By Doug Draper
We Canadians seeking action from government on green energy and climate change have only one leader to look to – U.S. President Barack Obama.
Forget about Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper or ‘Prime Minister Tar Sands’ as we might just as well call him.
Any individual who, as recently as eight years ago, while he was still an MPP from Alberta and was busy rising to the leadership of the Canadian Alliance (the forrunner of the federal Conservative Party he lords over today) could write in a fundraising letter to party members that the Kyoto accord for reducing greenhouse gases is “essentially a socialist scheme” that will “cripple the oil and gas industry” to a point where “where workers and consumers everywhere in Canada will lose,” just doesn’t have it in their DNA to take progressive action on alternative energy and climate change.
Besides, Harper repeated as recently as the first week of this New Year in an interview with CBC news anchor Peter Mansbridge his mantra that Canada can’t act decisively in these areas unless the U.S. does because the economies of the two countries are so closely tied.
That is just as much to say that Canada – so long as Harper’s Conservatives are running the country anyway – is going to be a follower on what Obama has repeatedly ranked energy and climate change among the most serious challenges facing present and future generations in this world today.
And that brings us back to Obama as the only real hope both Americans and Canadians have in government for effectively meeting these challenges, not only for sake of our health and the environment, but for the sake of our national security, and jobs and economy for this brand new decade and well into the future.
Unlike Harper, Obama has connected the dots and realizes that progressive energy and environmental policies are the ticket for those nations that are going to prosper in the 21st century. But he is no doubt going to have a hell of a fight getting their thanks to the same special interests Harper is in bed with, and he is going to need all of the support he can get from Americans and Canadians to succeed. Continue reading
