Forgive me if I don't believe Harper and co

It would seem that Harper and co don't consider the G8 climate change deal achieved today. Even though the deal requires that our emissions be reduced by 80% by 2050, Jim Prentice, the environment minister, has declared that these new goals will not require changes to policy direction. In other words, we are doing just fine.

But we are not doing just fine, and Prentice knows it. How can being so far behind on our Kyoto requirements and being last in the G8 on climate change action constitute "just fine"? It is anything but just fine.

There are two ways to take this unashamed lying to the public, both of which are unsettling. Either the minister is incompetent, and sincerely believes that our policy direction will lead us to all the international goals on climate change we have signed up for. Or, and this is much more likely, he, along with his Prime Minister and the rest of the Conservative government, hold the public and the issue in disdain.

One can just see how this course of events is going to play itself out. The Harper government is going to stall on taking any concrete policy measures to move us towards these goals. In essence, they will do just what Jim Prentice has described: continue their policy.

Once we discover a lack of policy is no way to address climate change, it will be too late. If Harper is still in power, we will be told it's too late, and that we need an exception for Canada, so that we can meet our goals.

To sum it up, with Harper in power for much longer, we have no hope of moving anywhere concrete towards the goals set out today. He will stall, and make it overwhelmingly difficult for any government after him to meet emissions targets.

So, the sooner Harper's gone, the sooner we will meet these targets. Or else, be ready for more straight-faced lying from your Conservative government.

And remember, any trouble on the environment, it's all the Liberals fault.

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Historic US bill on climate change good, but nowhere near good enough

Today, the House of Representatives passed a bill on climate-change, sponsored by President Obama. This is the first significant piece of climate change action by government in American history. However, symbolic as it is, it is by no means a cause for self-congratulations.

The standards set forth in the proposed legislation is 17% reductions by 2020, over 2005 levels. That is significantly lower than Kyoto standards of 6% or so, below 1990 levels. Even more astonishing is that President Obama supported only 14% reductions.

Proponents of this bill will point to reductions of 80% by mid-century. This is much too late. It is symptomatic of government reaction to climate change, putting off significant change for latter, much latter.

In these two ways, although this is a piece of landmark legislation, it is by no means a final solution to the problem. In addition, the most concrete measures mentioned in the legislation are increasing energy costs. This is all well and good, but what about the cap and trade system that Obama has been touting?

One must hope that the Obama administration is not about to stall here in its work against climate change. One most hope that a bill of this nature is the result of compromise. After all, the vote was still narrow (219-214), and has yet to be voted on in the Senate. If not, then the Obama administration needs a wake up call on the environment.

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Economic restructuration and the environment

We know that both the economy and the environment face difficult times ahead. Our economy has started to shrink, while global climate patterns become ever more erratic.

However, there may be some hope in this situation. Experts such as Bill Rees, an ecologist at UBC and creator of the "ecological footprint" concept, maintain that if we are serious about saving our environment, we need to reduce our economic growth.

In a way, this would seem to make sense. Economies are based on resources, and the more we develop our economy, the greater the toll on the earth's resources. Even the so-called renewable resources are suffering. To illustrate, in 2008, we used all the resources the earth would renew in a year by September. This mean that for a quarter of last year, we were drawing on resources that would not be renewed this year.

If this trend goes unchecked, eventually we will run out of resources. So, with a reduction in economic growth comes relief for the planet.

Whether or not we need to go into a planned economic recession, as Rees suggests, is another matter. It is possible to restructure the economy so that it depends less on non-renewable resources and resources in general. In addition, we can recycle and reuse that which we have already produced, meaning that we need not take some new resources from the earth.

The environment is in dire straits, as soon the ever melting ice in the Arctic will show this summer. In fact, the melting of the ice is almost a whole century ahead of schedule.

Clearly, we need to take serious action on the environment. Forget about green this and that. Eventually, economies cannot grow anymore. It is foolishness to think that economic growth is infinite.

It turns out that the environment is an even more complex issue than thought, for we need to restructure our economy as well. We cannot reduce environmentally harmful economic growth by harming the livelihoods of millions of people, turning them out of work. It will take real courage and innovation, and a willingness to take this issue seriously.

If we do not act decisively, it will be too late.

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Earth hour, a radical suggestion

At 8:30 pm local time, cities around the world turned out their lights as part of the Earth Hour initiative. Organized by the WWF, this event caused the Sydney Opera to dim its lights, and the Peace Tower in Ottawa to turn off its lights. It is a symbol of how people can work together to make a difference.

However, outside the dream world of darkness created for an hour today, there are some crude facts that glare like a naked bulb. There was widespread participation and endorsement of the Earth hour event, but in Canada for one, we have a government who refuses to act in a significant and concrete manner on climate change, which most people would consider to be one of the greatest challenges, to use a mild word, of the century.

The event is organized as a signal to the governments of the world to take action on this pressing issue by providing a massive display of public opinion. It is hoped that the public pressure emanating from the symbols of the darkened Eiffel Tower, or the barely perceptible CN tower against the Toronto skyline, will change these politicians' hearts.

Let me suggest a radical suggestion that never seems to be considered by those participating in such events. Why bother to change the politicians' hearts when you can change the politicians? Isn't it more convenient to have a Prime Minister that will take the initiative needed on climate change without being prompted to do so by looking at the extinguished downtown core of his capital? With one of the options, you may take years to sway the powers that be in the right direction, whereas with the other one, the powers that be lead you in the right direction. How much more convenient that is.

But there seems to be a great reluctance to adopting such a solution. There is even a great aversion to making Earth hour politically involved. For some unfathomable reason, in many voters' minds, it seems you elect a government, and then participate in events that oppose the core policies of that government. It is enough to leave anyone perplexed.

The public's affection for symbolic events and chances to repeat that overused slogan, "we can all make a difference", knows no bounds. This is because it is easy to identify with these ideas and endorse them. On principle, no one disagrees with them! It's when it gets to the specifics, the politics, that people suddenly are unable to convert events such as Earth Hour into real change.

It is not by using charities and organizations outside of government that we will solve global warming or other environmental issues. The symbolic events have gone too long. Voters have got to realize the disconnect between their voting patterns and their active participation in initiatives such as Earth Hour.

Be radical. Next election, vote for what you believe in the rest of the year. Vote to save your environment. It's much easier to get what you want when the government is on your side.

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