Climate warming has now become a religion…you can recognise this by the news leads of, “No one with an above-room-temperature IQ can possibly deny that….”. And so the pols must respond with something, and like the gun registry, this plan will be taxpayer-expensive, pork-barrellish, and have no effect on the real problem, which of course may well not even exist.

I think Stephen Harper made the most sensible decision. After all, we are one of the lowest polluters and we are expected to make the biggest commitment? I don’t think so. How come some of the largest polluters aren’t asked to do anything? I would suspect some of the biggest critics aren’t in business in Canada. Frankly, I don’t think global warming is the big issue it is made out to be. Just follow the money trail and see who stands to make the most money with the global warming scare. I agree that we need to take care of the planet but let’s do it sensibly.

Environmentalist need to go out and smell the roses on their 3 wheel bicicles.
Zuzuki needs to get rid of his gas guzziling polictically incorrect propoganda RV and get to walking and cycling.

Buzz Hargrove had it right when he called it “Environmental Insanity”

Kyoto and the notion that humans are responsible for the global warming is the biggest joke, and probably one of the most expensive one, ever perpatrated on mankind. It is indeed an environmentalist ideology and has no basis on any true science. In England the TV documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle” was broadcast but apparently it is not allowed by the far left in Canada - or the USA. (It is available on the Internet: do a search under the title of the video). But why does our supposedly conservative government not want to inform us, citizens, of the findings of many real scientists and show this video in Canada? The David Suzukis and the Al Gores have been very successful in manipulating us by their fearmongering - a great source revenue for them - and our goverment is doing little or nothing to counter that horrible fear which seems to grip so many of our citizens.

The NCC banner read ” more freedom through less government “.
Is there anyone out there who thinks the current fiasco to outlaw incandecent light bulbs is a sign of “less” government?
Stephan Harper and his gang have adapted to ruling the same way as all governments - only one principle matters; get voters. Well don’t count on having my vote.
Until someone recognizes the principle that as indiviuals, if we can be trusted to vote, surely we can be trusted to spend our own earnigs with out every decision being controlded by big brother. It is time all of us developed some resentment to government intervention and told Ottowa to take a hike.
gs

The plan seems to gingerly step away from the irrational, emotional debate on climate change and start to deal constructively with the real issues of pollution and depletion of non-renewable resources.

I personally do not believe that regardless of the plan put forth by the Federal Conservative government will be accepted by either the Liberals or the NDP. Unfortunaltely that is the nature of politics today. The opposition parties are not prepared to work together on any issue regardless of how positive it is for both the environment and the economy.

Never will so much be paid by so many for so little

It is always interesting to hear the excited outcry of so called Dr. Suzuki bemoaning the fact that the world is going to be destroyed by humans. He and his organization along with greenpeace will must be running scared that federal funding will be cut to them.

We are fortunate that Stephen Harper has a degree in economics. What we do need is a clear policy direction so that businesses can set aside capital to meet regulatory requirements rather than being left in limbo not knowing what the regulatory climate will be.

Global warming has become a religion. We have jumped directly from evidence of warming to public policy without conclusive proof that man is responsible for these climate changes. Anyone who dares to question the cascade thinking is labelled a denier or risks their career. Google search Climate of Fear by Dr. Richard Lindzen for an interesting and revealing read. It is interesting that the Goracle used the hockey stick graph which has been discredited by 2 Canadians (we know our hockey!).

The last issue driven by apocalyptic predictions was the mad cow scare in the UK. Ten years ago, “scientific experts” were predicting that the UK would see 100,000 cases of Kreudzfelt Jakob within 10 years. Thousands of sheep and cows were exterminated in the UK and thousands of farm families were devastated yet we have fewer cases of Kreudzfelt Jakob worldwide today than we did 10 years ago. Now, they’re saying these cases will appear in 20 years…really. Who is held accountable for getting it this wrong. Answer….file it under your problem.

