Blue Like You

Archive for the ‘environment’ Category

Another item for Sandy’s list of Harper accomplishments - The Harper Government will be introducing tougher laws for products bearing the label "Product of Canada" labelling. And if the opposition gets on board, then it will be their accomplishment as well. (CTV - Harper Announces Changes to Canadian Food Labels .)

Ever since I saw CBC’s Marketplace episode, "Product of Canada, eh?" , I’ve been very skeptical of buying any processed food labeled "Product of Canada". Watch the clip and you’ll see why.

Now, instead of being able to say that their product is a ‘Product of Canada’ if "51 per cent of production costs were incurred here and the final transformation of the product was in Canada", manufacturers will have to be more honest and accountable:

…Under the new rules, a "product of Canada" label will mean that virtually all of the contents are Canadian in origin.

Harper said the new labels would reflect whether some of the ingredients in a Canadian-made product come from another country.

This is excellent news for the Canadian consumer, good news for the environment and great news for the Canadian food industry.

Read the comments at the end of the CTV article. This is a winning policy and most people are saying that it’s about time!

* * * *

Update : And this just isn’t fair…

Stephane Dion seems to be basing his economic policy on the so-called irrefutable science of man-made climate change. While I totally agree with his concerns about pollution and the inherent need to clean up the environment for the health and safety of Canadians, I have a difficult time buying this line:

…Finally, we need to play a bigger role in the international efforts to solve the climate-change crisis. We need to participate in the setting of international goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and international rules to put a price on the cost of inaction. We cannot ignore the science of climate change simply because we don’t like what it forecasts . We need to work together to bring together the environment, the economy and social justice so we can lead the way toward a sustainable future…

Well, there are many scientific forecasts which seem to challenge Monsieur Dion’s unwavering belief system on climate change. Just today we have relevant editorials by Lorrie Goldstein and David Warren , and a piece here questioning NASA’s model.

So the fact is that the science is not clear. There are still many questions and obviously many mitigating factors that can affect trends and changes in the temperature of the earth. And as Fred points out, very little MSM coverage is given to events that appear to contradict the prevalent climate- change theories. One would almost suspect that it is a conspiracy of some kind. But hopefully the light of healthy skepticism will start to peek through the cracks of the cover-up.

So if Stephane Dion wants to follow Australia’s example and try to take advantage of the gullible, that’s his choice.

But don’t pretend that it is such a noble cause, when in fact it’s just an excuse for another burgeoning, money-sucking bureaucracy that will have the net effect of driving up the costs of goods that Canadians wish to purchase - including gas, and every commodity that relies on gas for transportation.

* * * *

Update: CBC’s At Issue addressed the issue of gas prices and politics this week.

Also worth watching is Rex Murphy’s take on ‘The End of the Ethanol Dream’ .

I can’t believe I just linked to CBC twice in one post!

The Maple Three - New Liberal Slogan: "Heating bills from hell are on the way. "  (One of my favourite Liblogs)

Have you seen that commercial yet from a well-known big-box store where the woman screws in a CFL bulb, and the box in which it was packaged suggests that the earth might have a crush on her because she is so eco-friendly? She blushes and stammers in return. (Never mind that it’s ‘Mother Earth’ that she’s flirting with… Yeah we won’t go there.)

This is becoming an increasingly common media and activist ploy - ascribing human attributes to inanimate objects or non-human life forms in order to garner public sympathy and increase activist support. I assume the theory is that if we can identify with something in human terms, then we will be more inclined to accept the message.

