Welcome To Alberta

Where climate change doesn't exist and they keep voting for Team Denial.

Recommend this Post

And As For Climate Change

We're boned.

Recommend this Post

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

News Item: Stephen Harper Appoints Global Warming Denier and Common Sense Revolution Author To The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

Recommend this Post

Biggest Bad News Story Of the Weekend

For Stephen Harper. EPA: Global warming a health hazard This will make the Prime Minister of Alberta's job a lot harder. The EPA doesn't screw around once they get you in their sights. That's why Bush suppressed them for eight years.

Recommend this Post

Psst. Buddy.

Shorter Harper: Hey Barack, you wanna try this nice oil? It'll make you feel so warm. No worries, the first taste is free.

Recommend this Post

A Word Of Caution

For those out there who believe things will get better on the climate change file, once there is a new resident in the White House. I share Monbiot's skepticism.

So don’t believe all this nonsense about waiting for the next president to sort it out. This is a much bigger problem than George W Bush. Yes, he is viscerally opposed to tackling climate change. But viscera don’t have much to do with it. Until the American people confront their political funding system, their politicians will keep speaking from the pocket, not the gut.

Recommend this Post

New Rules

Never play poker with a guy named "Doc". Never draw to an inside straight. Never depend on Europeans, in a negotiation, to stay strong.

The Europeans are gambling on regime change to save all our asses. The Americans and Canadians are gambling that science is just religion with lab coats. It's a tough call to decide who is following the riskier strategy.

Recommend this Post

Canada's Back

And the world is taking note. Feel proud yet?

Recommend this Post

Is Baird Losing It?

It is just bizarre that John Baird would continue to use the Liberals as his shield, even when the international community is criticizing his government's negotiating position. Everyone knows the Liberals were useless on the climate change file, but as an excuse, they are past their "best before" date.

Recommend this Post

Canada's Bali Position The Flat Tax In Action

The government's position in Bali that it will only accept binding targets if China and India are too, is an international manifestation of that old right wing chestnut, the flat tax. In a progressive system of taxation, the CEO is assessed a higher level of tax than the file clerk, because the CEO is judged to have a greater capacity to pay higher levels of tax. This is anathema to right wingers, like Harper, who see this as "socialism" and an attempt by the state to redistribute "hard earned" income from the rich to the poor. The flat tax proposes that everyone regardless of income will be taxed at one rate, so that a file clerk and CEO will be charged the same level of tax despite the huge gap in income.

This is, in essence what the Harperites are trying to impose on Bali. Harper is already on record as calling Kyoto a "socialist scheme" of income redistribution. His solution is to treat the effort to curb greenhouse gases like a flat tax on the world. Everyone, regardless their level of development will be forced to accept the same burden as the rich countries (who truth be told have dumped the vast majority of GHG's into the atmosphere while getting rich) or Harper will not play. Harper's plan should be seen for what it is, an attempt to use the reasoning behind a crazy tax scheme, for which there is no support nationally, to the international stage.

Recommend this Post

The Revolt Of The Polluting Class

If anyone wants some insight into the mind of our prime minister, on the subject of global warming, I would recommend reading Peter Foster, in the Financial Post today. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that our prime minister agrees that any move to regulate industry in any meaningful way is the equivalent of Marxism.

The Harper strategy is laid bare. Harper's plan is to "cater to the ignorance/alarm/hypocrisy engendered in their electorate"... "while keeping a firm hand on the nation's collective wallet". In other words, he and his "Environment" Minister, will cry and cry and cry again for the environment. They will tell us they believe something must be done to save us from catastrophe and then will work to sabotage any remedy that will include concrete, mandatory action. If Harper gets his way (and it looks like he is trying to gather a coalition of the unwilling), humanity as a collective (sorry, what a repulsive word except when it comes to tax cuts) is in trouble.

Update: The phrase "cater to the ignorance/alarm/hypocrisy engendered in their electorate" betrays a loathing of common people. It carrys with it the idea that the people are ignorant and so it is ok to treat them cruelly, because they are just stupid animals. This is the "spirit" that leads to view citizens as "sheeple". It is a malevolent cancer in conservatism and it must be expunged.

Recommend this Post

What's The Worst That Can Happen?

It is obvious to me this guy has never run into either Stephen Harper or the Blogging Tories. Denying reality is what they do.

Recommend this Post

But Is It A Good Thing?

That is the one question Mr. Goldstein doesn't answer and it is the only one that matters, in the end. Global warming is real and just because people want to deny the consequences because they are going to be really bad, does not absolve governments for enabling that denial. If leaders do not lead, what the Hell good are they?

Recommend this Post