The Top Ten Wars of 2015

Look, papa.  Visitors!

And a Happy New Year to you too.

The new president of the International Crisis Group, Jean-Marie Guehenno, has issued his own New Year greetings in an article on the ten wars to watch in 2015 in Foreign Policy magazine.

For the most part they're the old familiars that continue to plague Africa, the Middle East and Asia with two exceptions, Venezuela and Ukraine.  So, to summarize, here's the rundown.  No. 10 - Venezuela.  No. 9 - Libya and the Sahel.  No. 8 - Yemen.  No. 7 - Afghanistan.  No. 6 - the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).  No. 5 - Somalia.  No. 4 - Nigeria.  No. 3 - South Sudan.  No. 2 - Ukraine.  No. 1 - Syria, Iraq and the Islamic State.

You can follow the link to get the details.  What's important is that the list is not exhaustive nor does it reflect growing tensions elsewhere that could evolve into major wars in the coming years.  I found Guehenno's introductory comments most cogent:

Conflict is again on the rise after a major decrease following the end of the Cold War. Today’s wars kill and displace more people, and are harder to end than in years past.

The Arab world’s turmoil deepened: The Islamic State captured large swathes of Iraq and Syria, much of Gaza was destroyed again, Egypt turned toward authoritarianism and repression, and Libya and Yemen drifted toward civil war. In Africa, the world watched South Sudan’s leaders drive their new country into the ground. The optimism of 2013 faded in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ebola ravaged parts of West Africa, and Boko Haram insurgents stepped up terrorist attacks in northern Nigeria. The international legal order was challenged with the annexation of Crimea by Russia, and war is back in Europe as fighting continues in eastern Ukraine.

So what do the last 12 months tell us is going wrong?

On a global level, increasing geopolitical competition appears, for the moment at least, to be leading to a less controlled, less predictable world. This is most obvious, of course, with regard to the relationship between Russia and the West. It’s not yet zero-sum: The two nations still work together on the Iran nuclear file, the threat of foreign terrorist fighters, and, for the most part, on African peacekeeping. But Russia’s policy in its neighborhood presents a real challenge, and its relationship with the United States and Europe has grown antagonistic.

China’s relations with its neighbors also remain tense and could lead to a crisis in the East or South China Seas. The struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia shapes the contours of violence between Sunnis and Shiites across the Middle East. Major Sunni powers are themselves divided: The contest between the Saudis, Emiratis, and Egypt on the one hand, and Qatar and Turkey on the other, plays out across North Africa. Elsewhere on the African continent, powers jostle in Somalia and in South Sudan’s increasingly regionalized war; and the DRC has long been a venue for its neighbors’ competition over influence and resources.

Rivalry between major and regional powers is nothing new, of course. But hostility between big powers has stymied the U.N. Security Council on Ukraine and Syria — and leaves its most powerful members less time and political capital to invest on other crises. As power gets more diffuse, antagonism between regional powers matters more. Competition between powerful states increasingly lends a regional or international color to civil wars, rendering their resolution more complex.

... jihadi groups remain a persistent, growing threat. The Islamic State and its new affiliates in Sinai and North Africa, Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabab in Somalia and Kenya, and al Qaeda franchises in South Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Yemen, and the Sahel are destabilizing governments, killing civilians, and radicalizing local populations. But grouping these movements is often pointless: While they say their ambitions are global, diverse radical enterprises feed off local grievances.

Although these jihadist groups use horrific terrorist tactics, they are more than just terrorists. They seek to control territory. They often blend brutal tactics with astute political or social outreach. Some present themselves as alternatives to a corrupt and unjust state, providing basic public goods — particularly security and justice, albeit often cruel variants thereof — when a government has failed to do so. Few of the wars they fight in are initially driven by international jihad. Extremist ideology often comes late to the party, and always amid other sources of violence. But once there, it makes finding a mediated end to wars much more challenging.

