Kyoto suit dismissed

A judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by greenies against the Canadian Government to force it to prepare a plan for meeting the emissions targets of the Kyoto Protocol.

Such an order would be so devoid of meaningful content and the nature of any response to it so legally intangible that the exercise would be meaningless,'' Judge Robert Barnes said in a 40-page ruling issued today.

For his part, back in April Environment Minister Baird said,

...that Canada couldn't meet its commitments under the Kyoto Protocol without causing a recession. An economic impact report presented by Baird said implementing the Kyoto plan would result in 275,000 job losses in 2009 while the cost of electricity would rise 50 percent after 2010 and gas prices would increase 60 percent.

Ottawa says no to Kyotocide

via the Ottawa Citizen, Tories Reject Climate Pledge:

The Harper government has rejected a new pledge taken by opposition leaders to endorse a tough international treaty to fight global warming.

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe and the NDP's Jack Layton signed the pledge to push for a post-Kyoto Protocol climate change deal that would prevent average global temperatures from rising by more than two degrees above 19th-century levels "because scientists have shown that, otherwise, the consequences of global warming are likely to be catastrophic."

The four federal parties were invited to sign the "Kyotoplus" declaration by Climate Action Network. But the Conservatives refused.

"By signing on to a 25 to 40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels, Mr. Dion and the opposition parties are effectively endorsing shutting down large parts of the Canadian economy, including Ontario's auto plants," wrote Environment Minister John Baird in a letter to the coalition.

Obviously Baird and Harper recognize Kyotoplus for what it is: Kyotocide.

Foster: from Brundtland to Kyoto, the New Road to Serfdom

Peter Foster writes in today's National Post about how the environmental movement has been used to further the socialist cause that is leading society down a new Road to Serfdom...

Criticisms of Environment Minister John Baird for the vagueness of the moves announced this week to force oilsands to sequester CO2, and prevent construction of "dirty" coal plants reflects the Alice in Wonderland quality of the climate-change non-debate. Opposition parties brayed that he had not been "tough" enough. Media headlines suggested that big emitters had "won."

But nowhere in either the policy or the attacks would you find any suggestion that any measures, whether tough or not, would have the slightest impact on the global climate. How did we get to this ridiculous mess? It is all inextricably tied to the remarkable job that the Left has done in the past 20 years to rescue itself from the brink of extinction by exploiting environmental concerns.

That revival started in 1987 with the report of the UN-based Brundtland Commission. Brundtland was packed with representatives of the old left -- defined as those who seek state control over capitalist enterprise on the basis that it is both morally suspect and practically unstable. The commission played into widespread misconceptions: that the world was "running out" of resources; and that the capitalist rich had achieved their wealth at the expense of "the poor." However, its most important new weapon was that of the alleged despoliation of the environment by industrial society.

From Brundtland emerged the concept of "sustainable development," or SD, that was to be managed so as not to adversely affect future generations. Practically, the notion that the enormous range of private economic activities upon which growth depends could be beneficially monitored and vetted was ridiculous. SD nevertheless maintained that markets' "externalities" justified central co-ordination and control. What gave SD its great boost was the theory of catastrophic man-made climate change.

(...)

The old/new Left was quick to seize upon the potential of climate change at the huge Brundtland follow-up at Rio in 1992. Rio was organized by Brundtland commissioner Maurice Strong, a long-time committed Canadian socialist who was the strategic mastermind of the new environmental Left. From Rio emerged the processes that led to the Kyoto accord.

Why would governments support the theory of potentially disastrous man-made climate change? It was a combination of the success of the environmental Left -- in particular activist non-governmental organizations -- in stoking the concerns of the electorate, and of the desire of bureaucrats and policy-makers to stay relevant, busy and in power.

Read the rest here.

Carbon Tax

News item: Government says no to carbon tax.

While I consider the imposition of a carbon tax or a "cap and trade" system to be totally unnecessary given that it is clear global temperatures are not increasing in lock step with CO2 emissions, the political pressure to introduce one or the other may become insurmountable. But either proposal would be extremely damaging to an economy that seems to be headed for a slowdown anyway, without the extra burden of a hefty carbon tax.

