Tuesday, March 29, 2016
The Planet Burning Cons and the Melting Arctic
He liked to call himself the best Prime Minister the Canadian Arctic and its people had ever known.
He ordered that the words The True North Strong and Free be written on everything, including his plane.
But it was all just a show...
He did nothing to help the people of the North.
And of course, he never lifted a finger to fight climate change even as the Arctic warmed up faster than anywhere else.
So here's where we are now.
Arctic sea ice reached a record winter low this year — the latest mark in a season that has left scientists gape-mouthed in amazement.
“I’ve never seen such a warm, crazy winter in the Arctic,” said an email from Mark Serreze, director of the U.S.-based National Snow and Ice Data Center. “The heat was relentless.”
And now that we know that the melting ice in the Arctic can affect weather all over the northern hemisphere, thanks to a sagging or wobbly jet stream.
Less ice, they suggest, affects the path of the jet stream, a high-altitude river of air that flows west to east above the Earth’s middle to northern latitudes. It’s theorized that a “wobbly” jet stream is associated with damaging rains and droughts in middle and southern latitudes.
Now that the warnings are impossible to ignore, and are getting more and more alarming.
The current rate of global warming could raise sea levels by “several meters” over the coming century, rendering most of the world’s coastal cities uninhabitable and helping unleash devastating storms, according to a paper published by James Hansen, the former Nasa scientist who is considered the father of modern climate change awareness.
I am haunted, as I'm sure future generations will be, by at least three questions:
(1) How did Stephen Harper get away with his war on the planet for so long?
And why did it take so long to stop him?
When it will turn out to be his greatest crime, the one that will be remembered long after all his other crimes are forgotten.
(2) Will Leona Aglukkaq ever apologize for the way she betrayed her own people?
Or for the way she shamed us all in the eyes of the world...
And made our country look like a brutish petro state, or a redneck Banana Republic.
(3) Does Ed Fast aka Fast Eddie, the Con shadow minister for the environment and climate change, really believe that he's also the ENERGY shadow minister?
Should he really be promoting gaseous products so enthusiastically?
Or spending so much time fighting plans for a carbon tax...
Or accusing Justin Trudeau of betraying young Canadians...
When just about everybody agrees that a carbon tax is an essential step in the right direction.
And nobody, but nobody, has done more to betray and torch the future of young Canadians, than Stephen Harper and his shabby gang of oil pimps.
And the good news?
It only shows that the Cons have not changed. They are still the Harper Oil Party no matter what Rona Ambrose says...
And sooner or later they will pay a heavy price for what they have done, and for the oily policies they are still promoting.
Because climate change is the Con's ticking time bomb.
The more the planet warms, and the catastrophic consequences become more and more obvious, more and more people will get angry.
They will remember those who did nothing to try to stop it.
They will demand justice.
And climate change will be the issue that finally finishes the Cons off...
Please click here to recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers.
Will Leona Aglukkaq ever apologize for the way she betrayed her own people? Of the many morally depleted, self serving, thieving, lying, bigot, racist, facist, ReformCONS this is the one person, other than Hitler Harper and Stockwell Day, that lined her pockets with the overburdened taxpayers money whilst smirking, and doing absolutely NOTHING for her first nations and Canada!!!!! Man do I want to be driving the ReformCON Karma bus when it rolls in!!!!!!!!!! She would make even Michelle Rumpelstiltskin look good!!!!!!!! Have a great day Simon!!!! FS
ReplyDeleteuglykook is reminiscent of the "vopos" in the concentration camps during WWII. Same nationality/ethnic backgrounds as their fellow captives but with the right promises/incentives from their new masters, they turned on their own and were even worse and more vicious, in a lot of circumstances, than the regular nazi guards.
ReplyDeleteI know Inuit people who utterly loathe her for those reasons. Fortunately there are Indigenous leaders as brave and principled as she and Patrick Brazeau are ... (dirty words). Think of those Northern Cree youth who trekked from the top of James Bay to Ottawa...
ReplyDeleteThe other thing Arctic peoples need is peace and cooperation. No, not naive about Putin, Palin or some other northern denizens including Leona, but the Arctic peoples have been speaking up for many years about the impact of not only climate change but also predatory "development" on the lives of their communities and lands.
Leona Aglukkaq held two important portfolios: Health and Environment. So embarrassing for Canada. Remember her tweeting photos of a polar bear she killed hunting when she was Environment Minister?
ReplyDeleteBlame Harper. He knowingly put incompetents into these positions.
TS
It was just not the HarperCons. Those who voted for him are just as complicit
ReplyDeleteLast in a 4 part series about the Canadian National Energy Board. The Harper created and staffed Board leaves us with no alternative but to trust the multinationals who pay for most of the costs of the NEB because the NEB certainly won't come to rescue anything from greedy oil companies. There are links to all 4 articles included. http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/03/24/news/bad-morale-rocked-canadas-pipeline-watchdog-and-then-came-murder
ReplyDeletehttp://operationmaple.ca/the-stephen-harper-non-answer-generator-part-6
ReplyDelete108. "I realize how important it is for northerners to have access to healthy food. That’s why our government launched the Nutrition North program in 2011. Since then, a food basket for an average family of four has been reduced by $110 a month. Two litres of orange juice is now only $26, and five kilograms of flour only $25."
Harper wasn't an "artic" type P.M. He proved it by leaving the people of the North living in less than pristine conditions, with no running water in many communities and little in the way of infrastructure. Now when it comes to climate change, gee he didn't do anything to midigate that either. I would suggest Steve just wanted to play "artic explorer" and as P.M. he got the government to fund his "play time"/
ReplyDelete