Cathy Chats While Justin Mumbles

Poor Justin. He wants to do the Fossil Fuelers bidding, he really does. Whether it's walking away from his election promise to clean house at the National Energy Board or repair the damage Harper inflicted on our navigation and fisheries laws or that business about First Nations consultation and, gasp, "social licence," or championing pipelines east, west and south, our prime minister has been the Oil Barons' bum boy extraordinaire.

The last thing Justin needs is his enviro-min, Dame Cathy, getting off the script. Remember when Slick scolded Elizabeth May for linking last year's Fort Mac fires to climate change?

"There have always been fires. There have always been floods. Pointing at any one incident and saying: ‘This is because of that,’ is neither helpful, nor entirely accurate. We need to separate a pattern over time from any one event. What we are focused on right now on is giving the people of Fort McMurray and the rest of Alberta the kind of support that they need right now and in the months and indeed the years to come.”

There have always been fires, yes indeed. This year the entire west coast has been on fire from Mexico to Alaska, Junior, and now wildfires are again sweeping through Alberta. There's been so much wildfire smoke it came out to sea and blanketed Vancouver Island you dummy.

Justin got one upside the head from McKenna this week. There's this Canadian climate scientist down in Texas, a God-fearin' Born Again evangelist, Katherine Hayhoe, who has been doing her Lord's work opening the eyes of Americans in the southwest to the reality and urgency of climate change. Professor Hayhoe's comments about the recent climate catastrophes, Harvey and Irma, got minister Cathy to chime in.

"Now is exactly the time to be talking about extreme weather, climate and resilience," McKenna told Hayhoe on Twitter on Monday. "Failing to do so is irresponsible."

No, no, no, Chatty Cathy. Now is precisely the time not to talk about it. We don't do that until it's all but forgotten, maybe when the news reports come out next year on the anniversary. Just not now. That's  "not helpful."

UPDATE:

Sydney Morning Herald columnist, Paul McGeough, adds his commentary on this "Shhh, not now" dodge of our political leadership.

It's as bizarre as it is American – the immediate aftermath of a crisis is never the time to debate what might have caused it.

Big losses in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? No – to question the wisdom or management of the wars was to disrespect the memory of soldiers who had died. 

Gun violence? No, no – talking about gun control after yet another massacre is insensitive to the grief of the victims' families.

And so it was in the weekend, when a reporter was rude enough to ask US Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt​ about the impact of climate change on monster hurricanes that have been smashing southern states, he responded: "To have any kind of focus on the cause and effect of the storm; versus helping people, or actually facing the effect of the storm, is misplaced…very, very insensitive to this people in Florida."

...

As comic commentator Seth Meyers put it on Monday, not talking about climate change as Florida recovers, "is like crashing your car into a telephone pole and telling the cops, 'This is not the time to talk about my drinking problem.'"

It's not that our leaders are adverse to hammering away at disasters when that's convenient. They are. The stuff they admonish us for bringing up is the stuff that might call into question their own policies and gross negligence. That stuff is for another day - a long way off - preferably after they've left office.