speaker

There are some pretty good sized corps that have supported all kinds of environmental impact assessment science. Up to a point there can be serious benefits from understanding what's actually happening around you. We'll see now whether there is staying power and backbone in them as the science gets out better. and feel free to check out the Suzuki Foundation for its backers.

libcon is my phrase for the doublespeak of the governing party, the liberalsandconservatives,

So then the real issue is money, If I were to set up an organization dedicated to prooving scientifically that money is the root of all evil and asked everyone with a social conscience to donate, preferrably all their money, hoooolaaa You know JerrySeinfeld I'd have to go along with you on all of that except for the fact that the science is being examined every which way from sunday and the only stuff that isn't getting into peer reviewed journals is the stuff that is being paid for by the essos of the world.

conditioned behaviour like that of the three monkeys, you don't see what's happening in front of you, you don't hear what's going on around you and you certainly don't talk about it. GAAAD what's wrong with people don't they know that steven wants to be elected with a majority so that he can do this to all of us. this is libcon at its best. what is it at its worst? Ya, I'd be proud of that.

The concept may be foreign to you, but. When you take a job you do so on the understanding that there are conditions and standards of performance and behavior that must be met. Complying with them is called professionalism. If you also want to call that conservatism, I would think most conservatives would consider it a compliment. conditioned behaviour like that of the three monkeys, you don't see what's happening in front of you, you don't hear what's going on around you and you certainly don't talk about it. GAAAD what's wrong with people don't they know that steven wants to be elected with a majority so that he can do this to all of us.

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/ There you go geoffrey, perhaps as an accountant you can find what you say they aren't telling. but be very careful.... your mind might be broadened.

do we want a civil service where everyone is free to act according to their own personal beliefs , which would be anarchy..... or one in which we are not free which would be, let's see ... conservatism.

In what way is revealing information about environmental malpractise any less benevolent to the public good than any other kind of wrong-doing. For example, if a bureaucrat in agriculture found that government was introducing legistation making an environment harming chemical available for public use based on bad information or simple bad intent, that would be whistleblowing. If an employee recognizes an attempt to avoid action on a serious environmental issue and puts that before the public it is no different than an employee who sees fraud and coverup in a money issue. Private company employees have the same ability, unfortunately not enough of them have the foresight to understand right from wrong.

In related news this site talks about the need to conserve energy and become more efficient. Carbon trading was intended to be an option of last resort in countries or companies that either don't want to or can't meet their national goals through any of the other options. It's only when trading is perceived as the easy option that all the associated problems with not taking responsibility in the first place crop up. http://ec.europa.eu/energy/demand/index_en.htm This reference is to comments from the EU environment minister about how few countries are stepping up to the table. She points out that it is basically a lack of will power rather than options for achieving the goals. http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/st...1098635,00.html

Only trouble is, Gee whiz..... It's hard to tell who wants us to be poor the ones who can't see the heat waves going past their own noses or the ones who can.

Dictatorial you say, Suzuki??? oh ok Ya I noticed the scientists threat of incarceration and/or exile and/or torture common to dictatorial types, on the body of our Prime Minister to the people of Canada. Boy Mr. Harper better be careful, He may get the remains of the pie that got Chretien. oooh scary. He opened himself to ridicule and chastisement? yes that is true. Fortunately he also opened himself to respect and even honor for having the courage of his convictions. I think the only panicing about global warming is being done by the frightened well to do. I am a private citizen, a self employed businessman, I do alright. I've looked at Kyoto and I don't see how it is necessary that I should suffer unduly for our nations implementation of Green Houses gas reductions. I believe it is necessary to do this and I am willing to face anything that is apparent at this point by way of inconvenience. I am willing to go through this because the scientists with the credibility are the ones we hired to tell us what's up, and they have done so. ( I am not an Exxon shareholder so that isn't the we I'm reffering to.) So let's do something constructive that neither the Libbers or the Conners are going to do. Start personally taking better care of things around you.

