Apolitical Staples

There is nothing wrong with that position. That doesn’t seem to be the majority position in your party however. I would classify that position as skeptical heretic. That the skeptical heretics are now embracing the nonskeptical heretics tells me they can no longer defend their crazy position and so are casting about for another less crazy fall back position. The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter a damn. Either we take action to stop man made global warming or we don’t.

“man made global warming “

hmmmmm - 40 years ago it was “man made global cooling”.

Geesh Greg - the world’s climate has been changing for time immemorable, the fact that somehow that last 50 years of “weather history” somehow prove that “man” is responsible for the changes is taking a pretty narrow view of the science.

“That doesn’t seem to be the majority position in your party however.”

Unsubstantiated and not really Greg’s problem.

I’m glad to see that you are in a giving mood, calling non-alarmist global warming believers “less crazy”. Really a startling compromise. I’m encouraged.

“Either we take action to stop man made global warming or we don’t.”

Well it’s the nature of said “action” that is the subject matter of Cosh’s editorial. I believe the “non-skeptical heretics” would be in favour of a course of action that was somewhat less “crazy” than the one breathlessly proposed by your fearless leader. Kyoto is as dead as a doornail. No matter what the Kyoto Change Denialists may say.

CC’s op-ed piece is a ridiculous construal of the origonal article, which you can still find with a quick google search. There is nobody quoted in that article that is saying anything less than GW is a monumental challenge and that action must be taken now. There is nobody quoted in the article that denounces Kyoto. But yes, this does represent a retreat on the part of Conservatives. Going from denying the existance of global warming against all scientific evidence to denying we need to do anything about it, against all scientific evidence.

One step at a time, however, one step at a time.

against all scientific evidence

against all scientific evidence

Why feel the need to keep repeating it? You are convincing noone but yourself and your brethren alarmists.

Do you honestly believe this ridiculous rhetoric is being bought by anyone with half a brain? Reasonable scientists who count themselves among the proponents of anthropogenic global warming would never be so arrogant or absolutist.

Actually, I am just referring to the origonal article. Everyone one there (all of them scientists) see a need for action based on the evidence. So nyah.

“CC’s op-ed piece is a ridiculous construal of the origonal article, which you can still find with a quick google search. There is nobody quoted in that article that is saying anything less than GW is a monumental challenge and that action must be taken now. There is nobody quoted in the article that denounces Kyoto.”

From the article in question -

“Denying the risk seems utterly stupid. Claiming we can calculate the probabilities with any degree of skill seems equally stupid.”

“there is no firm evidence of a heat-triggered strengthening in storms in recent years. The experts added that the recent increase in the impact of storms was because of more people getting in harm’s way, not stronger storms.”

““A lot of people have independently come to the same sort of conclusion,” Dr. Pielke said. “We do have a problem, we do need to act, but what actions are practical and pragmatic?”

“Dr. Hulme said that shrill voices crying doom could paralyze instead of inspire.

“I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama,” he wrote. “I believe climate change is real, must be faced and action taken. But the discourse of catastrophe is in danger of tipping society onto a negative, depressive and reactionary trajectory.”

“Dr. Mahlman and others say that the buildup of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases cannot be quickly reversed with existing technologies. And even if every engine on earth were shut down today, they add, there would be no measurable impact on the warming rate for many years, given the buildup of heat already banked in the seas.

Because of the scale and time lag, a better strategy, Dr. Mahlman and others say, is to treat human-caused warming more as a risk to be reduced than a problem to be solved.”

At least some of the statements in the article fall far far short of a ringing endorsement of the histrionics of Kyoto.

We can read too. Try to remember that. I know it’s a blow to your world view.

You can cut and paste at least.

And you know I didn’t see Kyoto mentioned once. Did you? The anti-Kyoto connection CC talks about in his article seems entirely imaginary.

As I write this, the outdoor temperature around my house is -30 C,

And as I write this, the outdoor temperature around my house is 9 C; that’s roughly 50 F for you metric haters. 50 F in mid January!

“And you know I didn’t see Kyoto mentioned once. Did you?”

“The anti-Kyoto connection CC talks about in his article seems entirely imaginary.”

Cosh refers to Kyoto in his editorial in making an assertion of his own, rather than attributing any anti-Kyoto sentiment on the part of the “non-skeptical heretics”. He never states that any of the scientists quoted in the article are anti-Kyoto, although for anyone with critical faculties intact, such an inference is by no means far-fetched.

Cosh -

“None of these positions, not one, involves any “skepticism” about climate change or its causes. Most are reasonable enough to have already been espoused publicly by distinguished figures. They all share the same climatological premise, but schemes for planned economic contraction like the Kyoto Protocol are scarcely consistent with any of them.”

Nice straw man though.

Kyoto is dead. There remains only the disposal of its bloated, putrefying corpse. It truly lived only in the imaginations of the pathologically credulous in any event.

I might have one solution that would be a good test to see how serious and how far canucks are willing to go with the new global warming sensation (In the middle ages we had witches, in the 50 and 60’s aliens, in the 70’s acid rain, in the 80’s the ozone layer…How many articles have you read on Acid rain or the ozone lately?)…

My solution: PM Harper’s Clean Air Act bans all drive thrues (Tim Horton’s, McDonald’s, KFC etc…) All that car idling creates unnecessary smog and gases People have to park their cars and go in the shops to get their stuff… I can already hear the cries and I would bet that would probably cost Harper or anybody else the election… How serious are we? Don’t make me laugh!

