With an election just four months away, prepare to be barraged with promises from those vying for your vote.
These days, it seems, they'll tell you just about anything they figure you want to hear. They've got a limitless supply of smoke and, given the chance, they'll blow it straight up your backside.
How else can you judge what they'll do in the future other than what they've done in the past?
From the get go, Stephen Harper's shtick was "transparency and accountability" and he delivered neither. His was the most secretive and unaccountable government in peacetime Canada. He gagged government scientists and even cut off public access to the public service. This time around the Tories have chosen a clone only without the ability of Harper - Andrew "Chuckles" Scheer. A damp squib at best. A Christo-fascist at worst.
Fortunately there's Justin, a man of his word. Only he's not a man of his word. He's proven that. The Liberals won a solid majority in 2015 and, from that perch, Justin broke one solemn campaign promise after another, proof positive that he's a manipulative dissembler. He is not to be trusted.
I want to focus on just one of these broken promises, his vow that his Liberal government would "follow the science." Has he? No. Not even close.
When it comes to the greatest threat to ever confront humanity Justin has flatly ignored the science.
The world has been put on notice. Slash greenhouse gas emissions NOW. If we are to have a reasonable chance - a chance - of averting climate catastrophe, we must slash greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2030 and eliminate the remaining half by 2050.
2030, just eleven years away. A truly Herculean chore and we'll need every day of what remains to meet that challenge. There is no time to dally, no months to waste. It is, as Churchill said of the Nazi threat, "Sometimes it is not enough to do our best; we must do what is required."
And if we don't do "what is required," what then? There will be consequences for our selfish disregard of the science, irreversible consequences, life-or-death consequences. A lot of people, mainly little brown people, will die by famine or wars or upheaval of all sorts and we will be instrumental in putting them to death.
If there's one thing Trudeau's Liberals and Scheer's Conservatives have in common, it's their absolute rejection of cutting greenhouse gas emissions on any scale remotely approaching what's required. Ain't gonna do it. Nope. In fact we're gonna flood world markets with one of the very filthiest, climate wrecking fossil fuels of them all - high carbon, high cost, low value bitumen. That'll speed things up, for sure. Only, because that ersatz oil and the rich volume of petcoke, Athabasca's dirty little secret, it delivers as a free bonus, won't be burned here, we'll pretend that it's not our fault. "No officer, I only gave the kid that loaded gun. Not my fault what he did with it."
It's a dirty trade, as indefensible as slavery only vastly more murderous, perhaps even civilization ending. That's Canada of the 21st century, our "cherished Canadian values." That's Canada, whether Liberal or Conservative.
When it comes to track records, the Liberals under Justin Trudeau or the Harper Tories now notionally led by Scheer and his gang of rednecks, neither deserves your vote. You only vote for one of them in order to keep the other one of them out. And, when you vote to keep that other party out, you're choosing your poison. You're not voting for a party, you're voting against a party which means you damn well deserve what you get regardless of who wins. You'll be voting for a deeply sullied Canada.
Time is not on our side. We haven't got another four years to squander.
UPDATE:
By the way, if you think the Tories or the Liberals will keep you safe from the ravages of our rapidly worsening climate, think again. This interactive piece from CBC News takes a look at your fellow Canadians who are already in harm's way. Don't worry, your turn isn't that far off.
When 2023 rolls around will you be deeply regretting your vote in 2019?
This morning I found myself in a rather elegiac mood; the weather was clear, humidity was low, and a gentle breeze wafted about. Such summer days were plentiful when I was young, but are far less common today. My mood was sorrowful as I pondered what our selfish legacy of virtually ignoring the climate warnings means for today's young and future generations. We are, through our heedlessness, denying to today's young and the generations that will follow them the blessings we enjoyed. We have only ourselves and the short-sighted leaders we continue to elect to blame.
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ReplyDeleteWe are absolutely robbing future generations of their due, their legacy, Lorne. We're robbing them of a secure, viable future with every tanker Trudeau manages to put to sea.
What we are instead bequeathing to our young and those who will follow them is an enormous debt and a thoroughly degraded environment. Somebody is going to have to pay for the quarter trillion dollar unfunded liability of the Athabasca Tar Sands. Somebody is going to have to pay for hundreds of thousands of abandoned "orphan" wells.
Those two items are why the International Monetary Fund contends that Canada is shelling out well over $43 billion every year in direct and indirect subsidies to these foreign energy giants.
That is the measure of how criminally irresponsible our governments, Conservative and Liberal, have become.
I once thought only Trump had Gullibillies. I now see they're what prop up Trudeau and Scheer as well.
www.reuters.com/article/us-ge-power/general-electric-to-scrap-california-power-plant-20-years-early-idUSKCN1TM2MV?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=f
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ReplyDeleteWell, Rumley, that makes it even more pathetic that your boy, Trudeau, is doubling down on a bitumen future and a 60-year pipeline doesn't it?
Kinda in line with the plan to eliminate coal burning power plants. They will partially eliminate themselves.
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