IPCC Report

[jdobbin]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/climate_report

The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium.

At the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and sea levels, according to portions of a draft of an international scientific report obtained by The Associated Press.

Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will mostly be found in zoos, their habitats gone. Pests like fire ants will thrive.

For a time, food will be plentiful because of the longer growing season in northern regions. But by 2080, hundreds of millions of people could face starvation, according to the report, which is still being revised.

The draft document by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change focuses on global warming's effects and is the second in a series of four being issued this year. Written and reviewed by more than 1,000 scientists from dozens of countries, it still must be edited by government officials.

It will be interesting to see the Conservative's legislation on this matter. Perhaps they will call an election rather than table the bill.

[Canuck E Stan]

Written and reviewed by more than 1,000 scientists from dozens of countries, it still must be edited by government officials.

1000 scientists don't have the ablilty to edit their own material by scientists?

Or is because the government officials know more about science than the scientist.

Especially the science part where the government monies for those science programs are being distributed.

[jdobbin]

1000 scientists don't have the ablilty to edit their own material by scientists?

Or is because the government officials know more about science than the scientist.

Especially the science part where the government monies for those science programs are being distributed.

I don't agree with the tinkering of the report either.

[B. Max]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/climate_report

The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium.

What a load of bull.

[dlkenny]

I was listening to the Dave Rutherford show last week and he had one of the scientists from the IPCC on his program. He's actually had two, one from Germany and one from the University of Victoria. I find it interesting the variation from what the scientists say and what the media is reporting. I'm not saying that the media is wrong, there is without a doubt a kernel of truth in what they're saying but the fellow from Germany said point blank that if we did nothing that the earth would warm by between 2 and 4 degrees in the next century. The sea levels would rise about 3 inches and the polar bears would likely move northward. He also said that there is growing evidence that the antarctic ice mass is actually increasing and that although it is been shown calving off on the eastern slopes, it is growing in other areas. Sometimes I wonder about the left-leaning media, even the IPCC itself is an entity of the United Nations which itself is a left-leaning body. I really think this thing is being blown way out of proportion and they are trying to scare us into paying carbon taxes and spending billions on carbon credits. I agree that there is a problem, I think most people are willing to accept that human activity has increased the rate at which climate change is happening but I think most of this is the "chicken little syndrome" and is just to get people worked up.

Kyoto is not an answer!!! All that happens if you send money to china for them to build windmills is that they build windmills and their coal fired plants! This in my opinion is just a way to spread the wealth and help china's economy. (Same for russia) It does absolutely nothing to curb greenhouse gas emissions. I would much rather a made in Canada solution where we set real targets with real timelines and get something done. Instead of exporting dollars we should be investing in technology and alternative fuels and exporting those instead. Canada has a huge landmass and in recent years the farmers have been complaining that they're not getting the quality they used to and because of the draught that they're getting smaller crops. Bio-diesel can be made from virtually anything, right from lard to canola oil and even compost. I think a good economic opportunity is right there for us to invest in. Ethanol too, in Brazil they already use pure ethanol in their cars...why are we still only blending 5%? We could invest in this, and our auto industry could build cars designed for this purpose. If we lead the way on this we'd wean ourselves off of fossil fuel dependance and perhaps the rest of the world would follow. What about nuclear power? Why are people so offended by the suggestion of using nuclear for generating electricity? Sure, we'd have to drill wells to dispose of nuclear waste but that creates jobs right? Nuclear waste is no problem, radioactive isotopes exist all over the world (and universe), we just need to dispose of it deep into the earths crust where it won't harm life. Instead of building 20, 600 watt nuclear reactors to power the oilsands, why not build those to replace our need for coal? There's more Uranium in Canada than anywhere in the world (australia is second) and one candu reactor bundle (10 centimetres by 50 centimetres) can produce as much energy as 1800 barrels of oil or 350 tonnes of coal. What's stopping us? How about using the methane that our waste processing plants and landfills produce for using our homes? Methane is 10x more potent than CO2 so by burning it we'd be reducing the climate change footprint by 10 fold.

