Premier Clueless

Koch Industries registers to lobby Alberta gov't - CBJ.ca - The Canadian Business Journal

Koch Industries registers to lobby AB govt :: The Hook

Billionaire Tea Party financiers register to lobby Alberta government

Alberta premier says he doesn't know Koch brothers or who they are lobbying |

Gee I guess Mr. Ed hasn't been reading the press lately, its so lonely at the top, surrounded by sycophants who read the news and interpret it for you. And who they are lobbying is your Government Mr. Ed.

Koch Industries Handles 25% of Canada Tar Sand Oil

OpEdNews - Article: Koch Industries, Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline...BP on the Prairie?

Nope never heard of them says Mr. Ed.

Gee did he cut them a Royalty cheque?

The Tyee – The Kochs: Oil Sands Billionaires Bankrolling US Right

Where is Wisconsin?

Billionaire Conservative Koch Brothers Behind Wisconsin Union Busting?

Class War in Wisconsin - Auburn Journal
The Koch brothers, who own Koch Industries Inc, and whose combined worth is estimated at $43 billion, have now been tied with Walker's election and his push to eliminate collective bargaining rights for public workers. The Kochs have long backed conservative causes and groups, including Americans for Prosperity which organized the Tea Party and which launched a ‘Stand with Scott Walker’ website recently.

ALBERTA FEDERATION OF LABOUR | Alberta unions condemn Wisconsin decision to strip collective bargain

Sounds like they would feel right at home in anti-union Alberta.

ALBERTA FEDERATION OF LABOUR | Unions ask Stelmach to confirm he's not considering U.S.-style attack

Unions defend middle class | Comment | London Free Press

The war in Wisconsin

By GIL MCGOWAN, Special to QMI Agency

Gil McGowan is president of the Alberta Federation of Labour.

What does all of this have to do with Canada?

In the past two weeks, major news outlets have published columns echoing the Tea Party attack on unions.

Don't expect guys like the Koch brothers to stay out of Canada's politics. They may already be funding the Wildrose Alliance and Tory leadership candidates in Alberta. (We can't know for sure, because both parties refuse to reveal their donors).

So, be prepared for the war on unions and the middle class to move north.

And of course Alberta is the home to the Anti-Climate Change lobby so the Koch Brothers will feel right at home

Kochs Profit from Canadian Eco-Nightmare

Koch Brothers Behind Environment Killing Measures
What has been less widely reported is that as soon as Walker entered office, he cut environmental regulations and appointed a Republican known for her disregard for environmental regulations to lead the Department of Natural Resources. Walker is opposed to clean energy job policies that might draw workers away from Koch-owned What has been less widely reported is that as soon as Walker entered office, he cut environmental regulations and appointed a Republican known for her disregard for environmental regulations to lead the Department of Natural Resources. Walker is opposed to clean energy job policies that might draw workers away from Koch-owned interests. What has been less widely reported is that as soon as Walker entered office, he cut environmental regulations and appointed a Republican known for her disregard for environmental regulations to lead the Department of Natural Resources. Walker is opposed to clean energy job policies that might draw workers away from Koch-owned interests. interests.

A Tax Some Repubicans Like

The Carbon Tax, which by the by is actually in effect in Alberta.

Which brings us to Alberta's small carbon tax. It has one – $15 a tonne for companies that exceed certain emission limits, with the money going into a technology fund. The trouble is that $15 a tonne is too low today to generate a lot of money, and will certainly be far too low tomorrow to generate the income the government will need to finance this expensive policy option.

However in Alberta the beneficiaries of this tax are the taxpayers; big oil.

And so with this model it should be no surprise that another capitalist who supports taxes is the CEO of Exxon; in this case the much hated Carbon Tax that Republicans and Harpocrites claim will kill jobs.

But a carbon tax appears to have little support in Ottawa. Both Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion have rejected the idea in the past, saying it will damage the economy.

Then there are Republicans who support carbon taxes because it undermines cap and trade, which by its sheer complications cannot actually function in the real market place.


Ironically its not Republicans but environmentalists and social justice advocates in California opposing it in favour of a carbon tax

February 16, 2011

But the environmental justice groups that brought the lawsuit against the Air Resources Board oppose the cap and trade program. These groups include the Communities for a Better Environment and the Center for Race, Poverty and the Environment.

“Cap and trade will create toxic hotspots in low-income communities of color,” said Maya Golden-Krasner, a staff attorney for Communities for a Better Environment.

Those who support cap and trade say the revenue gained from the trading of emission rights will be used to forge programs for these poor populations, Pincetl said.

This argument does not satisfy the environmental justice community, though.

“This heavy reliance on cap and trade won’t get us where we need to be,” Golden-Krasner said.

The coalition seeks methods other than cap and trade to reduce carbon emissions.

“We are supportive of AB 32,” Golden-Krasner said. “We just want to see the Air Resources Board actually examine alternatives to cap and trade.”

These alternatives include a direct tax to carbon emissions.

It is also the reason Alberta was the first province to impose a carbon tax, to avoid cap and trade.

