The Decencies We Owe Others

The Decencies We Owe Others. That, according to Guardian environment pundit, George Monbiot, is what the "angry men" of the denialist community rail against in their war to derail the global warming campaign:

[Copenhagen] is a meeting about chemicals: the greenhouse gases insulating the atmosphere. But it is also a battle between two world views. The angry men who seek to derail this agreement, and all such limits on their self-fulfilment, have understood this better than we have. A new movement, most visible in North America and Australia, but now apparent everywhere, demands to trample on the lives of others as if this were a human right. It will not be constrained by taxes, gun laws, regulations, health and safety, especially by environmental restraints. It knows that fossil fuels have granted the universal ape amplification beyond its Palaeolithic dreams. For a moment, a marvellous, frontier moment, they allowed us to live in blissful mindlessness.

The angry men know that this golden age has gone; but they cannot find the words for the constraints they hate. Clutching their copies of Atlas Shrugged, they flail around, accusing those who would impede them of communism, fascism, religiosity, misanthropy, but knowing at heart that these restrictions are driven by something far more repulsive to the unrestrained man: the decencies we owe to other human beings.

Humanity is no longer split between conservatives and liberals, reactionaries and progressives, though both sides are informed by the older politics. Today the battle lines are drawn between expanders and restrainers; those who believe that there should be no impediments and those who believe that we must live within limits. The vicious battles we have seen so far between greens and climate change deniers, road safety campaigners and speed freaks, real grassroots groups and corporate-sponsored astroturfers are just the beginning. This war will become much uglier as people kick against the limits that decency demands.

I suspect that those who "get" the global warming crisis already have a sense of the undeclared war now quietly underway that Monbiot describes. I think we've felt its presence for some time even as most of us chose to dismiss the Denialists as simply uninformed, misguided on anthropogenic global warming.

The world has indeed reached a point where GHG emissions is but one of a number of vexing issues we're going to have to confront. For example, take fisheries and collapsing global fish stocks. More than three billion people rely on these fish stocks as their main or sole source of protein. Yet we're steadily fishing our way down the food chain and emptying large parts of our oceans. We bottom trawl, devastating the seabed on which so much marine life depends. We hunt species without regard to bycatch that is caught, killed and dumped over the side like so much garbage. And now we're acidifying the oceans so rapidly, especially the more absorbent northern oceans, that fish stocks essential to the marine food chain may soon be virtually eliminated. It's a chain. You break a link and it may be broken entirely.

The mentality the Denialists are showing, the war they're quietly and so effectively waging, will be refought on each of these secondary and collateral issues. Monbiot is right. This is a fight to define humanity and that's a fight we can't afford to lose. We have to uphold and respect the decencies we owe others.

The Tehran Smoking Gun?

"If these documents are genuine... ."

The Times of London has published what it claims to be a leaked Iranian memo suggesting that the country was indeed working on a nuclear weapon as recently as 2007. The document refers to uranium deuteride or UD3, a neutron source specifically used in atomic weapons.

Now the question becomes, "is this document genuine?" Is it something ginned up by a Western or Israeli intelligence agency? It's not as though the media, particularly the right wing variety, haven't been willing dupes for this sort of thing before.

Remember WMDs and Iraq? Hopelessly doctored nonsense but, run it in the media a half dozen times, and it becomes accepted truth.

Afghanistan - Two Years and Out, Everybody

Whenever I read of politicians or generals spouting off about Afghanistan I'm reminded of that old saying about how everyone's entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts. I think we're much too often fed opinions that are based on either outright lies or incomplete facts cherry picked and deployed in isolation.

For example consider Hamid Karzai. No one ever wants to address the total futility of "the mission" to Afghanistan in the context of the criminal enterprise that is the Karzai government. Let's face it. With the help of some of the most despicable, brutal warlords in a country full of despicable, brutal warlords, Karzai stole the last election. His very office is a proceed of crime and yet we're turning to Hamid, expecting him to purge corruption from the Afghan government which, of course, will necessitate purging the criminality and corruption rife in the Afghan economy at the same time. This guy is a glorified mayor of Kabul, governing only at the sufferance of thugs, murderers and rank criminals, and we expect him to get rid of them? C'mon.

Then there's this fantasy of a nascent Afghan National Army. This, most warlike nation has had eight years to field an army capable of defending the place. We've provided training, weaponry, money, the lot. After eight long years, the Afghan National Army ought at the very least to be able to train its own recruits. It ought to be able to field an effective, independent force to fight the Taliban.

Look at it this way. If you were footing the bill for your kid's university education and, after eight years, he/she told you they were making great progress toward that BA and wouldn't need your help at all in just another 15-years, what would you do?

Let's face facts. These guys are jerking our chain. They've grown dependent on our civilian and military support. We enable them to rake in fortunes from the drug trade while we hold the Taliban at bay for them. For an Afghan, this is the ultimate gravy train. And that, sadly, is how Hamid Karzai continues to cling to power.

Enough nonsense. These guys can build as a good an army as they want to build within two years, max. Watch how fast they do just that when we tell them we're gone in two years. The tribal elders won't be sending their village idiots down to the recruiting centres any longer. The locals won't be indifferent to the enormous desertion problem anymore either. Not when the only chain they'll have left to jerk is their own.

It's Time to Go To the Tapes

I'm really puzzled at what happened to Canadian sci-fi author Peter Watts at the Port Huron border crossing. The only facts that seem really clear are that he was stopped by US customs officers. They searched his car. He got out and apparently didn't immediately respond when ordered to get back in. He was arrested, charged with assaulting some customs officer and then released, sans car or coat, the following day on the Sarnia side.

Watts has given an account that seems a little vague on some pertinent details. Some information doesn't appear to be there which makes his account a bit puzzling. I can't say that he's not being honest but I can't say he's telling the entire story either. This was obviously a fast-moving, unexpected and even traumatic event so it's probably unfair to expect Watts to deliver a fully comprehensive narrative.

Why don't the Americans simply release the closed-circuit video they're bound to have of what actually happened at Watts' car. We know that they constantly video everything that goes on at their border crossings. Surely the video will fill in the detail that Watts hasn't yet provided. If he's right, that he was the one assaulted, that should be apparent.

Something Rotten in the State of Denmark?

Copenhagen is unravelling. The rich nations (aka the "major emitters") and the African nations are at loggerheads with the Africans accusing the West of trying to subvert Kyoto at their expense. From The Guardian:

The confrontation in Copenhagen began when the Africa group called a press conference in the Bella centre. Seven countries, led by Algeria and including South Africa and Nigeria, said that rich countries were trying to collapse the Kyoto protocol.

This followed moves by Japan, Australia and other rich countries at the weekend who argued that a new single treaty had to be presented to heads of state to be signed.

Developing countries fear that rich nations will ensure that a new treaty will not place strict and legally binding commitments on the developed countries to cut their emissions, unlike the Kyoto protocol.

Victor Fodeke, head of the Nigerian special climate change unit, said any attempt to remove the Kyoto track would be disastrous for the talks. "Africa is on death row. It has been sidelined by some countries. If there is any attempt to remove one of the tracks of negotiations, then it's obvious the train will crash."

"This is of paramount importance. We cannot, we can never accept the killing of the Kyoto protocol. It will mean the killing of Africa," said another spokesman for the group.

And there's the nub of it, the narrative that could come back to haunt us, the idea that we in the richest nations are inflicting devastation upon the poorest and that we're utterly indifferent to their suffering. That's the sort of message that can radicalize people, particularly when it's true.

I'm Wrong, Michael Ignatieff's Right

It's all my fault. I didn't get what he was really talking about when he praised Athabasca's bitumen as a "key to national unity" in Canada. The Tar Sands, or rather the Tar Sands greenhouse gas emissions, or rather the rapidly expanding Tar Sands greenhouse gas emissions may just be the key to unlocking Canada's fragile national unity.

Provinces like Ontario and Quebec, British Columbia and Manitoba are beginning to suspect the Wiley Harper, Canada's top coyote, will end up slipping them the carbon bill for Alberta and Saskatchewan's Tar Sands production. From the Toronto Star:

"I don't think it takes a genius to figure out that ... they want to continue to develop those (oil sands) and obviously if they are developed there may have to be larger greenhouse gas emission (cuts) elsewhere in the country in order to meet our targets," Ontario Environment Minister John Gerretsen told reporters Sunday.

It may be hard for governments in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Manitoba to remain chummy with oil-rich provinces if they feel they're taking a hit for a tarsands boom. "Whether or not it's going to be the next national unity issue, I'll leave that to the columnists," Gerretsen said.