There may be a solution that the Canadian government should consider: How about a carbon tax that would actually work?

Well, Mr Baird?

Baird: Less talk, more action

Federal Environment Minister John Baird via the Ottawa Citizen:

"It just shocked me to find that, in 2007," he says, "it was still legal to dump raw sewage into our oceans, rivers and lakes. I mean, that's an environmental crime. We've got to act.

"Canadians are understandably very cynical when it comes to politicians making promises on the environment," he concedes.

"We study things to death but never actually get things done," he says. "I'm all for scientific research, but I'm also for action."

This "I-didn't-come-to-Ottawa-to-push-paper" environment minister and former Treasury Board president has turned his considerable determination to the Great Lakes.

"For the last 50 years, we've treated the Great Lakes -- one of the most remarkable features that Canada is blessed with -- as a dumping ground. I can bring a real personal commitment and the government has a real commitment to the Great Lakes.

"We don't need any more studies. We don't need tests. We need action, remediation." Water quality and conservation are crucial, he says. "For Canadians, clean water is a huge priority."

And it's a political priority: "It's a really big issue for our team because virtually every riding along Lake Ontario, Lake Huron and Georgian Bay has a strong voice in our caucus."

Mr. Baird says the Conservative government will tackle upfront, eight "big hotspots." The worst is Randle Reef in Hamilton Harbour, with parallel clean-up announcements on the seven others, which have not been named, to follow.

Canada produces one trillion litres of sewage every year from some 4,600 wastewater collection and treatment systems in towns and cities.

The National Sewage Report Card III on 22 cities by the Sierra Legal Defence Fund concludes: "Victoria, Saint John, Halifax, St. John's and Dawson City continue to dump some or all of their sewage, raw and untreated, directly into Canada's rivers, lakes and oceans -- a total of 140 billion litres per year.

"Three other cities (Vancouver, Montreal and Charlottetown) discharge some or all of their sewage with only primary treatment (e.g. settling and skimming off of large debris). Together, these eight cities generate more than 3.0 billion litres of sewage effluent per day -- nearly 40,000 litres every second. All of it is discharged with no or only minimal treatment."

But it won't be legal, Mr. Baird promises, for much longer.

How refreshing to see a politician taking action on a real environmental issue, instead of trying to score political points by blowing a lot of hot air about Kyoto.

Kyoto is a complete and total fraud

The Goracle blessed Toronto with an appearance yesterday - and offered some criticism of the Canadian government's policy on climate change, saying it was a...

"complete and total fraud. It is designed to mislead the Canadian people"

Environment Minister John Baird responded to that remark:

"It is difficult to accept criticism from someone who preaches about climate change, but who never submitted the Kyoto Protocol to a vote in the United States Senate, who never did as much as Canada is now doing to fight climate change during eight years in office, and who has campaigned exclusively for hundreds of Democratic candidates who have weaker plans to fight greenhouse gases than Canada's New Government."

"I wish Al Gore had asked to be briefed on the plan," Baird said in an interview that aired Sunday on CTV's Question Period.

"You know, it's easy when you've had the big job and then you're on the side lines -- it's easy to complain," Baird added. "My responsibility, our government's responsibility, is to act. If we came forward with our environmental plan in the United States, they'd call it revolutionary because it's so tough."

It is growing tiresome watching these politicians stumbling over each other to see who can out-green who, while nobody has the guts to speak the truth about Kyoto and climate change.

To paraphrase the words of the Goracle, Kyoto is a complete and total fraud. It is designed to mislead the Canadian people.

Suicide is painless

Lorrie Goldstein asks a few pointed questions of the current leader^tm of the Liberal Party:

If implementing Kyoto is painless, why didn't they [the Liberals] do it?

C'mon Mr. Dion, Your party signed Kyoto in 1998, ratified it in 2002 and promised in 1993 to cut emissions by far more than Kyoto requires. Don't tell us the Liberals never did any costing studies. Where are they?

We know the Liberals earmarked $10 billion over seven years to fight climate change in 2005, but was that the full price of implementing Kyoto, or a down payment?

Yesterday, the National Post said the Liberals had studies in 2000 estimating that complying with Kyoto would result in a loss of $4,400 of disposable income for a typical family, close to Baird's numbers. Is that true?

