Tories' Environmental Strategy Revealed

It's right there in today's NatPo. John Ivison reveals that the Harpies' priority is to change public opinion, not combat global warming.

"Environment Minister John Baird would unveil the government's own detailed emissions reduction targets, province by province, based on what he yesterday called "the architecture of a regulatory regime" that he rolled out earlier this spring.

"This calls for greenhouse gas emissions for existing industrial emitters to be 16% below 2006 levels by 2010, with annual 2% reductions to follow thereafter.

"The hope appears to be that once the debate comes down to Earth from its current level somewhere in the stratosphere, and people at ground level become aware of how onerous the Conservative cuts will be on industrial plants in their immediate area, they will have no stomach for the even deeper cuts that would be required to meet Kyoto."

So, according to Ivison, the ploy is to drive the debate "down to Earth" by making GHG emission cuts the public will find unpalatable. From a global warming denier's point of view, which is the viewpoint of Ivison, this all makes sense.

The Tories haven't got the slightest intention of dealing with this critical issue. This is a threat of such scope and complexity that it requires powerful moral and political leadership. Too many people in this country still do not understand global warming and its ramifications while many others flock to the false comfort doled out by the climate change denial community with the collusion of some of Canada's major media.

By not employing that scale of moral and political leadership, Baird and Harpo are counting on the recoil effect of slapping some carefully chosen restrictions that will be painfully felt by an unprepared population. If the only thing you understood about idodine was the sting, you would never use it to treat a wound would you? These vermin don't want to treat the wound, they want you to recoil from the treatment. Mission accomplished, Harpo style.