Let's face it. When it comes to avoiding at all costs the greenhouse gas problem, the Wiley Harper is trying to pound 10-pounds of wet crap into a 5-pound paper bag. That's why he's proposing an emissions cut protocol that's weaker than our initial Kyoto obligations. Remember that line about how figures don't lie but liars figure. In this case Harper has merely changed the figures, going for a 2006 baseline instead of the 1990 baseline specified by Kyoto.

Harper may just be hand-delivering to the Liberals the greatest Christmas gift they could ever hope for, a wedge issue that could reverberate through every province the Libs need to reclaim. It would be dandy if the Libs had a leader who was on the right side of this argument but I suppose there's always time for that.

I know how to solve this, an idea even the Liberals can understand. Simply adopt the German approach to emissions regulation, what they call the "budget approach." Count the legs, divide by two, and then tell each province this is your carbon budget and this is your share and this is your share and so on. After all, doesn't that conform to the treasured Canadian value of universality? Of course it does.

If this issue gains traction, the next government won't be Conservative and it can tackle the "20 by 20 from 2006" chicanery. That never was more than a bookkeeping entry conjured up by a minority government without consultation with either the opposition parties or the provinces. There is absolutely no consensus on that notion and the Wiley Harper knows it.

It was disappointing to read Paul Martin's comments on the Tar Sands this weekend. He wants them expanded and he wants the emissions problem put on Washington's books because, after all, the US is getting that oil. Guess who would love that idea? China. India and China. They'd love it because it would let them offload their emissions onto the countries buying their stuff and, judging by the shelves at WalMart, that'd be us. I still like Paul Martin but this was one of the most boneheaded ideas I've ever heard come out of his head.

Crips and Bloods - Afghan Style

In some ways Afghanistan resembles a gang war. It's a bit like a Crips versus Bloods sort of thing only with the cops siding with one gang against the other. A battle between gangs wearing reversible clothes, one side red, the other side blue.


From everything I've managed to read, Afghanistan was and remains a warlord society. Safely-retired general Rick Hillier spoke warmly of these warlords even calling them some of the finest fighters he'd ever met. That's Rick for you, always looking on the bright side.


There are plenty of lesser warlords but the big ones you could count on two hands. Karzai is one. Others include Gul Agha Shirzai, Dostum, Fahim, Hekmatyar and Haqqani. Some are Crips, some are Bloods. The trick is figuring out which is which at any given time. There are a couple of traits that appear common to Afghan warlords - cruelty and treachery. They keep one eye on which way the wind is blowing and they have a habit of changing sides on whim. It is said there doesn't exist a major warlord in Afghanistan who hasn't, at one time or another, been allied with or at war with every other warlord.


The point I'm trying to make is that you're not going to find a lot of clean hands in Afghanistan. Finding an ally over there often is very much a "my enemy's enemy" sort of thing. You can't be too picky or you might wind up allied with nobody and, when you're babysitting a civil war, that's not a good thing.


There's a fascinating article in this month's Harper's magazine entitled The Master of Spin Boldak, undercover with Afghanistan's drug trafficking Border Police, by Canadian freelance writer Matthieu Aikins. It relates Aikins travels from Pakistan into Afghanistan and his meeting with Colonel Abdul Razik, the leader of a tribal militia and head of the border police in a region spanning Kandahar and Helmand provinces. Just 30-years old, Colonel Razik is the most powerful Afghan Border Police commander in the two provinces that produce 80% of Afghanistan's opium crop that, in turn, furnishes 90% of the world market for illicit opiads.


With the collapse of the central government in the early 1990s, Kandahar descended into anarchy. Local warlords divided up and pillaged the province. Even the city of Kandahar itself was split among several commanders, and throughout the province roads were strangled by hundreds of checkpoints at which theft, rape, and murder were common.


It was in reaction to such depredations by the warlords that the Taliban emerged, in 1994, from the districts around Kandahar city. Their first major victory was the capture of Spin Boldak on October 12, 1994, an event encouraged by the Pakistani trucking mafia, who saw the group as a means of clearing the roads north to Central Asia.


Canadian forces have been active in Spin Boldak since they arrived in Kandahar province. As Aiken points out, ISAF commanders have come to rely on Colonel Razik despite his involvement in smuggling and drug trafficking because he opposes the Taliban. They go along to get along but, it may be a short-sighted policy.


A grim irony of the rising pro-Taliban sentiments in the south is that the United States and its allies often returned to power the same forces responsible for the worst period in southerners’ memory—the post–Soviet “mujahideen nights.” In the case of Gul Agha Shirzai (now governor of Nangarhar but still a major force in Kandahar), the same man occupied the exact same position; in the case of Razik, nephew of the notorious Mansour, it is the restoration of an heir. By installing these characters and then protecting them by force of arms, the ISAF has come to be associated, in the minds of many Afghans, with their criminality and abuses. “We’re doing the Taliban’s work for them,” said one international official with years of experience in counternarcotics here....


“We were facing the worst-case scenario in 2006—a conventional takeover by Taliban forces,” said Brigadier General Jonathan Vance, the Canadian commander of ISAF forces in Kandahar Province. He was proud that his country’s small contingent had been able to hold the insurgency more or less at bay. But he admitted that the life of the average Kandahari had become less secure as the Taliban began to tighten their grip on Kandahar city. “I don’t have the capacity to make sure someone doesn’t rip their guts out at night.”


Military officers like General Vance find themselves in a peculiar fix when confronted with characters like Abdul Razik. These entrenched figures hold posts or wear uniforms whose legitimacy must be respected. But many of those who maintain their power through corruption and coercion were originally installed by the U.S. military—a fact not lost on Afghans, who tend to have longer memories than Westerners here on nine- or twelve-month rotations.


I asked General Vance if he was aware that Razik was directly involved in the drug trade. “Yes,” he said. “We are completely aware that there are a number of illicit activities being run out of that border station.” He had few illusions about Razik, with whom he interacts directly. “He runs effective security ops that are designed to make sure that the business end of his life runs smoothly, and there is a collateral effect on public order,” he told me. “Ideally, it should be the other way around. The tragedy of Kandahar is that it’s hard to find that paragon of civic virtue.”


The irony of our "mission" to Afghanistan is that we truly cannot defend the ordinary people and the people we can defend, the corrupt and criminal class, aren't worth it.

When he announced the mission to Kandahar, the Big Cod, Rick Hillier, puffed himself up and said our soldiers were going to "kill scumbags." He left out the part about only killing the scumbags on one side while backing the scumbags on the other.

"Prevaricating Peter" MacKay Under a Microscope

The Ottawa Citizen's veteran reporter Sue Riley has done a terrific job putting Peter MacKay, or at least his honesty and integrity, under a microscope. Trust me, it's not a pretty sight.

What the Germans Know About Arresting Climate Change

The Germans know that human nature, or at least that strain of it that evolves into the nature of state governments, is inherently ill-suited to implementing effective measures to confront global problems, especially when those 'problems' affect each state differently.

The Germans also know that there are invaluable resources such as our oceans and our atmosphere that can belong to no one and, hence, must be taken as belonging to everyone, living and yet to come, equally. No nation has the right to lay claim to our atmosphere or the life-supporting resources it holds - the oxygen, the wind, the humidity; all those things that sustain life as we know it.

Once you accept that the atmosphere is a common asset to which all mankind, now living and those to come, has an equal claim you have the basis for an agreement to effectively arrest anthropogenic global warming. The key lies in equality for that alone establishes the common interest in a challenge that affects each corner of the earth differently, in some cases very differently.

Without acting in recognition that the atmosphere is indeed a commons, you revert to the mentality of a passenger in an overloaded lifeboat focusing on what you have to do to ensure you're not the one pitched overboard all the while the boat continues to ship water.

We're all climate change sinners, except perhaps those who live pre-industrial lifestyles such as nomadic herders of the sub-Sahara. I'm not championing a return to the pre-industrial era even if that was possible (which, blessedly, it's not). To the contrary, I think the global warming challenge presents us with an example of mankind's essential interest in acting collectively to find ways to live in balance with our planet, our biosphere.

We're not going to ditch our post-industrial way of life but we are going to change our way of life or it will be changed for us. Smoking three packs a day is not good for you and if you want to continue to enjoy life, you're going to have to quit. Oh, sure, it may not get you but the odds are overwhelming that it will.

