Is Global Warming a Leftist Urban Legend?

[Saturn]

Call me a commie if you want but when your forests are on fire, due to completely natural causes such as lightning, you still want to put the fires out, not pour gasoline on them.

[jbg]

Call me a commie if you want but when your forests are on fire, due to completely natural causes such as lightning, you still want to put the fires out, not pour gasoline on them.

I didn't call you a Commie. But if shutting down Canada's economy entirely won't slow or stop warming, why do it?

[Saturn]

Call me a commie if you want but when your forests are on fire, due to completely natural causes such as lightning, you still want to put the fires out, not pour gasoline on them.

I didn't call you a Commie. But if shutting down Canada's economy entirely won't slow or stop warming, why do it?

Nobody is suggesting shutting down Canada's economy. That's spin and fearmongering on behalf of energy producers who fear the using less energy will lower the prices they can charge for their products. It's like claiming that putting out forest fires will use all our water and we'll die of thirst as a result.

[Riverwind]

Nobody is suggesting shutting down Canada's economy.

Anyone who thinks that Canada should meet its Kyoto target is avocating shutting down the economy - there is no other way to meet those targets. You must remember that Kyoto measures compliance over a 4 year period starting in 2008. So even if by some miracle Canada reduced its emission by 20% of the 1990 cap EACH year until 2012 we would still be 6% above our assigned target because of the high emissions in 2008-2009.

[geoffrey]

Nobody is suggesting shutting down Canada's economy.

Anyone who thinks that Canada should meet its Kyoto target is avocating shutting down the economy - there is no other way to meet those targets.

Exactly.

Emissions are somewhat proportional to economic output (not all are variable I agree, we do have fixed emissions that won't change, but that argues even more for my point). You can't decrease emissions without decreasing economic output.

Somehow our resident economist disagrees, thinking that lower oil prices (like Canada really impacts the market that much), lower oil production and limits on electrical usage (when generated from coal) would not affect our economy.

I'm no expert, unfortunately, but I wouldn't mind further clarification on how that is possible?

[Saturn]

Nobody is suggesting shutting down Canada's economy.

Anyone who thinks that Canada should meet its Kyoto target is avocating shutting down the economy - there is no other way to meet those targets. You must remember that Kyoto measures compliance over a 4 year period starting in 2008. So even if by some miracle Canada reduced its emission by 20% of the 1990 cap EACH year until 2012 we would still be 6% above our assigned target because of the high emissions in 2008-2009.

No, we've missed the window of opportunity and we can't meet our Kyoto targets. However, in the absence of penalties, nobody will move a finger to change the status quo because the status quo always the easiest way. The environment is a renewable resource for the most part but we are on an unsustainable path and that has to change. The whole purpose of international agreements is to give government an excuse to resist intense domestic pressure to impose measures that are counter-productive. Kyoto is currently the closest we have to something that can force some action and change our path for the better. Here's what happens to renewable resources in the absence of outside pressure. Intense domestic pressure by the fishing industry to overfish, gov't caves in, the fish is gone in no time, the NFLD economy cannot adjust quickly enough and unemployment hits an all time high - Newfoundlanders who first argued that they have to overfish or their economy would be ruined blame the gov't for mismanaging their fisheries and 10 years later many are still unemployed. With some outside pressure, the gov't could have resisted overfishing to some extent, at least delaying the collapse of the fisheries and giving the economy more time to adjust. Without outside pressure the same will happen to our environment. We missed the opportunity to get a good seat on the Kyoto train but we are still better off staying on the train than jumping off. We can't afford to destroy our environment.

[Posit]

If you have to get to work, and you've missed the bus then you have to get on another one. Complaining that we missed Kyoto targets and then doing nothing doesn't solve the environmental problems we are faced with.