Why GOP Rep. Bob Inglis is looking for a new job.

Tue Aug. 3, 2010 2:00 AM PDT

Inglis voted against the cap-and-trade climate legislation, believing it would create a new tax, lead to a "hopelessly complicated" trading scheme for carbon, and harm American manufacturing by handing China and India a competitive edge on energy costs. Instead, he proposed a revenue-neutral tax swap: Payroll taxes would be reduced, and the amount of that reduction would be applied as a tax on carbon dioxide emissions—mainly hitting coal plants and natural gas facilities. (This tax would be removed from exported goods and imposed on imported products—thus neutralizing any competitive advantage for China, India, and other manufacturing nations.)

Here was a conservative market-based plan. Did it receive any interest from House GOP leaders? Inglis shakes his head: "It's the t-word." Tax. He adds, "It's so contrary to the rhetoric we've got out there, to what Beck, Limbaugh, and others are saying."

January 2009

The world's biggest oil company, Exxon Mobil, has softened its hardline position on climate change by throwing its weight behind a tax on carbon emissions.

In a significant shift in stance, Exxon's chief executive, Rex Tillerson, told an audience in Washington that he considered a tax to be a fairer route to curbing emissions than a cap-and-trade system of pollution allocations.

"As a businessman it is hard to speak favourably about any new tax," said Tillerson. "But a carbon tax strikes me as a more direct, a more transparent and a more effective approach."

support for carbon taxes has been taken up by a growing cadre on the far right, including Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, economist Arthur Laffer, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), and yes, even climate wingnut Sen. James Inhofe (R-Gamma Quadrant). Hell, throw in a refunded gas tax and you get America's Worst Columnist© Charles Krauthammer too. Are we to believe that these folks understand the threat of climate chaos, want to reduce climate emissions the amount science indicates is prudent, and sincerely believe that a carbon tax is the best way to accomplish that goal?

Is a carbon tax in America's future?

By Timothy NoahPosted Thursday, Nov. 9, 2006, at 5:40 PM ET

Two days after the election, a movement is afoot to achieve an audacious Democratic goal. The weird part is that the people behind it are Republicans.

In a Nov. 9 Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Bush speechwriter David Frum suggested that President Bush propose a carbon tax. N. Gregory Mankiw, former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Bush White House, suggested the same thing in an Oct. 20 op-ed in the Journal, and former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan talked it up in late September. Harvard's Martin Feldstein and Weekly Standard contributing editor Irwin Stelzer like the idea, too. Slate "Moneybox" columnist Dan Gross took note of this unexpected GOP trend in an Oct. 8 New York Times column ("Raise the Gasoline Tax? Funny, It Doesn't Sound Republican").

On a purely theoretical level, it's not at all inconsistent for a Republican to advocate a carbon tax. Conservatives prefer taxing transactions to taxing income because it's a way to avoid progressivity; rich and poor get taxed at the same rate. (In his op-ed, Frum makes no bones about wanting to use the carbon tax to "split the opposition" and to lower taxes on "work, savings and investment.")

The reason that that conservatives can support a carbon tax is because it is a Pigovian Tax, which is a classical liberal economic argument.

Pigou Club is described by its founder as “an elite group of economists and pundits with the good sense to have publicly advocated higher Pigovian taxes, such as gasoline taxes or carbon taxes.”

Pigou Club was founded by Dr. Gregory Mankiw by stating his legendary manifesto in the Wall Street Journal. As time passed more and more economists were added to the list of people supporting the Pigou Club. They include people from all sides of political spectrum.

Henry David Thoreau Weeps

The father of American Transcendentalism , individualist anarchism and environmentalism would weep. A pond is such a small thing and yet it reveals the seriousness of climate change and the ensuing mass extinction of species caused by capitalism.

For the past few years, Davis and colleagues from Harvard and Boston University have been perusing the notebooks of the famous naturalist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau, using his notes about his sanctuary at Walden Pond to uncover the drastic effects of climate change. With his graduate student, Abraham J. Miller-Rushing, Primack stumbled upon Thoreau’s observations of changes in plant flowering times and species occurrences over time. “It became the gold mine,” Primack said. “What was great was that Thoreau was so famous and that his records were the oldest we found in the United States.” Together with his graduate students, Charlie G. Willis and Brad R. Ruhfel, Davis compiled an evolutionary tree of the entire community of flora that had existed in the Concord area in the mid-19th century. “Using phylogenies to think about interesting patterns of bioevolution and global [climate] change just seemed like a perfect avenue to think about this pattern of species loss using a novel evolutionary perspective,” Davis said. Primack and Miller-Rushing had observed that the plants around Walden Pond were producing flowers on average more than a week earlier than they were in Thoreau’s time, when temperatures were 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit lower. The shift in flowering times, however, was not uniform—some species groups were flowering more than three weeks earlier, while others were flowering “like clockwork around mid-May,” Davis said. Applying these data to an evolutionary perspective, the researcher--s found that the species that adjusted to the changing climate survived, while the “clockwork” plants had declined in number. “The real downer about this all is that the groups that are being hardest hit are our most cherished temperate flowering species: orchids, buttercups, roses, dogwoods, violets,” Davis said. “These are the kind of species that people go out on botanical forays to see, and now they can’t see them.” Davis said that about one-quarter of the plants Thoreau observed in his notebooks have become extinct, and that 36 percent now are in such low abundance that they are “hanging by a thread.”

