Shuckin' & Jivin'

Are we onside or are we not? Do we support the G8 global warming proposals or are we really just playing for time? Do you believe John Baird or do you believe Harpo? Is John Baird actually just playing green, talking the talk so to speak?

One newspaper claims the wallowing government supports the G8 policies, another says that we're holding back. Something for everybody, Harpo style.

Baird says we're 'very supportive' of the G8 call for a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. 'Very supportive' is very subjective at best, an outright lie at worst. It was telling that, when asked whether Canada would accept the G8 call for a 30% GHG reduction by 2020, Baird responded, "We're not going to conduct G-8 negotiations in the media." Huh?

Baird acts like he's just heard about the 30% reduction target. It's as though he sees himself on the other side of a horse trade. Just where the hell has this loudmouth been since he took over from Rona (remember her?)?

2020 is a problem. 2050 is half a century off so you can promise just about anything and forget about it. 2020, however, is just around the corner. That means coming up with policies - today - to sharply curb GHG emissions. That means lowering the boom on the tar sands and other major GHG emitters. Yeah, 2020 is a problem for the Harpies.

What to do? Why not try sleight of hand? Let's point some stinky fingers at those yellow folks and their brown friends. They've each got a billion people plus. We're less than 5% of that. So, let's see how each country stacks up on overall GHG emissions. Why, suddenly we look lily white.

Isn't it curious that we're not willing to consider GHG caps for our own country but we want something similar from the Chinese and Indians? What if they offered to cap their per capita GHG emissions at half our own? They're nowhere close to that, at least not yet. If they ever do get to that point, the planet is pretty much screwed anyway. But it's a hell of an argument, one that leaves us no fallback except to say that we're entitled to create vastly more GHG than them because, well just because.

What if the Chinese and Indians offered to guarantee that their per capita GHG emissions would never exceed half of our own in exchange for our guarantee to bring our per capita GHG emissions to a level no more than twice theirs, say within 10-years? That's when Harpo's grand lie would be stripped as bare as a tar sand pit.

Harpo, as usual, is a two-legged sack of hypocrisy.