Earlier this week Minister John Baird was placed in front of a number of Liberal Senators, and charged with debating bill C-288, which would see Canada honour its’ Kyoto commitments 100% by the target dates outlined.
Minister Baird, still somewhat fresh in his position in Environment, did his homework. Knowing that he would be placed in front of a panel, the majority of which are on the side of the Kyoto Accord, of Liberals waiting to tear into his Conservative greed-based economic values, he brought along something that has proven results in communicating to these like-minded folks.
A simple powerpoint presentation. Much like the powerpoint presentation that won an Oscar earlier this year, in this presentation he used basic, but strong words, so everyone could understand. Granted he didn’t have the same animated geographical maps showing the economic landscape dwindling throughout the country, but his points were written to be noticed.
“Canada would go into recession”. Blue text on a white background with other statements like, “manufacture a recession”. Clear points, relevant to his speech. They should have the power to at least set the stage for a mature, open discussion.
“The one thing that it demonstrates is how effective you are at spinning the media. And in fact, if we could just capture that spin, we’d have an alternative energy source.” This was the retort from a Liberal Senator, Grant Mitchell. Senator Mitchell and other long-standing Liberals in Senate, did not want to properly question or debate the presentation, they wanted to disregard the slightest notion that even 1% of what Baird was saying might be true.
Poppycock. The fact that the country would face large implications of economic change was mindless to the majority of the committee. The facts were based on nothingness, the statistics were rigged, and so on.
I don’t usually join a conversation about climate change or Kyoto. For the most part, I feel myself in the role of a spectator; looking at each side’s point like a tennis ball being driven from the left court to the right court and so forth trying to fully understand the situation.
As a spectator however I do notice one habit particularly interesting. As the ball gets bounced into the right court, it is usually caught, examined and returned directly to the left side. But, as the ball drifts back, the left side of the court is already swinging frantically in every direction, most times not even seeing that there was a ball at all.
Looking at the parties involved in this debate from that perspective, I believe that even if the economic impact that Minister Baird described is just a projection, the thoughts have the basis of rational thinking being applied before being returned.
Along the way, environmentalists and advocate groups have coined phrases to place a cover over their swinging in every which direction, phrases like, Climate Change Deniers. An easy, and simple way to cast off their responsibility of defining their point and continue their pointless swinging. I think it’s time the other side in this debate take a lesson from Minister Baird’s powerpoint presentation reference and speak to them in their own language. Speak to them as the Economic Change Deniers they may well be.
Ben in Ontario wrote:
Yes, indeed–for fifty years or so the left tried to take over our lives by seizing control of the economy . . . and wherever that happened disaster ensued. Now that the leftist approach to economic (mis)management has been irrevocably demonstrated as a failure they are trying to seize power by gaining control over the environment. No one can say that they are not flexible in their approach, but the goal remains the same. Economic and societal ruin leading to absolute control by the self-appointed few.
Posted on 22-Apr-07 at 1:02 am | Permalink
Alberta Girl wrote:
Sooooo….. the left (along with the Fruit Fly Guy and the Failed Presidential Candidate - holding a paper drafted by some committee) can put out predictions that the world will end in 10 years if we don’t immediately implement Kyoto, but poo poo predictions from the right about the economic costs of that implementation.
Hmmmmm……Hypocrasy at it’s best.
Posted on 22-Apr-07 at 5:16 am | Permalink
Scott from Winnipeg wrote:
Has anyone here read the Tellus report? As far as I am know, it’s the only report to study both the costs and savings of Kyoto implementation.
Have you read also the report from Pembina Institute that the tars ands could go green for a net cost of about $1 per barrel? It’s a claim that Suncor itself does not contradict.
The wild swinging may be an attempt to kill the “zombie lies”, as they’ve been coined; those lies, no matter how often they are killed, rise up and seek to feast on more brains!
Blah blah blah.
Posted on 22-Apr-07 at 8:44 am | Permalink
anonymous wrote:
PM Harper was criticized for appointing Baird as Minister of the Environment, but it’s clear to me anyway, that he made a terrific decision.
Posted on 22-Apr-07 at 11:02 am | Permalink
KPK wrote:
Scott from Winnipeg, do you have a link to the Tellus report? I wouldn’t mind reading it. The report Baird presented was actually from his department. It projects that in order to reach Kyoto targets by 2012 you would have to implement a $195 per tonne carbon tax which would cool the economy down. The $35 per tonne isn’t high enough to do it by 2012. This report was to discredit those who would say we can actually reach our targets by 2012. In that respect it was effective. Especially since it was backed up by Canada’s most prominent economists. Jaccard was actually the one who tore up the Liberal Green plan saying it wouldn’t even get close to reaching the required targets. Seeing Rodriquez criticize Drummond was a laugh. The opposition is boxed in a corner and they know it. They will have to admit that in order to stay in Kyoto, the only way they can do it is buy purchasing credits abroad - vindicating the government’s position all along.
Posted on 22-Apr-07 at 1:53 pm | Permalink
roger wrote:
Liberal Sen.Kenny was the funniest of them all , he held up the Document and declared that people can’t just produce a Paper to predict dire times in the future and not back it up with solid evidence from experts .
Exactly Mr.Kenny , the IPCC report is flawed and from what I read in the 2001 IPCC Documentation it proved the Historical Data
for climate change was a Retro-Active guess applied to the Computer Model numbers that were inputed .
Last week on Michael Coren Live there were 4 Experts that didn’t contest the claim that Earth’s temperatures do change over time, they merely argued the claims of Co2 levels and how Humans make up the 90% of it was an outright lie when the original Numbers 10/90 was reversed by the Eco-wacko’s
to suit their agenda , they made it read 90/10 but even that was misleading.
One Guest explained that within the 10% of Human based Co2 production is the 90% expelled from breathing out Co2 that plants need to grow and inturn produce Oxygen so we can grow and make more Co2 and on and on….
the cycle goes.
Where was Sen.Kenny to demand the Al Gore’s of the World detail the numbers used to predict a dire future of flooding and water shortages .
Posted on 22-Apr-07 at 2:47 pm | Permalink
Kelly T Konechny wrote:
Scott, send the links to those two reports, I’d be interested in reading them as well.
I’m still trying to get through the actual Kyoto accord, have you it read top to bottom? I’d be interested why you think of it as the best of all solutions, and what other solutions you have placed it squarely against.
Posted on 23-Apr-07 at 12:01 am | Permalink
Scott from Winnipeg wrote:
I’m not convinced that Kyoto is the perfect solution, not sure that there is such a concept. Measures that are effective without substantial negative impacts are perhaps the table stakes. Carbon trading in particular seems like a very slippery slope.
But Kyoto is ratified, it’s an international law. I don’t believe we have the option of simply getting up and walking away from it. Apart from the impacts to credibility and reputation, I wonder about what sort of precedent that sets.
The polarization on this issue on both ends seems to snuff any reasonable discourse.
There’s more thought on this than I have time or energy to type. It’d be interesting to have community panels on this type of thing. Hmmmm…
http://www.tellus.org/
http://www.pembina.org/pdf/pub.....lo_Edm.pdf
Posted on 23-Apr-07 at 11:06 am | Permalink
ruralrenegade wrote:
It’s tough to be a tory when Mr. Tory is blathering on about climate change. Would someone please address this? It’s difficult enough picking up a newspaper and seeing the over-the-top liberal bias in print everyday but when the conservatives start appeasing the climate change lefties in the news, it becomes impossible to even finish my breakfast.
Posted on 25-Apr-07 at 9:05 am | Permalink