If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Canada need not wait for others to develop smart policy to promote energy development and environmental stewardship as mutually reinforcing objectives with Canadian interests in mind -- it won't happen and we have more at stake.
From my vantage point in Toronto, the contrast between the current state of local politics and federal politics is an interesting study. King Harpernicus and Burgher Meister Ford are basically cut from the same cloth, but the results of the tailoring are very different.
In Rio, Canada worked pretty hard to make sure no binding agreement on tackling overfishing occurred...or any other agreement for that matter. We can't look to our politicians to help the Earth, but we can look to ourselves. Local efforts from businesses and cities: These are things we can count on.
In all the political posturing and lobbying by corporations, there is simply no comprehension of what the real crisis is at Rio+20. While we should be talking about what we can do for the environment, we just have politicians signing watered-down documents and treaties, and doing nothing to implement them.
I’'m writing to thank you and the government for the decision to make the Rouge Valley a national park. But, I am still shocked each time I hear you on radio or television –justifying what you are doing or not doing on the basis of the economic consequences. That’'s the Finance Minister'’s job. Yours is to protect the environment.
I'm not surprised to find out that Canada is promoting the tar sands at the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development and the environment, after all, they have a long and marked history of using these conferences to promote and defend the image of the tar sands abroad. It might not be surprising, but that doesn't mean it isn't wrong.
Environmental groups in Canada are in the crosshairs of the government, and are under investigation for fiscal mismanagement. But what about groups like the Fraser Institute, which uses foreign money to feed misinformation to children, undermine national and global climate action and block shifts away from the most carbon-intensive energy on earth?
Canadians are generally an obedient lot, so what gives with the plan of a group of Canadians to block Warren Buffett's coal trains near Vancouver this Saturday? Those on the train tracks and those standing up for alternatives to the tar sands, while maybe considered radical, might just be the new responsible.
So many questions about Canada today. So few answers. What are the Conservatives scared of, indirectly gutting environmental laws via the budget, rat...
It's not often you get an environment minister sitting down with a bunch of reporters and editorial staff to a no-holds-barred question-and-answer session, let alone a minister who has become as controversial as Peter Kent.
Yet that's what happened on Thursday at HuffPost, as we initiated our series of monthly lunches with Very Important People You Need to Hear From. When we informed the minister going in that he was our guinea pig, he wondered aloud if he was not in fact our sacrificial lamb? Not quite.
Props to HuffPost for getting Peter Kent into its office to answer some questions. Goodness knows Canadians need better answers from an Environment Minister whose reputation is that of acting on behalf of the tar sands industry rather than the environment. But the printed interview came off very much in the vein of "kid gloves."
The tar sands industry now faces legal challenges from First Nations, low carbon fuel initiatives in California and the EU, opposition to its pipelines in the U.S., in British Columbia, and in Eastern provinces and states. Are all these people crazy? Is it still you, not me?
It would have been better by light years if Canada had ended its Kyoto agreement responsibilities with a new and better environmental agreement already in hand -- instead of slinking away like the juvenile delinquent who missed so much school that catching up with the other students became completely out of the question.
The historical culprits for causing climate change have gotten away with murder in Durban, abandoning their responsibility for this crisis and placing the burden upon the shoulders of the world. But this is not the time to mourn Durban. We must organize and create a just, sustainable future.
As you read this on Sunday morning, I am most likely stumbling around in my bathrobe, ice pack on head, recovering from the annual holiday party my husband and I throw for colleagues and friends. It's traditional for us to serve a blue cocktail in celebration of Hanukkah. Why we started this, I don't know, because blue drinks are unfailingly disgusting. The key ingredient in a blue drink is Curacao liqueur and this year we mixed the Curacao with vodka and lemonade. For once, the result wasn't too bad. In any case, it doesn't really matter what the cocktail tastes like, I've found. At a party, people will toss back anything if they are having fun. Which makes a somewhat long preamble to the launch of our newest section, HuffPost Canada Style. Style will show you how to look fabulous even while holding a blue drink.
For the past 14 years, leftist elements in Canada have trumpeted Kyoto's virtues -- that we've been a leading exponent of it, at the forefront to save the planet from carbon emissions that are warming the planet to the eventual disaster of us all. But Canada never -- not once -- abided by the dictums of Kyoto.
