We've known for a long time that Donald Trump is a climate change denier. For a long time his ridiculous tweets have made that only too clear.
And although the sweltering heat, and all those hurricanes, have forced him to admit that in his words "something is going on out there." He's still, as Paul Krugman writes, floundering about like a beached whale, or a maniac in a straitjacket, in the three stages of climate denial.
He has yet to comment on the latest twist in the Duffy scandal. But in his shadowy bunker Stephen Harper must be feeling the heat. For by now even he must realize that the writing is on the wall. And that he could soon be sweating in a witness box. Trying to explain under oath what Nigel Wright meant when he said that Harper had told him the deal to pay off Duffy was "good to go." The leader of a tired, increasingly unpopular government with nowhere to go but down.
Well I see Stephen Harper got an early Christmas present, courtesy of the Big Oil gang at the National Energy Board. A polarizing debate over the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline heated up Thursday after an independent panel from the National Energy Board recommended the federal government approve the pipeline with conditions. Because he needed something to cheer him up eh? And now the scam is on, and the fix is in.
When I look at a picture of our beautiful little blue planet, and I think of what the Cons have done, I feel so angry and so ashamed to be aCanadian.
We're a rich, advanced country that should be a leader. Yet we've failed the world on climate change. We let our aboriginal peoples live in tents with sick children in the middle of winter. We send cancer-causing asbestos to developing nations. What's wrong with us?
Especially since, as John Ibbitson points out, the Cons may have done the dirty deed, but in a way we're all responsible for the Kyoto debacle.
“Global warming peaked as an issue when Al Gore won his Academy Award in 2007, and has basically declined since,” he said Monday. “And when the economy went up the hit parade, the environment went down precipitously.”
To a degree I can understand why so many Canadians feel this way. Thanks to the Cons we've come to believe that our prosperity depends on dirty oil. And in a cold country like Canada the day of reckoning seems so far off.
But what if it wasn't? What if bubbles like these are already heralding the beginning of the Apocalypse?
I could run this old video of Peter Kent introducing a documentary where he calls global warming “the greatest threat to life on the planet” and warns that the devastating effects of climate change “will be seen in our children’s lifetime.
Or I could run this picture of him returning from the Durban conference yesterday, like some shabby Neville Chamberlain declaring "There will be peace grease in our time...
Claiming that we would have to pull every car off the road, or pay $14 billion to stay in the treaty. Which is totally absurd. But even if it was true would be less than we are going to pay for our shiny new prisons.
The flowers in my forest are wilting in the heat. Today it felt like 40 degrees in the shade. It's the hottest summer I can remember.
I don't know if it has anything to do with global warming. But now I think I know what it's going to feel like.
Flooding in Pakistan. Landslides in China. Forest fires in Russia and British Columbia. Too much rain in Saskatchewan. And now the horror of hunger.
Two problems are going to converge and merge in the next 10 or 15 years with dramatic results. One is the fact that global grain production, which kept up with population growth from the 1950s to the 1990s, is no longer doing so.
The second problem is, of course, global warming. The rule of thumb is that with every one degree C rise (1.8 degrees F) in average global temperature, we lose 10 per cent of global food production. In some places, the crops will be damaged by drought; in others by much hotter temperatures. Or, as in Russia’s case today, by both.
I see that Stephen Hawking is suggesting that humans start looking for another planet.
But that won't save us. Because if we can't solve our problems on this planet, we'll only repeat them on another one.
We need to change the way we live. The way we organize society. The way we decide our priorities. Capitalism as we know it has reached the end of the line. We need to come up with something better.
Some of us tried to get that message out peacefully at the G20 summit. And you know what happened.
But they can't hold us back forever. The younger generations won't stand for old solutions to new problems.
The greasy oil pimps, the corrupt politicians, those who profit from the misery of others, the greedy grubbers who are torching the world, should understand one thing.
Or we save this planet and make it a better place for everyone.