Clearly such diverse problems don’t lend themselves to generic prescription. Solutions require a granular understanding of each conflict, its drivers, its protagonists, their motives and interests. Any response needs to be tailored to context. But we can offer a few general ideas based on the past year.

First, too often this year, policy has lacked a political strategy. This applies as much to the U.S. campaign against the Islamic State as it does to the Nigerians’ against Boko Haram. Military action won’t work alone; in fact, it often perpetuates underlying drivers of conflict — power inequalities, underdevelopment, state predation, identity politics and so forth. What keeps countries together are political settlements. Ending wars or avoiding crises requires a process that steers toward that.

Second, talking makes sense more often than not. The bright spots of this year — the Iranian nuclear file, Colombia’s peace talks, Tunisia’s transition, U.S.-Cuba relations — all show the value of dialogue, even when awkward or unpopular. Of course there are risks, particularly in talking to groups with exclusionary agendas or where criminal motives outweigh political ones. But at the moment the balance is dangerously weighted against dialogue: Policymakers need to be more flexible, eschew dogmatic declarations about who they can or cannot speak to, and where force is necessary, wed it with engagement, even if only to isolate those who are genuinely beyond the pale.

Third, political inclusion should more frequently be a guiding principle of today’s leaders. Over time, that means building institutions that are representative, effective, and protect all citizens — long, arduous, and intensely political work. In fragile countries, the rush to elections that empower the winner at the detriment of the loser, or to ratify constitutions that concentrate power in one individual are dangerous. Exclusion is a major driver in many of today’s wars — all main groups need a seat at the table to protect their interests.

Fourth, it is much better to prevent crises than to try to contain them later. This means engaging before local conflicts gain a jihadi dimension, for example. It means addressing communities’ grievances before they take up arms. It means trying to end wars before factions fragment, making peace efforts more difficult.

Particularly important is to shore up those states in troubled regions that are reasonably stable, or at least have not yet collapsed. This means making sure military aid does not entrench rulers and perpetuate bad habits. But it also means greater caution in advocating regime change, instead nudging leaders toward more inclusive politics, better provision of basic public goods and services, tackling corruption, and improving relations with neighbors. None of this is easy, particularly given the many crises occupying world leaders. But it is clearly better than picking up the pieces afterwards. In fact, given that that the world’s crisis management capacity is already at breaking point, a collapse in another region — like Central Asia, for example, or the Gulf — would be disastrous.

Guehenno's world view is reminiscent of what had been Canada's foreign policy approach pre-Harper.  If anything it serves as an indictment of the Harper-Baird "shoot'em up" approach to international relations with its black and white simplicity.

Putin Mobilizes His Troops. Is He Bluffing?

It's just the thing that pro-Western Ukrainians have been fearing - but also anticipating.  Russian president Vlad Putin has ordered combat units to mobilize, supposedly for a snap exercise.  It appears the Russian force might include airborne troops.

With Kiev in control of the pro-West faction, the pro-Russian side is consolidating in Sebastopol, the traditional Soviet/Russian navy Black Sea base.  They may give Putin all the justification he thinks he needs to send motorized units rolling into Ukraine.

The new mayor of Sebastopol has announced the formation of vigilante “self defence” units in an attempt to protect the ethnic Russian city of 340,000 from the perceived threat of “fascist” revolutionaries in Kiev.

Speaking to a crowd of several hundred outside the Black Sea port’s town hall Tuesday night, Alexei Chaliy called for volunteers for the vigilante groups, intended to counter those formed by the pro-European protesters who overthrew Viktor Yanukovych.

Separatist passions have been running high in Sebastopol, the most fiercely pro-Russian city in the majority-Russian peninsular. Many describe Mr Yanukovych’s eviction as an armed coup by far-right, anti-Russian and anti-Semitic groups, including the nationalist Svoboda party, led by Oleh Tyahnybok, and the Pravy Sektor paramilitary group.