What about post-Kyoto, since the science Dion cites to make the case for combating global warming also tells us that to be effective, future emission cuts will need to be 12 times those called for in Kyoto?

Many politicians (and journalists) don't understand Kyoto takes effect next year, not 2012.

Kyoto requires Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to an average of 6% below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. We don't have until 2012, we have to hit that average starting in 2008.

Say we miraculously reduced our emissions next year to 4% below 1990 levels for 2008, 2009 and half of 2010 -- impossible without wrecking our economy because we're 35% above our Kyoto target now.

Under Kyoto, even if we achieved that target -- and we can't -- we'd still have to cut deeper -- down to 8% below 1990 levels for the last half of 2010 and all of 2011 and 2012. That's just to hit our target of an average 6% cut below 1990 levels from 2008 to 2012.

If we miss -- and we will, big-time -- Kyoto requires us to make up the difference, plus a 30% penalty, while achieving deeper cuts post-2012 that have yet to be negotiated, going on for decades.

Policy makers are faced with a dilemma because Canadians are saying two contradictory things.

First, we tell pollsters, by about two-to-one, that we favour Kyoto. Then we say we're two-to-one against paying significantly more for fossil fuels (Suzuki fans notwithstanding). But you can't have the first, without the second.

Dion, and others, have been getting away with asserting Kyoto will be all but painless. Dion has claimed we'll make "megatonnes" of money by cutting "megatonnes" of emissions without being challenged.

Last week, Baird called his bluff. About time.

The Liberals didn't get it done because they knew Kyoto is suicide. And it won't be painless.

Clean Air Act gasping for breath

The opposition parties have introduced so many amendments to the Clean Air Act that it's no longer recognizable or acceptable to the Conservative government. Looks like this political battle is coming down to crunch time:

Environment Minister John Baird denies telling environmentalists that the proposed clean air act is dead but all indications are that the legislation would be difficult to revive in the current Parliament.

A clean air act was a major Conservative election promise. It aimed to cut smog and greenhouse gas emissions, but contained no reference to the targets of the Kyoto Protocol.

The three opposition parties united to force those targets into the bill, renamed the Clean Air and Climate Change Act. (...)

"Certainly we are not happy with some of the changes the Liberal party made to the legislation, but we have not yet made real decision," said Baird. "We'll make our announcement about the regulation of industry, and then we'll see."

Mr. Baird could very well withdraw the bill and still bring in many of the changes he wants via existing regulations. And he could blame the opposition for thwarting the Clean Air Act.

The opposition parties, particularly the Liberals, have no qualms about using this key piece of environmental legislation for their own political purposes. Their goal is obvious - to try to force the minority Conservative government into implementing Kyoto, knowing full well that the costs will be devastating to the economy. That's why the Liberals and their current leader^TM did absolutely nothing to reduce greenhouse gases while they were in power for the nine years after they signed onto Kyoto.

And that's why the Conservatives want to follow a different path on climate change. A fully implemented Kyoto would be completely ineffective in combatting global warming, but highly effective at killing jobs and economic activity while raising energy prices to levels never before seen.

The Clean Air Act isn't dead yet, but it is gasping for breath. It's just politics as usual for the opposition. But should this little game reach a stalemate, who could blame PM Harper for seeking a majority?

That's the risky gamble the opposition is taking. They may just hand Stephen Harper the reason he needs to go to the electorate.

Baird on C-288

Environment Minister John Baird's testimony to the Senate on April 19, courtesy Canuck Politics. There's a short opening statement by Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez who introduced C-288, the private member's bill which requires the government to meet greenhouse gas emissions targets under the Kyoto Accord for 2008 through 2012.



Previous

David Suzuki, environmental economist

David Suzuki was to present a petition on climate change to Environment Minister John Baird today. Suzuki claims that 30,000 Canadians supported his online petition in which they said they are ready to "pay the price" required to deal with climate change.

However, as anyone who participated in Suzuki's on-line petition knows, no matter what opinion was expressed, pro or con, the survey recorded all submissions in it's favour. This petition is utterly biased and worthless. I wonder if Suzuki included the results of the on-line poll which was mysteriously removed from his website when the results went terribly wrong.