Pretty interesting eh? Here's the poor oil companies on one side trying to do a good deed for society by doing all this difficult investing on behalf of society, I'm sure they would be happy to open refineries in Canada if we were willing to forego this non-sensical environmentalist desire to have habitable communities. I would go so far to say that The poor oil companies wouldn't have closed down many of the old refineries in Canada if only we had been willing to give them some more subsidies to update them or at least lower the cost of doing business here to the point where it wasn't more favourable to invest in the southern states and places like Venezuela. Places where people are much more sensible and willing to live poor and die early so that the investments might pay off a year or so earlier. What!!!! the rabid Communist so-called government of Venezuela is trying to pay a reasonable price in order to buy themselves back into their own resources and some status of statehood again? I say Blitzkrieg the buggers just like we did in Afghanistan, Iraq, and all them other practice countries we hit earlier. Go Team GO!!!!

My congratulations to Mr. Suzuki for his great resilience and commitment in the process of educating world opinion on the hundreds of serious issues his efforts have put before the sometimes reluctant public. It is unfortunate that some people feel the only way to disagree with the issue is to attack a messanger. I assume it is because these people haven't the ability to think through an issue to the point of coming up with a serious argument. If there is a moderator reading this it was my understanding that the kind of inane and irresponsible attack that is taking place on this thread against a third party, ie Mr. Suzuki, was not to be allowed on this discussion site. I have not heard anyone,,,, anyone,,,, who is aware of the impacts of ghgases, who has not acknowledged that there would be financial impacts of trying to control the danger of human produced global warming. The climate change deniers on the other hand, don't just deny the evidence presented by a near unanimous global body of scientists with the credentials to back up their evidence, they try to mislead the public by denying the authority of those scientists who we gave authority to through our elected representatives. The point now is not whether there would be an impact on our finances if we do something about the possible disasters, it is whether or not there will be an economy worth thinking about if we don't do something about global warming. To suggest that this is in some way a leftist fad is a farce of the first order.

We don't want to create more problems in solving other ones. However no matter how we solve this one there will be new ones. And we do need to solve it. Destroy the economy, or learn to live within our personal, corporate, work, and governmental energy surroundings. There are approximately a million acres of land under hydro-electric reservoirs in BC alone. This represents what used to be some of the provinces best agricultural land, wildlife habitat, forest land, recreational opportunities, and of course human habitation. I expect the same figures are true for Saskatchewan/Manitoba, and Quebec. The costs of these reservoir losses are still being borne by the taxpayers of these provinces. The line losses used to be as much as one third of generation, just within the province. There may be some improvement with replacing lines with better materials but it is still pretty significant. Government, not recognizing the costs of destruction on the environment of building projects and then building them one third larger to account for line loss, actually thought it would be a good deal to send power to the California market from BCs northern interior. At prevailing market rates. ::<( I like the idea of using geothermal, waste stream energy recovery, solar in it's many aspects, wind, tidal, wave, micro hydro. Whatever seems appropriate to the inhabitants of any given area. The notion that conserving our fossil fuels as much as possible, planting trees, and building up our soils for sequestration purposes will trainwreck the economy is just so much frightened thinking. With any luck it will re-align it away from our current wasteful, corporate driven consumerism. There will be some hurt, but obviously not as much as the alternative of not meeting the global warming threat.

I never heard of it being used as evidence in any way. It was a photo that had appeal and was appropriate because polar bears are going to have difficulty surviving. It was used as a photo-op in the same sense that a politician puts on a work shirt to visit a farm, or a hard hat to show how much he is concerned about the plight of mining. You wouldn't expect him to actually put up with what miners have to put up with. On a more positive note I heard that at least some Innuit are seeing more polar bears this year, so perhaps the milder winters have allowed more of the cubs to survive and get a good start. It's still unfortunate that they are having to contend with reduced territory, and more difficulty finding food because of the big ice melt. On a less positive point it seems they are contending by breeding with the grizzlies who are being pushed out of their southerly and mountainous territory and into the Arctic. Can't be good for other forms of life up there.

