Photo Credit: mirror.co.uk

It is unfortunate that it takes a natural disaster like the earthquake in Haiti for the international community to come together. Perhaps if there were more natural disasters caused by global warming there would have been more accomplished in Copenhagen at the most recent summit on climate change. It seems a growing trend in international politics is to only react when there is a disaster. There seems to be no thought invested in preventing the disaster. Not that an earthquake can be prevented, but global warming can be. And although I am using a horrible tragedy to shamelessly discuss global warming, the prospect of global warming happening could wipe out most of the northern hemisphere. Is there a plan in place to deal with that kind of tragedy? Is there a plan in place to deal with the billions of displaced people suddenly clamoring into the South? I doubt it. We will be just that, clamoring on in, busting over the Rio Grande.
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Photo Credit: Blacknight Solutions

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…The famous opening phrase to Charles Dickens’ novel “A Tale Of Two Cities” was applied to the times in which Dickens lived, but it probably also applies to all periods in history, including our own. This past year represents both the best of times and the worst of times for us. What follows are a few random snapshots of the past year, representing both the good times and the bad.
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Photo Credit: imgur.com

For the second time, Governor General Michaëlle Jean has acceded to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s request to prorogue Parliament. This is dangerous, to say the least, as on both occasions Mr. Harper used prorogation to dodge accountability and to retain power. Given this, I am forced to conclude that Governor General Michaëlle Jean is weak, incompetent, or colluding with Mr. Harper.

Canada is facing serious difficulties on many fronts, from a still faltering economy to climate change to world issues (we are still at war in Afghanistan, last time I checked), so the idea of Parliament taking a two-month holiday is inappropriate at best, dangerous more accurately.

I am no constitutional scholar. I am simply a practical man seeing that Canada’s democracy is not functioning well, and may in fact be in danger. Some constitutional scholars think the same: “parliamentary democracy is in danger.”
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It’s finally the end of the Copenhagen climate change summit. I don’t know about anyone else, but I had my hopes up. After almost two weeks of high-level collaborative teamwork you’d expect something more to show for it than the sooty remains of a huge carbon footprint. To be fair, our world leaders have come up with an insight that is staggering in its implications (see #2… no pun intended): “Deep cuts in global emissions are required.” I thought we already figured that part out. Oh snap! But wait, there’s more! The U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon tells us that, “although the accord may not be what everyone had hoped for, it is a beginning.” Apparently Kyoto is now passé; in 1997, I thought it was a beginning. In spite of my disappointment at the outcome of the conference, however, I can rest easy because Canada’s Minister of the Environment, Jim Prentice, assures me that this not legally binding accord is “an excellent agreement.” With Canada’s record of escalating carbon emissions each year since the Kyoto Accord was signed – a 27% increase from 1990 benchmark levels – how can I not feel good about this?
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The CBC's Rex Murphy.
Photo Credit: National Speakers Bureau

I returned to my favorite blog-site intending to write about the fortunate stupidity of Iranian Mullahs in further undermining their legitimacy this bloody weekend when I found Brian Gordon, yet again railing against the CBC. To recap on Brian’s views, he wishes that media were fact-checked for scientific accuracy and that only scientifically accurate data and historical truths where such truths are held in consensus are reported. Despite our mutual antagonism Brian and I are not, at heart, ideologically opposed. Still, I felt the need to respond to him, again, because the consequences of his “vision” for Canadian media are ultimately totalitarian. There are traditionally two paths to totalitarianism: informed religiosity, and uninformed naivety. The views of Mr. Gordon represent the latter. Regardless, Brian and I both agree that there is an imminent threat to human survival due to global warming and exponential human growth, we both disdain the CBC and Rex Murphy (though for different reasons), and we don’t think much of the supposed intellectual abilities of professing Christians. On the subject of ontology we also agree that there is “truth” and that such truth must be discernible, replicable, and observable. To us it is clear that our species is going to soon run out of space and food, it is clear that gravity is a force, and it is clear that evolution drives all life on this planet. To any thinking and enlightened person truth does not come from the ridiculous and silly texts of sheep-herders, nor does it come from some “expert’s opinion.” There are truths that people don’t like (for example, that generally speaking, men are stronger than women) and truths that they do (for example men generally live shorter lives than women). Truth is held not by people but by evidence.
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Terminology from George Orwell’s classic novel 1984 often gets thrown around in politics. For instance, it’s not unusual to hear those on the Left claim the state’s monopoly of public surveillance, such as the cameras in London or homeland security bills in the USA, are signs of a looming Big Brother. It’s also not unusual to hear those on Right alluding to thoughtcrime whenever they’re being accused of human rights violations.