These are all things we can do and these are all technologies that we can export; the cars, the bio-diesel, the ethanol, the candu reactor. Why aren't we? When we say the word "nuclear" people think "bomb" and that's not what we're talking about, Canada has no nuclear weapons but we've already got 6 nuclear reactors in Ontario. The US is already so proliferated that selling them Uranium and reactors isn't going to make the problem worse. China, Russia, Britain, France, Pakistan, India...already proliferated so it makes no difference. I say sell this technology more.

Maybe the Harper conservatives will see the light and do some of this, I hope they do.

[Catchme]

I am going to post a speech, in full, by BC MLA Corky Evans, that he just gave in the BC parliament, as commentary to the BC Speech from the Throne. It is by far the best governmental analysis and social political speech, coming from a politician, that I have heard in decades. Please do take the time to read it, it is worth the effort. The bolding is mine and not because I believe the bolding is more important parts, but they are essential points, if we are to work on resolving environmental from the non-partisan positon that is required. And Corky makes that point fully, which is why I am posting his speech, he is calling everyone to account and placing the onus squarely on all, with NO partisanship.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

C. Evans:

I had the honour of closing debate yesterday, and I suggested that it might be a better idea if I went away and came back 24 hours later in a better humour in order to deliver a more philosophical and less reactionary statement. I am pleased to get the opportunity this morning.

I rise to speak about the throne speech. For those people not in this room who don't understand what a throne speech is, I'll just give a little bit of background. A throne speech is a very strange tradition or phenomenon of English parliamentary culture. Once a year a person comes in this building — the Lieutenant-Governor, quite a wonderful woman who used to be MP in Haida Gwaii and Prince Rupert — and she reads a speech that she didn't write. She uses the pronoun "my" or "our" when she refers to the government.

The Lieutenant-Governor is actually, I think, a representative of the Queen. She's reading a speech that she didn't write saying what the government will do, and the press gallery refers to that speech as written by the Premier. But we in this building are all sure that the Premier didn't write it.

Actually, once a year there's an event where an anonymous speech is read out loud that says the government's objectives, and nobody knows who actually wrote it. Then, for the rest of the year, the government attempts to live up to the content of the throne speech, read by a representative of the Queen and written by someone we've never met.

This year's throne speech contained some quite wonderful words. Even though I get wages to oppose the government, I have to give praise to the Lieutenant-Governor or the Premier or the anonymous author of the speech for recognition in the Speech from the Throne that climate change is real.

I'll just read a couple of words from the throne speech, because I think everybody in the province has waited for the day when people in this building finally come to grips with the notion that we have to manage our own pollution and attempt to do something to see that the planet survives.

The Speech from the Throne read by the Lieutenant-Governor in 2007 — that's this year — said: "British Columbia will take concerted provincial action to halt and reverse the growth in greenhouse gases." The Lieutenant-Governor said: "The government will act now and will act deliberately." The Lieutenant-Governor said: "The science is clear. It leaves no room for procrastination. Global warming is real."

Hon. Speaker, I think there are thousands of citizens, especially younger people, who have waited years — maybe in some cases decades — to hear: "The science is clear. Global warming is real."

I would like to dedicate this speech to a gentleman who lives in my constituency named David Lewis. David Lewis has been talking about climate change since before I was first elected in 1991. I remember David Lewis coming to meetings when we, government and citizens, were engaged in battles over the attempt to double the amount of provincial parkland from 6 percent to 12 percent.

There would be a whole bunch of people in the room. Some are for parks, some are against parks, and they're all arguing what the best thing to do with the land would be. David Lewis would say: "Excuse me. It doesn't make any difference. If you don't deal with climate change, you're going to have a park, and all the trees inside the park will die. Then who wins? Do the loggers win? Does the environmental community win or the recreationists win? No." He kept pounding the table and saying: "When are we going to deal with what science is telling us?"