The environment IS NOT a renewable resource. It is a delicate balance of many resources. When you cut yourself, then contaminate the wound, pick at the scab and continue to aggravate the area, then you end up with greater problems than the original cut. The environment is very much like that, in that when we destroy or alter one segment of it, then all the other systems are affected. We must stop looking at the environment as either a single entity (which we can ignore) or a collection of individual resources (which we can exploit). The environment is a system that cannot be replaced once it goes into failure mode.

Implementing Kyoto will not "shut down the economy" as the naysayers like to cry. Sure it will require some adaptations and some manufacturing dinosaurs might end up facing extinction because they refuse to keep up. However, the majority of us will survive with not only new technologies but greater efficiencies in industry. There are benefits in the long run not only to the environment, but also to our own pocketbooks. The problem IMO is letting the bottom line of shareholder's gains, dictate the way business is conducted. Instead businesses - even if forced by government laws and regulations - will need to rethink their strategies. The end result will not only be a reduction of greenhouse gases and other contributors to global warming but a greater appreciation for the workforce that can make it happen.

[jbg]

The environment IS NOT a renewable resource. It is a delicate balance of many resources. When you cut yourself, then contaminate the wound, pick at the scab and continue to aggravate the area, then you end up with greater problems than the original cut. The environment is very much like that, in that when we destroy or alter one segment of it, then all the other systems are affected. We must stop looking at the environment as either a single entity (which we can ignore) or a collection of individual resources (which we can exploit). The environment is a system that cannot be replaced once it goes into failure mode.

Implementing Kyoto will not "shut down the economy" as the naysayers like to cry. Sure it will require some adaptations and some manufacturing dinosaurs might end up facing extinction because they refuse to keep up.

Sounds like a beautiful dream. Details?

[B. Max]

Implementing Kyoto will not "shut down the economy" as the naysayers like to cry.

Actually it would require shutting down 1/3 of the economy. That is a mathematical fact.

[mtm]

even if that were a fact (which its not, because it doesnt take into account the increased revenue and investment generated from the industries created by environmental action - alternative energies, R&D, etc), it would be a small price to pay. Sure beats choking to death, drying up, getting deathly ill or drowning.

In all seriousness, though, if we want to have a world worth living in for the next generation, something has to be done now. Its sad that people are so reluctant to change their old ways.

[B. Max]

even if that were a fact (which its not, because it doesnt take into account the increased revenue and investment generated from the industries created by environmental action - alternative energies, R&D, etc), it would be a small price to pay. Sure beats choking to death, drying up, getting deathly ill or drowning.

In all seriousness, though, if we want to have a world worth living in for the next generation, something has to be done now. Its sad that people are so reluctant to change their old ways.

What a bunch of nonsense.

[jbg]

Sure beats choking to death, drying up, getting deathly ill or drowning.

In all seriousness, though, if we want to have a world worth living in for the next generation, something has to be done now. Its sad that people are so reluctant to change their old ways.

And doing "something" will lower temperatures by how much?

Sounds like Chretien's statement that "if we don't ratify Kyoto, within 35 years people will start dying". That itself didn't sound like a bad bargain; no deaths for 35 years.

[mtm]

doing "something" will create a global example. If we can do it, it puts pressure on other industrialized nations to do the same. Rome wasn't built in a day, but all it takes is the will.

[geoffrey]

doing "something" will create a global example.

Canada isn't raising children nations. The other nations are grown-ups and will make choices in their own self-interest, not because they saw mommy doing it.

[jbg]

doing "something" will create a global example. If we can do it, it puts pressure on other industrialized nations to do the same. Rome wasn't built in a day, but all it takes is the will.

The minute I see a country such as India, China or Russia imposing environmental strictures on themselves I might agree with you. Committing economic and/or foreign policy hari-kari seems to be a uniquely Western attribute. We were running the world after WW II. Now, we bow to the opinions of people like Arer.

Go figure.

