A Brief Commentary by Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper
He might just as well have been aiming some of his most stinging remarks at Canada’s leading climate change denier – Stephen Harper.
For Stephen Harper, it has been almost all about the tar sands as his government has muzzled Environment Canada scientists and gutted the country’s environmental protection rules.
Early this past September, in an Alaskan city just south of the Arctic Circle where the ice cover has been for years and is continuing to disappear at an unprecedented rate, U.S. President Obama delivered what many news correspondents agreed was his most powerful speech yet on the urgency of addressing the role human activities play in one of most serious threats to our health and security in this 21st Century – climate change.
Obama’s speech was a preview of a more progressive, action-oriented position his administration wants to take to the international Climate Change Conference in Paris running through the first week and a half of this coming December and as I heard it the first time and re-read the text, it seemed as if parts of it were directed at Harper, who has never taken the epic scale of this problem seriously.
Here are just a few passages from that September 1st speech that brought Canada’s chief denier in the Prime Minister’s Office to mind –
“We know that human activity is changing the climate,” Obama said. “We know that human ingenuity can do something about it. We’re even starting to see that we might actually have the political will to succeed. So the time to heed the critics and cynics is past. The time to plead ignorance is surely past. The deniers are increasingly alone, on their own shrinking island.” ….
“Any leader willing to take a gamble on a future like that, any leader who refuses to take this issue seriously or treats it like a joke, is not fit to lead.”
In their more than nine years in government, Harper’s Conservatives have taken a Canada that was once respected around the world for its cutting-edge environmental programs and policies, and turned our country into an environmental rogue among developed, industrialized nations. At one climate change gathering at the United Nations earlier this year, Harper did not even join Obama and other world leaders in participating, and Canada was one of the few first-world countries that did not have a government representing the U.N’s General Assembly on the issue.
The upcoming Paris conference is widely viewed as possible the last, best chance for nations – rich and poor and big and small – to reach agreement to reduce the carbon emissions that are contributing to an increasing number of weather –related episodes that are doing costly, catastrophic damage to people, communities and economies around the world.
It would be a travesty for Canada and for all of us who live there if Harper was still prime minister when that conference happens.
If climate change is an issue that concerns you, get to the polls this coming October 19th and vote for the candidate in your riding in the best position to beat the Harper Conservative.
And that includes all of you millennials out there who will suffer the consequences of climate change the most if we don’t have the leadership to tackle it.
For more information on U.S. President Barack Obama’s plan for addressing climate change click on https://www.whitehouse.gov/climate-change .
Visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary for and from the greater bi-national Niagara region.
(NOW IT IS YOUR TURN. Niagara At Large encourages you to share your views on this post. A reminder that we only post comments by individuals who share their first and last name with them.)
Niagara At Large 
Doug, since neither you nor I nor any other Canuck is going to stop driving or flying or heating or cooking or working, how are we going to stop producing CO2?
When Canada quit Kyoto last year, it wasn’t because we opposed AGW, but because the Kyoto rules required Canada to:
– either stop driving every vehicle in Canada (or equivalent)
– or pay $14B /year! to China, India, Brasil & other developing countries to … keep on creating CO2.
Do you honestly think COP15 Paris will produce better rules?
TO LORNE From Doug Draper – I know there are a number of issues we have not seen eye to eye on over the years. But I have always had respect for your intelligence and please have respect for mine and for others who share my view that we have got to do more to address the activities that contribute to climate change.
Please do yourself the dignity of not using the ridiculous rhetorical line – ‘do your drive a car? …or ‘are you going to stop driving a car tomorrow’ …. that bullshit comes straight out of the harper/u.s. republican camp, and is meant to say: ‘if you drive a car or heat your house with gas, then shut up.’
Anyone who is dealing with this issue rationally knows we are talking about making a shift here that is not going to happen over night. Toyota, one of the largest car manufacturers in the world, has just announced that it is working toward a car that runs on hydrogen and will not use a drop of gas, but that will take time. According to a number of reports in recent years, their are research and development people around the world, in the u.s., china, india and many other countries working on better solar batteries and other technologies away from fossil fuels.
