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Nonsense. The west should have pressured the rebels to go to the negotiating table with Assad and we should have worked with Russia rather than use Syria as a proxy war with Russia. The rebels should have given up their demands of Assad stepping down and instead should have tried to get a fair election. If the west acted properly, there would be peace in Syria right now. And trying to distinguish 'good rebels' for 'bad rebels' is difficult because even in groups like the Free Syria army you have significant numbers of Islamist. If you fund the 'moderate rebels' you will indirectly help the extreme rebels. Yes, cause the West certainly doesn't align itself with Saudi Arabia or anything... Support of the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt? What was that about? It's not like the rebels in Libya had any Islamist elements or anything... *sarcasm* Apparently a lot of people care because many people are claiming the North Pole. So your solution is to claim territory well beyond what should be claimable based upon the Law of the Sea? How does making ridiculous territory claims give Canada a stronger presence? I'm not saying Canada shouldn't make arctic claims. I'm saying that we should claim territory that clearly isn't ours. Like the North Pole for example (which is Danish territory). Some? Yes. All? No. I think you've been watching too much Western mainstream media. You are treating Ukrainians as a homogeneous entity when they are not. Do you even understand the divide between the Eastern Ukrainians and the Western Ukrainians? Look it's not Russians sneaking across the border causing trouble in Ukraine and fighting the Ukrainian military. It is Eastern Ukrainians fighting Western Ukrainians. The Eastern Ukrainians feel alienated by the current government in Kiev and many want to separate from Western Ukraine. No, the Crimeans circumvented this in Crimea. The Russians only moved in after the referendum (excluding the military base that they had well before the conflict). No, a more neutral approach would have reduced polarization & given less propaganda ammunition to the Russians since the West are being hypocritical. You are still characterizing this as Russia bullying Ukraine, when the truth is that the conflict is very much internal between what the Eastern Ukrainians want and what the Western Ukrainians want. It doesn't matter which economy is hurt more. Pain is pain. And unnecessary damage that accomplishes nothing is bad. They won't back down because they do not think they are in the moral wrong and the West are acting like total hypocrites. They use our unreasonableness as propaganda to support their actions. Much like how Russia did not back down in Syria because they had the moral high ground relative to the West (organ eating for example http://www.thenational.ae/news/video-putin-warns-west-about-arming-organ-eating-syrian-rebels). In the end Russia completely outmaneuvered the West politically, prevented the invasion, and made Obama's 'red lines' look like a joke.

If you want to vote, fine. But realize that there are some people that feel so alienated by the current political parties that they would prefer to spoil their ballots than give legitimacy to terrible options. How about proportional representation rather than first past the post for a start?

I'll see when I have time. I have a lot of it written up, but I have been busy. Can I just use K for Kelvin? Would be easier, but I'm afraid many posters may not know what Kelvin is.

BS, our electoral system is flawed. The first-past-the-post system prevents political competition between ideologies and gives us terrible options like the liberals, conservatives and NDP. Or you could spoil your ballot and not give legitimacy to terrible options... Tell me, if you had to choose between voting for Hitler, voting for Stalin or spoiling your ballot, which would you do?

Demographics is a decent counter argument. Of course it's fantasy. Then again, so is the two state solution. There will not be peace in the region for decades. Hamas does not want peace.

http://www.torontosun.com/2013/08/31/canada-sent-millions-to-syrian-rebels Please see my response to Moonbox. But here is another source. http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2013/12/09/canada_makes_territorial_claim_for_north_pole.html The Harper government insisted that the Canadian scientists alter science to fit their desire to claim the north pole for political reasons. Refusal to recognize any possible situation in which Crimea, Donentsk and Luhansk can democratically chose via a referendum to become independent of Ukraine. Not just under the questionable circumstances of the recent referendum, but under any situation. Obviously Russia is being hypocritical here as well (they would never allow for a Chenchnyan referendum). Russia never invaded Ukraine. They did invade South Ossetia in 2008, but that is about it. With respect to unnecessarily antagonizing, I mean we have unnecessarily unfriendly relations with Russia for no good reason, which will harm both our countries and won't help the people of Ukraine. If you want to help the people of Ukraine, stop creating polarization.

Yes. I don't give a damn about which invisible being some people prayed to 3500 years ago. There should be no theocracies period. No Isreal, no Saudi Arabia, no Islamic Republic of Iran, no Bhutan. It doesn't work in the modern era and only creates conflict.

