Colby Cosh: Harper Covering For The Warmists!

Some freaky-deaky logic today from Colby Cosh on the release of From Impacts to Adaptation: Canada in a Changing Climate 2007. This document is a major study re the effects of climate change on Canada involving 140 respected scientists. And, basically, the $64,000 question is: why did the Feds pay Hill and Knowlton $50,000 to flog the thing and then dump it on the GofC website without fanfare after some of the more disturbing results got leaked?

Colby thinks he has the answer:

We know the Conservative government is reluctant to make the large, immediate economic tradeoffs that professional environmentalists want. Could this be why the report was dropped quietly onto the internet like a Victorian flirt's handkerchief hitting a parqueted floor?

It's possible, but I don't think it's true. The report we're talking about is called From Impacts to Adaptation: Canada in a Changing Climate 2007. It's not a document about what we can do now to save Mother Earth: it's about what we can do to ready ourselves if some planetary warming, irrespective of the cause, is inevitable. In that sense it does not suit the environmentalist agenda to have the report widely publicized. Adaptation measures are competing for the same reserve of attention and funding as the Kyoto-type hair-shirt efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas output. The more we talk about living with a warmer Earth, the more we may come to see it as acceptable.

Now that's CHHHHHHutzzzPahhhh! According to CC, Harper has had the report stuffed, not because it makes alarming reading and raises question like what the hell do you plan to do about it?, but because Harper is down with the environmentalist agenda and wants to run cover for them. The report is, in a sense, too anti-Kyoto for the Tory government.

That's the most logical reading of the above passage. Alternatively, maybe Cosh is arguing that somehow Environmentalists have managed to reach inside the Ministry of Natural Resources and influence government policy. A photo of an angry Al Gore heads today's column. Maybe Al made a nasty phone-call to Gary Lunn and gave him heck for blowing the whole scam wide open.

In any case, the fact that the Federal Tories are ignoring a study they commissioned is somehow, some way, the fault of the Environmental movement.

How Mr. Cosh manages to write this stuff without busting out in giggles is beyond me.

Do It For The Starlets

...if you don't like children, or don't like your children in particular.

I wouldn't normally pay much attention to a celebrity sponsored "Let's All Fight Climate Change!" site, but Global Cool has links to a nifty list of concrete actions individuals can take to cut energy use, including buying compact fluorescents, turning the temperature down a degree, washing in cold water, and so forth. Most are pretty common-sensical, and good ideas even if you aren't worried about climate change. For example, its always a bad idea to fly, because your plane could lose a wing and you could end up screaming for a good five minutes while it tumbles out of the sky and into an alligator infested Florida swamp! And if you wash in cold water, then use a rack for drying purposes, your pants won't shrink and you can put some moisture back into your household's dry winter air. There's even a few suggestions I hadn't heard of before, like stacking the food in your freezer properly.

The site has also managed to attract some fairly decent musical talent, like the relatively hot Karen O (pictured above) of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and a couple of schlubby looking dudes that claim to be from Broken Social Scene (but look more like roadies).

Meanwhile, California may move to ban conventional light bulbs by 2012 and replace them with compact florescents. Good on them if they do. Since the bulbs contain mercury, it will be interesting to see how the disposal issues are handled.

Meanwhile, Gary Lunn may be telling Parliament that Tar Sands production won't swamp his government's green initiatives, but he's telling the Chinese something else entirely. As this Globe Story points out:

The promise of production from Alberta's oil sands appears to grow exponentially the farther Conservative cabinet ministers get from Ottawa.

And by the time they reach China, all caution is lost.

For the H.O.C. production ramps up to no more than 3.1 million barrels a day within the next 10 years; for the Chinese it gets to 4.6 million.