That may be true, but it doesn't change the fact that we need to work harder to reduce GHG's just to stay on par with many other countries. Yes, I'm aware that our standard of living is among the highest in the world, but it comes at a cost with impacts on the environment. I know we can do much better, but significant change requires more than just a bit of personal sacrifice. There currently is a massive amount of infrastructure that is dependent on fossil fuels, and it is a major and expensive undertaking to switch to a clean and dependable alternative!

Sure, but you can fit approximately 25 Swedens in Canada and about 30 Norways. When you are responsible for transporting goods and services all over a country this size, East to West as well as to the Northern most reaches it starts to add up. -- and before you point to Russia, it would be prevalent to point out that many parts of Russia still have no electricity, so guaranteed services, and use wood burning stoves, which for reasons that escape my understanding aren't factored in the whole CO2/GHG emissions calculations.



I'm sorry but that's beyond deceptive. For starters practically every single other developed nation on the planet pollutes "per capita" more than India or China. This isn't because these other countries pollute so very much, but rather because China and India have so very many people. See for yourself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ons_per_capita

It's exceedingly difficult for a country of 35M to compete on this basis with a country of 1.3B. That's 37 to 1. The math gets deceptive at this point. Each Canadian could pollute 25 times less than we are and they would still win a "per capita' argument. If one of these "poster-boy" nations like Sweden or Norway can't beat China on a per capita basis then what chance does a nation developing huge amounts or oil or gas such as ourselves have?

Secondly all countries that are producing oil and gas for the other countries to use do pollute more, but this is because the other countries have the demand. Oil and gas production is very CO2 intensive. Countries like Quatar or Kuwait have huge pollution-per-capita ratios but this is because the oil production (- that produces so much GHG) is being used by the rest of the planet. This is a recognized factor in the Kyoto protocol.

Thirdly the Kyoto standards take into account 9 other highly important factors besides the "per capita" factor. There is the "energy producers" factor I just mentioned but also very important is the pollution-to-dollar factor. This takes into account who is polluting for a lot of money, and who is polluting for cheap. The point of this factor is to determine who suffers more by reducing CO2/greenhouse gas production.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...xide_emissions

^ Above you can see that Canada makes $2,348 per metric ton of GHG's produced. By contrast China, nearly at the very bottom of the list makes $435 for the same pollution. The point here is that it would cost China, and even each Chinese individual, much less to reduce their emissions than it would for Canada or Canadians. I'll be deaf to any argument that states China, a 2000 year old country with one of the largest economies on the planet; China with their plan to send a man to the moon in 2025; China with the ability to enact draconian social/poltical initiatives on a whim, is a "developing nation". We only laid a railroad across the country a little more than 100 years ago. If they are a "developing nation", then frankly so are we.



Having said all this I am not trying to give Canada a free pass. We need to change the way we're doing things, we have a responsiblity to do that and we're not. We've barely tried in the past 15 years to seriously address these emissions (merely signing international agreements without a real plan doesn't count imo), and regardless of whether you see what I state above as decent points or mere excuses we need to address these emissions [u]now</u>.

To my mind we should not be comparing ourselves because regardless of whether or not we're doing well or poorly compared to another nation we should continually strive to be doing better, however if we're going to continue to have so much invested in oil/gas and resource extraction (and we are fairly cemented in this regard currently) it will be exceedingly difficult, especially given our size and the state of our infrastructure. We souldn't be comparing ourselves. It doesn't really matter if we're doing better or worse than say Norway or germany, we should only concentrate on doing better. Canadians are [u]far</u> too susceptible to finger wagging in this area, imo. We don't need to shame ourselves, and it's futile to throw blame back and forth between previous governments, or to throw all our faith in the next one. We just need to do it.

Everyone is doing this. [u]Everyone</u>. It becomes a matter of political survival. Each time there's an international conference scientists become politicians and the effort becomes a round of "muciscal chairs", each state proclaiming that something must be done and making promises to make promises, while pointing fingers at each other state in oder to mitigate how many concessions they must make for their country.

And that's why I think, unless we take a radically different approach, we have totally lost the climate warming battle- too many countries are committed to maintaining or increasing their standard of living, and cannot embrace any of the GHG standards that have been developed without committing political or economic hari-kari.

So I maintain there is only one feasible "different approach" to reduce GHG's: encourage the development of more renewable energy projects- small hydro, wind, geothermal, AND help the world convert to natural gas. And both require that we think globally, and stop worrying about exporting some of the energy that we have in abundance.