This is now — what? — 17 years ago. Year after year after year we, the leaders — both sides of this building, regardless of who governed — found it difficult to say publicly from your chair, hon. Speaker, what we all knew in our hearts, which was that the way we govern, and maybe even the way we live, was precluding the future for our own children and grandchildren.

I think every culture — I hope every culture in the world — starts out thinking that their job is to leave the world better than they found it for their kids and future generations. Once we began to understand climate change, it became clear that we — our generation and the people in this room on both sides, our leadership — were the first generation that might not be able to say they left the world better than they found it.

I want to talk a little bit about the enormity of this idea of sustainability. I think that the big political ideas of my grandparents' time and my parents' time essentially came from the analysis of Adam Smith, who wrote The Wealth of Nations in 1776 — that would be about 250 or 300 years ago — defining how capitalism worked and, to some extent, how a world economy worked. Then Karl Marx in 1848 wrote The Communist Manifesto defining an alternative.

The big events of the previous century — world wars, the evolution of the Soviet Union, the détente between what they called East and West…. All of the politics of my parents' time derived from essentially the struggle — I would argue a very healthy struggle — between the principles of capitalism and the principles of socialism, as defined by philosophers Adam Smith and Karl Marx in previous generations.

The biggest idea of my parents' era, my mom and dad, was this idea of social democracy — this idea, which evolved in their time, that citizens who we represent, voters, had a way to choose. You didn't just get a capitalist or a socialist society because of who had the most power or the most guns, but because citizens could choose and create a balance. That idea we — everybody who is sitting here — inherited. We didn't think it up.

I think the biggest idea of our generation started on August 14, 1959, when a rocket ship — I think called Explorer 6 — went up in the sky and took a photograph of Earth. For the very first time in the lives of anybody in this room or anybody watching at home, we found out that what we thought was endless — there would always be another territory to go conquer, and there would always be another country, another continent to explore — was actually finite. Our generation began to talk about words like spaceship earth or the lifeboat earth or the idea that the planet was finite.

Out of that photograph grew the only real new political idea of my generation, which was the idea that maybe the world wasn't just a struggle between ideological constructs of capitalism or socialism. Maybe both had an obligation to try to see to it that that blue-green globe was sustained. That was not part of the analysis of my parents' generation, for whom growth was an infinite objective.

Once we saw that picture in 1959, I think all of us began to figure out that the growth and prosperity and the well-being — the money that sent us to college, the money that saw to it that there was a car in every garage, the money that saw to it that we could have the dream of a home for every citizen…. All of that was essentially built on the prosperity of cheap energy post–World War II, fuelled by hydrocarbons. Maybe, as David Lewis kept trying to tell us, that growth was in fact killing us.

Now what do you do, hon. Speaker? How do you govern? How do you lead when it turns out that the very system that you put in place for the well-being of your citizens…? Whether you are ideologically committed to the capitalist solution or a socialist alternative, it doesn't really matter. The system might be killing the very people that you represent. It's a challenge, eh? It's a huge challenge.

The notion that we all get elected, and our political parties, our leaders, ourselves…. What do we say? We say: "Elect me, and maybe we'll have to tighten our belts. Maybe it will be tough for a while, but we'll make it better for your kids." That's the essential promise. In any democratic system, you have to be able to promise to make it better. Better continually means ever-increasing levels of consumption and ever-building levels of consumption, which of course means ever-building levels of growth, ever drawing out of the earth cheap energy in order to pay for it forever.

I started thinking maybe this was a little impossible. I remember in 1996, when I was running against Joan Smallwood and Glen Clark in your town, hon. Speaker — in Surrey. We were having a debate, and I was trying to get to be leader of my party. I made a little speech and said: "You know what? I think growth is maybe killing the planet. Maybe we should talk about the politics of less." Wow, did I get creamed from the audience and from the other people I was debating, Mr. Clark and Ms. Smallwood.