Just to up the rhetoric, Suzuki said that governments who ignore his warnings on climate change will be committing a "crime against future generations". What would be a crime against future generations would be to ruin the economies of the great western nations chasing a dogmatic belief that we humans can alter our planet's climate. In response to this report by Minister Baird on the crippling economic impacts of implementing Kyoto, Suzuki said:

"First of all, let's stop listening to the goddamn economists," he said.

Right. That's the attitude. Let's just listen to zoologists turned enviro-terrorists like Suzuki when they rant about the economic impacts of not following their advice:

"Twenty per cent of the economy will disappear. It will cost more than World War I and World War II put together. We'll go into a kind of depression we've never, ever had in all of history."

After labelling the government's economic report as "fear mongering", it's interesting to see how easily Kooky Suzuki can resort to that very tactic without batting an eye.

Let's just add another feather to the cap of David Suzuki, environmental economist.

Baird: Kyoto would lead to economic collapse

Canada's Environment Minister, John Baird to the Senate environmental committee:

Baird told the committee that analysis from economists shows implementing the Kyoto Protocol would mean the following:

* Gasoline will cost more than $1.60 a litre over the 2008-to-2012 period
* 275,000 Canadians working today will lose their jobs by 2009
* Job loss will cause unemployment rates to rise 25 per cent by 2009
* The decline of economic activity in the range of $51 billion

Baird also had this to say:

"Rather than go to reckless extremes just to make up for lost time, we want a more realistic plan, which we will introduce soon," Baird said.

During his presentation to the committee, he said that meeting the Kyoto carbon emissions targets would "manufacture a recession" for Canada.

He said the government needs to strike a balance between acting boldly on behalf of the environment, and protecting Canada's economy "so Canadians can keep their jobs and build a promising future," Baird said in French.

I looks more and more like the government is preparing to take a stand against the unrealistic and economically crippling Kyoto Protocol - even if if means having to fight an election on the issue.

With all the opposition parties taking a hard stand in favour of Kyoto, Stephen Harper's Conservatives are the only party offering a practical alternative. With Bill C-288 on the books making it mandatory for the government to meet Kyoto targets, this is going to get very interesting.

As Prime Minister Stephen Harper said:

"The real issue here is whether any of the opposition parties have the guts to face reality," Harper said.

"The reality is this Mr. Speaker; you cannot reduce greenhouse gas emission by one-third in less than four years and have a positive effect for the Canadian economy."

Canadians have shown that they support Kyoto - as long as it doesn't hurt them in the pocket books. The next election may depend upon the parties' ability to convince Canadians just how costly Kyoto really will be.

So not a leader, episode III

The current leader of the Liberal Party of Canada served up more evidence today of why he isn't fit to lead a toga party, let alone a major federal political party.

Dion announced earlier on Friday in a joint news conference with [Elizabeth] May that he won't be running a candidate against the Green Party leader in the Central Nova riding, which is currently held by Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay.

Jean Chretien must be cringing at the news of Dion's deal with May, which in effect gives up a seat without a fight. Even with no Liberal candidate in the riding, Elizabeth May still doesn't stand a snowball's chance in globally warmed Nova Scotia of winning.

For her part of the "deal", May has agreed not to run a Green Party candidate against Dion in his own Montreal riding. Environment Minister John Baird hinted that Dion's deal might be related his slipping popularity in his own riding:

"To have to make a deal with the leader of a fifth party to try to save his own seat and prop her up just leaves you scratching your head," Baird said.

Human Resources Minister Monty Solberg:

"I'm surprised to see ... (Dion's) first major electoral decision is to concede defeat,'' Solberg said on Friday.

"I sat in the House of Commons for a long time and battled every day with people like Jean Chretien -- someone who never backed away from a fight."

It's not just the Conservatives who are bewildered at this move. CTV's Robert Fife refers to Dion's deal with the Greens as "bizarre", while Paul Wells pokes some fun at Citizen Dion at McLeans.

Meanwhile, at Dust My Broom, Darcy takes a look at Federal Green Party candidate Kevin Potvin.