[August1991]

Vaclav Klaus, Czech President:

Q: IPCC has released its report and you say that the global warming is a false myth. How did you get this idea, Mr President?•

A: It's not my idea. Global warming is a false myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it's a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It's neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it's an undignified slapstick that people don't wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the "but's" are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses.• This is clearly such an incredible failure of so many people, from journalists to politicians. If the European Commission is instantly going to buy such a trick, we have another very good reason to think that the countries themselves, not the Commission, should be deciding about similar issues.•

Q: How do you explain that there is no other comparably senior statesman in Europe who would advocate this viewpoint? No one else has such strong opinions...•

A: My opinions about this issue simply are strong. Other top-level politicians do not express their global warming doubts because a whip of political correctness strangles their voice.

• Q: But you're not a climate scientist. Do you have a sufficient knowledge and enough information?•

A: Environmentalism as a metaphysical ideology and as a worldview has absolutely nothing to do with natural sciences or with the climate. Sadly, it has nothing to do with social sciences either. Still, it is becoming fashionable and this fact scares me. The second part of the sentence should be: we also have lots of reports, studies, and books of climatologists whose conclusions are diametrally opposite.• Indeed, I never measure the thickness of ice in Antarctica. I really don't know how to do it and don't plan to learn it. However, as a scientifically oriented person, I know how to read science reports about these questions, for example about ice in Antarctica. I don't have to be a climate scientist myself to read them. And inside the papers I have read, the conclusions we may see in the media simply don't appear. But let me promise you something: this topic troubles me which is why I started to write an article about it last Christmas. The article expanded and became a book. In a couple of months, it will be published. One chapter out of seven will organize my opinions about the climate change.• Environmentalism and green ideology is something very different from climate science. Various findings and screams of scientists are abused by this ideology.•

Drudge

We've got some weird politicians in Canada too who can give some funny quotes. Maybe the Left will blame Bush for this intervention, claiming that this guy is from teh New Europe.

[stevoh]

Canada isn't raising children nations. The other nations are grown-ups and will make choices in their own self-interest, not because they saw mommy doing it.

What is wrong with setting an example? One of the first excuses bush used when he utterly rejected Kyoto is "China isn't doing it." As long as every country looks to another to lead the way, and none do, nothing happens.

Why can't Canada be a leader?

Also, why can't we step forward and prove that money can be made using alternative energy sources?

A few year ago Coke observed that health conscious consumers were making choices other than pop. They started Minute Maid Juices and later, sport drinks. And they still make money.

Its time for big oil to diversify as well. Invest in wind energy technology, solar. Diversify and cash in on this latest trend.

Its time to stop whining, pointing fingers at everyone else, and start leading.

[Catchme]

The CPC lied and got caught in it! And these people are running the country? This is beyond the pale, yet again.

Shameful, and embarassing this and a good thing Al Gore called the Baird and the CPC on their lies.

Al Gore says Canada's Tories misrepresented him

OTTAWA: Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore is taking Canada's Conservative government to task for suggesting he endorsed its performance on climate change.

The environmentalist, filmmaker and past presidential candidate issued a statement Monday to distance himself from the claim by the government of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

"I understand that last week Canada's minister of the environment, John Baird, mischaracterized comments I made last summer as praise for the Harper government's actions on global warming," Gore wrote.

In the House of Commons, Baird has habitually responded to opposition questions by reading out statements ridiculing the Liberals' record on climate change. Last week, he read out a purported endorsement from Gore.

"Canada (is) once again providing leadership in the world, fighting above its weight class and showing moral authority to the rest of the world. That's what Canada's known for," Baird read. "Do we know who said that yesterday? Al Gore."

Gore said his statement was taken out of context, adding it was made last summer, not last week.

However, the government circulated a transcript from a Global TV interview that aired last week in which Gore said: "My friends in Canada tell me that across party lines, and in all regions, there is very strong support for Canada once again providing leadership in the world, fighting above its weight class and showing moral authority to the rest of the world."

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/12/...Canada-Gore.php

[August1991]

Britain's Channel Four to air a documentary this week:

Global warming: An inconvenient truth or hot air?

Everyone agrees global warming is a terrible fact of life. Right? Wrong. A film to be screened this week ridicules the Al Gore orthodoxy.