I haven't bothered to write anything about the so-called Climategate controversy, because this little smokescreen from the Big Oil Mafia doesn't change anything You can't fake spring coming earlier, or trees growing higher up on mountains, or glaciers retreating for kilometres up valleys, or shrinking ice cover in the Arctic, or birds changing their migration times, or permafrost melting in Alaska, or the tropics expanding, or ice shelves on the Antarctic peninsula breaking up, or peak river flow occurring earlier in summer because of earlier snowmelt, or sea level rising faster and faster, or any of the thousands of similar examples. Science is science and the evidence speaks for itself. And all this little e-mail tempest in a teapot proves is that climate change deniers are not only a gang of slobbering oil pimps and mentally deranged fanatics, they're hackers and criminals as well. And one day they will go on trial for crimes against the planet. Because you can't threaten the lives of a billion people. And hope to get away with it.
As for our own planet destroying, dirty oil, Con stooges.... their words too will come back to haunt them. "There's always a lot of hype and drama that gets built into this sort of international event, much of it intended to force the hand of participants," Mr. Prentice said in the prepared speech. "We aren't going to buy into that. We are not going to panic. For nothing can excuse their ridiculous arguments or their criminal lack of action. Not in a place like Canada. Canada has the world's longest coastline, the second-largest land mass and an enviable abundance of fresh water. Thus, by definition, the consequences of atmospheric warming must hit Canada arguably more than for most countries that lack vast territory, immense coastlines and so much fresh water.
Put another way, this piece of geography called Canada is on the front lines of the global warming struggle – although you wouldn't realize it watching the federal government.
And sorry won't be good enough.
We'll make sure of that. You can fool the gullible, and corrupt the greedy. Canadians tell pollsters they want “action,” but not if it unduly causes them to alter their behaviour or costs them anything. They want Canada to enjoy a stellar international reputation, but they don't seem too upset that, in the climate-change business, Canada has a horrible reputation that the Harper government isn't going to change.
But they can't betray the future of a generation, and delude themselves into thinking that we will forgive them.
Copenhagen may be the last chance to save the planet from being torched.
Wow. What a sight in the House of Pork. A young flash mob in the visitors gallery and blood in the corridors And all I can say is good for them. At least some people in this incredibly passive country are willing to get off their asses and let the politicians know we DEMAND they do more to save our burning planet. Because Stephen Harper's dirty oil government isn't even PRETENDING it wants to do anything to fight global warming. Canadians must also recognize that any national emissions cap has to reflect differing conditions across the country so as not to punish high-growth provinces, he added. The minister has been consulting with provinces on a plan that would impose a cap on industrial emissions, but allow Alberta's energy-intensive, emissions-heavy oil sands to continue expanding. And these Con oil hogs ....you know the Calgary Gang....are actually planning to waddle off to Copenhagen and shame us in the eyes of the world. By telling other countries we can't do it because we...um...CAN'T.
And they're counting on the complacency and selfishness of Canadians to get away with this crime against the planet.
So if some young Canadians feel they need to make a bit of noise to remind the politicians that they need to do better. I say go for it. It's THEIR future that is being torched. This country is dying of smugness. So the more noise the better.
Time is running out. Those Con oil hogs and planet destroyers need to hear our anger.
I see that days after the G20 protests in London they're still trying to figure out what happened. Was the isolated violence the fault of a small group of anarchists? Was it a spontaneous assault on capitalism? Or was it a police riot? Diane Francis tries to defend both capitalism AND the anger. I'm not condoning street violence but it will be helpful if political leaders understand that economic ruination by others -- whether a foreclosure in Detroit or a laid off worker in Cincinnati, Delhi or Bristol -- is also a violent act. It damages victims, not only financially but psychologically and socially *Gasp* Diane Francis? Can The Abyss be far off? While Johann Hari wonders why MORE people aren't angry. We are facing a collapsed economy and a rapidly warming world because an extreme ideology has dominated world affairs for decades. It is the belief that markets aren't just a useful tool in certain circumstances; they are an infallible mechanism for running human affairs. The climate is currently going the same way as the banks...Unless we swerve fast, we are soon going to hit global temperatures that no human being has ever lived through.