“When I saw the first tower cascade down into that enormous plume of dust and paper, there was a little voice inside me that said, ‘Yeah!’ When the second tower came down the same way, that little voice said, ‘Beautiful!’ When the visage of the Pentagon appeared on the TV with a gaping and smoking hole in its side, that little voice had nearly taken me over, and I felt an urge to pump my fist in the air,” Mr. Potvin wrote in the editorial.

Does Dion really understand who he's getting to bed with? Colby Cosh says "the deal seems likely to be remembered as the point of no return on the road to disaster."

Trying to find some sense in this move, Andrew Coyne says the real target is the NDP.

But you know Dion is in trouble when the normally Lib-friendly Globe and Mail prints a comment like this:

'Not running a candidate in MacKay's riding is truly the stupidest thing that a group of people who wrote the book on stupid things have done yet. Dion still thinks he's at the convention brokering deals. He better realize elections are one ballot.' One long-time Liberal, on reports that the Liberal and Green Party leaders had struck a deal that would see the Liberals stay out of Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay's Central Nova riding. In exchange, the Green Party won't field a candidate in Dion's Montreal riding.

Ouch.

Update: Nova Scotia Liberals warned yesterday that they thought Dion was "off his rocker" for considering a deal with May.

Climate Change Power List

The Financial Post published today what it calls a Climate Change Power List, naming the top 20 people who wield the most influence in Canada. The expected players are there, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper at #1, Kooky Suzuki at #2, the current leader of the Liberal Party of Canada at #4, Environment Minister John Baird at #7, and Financial Post editor and climate change skeptic Terence Corcoran at #20.

Here's what they had to say about Dr. Ross McKitrick, who was placed at #9:

Ross McKitrick, Economist, University of Guelph

Sphere of Influence: Climate-change skeptics
Objective: To challenge conventional scientific wisdom on global warming

Ross McKitrick is best-known for his critique of climatologist Michael Mann’s famous “hockey stick” graph, which purports to show how global temperatures have spiked in recent decades, after 1,000 years of relative stability. McKitrick argues that the graph — featured prominently in UN reports and the Al Gore documentary, An Inconvenient Truth — is based on faulty data. He says that global warming is not yet a scientific certainty.

A senior fellow at the Fraser Institute think-tank, McKitrick has been widely attacked because he is not a scientist. But he is also a frequent commentator in major media and has appeared before parliamentary committees.

His book Taken By Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming, co-authored with mathematician Christopher Essex, was runner-up for the 2002 Donner prize in public policy writing.

Is an election in the wind?

Just because the opposition Bloc Québécois say they will support the budget of Canada's Conservative minority government, one shouldn't assume that the odds of a spring election are low. The opposition Liberals, NDP and Bloc Québécois are all true worshipers of Kyotology and appear to be intolerable to anything short of a full commitment by the government to meet Kyoto's greenhouse gas emissions targets.

Here's a news article with a quote from Environment Minister John Baird:

"I am prepared to face the electorate," Baird told reporters, referring to a number of government plans, including fighting climate change.

The opposition parties have proposed scores of amendments to the Conservatives' Clean Air Act – amendments that would put into law the Kyoto Protocol's emission targets, which the government says are unachievable.

For their part, Stephen Harper's Conservatives appear to be standing firm, essentially calling the opposition's collective bluff. And why wouldn't they? They have been steadily improving in the polls ever since the Liberals selected their current leader. The most recent polls come very close to putting them into majority government territory.

Mr. Baird is essentially saying to the opposition "Go ahead, make my day".

All it will take to avoid an election is for one of Dion, Layton or Duceppe to blink and come out in support of the Clean Air Act. Will any one of them have the sense to do so?

If not, looks like we're heading for a spring election.

Dion's credibility gap

From today's Globe and Mail:

OTTAWA — Christine Stewart, who was the Liberal environment minister when Canada signed the Kyoto agreement in 1997, said none of her cabinet colleagues -- including current party leader Stéphane Dion -- supported her efforts to put a real plan in place to meet its ambitious targets.

Our current Environment Minister adds this:

Environment Minister John Baird said there is a pattern of key Liberals saying there was a lack of commitment when the Liberals signed Kyoto. "Dion has a huge credibility gap and he has created it himself," Mr. Baird said in a telephone interview.

