Rex Murphy on Global Warming part 2
A great green bucket Jan. 18, 2007
Politics in Canada is becoming something of a St. Patrick's day miracle.
Every party wants you to believe it's green.
Stéphane Dion is evidently quite convinced that if the Liberal Party can sell itself as the Green Party, he can take Harper in the next election.
Of course, there already is a Green Party, which is one hitch in Mr. Dion's objective.
There's also the small problem that the Liberals were the government for almost a decade and a half, during which the Liberals may have done good things, but, on the environment, all it amounted to was talking a great game or having for a brief period, and it was an improvement, Rick Mercer talk for them.
On Kyoto, the Liberals, having signed on, actually performed much worse than the ecological great Satan George Bush who did not sign on. Being upstaged environmentally by president George W. Texas Oil Bush will not win you a tofu medal at the next meeting of the Sierra Club. Which may explain the urgency of some of Mr. Dion's recent claims that in the war against global warming, not only can Canada pull back on megatonnes of emissions but make megatonnes of money doing so.
This sounds like a very technical assessment of our green dilemma. And in the case of the Liberals, quite properly, raises the question why, with all this painless gain, it wasn't done before. Mr. Dion seems convinced, though we've been slackers up to now, we can still reach the Kyoto that are targets on time for 2012.
Outside of shutting down Alberta, fierce and swift regulations on the auto industry and half the population suddenly discovering the virtues of walking to work, how is that going to happen? Mr. Dion's plus is that he looks sincere when he makes such claims and most likely really is. But then a long while ago Jean Chrétien really looked sincere when he promised to abolish the GST. Liberal promises have more variables than even the weather.
Stephen Harper has gone green too. He parked Rona Ambrose and sent the Tory star John Baird out to refashion the Conservatives as newly-awake to the menacing of looming climate change. Mr. Baird promptly went on a walking tour of devastated Stanley Park in Vancouver. He was on another one just today. Good clips for the TV news.
The problem is Mr. Baird%
Politics in Canada is becoming something of a St. Patrick's day miracle.
Every party wants you to believe it's green.
Stéphane Dion is evidently quite convinced that if the Liberal Party can sell itself as the Green Party, he can take Harper in the next election.
Of course, there already is a Green Party, which is one hitch in Mr. Dion's objective.
There's also the small problem that the Liberals were the government for almost a decade and a half, during which the Liberals may have done good things, but, on the environment, all it amounted to was talking a great game or having for a brief period, and it was an improvement, Rick Mercer talk for them.
On Kyoto, the Liberals, having signed on, actually performed much worse than the ecological great Satan George Bush who did not sign on. Being upstaged environmentally by president George W. Texas Oil Bush will not win you a tofu medal at the next meeting of the Sierra Club. Which may explain the urgency of some of Mr. Dion's recent claims that in the war against global warming, not only can Canada pull back on megatonnes of emissions but make megatonnes of money doing so.
This sounds like a very technical assessment of our green dilemma. And in the case of the Liberals, quite properly, raises the question why, with all this painless gain, it wasn't done before. Mr. Dion seems convinced, though we've been slackers up to now, we can still reach the Kyoto that are targets on time for 2012.
Outside of shutting down Alberta, fierce and swift regulations on the auto industry and half the population suddenly discovering the virtues of walking to work, how is that going to happen? Mr. Dion's plus is that he looks sincere when he makes such claims and most likely really is. But then a long while ago Jean Chrétien really looked sincere when he promised to abolish the GST. Liberal promises have more variables than even the weather.
Stephen Harper has gone green too. He parked Rona Ambrose and sent the Tory star John Baird out to refashion the Conservatives as newly-awake to the menacing of looming climate change. Mr. Baird promptly went on a walking tour of devastated Stanley Park in Vancouver. He was on another one just today. Good clips for the TV news.
The problem is Mr. Baird%
posted by Gerry Surtees at Thursday, February 15, 2007
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