Walden; Or, Life in the Woods.
White Pond and Walden are great crystals on the surface of the earth, Lakes of Light. If they were permanently congealed, and small enough to be clutched, they would, perchance, be carried off by slaves, like precious stones, to adorn the heads of emperors; but being liquid, and ample, and secured to us and our successors forever, we disregard them, and run after the diamond of Kohinoor. They are too pure to have a market value; they contain no muck. How much more beautiful than our lives, how much more transparent than our characters, are they! We never learned meanness of them. How much fairer than the pool before the farmers door, in which his ducks swim! Hither the clean wild ducks come. Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her. The birds with their plumage and their notes are in harmony with the flowers, but what youth or maiden conspires with the wild luxuriant beauty of Nature? She flourishes most alone, far from the towns where they reside. Talk of heaven! ye disgrace earth..

American Transcendentalism (AT): A Brief Introduction

Basic Premises:
1. An individual is the spiritual center of the universe - and in an individual can be found the clue to nature, history and, ultimately, the cosmos itself. It is not a rejection of the existence of God, but a preference to explain an individual and the world in terms of an individual.
2. The structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self - all knowledge, therefore, begins with self-knowledge. This is similar to Aristotle's dictum "know thyself."
3. Transcendentalists accepted the neo-Platonic conception of nature as a living mystery, full of signs - nature is symbolic.
4. The belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization - this depends upon the reconciliation of two universal psychological tendencies:
a. the expansive or self-transcending tendency - a desire to embrace the whole world - to know and become one with the world.
b. the contracting or self-asserting tendency - the desire to withdraw, remain unique and separate - an egotistical existence.
This dualism assumes our two psychological needs; the contracting: being unique, different, special, having a racial identity,ego-centered, selfish, and so on; the expansive: being the same as others, altruistic, be one of the human race, and so on.
The transcendentalist expectation is to move from the contracting to the expansive. This dualism has aspects of Freudian id and superego; the Jungian shadow and persona, the Chinese ying/yang, and the Hindu movement from Atman (egotistic existence) to Brahma (cosmic existence).

THOREAU'S PENCILS
Thoreau's clay-mixed graphite wasn't entirely original. The Germans had used something like it a few years earlier. It's not clear whether Thoreau had any inkling of the German process. But what is clear is that he transcended it. He developed a new grinding mill. He developed all sorts of process details. Historian Henry Petroski adds to the list of Thoreau's inventions -- a pipe forming machine, water wheel designs. They probably never told you in your English class that Thoreau often signed the words "Civil Engineer" after his name. Yet Thoreau was content to walk away from an invention without making personal profit of it. He was, after all, the same man who wrote ;... the seventh day should be man's day of toil ... and the other six his Sabbath of the affections and the soul -- in which to range this widespread garden, and drink in the soft influences and sublime revelations of Nature ...

Many readers mistake Henry's tone in Walden and other works, thinking he was a cranky hermit. That was far from the case, as one of his young neighbors and Edward Emerson attest. He found greater joy in his daily life than most people ever would. He traveled often, to the Maine woods and to Cape Cod several times, and was particularly interested in the frontier and Indians. He opposed the government for waging the Mexican war (to extend slavery) eloquently in Resistance to Civil Government, based on his brief experience in jail; he lectured against slavery in an abolitionist lecture, Slavery in Massachusetts. He even supported John Brown's efforts to end slavery after meeting him in Concord, as in A Plea for Captain John Brown.

Referring to the American government, the greatest American Anarchist, David Thoreau, said: "Government, what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instance losing its integrity; it has not the vitality and force of a single living man. Law never made man a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even the well disposed are daily made agents of injustice."

Ziga Vodovnik interviews Howard Zinn — Rebels Against Tyranny.
There is, of course, much with which to disagree, but overall, it's a valuable read, especially the parts about the philosophy's American history:
One of the problems with dealing with anarchism is that there are many people whose ideas are anarchist, but who do not necessarily call themselves anarchists. The word was first used by Proudhon in the middle of the 19th century, but actually there were anarchist ideas that proceeded Proudhon, those in Europe and also in the United States. For instance, there are some ideas of Thomas Paine, who was not an anarchist, who would not call himself an anarchist, but he was suspicious of government. Also Henry David Thoreau. He does not know the word anarchism, and does not use the word anarchism, but Thoreau’s ideas are very close to anarchism. He is very hostile to all forms of government. If we trace origins of anarchism in the United States, then probably Thoreau is the closest you can come to an early American anarchist. You do not really encounter anarchism until after the Civil War, when you have European anarchists, especially German anarchists, coming to the United States. They actually begin to organize. The first time that anarchism has an organized force and becomes publicly known in the United States is in Chicago at the time of Haymarket Affair.[....]Well, the Transcendentalism is, we might say, an early form of anarchism. The Transcendentalists also did not call themselves anarchists, but there are anarchist ideas in their thinking and in their literature. In many ways Herman Melville shows some of those anarchist ideas. They were all suspicious of authority. We might say that the Transcendentalism played a role in creating an atmosphere of skepticism towards authority, towards government.