It is most disappointing when people like Rafe Mair oppose run of river power projects- oh sure, there are environmental impacts, just like there are with any development projects, but the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages. It is also frustrating when Rafe and Joe Foy oppose the greater development of our hydroelectric power, and the export of any surplus to the U.S.- if that helps them shut down a few coal-fired generating stations and earns us money to offset our own rates; great- the sooner the better!

Let's talk about [u]Everyone</u> who've ratified then withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol when they missed targets by over 30%.

Wait, there's only one.

We sure did point fingers then. Maybe it assuages our conscience to think Everyone does it.

Doing little about GHG is Canada's official policy. It's not [u]Everyone's</u>.

So at the risk of earning the wrath of some posting here, and of being accused of being a turncoat, secret agent of the oil companies, etc., I would like to comment on the Enbridge pipeline protest over in Victoria. Now I am relying on media accounts, so maybe I'm getting a biased or inaccurate portrayal of what was said, but here goes anyway:

Art Sterrit, Executive Director with the Coastal First Nations is quoted by CBC ( http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...-victoria.html ) as saying:

"This project is not something that British Columbians want and we're also looking to demonstrate what lengths British Columbians are willing to go to stop the project."

Oh? Why does Art Sterrit purport to represent me, and all other British Columbians? And why does he say that all of us British Columbians are prepared to go to considerable lengths to register their objections? I am assuming that he means civil disobedience, or worse, since, according to the CBC, the demonstration started out with a lesson in how to use civil disobedience to make their point.

Here's what Nikki Skuce of ForestEthics had to say:

"People have thought about the Enbridge and Kinder-Morgan pipelines as a real key issue, whether it's to do with climate change, Harper bullying, cutting environmental legislation, First Nations rights and title, shipping raw resources and the jobs that go with it overseas,"

"This is the first, the culmination, of building on what people have said when they said they'll do whatever it takes to try to stop these projects."

Oh- so now we've pulled in the Kinder-Morgan pipeline, climate change, Harper bullying, cutting environmental legislation, First Nations rights and title, shipping raw resources, and overseas jobs all into one protest, while again implying that "people" are prepared to do whatever it takes to try and stop these projects. I hope I'm not included in her broad definition of "people".

Oh, and in case you don't know it- the Kinder Morgan pipeline supplies many of the petroleum products- including gasoline- that we use in southwest B.C., so the protesters likely availed themselves of that commodity to get to Victoria in the first place. Kinder Morgan wants to increase the pipeline supply partly to keep up with the increasing demand for oil that we in B.C. have.

I don't think you're a secret agent of oil or gas Frank, your bias on this thread is far too obvious for that. Completely ridiculous notions about how BC should embrace pipelines in pristine forests for environmental reasons, backed up with suggestions that by 'thinking globally' British Columbian's could somehow usher in a new era of cleaner energy by facilitating the world's transition to natural gas, combined with posting links to Enbridge propaganda web sites in order to inform us (and then your eventual admission that your work is related to the energy industry) all combined to make your stripes pretty much self evident.

I say embrace who you are though, because you too are beautiful!

buckling up my seat belt for this one...

Yes, nearly your entire participation on this thread has been biased and so has mine. The only difference between my bias and yours is that I have not been in denial about mine.

I think your taking this far too seriously, most BC residents do not support the Northern Gateway pipeline, including you by your own admission.


Well, all of these stated concerns have certainly been on my radar but if you don't agree with all of them then perhaps you don't need to lie down in front of a tractor for the "First Nations rights and title" part, you could just get down in the mud for the select pipelines you don't support and leave the rest for the others.


Wow! For someone who works in the energy industry you are either sorely misinformed or intentionally trying to misinform others. The proposed doubling (some say trippling) of the
Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain line is to export tar sands oil out of Canada, NOT to supply greater domestic needs here in the lower mainland at all.

P.S.
Please dont send me any more legal threats via private message. I realize when you industry people tie your own tongues in knots your last resort to win arguments is to threaten legal action in order to silence people but it's kind of cowardly and anyways, you chose to participate on this thread and you dug your own holes.

If you really want to try and square the circle that my criticisms of your positions on this thread are actually criticisms of how you conduct yourself in your professional life, best of luck to you but seriously, get your lawyer to send the legal threats because your not very good at them.

