Canada, the new asshat?

[rah]

Then it remains your opinion. I have never said you're wrong, just that without proof it's your opinion. You now admit to having no proof. Thank you for admitting that. IT"S AN OPINION.

[Fake Boris]

Actions speak. You just don't know them, because you do not follow Canadian politics.

[rah]

I don't have to to recognize someone running off his mouth with an opinion pushing it as god given truth. When asked for proof you claim it's not necessary and call me a moron. Real classy. I wish all the people that I debated in school had your skills.

[notyoueither]

For those who don't know, you need to burn 2-3 parts of oil to turn oil sands into viable oil. As such, exploitation of the resource means that Canada can't participate in any carbon reduction program, at all, ever, and this is Harper's number one political priority.

Only a ****ing moron could not understand this. As for "proof", I am honored to report that I don't have any intercepted email to produce, nor have I broken into any minister's phone.

The well to wheels carbon impact of oil sands petroleum used in the US market is less than some other supplies like some Nigerian and Venezualan.

You may want to check your arrogance and learn something before spouting off about who may or may not be a moron.

[notyoueither]

If all the Canadians here will post that it's common knowledge that he's a stooge of big oil, I'll concede the point to him that it's common knowledge. (even though I think the posters here are generally above average and not just common, but there are exceptions )

It is commonly expressed opinion in some quarters that the current federal government are 'stooges' for big oil/capitalism/banks/the US government or some combination thereof.

Former ministries (some Liberal) got positive reviews from the oil industry, but the stooges remark is seldom if ever used for them.

It is akin to partisan opinion in the US between Republicans and Democrats, although not as wide-spread or vitriolic (most of the time).

[rah]

That's the type of thing that I figured it was.

But since I don't fit the repug stereotype it would be wrong for people to make assumptions about me based on my party affiliation.

[Asher]

For those who don't know, you need to burn 2-3 parts of oil to turn oil sands into viable oil.

[Hauldren Collider]

I imagine Oncle Boris' understanding of Petroleum Engineering falls somewhere between his understanding of Quantum Physics and his understanding of Economics. Note: That's not actually a very wide range.

[giblets]

I don't know what is so evil about the Kyoto protocol. I guess people are just acting out of self-interest.

[notyoueither]

It's not evil. It was a very bad deal for Canada. Our PM at the time was an idiot who got into a dick measuring contest and signed us up for targets for reductions we could never meet short of stopping population and economic growth (or rapidly slowing them down).

There was the added stupidity of the previous government ratifying the treaty despite the fact that the US Senate was never going to accept the deal so we would have added costs to our industry while our major trading partners ignored the whole thing.

[notyoueither]

I'll add to that once the PM realised he had been an idiot, and Canada asked to modify its commitment, we were told to go pound salt, it was a done deal.

[notyoueither]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/john-ibbitson/kyoto-withdrawal-shames-us-all/article2269043/

Kyoto withdrawal shames us all
john ibbitson

Globe and Mail Update
Published Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011 7:00AM EST
Last updated Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011 4:56PM EST

The Harper government’s decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol tarnishes Canada before the world. Liberal and Conservative incompetence and mendacity are to blame. You and I are to blame. And Lehman Brothers had something to do with it as well.

It isn’t easy for a country to descend, in the space of a single decade, from crusader to pariah, as Canada has done on the environment. But our political leaders were up to the task.

The first, worst mistake occurred at Kyoto itself in 1997, when then prime minister Jean Chrétien told Canadian negotiators to meet or beat the American commitment, whatever it took. The problem was that while the American commitment was ambitious, Bill Clinton never expected the Senate to ratify that commitment, and he was right.

The Liberals found themselves stuck with Draconian targets that, if met, would hobble oil sands production, hammer big industry in Ontario, and send home-heating bills through the roof. Their solution was to study the issue. And study. I remember sitting through an interminable briefing in 2003, in which officials patiently explained how Canada would meet its Kyoto targets. The only problem was that there was this enormous gap, which was to be closed through “future reductions.” It was like having a household budget in which Miscellaneous was bigger than Mortgage.

We knew then, and some of us started writing, that Canada was unlikely to meet its Kyoto commitments.

When Paul Martin became prime minister, his ambitious agenda included getting Kyoto back on track while reviving Liberal fortunes in the West. This was interesting, since the two goals were mutually incompatible. But before we could assess how Prime Minister Houdini planned to pull off this amazing stunt, he was gone, and Stephen Harper was in charge.

The Conservative Prime Minister made no effort to hide his skepticism over the treaty and his determination not to allow carbon caps or carbon taxes to undermine the Canadian economy. Still, polls showed that most Canadians were deeply concerned about climate change and wanted the government to take action.

The first effort, in 2006, was such a mess that it cost Rona Ambrose her job as environment minister. After that, Mr. Harper took a personal interest in the matter, and that interest consisted of vetoing any meaningful action. The Conservatives were willing to take steps to reduce the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions, but not the actual level of emissions, which would have crimped the oil sands’ expansion plans.