BTW in the Post today there is yet another article from a renouned prof that has very strong evidence of the sun’s cyclic strenghs of magnetic fields created by sunspots which has been tested in lab by other renouned scientists in Denmark and Germany…These findings and studies have recently been taken up by various “global warming man made only” lobbies and supporters for corolation…Hopefully sanity will prevail.

Either we take action to stop man made global warming or we don’t.

True. But how do we measure whether the sum of all human activity is promoting cooling or warming or (presumably the ideal) close to the midpoint?

How many articles have you read on Acid rain or the ozone lately?

Why would there be a lot of articles on either when we’ve already implemented a plan to reduce the sulphur dioxide emmissions that were causing acid rain and banned the CFCs that were punching a hole in the ozone layer?

Greg,

I respect your thinking and your writing, but statements like this; “Either we take action to stop man made global warming or we don’t.” set up a false dichotomy. Colby Cosh brings up some other possibilities. For instance, it may be more beneficial to deal with the consequences of GW, than try to prevent it. Is that really doing nothing about Global Warming?

For instance, in my wife’s home state in India, a rat plague is developing. It is a part of a 48 year cycle involving bamboo flowering. (Google: Mautam). Now I’m trying to help them. I can spend my money on rat poison and traps or I can do nothing. However, I also can buy food, encourage farmers to shift from rice cultivation to fruits and vegetables, set up health facilities, set up camps for refugees affected by the loss of food supply, etc. The fact that the rat poison is not working, risks human consumption and the problem is too big now for poison to stop it has made my decision for me. Please don’t tell me I don’t care about my wife’s people because I don’t believe rat poison can do much to help them. Please don’t tell me I don’t care about the world’s people because I don’t believe Kyoto can do much to help them.

I believe Global Warming is happening. I don’t believe humans can stop it. Am I a GW skeptic or just skeptical about humans?

Whether humans can stop it or not, it is certain that Canada, emitting 2% of the world’s ghgs, can’t. Even the pro-Kyoto people should really be asking: what behaviour on Canada’a part is most likely to get the US, India and China to sign on? Destroying our economy as a symbolic action? I don’t think so.

it is certain that Canada, emitting 2% of the world’s ghgs

How silly. As one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world Canada can help develop new technologies (ie. cleaner power sources and vehicles) that will help lower ghg emmissions around the world.

Robert McClelland. How silly of you. Do you know how much it costs to develop new technologies? And the time frame to develop, test, re-test and then manufacture them? And re-structure the industries to use them? Furthermore, Canada is NOT one of the most technologically advanced countries; the innovative state of its research is very low.

A major problem with Kyoto is that, regardless of the 166 nations that have signed on, MOST of them are exempt from its emission restrictions! Define yourself as ‘developing’ and, you are exempt from emission standards!

And of course, Kyoto is not about reducing emissions; it’s a blatant money transference scheme, taking money from industrial countries - and, rather than using that money to invest in the same country’s technology and industries to develop tactics to lower emissions - Kyoto sends the money to those nations exempt from Kyoto standards! They can build cheap, polluting and emitting factories without any accountability!

As one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world Canada can help develop new technologies

The Canadian government, through its subsidies of Bombardier, has been utterly unsuccessful at building and selling planes profitably. Its subsidies of Nortel were a complete flop, profitwise. Candu and AECL have been a very, very expensive flop. Government-funded Sprung greenhouses were a huge and scandalous failure. The Bricklin. The Skydome and the 1976 Olympics were total financial failures which were sold to the voters as “surefire” winners. Sydney Steel (and tarponds). Do you get the picture? To expect government funded initiatives to provide successful results for anything more complex than a sewer treatment plant is complete folly. Even simple projects give a lot of governments trouble. Watch for those falling highway overpasses in Quebec.

But it’s not all bad news. Governments are pretty good at making a small number of well-connected management insiders, lobbyists, lawyers, politicians, etc. fantastically rich, and providing large numbers of bureaucrats with a standard of living well beyond what would normally be expected in return for the amount of energy they expend. Just don’t expect the world to be improved in any concrete way.

The real heroes who improve people’s lives and make the world a better place are private inventors, entrepreneurs, investors and moneylenders. But this is the class of people whom the global warming crowd would like to tame and bring into the government trough, and if they won’t be tamed then either crush them with legislation or drive them (and their money) elsewhere.

The blatant stupidity of killing private enterprise in order to enhance the power and prestige of government needs a really good cover story however, and since there are no Nazis or aliens invading Canada right now, a crisis had to be made-to-order. Something invisible and apparently harmless, yet (according to the environmental priesthood), frightening dangerous. CO2 - the silent killer. Give us all your money right now and we’ll save you from it!

Well duhh…. who says we have to cut back our own emissions by a third in order to develop new technologies. What, we can’t export?

And, as ET says, we are going to develop new technologies and roll them out on a massive scale, all in the next year? Remember, Kyoto says our average emissions in the 2008-2012 period must be a third below what they are now.

The only thing the Kyoto Accord encourages this country to export is money.

Hey do what the LIEberals do,promise them anything,lie to them,anything they want say they got it ,put everything in a red book and show it to everyone.Get on tv everyday and say that everything that everyone in Canada wants is in the redbook and if they elect us with a majority we all will be the envy of the world and also just to prove we mean everything we say in the Red book.We bring in Ontario Premier McGuinty to sign the guarantee,right on TV.What could be more impressive than that,a new red book filled with promises and signed by another Liberal,,Honest McGuinty. Aleluhliah,aleluhlia.

Here’s an example of how ill-infomed public debate is: http://tinyurl.com/wgogs . Apparently, the Bloc and Parti Quebecois believe that Quebec would be immune to global warming if it were a sovereign nation.