Traditional individualist anarchism
Theorists in traditional American individualism (historically called "Boston anarchism" at times, often derogatorily) include Josiah Warren, Ezra Heywood, William B. Greene, Benjamin Tucker, Lysander Spooner,Stephen Pearl Andrews, and Henry David Thoreau. Josiah Warren is commonly regarded as the first individualist anarchist in the American tradition. He had participated in a failed collectivist experiment called "New Harmony" and came to the conclusion that such a system is inferior to one where individualism and private property is respected. He details his conclusions in regard to this collectivist experiment in Equitable Commerce. In a quote from that text that illustrates his radical individualism, he says: "Society must be so converted as to preserve the SOVEREIGNTY OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL inviolate. That it must avoid all combinations and connections of persons and interests, and all other arrangements which will not leave every individual at all times at liberty to dispose of his or her person, and time, and property in any manner in which his or her feelings or judgment may dictate. WITHOUT INVOLVING THE PERSONS OR INTERESTS OF OTHERS" (Tucker's emphasis). Warren coined the phrase "Cost the limit of price" to refer to his interpretation of Adam Smith's labor theory of value. The labor theory holds that the value of a commodity is equal to the amount of labor required to produce or acquire it. Warren maintains, therefore, that the price of labor of one individual must be equal to the production of the equivalent amount of labor of every other individual. And, consequently, that an employer who labors not, but retains a portion of the produce of an employee as profit is guilty of violating the "cost principle" --he recieves payment without cost to himself. Warren regards this practice as "invasive." If an employer is to be paid, he must not be paid unless he labors. In 1827, Warren put his theories into practive by starting a business that he called a "labor for labor store" in Cincinatti, Ohio. Warren, like all the American individualists, that followed was a strong supporter of the right of individuals to retain the product of their labor as private property. Josiah Warren (1799-1874) was an American social reformer and commonly regarded as the first individualist anarchist. ... Ezra Heywood was a 19th century North American individualist anarchist, slavery abolitionist, and feminist. ... Benjamin Tucker (April 17, 1854 - 1939) was Americas leading proponent of individualist anarchism in the 19th century. ... Lysander Spooner (January 19, 1808 - May 14, 1887) was an American political philosopher, abolitionist, and legal theorist of the 19th century. ... Stephen Pearl Andrews (March 22, 1812 - May 21, 1886) was an anarchist. ... Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862; born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, pacifist, tax resister and philosopher who is most famous for his essays Walden on appreciation of nature and Civil Disobedience (available at wikisource) on civil disobedience. ... New Harmony is a town located in Posey County, Indiana. ... His Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was one of the earliest attempts to study the historical development of industry and commerce in Europe. ... The labor theory of value (LTV) is a theory in economics and political economy concerning a market-oriented or commodity-producing society: the theory equates the value of an exchangeable good or service (i. ...

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Consumption=Death

Today is Buy Nothing Day....yesterday was Black Friday....and it lived up to its name as frenzied American consumers like rogue elephants stomped to death a worker in order to get in on the discount prices. Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death

Like the rush to make a quick buck off the housing boom, this rush to consume is part and parcel of the psychopathology of capitalism. It is the current variation of the emotional plaque; whereby the world is going to hell in a handbasket, so lets consume ourselves to death.

At least one writer suggests that the alternative to these two faces of the same coin(Buy Nothing Day/Black Friday), is to actually produce something, to make your own toys or at least consume locally made goods.

The great myth of the middle class was a social construction of post WWII capitalist economies, especially the growing service based economy, is that we are not producers/workers but consumers. After 9/11 George Bush told America to consume, it is this consumption that results not only in the death of workers in shopping frenzies but the mass exctinction of species on the planet and the climate crisis.

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Too Little Too Late

Here is a lesson about the importance of dealing with climate change NOW. Under our so called Green PM; Brian Mulroney, a North American agreement on acid rain was signed. Unfortunately it now seems it was too little too late. As will be the reluctant changes capitalism will make in order to offset the current climate crisis.