Mall lighting for example is really depressing, and I do get the feeling that it has something to do with frequency, and the same can be said for a lot of offices. Perhaps it is having the big tubes hooked up in series one after another. That said I think that the newer compact flourescent bulbs are far better than that or even the old CF bulbs. I heard recently that GE and other manufacturers were working kind of feverishly on bringing out more efficient incandescents, but haven't heard any results yet. That would be a good jumpstart for the industry

Obsolete language? that's quite the statement there. I think that each language has something to offer us in terms of ways we can learn to express ourselves better, and thereby perhaps avoid misunderstandings which can lead to predjudice and bigotry. While each Quebec person has a vote, this does not negate the idea that there are considerably more non french in Canada which places them in a minority which over the centuries has tried with mixed success to deal with the "French Question" occaionally in quite tyrannical manners. Unlimited powers of the Federal government? I think that our system is pretty much headed down the same slippery slope of corruption, and back room politics as the American and other governments around the world. Aside from our propensity for voting into power people who are powertropic, and their constant attempts to solidify their individual or party power, the federal government as a government is not enjoying unlimited power. Think of all the things Canada cannot do to it's citizens that other nations don't seem to have any restraints about. It's my impression that so many people are trying to get into Canada that our government has fallen to the level of picking and choosing from the wealthy and the educated of third world or other countries who are willing to pay what amounts to a head tax to get in.

Well, they may be always wrong, but they are also mostly right. lol right on,,,,, so, I have on occasion been accused of being an Environmentalist, It seems to me that it would be better to ask one of them what their intent is rather than take the word of someone who probably has never been so accused.

Leafless, ok so Quebecs language laws might be a little over the top, excessive from my point of view, however I can understand the need to maintain a cultural identity and I can understand that that possibility is under extreme pressure from the tyranny of the majority. I figure one deserves the other. I accept that programs like multiculturism cost money and to a minor extent those taxes restrict an individuals ability to buy more. I don't see it as a systematic stripping of individual rights. If this is what you mean I'm sorry you feel this way. The fact is we are a multicultural society and as such we have the opportunity to do what no other society in history has ever done and that is to make it work. Compromise isn't necessarily a bad thing. Being the richest people on the face of the planet doesn't hurt either. If we were really poor and we had to put up with this strain it might be a bit much. I hope the rest of the world appreciates the effort. We have some of the best infrastructure and health care, etc. in the world too, possibly because we have a rich diversity of national interests to draw from. If we don't get carried away in side issues perhaps we can keep ourselves focused on that and maintain the economic strength we have. It's true that each Canadian is protected from descrimination by the charter. It is also true that every hockey player was protected by the rules of hockey as far back as the turn of the last century. That hasn't stopped Hockey Canada from constantly introducing more specific rules to deal with specific violations of that first single page of common sense rules. The Courts have the same job as the referees. Understanding the rules, interpreting them, making rulings, and making suggestions on improvements. As much as I dislike the arrogance and billing rates of some of the legal profession, I think we need them at least as much as we need parking lot attendants, bouncers, and bakers. The American system is not better than the Canadian. It may have had a chance at one time early in their history to be so but has been long since corrupted and demeaned by it's own practioners so that now it is only a shadow of what it might have been. Much as Chinese Communism is only a front for the power greedy. Canada has not broken down into groups, despite the quebec and alberta separatistes best efforts. Rather we have always been a collection of groups that is learning through necessity and often the hard way to work together. Cheer up it could be worse. So I cheered up and sure enough it got worse.

Boys oh boys, another gooder. georgeriesman eh? quite the guy. capitalist, you think? lolol. If I am in the mood for making sweeping generalizations about a group of people I think first and maybe have a closer look because sweeping generalizations are always wrong.

