Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Your Daily Call to Arms - Nikiforuk Style

With an election possibly looming for the fall I plan to argue the case for the Libs pursuing major, dynamic environmental initiatives in the campaign. I believe it's a no-lose proposition for the Libs. It is a splendid vehicle to reconnect with an increasingly disengaged, disaffected if you like, voting public apathetic and uninspired by the tedium that is today's Ottawa.

I'll attempt to post a daily "call to arms" - a snippet taken from here and there that I hope will capture your imagination and focus it on how much opportunity simply awaits the Liberals - and Canada - if they can only muster the courage to scrap their obscure lethargy and turn dynamic.

Ignatieff's simplistic endorsement of the Athabasca Tar Sands touches a really raw nerve in me. The way the Liberal leader, like all the other Bitumen Boosters, trivialize the environmental catastrophe building there is infuriating. The way they resort to the most facile sophistry in dismissing these problems is stripped bare by this passage from Andrew Nikiforuk's Tar Sands, Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent:

"The rapid devlopment of the tar sands has made climate change a joke about Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. Everybody thinks reducing carbon dioxide emissions needs to be done and expects Somebody will do it. Anybody could have reduced emissions, but Nobody did. Everybody now blames Somebody, when in fact Nobody asked Anybody to do anything in the first place."

Sorry Iggy but that's game, set and match Nikiforuk.

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