Apolitical Staples

That explains why Buzz backed the Liberals, he knew they would just keep flashing their Kyoto porn teasers and do nothing about the emissions, thus save Buzz’s union jobs against the better cars built by the non-unionized Toyota and Honda.

It’s amazing how the left can claim to care about the environment but when it comes to their union jobs they hear no evil, smell no CO2, see no smog.

Buzz should look at this in a positive light - tougher emissions means the big 2.5 are going to have to build new cars/trucks. Logically they will have to built somewhere so why wouldn’t Buzz see this as an opportunity to increase Ontario’s share of the automotive pie and also a chance to ring more corporate welfare out of the provincial government.

Otherwise I agree with Greg and nomdenet.

Greg,

The problem is that the phrase “global warming” isn’t an accurate description of the issue. When the scientists came up with that phrase, they were only noticing the average temperature’s rise. We now know that the “global warming” phenomenon is actually more like a “climate chaos” phenomenon, with, yes, overall higher temperatures, but also more extremes all around. Greater standard deviations, if you will. So calling it something other than “global warming” isn’t about spin, it’s about trying to describe the phenomenon more accurately. If you don’t like the phrase “climate change,” that’s fine, but “global warming” doesn’t cut it, either.

nomdenet,

Hey, hey, let’s not go throwing the entire Canadian left into the Buzz Hargrove pot, okay? Not only does that not describe the situation, but it would mean me having to cozy up with the Buzz-man, and personally, I’d rather not. grin

My problem with climate change is that advocates use every weather formation as an example. Tsunami, climate change. Hurricane, climate change. El Nino, climate change. La Nina, climate change. When everything is climate change nothing is. I am not denying that there are some effects but to state things as fact when the scientific process is still not settled is marketing and/or politics.

Greg,

What parts do you think aren’t settled?

What parts do you think aren’t settled?

Good grief. What do you imagine has been settled? You’ve been seeing “the debate is settled” as a shorthand for “the majority currently agrees with me” too often and it has polluted your mind.

Ian, that’s called the broken window fallacy. In this particular case, the window which is about to be broken by your government is far more likely to be repaired in some other country that has a fewer government-thrown rocks whizzing around.

The technical term for a country which tries to build wealth by pushing around businesses with regulations, taxes and subsidies, but which ends up driving away all technological, value-added industries leaving only low-tech, low-value-added industries is a “banana republic”. It’s hell on the ordinary citizen but it’s a simple, sure-fire way for well-connected elites to get stinking rich. (none of which has anything to do with people like Moe Strong or his stable of political whores, any resemblance is coincidental)

As for Hargrove’s place in the scheme of things … remember in the movie “Bug’s Life”, how the bad guys keep a really dangerous, crazy lunatic grasshopper around whenever they’re threatening the ants? That’s Hargrove. Hopper the gangster is the prime minister and his brother Molt is the provincial premier.

IrC,

Yeah, yeah. I notice that you didn’t answer the question.

Oh, and some citations would be nice, too.

IP,

I believe Irc, like me, is having a difficult time accepting the premise of your question.

OK, Idealistic Pragmatic, I won’t throw you in with Buzz but can I throw you in with McHarris? … here’s a quote from Margaret Wente’s column today:

“The trouble is, when the auto makers are your friends, it’s not easy being green. This week, Mr. McGuinty attacked those crazy radicals up in Ottawa who want to save the planet by wrecking the economy. “One thing we will not abide is any effort on the part of the national government to unduly impose greenhouse-gas emission reductions on the province of Ontario at the expense of our auto sector.” Those crazy radicals include Jim Flaherty, who was once the flinty neo-con finance minister of Ontario. How times change.”

“What parts do you think aren’t settled?” It is really hard for me not to be smarmy on this one. It is called the scientific method. Until you can show me the “Law of Global Climate Change” or even single agreed upon “Theory of Global Climate Change” then science isn’t settled. It is by definition. Agreed the average temperatures on the Earth have gone up in the last hundred years. This coincides with the Industrial Revolution. We cannot say conclusively that there is a causal relationationship or even a direct correlation though most hypothesis point in that direction. We also know that global average temperatures flutuate natural over time. It is unclear how much currently is natural and how much is man-made. I could go forever here but let me say that a great many scientists are do great work in trying to gather more evidence and develop and test more theories. It is an ongoing process. Again, it is called science.

Ah, okay. So “settled” to you means one hundred percent disprovable. Got it. I agree, that’s awfully difficult to reach in science. Do you really think, though, that our public policy should wait until that stage to act on scientific findings?

Sinister Greg has it wrong. Buzz and Dalton just revealed what everyone knows. Global Warming is always somebody else’s fault and their problem to fix. Quebec and Ontario think that screwing Alberta is the answer. (Remember the Liberals specifically exempted the auto industry from any Kyoto requirements.) Europe thinks screwing the US is the answer. The US thinks screwing China and India is the answer.

Now two high profile Liberals are on the record saying they don’t want to experience any pain in falling about 95% short of meeting Kyoto targets. What would they do if we really tried to meet them and then Kyoto II targets?

The cold hard fact of the matter it is cheaper (not necessarily good) for Canada to keep doing what we’re doing and give the rest of the world financial help to deal with the consequences of Global Warming.

Um…Sinister Greg? Do you mean me?

You act on the best information you have. But something the best action is to wait for more information. It is vital in this public policy example that we have confidence in the models and projections. They are not robust enough (in my opinion) to decide whether we need to adapt, try to get back to 1990 levels or even 1900 levels or somewhere in between.

IP, as long as there’s disagreement among scientists - which there is - it isn’t settled. It doesn’t matter what the premature policy prescriptionists say. The only “settled” parts are trivial observations: the climate is changing, man-made C02 emissions are on the increase, and our current (and haphazard) system of measurement leads us to believe in an average global temperature increase. Because we’ve never undertaken systematic and long-term (decade over decade - taking the temperature at regular intervals of time, in the same location, by the same method, repeated over thousands of locations on the surface, in the seas, and in the atmosphere) measurements of temperature, we can’t have much confidence in that last point.

It would have to get a lot warmer (or cooler) than any reasonable prediction (I am aware of some extreme predictions based on models, ie. not based on unassumed data or theory) to exceed parameters that have already been endured by people somewhere, sometime over the past 2000 years.

“Do you really think, though, that our public policy should wait until that stage to act on scientific findings?”

Given that the Liberals managed to spend 6.2 billion dollars on “global warming/climate change/one tonne” lunacy and Canada’s emissions actually increased it might be a good idea to hold fire until we have a clue what is actually causing the problem and if it is ammenable to Rick Mercer’s pleas.

We might also take a moment to reflect on the fact that if every nation lived up to its Kyoto commitments (snort!) the emission savings would be overwelmed by China’s increased emissions - 7 times over. And that is to entirely ignore India.

Meanwhile, Buzz knows that if people are given a choice between his membership’s SUVs and smaller, more efficient, cheaper cars they are going to vote with their wallets. Bye-bye UAW, bye-bye Buzz.