People here say their worst fears were confirmed when the post-revolutionary Rada passed a law stripping Russia of its shared official status.

“A year ago Tyahnybok talked about the genocide of Russians. We must form civil defence units now,” said a 41-year-old linguistics professor who gave his name as Dmitry.

Stephen Harper is doing his bit to help the pro-European side, sending John Baird to Ukraine, resplendent in camo fatigues, a headband and an AK, to man the barricades and stare down Vlad Putin.  No word yet on whether Steve remembered to buy Baird a return ticket.

Radio Free Europe, meanwhile, offers some useful insights into why Putin will take big risks to keep Ukraine in Russia's fold.

Russia, understanding that without Ukraine it would not be able to take its place in the wider arena of Europe and create a new, powerful structure that could counterbalance the United States and others (and this is Russia's goal), made the strategic decision to keep Ukraine in its embrace,' Leonid Kravchuk, Ukraine's first post-Soviet president, tells RFE/RL's Russian Service.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Kyiv Steven Pifer speaks in similar terms: 'The Russian have very strong motivations. I think this is a big deal for Vladimir Putin. He wants to build a sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space. A big part of that would be the customs union. If Ukraine is moving towards the European Union, there's a big hole in that sphere. And I think it's also important for Vladimir Putin, for his domestic political constituency. Pulling Ukraine back is popular at home. Losing Ukraine would not be popular.'
 
But Ukraine's importance for Russia is much more than merely one of popularity. Writing in 'The Independent' on February 23, Andrew Wilson, author of 'Ukraine's Orange Revolution,' argues that 'a real democracy in Ukraine is an existential threat to the entire system that Vladimir Putin has built since 2000.'

Not only is authoritarian Russia unlikely to welcome an example of an overthrown kleptocracy in the post-Soviet space, Moscow also sees vital economic and security interests in Ukraine. Its Black Sea Fleet is based at Sevastopol, the largest city in Crimea; much of its natural-gas flows to Europe still pass through Ukrainian pipelines; and Russia's oligarchs have extensive and lucrative interests in the country, especially its eastern reaches.

John Baird's Black and White World

Harper ForMin John Baird doesn't like ambiguity.   When it comes to foreign affairs he views the world as black or white.  No time for trifling shades of grey.  You're either a good country or a bad country and nothing in between.

In a wide-ranging end-of-year interview with Postmedia News on Friday, Baird said the federal government won’t tolerate excuses for those who engage in terrorist activities, and that Canada will continue supporting right over wrong.

He also offered no apologies for actions such as supporting Israel, condemning Iran or criticizing the United Nations — even if it means an added danger to Canadians travelling abroad with Maple Leafs on their backpacks.

“We cannot be afraid to take difficult decisions for fear of consequences,” Baird said.

Baird has a predictably infantile view of the world, failing to recognize that his world construct of black and white rarely reflects reality and even less often generates effective results.   

Condemning one country's wrongdoings and absolving the other's similar excesses is not a viable approach to dispute resolution but it is the only approach tolerated by the Harper government. 

 

World Outrage at Israel's Destruction of Palestinian Homeland. Harper, Naturally, Mute.

Two Rotten Peas in a Pod

Even the United States is condemning Israeli perfidy in retaliating against the Palestinians by stealing more of their land, enough to sever the West Bank and end Palestinian hopes for their homeland, and now seizing $120-million of Palestinian funds.

The Americans, the Brits, the French, the Germans, pretty much you name it, have been quick to protest the Israeli outrages.  Britain may recall its ambassador over this.   Others may follow suit.  Israel is both a rogue and an apartheid state that flouts international law at will on the strength of nothing more than religious fairy tales.

The Brits weren't pulling any punches.   A Foreign Office statement denounced Israel's aggression.

"We deplore the recent Israeli government decision to build 3,000 new housing units and unfreeze development in the E1 block. This threatens the viability of the two state solution."

