The Next Great Disaster

The media love to report on the next disaster that's going to kill us.

For a while, it was nuclear war. Then rain forest depletion. There were holes in the ozone layer, international terrorists, asbestos, trans fats, cell phones...

They try out a new one each week. When one sticks, the stories will run until people lose interest. Then the threat will go away, and a new one will take its place.

I'm opening the comments to predictions of The Next Great Disaster. Unless you believe we'll all be killed before the media moves on. If you read the Toronto Star, you probably believe we were all killed 3 weeks ago.

America Bashing: Leftist Hypocracy in Action

I hear a lot of America bashing from the left. They take pride in it. Many of them will portray themselves as the noble underdog daring to stand against an evil superpower. That America bashing is a risk-free venture celebrated by their peers is lost on them.

But then the impossible happens. They find an American they can use. Today, it's Gore. In December, it was Howard Dean. In Montreal, it was Bill Clinton. Suddenly, it seems we misunderstood. They did not hate Americans. They hated Republicans. Americans are great!

They forget how they rallied against Clinton while he was bombing Iraq and Kosovo. They neglect to define the difference between Americans and Republicans when they are attacking all things American. Things like that don't matter anymore. All that matters is they've found someone who they can use to support their cause.

I was inspired for this post by a comment from my last one. Greg said "Let me be clear. As a lefty, I like Americans. I just hate Republicans. Carry on." So casually, you tell us you hate almost half of all Americans because they vote for a party whose views you disagree with. Having defined yourself as a lefty, you'll hate anyone whose opinions are different. So you do hate Republicans. When they tell you to, you hate Americans.

We'll never stop some people from their righteous hatred. But at least we can call it for what it is.

Isn't Gore an Evil American?

Liblogs and the media are drooling over Gore's review of the Green Plan. He calls it a "fraud... designed to mislead the Canadian people." Trivia buffs will recognize the statement as quoted from a review for his film.

Memo to Gore; this is none of your business. Your country has done nothing on climate change. You were vice-president and did nothing on climate change. Now you're touring Canada, getting between $100-150K per lecture, trying to tell us how we're so bad environmentally?

To all Liberals - we have lots of Canadian environmental activists. David Suzuki, love him or hate him, has devoted his life to Canada's environmental concerns. Gore jumped on the bandwagon and is riding it to riches. Find a better idol.

Gore reminds me of Michael Moore; sleazy opportunist spouting propaganda. Who here read Moore's letter during the last election campaign? That was pure gold. I carried a copy with me, and everyone who saw instantly vowed to vote Conservative.

Environmentaists strive to make themselves irrelevant

Environmentalists don't like the Green Plan! Wow! I, for one, am shocked. Apparently, the Conservative Government is not doing enough for the environment, since they are not going to meet the Kyoto 2008-2012 targets.

I'm not going to talk about the Green Plan right now. I will later, but not now. Now is the time to talk about environmentalists. They all say they want to see the Conservatives act on the environment. The opposition parties say this is more important than partisan politics. Yet they have given the Conservatives no political motivation to achieve anything substantive.

No matter what the Conservatives do, it won't be enough unless they can meet the reduction targets set by Kyoto. There is no compromise, no "good first steps." Reductions start today, and we meet the targets, or it isn't good enough.

I watch a rant on Mike Duffy Live between Dale the Suzuki Foundation guy and Buzz Hargrove. It was hardly a clash of intellectual giants, but after Dale ranted about how it might take 3 years before we start seeing reductions, Duffy asked Buzz Hargrove "Are you every going to be able to satify people like Dale?" The answer is quite easy. If you have a Conservative party logo on your stationary, no.

Opposition parties are even worse. They call on the government to adhere to the Kyoto protocols, then when the government makes a concession to agree to absolute targets instead of intensity targets, they call it "the biggest flip flop they've ever made." Brilliant is your goal is to make the government look bad no matter what, but stupid if you actually care about the environment. I would never accuse them of the latter.