Personally, I live in a house that contains urea-formaldehyde foam, another issue that ran on fear and bad science. Thousands of Canadians had their homes totally devalued as a result of the spinelessness of the political class. Many homes contain higher levels of formaldehyde gas than those with uffi insulation since formaldehyde is used on everything from carpets to furniture to drapes. The good news is that workers in industries who exposed to massive amounts of formaldehyde have adverse health problems due to their exposure. Those in the mortuary industry actually live longer than the rest of us.

It is interesting when one considers the modern environmental movement because it is inherently a political movement rather than a scientific one. As organized labour has dwindled in importance, environmental organizations have grown often building on the class warfare, anti-business rhetoric of their union antecedents. We should very seriously start reading and studying what these groups want since it appears that they are intent upon bypassing the democratic process and setting up powerful lobby groups to achieve their goals. Many of their ideas are not what most of us would consider practical or economic.

For example, eliminating agri-business and returning to conventional small scale farms are completely impractical. For one thing, organic crop yields are substantially lower than conventional. Consider that at present according to Statistics Canada, Canadian farms now produce 11 x as much food as the farms in 1900. Can one really go back to the small scale model of farming proposed by The Green Pary? Farmers in the 20th century moved to industrial jobs. Now, the majority of workers are service workers in Canada showing a shift from a resource based and industrial economy to a knowledge economy. Small scale farming does not offer economies of scale or sufficient productive capacity. Taping into niche markets offers a far more viable way of competing with large operations, ie. offer something that a large farm does not like vine ripened, heritage tomatoes or specialty cheese.

I recently heard a speaker from Environmental Defence telling the audience that what was needed was “more fear, not less”. It would seem that fear and emotion are the primary tools of today’s environmental movement.

Typo, should say that workers exposed to massive amounts of formaldehyde are NO adverse health effects. No cancers, no respiratory problems…nada.

NO MATTER WHAT THE GOV. DOES FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
THE OPPOSITION WILL CRY FOUL.

Stephen, Stephen, Stephen. It’s hard to imagine that he actually believes in some of this dribble that John Baird is coming out with. Don’t tell me switching to incandescent ligh bulbs is a Conservative idea. What happened to small government, not involving itself in the marketplace? I realize this is all to get enough votes in order to gain a Majority government in the next election, but compromozing one’s principles to do it is very questionable. At least the are not going off the deep end on this on… i guess this is the best we can ask for with the new global warming craze.

I would like Harper to walk across the floor and whack both Dion and Leyton right in the pumpkin…these two clowns wouldn’t agree on anything that this government does….they complain about Kyoto and now they’re on the bandwagon about the poor Taliban killers and that they might get tortured by the Afghanis whom they are turned over to…to damn bad..they should have thought of that when they were blowing up OUR good Canadian soldiers trying to help their sorry pile of sand…I suggest Jack and Stephane move to these hot spots and fix the problems themselves..it is easy to be a critic when you haven’t got the fortitude to do it yourself..and as far as the CBC is concerned, Harper should cut their budget to about $100 bucks so the left propaganda will stop…

I would much prefer to see realistic targets set by the conservative government than the liberal, ndp and bloc plan to disrupt the economy by forcing companies to enter into carbon trading schemes that benefit carbon traders at the peril of losing jobs and our industry.

Canada only accounts for 2% of the problem. We can shut down the whole country, and the difference would not be noticable.

The problem is caused by sun spots, it is happening on Mards too. So I don’t believe the enviro-nuts, especially with the hypocricy of David Suzuki anbd Al Gore.

Wasn’t Stephen Harper a former NCC President? What hapened to him?

What moderation are you looking for?

I would much prefer to see realistic targets set by the conservative government than to disrupt the economy by forcing companies to enter into carbon trading schemes that may benefit carbon traders at the peril of losing jobs and our industry.