Apparently, however, in Harperland, those things are just fine.  Harper understands retaliation.  It fits perfectly with his punishment fetish.  From Ottawa, no reaction whatsoever to Netanyahu's plans to steal more Palestinian lands and carve up the Palestinian homeland in two.   No angry words about Israel simply seizing Palestinian funds.

Of course Harper runs the risk of showing himself to have been duped by Netanyahu.  Did Ottawa not seek some reassurances from the Israelis about how it would react to the inevitable vote?  Sort of don't ask/don't tell.   Did we simply give our support to Netanyahu carte blanche? Were we misled by our supposed ally, duped?  Or, worst of all, did we vote knowing that the Israelis were going to stomp the chances of statehood out of the Palestinians for all time?

Did Steve get a big Rapture boner out of this?  Did he show it to Baird?  It's curious that Baird got all hissy over the U.N. recognition vote, claiming it would undermine chances for a comprehensive, lasting and just settlement for both sides.  Actually he seems just fine with that outcome, so long as it's coming from Israel.

The Humiliation of Canada Continues - Rio+20

Sending foreign affairs minister John Baird as Canada's frontman to the Rio+20 Earth Summit next month sends the world a pretty clear message - "forget it."   It proclaims that, to the Harper regime, even at this critical point, climate change is primarily a political problem, not a pressing existential threat to humanity.

The Guardian has a lovely piece today on our For-Aff loudmouth and his explanation for cutting the funding for the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy.

"Baird told reporters that Canadian taxpayers should not have to pay for an organisation that has produced 10 reports promoting a carbon tax – "something that the people of Canada have repeatedly rejected".

"'But that's not correct,' the Roundtable's CEO, David McLaughlin, told the Guardian on Thursday, adding that it had never advocated a carbon tax but had looked at cap and trade for regulating Canada's greenhouse gas emissions in a 2009 report commissioned by the government. 'Which was government policy at the time,' said McLaughlin.

"McLaughlin, a former chief of staff to federal finance minister Jim Flaherty, stressed there was always original analysis in its reports, making available information that would not otherwise be in the public domain. McLaughlin also pointed to the Roundtable's ability to combine research while convening people from industry as well as the environmental sector together."

That the Ginger-Pig can lie so effortlessly about killing off the NRTEE suggests what we can expect when he gets to work derailing efforts at meaningful action at Rio+20.  We'll know his work is done when Canada's humiliation is complete.

Cons Shoot the Messenger

They told the truth the Government didn't want to hear.   They had to go.

"They" are the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.   The message advocated introduction of a carbon tax to reduce emissions.   For that the independent advisory group's funding has been axed.

Environment Minister Peter Kent had initially said the reason for the closure was because such research can now be easily accessed through the Internet, and through universities and other think tanks.

But Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Monday the shuttering of the round table had more to do with the content of the research itself.

"'Why should taxpayers have to pay for more than 10 reports promoting a carbon tax, something that the people of Canada have repeatedly rejected? That is a message the Liberal Party just will not accept,' Baird said in response to a question by Liberal Leader Bob Rae during question period.

"'It should agree with Canadians. It should agree with the government. No discussion of a carbon tax that would kill and hurt Canadian families.'"

When exactly have Canadians "repeatedly rejected" a carbon tax?  When were they ever given the opportunity?  Dion, in opposition, tried to raise the idea once but it died in an electoral ambush. 

What are these characters, North Koreans?   The entire Harper cabinet functions like a politbureau.  If the message doesn't "agree with the government," it's off with their heads.   What's next, a gulag?  

Half of Nothing Is Still Nothing

It seems someone is trying to con us every day. Watching television, reading a magazine or even answering the phone, we're barraged by people trying to con us with half truths, outright lies and hollow promises.