You have not yet even had the courtesy to answer this yet- are you prepared to use illegal means to achieve your ends? If so, would those illegal means include violence? Do I need to be worried?

I have been completely honest about my position, and am not the one who has felt the need to use distortions and personal attacks to make my point, and I certainly have enough respect for democracy to reject any illegal or immoral actions. Some may disagree with how I believe our world energy crisis and climate warming problems may be solved, but they do so in a respectful fashion- and that is the hallmark of intelligent debate where we can all learn something, and come to the best possible resolution on difficult issues facing our world.

Well first off I already pointed out that we missed our targets. We signed the agreement and the gov't at the time, by their own admission, hadn't the foggiest notion how to meet the targets they were signing us up for.

Secondly Canada's (imposed) targets were far more ambitious than others. You want to talk about "the only one" Tu? Okay, sure:

------------------
"The 240 megatonne reduction target for the first commitment period (2008-2012), which is 6 per cent below 1990 levels, is extremely ambitious for an energy-producing country like Canada. In fact, it would put Canada in the anomalous position of being the [u]only major energy-producing country in the world</u> that is required to reduce its GHG emissions below 1990 levels. "
------------------
http://global-economics.ca/kyoto.htm

There you go Tu. That's your "only one", sir or madame. It's pretty easy to miss your targets by 30% when they were 40-50% more ambitious than anyone else in your position.

This is pretty much exactly as I outlined in my previous post: Energy producing nations (i.e. nations that produce oil and gas for other nations to use) face larger challenges, and the challenge imposed on us was higher than any other. The reason no other energy producing country agreed to such reductions is a direct result of the "muscial chairs" and political "blame game" I spoke about. Then there's the Canadian people themselves who gung-ho'd their insistance that we agree to these ambitious targets even though they had no notion how it could be accomplished or what it meant as a direct result of their annoying and immature predisposition to allow themselves to be "shamed" by this international "blame game". That's a Canadian for you: a nation that enslaves it's children could shame them into thinking their childs allowance isn't high enough. Tu we were not and are not the only ones who missed their targets or who are pointing fingers. Everyone plays this political game and not a single signatory is doing so out of the goodness of their hearts. Everyone wants to do their part, but it seems like Canada is the only one who signed this agreement without any thought whatsoever as to the consequences they'd be facing over it.

Further, to give you an idea what the other countries agreed to (same link):

------------------
"The energy-producing members of the European Union (EU) will be able to take advantage of a scheme under the Protocol called a "bubble" [u]which will enable them to redistribute their 8-per-cent reduction target among themselves.Norway, an energy-producing country that is not a member of the EU, has a target that allows for a 1-per-cent increase over 1990 levels.</u> Australia, which has already announced its intention not to accede, would have had a target of an 8-per-cent increase."
------------------


As you can see Tu, once you get into the nebulous definitions and details other countries agreed to, our "failure" isn't remotely as bad as the shame-shame-Canada team wants us to believe. So much for "poster boy" Norway who attempted to "meet their targets" with an increase rather than a decrease. "The only one". That's pretty disingenuous.

You might find this graph of who is on par to meet their targets (or rather by what percentage everyone isn't) useful:
http://www.informationisbeautiful.ne...hos-on-target/

Please take a good look at that, then consider the how much more was expected of us (much more than anyone else in our position) and maybe, if I ask really nicely, you might rethink your shame-shame-Canada narrative. Thanks.






Then after that maybe we can talk about who didn't ratify the agreement and then went on to increase their pollution by some estimates as much as 100% their previous already largest-in-the-world total: China.

Saw this in today's news. http://www.vancouversun.com/business...56/story.html#

This decision is VERY politically motivated. Harper is starting to play real hardball: since BC won't support Alberta, Big Bitumen and their pipelines, he's prepared to sabotage BC's LNG strategy. "You won't support us, we won't support you!" or "You want your LNG exports, you gotta let us have our pipelines and our bitumen exports."

Stay tuned....

Thanks Release for illustrating the whole 'pointing fingers' point.

The chart you reference does summarize succinctly how much increase in GHG production there was in Canada, in comparison with other countries. We're pretty unique in that.

Funny comment heard the other day: "But isn't bitumen just asphalt? Why worry?"

Interesting play... lots of ways this could go badly for Harper.

LNG export is bad for BC. LNG plants would require a huge amount of subsidized power that BC Hydro doesn't have. The LNG export idea is a bust.