At the moment we're chain-smoking carbon as never before and the projections show that we're going to be up to four, maybe five packs a day in another decade or two. Essentially, we're poisoning the atmosphere and, through that, indirectly poisoning ourselves. Sane people would say, "this has to stop."

Quitting smoking isn't easy. Trust me, I know. Quitting our carbon addiction will be even tougher, by a wide margin, than giving up tobacco. We live in a civilization built on fossil fuels and, for centuries, have nurtured a growing dependency that's now reached toxicity. We have to reach out for alternative energy and, instead of fretting about transitional impacts on our economy, we should delight in simply having alternatives at all. Yes it will cause some disruption of our economy and, yes, we may have to rethink our 19th century economic models and prejudices, but there is life after carbon and it could be significantly better than the best we've had so far.

Big Oil and Big Coal, reprising the role of Big Tobacco, aren't going without a fight. As long as they can detect the scent of carbon addiction, they're going to fight and fight fiercely to feed it. They'll know when they're done when we tell them they're done and this Denialism campaign they're waging now is intended to forestall that day for as long as possible. They don't have science on their side but they have powerful weaponry such as wealth and greed and fear in their arsenal and decades of experience in how to wield them.

I think it's time all of us started listening to the Germans. We need to learn and understand what they know. The more you learn of their approach, the sooner you'll be convinced that it's really the only way.

Remember this. Switching to an alternative fuel economy and an alternative fuel society probably isn't going to get easier with time. It won't get safer with time. It won't get less disruptive with time. One thing we don't have in abundance is time.

Rest assured we will find a solution to the global warming problem because we really don't have a choice. The great unknown is what solutions will remain available to us when we're finally prepared to act or forced to act. The best solutions probably slipped through our fingers in the 60's when we didn't know any better. In the half century since then the carbon problem has grown enormously and our range of solutions is narrower and potentially costlier. Without courageous action the problem is going to worsen significantly and the solutions will become fewer, more costly and potentially even dangerous.

If They Didn't Know, They're Much Too Stupid to Govern and Lead

You don't have to dig very deep to learn that torture is commonplace in Afghan prisons and detention centres. There's an abundance of evidence that those delivered into the hands of Afghan gaolers were indeed tortured for the usual reason torture is employed - to coerce confessions.

What I found particularly troubling was a survey of Afghan security officials undertaken by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Organization in 2006. Barely one in six officials surveyed understood that torture was illegal. One in six. If five out of six don't know that torture is illegal, what are the chances that torture will be rampant among those delivered into their hands?

The second most common purpose of torture in Afghan prisons? Money. AIHRO reports that many captives were tortured to pressure their families to come up with bribes.

All along we've known that the Afghan government and its officials were as bent as a bad nail. We knew from the top down that the power structure was rife with crime and corruption. We knew that they freely predated their own people. From everything we knew of them, what made us think - even for a moment - that we could trust them not to torture detainees we turned over to them?

I hope that the prime minister, his defence ministers and foreign ministers and all his top generals acted out of sheer boneheaded stupidity. I hope that because the alternative is really hard to contemplate.

Torture? "A Commonplace Practice" In Afghan Institutions

It seems that the only people who weren't aware that detainees faced almost certain torture were Harper, MacKay and their general staff officers. Here's what the Afghan Independent Human Rights Organization reports on torture in Afghan prisons found:

Torture is prohibited by the Afghan Constitution and the Afghan Penal Code, and the
various international treaties, to which Afghanistan is a party, have banned torture and
other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. Although torture is considered an act
against human dignity, an egregious violation of human rights, and part of crimes against
humanity, the findings of this study indicate that torture is a commonplace practice in
Afghanistan’s law enforcement institutions...

...One of the constraints this study faces is the collection of cases of torture by law
enforcement institutions that have been verified. What it means is that due to
administrative corruption and the influence exerted by powerful persons, few such cases are investigated. In some instances, for example, prison or detention center officers hid victims or kept them away from the Commission’s reach. Research on victims of torture in these institutions is, therefore, very difficult and complicated. The other limitation is that all victims do not complain against torture and that is because complaints are not followed up, leading to disillusionment in victims.

...Human Rights Watch (H.R.W.) expressed its serious concern over acts of torture by Afghan forces againstprisoners in its report “Enduring Freedom” Abuses by U.S. Forces in Afghanistan4 inMarch 2004. In its study, H.R.W. states that according to its researchers who have visited prisons, met victims, or interviewed human rights monitors, torture in prisons and
detention centers under the control of Afghan forces is an ordinary, widespread matter. It
also says those suspected or accused of collaborating with Taliban and anti-government
elements constitute the majority of the tortured persons. Based on another report by this
organization, torture of prisoners is commonplace in prisons under the control of police
and security departments in Herat and other western provinces.5


...The findings of this research reveal that torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment are a commonplace practice in the majority of law enforcement institutions and that at least 98.5% of interviewees believed they had been tortured by these institutions. The causal factors of torture in law enforcement institutions include:

• Obtaining confession and testimony from the suspected or accused person
• No means to prove crime
• Inadequate professionals and lack of necessary training in this area
• Lack of such techniques as collecting evidences and documents to prove crime
• Bribery and financial gain
• Personal enmities and the influence of powerful persons
• Impunity of torturers


...Institutions where torture is common include police (security, justice, traffic), national security, detention centers, prisons, prosecution office, and national army. In addition, these include criminal investigation departments, departments of police, districts, and
sections of police.


Torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment are mostly perpetrated in law
enforcement institutions to obtain confessions and testimonies. Lack of means to prove
crime, personal enmities, administrative corruption and financial gain, lack of knowledge
of officers of the rights of the suspected and accused persons, lack of knowledge of the
suspected persons of their rights, lack of follow-up of torture cases, legal lacunae
regarding torture, and inadequacy of professional cadres in criminal investigation
departments are the major causal factors of torture and other inhuman treatment, which
are discussed in the following.


Lack of follow-up of torture cases and victim complaints is a basic reason why torture
and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment are widespread in law enforcement
institutions. According to the responses provided by officers, the obstacles preventing the
follow-up of these cases include failure of officers to implement laws, legal ambiguities,
lack of facilities to prove crime, interference of powerful persons, and other reasons like
bribery, lack of professional cadres, and favoritism in governmental organizations. About
99% of interviewed officers believe that torture cases are not followed up because of the
aforesaid causes. Of those, failure to implement laws, interference of powerful persons,
and lack of facilities to prove crime are at the top of answers.

Based on the responses given by victims of torture, judges do not pay heed to the
observations that the accused persons have confessed under the conditions of torture.

...in the questionnaires filled out by officers, only 17.4% of them
have stated that they are aware of the right against torture. They are not clear and
unanimous on what constitutes torture.

...The methods of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, which are
common in Afghanistan, are generally violent and horrible. The tools used to torture
victims are vehemently inhuman and against human dignity. These methods range from
punching, kicking, slapping, and humiliation to flogging by cable and electric shock,
sometimes leading to a victim’s unconsciousness and death.

The Global Warming Debate - Science Pushes Back

The stock in trade of global warming Denialists is to circulate long lists of impressive-sounding characters who attack the science as a hoax. The Denialists know their lists never withstand scrutiny but that's not important because the gullible dupes they want to reach don't question that sort of thing anyway.

The Denialists have made every effort to derail the climate change effort by conning up a few, cherry picked e-mails, presenting them out of context, and calling the whole, sorry business "climategate."

In Britain, science is striking back. The Associated Press reports that over 1,700 British scientists have signed a forceful letter that asserts that climate change is unquestionably happening and is indeed man-made:

"We, members of the U.K. science community, have the utmost confidence in the observational evidence for global warming and the scientific basis for concluding that it is due primarily to human activities. The evidence and the science are deep and extensive," the statement posted to the Met Office Web site said.

"They come from decades of painstaking and meticulous research, by many thousands of scientists across the world who adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity."

Two Too Much for Tuvalu

The tiny island state of Tuvalu and other vulnerable nations representing more than half the countries on earth (the half that doesn't count) have rejected the 2 degree Celsius climate "guard rail" target of the industrialized and developing world. These countries want the ceiling set no higher than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The dissenters warn they won't sign any deal based on a 2 degree C target.

Unfortunately, a 1.5 degree cap isn't technologically feasible. That would require reducing existing atmospheric CO2, currently at 387 ppm, to 350 parts per million virtually overnight. There is no technology today capable of stripping carbon emissions from the atmosphere.

The dissenting group includes the 43-members of the Alliance of Small Island States backed by another 48 of the least developed countries, many from sub-Saharan Africa.