The politics of less was seen as an abdication. It was losing the dream of always making it better. I learned that day to never, ever repeat those words and talk about the politics of less, because we couldn't handle the idea that we could ever have a ceiling on never-ending prosperity.

Hon. Speaker, I wish it hadn't gone like that. That was 1996. That's ten years ago. We lost a decade when we could have shifted the debate away from consumption levels, ever-increasing consumption, to some kind of conversation about quality of life. How do you live? Do you have to always have the biggest car, the fanciest suit? Do you have to live in the poshest home? Or could you have a different quality of life? Could it be that the cement is choking us down on the ground as much as the pollution in the sky is choking us up above? How would we begin to talk about it?

If what the government talked about in the throne speech…. If they actually mean it where they say the science is clear, it leaves no room for procrastination, then how do you govern? I would submit to you, hon. Speaker, and to the folks over there and to everybody at home that you've got to start with restructuring everything about how we do what we do.

How can we measure the well-being or the success of a government with what they call gross domestic product, once we discover that gross domestic product is maybe suffocating our planet? I mean, it just sounds bad — gross domestic product. It almost sounds like immoral domestic product.

GDP is named in the budget 88 times, every single time the Lieutenant-Governor said: "Here's our debt-to-GDP ratio; here's our spending-to-GDP ratio; here's how much we spend on health compared to GDP." We measure every single thing we do by gross domestic product, when divorce is part of the gross domestic product. If I get cancer, making me well is part of the gross domestic product. If an ocean liner hits a rock and spills oil, picking it up is part of the gross domestic product. Tragedy is part of the gross…. Crime is part of the gross domestic….

Why on earth would we measure everything we do against almost an obscene number, except that it's tradition? We did it in this century. We did it in the 1990s, in the 1980s, in the 1970s. Essentially, the bond-rating agencies want the government to measure everything they do against GDP, and it's maybe immoral.

I would submit that if what the Lieutenant-Governor said is real and we're actually going to deal with climate change, then we should never have another budget come into this room where GDP is the measure of success. The 88 times that it was mentioned in this budget speech has got to cease.

Right now, if we're actually going to deal with it, Mr. Premier, tell your Minister of Finance to go out and invent another measurement. Go meet with the bond agencies, meet with the big heads at UBC, meet with whoever you have to, to find a way to measure our well-being that actually measures pain, pollution, disease and crime and deducts that stuff from well-being. If we're going to deal with climate change, you can't have an old-fashioned, industrial sort of system budget following a throne speech that says climate change is real. It's over.

We live in a province where the people own the land. I love that. I talk about it all the time. Some 97 percent of the land owned by the people — certainly the only province in Canada, the only jurisdiction in North America, and I'm not sure if there are any others in the world. Certainly the people in British Columbia, under a capitalist system, own more of the land than the people in the Soviet Union did under communism.

We own the means of production. We are the stewards of the land, and that means equity. But in the budget that followed the speech on climate change, the word "equity" was only mentioned three times. Apparently, we are living on cash flow. We are like young people living on their credit cards. We aren't talking in our budget about equity.

Do we take care of the land? Do we sell the land? Do we degrade the land? If we do, we have to deduct that from…. You can't have a throne speech that says we're going to deal with climate change and measure it all by gross domestic product and never consider the value of the equity that you're passing on to future generations. Otherwise, I don't actually get why people would come to work here. Exactly why would people on either side want to work in this building to pass on a degraded land base to the next generation? I don't think anybody would.

Unless it's spin. My God, if it's spin, it's the biggest lie we've heard in this building. No, we're not allowed to say "lie." What's a good word for misleading the people? If it's spin, it is the largest immoral gesture to come into this building in a very, very long time. I worry that it's spin.

