myata

I only saw the one with life guards. That was pathetic. Were we supposed to laugh every time they said "muslim"?

It's sufficient to put the numbers of civilian casualties side by side to instantly know where the real terror is. And yes, drumming "war on terror" is starting to feel quite annoying. To the extent that I'll vote for any politician (even a beer party) who will officially drop the stupid thing. Yes we should take care, and seriously, of our security. Just drop the dumb "war" thing and get to real work instead.

Sorry, only just noticed this great part, most worthy of quoting. So Isreal's forces are there on the West bank "to protect safe borders", eh? Nothing to do with illegal settlements, no? Only moral obligation. And no, Israel doesn not occupy Palestine and their checkpoints don't affect Palestinians in any way. What other revelations do you have for us? Just don't make it too long, so that each one can be quoted and dealt with separately on its own merit.

Hi Rue, your posts tend to be too long and throw in too much unnessessary data (not information!) for a reasonable discussion. Do you mean to say that the works near the mosque did not happen? I haven't done PhD research on this, but I heard on CBC news Israeli general advising against it. Against something that never happened that is? They also brought a cleric from the mosque live and he stated that there was no consultation. And so on. Now, have it ever dawned on you to question how and on what authority British could "promise to the league of nations to create a Jewish homeland" on other peoples lands, even if it were true?

And you may want to check if you didn't already happen to know that East Jerusalem is an occupied territory. To start messing around a holy site without consultation with the other side, especially given the situation with mutual trust between the parties, is to ask for a trouble. Which they predictably got. No surprise there. To the rest of your post, it's of course plain ridiculous to compare responsibilities of a government in an occupied territory with that of countries which have full control over its territory and resources. And, on the factual side, I do not believe that the site in question actually is under the control of the PA - it's being occupied by Israel, against international law. So, your anger seem to be misdirected.

Right. Why stop with PA? Cancel all programs with Mexico! Withdraw from NAFTA for that matter. And we should check if perhaps, any Canadians suffered in the US of late?

No, I'm sure you can do better!

You forgot to mention that the protest was sparkled by Israel's work around the holy site which apparently weren't cooridinated with the religious authorities of the mosque. The operators of the tour should have known better than to take tourists to the site which in the midst of a trouble. It's an unfortunate incident but I doubt it gives you grounds to blame all palestinians indiscriminately.

And I thought that each viewpoint should, perhaps, be clearly articulated?

Now, that's a smart and innovative solution to the problem. Really, why don't we just ask everubody else to cut their emissions, while we're busy developing our newly found rich? Might even work! Surely, nobody thought about that before? I think the only chance to achieve real progress now comes down to provinces. Those interested in making real reductions could come together and set up a synchronized system of caps and credits. Those in denial can lag behind. If it turns out that they'll need to massively upgrade their oil based economies, they can always buy technology for the riches saved from the boom (hope they won't evaporate in a real estate market crush when the bonanza's over). And sure, they could join any time having paid over-emissions (calculated on per-capita basis) for the years they were out.

I see. If it weren't for the godsend of Alberta, we'd better all committed collective suicide. There wouldn't simply anything else left for us to do. Just demise and despair. Seriously.

I beg to differ on that. Check around this country. Only Alberta, and to lesser degree, Saskatchevan and NF have oil or gas as major component of their revenues. Everybody else survives without, somehow. Even better example is Europe. Only a few countries there (Norway?) have large resources of oil. Most do fine without. The problem with the "intensity" targets is, of course, that they won't result in any actual reductions. Which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole enterprise. Because you can't argue for others to reduce their waste while you're busy getting rich developing oil sands.

Am I the only one who feels that this government's "the last government..." together with "we will introduce ..." adages in all things environmental are getting somewhat stale? I mean, it's been a year. It's neigher fresh, no funny anymore. And I want be fair here. Indeed, the last goverment could and should have done better. But this government's constant droning about past years combined with apparent lack of any real change now causes certain discomfort. And that causes the urge to revisit the issue - from a critical point of view. First, has it really been "13 years"? Liberals came to power in 1993, having inherited economy in recession and massive debt. Canada signed Kyoto in 1998, around the time the economy started to turn around and ratified in in the end of 2002. OK, five years seem like a lot of slack to evaluate, discuss and ratify such an important document. They should have done it in 2-3 years. That leaves about five (not 13!) years to develop a plan and start implementing it. Now I agree their plan was somewhat pathetic (one tonne challenge, enviro-guide and voluntary industry consultations is all what I recall of it), but we can give them a credit for being the first. So let's give them a year for that. The final score will be: Liberals (4 years of environment action): information compaigns; home efficiency improvement; consultations on voluntary industry caps; in the later years, massive investments in municipalities; and finally, Kyoto implementation plan, developed in Martin's final days (of which I can't recall much other than it existed). PC (1 year and counting): cancelled Liberal programs; caused much discontent in the earlier days by unclear position on Kyoto (remember Rona?); introduced "Clean Air Act" without any immediate action to "clean the air"; reinstated some of the old Liberal programs; promised some real caps some time soon. Somehow, I don't see much reason to get extatic about either of the two. Finally, the really important question is, what can and should really be done? In this CBC report, J.Baird rejected any notion of carbon tax or carbon trading. Having reiterated, again, the promise to come up with real targets for the industry, soon. But what are these caps, even if they are mandary? Are they going to be enforced? And how? If caps are applied uniformely with strict enforcement, wouldn't it be like, carbon tax? And if they are introduced without enforcement, what's the point? Other than to blubber about real caps and kept promises, of course. Because that (caps) and not real GHG reductions is what Baird and CPC are promising us. And so far I'm not impressed.