1. Do we have global warming? Very probably yes.
2. Are human activities an important component of the cause? Totally unproven, and quite unlikely.”Correlation does not prove causation”.
3. Could we do anything to head off g.w.? Not likely.
4. How come important nations like Russia have signed onto Kyoto? It’s because their filthy industries collapsed, conveniently just after the 1990 benchmarks were agreed upon, and signing-on to Kyoto was free economically and very profitable politically. You can trust Putin for that. He suppressed the dissent of his own top scientists on the g.w. subject. Canada should buy emission credits from Russia? Aw, comon.
5. But what about the IPCC report of Feb.? “A consensus of scientists agree that …..” Well, what is the IPCC? It’s an offshoot of the UN, which is a club of failed states enviously attacking the prosperous West in every possible way. The IPCC is one way. The authors of its Feb. report are far more than 50% from Third World or semi-Third World countries.
6. OK then, what SHOULD Canada do about g.w. etc.? Probably much like what Harper proposes, i.e. correct as much as we can without crippling ourselves economically or raising such political storms that many governments would dissolve in chaos - including maybe ours; meanwhile do heavy-duty HONEST science to settle unsettling questions such as: if Mars is also being globally warmed (which it is), what is that trying to tell us?

Frank Gue.

Harper & Co would do better to work toward establishing a) is global warming a fact, b) if so, is it any different from other warming periods in the past, c) how material, if at all, are mankind’s effects on warming, and d) how much could anything we can do to lessen the warming anyway. So far there is no agreement on any of these questions. We are foolish to charge ahead blindly.

Is your reply to my email forthcoming or ignored?

OK now that we are going to cool our planet again I WANT my heating rebate for running my furnace overtime!
I also want FREE drugs for the headache fluorescent bulbs give me.
Why don’t we put the MONEY into producing pure white LED bulbs that use exponentially less energy than our compact fluorescent savior bulbs do.
Perhaps a real rebate or tax cut for buying efficient appliances and getting rid of the old hogs would do more than the bulbs.
I have nothing against NOT wasting our resources but suggesting any of this is going to effect the climate is absurd.
Imagine ALL the energy we would save if our climate was warm enough to grow our own food locally instead of trucking it in from ALL over the world.

This is nuts by any standard. If the GHG is the problem Greens claim this plan will do nothing. Canada could do nothing.
If the Sun is responsible for the warming as most sane people think then why are we expending huge ammounts of effort and money to fix the unfixxable?
All this talk about air pollution is BS te air has been steadily improving for 30 years and outside of a few peoblem areas it never has been better.
Doesn’t anyone in government think it is time to apply real honest science to the problem if one even exists?
David Suzuki should lose his tax exmpt status and his govt contracts.

Send May and suzuki to India and China to clean up their pollution and we will certainly do our part under Harper

Thank goodness we have one political party (the Conservatives) who are willing to stand up alone for realism, balance and common sense. Unfortunately, the other parties and much of the media seem to have fallen into a Kyoto stupor of madness that is frankly embarrassing!

Has anyone asked David Suzuki or other environmentalists what they estimate the economic impact of total Kyoto compliance is? - Surely, they must have the economics nailed down really well since they assert that Baird’s figures from a large team of professional economists are only scare tactics. Let’s see their estimates!!

How can Canadian reductions make any significant impact on global warming when Canada only produces 2 - 4 % of global CO2 emissions? Has anyone seriously asked what exactly gutting the Canadian economy is going to achieve with Global Warming???

THANK GOODNESS FOR THE CONSERVATIVES!!!

What utter nonsense, and hubris to think that anythng we do
can change global warming, if indeed it exists! Some scientists think the world is cooling.
What is evident, is that the big push is to bring international income tax in through the back door.

When was it proven that global warming is caused by greenhouse gases?

The Harper Government has made a logical and commendible start. The Media in general should take note and start getting behind this government rather than continuing it’s criticism of Harper, other Ministers, policies and this NOTHING issue of the treatment of prisoners in Afganistan by their ouw people and out of our hands. That issue should not be dominating the Media.

Let’s start reviewing the IMPORTANT ISSUES WHICH HAVE BEEN DEALT WITH POSITIVELY BY THIS GOVERNMENT.Otherwise, it may be the fault of the Media if Canadians are forced to face an election, much earlier than necessary.