After two decades, the long scientific and political debate over whether human activities are warming up the Earth is finally over. Or is it? The world scientific community says so. Even the most recalcitrant governments, including the Bush administration, reluctantly agree. But the British media is characteristically unwilling to let an old row simply fade away.

On Thursday, Channel 4 will screen what it calls a "polemical and thought-provoking documentary" - The Great Global Warming Swindle - by one of the environmentalists' favourite hate figures, film-maker Martin Durkin.

...

Temperature

DURKIN SAYS: Studies of gases in bubbles of air in polar ice sheets reveal that in prehistoric hot periods temperatures began rising before C02 levels. So increasing concentrations of the gas are the result, not the cause of global warming.

GORE SAYS: "It's a complicated relationship, but the most important part of it is this: when there is more C02 in the atmosphere, the temperature increases." He shows two graphs of rising temperature and C02 levels over the past 600,000 years and says they "fit together".

WE SAY: Temperature and C02 are bound together. When one goes up, the other will follow. In prehistory temperatures often started rising 800 years before levels of the gas, and Gore evades this point. But it is irrelevant to what is happening now, because for the first time ever enormous amounts of extra C02 are being released.

The Arctic

DURKIN SAYS: Recent reports of how the amount of ice in the Arctic is shrinking have been exaggerated. The Arctic has always contracted and expanded over history.

GORE SAYS: The Arctic is a "canary in the coal mine". Since the 1970s ,the extent and thickness of its ice cap has "diminished precipitously". If we continue as we are, it will disappear during summers, profoundly changing the climate.

WE SAY: The amount of the ice ebbs and flows with natural warmings and coolings of the climate, and part of this shrinking is probably due to that. But this is being increased by global warming caused by rising levels of greenhouse gases, and these continue to go up. The Arctic is likely to be free of ice by 2050, for the first time in millions of years.

The sun

DURKIN SAYS: The sun is the main cause of global warming. The sun's activity increases from time to time, with increased solar flares, cutting down on cloud formation and raising temperatures on Earth. This activity correlates well with warmer periods over the past several hundred years.

GORE SAYS: The culprit is humanity's emissions of "huge quantities" of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which trap more of the infrared radiation of the sun that would otherwise escape out into space.

WE SAY: Variations in solar activity may have been responsible for past warm periods, though it's hard to be entirely sure because we have been taking good measurements of it only since 1978. But recent solar increases are too small to have produced the present warming, and have been much less important than greenhouse gases since about 1850.

The Independent

[jdobbin]

Britain's Channel Four to air a documentary this week:

I wonder if they will have to issue another humiliating apology. Their last special on the subject was a hack job that even they couldn't walk away from.

[CrazyCanuck]

Why can't Canada be a leader?

Because we don't even know how to fix our own problem. What kind of leadership other than cheerleading can we really provide at the moment?

Also, why can't we step forward and prove that money can be made using alternative energy sources?

A few year ago Coke observed that health conscious consumers were making choices other than pop. They started Minute Maid Juices and later, sport drinks. And they still make money.

But people were making other choices like you said, so Coke had to diversify in order to maintain profits. Nobody's saying no to oil, in fact we increasing our consumption levels each month and year we continue to experience growth. For the oil companies, there is no benefit to making the switch right now.

Its time for big oil to diversify as well. Invest in wind energy technology, solar. Diversify and cash in on this latest trend.

By the time these companies make the switch, this "trend" will have died off. Its not the politicians that lack credibility on the issue, its us. We are not changing what we are doing, only what we are pretending to value. We love all of our stuff and right now oil is necessary for our stuff to exist. And by the way, please don't use phrases like "big oil". This is not an NDP speech writing contest nor a tribute Jack Layton.

Its time to stop whining, pointing fingers at everyone else, and start leading.

Are you planning on proposing an actual, viable solution, or just continue to preach like all the other global warming advocates and add to the hypocrisy that encompasses the entire issue? Stop whining, pointing fingers and start leading, my friend.

