Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Couldn't They Have Placed a Conference Call?

The timing couldn't have been much creepier. One day after the federal government announced approval of a major LNG "carbon bomb" in British Columbia, experts are gathering at the White House for the first, Arctic science ministerial meeting to focus on climate change and the far north.

America, thanks to Alaska is a genuine Arctic nation. I think Canada is too, eh? So, while we're tossing carbon bombs, the great minds in Washington are delivering a blunt message - "we've run out of time." Note that's not future tense. It's present tense as in, "we've run out."

In anticipation of the meeting, the Columbia Climate Center hosted a workshop in July in partnership with the World Wildlife Fund and other NGOs, which produced a white paper called 'A 5 C Arctic in a 2 C World.'

"We've run out of time," says Peter Schlosser, the centre's director and lead author of the paper.

Simply implementing the Paris Agreement on climate change — which was hashed out in a major international conference in late 2015 — will not be enough, he argues.

At some point we need to realize that Canada's government - yes, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau - is caught in the throes of cognitive dissonance. It believes Canada can expand our fossil fuel production while pretending to cut greenhouse gas emissions. It's a joke, a lethal jest, but, then again, don't we all know that?

It's too bad Obama hasn't invited Justin to his party. Would a conference call have been too much to expect?



4 comments:

  1. Obama may well have invited JT and JT way well have declined the invitation knowing how much more dissonant that would resound.

    It's nice though that some royalty were able to see some of the rainforest before the bulldozers roll in, doncha think?

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  2. .. its the 'unicorn era' Mound.. a time of political & economic fairy tales..
    In a land immune to pollution, corruption, captured governments, election fraud
    'everything is wonderful.. in its own way' .. tra la
    Sure there's the odd bit of 'hijinks' as reported by Rex Murphy
    or Cabinet Confidence declarations by unavailable Ministers
    and on occasion, public servants triple delete or use personal email & text
    and what's a 'burner phone' or two or a hundred.. among political party animals?

    But what is really gettin my goat.. is the great LNG & Dilbit fantasy..
    Where the stork delivers LNG or Dilbit to Asian supertankers..
    As if there's no staggering advance process.. land strip, prep, species extirpation
    As if there's no intensive invasive land clearing, right of way prep
    No water pipelines, no roadways, no pumping station prep
    No TFW's related to secretly signed 'free' trade deals.. no subsidies !

    So presuming the stork allows all that to be skipped
    and the gawd almighty natural gas or dilbit makes it to 'tidewater'
    there's all those amazing 'jobs' .. at lequifaction installations
    so we can load the Asian supertankers that arrived blasting sonar
    until tugboats grabbed them..
    and then send the supertankers out of Kitimat or Rupert into Hecate Straight..
    The ultimate goal, apparently servicing thousands of these supertanker transits in/out
    and untold weath will pour into BC.. to Alberta.. to Saskatchewan.. to Ottawa
    forever n ever.. amen.. n thank gawd or Christy for Site C hydro to fuel the scam

    Somehow, mainstream media has missed the reality..
    that the plan requires extirpation of keychain species, fresh water & truth..
    With herring or wild salmon gone, whales etc, boreal caribou & wolves
    well, we won't need a Minister of Environment such as Peter Kent pretended to be..
    We won't have any Environment ! We'll have progressed a giant step
    toward the Rapture ! Halleluja ! n praise th Lawd ! Onward to Israel eh !

    I'm not catching a sense of the 'upside' to this downer...
    .. seems catastrophic to me.. a sort of suicidal political message
    Last I looked, suicidal was not a Canadian Value ..

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  3. Let us remember that the federal approval is contingent on Petronas meeting 190 conditions. I'll reserve judgment until we can review those "conditions." Petronas isn't squawking so I have to assume that they're not as onerous as the raw number suggests.

    How this project, crossing such difficult terrain, is going to avoid the leakage problem so widespread in US fracked gas transported across flatland is hard to understand. The terrain will be more difficult but it will also be far more remote which means it will be much harder for third parties to monitor.

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  4. Face the facts.
    Many people do not believe in anthropological global warming.
    Many others don't care as long they remain rich.
    These group dictate the conversation and outcome.

    TB

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