Scientists say they have found lakes in Canada that are losing some of the calcium dissolved in their waters, a condition they're likening to an aquatic version of osteoporosis.
The drop in calcium levels is being attributed to the effects of acid rain and logging, which together have depleted the element in the soil around lakes, reducing the amount that is in runoff and available for aquatic life.
Under previously implemented pollution-control plans, emissions of sulphur dioxide in Eastern Canada fell by 63 per cent from 1980 to 2001, according to Environment Canada figures. As a consequence, acidity in many lakes has dropped to more normal readings, but the new findings suggests that even this massive emissions cut hasn't been enough to fully mitigate the damage from acid rain. The researchers believe the sharp drop in calcium has been under way for decades, and began in some areas as early as the 1970s.
When acid rain falls on soil, it quickly leaches out the calcium, and eventually exhausts the dirt's stores of the element, leaving little available to be washed into lakes. In the initial period of acid rain deposition, this effect temporarily increases the amount of calcium entering the lakes, but once the stores of the element are depleted, levels plunge.
Logging is also a problem because trees contain calcium they draw from the soil. When trees are cut and removed, their calcium is taken from the ecosystem. The calcium in uncut forests is returned to the soil when trees fall and decay.

Mulroney's regime demonstrated environmental rhetoric but with questionable consequences and little follow-up actions.In 1988, the Mulroney government was involved in the "Changing Atmosphere Conference" in Toronto, where government, industry, academics and NGOs exclaimed the following:"Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequence could be second only to a global nuclear war. The Earth's atmosphere is being changed at an unprecedented rate by pollutants resulting from depositions of hazardous, toxic and atomic wastes and from wasteful fossil fuel use ... These changes represent a major threat to international security and are already having harmful consequences over many parts of the globe.... it is imperative to act now, (Climate Change in the Conference statement, Changing Atmosphere Conference in 1988).Even after this deep concern was expressed, Mulroney did not begin to act.In June 1992, Mulroney signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change Convention, ratified the Convention in December 1992, and then proceeded to ignore the obligations incurred under the Convention and to never enact the necessary legislation to ensure compliance.The Mulroney government incurred obligations, not only under the Framework Convention on Climate Change, but also under the Convention on Biological Diversity.

SEE:
The Tories Acid Rain Solution
Industrial Ecology
Capitalism Is Not Sustainable
The Carbon Market Myth
Saving Capitalism From Itself
Groupthink
Green Capitalism
Climate Catastrophe In Ten Years

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Funding A Myth

While the petro economy in Alberta gets bashed the Tired Old Tories plow ahead with funding for the mythical carbon capture and storage. What a waste of money.And this from a government that supposedly is not in the business of funding business, picking winners and losers. Well carbon capture and storage is not just a loser, it does not exist yet. Call it funding the Emperors New Clothes instead of saving for a rainy day. Clean Coal technology is a right wing fantasy.

However, in the face of a $6.5-billion surplus shortfall and multibillion-dollar "green" spending commitments made when oil peaked at $147 US a barrel in July, Finance Minister Iris Evans said Tuesday she doesn't expect there will be anything left to save.
In fact, the province's new fiscal update revealed the heritage fund's value has fallen to $15.8 billion from $17.1 billion, due to the financial market meltdown.
Several government critics are calling the government's decision to push ahead with $2 billion for technology to capture and store greenhouse gas emissions foolhardy.
NDP Leader Brian Mason said the province should inject those public dollars into savings, not hand over seed money to help the energy industry cut its carbon footprint.
"That is just a tiny drop in the bucket for an unproven technology that essentially landfills carbon, rather than focussing on real reductions in carbon emissions," Mason charged.
Evans, however, defended the spending, saying it will help strengthen the province's environmental reputation. Alberta produces more greenhouse gas emissions than any other province.
"Our $2 billion towards our carbon capture and storage is a necessary expenditure to show the world, to show Canada, that we're serious about environment and we're going to get emissions under control," Evans said

Now if only we had those oil and gas royalties in place our provincial budget would not have taken such a hit

SEE:

Harpers Alberta Green Plan

Between Coal and a Hard Place

King Coal

Coal=Cancer

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Made In Canada Climate Policy RIP

Remember all the Baird bluster about how the Harpocrites were going to create a 'Made In Canada' Climate Change policy. Their alternative to Kyoto. Well now it seems that its going to be a Made In The USA policy....The Canadian government offered a hint of its eagerness to work with Bush's successor this week. Less than 12 hours after Obama had delivered his victory speech, the Conservatives were already describing plans to seek a North American climate treaty with the next president. As I said watch for Obama to save Harper on the Climate Change issue.




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Bali Why

Why am I not surprised?

Blogging from Bali: The Other Canada

It does not seem that the Canadian government is playing a very constructive role at this conference thus far. Here are two examples. First, Canada refuses to commit to binding targets unless all major emitters accept binding targets - a position which goes against the principle underlying the UNFCCC, which is criticized by development economists, which has attracted opposition from China and which may lead to a negotiating impasse. Second, in sessions of the compliance committee, Canada has proposed that the countries who appoint representatives to lead enquiries regarding non-compliance should be responsible for their own travel and accommodation costs. Considering that Canada is likely to be the subject of such an enquiry, this position does not appear to be anything but defensive and self-interested.

Now that Australia has signed on to the Kyoto Accord it just leaves Steve and George to do their No Kyoto Bali Roadshow; that began at the Australian APEC meeting and ended last week in Africa at the Commonwealth meeting.