Baird might be referring to this.

Hargrove on Adler

CAW chief Buzz Hargrove was a guest on Adler On Line on February 14th:

Adler: Buzz, I've only got about 20 seconds here. Give me your best 20 seconds on the Clean Air Act and how that affects jobs.

Hargrove: Well we're really worried. I appeared before a Parliamentary Committe and told them if we introduce the standards that California says they're introducing in 2009, because of the production system that we have with large vehicles and large engines in Canada, that could be the death knell to our industry.

Adler: Anyone paying attention to you, or are you whistling past the graveyard?

Hargrove: I got a pretty good hearing from John Baird. I think he understands it, uh, I got a lesser ear from Stephane Dion, he was pretty tough on the environmental...

Adler: So the guys you voted for last year, last time are kind of letting you down now? 2 seconds.

Hargrove: 2 seconds? That would be accurate, that would be quite accurate at this point.

Adler: Buzz Hargrove, thanks.

Listen to the audio here.

Charles Adler's blog.

Baird: Liberal phantom spending

Environment Minister John Baird described the previous Liberal government's programs on climate change as "phantom" in this exchange between Baird and Liberal environment critic David McGuinty:

“At the end of this fiscal year, we will have spent more (on climate change) than the previous year,” Baird said. “None of that $5.6 billion - very little of that was ever spent. When you have a program in name and no money is spent, yeah, I call that a phantom program.”

All this Liberal hypocrisy could lead to a spring election.

But then again, Paul Wells reports that, in the aftermath of the attack ads on Liberal leader Citizen Dion, support for the Tories is up:

• National horse race numbers give the Harper Tories their strongest score since a week before the 2006 election, 38% to 31% for the Liberals, 14% for the NDP and 8% for the Bloc.

• Tory strength in Ontario too: 40% to 35% for Liberals.

• Quebec numbers are a very different story: while the Tories (24%) are only a point below their 2006 election score and have essentially erased their bad summer scores in Quebec, the Liberals are at 32%, which is three points higher than in another house's poll a week ago and that party's highest score in Quebec since the Adscam audit. The Bloc, at 31%, continues to slide. Remember when Chrétien took more popular vote and only two seats less than the Bloc in 2000? The bloc got 40% of the Quebec vote in that election. Me likey the 31%.

• Now. Do you like those Liberal numbers in Quebec? Enjoy 'em while they last. The Tories haven't run ads against Dion in French yet.

Baird says no to Kyoto targets, carbon trading

Minister of Environment John Baird says that while Canada will set short-term targets for air pollutants and greenhouse gases, regulate air pollution from industry and fuel efficiency of motor vehicles, it not try to meet Kyoto greenhouse gas targets.

"To achieve that kind of target through domestic reductions would require a rate of emissions decline unmatched by any modern nation in the history of the world,'' Baird said.

"Except those who have suffered economic collapse, such as Russia.''

Baird also said Canada will not take part in emissions trading markets that have been started by some European countries to achieve pollution targets.

Source.

News roundup

Al Gore to Testify on Climate Change, Al Gore is a Greenhouse Gas Bag

President Jacques Chirac has demanded that the United States sign both the Kyoto climate protocol and a future agreement that will take effect when the Kyoto accord runs out in 2012.

VETERAN Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman has launched a savage attack on the BBC, accusing the corporation of making climate change worse by flying all over the world to make programmes like Planet Earth, and of "environmental idiocy" in promoting digital television.

Jack asks, Why am I skeptical about man-made global warming?

National Post Series by Lawrence Solomon: "Global Warming: the Deniers"

1. Statistics Needed
2. Warming is Real - and Has Benefits
3. The Hurricane expert who stood up to UN Junk Science
4. Polar Scientists on Thin Ice
5. The Original Denier - into the cold
6. The Sun moves climate change
7. Will the Sun cool us?
8. The limits of predictability
9. Look to Mars for the truth on global warming
10. Limited role for CO2
    

Note the term "denier" is inappropriate. "Skeptic" is more correct.

And last, Baird Rejects Targets for Cutting Emissions

Kyoto in the House - Jan 30, 2007

Environment Minister John Baird responds to idiotic questions. Thanks to Officially Screwed for the video.