Conservatives stun Parliament - Absolute GHG limits voted in

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by Shawnski

Nice. Glad you put forward such a compelling rebuttal.

Actually, it's pretty simple. Don't by Chinese products. The less we buy from them, the less they polute. Read a label before you buy.

And yes, do what we can on the homefront. It may not be much, but it will help, if not symbolically anyways.

Glad you put forward such compelling reasons for us to not reduce our emissions...

"But China still pollutes! And they do it worse than us!"
"But it might hurt our economy!"
"Oh. It worked for Britain? Well Britain is different so we can't learn anything from that."



You sound like you're whining because you might have to replace your windows and lightbulbs. If you really don't care about the environment, don't change your ways. But your reasons that Canada should not try and affect change are lame. Again, we are all responsible for the state of the environment today, and we are all responsible for cleaning it up. So what if Kyoto has no teeth? It's all we've got. Until there's something better, (and feel free to propose it,) it's the only targets we have and even then, it's not enough.

FYI the same thing happened when CFCs were banned. The first round of global talks had no teeth, the second round enacted change.

[Thunderball]

Originally Posted by FireFly

Glad you put forward such compelling reasons for us to not reduce our emissions...

"But China still pollutes! And they do it worse than us!"
"But it might hurt our economy!"
"Oh. It worked for Britain? Well Britain is different so we can't learn anything from that."



You sound like you're whining because you might have to replace your windows and lightbulbs. If you really don't care about the environment, don't change your ways. But your reasons that Canada should not try and affect change are lame. Again, we are all responsible for the state of the environment today, and we are all responsible for cleaning it up. So what if Kyoto has no teeth? It's all we've got. Until there's something better, (and feel free to propose it,) it's the only targets we have and even then, it's not enough.

FYI the same thing happened when CFCs were banned. The first round of global talks had no teeth, the second round enacted change.

I agree with Shawnski, frankly this is lunacy.

Canada can't be compared with the UK, period. They have 60 million people in a space smaller than Edmonton to the US border. almost 1/3 of their population within the Greater London metro area. There are luxuries to being centralized like that. They are also not a primary industry based country, and that is the source of our pollution.

What a lot of people don't get is that Canada is still growing, while Europe, for lack of a better word, is maturing. If China is a developing nation, then so is Canada, and if Harper had a spine, he'd be taking a hard line on that. The solution here is smart growth, and smart environmental legislation. Banning incandescant lightbulbs is a good start. They are very inefficient and have a relatively short lifespan anyway. Same with inefficient appliances, vehicles, etc. All new models should adhere to a certain code. Nothing wrong with that, and it doesn't screw the economy.

Where it gets stupid are these "absolute limits" on emission. They are essentially saying, "whoa now, no more growth." I thought the original Conservative concept was to have emission caps based on growth. All while we eat the dust of the non-compliant nations, and those who are built for Kyoto. Adherence at the cost of our competitive advantage.

I also thought Kyoto enaction would cost $100 billion... I guess we are learning what a promise from the PCs, err I mean "Conservative Party of Canada" means. Preston Manning must be pissed, all his effort and the "united right" is still the arrogant, median vote chasing, ideal-free Progressive Conservative party of years past.

[sadora]

Originally Posted by FireFly

Good. Nice to see, and hard for the Liberals to say now that the Conservatives don't have tough environmental policy.

I like it and that's saying a lot seeing as I'm not a Harper suporter at all. But I do understand that the conservatives are doing it to gain voter support considering the way things are heading towards a more 'green' world.

[FireFly]

While China is one of the major polluters in the world today, they are also doing more than Canada is to curb their CO2 emissions in the future. They are commissioning the construction of 2 nuclear power plants per year for approximately the next 20 years. They are trying to curb the fact that 80% of their power currently comes from coal.

But you're right. Why bother fighting it? Why bother doing what WE can and trying to learn from what other countries have done? Why not just say, "We're too different. There's nothing we can learn."