ScottSA Maybe you're talking about the energy being the inheritance, I'm simply talking about the money we are spending while we use so much more energy than we need to. It seems odd to me that people believe that with the cost of energy constantly going up and the gas price impact of new projects being subsidized by government so many people blithely continue believing that waste is good for the economy. I'm afraid your scenarios of destroying the earth and having it melt in a global warming inferno are your fairy tales. If that is where you prefer to live it's not for me to criticize. The point is that fossil fuels are no longer cheap and by all indications, ie heavy oil extraction costs, cleaner coal costs, drilling deeper for oil and gas, fossil fuels are already more expensive even than we recognize. Certainly as it becomes more expensive it will price itself out of the market, other alternatives will look better in comparison but will not be cheap. We'll be spending more and probably be getting less. Not good for the economy and not good for the grandkids.

Leafless, So if I understand, you are being a bit sarcastic about the use of the courts to protect the rights of minorities, and believe that this infringes on the rights of those of us in the majority? I don't know what it is specifically that is bothering you but I think that the courts are required to look at issues of equity and personal freedom and come down with rulings that will do the least harm, to either minorities or the majority. Our personal right or freedom is not a right or freedom if it substantially reduces others and vice versa. It's true that there are options within the Canadian system for having decisions made for example by the MPs. But if the issue is one that requires a certain amount of legal training then the MPs are going to rely on advice from the legalese bureaucracy because the politicians to a large extent just don't have it. And I don't think we want to rely on bureaucrats. The same problem is true with referendums, whose advice are you going to take on the legal aspects of any issue. It could turn into even more of a windfall for lawyers than having the thing resolved in court. If something relies too much on the politics within parties and not enough on the issues it means that democracy isn't working. It means that the old boy network is working and the American system is certainly no better than ours from that perspective, and it certainly isn't something that I want.

yes but you said at present....at present millions of homes aren't maximised to to benefits from the sun. At presents 10s of thousand of homes are in areas where there are less tha 5 hours of sunlight a day during the winter...... M.Dancer, The point I guess is that we take our existing benefit from solar energy for granted and yet we have a hard time accepting that human innovation can improve our usage of this benefit. In this area where we have relatively small amounts of winter sunshine all of our summer heat is solar, and on those days when the winter sun is low and shining straight in our windows there is a measurable impact. And we are not optimally designed by any means. ScottSA, There actually are solar ovens, and active solar installations that pump water for irrigation, but it is a fairly safe bet to say that it isn't going to do what it can't do. Part of a good passive solar design is minimizing what you term our "need" for energy through efficiency and conservation measures. I think it's a good point and we need a similar system of design for transportation, agriculture and resource recovery in general, as well as manufacturing and retail etc. If we can not blow our energy out through our ....... , and instead focus on using it intelligently then perhaps solar electric, wind power, tidal, wave, geothermal, developments can also be rationalized so that we don't have to blow the grandkids inheritance getting it to work properly this time.

How much solar energy is used to heat our residential sector at present, winter, spring, summer, and fall? I don't expect that your buddies cabin has been designed to maximize the benefit from the sun. Perhaps if it had, and if he had a small standby generator to keep an air flow going, the pipes might have been saved. I referenced those sites that look at developing technology in solar energy to point out that there doesn't need to be a whole lot of investment to develop sun power, and only incremental effort to improve it's performance in our existing and new buildings.

This is still tyranny by the majority being parliament, the judges and courts overriding individual rights. This defines Canada as a dictatorship. Understandably, what you want and I (since the Canadian government offers no alternative) is a Republic, a constitutionally limited government of the representative type, created by a written constitution, adopted by the people and changeable from its original content or meaning by the people (citizens or electorate) only by its amendment with its powers divided between three separate branches: Executive, Legislative and Judicial. Leafless, I suppose it depends to an extent on your definition of tyranny. Judges in Canada, as far as I know, never make a decision that affects anything without taking into consideration the opinions of interested parties. There are occasions when this isn't ideal such as when one side or the other impedes an interested party from participating. This isn't a fault of the system, but of human personality and agendas. However this is the case in any governmental model. What I do not want is an American model as it relies too much on the politics within parties and not enough on the issues.