Today the Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), a grouping of 43 of the smallest and most vulnerable countries, including Tuvalu, said any rise of more than 1.5C was not negotiable at Copenhagen.

"We have two research stations, one in the Pacific and one in the Caribbean. They both suggest a rise of 2C is completely untenable for us," said Dessima Williams, a Grenadian diplomat speaking for Aosis.

"Our islands are disappearing, our coral reefs are bleaching, we are losing our fish supplies. We bring empirical evidence to Copenhagen of what climate change is doing now to our states," she said.

The Germans - And Their Convincing Case on Climate Change

The German Advisory Council on Global Change has presented some truly fine reports and papers on change - not just global warming - but much broader changes underway that mankind is going to have to collectively address if we're to preserve our civilization. Have no doubt on this - our civilization is at stake.

In Solving the Climate Dilemma: The Budget Approach, the WBGU report foresees the very sort of horsetrading that's already broken out at Copenhagen and the Council has explained the perils inherent in that. Here are a few excerpts:


So far, in their preparations for Copenhagen, the world's countries have clung to their usual long-winded approach, in which complex interests are weighed up in minute detail. The major polluters lay the responsibility at each other's doors: China and the Least Developed Countries, point to the high per-capita emissions produced by the industrialized economies and their emissions based economic growth since the Industrial Revolution. Meanwhile the industrialized countries emphasise that China is now the largest emitter of GHGs and that emissions in the developing regions, especially Asia, will increase substantially in the future...


This "Gordian Knot of climate policy" - a knot tied mainly by the USA, the EU, China and the G77 countries - can be described in terms of game theory as a 'social dilemma'; rationally justified individual preferences lead collectively to an outcome whereby all players end up worse off in the future and furthermore - in the case of climate change - sustain massive and irreversible damage. Unless the key players rise above the tactics of self-interest at the forthcoming climate negotiations, 'dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system' can no longer be prevented.


...even for the majority of developing countries, persisting with fossil-fuel-driven growth is no longer an option if dangerous climate change is to be averted. Economic and social development must be decoupled from greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.


But any future attempt to accomplish this based on the present model of international climate policy would require all 192-signatories to the UNFCCC to negotiate emissions reduction targets for around 100 countries! The process is at risk of deteriorating into a 'talking shop' in which negotiators haggle over every decimal point and comma at marathon bargaining sessions even as global warming spirals out of control.


The Council proposes that a carbon budget regime be established based on three principles: the 'polluter pay' principle, the precautionary principle, and the principle of equality.


The polluter pay principle is obvious. "...industrialized countries have a particular responsibility to cut their greenhouse gas emissions due to their high cumulative emissions in the past. Unless the industrialized countries act on this responsibility, no global climate treaty will be achieved."

The precautionary principle is a common acceptance that emissions budgets must be established to stay within the targeted 2C "guard rail." "...The global emissions budget, capped by the 2 degree C guard rail, requires not only the industrialized countries but also the newly-industrializing and developing countries to adopt a course toward a low-carbon future."

It's the third principle, the principle of equality, that's going to be hardest to accept by people like Stephen Harper and most of the US Congress. "The principle of equality - which postulates individuals' equal rights, without distinction, to the benefits of the global commons - is recognized by many countries but is not yet enshrined in law.

...From a theory of justice perspective, this concern does not permit any differentiation based on national or individual interests. It requires emissions to be allocated in a manner which reflects the interests of the global community and humankind as a whole. The principle of equality cannot be used to derive an individually enforceable right to equal per-capita emissions, but it does imply that equity in per-capita emissions should be the basis for the allocation of national emissions budgets."

The Council doesn't claim that its budget proposal is the best in every respect. It claims that the budget approach is the only vehicle to achieve an effective carbon emissions reduction regime in time to make a difference. It has to be simple in order to be universal, verifiable and enforceable. Nothing else is going to work.

The Council gives a warning about political sleight-of-hand at Copenhagen resulting in apparently positive agreements to slash emissions that will actually see emissions rise substantially in the future. The examples given are too long to reproduce in this post but they do describe some of what we're already seeing played out at Copenhagen.

As I'm working my way through these German reports I keep coming back to the question of why my country hasn't provided my countrymen with this same quality of information. The answer is always the same. This is a discussion they don't want us to have and keeping this information from us is all about seeing to just that. When it comes to the Harper government, an informed public is an unwelcome, even dangerous thing to be avoided whenever possible.

But Where Are They Now - What Happened To Those Detainees?

There's no doubt anymore, no matter how hard the Harper Cons shut their eyes and stomp their feet, that Afghan detainees captured by understrength Canadian troops and handed over to Afghan authorities were tortured. The important word is the last one - "tortured."

That Afghan authorities would resort to torture should be a given. The fine points of human rights have never been vigorously embraced in warlord-driven societies and by governments assessed as "criminal enterprises."

It would have been a different story had Canada held the detainees in a Canadian POW facility but you can't have everything when you're trying to wage war on half a shoestring. As our bemedalled jackasses at home put in publicity appearances at Stanley Cup hockey games not once did they use their celebrity to tell Canadians that they needed a lot more troops to handle Kandahar. No, they left their soldiers - the grunts they're supposedly so devoted to - to make do without enough of anything. (And from everything I read, the media were fully complicit in this; going along to get along) But I digress.

What I want to know is just where are those detainees today? In our civilized notion of war, detainees are either released or they're imprisoned in a POW facility. Yet it doesn't appear that our civilized rules of war are widely embraced among the Afghan authorities. If they rob their own villagers and bugger those villagers' young sons in public, what fate befalls suspected Taliban insurgents who spend months or even years in some Afghan gulag?

By some accounts, a lot of captured Taliban fighters are simply released on payments of bribes, shuffled out the back door to fight and kill again. What about innocent villagers mistakenly detained? Who pays their bribes? How many of the detainees are quietly disposed of when we've finally lost interest? How many of the detainees that we've captured and logged over the years are still being held and in what condition? How many have been released and why?

Accounts of the secret prisons operated by American authorities in Afghanistan including the infamous Salt Pit, Black jail and Dark prison suggest that the Afghans aren't the only torturers who've plied their trade over there.

I've begun making enquiries of outfits such as Human Rights Watch to try and get some answers to the questions I've raised here.

What seems obvious is that, if you deal with the butcher, you have to be prepared to pay the Butcher's Price.

Are BC's Vanishing Salmon Victims of Global Warming?

10-million sockeye salmon were expected to return to the Fraser River to spawn this year. 9-million didn't show.

A team of ocean fisheries experts seeking to unravel the mystery now think global warming may be the cause of British Columbia's vanishing salmon stocks.

Food-poor ocean waters warmed by climate change likely played a significant role in the death of millions of sockeye salmon in British Columbia's Fraser River ahead of what was supposed to be a bumper year, says a scientific think-tank.

A group of more than 20 ocean and ecology experts gathered in Vancouver this week to discuss possible explanations for this year's salmon collapse and announced their assessment Wednesday, saying they want to keep the issue afloat with a judicial inquiry approaching.

Last month, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed a B.C. Supreme Court judge to probe the collapse of the stocks, but the scientists say there's much work that can be done in the meantime.

The group recommended improved forecasting, more ocean-based marine research and a more precautionary approach to fisheries management.

Read more here.

Finally, A Clear Way to See Climate Change

From now on you'll be able to "see" the relentless march of climate change on our planet. As the video below shows, it's now been indexed much as we index stock markets. Presented this way, the picture is brutally clear.




You can get more information from the IGBP by visiting their website.

Harper's Take on Climate Change - Throw Another Deck on the Cottage

Stephen Harper takes global warming very seriously. The proof can be found in the team of experts the pm airlifted to Copenhagen, a team that features Gemini-award winning, TV handyman, Mike Holmes.

You're kidding me. A carpenter. I guess if he can fix a leaky roof, anthropogenic global warming should be a snap.

What's the matter, Steve. Was Joe the Plumber already taken?

(photo - Holmes on Parliament Hill after completing a dandy restoration on Gary Lunn's lifts)

Other Than That, Mrs. Lincoln, How Was The Play?

It seems that Alberta fears the Harper Conservatives may throw them to the wolves at the UN climate summit underway in Copenhagen. Concerned enough anyway that Special Ed Stelmach has dispatched his own EnviroMin, Rob Renner, to Copenhagen to spread the news about Alberta's wondrous Athabasca Tar Sands.

