The gist of it was an attempted rebuttal of your comment that Harper had embarrassed us in Bali. I agree that we need to clean up but do not think that our economy, which is closely integrated with the US economy, can afford to depart very far from US environmental standards. It’s not following Bushitler, it’s common sense.

Kyoto, signed by Al Gore in 1997 (only after he was certain the Senate would not ratify it — he could afford to be super generous), is more of a wealth equalization scheme and an excuse for a UN super-bureaucracy than an environmental solution. I think we would be better to spend a few billion in Canada to clean up our act, rather than follow the Kyoto prescription and send the money to China to help them pay for the 500 new coal-fired power plants they intend to build over the next 10 years. More than three years later, Bush found Al’s document in his desk drawer and, on learning that the Senate was still 100% opposed, threw it away. Bush, as everyone now knows, “refused” to sign Kyoto.

I was still with Foreign Affairs in 1997 and talk around the cafeteria that year was that our team in Kyoto would offer a 2% reduction in CO2. When Al offered 5%, Chrétien immediately ordered us to offer 6%, an amount impossible to attain. Besides hiring Rick Mercer to harangue us, Chrétien and Dion did not do very much to achieve any reduction. In fact our CO2 output increased by about 30% during their watch.

The Goreacle is rumoured to have made about $100 million from his “documentary” — biggest grossing film in Paramount history — and will probably make much more now that he has joined Kleiner Perkins. I suspect they are hoping to be in on the ground floor of a carbon trading scheme, should one be mandated. But perhaps I am too cynical.

But this is all old stuff. What is newer is the indication that real scientists are not all in agreement with the IPCC. See this,
for example. I think we will see more push back of this type. I understand that global temperatures have not increased since Al’s “hottest year on record”, 1998. In fact, 1934 was the hottest year, according to NASA.

I know I sound like a “DENIER” but I agree that global temps have increased since the last ice age — I would have 2 km of ice over me (Ottawa) had it not. It’s the anthropogenic part I mainly disagree with. We have had warmer periods before the industrial age; the Martian polar icecap is melting, etc.

Anyway, this is already a screed so I’ll stop. Good on you for running a Bowen blog. Keep up the good work.

Regards,

John Lang

Even Dion, Mr Kyoto himself has admitted in the Summer of 2006 that he could not meet the 2012 targets if he was in office. This is far far different then what you have stated. Here is the National Post link to what Dion position was in 2006. http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=fe14e961-1324-4cc9-9cf6-1fc6fc0b00cd

According the following website 2002 data we are in fact 9th and our share is 2% which btw is only .1 (point 1) % higher than the UK. It would be very interesting indeed to see where the UK and even the rest of EU stood if their winters were as cold as ours. So comparing us to the UK is like comparing apples to oranges. A fairer comparison would have been Canada and Russia which is similar in land mass as well as climate.

http://pdf.wri.org/navigating_numbers_chapter2.pdf.

In fact it shows the US, China, EU25, Russia, India, Japan, and Germany has the top 7 polluters in the order written with Brazil 8th and Canada 9th.

Finally, I happen to think that Canada was right in demanding that countries such as China and India should also be required to set and meet targets and that their stance was not disgraceful at all for the simple reason that while Developed Nations contribute 52% of GHGs, the Developing Nations contribute 48% of it. Under Kyoto as it now stands give the developing nations a free ride especially China, Russia and India who are 2nd,4th and 5th. Btw EU hasn’t nothing to brag about because when the 25 are added together they are 3rd on the list of polluters.

Don’t you think that the countries who are contributing 48% of the GHGs should also be doing something about their pollution as well as the developing countries such as ourselves.. I happen to think they should and I applaud Harper for stating that position very clearly at the Bali Conference and sticking to it even under all kinds of pressure.