By now we ought to know better. We ought to know that the "free cruise" is just a scam, that no power exists to turn back the clock on 40-years of aging, and that the fine print is just a confession of deceit, and yet these people just don't quit. Why? Because they know we can be hustled, we can be conned. They know we're gullible or at least enough of us are to make the con worthwhile.

The last time Stephen Harper was honest about global warming and climate change he dismissed it as a "socialist plot." I'm not saying he was right, I'm saying that Harpo was telling us what he actually believed. An honest mistake.

Over the past couple of years, the True North's own Mustapha Mond has done an eardrum shattering, 180 on global warming. Now, he tells us, he "gets it." Now he proclaims it to be the greatest threat to mankind, a real emergency. Now he's really conning us.

The heel-dragging International Panel on Climate Change ("IPCC") has finally reached the point of declaring that human activity was "very likely" the main culprit behind global warming and that we're in for centuries of higher temperatures and rising sea levels, regardless of reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, we're hooped.

A lot of people think the IPCC is radical but any fair examination of their reports over the past several years reveals the panel has consistently understated the time and severity dimensions of the threat. Time and again the latest research and observed changes have far outpaced the IPCC forecasts. That's because the denialists have a presence among the IPCC scientists and operate as something of a sea anchor on its "consensus" reports. In other words, you can take the IPCC scenarios as "best case" predictions that have repeatedly been shown to be unduly optimistic.

But we also must understand that the understated IPCC findings are routinely compounded by the under-committed political responses they evoke. Put another way, even if the IPCC's best case scenarios were accurate it wouldn't matter because our politicians are treating the problem more as a hoax than a threat. Of course they can't admit that so they openly proclaim the Great Danger and then give us nothing but vague promises they or some future government will actually do something about greenhouse gas emissions.

Enter the CCCC, Consummate Canadian Conservative Conman, Big Oil's own Stephen Harper. His response to the IPCC report acknowledges that climate change is an "enormous" problem but then adds that it's "fantasy" to think greenhouse-gas emissions can be cut overnight. Karl Rove could've written that line, maybe he did. Yes we acknowledge a base reality, then bury it under a totally irrelevant and erroneous presumption to create a diversion. "Climate change is an enormous problem" - the base reality. "It's fantasy to think greenhouse-gas emissions can be cut overnight" - the con, the irrelevant diversion.

Memo to Steve and anyone stupid enough to listen to this jackass: NO ONE THINKS GREENHOUSE-GAS EMISSIONS CAN BE CUT OVERNIGHT!

That's right, Steve. No one thinks greenhouse-gas emissions can be cut overnight. Even David Suzuki knows that and says that. But, then again, you know that full well, don't you Steve? You're just throwing up a Straw Man to distract the plebs and defuse their demands for action. You're messing with their minds, Steve, and Big Oil couldn't be happier or more grateful. Are you so stupid that you honestly believe anyone thinks that? You damn well know that no one thinks that but that doesn't mean a deliberate diversion won't let you slip away yet again.

Change the argument from "what are we going to do" to "can't be done overnight" and you've substituted an irrelevant question for a meaningful enquiry. Neat trick - very Rovian, very Republican, very Cheneyist (and of course very Stalinist at heart). You can leverage relatively significant proportions of public naivety, ignorance, and those simply wanting to hear what they want to hear, and thereby undercut the demand for action or accountability.

And this little intellectual rot isn't just confined to Harper, it's permeated throughout his cabinet. Look at this and you'll see what I mean:

Environment Canada came out with a climate change warning today and Harper's Health Minister Tony Clement was prompt to stomp on it, using the "bait and switch" approach of his boss.

The Health Canada report warned Canadians of the new risks they're already going to have to face and the need for immediate, drastic action on man-made global warming if we're not to be confronted with far worse, likely deadly problems. Health Canada, relying on the IPCC's latest, far understated findings, warned that we face, at a minimum, spikes in heat-related deaths, an increase in respiratory and cardiovascular problems, and the spread and emergence of diseases.

