Enviro Commish Calls "Bullshit" on Harper

Quelle surprise!   Harper was only bullshitting us on his committment to cut Canadian carbon emissions.   That's the conclusion of our Environment and Sustainable Development Commissioner, Scott Vaughan.

"Canada has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020.

"'In concrete terms, Canada will need to reduce emissions by 178 million tonnes over the next eight years to meet the 2020 target,' Vaughan's report states. 'In comparison, the 2011 Climate Change Plan for the Purposes of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act reported actual reductions totalling six million tonnes for 2008 and 2009.'

"Vaughan said Canada, which pulled out of Kyoto last year, is taking a sector-by-sector approach to reducing greenhouse gases and as a result the approach is piecemeal and lacks coherency.

"The report also says Canada has not done a proper analysis of the costs associated with meeting the goal. That's ironic, he suggested, because the Conservatives justified the decision to leave Kyoto by saying it was too expensive -- estimated at $14 billion in December of last year.

"'Accordingly, I expected that the government would have calculated the projected costs to the Canadian economy of its regulatory approach to meeting its new target. ... Right now, it has not done so. The result is that Parliament lacks a full picture of the combined costs of reaching the 2020 target.'

"Vaughan also said Ottawa has been slow laying out what future environmental regulations will look like. As a result, businesses have not had time to make the necessary capital investments, or to implement the new equipment needed to achieve the reductions by the target year."

When it comes to climate change, Harper is prime, Grade A, bullshit on the hoof.   Ask yourself why we need supertankers to bring in highly toxic solvents and dilutents so that we can mix them with abrasives, corrosives and carcinogen-laced bitumen to refill those tankers for shipment to China?  Why?  Because the alternative is to dispense with the dilutents, refine that sludge in Alberta and ship out refined synthetic crude oil.   But that would expose that other load of bullshit - carbon capture and sequestration.  There would be enormous carbon emissions and other environmental problems from refining that crap in Canada so, despite the even more enormous risks to BC coastal waters, Harper wants to simply export it to be refined abroad.   That way he supposedly keeps the environmental costs off his books.  If that sounds perverse, it is.   But so long as he remains snug in Big Oil's pocket and has every Tory MP and Senator kissing his bum on demand, there's nothing to stop him...  except you and me.