By 2015, we will have belched so much carbon into the atmosphere that we will cross the Point of No Return: the climate will start to unravel as all its natural cooling processes breaking down one by one, guaranteeing we become hotter and hotter. Once we hit an increase of 4 degrees, much of the world will become uninhabitable, and there will be vast wars for what remains. And so do I. All the G20 leaders did was slap a band aid on a gaping wound. Coddle the bankers and all but ignore the planet.
When it should be obvious by now that both problems killing this world are caused by the same system. And that unless we change that system sooner or later we're doomed.
Am I ready for The Revolution ? Not really.
But I do know it's coming.
And I do love The Clash...
"Nobody understands it can happen again, hurrah, tala
The sun is shining and the kids are shouting loud
But you gotta know it’s shining through a crack in the cloud..."
The way I figure it a little anger can go a long way. Because we've got a world to SAVE.
Well in a few hours it will Earth Hour. And I'm not quite sure what to make of it. On the one hand it's just a big and short publicity stunt. On the other hand I'll take ANY excuse to put out the lights and party on a Saturday night. Billions of people can't be wrong eh? And it does remind us all, if only for a moment, how much we depend on electricity. How much we take it for granted. And what would happen if the lights went out. And stayed out. Over the last few decades, western civilisations have busily sown the seeds of their own destruction. Our modern way of life, with its reliance on technology, has unwittingly exposed us to an extraordinary danger: plasma balls spewed from the surface of the sun could wipe out our power grids, with catastrophic consequences.
Which is yet another reason for everyone to think a lot more about how to conserve electricity .... and clean up the environment all year long. Like my favourite hospital is doing. Because where do we think the Light of Life comes from? Our arses?
Damn. Now that's something EVERYONE can do....um....you know buy energy efficient light bulbs. And it does cheer me up. Now I know if the Great Darkness comes all I need is Ezra Levant .... or Kathy Shaidle.... as my BIG ARSE bicycle light. And I could RULE THE WORLD !!!!!!! Which would be almost worth the inconvenience of having to peddle my computer. And hunt humans for FOOD. Hey don't forget to have fun...AND save the planet eh?
One of the scariest things about this economic meltdown is that nobody is talking about global warming anymore. Even as the planetburns.
Swarms of the crop-munching insects are sweeping across drought- affected areas and feasting on grass and weeds sprouting at roadsides following the rain. In western New South Wales, near the country town of Condobolin, a swarm measuring four miles long by 560 feet wide was spotted last week.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology, meanwhile, is forecasting a swelteringly hot summer that will add to farmers' woes, as well as increasing the likelihood of bushfires and their ferocity. On the coast, amid rising ocean temperatures, record numbers of jellyfish have been recorded, along with giant schools of baby sharks.
And Canadian scientists have just discovered a new and potentially catastrophic source of greenhouse gases. Not in the sky or in the oceans, but in the ground.
Natural processes of decomposition of soil organic matter provide plants and microbes with the energy source and water they need to grow, and carbon is released into the atmosphere as a by-product of this process. Warming temperatures are expected to speed up this process which will increase the amount of CO2 that is transferred to the atmosphere.
Which could dramatically speed up the rate of global warming along with the methane bubbling out of the melting permafrost.
The effects of melting permafrost are not incorporated into any global climate models. Runaway warming in the Arctic alone could flip the entire planet into a new climatic state. The Middle Climate could collapse faster and sooner than the grimmest forecasts proposed.
And leads to the OBVIOUS question:
Do we want to be remembered as the generation that saved the banks and let the biosphere collapse?
But at this critical point in human history we are paralyzed. The economy is EVERYTHING. Cheap gas is good. Coal is clean.
As if we can simply ignore the problem and it will go away....instead of getting WORSE.
When in fact the puny forces of our economic house of cards are nothing compared to the awesome power of Nature aroused...
Isn't that amazing? And a reminder. The economy won't kill us.
Well at least now we know how historians will sum up the Imperial Presidency of George Bush. He ruled for eight years. He cheated, he lied, he tortured, he murdered hundreds of thousands of people, he tanked the economy, he made ignorance a virtue. And before leaving office he set the stage for the Collapse of the American Empire. A government report released Thursday paints an alarming picture of an unstable future for international relations defined by waning American influence, a fragmentation of political power and intensifying struggles for increasingly scarce natural resources.
