Who is Scarier: Conservatives or Environmentalists?

The fallout from the Conservatives’ report on the economic cost of implementing bill C-288 has been interesting. As expected, the opposition and enviro-cultists like Suzuki have ripped into Baird and the Conservatives. Friday’s question period started off with a Liberal-Bloq pile on of Baird, lead by David McGuinty (Ottawa South, Lib.) accusing the Conservatives of trying to:

…scare Canadians with a report based on bogus assumptions and extreme views of the Kyoto accord.

This assertion is ironic because the environmental religion led by Al Gore has been trying to scare the world with predictions of cataclysmic disasters "based on bogus assumptions and extreme views". I guess they would know a scare tactic when they see one.

The enviro-kool-aid-brigade was made up of McGuinty, Rodriguez (Lib), Guay (BQ) and Bigras (BQ). They accused the Conservatives of everything from twisting the arms of the economists that supported the economic report to inflating the tax cost to corporations, with a healthy dose of damaging Quebec thrown in.

Baird shot back with Liberal inaction on Kyoto since 1997, the opposition not costing out C-288 before passing it and the

The cost of inaction is that we are forced to do the work of 15 years in just 8 months. That is the real problem.

Baird referred a number of times to the impending Conservative plan to tackle

harmful greenhouse gas emissions

It is worrying that the Conservative government has adopted the opinion that CO2 emissions are harmful. There is no evidence of this. CO2 is a naturally occurring molecule emitted by plants and animals alike. If you don’t like CO2 emissions, stop breathing. That is also impossible, just like Canada meeting its Kyoto targets in 8 months.

Even more worrying is Baird’s assertion that the Conservative’s will

regulate industry

for greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, Canada is riding high economically, regulating CO2 emissions will be a huge cost to industry, however they choose to meet the regulations. China and other developing countries are not part of Kyoto and do not have to regulate CO2 emissions. In fact, these countries have little to no environment regulations at all. Canada has to compete with these countries in the current global economy. We are shooting ourselves in the foot over a problem that does not exist.

Others have weighed in on the issue also:

Chantal Hébert of the Toronto Star agrees that the Conservatives and the opposition seem to be on a collision course over the environment. It should be interesting with bill C-30, the new, improved Clean Air Act looming on the horizon.

From the sounds of it, the differences between the Harper government and the opposition on climate change are irreconcilable.

Andrew Coyne of the National Post thinks that Baird may have a point. It is a good read. He even puts together some numbers to support Baird’s Argument.

The key assumption is that the bulk of the required reductions -- 75% -- would have to be achieved domestically, rather than by buying emissions credits abroad. We'll get to that assumption in a second, but the implications if you accept it are stark. At 770 megatonnes per year, we are now about 36% above the target set out in the Kyoto protocol: 6% below 1990 levels, or 563 Mt.

The deadline for meeting this target is not, as commonly reported, 2012. Rather, it is 2008 to 2012: the target is defined as the average annual emissions over that period. Yet emissions are currently projected to grow another 10% over the next five years, to roughly 850 Mt. So it isn't just a matter of somehow cutting 200 Mt out of emissions by next year, but of cutting nearly 300 Mt by 2012 --an average reduction of 33% from the baseline forecast. If we fall short of that target in the first year, we have to exceed it in subsequent years.

Finally, Jeff Watson (MP, Essex – CPC) , believes that implementing C-288 will kill Canada’s auto industry.

Jeff Watson, today panned the Liberals' job killing Kyoto bill, C-288, "as the death knell for Essex county's auto industry and called on the Liberal Opposition - and its nominated candidates - to explain why they want to kill auto jobs in Essex and across Canada".

Suzuki Blows a Gasket

Isn’t it interesting how stoked up the enviro-cultists get when anyone, especially a governing politician, says anything against their god, global warming. Check out GW arch-bishop of Canada - David Suzuki’s reaction to the dire warnings in the report on the economic impacts of meeting Kyoto targets:

If our so-called leaders ignore the warnings, I would think that this is a crime against future generations and I'm wondering if there's a legal basis for taking action against people who run corporations or who run government, for their inaction on global warming,

[...I’m wondering if there’s any legal basis for taking action against Suzuki and his ilk for spreading lies about man made global warming, with the intention of swindling everyday people out of gobs and gobs of money. Probably not likely either. As you were.]

I happen to think it's a crime, or perhaps we can call it a sin.

[…the bishop has spoken, let it be written that anyone that is not a lemming and likes to think for themselves is a sinner against the global warming religion and must burn in…umm…Ontario desert for all their natural lives. Even Suzuki is referring to GW hysteria as a religion, complete with sin.]

And what did his worship have to say about the report?

First of all, let's stop listening to the goddamn economists

[…classy! “If you don’t worship my god I will cuss in your God’s name.” Is that what they teach in fruit-fly skool nowadays? Not to mention the disrespect he has shown for some of the most honoured people in their field.]

And finally,

Twenty per cent of the economy will disappear. It will cost more than World War I and World War II put together. We'll go into a kind of depression we've never, ever had in all of history.

[…after which, Suzuki stood up and yelled “BOOO!”]

Why do people like Suzuki and the rest of the global warming cult not get it? These dire predictions are based on very flawed models that are set up to give the answer their creators (global warming proponents) are looking for. On a more basic level, climatologists are lousy at predicting the weather a week or a month into the future. How can we trust them predicting temperatures and weather 20 to 50 years from now?