And so we to try to “Save the planet” instead of trying to save the people on the planet. Instead of trying to be good stewards of the earth so that we can continue to sustain ourselves here, the focus is on getting rid of the human filth that degrades the earth. Barbara Kay alluded to this mindset in a recent column, Hug the Earth, kill the humans:

…Watson is the symbol of a movement that originated in a desire to improve the planet’s physical condition, but transmogrified into the zero-sum dogma of eco-spirituality, in which the object of worship is the environment, and the messianic goal its return to a pre-civilization Edenic state. In this scenario, Earth is perennial victim, mankind eternal villain, the consumption of natural resources original sin. No emotionally manipulative appeal is beyond the pale for this pagan religion’s demagogues, even the shameful appropriation of racist tropes. Alpha eco-spiritualist novelist Alice Walker claims, “the Earth is the nigger of the world…”

In today’s Sun, Michael Coren also sees this as a worrisome trend:

… Here lies the point. Life matters much, much more than the planet, which is merely a place on which humans live. We need to care for Earth not because of it, but because of us. Pure self-interest. If humanity did not exist, to hell with the planet. It’s a means to an end. We’re the end; Earth the means.

Problem is, fashionable thinking has reversed the equation. The planet is to be saved because it is precious in itself and we, dangerous intruders, are the problem. Earth is to be revered, loved and even worshipped. Like some perverse replacement theology, Mother Earth takes on the role of real mothers and fathers….

And even more perverse is the notion that animals are more valuable than human beings. Bishop Fred Henry notes:

…As PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk has said, “When it comes to pain, love, joy, loneliness and fear, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. Each one values his or her life and fights the knife.”

Nevertheless, it turns out that some animals are more equal than others. One would expect that consistency would demand the condemnation of poisoning babies in the womb with a saline solution or cutting them up with surgical tools but Newkirk and Singer don’t believe that human beings have the right to life…

I suppose the most frightening aspect of all of this is the mass brain-washing done in our public school system:

Dear Mother Earth,

What is our earth? I know it is the animals. What we can do? We can pick up the garbag and we can take care of the animals. Why is it important? to love you? I love you Mother Earth. If we don’t love you everything wil go away.

Perhaps the school system should focus more on spelling than scaring kids into submission.

Sounds like Lorrie Goldstein gets more than his fair share of ranting emails from the Kyoto crowd.

In today’s column (Let’s clear the air here), Goldstein lays out his stance on global warming and climate change, which I find to be moderate, non-partisan and entirely reasonable:

For more than a year now, having done a fair bit of research about the issue on my own, I’ve been writing critically about global warming. During that time, I have stated the following:

That I accept the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the Earth is warming unnaturally and that it is “very likely” human activity is the cause.

That, regardless of global warming, it’s important to conserve energy and to burn fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas) as cleanly and efficiently as possible, not just for environmental reasons, but for geo-political ones. The less we have to rely on Mideast oil, the greater our security will be.

I’ve said Canada, as a resource-rich country, should be a leader in the responsible use of fossil fuels and government subsidies to the oil industry — unnecessary when oil costs more than $100 a barrel — should be re-invested into Canadian research and development of new sources of renewable energy and clean technologies.

I’ve said if Canada imposes a carbon tax, presuming a majority of Canadians favour this, it must be done in concert with the U.S. and our other major trading partners, so as not to damage our economy.
I’ve argued it must be truly revenue neutral, providing already overtaxed Canadians with realistic ways of moving toward a carbon economy…

Then he goes on to explain why he doesn’t support the Kyoto protocol which, as he agrees with Harper, really is a ’socialist, money-sucking scheme’. Worse, it is not realistically designed to lower man-made GHG emissions due to the exclusion of certain countries such as China and India, and the fact that the U.S. has not ratified the treaty “dating back to the Bill Clinton/Al Gore administration”.

Also:

…Climate hysterics, led by environmental radicals and opportunistic politicians, who screech that every time there’s an extreme, or even unusual weather event it’s “proof” of man-made global warming, don’t know what they’re talking about. They constantly confuse “weather” and “climate.”

They don’t understand the difference between man-made global warming and the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect, which keeps us all from freezing…

…Kyoto isn’t an environmental plan. It’s a plan to transfer wealth from the First World to the Third and damage the American economy in particular…

As if we need that right now! As we can already see, a worsening U.S. economic situation can seriously impact our economy - especially in Ontario.

Please read the whole article. It’s a no-nonsense approach to a very highly-charged, political argument. Yet the emails still pour in calling him names for this moderate stance.