"I'm going to Copenhagen as a proud Albertan," he said. "Protesters and those who posture will use the grand stage at Copenhagen to launch low blows at our province.

"However, Alberta can hold its head high as a responsible major global energy producer already acting to make real greenhouse gas reductions."

Mr. Renner said Alberta shouldn't receive "any kind of special concessions" in Copenhagen, but neither should it be "singled out" over oil and gas activity in other jurisdictions such as Venezuela and California.

I don't think Mr. Renner needs to worry about Albertga getting "any kind of special concessions" in Copenhagen. There's about as much chance of that as there is of him convincing anyone that Athabasca is climate change friendly.

Whose Atmosphere Is It Anyway? - Ours, That's Whose

The Copenhagen climate summit was always about one thing above all else - deciding who owns the atmosphere.

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution the industrialized, Western world has emitted an enormous volume of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, at least half of its total carrying capacity. Now that we're working on the bottom half the question of just who can claim that atmosphere is coming to the forefront.

The Third World position is clear and it's morally justifiable. They're willing to spot the West all the emissions we've chucked into the air since we got hooked on coal and steampower but they want the remaining half allocated on a per capita basis. That way everyone would have the same emissions quota and the same caps.

But the West, it seems, has other ideas. Documents leaked to The Guardian reveal a plot underway to skew carbon emission allocations heavily in favour of the West at the expense of the Third World. The draft provides that poor countries would be capped at 1.44 tonnes of carbon per person by 2050 while the rich countries (that's us) would enjoy a more generous allocation of 2.67 tonnes of GHG emissions.

Not surprisingly the poor countries don't like getting treated as second-class nations. But what adds insult to injury is the proposal to wrest control of climate change financing from the United Nations and into the hands of the World Bank, again controlled by the rich West.

Maybe Iggy Is Right, Sort Of...

Tar Sands booster Michael Ignatieff has lauded bitumen as a key to national unity.

Well Mike, it might just be a key to unlocking our fragile national unity and unleashing the hounds of separatism. Or is that not quite what you had in mind?

CBC News reports that Quebec sovereigntists are using Canada's abysmal greenhouse gas record and the climate change issue to argue for the breakup of our country:

...The Parti Québécois issued the sovereigntist call to arms on the hot-button issue Monday as Prime Minister Stephen Harper prepared to attend the environmental conference at Copenhagen.

The PQ argued in an open letter that if international sanctions are eventually imposed on environmental laggards, "Canada's irrresponsible position" could wind up hurting Quebec industry.

...One political scientist said the climate-change issue may have presented sovereigntists with an ideal wedge to drive between Quebec and Canada.

"There is a distinct disconnect here between the Quebec position and the federal position based on interests that are very easy to identify and understand," said Pierre Martin of the Université de Montréal.

Copenhagen On the Rocks

This could just be the leak of all time.

The fix is in. The richest countries are planning to grab the lion's share of the planet's carbon carrying capacity. The document was leaked to The Guardian:

...leaked documents ...show world leaders will next week be asked to sign an agreement that hands more power to rich countries and sidelines the UN's role in all future climate change negotiations.

The document also sets unequal limits on per capita carbon emissions for developed and developing countries in 2050; meaning that people in rich countries would be permitted to emit nearly twice as much under the proposals.

...The draft hands effective control of climate change finance to the World Bank; would abandon the Kyoto protocol – the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions; and would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent on them taking a range of actions.

The document was described last night by one senior diplomat as "a very dangerous document for developing countries. It is a fundamental reworking of the UN balance of obligations. It is to be superimposed without discussion on the talks".

"It is being done in secret. Clearly the intention is to get [Barack] Obama and the leaders of other rich countries to muscle it through when they arrive next week. It effectively is the end of the UN process," said one diplomat, who asked to remain nameless.

Readers of this blog may recall that I expected something like this would happen. In a post, "Whose Atmosphere Is It Anyway?" I feared that the West would move to lock in its priority claim to the lion's share of the atmosphere's remaining carbon carrying capacity.

I hope the Germans will scuttle this subterfuge. Germany backs the Third World position that the atmosphere is a common resource that should be budgeted on a per capita basis. Germany also proposes the concept of a "global commons" to govern use of the atmosphere and oceans under a charge for use principle.

The Flat Earth Society Won't Like This One

Those hustlers and charlatans who call themselves the World Meteorological Organization have spoken. All that talk about "global cooling" the lunatic Right drools on about is - bullshit.

Despite recent fluctuations in global temperature year to year, which fueled claims of global cooling, a sustained global warming trend shows no signs of ending, according to new analysis by the World Meteorological Organization made public on Tuesday.

The decade of the 2000s is very likely the warmest decade in the modern record, dating back 150 years, according to a provisional summary of climate conditions near the end of 2009, the organization said.

The period from 2000 through 2009 has been “warmer than the 1990s, which were warmer than the 1980s and so on,” said Michel Jarraud, the secretary general of the international weather agency...

While the WMO is still waiting for a few more weeks of data to come in, it looks as though 2009 will turn out to be the fifth warmest year on record.

The EPA Finally Finds Greenhouse Gases Dangerous

Well Washington's mountain has finally come to Mohammed. America's Environmental Protection Agency has spoken. The EPA has officially ruled that global warming has endangered the health and welfare of Americans and must be reduced.

Was this the EPA's Homer Simpson moment? Not really but it is a reflection of how America's environment agency was hogtied during the Republican Reign of Terror. McClatchey Newspapers notes that the EPA has a lot of catching up to do, years in fact:

Monday's finding means that the EPA will proceed with preparations to regulate large producers of greenhouse gas emissions. Those rules could take effect if Congress doesn't pass legislation.
Nonetheless, it probably would be years before new EPA rules took effect for existing coal-fired power plants, the main source of heat-trapping gases. The Obama administration prefers to have Congress do that work through a climate and energy law.

The EPA's action follows a 2007 Supreme Court decision that ordered a reluctant Bush administration to determine whether greenhouse gases endanger America's health and welfare. The court ruled that if the EPA found that the pollution was dangerous, it was required under the Clean Air Act to tackle the problem. Monday's announcement was the agency's final decision on this "endangerment finding."

Naturally, America's neo-con far Right (also known as the "Total Nutjobs") isn't taking this lying down:

The Competitive Enterprise Institute said it would sue to get the endangerment finding overturned on the grounds that the EPA ignored issues raised in what it calls Climategate. The institute is a policy group that advocates small government and runs a blog that argues that climate change isn't a serious problem.

I Finally Got Useful Climate Change Information

I tried. I contacted EnviroCan for information about climate change generally and Canada in particular. I tried several times to get some sort of forecast of what was heading our way. Not that they didn't reply. It's just that all they gave back were empty platitudes.

Today, on the opening day of the Copenhagen climate change summit, I found my mailbox stuffed with a large parcel from the WBGU or Wissenschaftlicher Beirat Globale Umweltveranderungen (German Advisory Council on Global Change). This is the very conservative physicist Angela Merkel's climate change team.

Six publications, almost an inch thick. "Future Bioenergy and Sustainable Land Use; Solving the Climate Dilemma: The Budget Approach; Climate Protection Strategies for the 21st Century: Kyoto and Beyond; The Future Oceans - Warming Up, Rising High, Turning Sour;
Charging the Use of Global Commons; Climate Change as a Security Risk."

I've only been able to glance through them so far but they are very impressive - well thought out, well researched, well presented - formidable.

If you're looking for anything comparable from your own government, don't hold your breath. Harper is busy trying to run interferemce for Athabasca. The last thing he's going to do is allow Canada's best and brightest government climate scientists to speak openly and plainly to the Canadian people.

Our government is a disgrace and it has brought shame upon the public service and just as much shame upon you and me. Oh well, at least the Germans don't mind sending us this information - in English - absolutely free of charge.

Next War, Bring Fewer Generals

General Sir Richard Gannet isn't all that impressed with president Obama's strategy for Afghanistan. Oh he's all for more troops. That part he likes. He doesn't like the timetable part, especially the idea that Obama may call it off in three years.

The Afghan war has been a dandy parlor game for a battery of Western generals. It's been a nice place to get their tickets punched before they sail off into retirement. The best part is that they never really had to accomplish anything... and so they didn't.

The worst kept secret of the Afghan war, obvious since 2002, was that the Western effort was grossly understrength. Grossly as in gross negligence. How many of these puffed up general officers stood up for the line soldiers under fire to resign in protest over this farce? How many of them raged at the incompetent management of this war even as, for eight years, the enemy strength grew and ours didn't?