Wow. I don't envy the nasty Chimp. A hundred years from now the survivors of The Great Darkness will still be dancing on his grave. Or gnawing on his bones to stave off starvation. Just like I don't envy poor Obama who has to try to save the world. Even though some say it's already too late. Ongoing turbulence will make it harder to focus on long-term changes. Recent weeks have seen much chatter about a second Bretton Woods, a gathering of states to rescue the world's economy from its woes. But what if we have not yet reached 1944? What if we're still in 1914, when the world's first period of globalisation was about to end to be replaced by 30 years of upheaval, depression and conflict? Yikes. That IS pretty depressing. First the grinding poverty. Then the bloody carnage. Then the cannibalism. And then the planet burns. But I'm an optimist so I suppose it could always be WORSE. Eh? With house prices going down the toilet....and homeowners debating whether to use some rooms for fire wood, and others for chicken coops...so they can keep warm, eat, and STILL pay the mortgage. Imagine how awful it would be. If you were Hitler's real estate agent...
People I warned you. Make sure you have a bunker....and lots of chickens. This is going to be really BAD...
The other day I was awoken by the tapping sound of freezing rain beating up against the window. And as I always do when I hear it, I couldn't help but think of La TempêtedeVerglas or The Great Ice Storm. Has it really been ten years? I was living in the McGill University ghetto in the heart of Montreal. There had just been a big snow storm. Many of the streets hadn't been cleared. Then the freezing rain started.
By the time it was over there was so much ice on the sidewalks they had to use jackhammers to clear them. And then the lights went out...
Outside it was brutally cold. At a convenience store on Parc Avenue they were selling candles by candlelight for five bucks each. At night the dark streets of the ghetto were deserted.... except for police cruisers slowly going by with all their lights flashing to let people know they were out there.
And then out of the void .... loud and clear and Canadian.... came the good old CBC.
Not just bringing the latest grim news from the Great War on Darkness. How the pylons were collapsing ...how an army of hydro workers was out there battling desperately to keep Montreal from being plunged into total gloom.
But also throwing the airwaves open to people from different parts of the city...so they could describe what was happening to them...and how they were coping.
There was an urgency to our communication and an immediacy I have never felt before or since. We were one big telephone party line - all talking directly to each other.
People needed to hear from others... because so many were frightened. There was a feeling that ANYTHING could happen. And even when the lights went on again in downtown Montreal everyone feared that they could go off at any time. No one dared put on one extra light or appliance.
And the images on tv were APOCALYPTIC.
The Triangle of Darkness. Hydro workers using helicopters to smash ice on pylons. Convoys of army trucks heading down from Valcartier. Disoriented old people in crowded shelters. Thousand of dead pigs and cows being bulldozed into mass graves.
I think I read somewhere that sixty per cent of the people who lived through that storm were traumatized to some degree by it. Some say the sight of freezing rain still makes them anxious. For me it was the most awesome story I've ever been caught up in. It was the moment I realized how FRAGILE our juiced up society really is. How you could end up as a refugee in your own city. But also how tough the people of my new country were. I was proud of my province. It was a heroic effort. I liked the way Canadians helped each other. I'm glad I was there. But I also have to admit that at the time there was something really disturbing...even scary... about it. A feeling that EVERYTHING was coming undone. That a natural catastrophe was on the brink of becoming an urban apocalypse.
P.S. Kerouac now prefers to sleep in MY bed rather than his. And I let him. I figure the way he kept me warm during those freezing nights when he was a pup.
Now he's an old dog.... it's time to return the favour.
I was glad to see that international pressure has forced the Japanese to suspend plans to kill humpback whales.
An international outcry led by Australia has forced Japan to backtrack on plans to kill 50 humpback whales as part of an annual 'scientific' whaling programme regarded as a sham by the rest of the world.
And eat Minke whale sushi instead. Now who is going to save THIS little fish?