But perhaps the doubleplusgood thinkers of them all are the Ministers of the Conservative Party of Canada. While not specifically using the terminology with any particular proficiency, these parliamentarians recently exemplified their understanding of the novel in what can only be described as a textbook case of espousing doublethink. In the novel, doublethink means to accept and believe information (espoused by the state) that one rationally knows to be contradictory. The case in point? Copenhagen.

Once upon a time there was a quaint little climate summit in the quaint little country of Denmark. Statesmen, and stateswomen, from all over the world came to negotiate an accord that would hopefully save the planet’s environment from spinning wildly out of control into the fiery depths of hell. Canada, as the sovereign country occupying the world’s second largest land mass, would naturally have a lot invested in the crisis, as its vast territory covers an array of starkly different ecosystems, including that of the Arctic, where Canada’s iconic polar bear has recently been seeing less seal than Heidi Klum on a weekend.
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Truth or Consequence

In a previous post, I slagged the CBC and Rex Murphy for spouting climate denier nonsense. The response from the CBC was interesting, including the claim that the CBC was not obligated “to determine what is ‘truth’.” Truth was in quotation marks because the writer, the Executive Producer of The National, is of the view that truth is subjective; there is no such thing as objective truth. Several of the commenters wholeheartedly supported this view, which I mocked the lot of them for. It is amazing democracy has survived this long.

Let’s try again. I hold the belief that some things are true, that there is truth. Facts are true. For example: The Earth revolves around the Sun. Or, Smoking greatly increases the risk of getting cancer. Certain principles are also true, such as “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal….” If you don’t believe that some things are true, how do you get through the day?
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Should they share the blame?
Photo Credit: The Age

As the world turns its attention to the climax of the climate summit in Copenhagen this week, it is worth considering some of the criticism that has been aimed at the Canadian government over the last month or so. Much of it has been vitriolic in nature and seemingly unrelenting in the build up to the meeting in the Danish capital. And as has been the case in the preceding months, much of it has centred on the issue of the Athabasca Oil Sands and the lingering fallout from Canada’s failure to adhere to their Kyoto pledge of lowering carbon emissions. The question though, is whether this sustained anger is justified?

George Monbiot, writing for the British Guardian newspaper last month, declared that ‘’this thuggish petro-state is today the greatest obstacle to a deal in Copenhagen.” And while Monbiot is known by some in his home country for his reactionary journalism and bluntly made points, it was still enough to provoke a reply from the Canadian government. In an article, also published in the Guardian, Jim Prentice, Canada’s minister for the environment, claimed “Canada will continue to play an active and constructive role at Copenhagen.” Prentice’s claims seem to have been in earnest, as UN climate change chief Yvo de Boer commented last week that Canada has been “negotiating very constructively” in Copenhagen.
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Embattled Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Photo Credit: CBC

In a span of just a few short weeks, Stephen Harper and his minority Conservative government have demonstrated a near total lack of credibility on two important issues which have dominated Canadian news – their stance on the environment and their knowledge and involvement in the alleged torture of detainees in Afghanistan.

The two issues are not by themselves connected, but they have managed to induce Mr. Harper and his government to deal with them in a strikingly similar fashion; that is, they first vehemently deny that any such issues exist, then they categorically refute that they have played any role in creating or contributing to the existence of these issues, and finally they attempt to downplay any legitimacy of the criticisms cast against them for their inability to deal forthrightly with the repercussions of their actions and or inactions once the issues and the government’s complicity with them have been exposed.
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Rex Murphy's View of the Earth

In a recent post, I pointed out that Rex Murphy is spouting climate denial based on the testimony of two self-annointed climate ‘experts,’ McIntrye and McKitrick. Quack #1 is a former mining stock promoter, and #2 is an economist. But who knows more about the science of global warming than stock promoters and economists, eh?

Rex can’t handle the truth because it contradicts his economic beliefs. Like many, Rex doesn’t understand that the economy is part of the environment, not the other way around. Rex Murphy is a modern-day inquisitor, terrified that a new view of the world will upset his privileged place, and I say the CBC should not be paying him to propagandize. I’ve discussed the deniers in greater depth on my climate change blog: The Great Global Warming Inquisition: Where Scientists are Galileo and the Church is Market Fundamentalism.
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