Did they demand that the folks at home make things right? No. Instead they fed gullible reporters a rich diet of fairy tales about how we had the insurgents on the run. Now that the Bush/Cheney/Blair regime is gone they've suddenly found the courage to criticize - anyone but the generals themselves.

War is a result-oriented activity. Generals are expected to win. If they don't win, they're losers. In Afghanistan the West has had plenty of generals but not one winner among them. They were never playing to win and they knew it.

In the next war I think we ought to select a general to command the fighting until either victory is secured or he/she is relieved in disgrace. Those are the sort of conditions that bring forth Rommels and Pattons.

The Climate Change Movement's Achilles' Heel

Climate change campaigns have a fatal flaw. They fail to offer a credible, coherent vision for what life would be like after our economy and society decarbonize. That's asking people to take a leap of faith without giving them anything assuring to look forward to.

By failing to deliver a vision, climate campaigners leave that field wide open to the denialists and they're making the most of that opportunity. Not only are they sowing doubt about the basic science itself, they're depicting a dark, impoverished world awaiting those who buy into the global warming theory. And they're getting away with it because the climate campaigners aren't fighting back. They're focused almost exclusively on defending the global warming science which, though valid, simply isn't good enough in the battle for the hearts and minds of the public.

I'm guessing here but I'm sure the denialists are well aware they won't win the science argument. That would take clear, verifiable research that they've never been able to muster. If it was there, you would know all about it by now, that much is sure. But the denialists realize they don't have to win the science battle if they can win the war to control public opinion. All they really need to do is to make the public sufficiently worried and fearful to be unwilling to embrace climate change action.

The denialists main arguments, readily aped by their gullible followers, are that climate change action will impoverish society, will take away everything we've come to enjoy. The end of the world as we know it. A massive transfer of wealth to the undeserving. We'll all be reduced to living in mud huts cooking over dung fires sort of thing. By keeping the science community on the defensive with every imaginable specious argument about the theory itself, the denialists are free to go on a fear offensive in the public relations forum.

Unfortunately, the science community was never set up to fight on this second front which, at the end of the day, may turn out to be the decisive battle. I'm pretty sure the denialists are betting on just that.

Climate Change - Look At It This Way

The denialists have been as busy as a mining camp hooker on payday in the runup to the Copenhagen climate summit. All of the bright lights of the denialist/skeptic community have been making the rounds, sowing doubt and dissent to undermine the overwhelming scientific consensus that man-made global warming has reached a critical point at which it presents an existential threat to our very civilization if not halted and reversed.

A telling aspect of these denialists is the lack of coherence and consensus in their narrative. When it comes to opinions, they're all over the board and, in fact, they often contradict or even dismiss each other's claims. Some accept the warming part, others contend the earth is cooling; some see change as man-made, others point to natural causes; some see the science as valid, others see a grand global conspiracy to perpetrate a hoax.. the list goes on and on. The Guardian has published a summary of some key skeptic/denialists and their scattershot opinions. If you don't like the idea that the global warming theory is true, well there's something for everybody at the Denialists' Bazaar. Help yourself.

The newspaper also published a companion piece setting out some expert thoughts that just might help you inform your opinion on the global warming problem and what we must do about it. Here are a couple of passages I thought helpful.

Benjamin Habib, visiting fellow, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia is of the view that the upshot of global warming is that we must abandon the perpetual economic growth paradigm:

This is extremely confronting to conservatives, who by definition prefer the status quo. When presented with this reality, it is easier for them to deny the existence of global warming outright. The light version of denial is adopted by the techno-fix crowd, who believe that new technologies or an alternative energy source will allow us to maintain growing economies indefinitely. The laws of physics, chemistry and biology dictate that proponents of both positions are fundamentally mistaken. The only viable solutions are ones which acknowledge the obvious limits of the Earth as a closed, finite system. Unfortunately this is a practical, psychological and spiritual task for which conservatives are ill-prepared.

Professor emeritus Peter Gardiner argues that we really need to see our way through the confusion sowed by the Denialists:

...deniers use the inherent uncertainty of scientific data to suggest that risk is therefore equally uncertain and in some way balanced. But it isn't. Acting unnecessarily on carbon reduction risks a few percent of GDP. Not acting risks catastrophe, global economic warfare, starvation and bloodshed.

Not everyone understands Bernoulli's principle, or demands proof that aeroplane wings create lift. Planes are flying, after all. So why deny climate change? Polar ice is melting, after all. Each of 20 other streams of evidence is equally compelling. And if some climate change is from natural CO2 sources, why exacerbate the problem, using oil which will run out anyway, just as we ruin the planet?

I fear that Dr. Habib is right. The only viable solutions to global warming are those that recognize the physical limits of the Earth as a closed, finite system. That reality is as plain as day. The Earth is unquestionably a closed, finite system.

You can only stuff so many college students into a Volkswagen. You can stuff only so much greenhouse gas into our atmosphere. Accepting that fact makes the argument for carbon budgeting instead of a hodgepodge of conditional emissions reductions targets obscured by a layer of cap and trade nonsense. Another term for carbon budgeting is carbon rationing. Budgeting is rationing and, like it or not, we're heading there if we're to have any hope of avoiding the worst.

This One's For Jim Morton

Okay Jim. Two more polar bears. Born this morning at Zoo Sauvage in Quebec. The births are captured in video available at the Zoo's website. Here's a pic of mom and her first boy:

Is Copenhagen Already a Failure?

Don't bother, please don't. That's the reaction of some key figures in the climate science/global warming movement to what they've been hearing is to be offered up at the Copenhagen global warming summit next week.

The head of the United Nations climate office, Yvo de Boer, says the numbers being put forward by the major emitters fall well short of scientific assessments of what will be needed to avoid the worst impacts of global warming. de Boer wants the major emitters to significantly increase emissions reductions.

America's chief climate scientist, NASA Goddard Institute chief James Hansen, hopes that Copenhagen is a total failure. Hansen told The Guardian that he fears the major emitters may strike a weak deal that will lull the world into a disastrous complacency.

In Hansen's view, dealing with climate change allows no room for the compromises that rule the world of elected politics. "This is analagous to the issue of slavery faced by Abraham Lincoln or the issue of Nazism faced by Winston Churchill," he said. "On those kind of issues you cannot compromise. You can't say let's reduce slavery, let's find a compromise and reduce it 50% or reduce it 40%."

He added: "We don't have a leader who is able to grasp it and say what is really needed. Instead we are trying to continue business as usual."

Hansen's view is reinforced by Angela Merkel's climate change advisory panel that favours strict budgeting of all future carbon emissions, a quota system that would require major emitters to largely decarbonize their economies and societies within a few decades at most.

Summit host, Denmark, made climate change news today when the Danish government had to rush through a law to thwart carbon-trading fraud.

Let's Make All TV "Pay For View"

I no longer want 'free' TV. I think what's pawned off as free simply costs too much. It's essentially worthless but it costs me too much and it costs my society far too much.

If there's something on CBC, CTV or Global that I really want to see, let me pay for it. If there isn't, let them find someone else to buy it.

I don't watch much Canadian network television or, for that matter, the American nets either. That's because most of the shows they offer are drivel or simply re-runs of some quality HBO series that I saw at least twice on pay TV a year or two earlier. The last thing I need to see on Canadian TV channels is crap American reality show programming - American Idol, Survivor, Bridezilla, So You Think You Can Dance, Big Brother... the list goes on.

There are some shows, such as The Fifth Estate, that I do watch but I'll happily pay for those.

Canadian television news isn't bad, it's awful. It's misleading, it's biased, it's inaccurate, it's incomplete - utter crap and, sadly, that goes for CBC too. I didn't come to this opinion recently. The crushing truth of this came to me more than 35-years back when I "moved up" from a radio newsroom to a CBC television newsroom. That's when I learned the brutal reality of "infoTainment" news. Shit, garbage, crap, nonsense. If news to you means actual information, you're going to have to work for it, you're going to have to read it. If you want to look at pictures, get a comic book - that's far more reliable and honest.

Canadian network TV doesn't even put out good porn. Compared to what's on the internet who wants to watch a clapped out, hack reporter blow the prime minister for a senate seat?

Most of the programming I do watch I already pay for anyway. The History Channel, Documentary Channel, Discovery Channel, movie channels, PBS, BBC, that sort of thing. My TV world begins around channel 24 and I rarely delve below that. If I do want to go into the broadcasting bargain basement I'll happily pay for access when and as.