Which of course is a road to nowhere.

From Friday's Globe and Mail

December 7, 2007 at 4:31 AM EST

NUSA DUA, INDONESIA and OTTAWA — Canadian Environment Minister John Baird is urging delegates to the Bali climate change meetings to avoid "the same mistakes" made at Kyoto when large emitters like China and India weren't given binding targets to reduce carbon.

Mr. Baird, who left for the conference yesterday, said that the U.S. decision not to ratify Kyoto stemmed from the fact that large developing countries weren't obliged to sign on to targets.

"Many said that one of the big reasons Kyoto wasn't ratified is that there weren't binding targets on China and India," Mr. Baird said. "Ten years later, let's not make the same mistakes we made 10 years ago."

Yesterday, Canadian delegates to the United Nations conference were reported to have called for a "comprehensive review" of the fundamental "architecture" of the Kyoto treaty, provoking new questions about its commitment to the battle against global warming.

The wide-ranging review of Kyoto should assess its structure, its architecture, its "adequacy" in achieving its goals, and its key principles, such as the idea of differentiated responsibilities for different countries, a senior federal official said yesterday.

The official made the comments at a closed-door session at the conference in Bali. No news media were allowed at the session, but his comments were verified by environmental activists who attended.

The comments were made at a session where countries were assessing Kyoto's performance. But while some countries have called for a reconsideration of the accord, the Canadian delegation seemed to be calling for a much more far-reaching review than anything contemplated by other nations, the environmentalists said.

They said a sweeping re-examination of Kyoto could be a serious distraction at a time when the world is trying to hammer out a new climate-change agreement within the next two years to replace Kyoto when it expires in 2012.

Mr. Harper Goes to Bali

..."It's clear that Canada and Japan are talking to each other and using the same language. And Japan seems completely averse to doing anything without the United States."

Another environmentalist, Steven Guilbeault of the Équiterre group, said the Canadian position has been poorly received by most other countries. "It's a poison pill, and it makes a lot of countries very nervous," he said. "Canada is saying it wants to do less. Everyone is disappointed and appalled by it."

Japan and Canada have dominated the "Fossil of the Day awards" – sarcastic prizes given every day by environmentalists to the worst-performing nation at the Bali conference.

Mr. Guilbeault, who has been attending climate-change conferences for the past 12 years, says there is widespread suspicion among other countries that Canada may be trying to derail an agreement at Bali.

"The level of distrust toward Canada is at an all-time high," he said. "In 12 years, I've never seen such distrust.".

Canada accused of undermining climate talks

Canada is taking heat from activists at the Bali climate change conference, who are accusing it of undermining negotiations.

Climate Action Network Canada claims to have a document showing that Canada's negotiators have been instructed to demand that poorer nations accept the same binding, absolute reduction targets as developed nations.

"Canada is trying to rewrite history by putting the burden of emissions reductions on poorer countries," said spokesman Steven Guilbeault on Saturday in Bali, Indonesia.

However, Environment Minister John Baird -- who arrived in Bali on Saturday -- has said this past week that any new climate change agreement must include all the world's major carbon polluters and set binding targets.

CTV's Steve Chao, reporting from Bali, told Newsnet that a top UN official said earlier this week that Canada's government is a skeptic and that it doesn't want to do anything on climate change.

The activists say that the Kyoto Protocol is built on the recognition that industrialized countries are largely responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change and must lead the reduction fight.

While emerging economies like China and India must slow their emissions growth, the activists say that they should not be subject to the same absolute reduction targets as developed countries.

Canada -- which has 0.4 per cent of the world's population yet produces two per cent of greenhouse gas emissions -- the United States and Australia are the world's biggest per capita emitters. Canada and the U.S. emitted about 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per capita in 2004.

In comparison, China emitted 3.8 tonnes and India 1.2 tonnes.

Canadians should be embarrassed by the actions of our PM and his Enviro-Flunky; John Baird, not the actions of those attending the Bali conference to give voice to Canadians real views, and paying for it out of their own pockets since the Conservatives have put the kabosh on anyone but their handpicked cronies going as the official delegation.

The Stephen Harper Party on the other hand spins it this way;

Mr. Heinbecker said he didn't think it was "proper" that Mr. Dion will be in Bali and could raise a stink about the Harper government's position. "The reality is the government is the government," he said, "and the position they take is the Canadian position until such time as a different Canadian government takes a different position." (Embassy, December 5, 2007)

Once again forgetting that they are a MINORITY government representing a minority of Canadians and their politics are those of an even smaller minority.

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Kyoto Ratification By Australia

Leaving Harper as the odd man out.

Australia's new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, made climate change his top priority on Sunday, seeking advice on ratifying the Kyoto pact and telling Indonesia he will go to December's UN climate summit in Bali.

Rudd, 50, presented himself to voters as a new-generation leader by promising to pull troops out of Iraq and ratify the Kyoto Protocol capping greenhouse gas emissions, further isolating Washington on both issues.

