We need to accept one simple truth. To avoid runaway climate change we can burn just one-fifth of already discovered reserves of fossil fuels. One fifth, no more.
Fossil fuels have, for the survival of mankind, become sub-prime assets. The higher-carbon the fossil fuel the more worthless it is. That begins with coal and extends to unconventional fuels such as tar sand bitumen. Within the context of salvaging civilization for our kids and grandkids, these fuels have no value, no worth.
Steve Harper, with his piggy little eyes focused greedily on vast stores of oil and gas on the Arctic seabed, is about as far away as you can get from accepting this one simple truth. He wants to rapidly maximize Canada's fossil fuel production from wherever it can be found, however it can be extracted. Stephen Harper is the arch-nemesis of mankind. But, then again, so are many of the fossil fuelers that hold sway on both sides of the floor of our House of Commons and dominate our legislatures from coast to coast to coast.
These types won't refute that one simple truth. They won't even acknowledge it. Best, for their purposes, to ignore it altogether. Pretend it doesn't exist.
If they were to accept this one simple truth so many other truths they instinctively circumvent, deny or ignore would begin, by themselves, slamming some doors shut and opening others. Governments forged out of 18th century economics, 19th century industrialism and 20th century geopolitics would find these anchors no longer hold, their institutions having lost far too much of their utility to be helpful in guiding us through the 21st century.
We're still moving although not we're not moving forward as we have for so many generations. We're instead ricocheting off walls at increasingly unpredictable velocities and angles, repeatedly reaching the limits of our very finite biosphere. We try so hard to make it all bigger and, hence, better and we can indeed defy ecological gravity - for a while. But it's a matter of eating our seed corn. This takes many forms including draining our aquifers; collapsing global fisheries; overworking farmland to exhaustion, transforming it into useless desert, relentlessly contaminating our air, water and even our soil.. This is a global, 4-pack a day habit.
Whether it's Tom Mulcair or a future Liberal leader, you'll be quite easibly able to tell whether they're bent. That will be when they get the courage to speak that one simple truth, the one that reveals all the others.
And now, this. It's a video released this morning by WBGU, Angela Merkel's climate change advisory panel. It contains highlights of speakers' comments at last May's symposium in Berlin on alternative energy prosperity.
2 comments:
I find a lot of humor in China's stance on carbon emissions. Harper is selling the dirtiest tar oil on the planet, to China, one of the most polluted country's on the planet. China is taking the tar oil, to refine it cheaply in China, for resale. Strangely, there didn't seem to be anyone representing Canada there?
In the High North, a Polar Bear swam the distance of Calgary to Vancouver, to reach an ice floe to hunt from. Mother Polar Bears that have to swim way out to sea, to reach an ice floe, her Baby Polar Bears drown. Mother Polar Bears also eat their young, because, they know they can't take care of them.
Europe was very angry with Harper. He gave them false statements, on the toxicity of the dirty tar oil.
Never, will anyone ever get it through Harper's block head, that global warming is a real and present danger. Harper's greed trumps common sense every time. Alberta's greed, is just as bad.
The big race is on, to pollute the High Arctic as fast as they can. Russia has, battle ships, icebreakers and fighter jets, amassed in their Far North, for the big fight.
The tar sands and the oil in the High Arctic, will end the life of this planet. Just the tar sands alone, can destroy our earth.
Most are saying, it is already impossible to reverse the damage, from burning fossil fuels.
The damage at the tar sands site, can never be reversed. That is permanent.
The entire huge Athabasca Watershed, is fully contaminated. Athabasca lake has deformed fish in it. The F.N. people dare not eat those fish. The mighty Athabasca river has Mercury, heavy metals and cancer causing agents in it.
The Boreal Forests, are being destroyed. Buffalo and Caribou are dying off. Their meat so terrible, the F.N. People can't even eat it.
I would really wish to. Force feed Harper the deformed fish out of Athabasca Lake. Force him to eat the disgusting meat, from the poisoned Caribou and Buffalo. I would love to force Harper, to drink the water from a stream, nearby the tar sands. Or, out of the mouth of the Athabasca River.
Would Harper also enjoy the rare cancer, from exposure to petroleum products? The way a F.N. village, at the tar sands are dying from?
China's emissions policies are inconsistent, hypocritical and, ultimately, dysfunctional. They'll readily admit what needs doing and then go ahead and do the opposite.
As for Harper, he has a clear agenda and won't abide anything that stands in his way. I have a growing suspicion that he realizes, at some level, that events will overtake his plans for energy superpowerdom. Absent some viable technology to strip out massive quantities of atmospheric greenhouse gases his vision for a Canadian fossil fuel economy will probably be wrecked.
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