A note to environmentalists; you need a carrot to go with that stick. Stephen Harper has no motivation to give you anything you ask for. As a member of the public, I have no reason to trust anything you say. If I know what you are going to say before I know the issue, your opinion is irrelevant. And everyone knew you were going to hate the Green Plan before it was released.

Where are the Liberals?

Do they even show up in the House anymore? Is any vote important enough for them to be there?

Their bill to recall our troops in Afghanistan after 2009 got voted down 150 to 134. With all the floor crossing, it's tough to track the numbers in the House these days, but I'm pretty sure the Liberals and Bloc have more than 134 members between them. Where are they? This was a close vote. With the Lib-Bloc voting against the CPC-NDP, a single member could've made the difference.

Do the Liberals have somewhere else to be? I can understand the Conservatives not having everyone there; they're running a country. They need to be all over the country (and in some cases the world) to do their jobs. What are the Liberals doing?

Anyone who can provide a link to the voting records would be welcome. I can't find the record yet.

Liberals sue to cover their tracks

Just saw this on National Newswatch. Go. read. Enjoy. They published the story early when the Liberals threatened a libel suit.

Update: I probably should include the background. Mark Holland is suing over the story that he illegally held the Conservatives' files. His problem? Not that it was illegal, not that the Liberal Party was culpable. He said it was staffers who actually looked through the files and reported to him, so his name shouldn't be included.

The Science Behind Global Warming

Climate change 'science' is currently being led by political bodies, not scientists. Political science is quite simple; the more dire the prediction, the more funding they receive.

Over the past few years, I have been striving to understand the science behind climate change. As promised, I have prepared a post on what I've discovered so far. Brace yourselves, because this is a long post. Even by my standards.

I have found that the most useful data does not come from the UN or the media. In fact, their data is not useful at all. Almost all of their studies assume global warming exists, and the most extreme predictions will come true. Then they calculate the effects on their chosen specialty, such as on nature, the sea level, meteorology, etc. This is why we hear that vast majority of scientific papers predict the devastating effects of global warming. They are not about climate change at all.

This does not, however, mean that global warming does not exist. It does. It just does not do what politicians say it does.

Basic Science

First, a really simple version of the science. Our atmosphere holds in heat. Everyone knows that; it's the reason why the Earth is not as cold as the space around it. The composition of the atmosphere regulates how much of the heat gets trapped.

The reason scientists first looked at carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas is the ice age. By drilling ice in Antarctica, tree cores, sediment cores, they were able to track the average temperature and the levels of carbon in the past. Ice cores especially let them go back hundreds of thousands of years. By tracking the levels of carbon found in the samples and comparing them with the temperature, they theorized that carbon levels lead to increased temperature.

They found that the carbon increases naturally until it reaches a critical mass, then will suddenly be absorbed again and cause an ice age. Then the cycle starts over.

Man's Contribution

Global warming will exist with or without man. However, whenever we burn fuels (or pretty much anything) we are increasing the level of carbon in the atmosphere. Look at the very basic science of fire: Carbon in the fuel reacts with oxygen in the air, and carbon dioxide is released. Or: C + O2 = CO2. Very simple.

What is questioned is how much difference man's contribution makes to natures natural cycle. This cycle existed long before man. Some scientists point out that the average temperature on the Earth has decreased since we started increasing CO2 levels. That's at the very end of the graph.



However, look to the historical correlation of CO2 and temperature. When the CO2 changes drastically, it takes longer for the world's temperature to catch up. This is largely due to the stabilization effect of Earth's oceans. It takes a long time to change their temperature, and they will not allow the Earth's temperature to change rapidly. Seen in that light, the huge increase in CO2 levels is terrifying, because sooner or later the temperature will catch up.

Why Politicians Suck

Politicians love absolutes. They also love money and power. Stephane Dion and Jack Layton have a wonderful weapon. They're telling us that global warming's coming, and unless we elected them now we're all going to die. To make the weapon even more powerful, they are exaggerating the effects of Kyoto to scare us into voting for them.

They know that Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth is a wild exaggeration with no scientific fact. (See example at end if you don't believe me). But they will constantly reference it in interviews. Why? It's scary and popular.