But while he intends to immediately overturn Howard's opposition to the Kyoto pact, Rudd has said he would negotiate a gradual withdrawal of Australian frontline forces from Iraq.

Rudd, a Mandarin-speaking former diplomat, said he discussed Kyoto ratification with his British counterpart Gordon Brown, as well as Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

"President Yudhoyono formally invited me to attend the Bali conference, which will of course deal with climate change and where we go to now on Kyoto. I responded positively," he said.

SEE;

APEC Is Not Kyoto

John Harper Stephen Howard

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Harper's Buddy Goes Down Under

Australia’s Prime Minister Defeated After 4 Terms

Howard's defeat leaves Harper isolated on the international stage as he attempts to push the American agenda on climate change. And he has been an embarrassment at the Commonwealth Conference in Uganda where Canada is isolated over climate change and is seen as being obstructionist. With Howard going down and Australia's new Labour PM; Kevin Rudd proclaiming he will sign Kyoto, Harper is further isolated.

Canada holding up climate-change deal at Commonwealth: sources

KAMPALA, Uganda–Canada and Australia are trying to block Commonwealth efforts to call for binding climate-change targets, a well-placed Commonwealth official told the Toronto Star yesterday.

"It's Canada and Australia on one side and everybody else on the other," he said. Fifty-two countries are in Kampala to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and at the end of the three days a declaration on climate change is expected.

Canada will be further isolated come the Bali round of talks on Kyoto 2.

The most dramatic shift in the stalemate is likely to come from Australia in coming days. The country goes into an election with opinion polls consistent in their predictions of a change government, which would see the anti-Kyoto Howard government replaced by the opposition Labor Party under Kevin Rudd.

Rudd says he will “move immediately” to ratify Kyoto and go to the Bali meeting personally, no doubt to stage-manage a high-profile jumping of the fence, switching Australia to the pro-Kyoto camp while in the spotlight of world attention. It would be a largely symbolic move but one that would leave the US more isolated in its opposition to Kyoto and binding emissions cuts than it already is. The Bush administration is unlikely to budge in Bali, but it is becoming less important anyway.

The agreement of Mid-western governors last week to follow states in the US West and North East toward setting emission caps and establish trading schemes now means almost half of the USA, in population terms, is by-passing White House policy and aligning with the Kyoto approach. Bush is only a year or so from leaving office and will almost certainly make way for a successor, Republican or Democrat, that will move on caps and carbon trading nationally. In a year’s time the capping of US carbon emissions will probably be a fait accompli.

Canada may be heading a similar way, with the federal Harper government’s recent rejection of Kyoto commitments being undermined by a number of provinces moving in step with the pro-active US states.

And Canada faces further embarrassment as Harper beaks with tradition, I guess that is the meaning of his governments 'new' Conservativeness , and refuses to allow opposition politicians to attend the conference as part of the Canadian delegation.

Opposition steams at exclusion from global warming summit

Environmental groups pushing to bring opposition mps to talks in Bali

Someone should remind him that he is a Minority PM, and his party does not represent the people of Canada. Harper is embarrassing us on the international stage over Climate Change. It is one thing to claim we missed our targets, it is another to parrot the Republican agenda that says developing countries are just as responsible as developed countries.

And it is completely unacceptable to be an obstructionist when it comes to international goals and treaties, as he is doing in Uganda.

Commonwealth reaches consensus on climate

Updated Sat. Nov. 24 2007 10:12 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

The Commonwealth's leaders have agreed to an action plan on climate change that doesn't set out binding targets or timelines for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The statement released Saturday does call for greater co-operation between developed countries like Canada and developing nations, CTV's David Akin reported from the summit in Uganda.

Canada had opposed language that would set firm, Kyoto-style targets.

Environmentalists and Commonwealth sources claim Canada stood only with Australia in opposing firm targets.

The Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said it would like to see flexible targets with more emphasis placed on improving technology to deal with climate change issues.

Come next November, failing a spring election, Harper will be further isolated as the White House changes hands.

But to Hardheaded Harper Canada's isolation from global consensus is his way of profiling Canada in the international community; as an obstructionist. Unfortunately it is not the profile that Canadians want or need.

Making Maxime Bernier foreign affairs minister didn't add credibility to Stephen Harper's claim that Canada is again taking its global place.

SEE;

APEC Is Not Kyoto

John Harper Stephen Howard

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Global Warming Headlines

World on the verge of climate 'catastrophe': UN chief

Climate change accelerating, top scientists warn

Climate change will affect poor countries most, but will be felt everywhere.

Huge death toll after Bangladesh typhoon

Climate change fuelling water crisis

Aid Workers: Climate Change, Rising Prices Threaten Africa's Food Supply

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Political Vendetta

"Mr. Speaker, in no democracy in this world," cried Van Loan as the questions persisted for days, "does a prime minister and a party use their power to conduct political vendettas against their political enemies."

Oh really what would you call this then.....