Here's the kicker. Imagine a world in which CBC, CTV and Global actually had to produce programming good enough that people would willingly subscribe to it. Do you think those networks would remotely resemble what they look like today? Of course not because then they'd be in a different business altogether. They'd be in the business of delivering something you actually wanted to buy. They would have to ditch every piece of crap that people now watch because it's there, it's free and "there's nothing on TV" anyway. Why should we have to put up with a menu where the main ingredient in every dish is crap just because they get a special deal on crap from the American networks?

In case you're wondering, this current rant is fueled by the war now underway between Canadian broadcasters and the Canadian cable industry over filching an extra $10 a month from cable subscribers to make it more lucrative than ever for Canadian networks to spoonfeed us crap American reality shows. If they can't hawk that shit free, they've got a damned nerve coming to me with their hands out. Americans don't have to pay for their crap, they get it free. Why should Canadians have to pay a premium so Canadian broadcasters can give them the very same crap? I just don't get it.

How to Fix the Tar Sands

Here's an idea. Call it a fair compromise.

Many countries around the world produce oil. No one is going to call on them to stop producing and I guess that's reasonable. But why not work out each country's carbon footprint per barrel of oil produced and use that to fund environmental remediation?

We know the Saudis pump sweet crude right out of the ground that needs almost no refining. so let's take the Saudi per barrel carbon footprint as the baseline. From that number we can work out the excess carbon production of each other country's oil industry.

That excess carbon will have to be accounted for and rectified by the producer either through actual carbon sequestration or by legitimate carbon trading if necessary.

That sounds fair doesn't it?

Well just float that idea past Steve Harper or Ed Stelmach and watch how fast they get the green apple two step. It'd be worth a buck and a half to watch those two clowns race each other for the biffy. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

While you're at it you might also require these oil producers to front the necessary money for site remediation - restoring top soil, getting rid of those ugly tailing ponds, preventing carcinogens and toxins from leaching into the ground water.

That popping sound you hear is the bursting of skulls of the Tar Barons in Calgary.

When Excuses Just Don't Cut It Anymore

We've heard all the excuses used to argue against meaningful Canadian action to curb greenhouse gas emissions. One by one they're falling apart.

A big argument is that we're really a small country in terms of overall emissions. Ergo, emission cuts from Canada will be insignificant in the greater scheme of things. Why bother?

Why? Because it's called "global" warming. It's a global problem and, with our massive carbon footprint, the Canadian people are fully instrumental in the fate that's already befalling the poorest and most powerless who happen to live in regions most vulnerable to the effects of our collective carbon emissions. You and me and every other Canadian gets a full share of responsibility for the suffering, displacement and death that's happening and will continue to spread elsewhere on this planet (just not here so much quite yet).

Sure China and India are bigger emitters than Canada but their populations are vastly bigger than us and their per capita emissions are vastly smaller than ours.

Back in the pre-Harper days when Canada had a hard and well-earned reputation as an honest broker instead of a member of Washington's posse, we didn't base our contribution to global security on our small population. Could you imagine if we contributed peacekeeping forces based on our percentage of the global population? "Let's see, we're one half of one percent, so we'll be sending... four soldiers."

When it comes to anthropogenic global warming the only thing that matters is that we are fully instrumental in the problem. Hiding behind our relatively small population is craven, downright cowardly.

The all too convenient silence from the opposition benches leaves me with a sickening suspicion that I can see where our country is heading on this most important problem. I expect inaction and duplicity from Stephen Harper but it's Michael Ignatieff and Jack Layton who truly make me a little sad and a little ashamed to be Canadian.

Falling Back Is Not a Winning Strategy

Canadian forces in Afghanistan are getting a new mission. They're to fall back in defence of Kandahar City. From The Globe & Mail:

The idea behind the “ring of stability” -- or “doughnut of stability”, one soldier suggested as a more distinctly Canadian brand -- is to barricade the increasingly violent city against insurgent activity. Gen. Menard expects the ring to be in place by May, the annual start of fighting season in the country and roughly 14 months before Canada is slated to end all combat operations in Afghanistan.

Under the revised strategy, Kandahar's core will be left up to Afghanistan army and police forces, with considerable backup from U.S. military police mentors.

So it's "man the ramparts" time. That "ring of stability" is little more that circling the wagons. That is inherently defensive which means that the other side, the insurgency, is on the offensive which means they also hold the initiative. We're not taking the fight to them. We don't have to. They're going to bring it to us - when and where and how they choose. We have to spread out an already limited force to cover all approaches in case the bad guys decide to attack where we're not.

This more closely resembles a standard civil war than an insurgency. Insurgents are supposed to be kept on the defensive. We're supposed to hunt them down, fix them in place and then take the fight to them.

Japan Latest To Feel Sting of Giant Jellyfish

They're massive and they wreak havoc on fish stocks wherever they appear. Right now, Japan is the newest country to play host to swarms of giant jellyfish turning up in its waters.

This video from The Guardian illustrates what Japan is up against.


And yes, warming ocean waters caused by global warming is believed responsible for the spread of these monsters into Japanese home waters.

Mallick on Monbiot

Writing in The Guardian, CBC veteran pundit Heather Mallick weighed in on George Monbiot's op-ed piece slamming Canada as a "corrupt petro-state."

Out of something as misty as mere indecision, Canadian voters have turned their country into a political freak show. Canada's Conservative government, run by an ideologue named Stephen Harper, does not represent Canadian voters on saving the air we breathe and temperatures we can cope with. When it comes to climate change, Canadians are as earnest and decent as they ever were.

Yes, Canada's record on carbon emissions is disgraceful, shameful, loathsome etc. The tar sands of northern Alberta are an international scandal. But the problem is not in a former Prius of a country turning into a Hummer. Canada's dilemma is... ...the decline of a democracy (partly as its media died, thank you Conrad Black) and the descent of a nation into a political stasis, and it could happen to any country that doesn't mind the political store. What takes place when a nation can't decide on a government and lets a rightwing minority, quivering with hate, have just enough power?

Catastrophe, that's what.

...We have shamed our better natures. But we Canadians will rid ourselves of Harper and rise again to be the decent and intelligent nation you Brits once patronised with such delight.

Australia Ditches Carbon Emissions Legislation

Australia's centre-right (does that sound familiar?) Liberal Party has blocked prime minister Kevin Rudd's climate change legislation, sending it to defeat in the Australian Senate.

Liberal party opposition leader Tony Abbott says Australia should limit its greenhouse gas reduction targets to five per cent by 2020.

Rather than call a general election, Rudd says he'll re-introduce the legislation in February for a second vote. Then if it fails Australians will go to the polls.

So Many Wars, So Little Time

To hear Barack Obama tell it, the US will begin drawing down its troop force in Afghanistan at roughly the same time as the Canadian military starts packing its bags to come home. Yeah, sure.

Listening to the president's address last night it came across not as an explanation but more of an announcement. Obama announced what, why, who, where, when and - supposedly - for how long. The "what" was whatever Americans have come to mean by the word "surge." That word has taken on near magical connotations in the US since Petraeus first hitched it to the notion of victory in Iraq, one of the best sleight of hand feats in recent memory. Who - 30,000, where - Afghanistan of course, silly, when - ASAP, why - gotta turn things around and defend population centres, and, for how long - three years (The Good Lord willing and the Creek (indians, not river) don't rise).

Now an explanation would have opened Obama to some interesting questions. Here's one. How do you fight an insurgency/rebellion by falling back on population centres? While the US was holding the North Vietnamese at bay, they weren't doing it from the suburbs of Saigon. They fought those forces in the field where they massed and along their supply line, the Ho Chi Minh trail.

When you fall back on population centres you surrender vital territory and hand the bad guys the initiative. Then again, when you have a resurgent enemy coupled with a grossly understrength force even with the "surge" you really don't have much choice but to fall back but make no mistake, that's not a sign of progress much less victory. Yielding territory and population to an insurgency is a tacit defeat. That is the very key that transforms an insurgency into a civil war which begins taking us back to Afghanistan, pre-9/11. Yippee!

There was an interesting exchange last night on The Daily Show. Jon Stewart's guest was Thomas Friedman who came to the studio fresh from a correspondents' lunch at the White House where Obama gave his guests a rundown on the policy he would announce that night. I often disagree with Friedman except when I don't (yes, I know how that sounds) and last night was one of those exceptions.

Friedman noted that Obama's plan is to take the current insurgency, add more troops, and get to a place where the Afghan government can keep al-Qaeda out of that country for good. He then pointed out that, without a viable Afghan government rid of paralyzing corruption, capable of delivering services and actually governing, that end goal was a hash pipedream. In other words, you can't get there from here so long as a Karzai government persists.