John Baird just came out with his dire predictions about following Kyoto. The opposition is challenging the specifics of the statement and using that to refute the obvious facts that meeting the 2008-2012 deadline will devastate us economically.

With politicians leading the climate change debate, no one has to prove anything scientific. You just have to disprove the points made by the opposition. This is easy because even they know they're full of it. Then the electorate gets divided into nice little camps and vote for the person who's telling them what they want to hear.

Conclusions:

1) Global warming is happening no matter what we do. However, we are probably speeding it up. How much is difficult to say, since everyone seems to disagree.

2) You cannot trust most of the climate change time lines because they use the exaggerated forecasts created by political bodies. On that note, we should make a concentrated effort to reduce emissions, but not at the expense of our economy. If we destroy our economy, we can't pay for those reduction plans.

3) The greatest threat posed by global warming is an earlier ice age.

4) Global warming is being blamed for everything. For example, the unusually warm December/January in Ontario was caused by a southern updraft, not global warming. If you don't believe me, note that February was the coldest in 28 years. Or as someone from Alberta or Saskatchewan - their entire winter was especially chilly. Ocean temperature will not allow the drastic temperature changes the politicians predict.

5) If man were to reduce our CO2 emissions to zero today, we would still feel the effects of the CO2 already in the atmosphere. They may reduce to their proper levels over several centuries, or they might hold where they are until the temperature catches up.


This is the result of my research so far. Over the past few years, I have gone from climate change denier to apocalyptic doomsayer and back again. There is an abundance of inaccurate information available on this issue. I learning a lot more when I ditched online research and opened an ancient relic called a textbook.

However, if you must gain some more information online, this website isn't bad.


Al Gore's bad science example:
Scientists are debating a rise in the ocean levels of between 3 inches and 3 feet over the next 300 years (I remember that one because of all the threes). Al Gore avoided that pesky science. His movie shows what will happen if the ice caps melt completely. The oceans will rise 20 feet! Then he has a wonderful computer graphic showing the effects, ignoring that fact that the next ice age will hit long before that happens. His movie is full of scare tactics like that. And he's made money, gained power, and grown popular. Everything a politician needs.

Update:
I forgot to include something. Trees turn CO2 back to oxygen. We also don't know how much of the CO2 increase is caused by deforestation.

Want to help global warming? Plant a tree.

Implimenting Kyoto

Andrew Coyne's column on Kyoto reveals a few things the rest of the media doesn't seem to focus on. I strongly recommend reading it before continuing, although I will include a few points.

First and foremost, that the Kyoto deadline is not 2012. It is the average between 2008 and 2012. Meaning we would have to reduce CO2 emissions drastically by next year (not possible) or increase far past our targets by 2012 to achieve that average.

Furthermore, there are not enough CO2 credits available from developing countries for us to buy our way to freedom. We would have to bid for credits from countries like Russia, the great irony being that Russia didn't spend any money fixing their environmental problems. Their economy collapsed and they hadn't set ambitious targets.

However, facts never mattered with Kyoto. The left is correct when they say there is no debate on climate change; they don't allow any. Kyoto has served the Liberals well, and continues to do so. Signing Kyoto was all the Liberal government had to do to prove it was serious about the environment. And it was free, no less. Now that they're out of power, it is a weapon they can use against the new government.

It is clear that there was never any way that Harper could have met the 2008-2012 targets in Kyoto. It was already too late. If I were advising Harper, I would advise on one of two courses of action, although I would recommend the second.

1) Admit we cannot reach this target, but remind us that this does not put us in violation of the treaty. It simply adds a penalty for our next target. Instead of spending billions on CO2 credits to meet the current target (as Dion wants to), use those billions to reach the next target, including penalties.

2) Point out the fact that Canada's CO2 emissions are insigificant when compared to the rest of the world, then attack the environment where it counts for Canada; our water. We have some of the best freshwater resources on the planet, and we neet to protect them. I would hit the environment on three fronts; water, smog, and garbage disposal. We can achieve greater results with less money than it would take reaching the Kyoto target, and to me as a Canadian these are more important issues.