And then, in 2008, the investment bank Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, and the cascading damage threw the entire developed world into recession. By then, as Darrell Bricker of Ipsos Reid observes, voter concern over climate change was already on the wane.

“Global warming peaked as an issue when Al Gore won his Academy Award in 2007, and has basically declined since,” he said Monday. “And when the economy went up the hit parade, the environment went down precipitously.”

Ipsos regularly tracks and ranks voter priorities. Concern about the environment peaked at 27 per cent in late 2007. By last summer it had plummeted to 13 per cent.

In the 2008 election, the Liberals under Stéphane Dion ran on the environment; the Conservatives ran on the economy; the economy won.

By then it was perfectly clear that Canada would never meet its Kyoto Protocol commitments. It would never come close. Rather than be formally found to be non-compliant, Environment Minister Peter Kent Monday night announced Canada was withdrawing from the accord.

Canada gave its word to the world. Canada broke its word. The final confession was as shameful as it was inevitable. No one should feel anything other than ashamed. Not the Conservatives, not the Liberals, not us.

This article is a little overwrought, but has some of the pertinent details.

The next one has a decent explanation of why Kyoto died in Canada.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/stephen-gordon/dont-blame-the-politicians-canadians-killed-kyoto/article2269390/

Don’t blame the politicians, Canadians killed Kyoto
stephen gordon

Globe and Mail Blog
Posted on Tuesday, December 13, 2011 11:37AM EST


John Ibbitson quite rightly notes in today’s Globe and Mail that there is no point in blaming politicians for Canada’s spectacular failure to meet its Kyoto obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GGE).

They were simply carrying out the mandate we gave them.

Here is what Paul Krugman put at the top of his list of Paul Samuelson’s contributions to economics:

Revealed preference: [I]t was Samuelson who taught us how much can be inferred from the simple proposition that what people choose must be something they prefer to something else they could have afforded but didn’t choose.

Notwithstanding economically illiterate attempts to pretend otherwise, higher consumer prices for GHG-emitting goods and services are an essential component of any serious attempt to reduce emissions. Counting on people to reduce GGE emissions out of the goodness of their hearts was the strategy of the Chrétien-Martin Liberal governments, and adopting this policy made Canada’s Kyoto failure inevitable long before Stephen Harper’s Conservatives came to power.

Political parties rarely win when they campaign on a platform that promises to increase the price of fossil fuels -- the Progressive Conservative government of Joe Clark lost power in large part because of its proposal to increase the gasoline excise tax by 18 cents a gallon (4 cents a litre).

We all know the fate of Stéphane Dion’s Green Shift (pdf), the most recent attempt to increase the price of GGEs. The Conservatives and NDP joined forces in an unlikely alliance to denounce higher prices for fossil fuels and to claim that their alternatives would not inconvenience households. Jack Layton even promised that under a NDP government, a federal ombudsman would ensure that the costs of its climate change policy would not be passed on to consumers.

Indeed, the trend has gone the other way in recent elections -- look at the various proposals to remove the GST or HST from greenhouse-gas-emitting activities.

It doesn’t matter what Canadians tell pollsters about how much they are concerned with climate change; what matters is the choices we make. And whenever we have been offered the choice of accepting personal inconvenience in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or of making sure that fossil fuels are cheap and plentiful, we have consistently and overwhelmingly chosen the latter.

And politicians have paid attention.

[Uncle Sparky]

I vote we boycott all countries stupid enough to still be with Kyoto. I'm just shamed Canada was ever part.

Could Alberta pleeeeeeaaase seperate and let Canada not suck anymore?

Harper used to favour a firewall around Alberta - could you light it please?

[Asher]

I'm not opposed to that, frankly.

Alberta can survive on its own. Keeping a little more of our own money wouldn't hurt. We'd have to adopt either the Canadian currency or the US currency, which has its own complications, of course.

I don't know if it's worth the headache. It's easier for everyone if Alberta remains part of Canada but has full autonomy within its borders and is revenue neutral. The schtick of pocketing Alberta's money while ignorantly whining about everything Alberta gets old. There is genuinely very little concept to most Canadians of how much Alberta contributes to the nation. Certainly far more than its fair share. And I'm not just referring to tax revenues, but economic growth and jobs as well.

A very large number of jobs in central Canada exist to support operations in Alberta.

[Asher]

Let's put this climate talk **** in perspective.

If Canada ceased to exist and had zero emissions, the world would be in the exact same boat it is today. And it would be in the exact same boat 100 years from now.

Canada is small enough that our emissions are a ridiculously tiny portion of the world GHG, and the real problem is in India and China. Not only because of their growth, but because they don't have the same environmental regulations Canada has. The hysteria over Kyoto is by people who are too stupid to comprehend how the world works.

These people are asking tens or hundreds of thousands of Canadians to lose their jobs, they're asking every Canadian to pay far more to heat their house in the winter, they're asking for the government to raise taxes so we can send billions of dollars to other nations in a flawed credit system. And for what? A 0.002% decrease in global GHG?

How does that make sense to anyone with a head on their shoulders?