Climatologists puzzled at rationale for ending research fund
"I truly think they don't understand what research means," said Dr. Andrew Weaver, a climatologist from the University of Victoria's School of Earth

Feds cutting climate studies: Nobel winners
Nobel Prize-winning scientists from Canada say the Harper government has shut down a federal climate change research network and blocked new studies on the ...

Nobel scientists deliver stinging criticism of federal government
"I can only put it down as one of two things," said Dr. Andrew Weaver, a climatologist from the University of Victoria's School of Earth and Ocean Sciences.

Canadian scientists sharing Nobel prize
University of Victoria senior scientist Ken Denman said the prestigious award raises climate change in the public consciousness.

The Conservatives of course may be upset over their flat earth 'pals' getting short shrift on CBC's Fifth Estate, the same program that exposed the Mulroney Schrieber affair that Van Loan was actually referring to in his quote.

From basic statistics mistakes to subliminal language tricks,
The Denial Machine disgraces the CBC

Another less severe, though still significant subliminal trick used by the Fifth Estate is the way they identify scientists on each side of the debate:

Climate alarmist Dr. Andrew Weaver is identified as a “climatologist” at the University of Victoria and “one of the authors of that definitive international report.”

Climate ‘skeptics’ are ascribed lesser credentials. I (Tim Ball) am just “a retired University of Winnipeg Professor”, a “so-called expert” “who hasn’t published original research in years”.

SEE

Junque Journalism

Michael Crichton Climate Change Denier

Strange Bedfellows

Saving Capitalism From Itself

Echo Chamber

Fraser Institutes Flat Earth Report

Fraser Institute Meets Bill O'Riley

Flat Earth Society Meets In London

Capitalism Creates Global Warming

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Junque Journalism

The National Post and its resident flat earther; Terence Corcoran attacked Nobel Prize winner Al Gore over Global Warming on their front page in yesterdays paper with another of their Fox News style Tabloid Headline; A coup for junk science

They forgot to mention that there were Canadian climate scientists on the UN IPCC committee who shared the Nobel with Gore And those scientists don't believe as the National Post and Corcoran do that;

"Global warming theory has been in political and scientific trouble for some time."

Nor would these Canadian scientists accept Corcoran's assertion that;

Onto this heap of forgotten causes and marginalia the Nobel has just tossed Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN's official climate science group. What a blow the award must be to the IPCC, self-proclaimed home of scientific rigour, to now be lumped in with Reverend Al and his Travelling Snake Oil Road Show and Climate Terror Machine.

The Post and Corcoran of course have engaged in junk journalism making political statements that they assert are facts. And in making Gore their straw man they forgot the Canadian Scientists, the guys who share the Nobel with him, who assert that their two decades of warnings about Global Warming are only in trouble because of lack of media and political attention to the problem. In other words because of articles like the Post published. Not only is it junk journalism it's failure to mention the Canadian scientists is sloppy journalism.

Unlike Al Gore, University of B.C. climate change expert John Robinson won't be going to Oslo, Norway, to pick up the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

But Robinson, who has been called "Dr. Sustainability," still felt like a winner when the award was announced early Friday.

"I've been in this area of research since the late '80s and it's been a long struggle to make the case that climate change really matters," Robinson, a professor at UBC's Institute of Resources, Environment and Sustainability, said Friday.

He is one of thousands of scientists in more than 100 countries who contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, including about two dozen Canadian scientists.

"It's unbelievable how climate change has risen to the top of the policy agenda and hopefully not in a flash-in-the-pan kind of way," he said.

The panel uses scientific reports and data to explore man-made climate change and ways to fight it.

Five Victoria scientists also contributed to the reports.

"It brings more awareness to the biggest issue facing humanity today. The consequences of global warming are huge," said Andrew Weaver, Canada research chairman in climate modelling and analysis at the University of Victoria.

The IPCC has been releasing regular reports on the state of climate change since it was established by the United Nations in 1988. In an IPCC report earlier this year, top scientists from 113 countries agreed unanimously that the mass burning of fossil fuels, land use and agriculture practices are melting polar ice caps.

"We are treating the atmosphere like a landfill and we're not paying for it," said Weaver.

University of Victoria senior scientist Ken Denman said the prestigious award raises climate change in the public consciousness.

"I hope it will help people and government take action. It makes the work worthwhile," he said. "If we accept collective responsibility for this it can be empowering. If we have created this, we have the capability of reversing it."

The Post and Corcoran further slighted Canadians when they deliberately overlooked Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the Canadian Inuit woman who was in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize, and who has seen the real effects of the theory of Global Warming.

The Post front page 'news' was all about attacking Gore, and promoting the myth that Global Warming is not a fact. Hence facts would just get in the way of such partisan pontificating.


H/T to Mentarch

SEE

Michael Crichton Climate Change Denier

Strange Bedfellows

Saving Capitalism From Itself

Echo Chamber

Fraser Institutes Flat Earth Report

Fraser Institute Meets Bill O'Riley

Flat Earth Society Meets In London

Capitalism Creates Global Warming

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Canada, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Nobel, Nobel Peace Prize, Environment, UN IPCC, Al Gore,