I like the second plan, because it provides a clear distinction between the styles of the two parties. You can vote Liberal or NDP and give Russia money, or you can vote Conservative and help Canada's environment.

Note: About plan 2, please do not try to tell me that Kyoto reduces smog. I've seen that a lot on the left side of the blogsphere and it's not true. Smog is mainly composed of tropospheric ozone, sulphur oxides, volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides and ammonia gas. Kyoto does not account for any of these gases.

Thoughts on the Geneva Convention

People cling to the Geneva convention as if it were holy writ. However, I wonder how many would hold their beliefs if they actually read the convention itself. They are largely designed for uniformed soldiers under governmental control.

When people insist we treat prisoners in our conflicts according to the tenants of the conventions, they do not realise that these prisoners would often be executed as war criminals.

Here's a quote from the convention:

Protocol 2, Article 13, Section 2
The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited.

If we were to absolve them of the war crimes committed, the Geneva convention would allow prisoners to be held until the end of the conflict, at which time they would be released unconditionally. Both of these are questionable inmodern conflicts.

These days, wars are rarely fought across borders by soldiers. We cannot negotitate with the Taliban, or even hold their leaders to account for individual war crimes, since they operate in independent cells. We need to expand the Geneva conventions to account for modern wars, or it is going to be useless.

Thoughts and debate are welcome.

Good call!

It seems the Conservative government has decided not to make the vote on the Afghanistan mission a matter of confidence. While I support the mission and would have no problem with an extension, that cannot and must not be the issue the government falls on.

Why not? Simple! Because for the 36 or 45 days of the election campaign, Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan will have a big bullseye on their backs. The Taliban will know that all they have to do is kill a few Canadians in that time and we will elect a government to pull them out.

So the government has to suck it up and accept this motion as is. They don't have to like it, just like I don't like the games the Liberals have been playing with the military for years, but in this case it is for the greater good.

In Defense of Mulroney

Brian Mulroney has always had my respect. Here is a man who saw what needed to be done, and did it, regardless of the opposition he faced. His larger initiatives include NAFTA, the GST, cancelling the National Energy Program and two attempts to 'fix' Trudeau's constitution to include Quebec. His lesser-known initiatives include supporting an independent Ukraine (before any western country) and opposing the South African aparthied (when the US and UK did not).

Later, he was forcibly evicted from caucus based on allegations which later proved to be completely untrue. (Granted, I get to feel superior on this point because when these accusations were broken, I was in Grade 2 and living overseas)

However, his record is not the only reason I write this post. There is also Trudeau.

Trudeau did a lot of good things in his tenure. His accomplisments include the Constitution, the Charter, the Canada Health Act and huge increases in social spending and foreign aid. However, he had no ways to pay for all this. Trudeau entered power with a debt of $18 billion. We could have paid that off in a year. He finally retired with a debt of $200 and a huge deficeit and a national recession. Mulroney spent 9 years trying to keep improve our economy to the point where slaying the deficit was possible.

Some would argue that the financial burden Trudeau left was necessary for the greater good. I can respect that argument, even if I will argue with the extremes Trudeau went to. However, most Liberals (capital L) seem to argue that Trudeau was perfect economical and all our finacial burdens can be laid at the feet of Mulroney. This is what happens when your primary source for historical information is the CBC.

Don't believe me? Can't blame you. I haven't referenced a single fact in this post. And I don't trust media to evaluate economic history. So I'll give you a proper study.

Here. (this is a nice one. It is also the only scholarly study I can find online)

I would like to include more, but it is surprisingly difficult to find good economic analyses online. Textbooks are great, but I'm a little far from Robart's (University of Toronto Library) right now, even if I wanted to take the time to scan it.

I welcome people to refute me on this post. It is quite easy to debate the tenures of Mulroney and Trudeau. But please, use facts and arguments, and try to avoid name calling and references to the CBC or the Liberal Party Website.