Clement, as a good drone of the boss, came out and deflected the bullet. From CBC News:

"Milder winters, heat waves and summer droughts could affect mosquito and tick populations, triggering the spread of West Nile virus and Lyme disease, the report says.

"Climate change could tip the ecological balance and trigger outbreaks of disease previously rare or unknown in Canada," the report states.

The report also says that communities in Canada's North are most vulnerable to climate change. Avalanches and landslides are projected to be more frequent. Northern communities will also have to contend with food shortages and less clean drinking water.

"This report makes it clear that Milder winters, heat waves and summer droughts could affect mosquito and tick populations, triggering the spread of West Nile virus and Lyme disease, the report says.

"Climate change could tip the ecological balance and trigger outbreaks of disease previously rare or unknown in Canada," the report states.

The report also says that communities in Canada's North are most vulnerable to climate change. Avalanches and landslides are projected to be more frequent. Northern communities will also have to contend with food shortages and less clean drinking water.

Speaking to reporters at the Conservative caucus retreat in the rural Quebec town of Levis, Health Minister Tony Clement said Canadians will "have to get used to" the gloomy scenario laid out in the report.

"This report makes it clear that if you have bad health outcomes now, you're likely to be more impacted by extreme weather events than if you're at the top of the health ladder," he said.

There it was in all it's glory. Appear to acknowledge the severe implications of the report and then tell Canadians, "they will have to get used to" it. The guy even goes on to blame the most susceptible. "This report makes it clear that if you have bad health outcomes now, you're likely to be more impacted by extreme weather events than if you're at the top of the health ladder," is Greaseball Tony's way to suggest that most of those who lose their lives are at least partially to blame for allowing themselves to become more vulnerable to these environmental predations.

It's subtle, sort of, but it's there for anyone who wishes to see. They're acknowledging the problems but then, instead of honestly embracing the problems and proposing meaningful action, they veer far off track with distracting nonsense. "Fantasy" to really do anything right now about it. "Top of the Health Ladder" argument to diminish concern by holding up a certain segment of the inevitable victims as somehow responsible for their fate and thereby avoiding having to embrace the problem and advocate the appropriate emissions response.

In any real democracy, the leader's first responsibility is to do everything necessary to safeguard his/her citizens. Failing to do everything necessary to safeguard Canadians against any avoidable consequences of climate change is a complete violation of that responsibility. Shirking that responsibility and using these sorts of diversions demonstrates that there's nothing inadvertant about this affront. It's entirely deliberate. It's not just neglecting the safety and welfare of the Canadian people, it's wilfully putting the interests of certain powerful governments and wealthy companies ahead, and in direct detriment to, the safety and welfare of the Canadian people.

Think about that. 1. Global warming presents this truly urgent, existential threat to humanity. 2. Some countries must, by example, lead and even cajole other nations to embrace action. Those countries most able to afford setting that example have to lead if the rest are to follow. There's no other way. It's essential that a few, advantaged countries can lead so as to establish a norm for others to achieve at subsequent intervals. Only by leading by example can the most advantaged countries wield both the carrot and the stick to get other nations to follow. 3. Without common action, individual or bloc action has no probable hope of avoiding the worst consequences.

If you can accept those three simple statements of fact, you must then judge the actions of our prime minister and his health and environmental ministers accordingly. If they're using logic diversions as smokescreens to deflect popular demands for responsible action, measures that would, in turn, be adverse to the interests of certain governments and companies, there's a message in that. Diversion = Deliberate. It demonstrates culpability. What of a government that culpably acts to the detriment of the safety and welfare of its people for the sole benefit of the elite, advantaged and powerful?

Government is service. We elect our governments to serve our interests, our welfare. Surely that principle defines our relationship more than any other. Surely we hand to them the power to govern us, to make even life and death decisions upon us and our families, in exchange for their implicit, but often unacknoweldged, promise to govern so as to achieve our greatest security and welfare.