Maybe that’s because when they’ve run out of facts, then name-calling is the only thing left to fall back on.

Or is it?

They could always try locking him up.

Last week when David Suzuki rolled out his Amazing Carbon Tax Schticht prior to the Federal Budget, I asked Sun columnist Lorrie Goldstein if he’d be doing a response. He replied, “All in due time…”

It was well worth the wait.

In The carbon cops are coming, Goldstein exposes the intellectual dishonesty of environmental advocates and politicians who try to woo us to the Green side with tales of how their schemes will be ‘revenue neutral’. As a public service, Lorrie offers his three-pronged guide designed to help us sort through the hot air emanating from Suzuki Nation:

1) When any of them tell you “polluters will pay” to reduce greenhouse gases, they mean you and me.

Whenever they talk about a carbon tax, a “cap-and-trade” system, carbon credits or the regulation of industrial greenhouse gases by government, they are talking about the same thing — higher taxes.

2) This brings us to the second point of our guide: Whenever a politician, or anyone else, claims a carbon tax will be “revenue neutral” nail them down on exactly what they mean.

Politicians and environmentalists like to toss around “revenue neutral” because it sounds as if even with a new carbon tax, you will pay no more in total taxes than you do now.

That’s not what it means. Even if a government was considering a truly “revenue neutral” tax, it may well not be neutral for you. Say you need your car to drive to work because you live in one city and your job is in another. If the government imposes a carbon tax by hiking gasoline prices, it may claim it’s “revenue neutral” because it’s going to return an equal amount in tax incentives for people to take public transit. Problem is, if you don’t have a realistic transit alternative for getting to work, your carbon tax is no longer “revenue neutral.” .

3) Finally, when a politician or environmentalist tells you a carbon tax can be imposed with “minimal” harm to the economy ask them what assumptions they base this on.

In both the recent study on carbon pricing by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, and in the one released by the Suzuki Foundation last week, the authors simply assume that while Canada is taxing carbon, the U.S. and our other major trading partners will be doing the same…

And that’s a huge assumption.

Even the Toronto Star takes note of the fact that while this may be a desirable situation, it is clearly not going to happen anytime in the near future. Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty, brother of the current Federal Liberal environmental critic David, is not jumping on the bandwagon. He rightly realizes that such a plan would devastate the Ontario economy which is already facing huge challenges competing with China, etc.

As in all things, buyer beware.

* Denier - Anyone who crosses David Suzuki.

Tomorrow, Kyoto überkop David Suzuki will use a news conference in Ottawa in another attempt to shame the Federal Government into including in its budget a “carbon tax or carbon trading system to cut greenhouse gas emissions”.

If that doesn’t work there’s always jail.

Meanwhile, Kate has highlighted two excellent columns in today’s Sun. Angelo Persichilli asks for some truth from the media about how much environmental changes will cost us and how effective (or ineffective) they’re likely to be - Science and politics overlap the truth.

The ever-witty Lorrie Goldstein explains how the ‘Suzuki Nation’ attempts to shame us lest we dare complain about the high costs of going green and how we’re being hoodwinked into thinking that something might actually be accomplished in the bargain - It’s green fever madness!

Best line:

…And finally in crazytown … Ottawa … where, amongst so many other absurdities on the environmental front, Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, a man who can’t control his caucus, has a plan to control the climate…

But Kate’s got a few little gems of her own as she exposes the hypocrisy of jouralists who pretend to care about the environment:

…But let’s back up a little, for this is the end of civilization as we know it, and they’re apparently convinced of that. A planetary emergency, no less.

How does one convinced of impending planetary doom get up in the morning to work in the industry they do - an industry that employs vast numbers of people to travel the country via commercial jet and automobile, that sustains huge media complexes clogged to the ceilings with electricity consuming CO2-belching technology, that hauls tons of satellite equipment to produce on-the-scene reporting?

That indulges in the broadcasting of sporting events? And entertainment “news”?

“We interrupt this report on the last remaining meter of Arctic sea ice to bring you live footage of Britney Spears’ entourage leaving the hospital … John, you’re in the helicoptor, what can you tell us?”