It was obvious what would happen, but people like Harper, Obama, Cameron and others have this deluded self-righteousness that the can-do-no-wrong west was helping the poor oppressed from an evil dictator. Rather than look at the situation more objectively and realize the obvious (that the problems in the middle east are primarily the result of religion). They don't want to understand the cultural differences so they make poor policy decisions. I have no doubt Harper did not want to fund Islamists. But his belief that funding the Free Syrian Army would not enable Islamists to become powerful is about as reasonable as his belief in magic talking snakes. The situation in Syria (& now Iraq) over the past 2-3 years has been an avoidable disaster in slow motion, that the idiot politicians of the west were too stupid to avoid (because in most Western countries you have the cultural relativists on one side and the religious nuts on the other). The west needs to stop aligning themselves with Islamists and realize that Saudi oil money funding of Wahhabi Islam globally is one of the main causes of the current situation be it in Kenya, Nigeria, Mali, Egypt, Syria, Pakistan, etc. It's not a matter of offending the Danes. I couldn't care less if the Danes are offended. 1. It's not Canadian Territory. Greenland is closer to the North Pole, and more importantly, the North Pole is on the opposite side of the Lomonosov Ridge as Canada. Look, Canada's claims shouldn't be made arbitrarily, it should be based upon the UN Law of the Sea which Russia, Canada and Denmark have all agreed to. I'm not the biggest fan of the UN, but the use of the Law of the Sea to establish territory in a peaceful manner is very useful. There is actually very little potential arctic dispute between the 3 countries if they follow the Law of the Sea (most of it will be between Denmark and Russia). What you and Harper want to do is set a dangerous precedent by claiming territory that isn't ours and which cannot be justified based on the geography of the arctic. By your logic, since it is uninhabited, then why can't China claim it? That may seem silly at first, but China considers itself a 'near-arctic state' and wants negotiating power as a stakeholder in arctic negotiations. Not to mention all the other ridiculous territorial claims China has (claim of Japan's Senkaku islands, claim of South Korea's Socotra Rock, claim of like the entire South China Sea). Then you have Russia which for political reasons also wants to make absurd claims that aren't based on science (have you read some of the 'scientific studies' they have done? They are so ridiculously biased politically; they claim that the Lomonosov Ridge is part of the Eurasian continental shelf, which is absurd since the Gakkel Ridge separates the North American and Eurasian plates). And to top it all off, our so-called 'friend' to the south doesn't respect out claim to the internal waters in the arctic archipelago. You really want to give legitimacy to all that nonsense by having Canada make absurd territorial claims as well? What we should do is recognize the North Pole as Danish territory, agree to draw the border somewhere along the Lomonosov Ridge, and work with Denmark to counter the absurd claims for Russia & China as well as getting the US to recognize Canadian Sovereignty over the Arctic Archipelago. We share a common continental shelf with Greenland, so our interests and the interests of Denmark align. Plus both countries are Western Liberal Democracies and Denmark can be reasoned with. But you would rather throw that out the window for the sake of blind patriotism... Russia certainly has a lot of blame with respect to the current situation in Ukraine (arguably they started the whole thing by forcing the former president to cancel the EU deals), but the policies of most western countries have not helped either. Western countries have been immensely hypocritical in their approach. Supporting violent protests in Western Ukraine while denouncing the violent protests in Eastern Ukraine, even going so far as to support the overthrow of the elected government in Ukraine. Rejecting the right to self determination of Eastern Ukrainians while supporting the right to self determination of people in Kosovo to separate from Serbia. The problem with Ukraine is polarization. You have two groups (Ukrainian speaking people in the west vs Russian Speaking in the South and East) that are slowly being more unfriendly to one another. Therefore, any steps that will increase this polarization will worsen the situation, while any steps that will reduce this polarization and call for dialogue and plurality will help. Allowing Russian to be Ukraine's second official language would go a long way (it is hypocritical to suggest that French should be an official language in Canada while insisting that Russian should not be in Ukraine). Putting pressure on the Ukrainian government to recognize the right to self determination of the Eastern Ukrainians would go a long way to making the Eastern Ukrainians feel less alienated by the government in Kiev. Canada and other western countries could have taken a more neutral approach (while still being critical of Russia). Instead, most politicians seem stuck in this dangerous cold war mentality and have even gone so far as to create unnecessary trade wars and sanctions with Russia, which hurts both our economies and accomplishes nothing other than satisfying the egos of politicians. Obvious it's not that simple. Neither a two state nor a 1 state solution will occur and this conflict will continue for decades until cultural change will occur. Hamas wants the complete destruction of Israel, while Zionism is still a force in Isreal. Religion drives this conflict because both sides think that some invisible being in the sky has given them the right over this land. But that said, if the root of the issue is religion, then why not advocate for secularism and plurality, rather than try to divide and further polarize people? If a Palestinian state were created, do you really think the terrorist attacks would stop? No they would continue.

Well rather than have 2 religion bases states that demonize each other, why not have a single secular state that gives people equal rights regardless of their religious affiliation? You know, like how it works in so many other places (Canada, Australia, Japan, United States, Western Europe, etc.).