Is it not virtually, if not legally, treasonous to abuse one's powers to refuse to act on an existential threat and then distract public attention from it by misleading or confusing diversions? You decide.

If Not Now, Then When?

Blowhard EnviroMin John Baird warns not to expect any climate change deal coming out of the G8 summit.

Bush and his Yo 'Ho Clone of the North say no deal unless India and China sign on for equal cuts. I've already addressed their highly selective idea of what "equal" means but it ought to be more than enough to ensure that Big Oil isn't given an enviro-wedgie anytime soon.

Leave Bush out of this. He's finished anyway, a washed up malignancy. What about our own? No deal without China and India, eh? Okay then when will we see that kind of deal? How long can we wait? What are we going to do to entice/cajole India and China into a deal to our liking? Where's our carrot and our stick? Better yet, what will be the fallout of insisting on a deal that India and China won't accept?

Bairdo doesn't like getting into these questions. He's quite content to stonewall, depicting India and China as the recalcitrants without ever acknowledging any merit to their "per capita" arguments. Baird would rather throw up a smokescreen any day than clear the air.

Enough Is Enough, Except When It's Not

Harpo EnviroMin John Baird is a huckster, a dabbler in the Dark Arts, a master of sleight-of-hand. Well, maybe not exactly a master because he and SHarper have tried to con us twice and it hasn't worked but you have to give him full points for trying.

That's why Bairdo is now talking tough on the Athabasca Tar Sands, or at least future projects which, he promises, will have to achieve unattainable targets using nonexistant technologies that we've been told for a decade are just around the corner. Our Furious Leader's 800-pound gorilla (and he really does look like one) beats his chest, bares his fangs in anguished roars and flings dung about his cage proclaiming loudly that they'll do better next time or, if not, then the time after that, or the one after that, or sooner or later or eventually, maybe.

It's all show. Really, it's all for worrywart voters. "Look mom", he proclaims, reaching deep into his diapers, "look what I've made for you!" Sorry for all the scatalogical references but it's a preposterously scatalogical plan.

It's designed to showcase initiatives; bright, shiny, sparkling distractions; not to achieve a meaningful reduction in our nation's GHG emissions. If he wanted to do what really matters, Baird would be showcasing something other than fanciful ideas - he'd be defining limits, hard caps on greenhouse gas emissions.

Why are the Tories so afraid of greenhouse gas emission caps? It's obvious when you think about it. It's because it would mean carbon rationing, allocation of a national, total maximum permissible carbon emission quota, and how else can you carve up something you've rationed except on a per capita basis? Why should a guy from Ontario be limited to X-tonnes of GHG emissions when a guy from Alberta gets 4X? If we're all going to have to sacrifice, shouldn't we all bear the same sacrifice? Of course we should, it's the quintessential Canadian way, rien?

You see, once you set hard caps, emissions = money and potentially big money. Alberta doesn't want to share its good fortune, it's petro-wealth, but it sure wants you to share it's petro-dirt. Whatever limits are set, it wants your province not it's own to bear the disproportionate burden, to carry the environmental cost of its wildly lucrative Tar Sands.

Worse yet, is what the idea of carbon rationing on an equitable, per capita rationale would or could lead to. Why, if we entertained such revolutionary thinking at home, how would we begin to refute the Chinese and the Indian claims for similar, per capita quotas? What might begin in Athabasca could wind up undoing the entire New World Order.

That's why Bairdo is cavorting about promising to "do better" because what's he really trying to do is to keep the same shell game going for just as long as he and our Furious Leader can get away with it.

I hope I've given you something to think about, a fresh way of looking at exactly what lies behind the Tories environmental scheming. Harpo, Bairdo and the rest of them are cheap shills for Big Oil and the sooner we see that plain reality, the sooner we'll find a way of dealing with this problem.