I'll give you an example, hon. Speaker. Just yesterday the member down here at the end of this row, the Liberal gentleman from Prince George–Omineca, was quoting me on the subject of climate change. He was reading a sentence. I've heard the Minister of Environment read it. I've heard other people in this building read it. He's reading a sentence that I wrote last year encouraging my party to deal with the issue of climate change, and he reads it as if the people on this side have no opinion.

That gentleman didn't even read the article that he was quoting from. He'd never seen the article he was quoting from. I know that because every time anyone asked, I'd go ask them. They've never read it. They got it from their public relations staff. Those 24-year-olds went to college, and then the Premier hires them. They go through the computer, and they take out quotes and stick them in their speeches. It has no bearing on the truth. Or doesn't the truth matter here?

If a person reads a sentence that comes out of context from a larger document — one that I, by the way, am proud of — and he's never read the document, does that constitute misleading the House? Or because he didn't actually write it there…. It was written by some child somewhere else in the public relations department. Is somebody not working in this building, whose name we don't know, misleading the House? And if they can do that, then can they write a throne speech that they don't even mean? Where is the line between coming in here with integrity, saying words you believe and can write, and just acting as an actor?

You know what? There are people over there who should be getting actor wages. There should be a picket line out front, because there are actors over there who haven't even bothered joining the actors union. They are reading words that they don't understand written by somebody we've never met and degrading the world of ideas. If you can lift stuff out of context and just use it against people, then, of course, soon people on both sides will quit engaging in the world of ideas. Public discourse will die because it's too risky.

If those folks can engage in that activity, exactly what substance is there to make me believe that they meant the words when they said: "Climate change is real, and now we're going to govern differently"? And I want to believe it's real. I want to work here when we actually deal with the issue of growth and try to reinvent our economy.

If it's real, then every single ministry in government has to come forward next year with its own plan. The Ministry of Transportation should deal with how we're going to move people now that we acknowledge climate change. The Minister of Finance has got to come in here with another way of measuring well-being and how they're going to relate to the bond agencies and how we're going to get rid of GDP. Municipal affairs is going to have to talk about how cities can do planning.

Somebody is going to have to talk about the dikes. My kids are living in Steveston. We all know that if climate change is real and if the government admits to it, then they are living where the sea will be unless we begin to reinvest in the dikes.

What about the people in Chilliwack and the Fraser Valley? If climate change is real, when the snow melts where I live and begins to run down the river systems, what do you think is going to happen when it gets to the lower Fraser? Municipal affairs or whoever is going to have to deal….

You can't say climate change is real and not deal with its ramifications. What about Environment? What about the Ministry of Forests? If climate change is real, are we still going to keep planting Jack pine all over the land? If it's real, then the government in the next year is going to have to have consultation with every single industry. It's certainly going to have to talk to the forest companies. You're going to have to talk to B.C. Hydro and Columbia Power Corp. You're going to have to talk with the Islands Trust, the Columbia Basin Trust, the Fraser Basin Council. Every business and every institution in this province is going to have to change the way it thinks, now that we have acknowledged that growth is maybe killing us.

I want to close here with a little discussion about how economics works, I figure. I was taught how to do politics by a gentleman who was my friend and my mentor, and has now passed away, named Bob Cunningham. He was a log truck driver and a really good thinker. When I was just getting started, he used to drive the car and lecture me on how to think. "To understand the people in the land base," Bob said, "you know, you'd best understand capitalism and socialism, Cork."

"Capitalism," he said — and you'll probably want to take this out of context too, hon. Member, the next time you're misleading the House — "is the best system there is and that has ever been invented for employing people and making money. But that best system that's ever been invented tends to grow out of control. It's kind of like the cells of your body, Corky. They're healthy. They make your body beautiful, but sometimes they're out of control, and then they grow at an exponential rate and actually kill the body or the body politic."