Ten oil corporations met in Europe this week and agreed that they have to take steps away from high use of fossil fuels. U.S. president Barack Obama this week announced that his administration will no longer say okay to permits to drill for oil in the Arctic – a move that it will be hard for future administrations to rescind given the fact that a majority of North Americans, according to survey after survey, want meaningful action on climate change.
So let’s get away from the ‘stop driving a car or shut up about climate change’ nonsense and be sensible here.
I am not going to tell my 24 year old daughter I don’t care about her future around the higher frequency of severe and destruction weather related disasters we are experiencing on this continent and around the world. Maybe you want to tell her while you go on driving your car.
Come on Lorne. Give up the Harper talking points on tar oil and climate change. Two more days and he will be history, and God bless Canada for that. – Doug Draper
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Doug, I’m merely asking you for practical ways to reduce our burning of poisonous fossil fuels. I honestly don’t know how we get out of our addiction to them. There seem to be No easy solutions.
Even worse, most worldwide politicians want dramatically higher prices on these fuels (carbon taxes, cap and trade). How will that help the average family? To balance the family budget, what other expenses will we cut? Won’t that affect local businesses who will cut hours & jobs to balance their budgets?
How will we be able to afford to send Kyoto or Paris money (see above) to China, India, Brasil, etc. [BRIC] who won’t be required to cut Their fossil fuel pollution? How will it help our children if we shift carbon pollution -and jobs!- from the G7 to the BRIC countries? Here’s a report about India’s proposals to the Paris conference:
Here’s a surprising report about what has already been done by a hated Canadian government which you have noted will likely be gone soon. Wonder what their successors will do….
http://www.financialpost.com/m/wp/fp-comment/blog.html?b=business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/lawrence-solomon-on-harper-you-be-the-judge&pubdate=2015-10-17
As a journalist, not just an editorialist, you must have researched this climate issue more deeply than I have. What are your thoughts?
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Obama, is very reluctant to OK the Keystone pipeline down through the states. I don’t think it should happen either, mainly that it is a stupid idea, we need oil processed here and the jobs and benefits accrue to Canadians. selling crude oil at a discount to the Americans is just plain ludicrous, 30% off, and we buy American gasoline for full price, ridiculous.!!!
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Good points George.
Guess that means you support the Energy East pipeline to bring the oil to be refined by Canucks in St John NB. This is opposed by some environmentalists.
I’ve often wondered why Alberta oil won’t be refined at the shuttered oil refineries in Montréal. Have you heard anything about this?
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Regardless of the merits of the Keystone pipeline, let’s not lose sight of what motivates Mr. Obama. His acquiescence on some 11 other pipelines in continental US shows that it is cronyism NOT environmental concerns.
This is also borne out by Hilary’s flip-flop on approval. When she was at State, it was approved. Now as a candidate begging for donations, an “epiphany”.
It is all about campaign loss of contributions, notably from Warren Buffett, the chief beneficiary of spiking the Keystone.
Approved of the Keystone Pipeline threatens Warren Buffett’s Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railways (BNSF) major investment, some business articles state US$200 million, in tank cars and permits to transport Canadian Crude from the oil sands to the Gulf.
Canada has become collateral damage in the US political process.
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There are WAYS to develop alternative fuels.
There is no WILL to develop alternative fuels.
Every big multinational wants immediate gratification and return while, if they planned ahead, their is much greater gratification AND wealth to be had by being ahead of the curve. A few years ago nobody believed every household could possibly have a computer. They took up the area of a warehouse. A couple individuals refused to accept that belief and are now among the wealthiest people on the planet and most homes DO have not only desktops but computer watches, tablets and phones. Boy, were those guys ever dumb….NOT! Proof it CAN be done. Computerization has brought many benefits to mankind and alternative fuels will do the same and save our environment in the process.
Of course Harper and the other members of the ALLIANCE CHURCH cult believe environmentalism is a nefarious plot designed to destroy the economy. Perhaps there is an need for a nefarious plot to destroy the Alliance Church.
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Agreed Linda, solar & small wind have progressed so quickly that the average family can now afford it.
Over the past few days, I used my Alternate Energy electricity to heat our house with portable electric radiators, instead of running my gas furnace. Between wind & sun, we hope to turn it on in late November.
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