Blue Like You

Archive for December 3rd, 2007

Evening Update: It appears that Jonathan Kay intends to publish this editorial in tomorrow’s Post - Dump Kyoto, Save Lives. (H/T National Newswatch)

It’s a direct rebuttal to Byers’ Star piece (see below).

…My problem with the Kyoto camp isn’t that it’s peddling “junk science.” It’s that, like Byers, they go straight from the science to the politics without stopping to count the money. What if global warming is real, but Kyoto is still a rip-off — even according to the big-hearted humanitarian logic at the core of the pro-Kyoto camp?

On that note, here’s something that pops out at you when you read Byers’ op-ed: a total absence of numbers. The same is true of most pro-Kyoto articles, and sometimes even whole books. Too often, the argument for fighting climate change is based on vague appeals to cuddly polar bears, our moral debt to mother nature, the “will of the international community” — as well as the usual litany of worst-case (and, often, worse-than-worst-case) disaster scenarios. You rarely see anyone actually crunch the numbers and prove Kyoto’s worth on a cost-benefit basis…

Consider: The global all-in compliance costs of Kyoto amount to about $180-billion per year. Yet all these billions — even paid in perpetuity — would delay the globe’s expected rate of heating over the next century by just 5%. Assuming Kyoto is allowed to expire in 2012, its total effect will have been to delay the pace of global warming by one week. In terms of Canada’s contribution to Kyoto, the effect would be measured in hours. Think about that the next time Dion or David Suzuki lecture you about Canada’s lost opportunity to save the world.

Thank you Jonathan for this refreshing reality check. If only all my wishes were answered so swiftly.

I can’t let this one go by, but I need some help due to time constraints.

Please read this opinion piece by Michael Byers - Prime Minister Stands out as Small Man of Humanity (Star). If you’re a True Blue Conservative, this one’s gonna make you see red!

Here’s what jumped out at me:

Harper’s antipathy to international environmental co-operation is well known. He once dismissed the Kyoto Protocol as “essentially a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations.” But his concerns about burden-sharing and free-riding are misplaced. Firefighters don’t check tax records before responding to an emergency call.

Now this sounded vaguely familiar, and then I remembered. That analogy was used in a recent Record editorial (which we totally picked apart):

If rich and poor houses on a street were on fire, would Harper wait until everyone paid the same taxes before calling the fire brigade?

So what’s up with that? Is this the latest revelation from some kind of Kyoto New Testament or something? I guessed I missed that service. (Oh, yeah. We were snowed in.)

Lots more to challenge in the article.

Have fun.

L. Ian MacDonald calls on Peter Milliken to law down the law on Parliamentary decorum - The House Speaker must step in to bring MP’s back in line.

…Mulcair is a lawyer and a former law teacher. He knows better. But he is also a shameless opportunist and relentless publicity hound. Jack Layton should haul him in and read him the riot act. While he’s at it, Layton should also watch his back.

Or consider this exchange last Thursday between deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

Ignatieff: “Mr. Speaker, what representations did Elmer MacKay make to his own son, the current defence minister, concerning Karlheinz Schreiber? What representations did the defence minister make to the prime minister or any other government official about the Schreiber matter?”

MacKay: “None whatsoever, Mr. Speaker.”

Ignatieff: “Mr. Speaker, fathers speak to sons, fathers even use fax machines. Ministers speak to other ministers barely five feet apart. The answer is not credible. Let me put the question in French. What representations did the minister of national defence make to the prime minister about Mr. Schreiber?”

So this is where the quest for fame and power has led Ignatieff. This is why he left Harvard, to dive into the cesspool that Parliament has become. He ought not to be proud of himself, but then he’s not alone in running with a braying pack of dogs…

Shameful.

Between this and the Ethics committee’s shenanigans with the Schreiber affair, it’s no wonder that Canadians are becoming increasingly distrustful of politicians.

The toxic atmosphere threatens our very democracy as people get turned off from voting, and shrug their shoulders in apathy.