No Caps for Washington/Ottawa

The United States has said it will not accept mandatory carbon caps at the Bali summit. It says it will come up with its own plan instead, some time around mid-2008. Yeah, right. Our sunken eyed, knuckle-dragging Enviromin, John Baird, then jumped in on cue to say that Canada wouldn't sign any pact that didn't include the US. Baird compared a binding carbon deal without the US to unilateral nuclear disarmament. He said it would amount to "environmental Armageddon" to ink a deal that didn't impose binding targets on China and India.

My question. The intransigence of Washington and Ottawa is so transparent and disingenuous why did Baird and his American counterpart, Harlan Watson, even go to Bali at all? Oh yeah, I forgot, they needed to be there to torpedo any chance that the rest of the world might reach a deal without them.

Scumbags. They really are scumbags.

Playing Semantics With Global Warming

Define "major emitters."

EnviroMin John Baird revealed his disingenous commitment to the fight against global warming today when he fell back on the old saw that all major emitters of greenhouse gases must agree to reduce their emissions or there'll be no deal, at least not for Canada.

Of course, Baird's con game is to ignore per capita emissions and consider solely total emissions. That completely ignores population disparities among nations. For example, India is now a "major emitter" of GHGs based on its overall population but not when you work out how much the average Indian emits compared to the average Canadian.

Baird wants a sweetheart deal for the white folks, you and me. We'll pretend we're not the real problem and haven't been for the past half century or better.

It's clearly open to the Indians to argue that they'll meet our conditions just as soon as Canada's per capita GHG emission levels come down to their own. How patently unreasonable. That would mean we'd have to cut our emissions by 90% or more, just for starters. Don't these backward (i.e. non-white) types know that we have some God-given right to be energy hogs and GHG swine? It's not our fault if they come in at a billion plus population.

Maybe what Baird should be saying is what he really means. If you want to play in our league, get rid of a billion or so of your people and then we'll have a level playing field. Now don't forget, Baird and Harper are the same Con-men who won't give up their "intensity-based" swindle for the TarSands.

Talk Is No Longer Cheap

Harper EnviroMin John Baird says he gets global warming, "Canada, like the rest of the world, needs to take immediate action." Without meaningful action, Baird's words are nothing but talk.

Ever since Stephen Harper read the polls and realized he was sailing a course to his doom, leading to his miraculous epiphany, the Cons have talked and talked and talked about global warming and the urgent need for action and have done - virtually nothing.

Harper is like the one sap who doesn't let go of the mooring rope as the balloon lifts off and hangs on and on until it's too late. That guy sees what's coming but clings to the false comfort of the rope until he can hold no longer.

Letting go, for Stephen Harper, would mean aknowledging the sine qua non of tackling global warming, carbon caps. Absolute ceilings on total production of greenhouse gases followed by strictly mandated, steady reductions in those ceilings.

The guy who hangs on to the rope as the balloon sails away cannot accept the reality that his very undoing is his hold on the rope. He can't accept that his only means to save himself is to let that rope go and accept the injury of falling over the certainty of death if he delays.

Harper's insistence on "intensity based" targets and multi-fold expansion of the Athabasca Tar Sands is the rope he cannot let go. He can't accept that Athabasca operators already exceed any tolerable level of greenhouse gas emissions. If he accepted that reality, he would release that rope while there's still time. Instead he's willing to let that balloon keep rising, urging us to be content so long as its rate of climb slows.

It's not as though he doesn't have options. For years the Big Oil operators in Athabasca have promised that, before we know it, they'll be carbon neutral. They've supposedly got all these carbon-capture technologies, already proven and on the shelf, that they can employ. Okay, fine, where are they? Surely now is put up or shut up time for Big Oil.

You see, Big Oil and Stephen Harper have a lot in common. They're all talk. For them, talk is cheap. For you and me and our kids and those who follow them, talk is no longer cheap.