"The fish in this thing does not look like it has very long to live and it can barely move...Even if it does live it's not a life worth living ... it's really just a torture box."
To me confining a little fish to a space as tiny as that just to look cool.... is as cruel as exploding a harpoon in the back of an intelligent sentient social creature when you don't need to eat it. But what do you expect from people too callous, greedy, and ignorant to understand that? Just like what do you expect from governments that can't even agree that global warming is a catastrophe that threatens us all? Even as the oceans turn to acid. The increasing acidity can eat away at the shells of crabs, oysters, clams and nearly microscopic organisms known as krill and pteropods. It also inhibits calcification, the process in which these animals rebuild their shells. Without shells, most of the animals probably would die. Which could mean NO fish in a world where as many as one billion people depend on it for survival.
And of course no whales either. Protect them now. Wipe them out later.
Oh boy. How can we save the other living creatures who share this planet with us... If we can't even save ourselves?
When you stare at our beautiful, but small and fragile planet, it's not hard to imagine how life could be wiped out by an all-out nuclear war....or a collision with a giant asteroid. But what if the threat came out of the blue? What if the planet itself was able to exterminate life? What if it already had? New geochemical evidence is coming from the bands of stratified rock that delineate mass extinction events in the geologic record, including the exciting discovery of chemical residues, called organic biomarkers, produced by tiny life-forms that typically do not leave fossils. Together these data make it clear that cataclysmic impact as a cause of mass extinction was the exception, not the rule. In most cases, the earth itself appears to have become life's worst enemy in a previously unimagined way. And current human activities may be putting the biosphere at risk once again. The evidence suggests that as greenhouse gases released by huge volcanic eruptions raised global temperatures oxygen levels fell in the oceans. And that allowed a deep ocean bacteria to bloom and rise to the surface...releasing massive bubbles of toxic hydrogen sulphide gas that devastated life on earth. But could it happen again? The so-called thermal extinction at the end of the Paleocene began when atmospheric CO2 was just under 1,000 parts per million (ppm). At the end of the Triassic, CO2 was just above 1,000 ppm. Today with CO2 around 385 ppm, it seems we are still safe. But with atmospheric carbon climbing at an annual rate of 2 ppm and expected to accelerate to 3 ppm, levels could approach 900 ppm by the end of the next century, and conditions that bring about the beginnings of ocean anoxia may be in place. But is that scenario too optimistic? The U.N.'s climate change panel has predicted that CO2 levels could reach 550 ppm by 2050. But what if carbon dioxide levels rose faster than that? And didn't just continue to rise steadily. But suddenly jumped. Because the oceans couldn't absorb enough carbon dioxide. Same thing for the rain forests which we continue to destroy. Studies now show that rising CO2 levels can inhibit not enhance plant growth...like we once thought. So they won't be able to absorb as much carbon dioxide either. What if almost ALL the carbon dioxide we produce went into the atmosphere? What if rising temperatures caused vast amounts of methane gas to escape from the melting permafrost of Canada and Siberia? The sudden melting of a bog the size of France and Germany combined could unleash billions of tonnes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. What if what we thought was a steady and predictable increase....turned into an unpredictable....and unstoppable.... chain reaction? I guess what I'm trying to say is when the world leaders meet in Bali to discuss how to stop global warming they better be super serious and VERY careful. Because here's the thing. The reason we didn't figure out sooner what really caused those mass extinctions....was that the tiny killers didn't leave a fossil record. We couldn't see them...so we didn't know what happened. Which makes me wonder what other hidden threats are lurking out there? What else don't we know? And should remind us all....to demand that our political leaders in Bali take immediate action NOW before it's too late. If only just in case. Because what we know is scary enough. But what we don't know could KILL us.... ------------------------------------------------------ P.S. If we want to help save Canada AND the planet.... " It would take more than one letter to explain what’s wrong with Kyoto, but here are a few facts about this so-called “Accord”: — It’s based on tentative and contradictory scientific evidence about climate trends. — It focuses on carbon dioxide, which is essential to life, rather than upon pollutants..." Stephen Harper 2002 First we gotta get rid of this crazy oil pimp....