While I'm not a big fan of Chavez who does seem to be steadily evolving toward becoming a regular leftist dictator a la Castro, in my view of the world Bush and his immediate associates will be liable to criminal prosecution for the illegal war they started in Iraq. The only way to eliminate wars as an instrument of politics is to make individuals, not countries, directly and criminally responsible for their actions.

I have to admit that I've yet to make me see a full episode yet. So my impressions are purely from those commercials. And they aren't much positive, judging from the commercials. I mean I'm for the freedom. I've argued here for the right of anyone to wear what they want any time they want. However my excitement ends when someone feelgoody attempts to make me believe there's something positive in these practices. I mean, you don't want to swim - you absolutely have right for that - and I may even understand that it's important for the future salvation of your soul - but I fail to find anything funny or educational in it. Just a fact that some people have some strange beliefs and it's OK as long as we can all leave together peacefully. No further education needed, at least on my part.

I agree with August that the way things seem to be developing, there's no stopping this even if someone wanted to. And do we want to? It a question of individual vs imposed choice. Would it be morally right to take away the choice if its already available? E.g. if testing can reveal severe genetical disorder that could cause much suffering to parents and would be child? Or, in a less extreme case, make would-be child "less likeable" to the parents? It's not a question of attitudes, but of rationality: who can and will make a better choice, overall and in the big picture? Constistent history so far has been that if and when a choice becomes available, it will eventually be passed to the control of individuals. There're limitations and exceptions of course. But it's hard to beat general trend.

Make a difference by going to war to make other people make sacrifices to clean the mess left by our own irresponsiblity? Indeed, I would"t be extatic about making that kind of difference.

Depends on how much their emissions they make in the big picture. If its insignificant, why bother? Even less practical: definitely more expensive and lot riskier. How about: #3 do something in your own backyard and help the others when you've found a good solution? Or, #4 do nothing and pray for the best?

I've a hunch that when every other person in China and India is driving SUV or a truck, it'll be prime time to relocate to another planet. The problem is, will the service be availble and at what rate? Using threat of force against China would hardly yield much (other than bring the relocation time much closer). We'll have to stop being a democracy before that; I think even with all the issues we have, it's less likely solution than to convince them somehow that they should pay more for their garbage pickup (as we're going to pay for bottles now). Somehow, your solutions are even less realistic than those from enviro-crowd.

Can you clarify this part? If it hasn't made us reduce our polluting ways in sufficient measure, why and how will it make them do it? Regarding the other part, i.e. market incentive, sure if come to their door with a big bunch of dough, they may reconsider. But that's exactly the part August wasn't happy about. Maybe it'd be cheaper to start here then? BTW I'm all for $5 / garbage can (with proportional tax reduction of course). I take out one per month (composting, recycling and conscious buying) while my neighbours average one or two per week. Now, how they can be duped into accepting it, big question.

No one is saying that they should be off the hook entirely, August, and as far as I understand it was in the concept of Kyoto that other countries will follow the suit in the Phase II. It's just that someone has (had??) to start. And again, I don't understand this "least cost" part. Until there's a global government (and at the pace things are developing, we'll be long extinct by then), the cost for each country are owned by that country. There's no way someone could come to your door with a message like, you've got to cut your emissions more than me because it's less expensive for you. Each should clean their own act. Simple, really.

The world isn't build around "market incentives" only, important as they are. If your house is on fire, will you get out asap, or perhaps wait for a market incentive to do that?

Other than the obvious one, of course - clean your own act first, then teach the others.

You're absolutely right, the blame game can go on until no one's left to have fun. The way to go is to own up responsibility and show the lead. It's lot easier to start in our own backyard and clean our own act than to persuade China and India that should lead the world in sustainable development. As seen from the stats, China produced 6 times less per capita GHG than the US. What reasonable argument can you find to make them believe that they should start cutting their productions while the latter is sitting idle?

Well, I'm sure that a well documented research accepted by the peers will eventually make its way even into UN statistics. There's no point in blaming stats unless we can find better ones. The pay must come from those who 1) created the problem and 2) continue(s) to be the largest emitters on the planet. Looks simple, fair and logical to me. As to those member countries which signed the Kyoto. Recongnizing one's responsibility is the first step. Without it, nothing will (and can) happen.