Debunk - Part Deux

Continuing on with the Kyoto theme...

Tuesday's Financial Post carried a similar story adjacent to the article by Peiser. In "Climate action would be suicidal", FP columnist Peter Foster gives his reasons for the lack of substance in Kyoto, which you can read for yourself.

Here is the interesting part:

...Kyoto was just one draconian step towards a much more draconian future.

It is hard to understand why the Conservatives do not hammer away at these facts. Instead, in the face of an alleged tsunami of public concern, matched only by public ignorance, the Conservatives have now allegedly "gone green." They are "consulting" with radical, unelected environmental NGOs. But then what can they do? There is an election coming and its most important feature may be that Canadians are enjoying unseasonally mild weather even as it is being used to scare them to death.

So the government is being held hostage to the political will of Jack Layton and the environmentalists; even more so now with Wajid Khan's move to the Tories having the net result of needing only the cooperation of the NDP to hold the balance of power (reinforced by Lapierre's recent resignation).

Climate change is an alleged "collective action" problem. That is, there is no point in doing anything unless every major or developing industrial power on earth signs on, and -- more importantly -- keeps to its commitments. Which they wouldn't. As it is, the absence of China and India from Kyoto -- nations likely destined to be this century's largest carbon emitters -- was one of the reasons why the United States wisely refused to sign on.

In any event, the nations that did sign on to Kyoto are almost all struggling to meet their targets. They have succeeded only in imposing even more deadweight bureaucracy...

"Deadweight bureaucracy" - The kind of thing that lefties love. Lots of unionized jobs feeding at the trough of the public purse.

Today's Post carries a column by Colby Cosh stating the case for a reasonable middle ground. We also have a couple of articles in the FP. Foster again talks about "hysteria over climate change" in Europe's Masterplan, and Lawrence Solomon talks about a theory of a 'crash' coming in the climate boom-bust cycle (Will the Sun Cool Us?).



All of which begs the question - Why did all this seemingly factual opposition suddenly come out of the media woodwork? My guess is that Canadian business is suddenly worrying that Harper's steady course to the centre is actually now veering far left; which should be a concern for us all.

And if Harper is moving far left, God help Canada.

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Update: Excellent debate going on about Kyoto at The Prairie Wrangler: Should Canada Drop Kyoto?

And speaking of the environment, Hargrove slams Layton over tough emission standards (SDA) - "It's Not Easy Being Green". Reminds me of a quote from the previous post - "a fundamental conflict between economic realism and environmental idealism".

Saturday Update: Dark Blue Tory - Kyoto's garbage...end of story.

And a few choice lines from a Sun reader (I don't agree with the whole letter, but this part is great):

Kudos to Lorrie Goldstein for prying off the lid of what is probably the biggest scam in the world, the Kyoto Protocol, or what I call the Wizard of Oz(one). This treaty is actually a giant wealth redistribution scheme, socialism on a global scale that taxes wealthy, industrialized countries by forcing them to buy carbon emission credits from poorer countries through a virtual (phony) carbon market, while not reducing the world's pollution by one single molecule. In other words, we pay other countries to make and take our garbage. Also, Kyoto will actually accelerate globalization by encouraging companies to move their factories from highly-regulated Canada to mass-polluter countries like India and China; thus lowering our standard of living. In effect it's socialism disguised as science by our environistas. No wonder Dion, Duceppe, and Layton love it...