This has been a bad week for the Conservatives.We need a strong defense minister. The general tone on radio at first was quite supportive of the clean air act. That leak was probably good/ I hope Baird sticks with his plan. Having even a thought of Dion as Prime Minister is the most scary news I can think of

If you meddle with the Free Market,It will BITE you in the Ass!The Acadamia-Nuts of our Fair Land fail to realise,that,the Rising price of petroleum products, which is a result of increasing world demand ,will force Humanity to Find more economical ways to consume this Commodity!This lower consumption will Naturally result in lower emissions!This will happen sooner than the reasonable Legislation the Harper Government has proposed.The Government is trying to prevent a major economic Down turn.Humanity always adapts quicker to economics than it does to the imposed will of social scientists.including PIE IN the SKY Environmentalists.The Free Market moves very rapidly compared to Governments.I hope these Acadamia Nuts Have purchased their Bicycles.They may need them sooner than they Realise.

Light bulbs - banning a technology - this is insane. Industry will always go to cheaper and better on it’s own, without government intervention. (GE is already applying for patents for more efficient incandessant bulbs, but I supposed this is slated for the altar of political correctness.)
Kyoto - another stab by UN globalists to bring down the west.
Elephant, definition of : A mouse built to government specifications………..

there is nothing wrong with reducing pollution and thereby improving air and water quality.however,other than big industry,a lot of pollution is caused by heavy populations in large cities.the envirionmentalists should really move to the country if they are really concerned and in tune with the world.kyoto is unrealistic and will result in higher costs in an already over-taxed economy and will effectively result in a tax on the poor.

This nothing but politics. If the Conservatives do not shut down Alberta this year - then everything else they do is wrong. I do not see the frenzied nutbars as in Suzuki, Layton, May, Dion or Al Gore riding a horse OR a bicycle..
Let’s Send to India and China to clean up their pollution and we will certainly do our part under Harper

I t is reasonable and obtainable without disrupting our economy

THE HEAVEY POPULATIONS IN CITIES IS NO DIFFERENT THAN A FACTORY FARM.EVERYTHING IN MODERATION AND THE WORLD SPECIFFICALLY CANADA WILL LOOK AFTER ITSELF.PUT 300000 PIGS IN ONE LOCATION AND YOU HAVE AN ENVIRIONMENTAL PROBLEB.LET THOSE PIGS RUN FREE RANGE AND THERE IS NO PROBLEM.I THINK THE AL GORES AND THE ENVIRONMENTS WANT TO LIVE IN A FACTORY HOG BARN BUT WANT THE REST OF US TO PAY FOR THEIR UNWISE CHOICE.

Both parties are too busy playing politics by making long term promises which eventually are forgoten or get watered down.
We need to make politicians more acountable and if they break the promise they should be made to resign and go to jail. They are no diferent than a bank robber.

What a mish-mash of ignorance and cynicism appears in the opinions posted above. I accept that global warming is occurring and that human activity is a prime cause.
While we in Canada should exert our best effort to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxides, global warming needs to be tackled where it is chiefly being caused: India and China.

Hypocrisy exposed!
1) Instead of welcoming higher gas prices as a stimulus to use the car less and the legs more, too many people want the goernment “to do something” to reduce the price. so that they can continue to put more CO2 in the air.
2) Ask anybody if they are willing to lose their job in order to save the environment and the answer is, you guessed it, “No”.

Most of your readers’ comments on this blog (to date) has been right on. However, it is very far from proven that our globe is warming, and extremely unlikely that any hypothetical effect could be anthropomorphic. Do not forget that water vapour (not carbon dioxide) constitutes about 95% of so-called greenhouse gases. Follow the money: who stands to gain from all the fear-mongering? High up on the roster are Gore, Suzuki, May and the tax men.

I continue to believe that Stephen Harper and his cabinet have been suckered into an expensive, futile and perhaps disastrous tilt at someone else’s windmill.