Unfortunately Obama's military advisers seem as myopic as his announced policy. Three years? There's an enormous, under-resourced amount of work to do in just three years. You have to virtually go to war on the Kabul government. You have to beat back and beat down the insurgency. And you have to generate winning conditions for Islamabad's war against its own Pashtun insurrection in the tribal lands (without, somehow, empowering Pakistan to crush the Baloch uprising that you oh so quietly actually can support). Just getting a decent start on all those wars within three years will be a Herculean challenge.

But, here's the kicker. You've said it. You've announced "three years." Whoopsie! In that one statement you've created an array of expectations. Every affected party is going to enter "three years" into their own calculator and see what comes out. Every one - Kabul, Islamabad, Pakistan's duplicitous military intelligence, the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the Baloch, India, every antsy warlord, the drug lords and the smugglers. This does not bode well for the future.

Are We Programmed to Fail This Time?

Are we programmed to fail the global warming challenge? Is this how we reach the end of the road?

If, as the science community increasingly warns us, our rapacious appetite for a hydro-carbon based economy and society is an existential threat to our civilization then surely we would want solutions, right? And if those solutions entailed decarbonizing our economy and our society, then that's what we'd want, right?

Wrong.

Human nature suggests that people aren't inclined to give up anything they do like for something they don't like until they feel the sting of the lash. We're not born to sacrifice. We amass and consume and hoard, that's instinctive, but we're not so good at denying ourself too many things. We're even less inclined to deny ourselves stuff when we perceive the benefit of our sacrifice goes mainly to others, especially people who may not even exist just yet. And there's the rub.

The people who stand as the first victims of global warming have a lot of common characteristics - common among themselves but not common with us. They're mainly (by our standards anyway) poor, relatively powerless and they have the misfortune to live in places that are particularly vulnerable to early onset climate change. They also tend to be people who have contributed the least to atmospheric carbon emissions. I suppose you could say they're the cleanest people - poor and powerless and oh so vulnerable but nonetheless clean.

We, on the other hand, aren't clean. We are responsible for the lion's share of the atmospheric carbon emissions that are already beginning to beset the poor, powerless and vulnerable. While we may not be clean, we have the consolation prize of being rich and powerful and far less vulnerable than those annoyingly clean people. We're also relatively immune from the ravages of early onset climate change.

What that means is that Mother Nature's ultimate dirty trick is to have us be last to feel the sting of the global warming lash. That greatly increases the odds that we, the very nations that have to give up our carbon-fueled ways, will face the most disincentives to do just that. Oh I'm sure we will reach the point where we will do it but will that be in time? Recent developments don't give much cause for optimism. Between the Denialists and the Intransigents there results in a great inertia that first must be overcome. Added to that is the measure of soft support for global warming initiatives even among those who say they get it. There's a critical gap between "getting it" and being willing to accept the sacrifices necessary to make a difference.

All I Want for Christmas is The Rapture

Dear God:

I would've written to Santa but I think this is more your sort of thing.

Is there any chance of getting you to send The Rapture for Christmas this year? Christmas Eve, Rapture time. That means I'll be able to get up Christmas morning to find you've swept these insane, fundamentalist bastards completely off my planet. Then, once they're gone, fixing the world's problems should be a snap for the rational people who'll be left.

I know this is asking a lot but, while you're at it, could you vacuum up fundamentalists of all stripes? You know, take all the nutjobs - Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Shinto - the lot.

Not only will you scrape that evangelical shit off our boots but you'll turn every agnostic into a true believer - just like that!

Thanks Big Guy, and I hope you have a very merry Christmas.

Fight Climate Change - Do It For the Kids

One reason that getting meaningful Canadian public support to fight climate change is so hard is that it's not killing our kids - yet. But it is killing other peoples' kids and soon it'll be killing a lot more of them. Save the Children Canada has just released a report entitled Feeling the Heat, Child Survival in a Changing Climate.

It's not a pleasant read but don't let that put you off. It's only 31 pages long, about 24 pages of actual text.

You really should read the Save the Children report because next month the big and powerful nations will be writing the fate of millions of children in the poorest and most vulnerable countries in our world.

This report should be mandatory reading for every political reprobate who casts Canada as a fossil fuel energy superpower for the 21st century.

The Number Crunchers Weigh In - We're Losing the Battle to Meet our Carbon Budgets

It's too bad that Steve "Mr. Head Up His Ass" Harper still sees the climate change problem in the context of vague targets factored into intensity-based emissions growth. I guess it's the bitumen-coloured glasses that Steve uses to see his world.

A considerable effort has been made to come up with a more rational approach - budgeting. It works from the enshrined two degree celsius target for limiting global warming and then works out just how much additional CO2 mankind can put into the atmosphere by 2050 before it exceeds that limit. Kind of makes sense, no? Yes.

Enter Price Waterhouse Coopers, mega bean counters, top drawer. What PwC has done is to work out what emissions reductions are required from each G20 member state if we're to meet that 2 degree Celsius warming budget. They're working on a window that runs from 2008 to 2050.

The PwC report reveals that G20 nations are falling seriously behind the carbon emission reductions they'll need to meet the 2050 target. PwC says we've fallen so far behind the 2% annual reductions target that meeting the 2050 target will now require an average annual decarbonizing of 3.5% - each and every year from now to 2050. Of course some nations (no names will be mentioned) are worse than others and need even greater emissions cuts.

You can follow the link above to the report but the real telling stuff is in the PDF graphics linked on the right hand side of the page. Check those out and you'll get a good idea of where our beloved True North Strong and Free stands. Trust me, it won't make you proud.

Steve, You Weren't Supposed to Make Canada a Disgrace

There we go. The Guardian's George Monbiot has said the obvious - Canada is a disgrace. The veteran climate writer says Canada is to the environment what Japan is to whaling.

"Until now I believed that the nation that has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada," Monbiot writes. "Unless we can stop it, the harm done by Canada in December 2009 will outweigh a century of good works."

"Unless we can stop it"? By "we" I assume he doesn't mean the two-legged lethargies that lead the Liberal Party and the New Democrats.

"It feels odd to be writing this. The immediate threat to the global effort to sustain a peaceful and stable world comes not from Saudi Arabia or Iran or China. It comes from Canada."

Obama's Folly? Maybe

Barack Obama is going to order another 34,000 American soldiers sent to Afghanistan. It seems he's also passing the hat around NATO trying to scrounge up additional troops.

It seems that Afghanistan is president Obama's baby now but the important questions still haven't been answered.

Even with the 20,000 additional troops Obama quietly added since taking office, this latest top up still falls far short of what's needed to 'defeat' the metastasized insurgency. So what is he intent on achieving? What does he expect his generals to deliver? What's the next step if they don't?

Look at it this way. If your kid did his chores as well as these generals have done theirs, you'd cut off his allowance. They're already working on Year Nine and what have they got to show for it? Are they ahead militarily? No, anything but. Are they ahead politically? No, again it's worse. Is Afghanistan ahead socially or economically? No. These bemedalled pinheads have achieved virtually nothing. They haven't even held the line. The other side, the Bad Guys, has been winning while our side, Karzai and Co. (also the Bad Guys), has been rotted out through corruption and outright crime.

So, if your kid had done his chores as well as these generals have done theirs, would you be handing him a six pack and the keys to the Corvette? Is that what Obama has done? Maybe but I somehow doubt it. He made a decision but was it mainly a military decision or was it mainly a political decision? I'd bet it was a decision heavily dominated by political considerations. The military decision would've been the Corvette and six pack option. I don't think Obama is looking to channel the spirit of Lyndon Johnson.

We need to see what strings are attached to this reinforcement. I'm sure that's the question that's foremost on the mind of the Taliban leadership too which is why I wouldn't count on Obama showing his cards anytime soon. We'll get some story today but it won't be the whole story. It might not even be the real story.

What's the bottom line? The generals can drool on about a 15 or 20-year war but those same jokers never fill in the part about how they're going to win their 20-year bacchanal. Most of these guys will be in diapers by then (if The Rapture doesn't get'em first).

There has to be a bottom line and it's up to Obama to set it. If he doesn't set it, these 21st century generals never will. And that, kids, is what I think this reinforcement is all about. I think this is how Obama gets to set the bottom line. This is the "put up or shut up" moment for the Pentagon. Now it's up to them to deliver or wear the failure that is and will continue to be Afghanistan.