[B. Max]

Britain's Channel Four to air a documentary this week:

Global warming: An inconvenient truth or hot air?

The truth is getting out from various sources and people are beginning to realize they are being taken for a ride. The entire man made global warming scam is continuing to unravel. Even many in the media now know that they were duped and are turning on the climate alarmists and exposing the likes of the Goracle and doctor fruit fly as frauds who will likely soon have to wear disguises before going out in public.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...5#StartComments

[Saturn]

The truth is getting out from various sources and people are beginning to realize they are being taken for a ride. The entire man made global warming scam is continuing to unravel. Even many in the media now know that they were duped and are turning on the climate alarmists and exposing the likes of the Goracle and doctor fruit fly as frauds who will likely soon have to wear disguises before going out in public.

Really? So what exactly the "climate alarmists" have to gain here? Aside from the third world sucking money from the developed countries because we all know Kyoto was imposed on the developed world by a bunch of African leaders? We also know those evil scientists fooled us into believing that smoking is bad for you, when will the media expose this folly?

[B. Max]

Really? So what exactly the "climate alarmists" have to gain here?

Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of men.

[stevoh]

Because we don't even know how to fix our own problem. What kind of leadership other than cheerleading can we really provide at the moment?

Of course we know how to fix our own problem. We are already doing it. Our conservative government has to be the greenest in the history of Canada.

But people were making other choices like you said, so Coke had to diversify in order to maintain profits. Nobody's saying no to oil, in fact we increasing our consumption levels each month and year we continue to experience growth. For the oil companies, there is no benefit to making the switch right now.

I am not suggesting making a switch (stop producing oil products, start producing alternate energy) I am suggesting diversification. If there wasn't money to be made, why are Toyota's hybrids doing so well? Why are new solar energy companies springing up? Why is safeway in washington now selling bio-desiel?

As in my quote:

Its time for big oil to diversify as well. Invest in wind energy technology, solar. Diversify and cash in on this latest trend.

back to you:

By the time these companies make the switch, this "trend" will have died off. Its not the politicians that lack credibility on the issue, its us. We are not changing what we are doing, only what we are pretending to value. We love all of our stuff and right now oil is necessary for our stuff to exist. And by the way, please don't use phrases like "big oil". This is not an NDP speech writing contest nor a tribute Jack Layton.

I don't believe the trend is going to die off. I see the increase in hybrid vehicle sales and alternative energy sources as continuing. Even those who are flagrantly consumeristic can make greener choices.

http://www.lexus.com/hybriddrive/

Are you planning on proposing an actual, viable solution, or just continue to preach like all the other global warming advocates and add to the hypocrisy that encompasses the entire issue? Stop whining, pointing fingers and start leading, my friend.

Why is diversification not a viable solution? I am not suggesting, "turn off oil", I am suggesting gradually decreasing our dependency on it by offering alternate energy sources. Increases in the efficiency of both solar energy and wind farms from a decade or so a go mean they are becoming more and more cost effective alternatives. Electricity can come from multiple sources.

Consumers are already making choices, as I am, pushing this trend further through capitalism. From light bulbs to walking to work, from hybrids to solar energy, and through who we vote for, we are taking action.

We (my wife and I) are planning a master suite on our house built in the current empty attic. One of the very cool things we are looking into is having that entire floor of our house solar powered, the lights, hot water, whatever uses electricity in a bedroom. Nice eh? Of course, the approval process is turning into a bit of a hassle, with no real building electrical codes around a building that uses alternative power for only a portion of its usage, questions around whether the systems will be connected (they won't), but I remain optimistic. I am not just doing this because I believe in alternative power however, its also damn cool.

As things like flourescent light bulbs and hybrids improve, as they reduce in cost, more and more people will see them as viable alternatives. It seems your resistance to these ideas is ideology based, rather than based on actual logic. Because I only need to look around for a few moments to see people making conscious environmental choices.