When it comes to curtailing wasteful practices and excessive C02 emissions, shouldn’t they be among the first to go?

From SDA: Y2Kyoto - The Twilight Zone.

Brilliant stuff, Kate!

So as Saint Suzuki gets on the media pulpit tomorrow to whip up his congregation into another lynch-mob frenzy, just remember that there are a few truthful media pundits left.

Cherish them - before they join Harper in the gallows.

From the school of harsh reality - Carbon Tax Bill in the Mail (Gazette) H/T National Newswatch:

“They said consumers would not pay for this - and now here we are, paying for it.”

When the Liberal government introduced the carbon tax, it said it was targeting oil companies with deep pockets.

“We are asking them to be good corporate citizens,” Natural Resources Minister Claude Béchard said at the time.

He added that the plan is based on the principle that the polluter should pay.

How naive.

In the end, there really is only one taxpayer - whether you pay the bill directly or as a consumer - or even as a laid-off worker.

Funny how when it comes down to actually having to open our wallets, suddenly we value the green we’re forced to shell out more than the greening of the environment.

H/T National Newswatch.

This morning Lorrie Goldstein shows us the underlying contradiction in the recent report presented by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy’s (NRTEE) - Only one place for this report:

…Indeed, the NRTEE paper, Getting to 2050: Canada’s Transition to a Low-emission Future warns 10 times that its proposals won’t damage our economy only if the U.S. and our other major trading partners are simultaneously implementing similar measures. Its optimistic economic modelling is based on that.

And yet bizarrely, it also concludes, without qualification, that: “It is not the NRTEE’s view that any of this should be justification for not taking action now to either reduce emissions now, or put in place the most effective policy framework for deep, long-term reductions in the future.” Excuse us?

Exactly.

So while our own efforts alone would likely return negligible results on a global scale and would likely damage our economy if the U.S., China and others refused to join the cause, we should still soldier on with the proposals in the faint hope that everyone else will follow our example?

Well, here’s the problem. Not every country in the world has a Lemming mentality. If Canada’s economy is going down the tubes, that is of little concern for the rest of the world. In fact, it could be a plus for China, which is already getting the benefit of our collapsing manufacturing sector.

I see little incentive for the others to join our little march over the cliff.

Perhaps the environmentalists should follow their own advice and try to tone down the gaseous emissions rising from this pile of manure.

As I mentioned in the previous post, with all the Kyoto misinformation being tossed about, it is refreshing to come across a voice of reason and healthy skepticism in MSM. Lorrie Goldstein has done a tremendous amount of reading on all sides of the debate, and provides a balanced, rational approach.

I asked him by email if he would sum up his position as being an “AGW believer; just not a Kyoto advocate in particular?”

His reply was as follows:

…I agree with the IPCC’s latest report that AGW is “very likely”, although I do not automatically dismiss anyone who disagrees with this theory as a “denier”.

I do not agree there is any scientific consensus on how fast it is happening, how dramatic the impact will be or, most important, what we should do about it, the latter of which is a political issue, not a scientific one.

I oppose the Kyoto accord for reasons I have highlighted in today’s column and many others.

I believe we should purse a made-in-Canada policy which emphasizes practical energy conservation, not just reducing GHG emissions, but air pollution as well, another byproduct of burning fossil fuels.

I would end public subsidies to the fossil fuel industry (how much subsidy do you need when oil is $100 a barrel and rising?) and earmark those funds for credible public and private sector research in Canada into ways of combatting pollution and global warming, including burning fossil fuels as cleanly as possible.

I would also invest money now going into public subsidization of the fossil fuel industry into credible public and private sector research and development of renewable energy resources, especially solar power, which I consider more potentially promising than wind.

I believe we should offer such technology to the rest of the world on fair and reasonable financial terms.

Finally I believe in the responsible use of nuclear power, the only practical man-made energy source we have right now that does not emit GHG or significant amounts of air pollution, to fill in the energy gap as we start to wean ourselves off fossil fuels.

Makes sense to me. How about you?