"So," he said, "for the cancer that is capitalism that is sometimes out of control, socialism is the medicine." Then he explained to me how it works in our party and in Canada generally. Social democracy, he explained, is the system where you have to define your socialist principles in such an attractive way that people will actually walk in a ballot box and make an X, will impose those limitations on the cancer themselves. You cannot impose it on them. It's a beautiful, beautiful notion.

If climate change is real, it's going to take the folks over there, backed up by all the miracle of Adam Smith's analysis, and the folks over here and all that social democracy means about a people's ability to impose limits on themselves in order to control capital…. It's going to take both sides to make it work. It's going to take the invention of a politics that actually means what it says, and that says it is more important to pass on a planet to your grandchildren than it is to work here. Your job, the work you come to do, is more important than the wages or your name up in lights.

It will take a fundamental shift and one that I am honoured to be part of. But God help us, hon. Speaker and folks opposite and my friends, if we come in here next year and it turns out that it was a sham, that it was spin, that it was words out of context because the polls told them it would help. I think, hon. Speaker, what you have — I hope metaphorically speaking — is me, my party and beyond them the four million citizens of British Columbia suspending belief and judgment while folks opposite, the government, attempt to restructure the state to make their words real.

If it's real, if they mean it, I am here to help. And if it's false, spin, corrupted language in order to fool people one more time, I submit I'll spend the rest of my career trying to see them disappear from this building.

[geoffrey]

I think there polar bear assertion has been found to be slightly questionable with recent counts showing massive population growth amongst the bears? But hey, who knows? Not I, not the IPCC either in my opinion.

[B. Max]

I am going to post a speech, in full, by BC MLA Corky Evans, that he just gave in the BC parliament, as commentary to the BC Speech from the Throne.

Everyone is well aware of how the BC ndp destroyed the BC economy with there last reign of terror and created thousands of economic refugees who fled the province and bragged about how they turned BC into one giant park when actually what they did was to park the economy, and are still bragging about it, and would do it again. Socialism is not the medicine, it is the cancer.

[Topaz]

I am going to post a speech, in full, by BC MLA Corky Evans, that he just gave in the BC parliament, as commentary to the BC Speech from the Throne.

Everyone is well aware of how the BC ndp destroyed the BC economy with there last reign of terror and created thousands of economic refugees who fled the province and bragged about how they turned BC into one giant park when actually what they did was to park the economy, and are still bragging about it, and would do it again. Socialism is not the medicine, it is the cancer.

If anyone should tune in to Sean Hannity and Rush on the radio in the US, they will heard these guys say Global warming is a Liberal idea and it's all to make money off of this. Now both drive Cadillac suv's, neither want to give up their rich good life and both are supporters of Bush and Cheney. Sean says he's had scientist come on his show and say the opposite to the global warming and so he take their ideas only. Perhaps that one thing the Cons have not going for them is most of them narrow-minded to ideas and I wonder what its going to take for them to believe this is really happening? People only have to use their common-sense and look around to see what's happening at the the North and South poles.

[B. Max]

If anyone should tune in to Sean Hannity and Rush on the radio in the US, they will heard these guys say Global warming is a Liberal idea and it's all to make money off of this. Now both drive Cadillac suv's, neither want to give up their rich good life and both are supporters of Bush and Cheney. Sean says he's had scientist come on his show and say the opposite to the global warming and so he take their ideas only. Perhaps that one thing the Cons have not going for them is most of them narrow-minded to ideas and I wonder what its going to take for them to believe this is really happening? People only have to use their common-sense and look around to see what's happening at the the North and South poles.

I suggest you tune into the truth and the facts.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=90...g+Swindle&hl=en

[jdobbin]

I think there polar bear assertion has been found to be slightly questionable with recent counts showing massive population growth amongst the bears? But hey, who knows? Not I, not the IPCC either in my opinion.

