Thursday, September 27, 2007

Kissing off Kyoto - Bravo to Harper

There’s another fine column by Peter Foster in today’s Post praising Prime Minister Harper for aligning Canada with the Asia-Pacific Partnership on climate change:

...Harper is being roundly criticized by the usual suspects -- political opponents, radical environmentalists and Olympian editorialists...

... he didn't even mention the "K" word. ...in other words Anything But Kyoto.

...for Canada to continue to embrace Kyoto is like a swimmer embracing lead weights.

The central nonsense of Kyoto has always been the radical disconnect between its draconian political ambitions, its economic costs and its predicted climate results....

...It cannot be stressed enough that the protocol, even if all the signatories had met their targets, would have produced a minuscule impact on global temperatures by the year 2100.

Not to mention,
...the micro-minuscule impact of even the most draconian action that Canada might take.
As Mr. Foster said, there was predictable derision for Harper. CTV quoted some know-it-all (is there any other kind?) teenager claiming he had been "embarrassed" by the Prime Minister. Following along on this theme, an editorial in my local rag said Harper "shames Canada". Well, the clowns can speak for themselves. I’m with Foster and Harper.

6 comments:

hunter said...

Excellent find! Problem is that most Canadians aren't listening. They think Kyoto is the end all and have no idea of the costs.

Anonymous said...

I think Canadians are listening...
and judging

Mr. Harper has an opportunity to do impressive things with the surplus.

Debt reduction and less taxes...I like it a lot

Raphael Alexander said...

It's true. Kyoto is a waste unless all countries implemented it immediately. That hasn't happened. We need a more flexible reduction. Something needs to be done about global warming, but it doesn't start with Canada doing it alone.

JR said...

There's still enormous uncertainty about what causes climate change. Until we know more it won't be clear what, if anything, can or should be done. Meanwhile, wrecking the global economy with Kyoto-like schemes isn't wise.

Zookeeper said...

raphael,
Check the IPCC's own information. Even if every country signed on to Kyoto and its requirements were fully met, the reduction in predicted global temperature would not be measureable because the change is too small compared to the error range around the measurements.

Kyoto is strictly a symbolic gesture. I say we should give it strictly symbolic support, and nothing more.

Patrick Ross said...

Really, if you think about it, the Clean Air Act was just the wrong-coloured lollipop.

All the environmentalists and Liberal partisans wanted the red one...