Busy week for democratic manipulation

It has begun. The Liberals have started
manipulating their nominations to increase female candidates. These past few days have also seen the Greens reject a candidate and, of course, Dion and May choosing not to field candidates in ridings.

Before I discuss Dion and the Liberals' creative approach to democracy, I'll deal with Potvin. If I don't, I'll have Liberals in here trying to equate the two. I will assume everyone is familiar with the comments he has made. Dumping his candidacy is expected, and should in fact be applauded. After all, why should the Green Party use their time and money to try to elect a candidate who contradicts their views?

Andrew Coyne has raised the point (although I suspect cynicism) "What about all those disenfranchised anti-imperialists and 9/11 conspiracy theorists in Vancouver Kingsway? Shouldn't they get the nutter they nominated?" Absolutely! He can run as an independent. He'll be one of the few candidates actively pursuing the paranoid-nutbar vote!

Dion, however, is not faced with candidates who contradict the Liberal platform. He is rejecting people based on their gender. We have laws against those things. Laws the Liberals claim they will defend to the ends of the Earth.

Dion's theme this week seems to be "the electorate is too stupid to do what we want, so we'll do it for them." It was the message behind withholding a candidate in Central Nova (I talk about that in my previous post). Now, it's the message forcing more women to be nominated. If you want more female candidates, send them professionals to support their nominations. But let them win democratically. Dion has just screwed every Liberal in Central Nova, and now he's screwing over the Liberals who have been campaigning for months to win nominations.

Currently, Dion has power over the Liberal Party and little more, and this is how he treats Liberals. This man wants us to make him be Prime Minister of Canada?

Dion and May spit in the faces of voters

This is my first post, on my first blog. I have been cruising the blogs since the last election, leaving the occasional comment, but nothing has inspired me to start my own. Until now.

I admit it; I'm a political junkie. People often ask me why I bother. After all, there is little I can do to affect change in our political system. Protests are ignored. Petitions are rejected. Look at the seal hunt, or Canadian farmers, or Ontario teachers; the list is endless.

I tell them that politicians get away with so much because we do not pay attention. Because, ultimately, the one place we can make them listen is at the ballet box. That's right, every Canadian gets to vote for whatever party represents their views. They may vote Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Communist, Green, for the Animal Protection Party... it doesn't matter. This is where we make our voices heard. Every candidate must face our questions during that election. This is where the politicians answer to us.

(Ideally, each riding would get to nominate their own candidate to represent them, but one rant at a time.)

If the people in Central Nova really wanted Elizabeth May in parliament, they could vote for her. She will be there to express her views. If they don't, it won't happen. That's democracy. She gets her shot just like everybody else.

But apparently "just like everybody else" is not good enough for Elizabeth May and Stephane Dion. It seems the system is too unfair and/or we're too stupid to vote they way they think we should. So they're going to skew the sytem; Dion is going to pull his candidate in Central Nova, and May is going to endorse him for Prime Minister of Canada. She is also going to pull her candidate in Dion's riding, creating the same issue there.

Ignoring the fact that this move violates the Constitution of the Liberal Party of Canada, let's look at the loyal Liberals of Central Nova. Despite being told that their vote doesn't matter in their riding (Conservatives won it with the NDP in second) they got to stand up on election day and proclaim their beliefs. They have a candidate to support their views. They may not win, but they get to be heard and lose fairly. Now, they get no one. They are being told that they are not important enough to be represented by a Liberal, but instead they can have a pro-life anti-SSM, anti-NAFTA, anti-WTO activist parachuted in... from another party.

It must be hard to be a Liberal in Nova Centre. I know how they feel - until two months ago I was a Conservative in Toronto Centre. During the election, I got to listen to Lewis Reford stand up for my views at the candidates debates, taking all the criticism I took on a daily basis. He came to my door and we talked about political issues. I knew there was someone to represent me.

The Liberals in Nova Centre have been abandoned. Bloggers everywhere may be looking at the strategic implications of this move, but personally, all I see is one political opportunist who abandoned a riding for a personal endorsement, and another who abandoned her principles and party for a slightly better chance at a seat in the House of Commons.