It wasn't the IPCC that made a claim on present polar bear numbers. I think the only claim they have made is that polar bear habitat is declining and polar bears are kept off the ice a lot longer and therefore, are a lot thinner.

The U.S. government is telling their wildlife people to not talk about polar bear numbers.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/306...tml?source=mypi

[Catchme]

I am going to post a speech, in full, by BC MLA Corky Evans, that he just gave in the BC parliament, as commentary to the BC Speech from the Throne.

Everyone is well aware of how the BC ndp destroyed the BC economy with there last reign of terror and created thousands of economic refugees who fled the province and bragged about how they turned BC into one giant park when actually what they did was to park the economy, and are still bragging about it, and would do it again. Socialism is not the medicine, it is the cancer.

Actually get it right, the NDP did not destroy BC's economy, the corporations who wanted NO environmental controls and refused to do business in BC until they had a government who was willing to gut environmental controls, and let them operate how they want, who forced down BC's economy.

A good economy means nothing, when the environment is destroyed, and if the environment is destroyed the economy will follow. And the environment is being destroyed by the cancer of unrestricted capitalism.

[Argus]

Well gee, if a provincial MLA named "Corky" says it then we ought to get moving, right?

[Saturn]

Everyone is well aware of how the BC ndp destroyed the BC economy with there last reign of terror and created thousands of economic refugees who fled the province and bragged about how they turned BC into one giant park when actually what they did was to park the economy, and are still bragging about it, and would do it again. Socialism is not the medicine, it is the cancer.

Get a grip, dude! What does socialism have to do with destroying your environment?

[Saturn]

A good economy means nothing, when the environment is destroyed, and if the environment is destroyed the economy will follow. And the environment is being destroyed by the cancer of unrestricted capitalism.

Conservative ideology dictates that the consequences of your actions don't matter if they occur beyond your lifetime or in politics - beyond your term in office. After us, the deluge!

[B. Max]

Actually get it right, the NDP did not destroy BC's economy, the corporations who wanted NO environmental controls and refused to do business in BC until they had a government who was willing to gut environmental controls, and let them operate how they want, who forced down BC's economy.

A good economy means nothing, when the environment is destroyed, and if the environment is destroyed the economy will follow. And the environment is being destroyed by the cancer of unrestricted capitalism.

Nonsense. But what is clear is that those like yourself are Marxists. The new Paul Pots and the real merchants of poverty and genocide, now the destroyer of worlds. As the documentry points out and you even confirm with your anti capitalist rants.

[jbg]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/climate_report

The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won't have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium.

What a load of bull.

Let some of those panelists in Brussels give up their SUV's. No one, and I repeat no one, will reduce their own standard of living for such an ephemeral, unlikely goal as eliminating climate change. They'll gladly reduce other people's though.

[jbg]

Actually get it right, the NDP did not destroy BC's economy, the corporations who wanted NO environmental controls and refused to do business in BC until they had a government who was willing to gut environmental controls, and let them operate how they want, who forced down BC's economy.

The apartheidists, Zionists, Israelis, Americans, George Bush and the Canadian Reform Alliance Party of Canada did. The same people as brought down the World Trade Center.

[B. Max]

Let some of those panelists in Brussels give up their SUV's. No one, and I repeat no one, will reduce their own standard of living for such an ephemeral, unlikely goal as eliminating climate change. They'll gladly reduce other people's though.

Yeah, and send them on a holiday to Africa with a solar panel hanging around their neck.

[jdobbin]

Let some of those panelists in Brussels give up their SUV's. No one, and I repeat no one, will reduce their own standard of living for such an ephemeral, unlikely goal as eliminating climate change. They'll gladly reduce other people's though.

If it is the case the no one will change their behaviour, why bother with any legislation that deals with the environment? You say that the earth goes through natural phases. So be it. But that also means that some people can suffer from those changes. You suggest that nothing be done because it will cause you to lose your standard of living?