[Ford Prefect]

Originally Posted by RedHot25

Interesting....any one think an election is coming soon?

I'm the president of our local community assocaition, and I had a call from Elections Canada about a week and half ago inquiring whether our community hall would be available on short notice for a spring election ... not that one was necessarily coming or anything. That pretty much told me then and there that we're headed for the polls. In the context of that call, this move makes sense.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Ford Prefect

I'm the president of our local community assocaition, and I had a call from Elections Canada about a week and half ago inquiring whether our community hall would be available on short notice for a spring election ... not that one was necessarily coming or anything. That pretty much told me then and there that we're headed for the polls. In the context of that call, this move makes sense.

Elections Canada doesn't know that, they are just taking precautions. The only people with an inkling are Harper and his cabinet.

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by peter12

Elections Canada doesn't know that, they are just taking precautions. The only people with an inkling are Harper and his cabinet.

Um, the Opposition would likely know. They'd be the ones to potentially defeat a bill to bring the government down. What bills are coming up that can result in a non-confidence vote?

[Ford Prefect]

Originally Posted by peter12

Elections Canada doesn't know that, they are just taking precautions. The only people with an inkling are Harper and his cabinet.

I realize that Elections Canada wouldn't know in advance of the writ, but I doubt they were calling for no reason. I figure they would have been instructed by somebody to put out feelers in case they need to be ready to go on short notice. Agreed, that's not a definitive sign, but it's a strong indication that something might happen.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Shawnski

Hahahaha... come ON Rouge.. that is but a sidebar in the original story I referenced! Heck, and at that, it is all about a placeholder MP. I don't like him either, but he isn't news anymore, and certainly has zero impact on the gov't. I would like to see him out, no question. But come on....

The cheque-kiting story however, WAS new but not covered here.

Again, nice try.

It's pretty straightforward. There is a development in the story of a corrupt Calgary MP and nobody mentions it, but you say it's "interesting" that none of us lefties bothered to start a thread about some petty crime allegedly committed by some unelected guy in Niagara Falls.

What exactly is "interesting" about it?

[Lurch]

I agree with Shawnski, frankly this is lunacy.

Canada can't be compared with the UK, period. They have 60 million people in a space smaller than Edmonton to the US border. almost 1/3 of their population within the Greater London metro area. There are luxuries to being centralized like that. They are also not a primary industry based country, and that is the source of our pollution.

I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, but Britain had these exact same characteristics BEFORE they began to reduce their pollution, no? I would argue that it should be harder for an economy like Britain to adapt being that they were already quite efficient relative to Canada.

I also thought Kyoto enaction would cost $100 billion... I guess we are learning what a promise from the PCs, err I mean "Conservative Party of Canada" means. Preston Manning must be pissed, all his effort and the "united right" is still the arrogant, median vote chasing, ideal-free Progressive Conservative party of years past.

I'm not sure where anyone gets numbers like these. $15/tonne is the high end of what companies can reduce emissions for (I've worked on one or two projects that did it for under $10/tonne, and on top of that it reduced their consumption of energy resulting in a net saving). Even if you use $15/tonne and assume absolutely no benefits, meeting Kyoto would cost about $3 billion per year. Put in perspective, this is less impact on the Canadian economy than the excess taxation the Alberta gov't collects each and every year (as judged by the surplus).

[peter12]

Originally Posted by FireFly

Um, the Opposition would likely know. They'd be the ones to potentially defeat a bill to bring the government down. What bills are coming up that can result in a non-confidence vote?

Um, which one of the Opposition parties wants an election right now?

[FireFly]

Originally Posted by peter12

Um, which one of the Opposition parties wants an election right now?

That's the question, isn't it? Yet, we all assume the Conservatives want one? They're faring no better. Not to mention the fact that it's only been a year since the last one. Even if the Conservatives felt they could win an election, polls show they won't win a majority, which means we'd have yet another election in another year and a half. They're better off waiting a while as well. Canadians don't want another election right now. We've had two in the last 4 years.