to realize that their incredible wastefulness is going to make us all poor before our time is tyranny. What do you suppose the ads telling us that we need, need, need, need, is?

Marxist, Schmarxist. If you could, would you explain why energy conservation and green energy will lead to tyranny and poverty? LOL. The four core industries will remain the four core industries. We will be spending less than we would, given conditions, on energy because we are using less. It will mean there is more oil and gas in the ground for later use. There will be less CO2 in the air causing global warming, less pollution generally, really good opportunities for entrepreneurs. why is this a bad thing.

So correct me if I'm wrong, you have the impression that the way to save capital is to harvest it as quickly as possible and sell it at whatever you can get for it?, the way our fish for example have been saved... or our forests,... or our farms,... and of course our oil and gas. I don't have a good grasp of economics but if this is what passes for good economic sense than I'm fairly happy I'm not an economist.

Your concern is that is we quit exporting our natural resources, specifically our oil, and gas, and coal, that we won't be able to afford health care and that we will all be unemployed. There is a pile of employment in the fossil fuels sector, and the taxes from employment and resource extraction help pay for our services and the spin off employs more people. I don't think there is any doubt about that. The point is that people could give up driving unnecessarily large vehicles, could take the train rather than fly, could live in insulated draft free houses, spend a little less time on recreational vehicles and mowing their lawns with gas powered mowers, take public tranit instead of driving themselves around the bend. The money saved, the energy not spent, the infrastructure costs reduced all add up to enough savings that we could probably maintain healthcare and hire people to put in greener energy systems. That would provide spinoffs in the same way that our current fossil fuel industries do. In fact I heard years ago that the big megaprojects like the tarsands provide fewer jobs than conservation oriented technology and investment. And to top it all off we will have our fossil fuels to sell as the value of it continues to increase as the impacts of peak oil trickle into the economy.

This is going to strengthen your case?lol don't see it myself. I don't know any mass murderers amongst the environmentalists that I know, and while there is the occasional shithead, you come across them everywhere even amongst the deniers. Denying global warming doesn't make you a holocaust denier. It just makes you a global warming denier. Although come to think of it there might be a case for the line out of Shakespeare, "methinks he doth protest too much". My apologies to Shakespeare fans if I got that wrong. If you stop for a second and look at the amount of money being made by maintaining a business as usual attitude towards global warming perhaps you will notice that environmentalists, when they are paid make somewhat less than their opposition in this particular battle. Auto makers, oil and gas, and coal companies. Industry that just doesn't want to have to improve their processes to lessen their impact on the environment, because they make more money the way they operate now. It is a pretty significant chunk of change available to buy the mainstream press with.

I think it might be useful to remember that most of our media these days relies on advertising dollars to keep it going, It's only natural that the media caters to it's sponsors by trying it's best to present the denialists point of view whenever asked. To suggest that the press is ignoring a serious counterpoint to the un's reports doesn't make a lot of sense. It must be therefore that the Newsbusters and the heartland think tank are trying to bring a tempest out of a teapot as has happened so many times before. The UN has the integrity to hire people it knows will call into question its assumptions and its conclusions. It then has the honesty to report that the people it hired disagree with some aspects of the work. the deniers then sieze on this as "proof" that the UN hasn't got it right. I think a debate would be really useful. Perhaps the people who support the Heartland institute would share the cost of a nationally televised discussion between the scientists who are within the consensus and the scientists who have stuck to their guns in the face of this obvious intergovernmental scam, and denied that global warming is being forced by manmade CO2. I'd love to see that.

wow, how in depth are these people? We're going to ask the Chinese to play along with our money strategies? Maybe ask them to pay their people a living wage? Maybe allow capitalists in to skim more of the profit off and bring it back to the USA so that the $ doesn't go south? I tend to agree that they aren't going to have a lot of luck with either of those strategies. The dollar is based on what people are willing to pay for it, period. it's based on how much money traders can make trading it at different levels. There's an absolute to base an economy on eh? Amero, Amero, wherefore art thou? one more tricksy little ploy mr. bush has up his sleeve. The corporate leaders of the free world can't lose. Either they get allowed into China and probably India to the extent that they can maintain their sovereignty, or bushman hands them a northamerican union to sooth their aching desire to get bigger. dam they are pathetic little men.