[Keepitsimple]

IPCC is getting desperate. It looks like they feel their hold on the issue is slipping and they are now resorting to that last bastion of hope - sheer panic. Look, with the exception of idiots, we all know that we have to be better stewards of our environment and make some concerted efforts to reduce pollution....but to have the arrogance that humanity is the major cause of climate change is simple to think that we are more important than we really are. Climate change is real - and it will happen whether we are on this earth or not - as it has done continuously since creation. Are we contributing to it and in some degree, accellerating the process? Of course. But the major flaw in IPCC's drive to re-engineer global wealth and governance is that man, when confronted with adversity, has always been able to use human intelligence to counteract obstacles. Over the next 25-50 years, we'll be using more nuclear power and on our way to the ultimate power source - fusion power....and we'll be cleaning up some of the dirtier industries. Look at what we've done in the last century - the airplane, the automobile, splitting the atom. It doesn't take a genius to see that the generation of power to sustain us will come from new, cleaner sources in our lifetime. IPCC is a United Nations sponsored entity. The UN operates with moral relativism. Look at Human Rights - they will hound western nations - even Canada - but ignore the Middle East and Africa because "the West should know better in their stage of human development" - moral relativism. Similary, IPCC, as a UN mouthpiece, preaches in the same manner - ignore China and India. Ignore the 30% of all CO2 that results from fire-induced deforestation in places like Brazil and Africa. IPCC preys on the "guilt" of the West - "because we should know better".

Canada produces 2% of the world's CO2. We'll start to clean it up - and we'll develop technology that will help the rest of the world. These IPCC "reports" were not written by scientists - facts are drawn from hundreds if not thousands of studies (done by scientists), and selectively woven into worst-case scenarios by authors who may as well be writing fiction. There is more credibility to be found in Michael Crichton's novel "State of Fear" - at least it's a relatively non-biased presentation of both sides of the story - Crichton is a well-respected scientist in his own right.

[August1991]

Well gee, if a provincial MLA named "Corky" says it then we ought to get moving, right?

And then Catchme has to go and cut-and-paste the whole speech here, with bolded lines and all.

[Catchme]

A good economy means nothing, when the environment is destroyed, and if the environment is destroyed the economy will follow. And the environment is being destroyed by the cancer of unrestricted capitalism.

Conservative ideology dictates that the consequences of your actions don't matter if they occur beyond your lifetime or in politics - beyond your term in office. After us, the deluge!

I concur, which actually makes their stated premises on everything else, including morality issues, bogus. They care not for the lives of their children or grandchildren, it is about them being the "me" in the moment and all else does not matter.

The incredible ideology based upon moral self-delusion, an erroneous superiority complex and greed, is actually nailing the lid on the coffin of their progenity's future. Wonder if their the children and grandchildren will recognize they have no future because of the actions of those who were supposed to love them and protect their future?

[August1991]

Conservative ideology dictates that the consequences of your actions don't matter if they occur beyond your lifetime or in politics - beyond your term in office. After us, the deluge!

Where does Conservative Ideology™ state that?

If anything, conservatives are inclined to refer to consequences of actions and the power of incentives. In theory, corporations maximize discounted profits off to infinity.

And the last time I checked, the birth rates in red states were higher than blue states. I find it hard to believe that conservatives don't care about their children or grandchildren?

[B. Max]

I concur, which actually makes their stated premises on everything else, including morality issues, bogus. They care not for the lives of their children or grandchildren, it is about them being the "me" in the moment and all else does not matter.

The incredible ideology based upon moral self-delusion, an erroneous superiority complex and greed, is actually nailing the lid on the coffin of their progenity's future. Wonder if their the children and grandchildren will recognize they have no future because of the actions of those who were supposed to love them and protect their future?

Nothing but Marxist propaganda. The best thing we can give future generations is a good economy. Not a mud hut and a life walking behind an ox pulling a plow.