Yes, his wonderful foreign policy of funding Islamists in Syria, claiming that the North Pole belongs to Canada (when it is Danish Territory), unnecessarily antagonizing Russia, and not recognizing the right to self determination of the Eastern Ukrainians. *sarcasm*

You mixing up terms, so don't blame me for taking what you say literally. There isn't just one 'climate sensitivity' there are many. Transient climate sensitivity is different from equilibrium climate sensitivity (and both of these have different definitions depending on what feedback mechanisms are being considered). Actually, this is a big issue in scientific literature (lack of clear definitions); James Hansen goes into detail about this issue. If what you meant to say was that 3C per doubling of CO2 does not take into account all feedback effects (particularly long-term deglaciation on the millenial scale) then I would agree with you. But that isn't what you wrote... You didn't even talk about which feedback effects were not being considered in various estimates that give a climate sensitivity of 3C; and given your earlier post where you suggested that no other GHGs were considered in these climate sensitivity estimates, I'm tempted to conclude that you are very uninformed on climate sensitivity estimates (at the very least, pretty much all of them will include water vapour for example). Yes, I don't disagree with the IPCC here. I think Tim's source that gives an estimate of 2C is too low. But I'll post on that later. Edit: btw, I don't use the degree sign cause i'm lazy.

Handshakes are not gender neutral? What nonsense is this... I would prefer no bodily contact over either option. Maybe just say 'hello'?

Why not a 1-state solution?

Political parties should base decisions on what makes sense based upon the evidence, not what is popular. This is the flaw with the liberal party. It is also why they chose Justin Trudeau over someone like Martha Hall Findlay. The fact that Justin Trudeau won the leadership convention made me realize how absurd the liberal party is.

... Or you can spoil your ballot.

@ BC_Chick, I disagree with what you say regarding energy policy, but other than that, welcome to the club. Become a ballot spoiler like me and reject the major policial parties. Maybe you want to check out the minor parties? Most suck, but there are a few ones that are more tolerable than the mainstream parties (Freedom Party for instance).

Or they might hijack a main party, like religious nuts in the US republican party.

It's not the political system that gives power to those far right religious parties in Isreal, it's the culture.

I think it depends on the organization.

Oh of course climate sensitivity isn't constant. But it decreases with temperature, not increases. So all that paleoclimate data which suggests a 3C climate sensitivity based on what happened during the pleistocene is an overestimation of what is to come. One reason why climate sensitivity decreases with global temperature rather than increases is because long term loss in albedo due to a change in global average temperature is far greater for a colder Earth with large glaciers than for a warmer interglacial Earth like today. During the last ice age, when glaciers covered Canada, Europe, Siberia, the Northern US and Patagonia, you had glaciers reaching 40°N in many places. Back then, there was far more land on the border of a glacier and that land was taking more direct sunlight (albedo changes at 40°N is a lot more relevant that albedo changes at 70°N for example) .As the polar ice caps retreat, their borders become smaller and the average incident angle they make with the sun increases. A second reason is the negative feedback of cloud formation. Indeed as temperatures warm, water vapour in the atmosphere will increase, and the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere is approximately an exponential function of temperature. However, since the radiative greenhouse effect of water vapour is a logarithmic function of the amount of water vapour, this means that the radiative effect of water vapour is roughly a linear function of temperature. On the other hand, as water vapour increases, so will cloud formation. If the volume of clouds is roughly proportional to water vapour, then the surface area of the earth covered by clouds should be roughly proportional to the amount of water vapour to the power of 2/3. Thus, cloud formation is roughly an exponential function of temperature. Since the radiative effect of water vapour (positive feedback) is roughly linear with temperature, while the cloud formation effect of water vapour (negative feedback) is roughly exponential with temperature, as temperatures increase, the negative feedback effect will become more and more relevant relative to the positive feedback effect. Thus climate sensitivity should decrease with temperature.

Lol, wat? You are defining traits of 'real atheists' now? Atheism is a lack of belief in gods, beyond that there is nothing that unites them. Some want to be left alone while others do not.

Dude, the effect of CO2 is approximately logarithmic. The starting point of CO2 levels (be it 300, 373, 400) doesn't greatly affect the expected change in temperature due to a CO2 doubling. Edit: Oh wait, I get it. You fail at basic math. Here is a link for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithm

I get it, you have your dogma, and no amount of evidence will convince you otherwise about the relevance of the evolutionary history of the planet when discussing the impacts of climate change to life on Earth. So does that mean that the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event is not relevant to you either? You continue to reject Occam's Razor. How very scientific of you...

Because it's a graph of temperature vs time... Why would it need to have CO2 levels on it? In order to make projections about CO2 emission scenarios, one needs to make assumptions about the behaviour of humans to estimate the scenario. It's called modelling, it is part of science. Do you deny that 800 ppm by 2100 is not on the high end of emission scenarios?

Sigh, climate sensitivity is only concerned with the temperature. However, large scale deglaciation is relevant beyond it's effect as a positive feedback mechanism to change temperature because significant changes to sea levels are a relevant impact all on their own. So unsubstantiated that I provided numerous pieces of evidence that showed that plants could benefit significantly from the CO2 fertilization effect and increased growing season. *sarcasm* If evolution were as fast as it would need to be for the geological record before 2.5 million years ago to not be relevant at predicting how life will perform under different climates, then the vast majority of plant life would have evolved the C4 cycle by now, maybe something even stronger.