By Klaus Rohrich
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Now that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has scared the living bejeezuz out of much of the world's guilty liberal types, newly minted Liberal Leader Stephane Dion is adding fuel to the guilt-fed fires by claiming that only he and he alone can fulfill Canada's commitment to the Kyoto Wealth Redistribution Treaty. The fact that during his tutelage as environment minister under the corrupt Chretien government Canada actually increased its output of so-called greenhouse gases by 30%, while the Americans, the Liberals' favorite whipping boy, substantially reduced their output during the same time frame, is conveniently unmentioned.
It's one of those traits that provides a fairly clear insight into the heart and soul of Dion and his crew for those who seek such enlightenment. They're betting that most Canadians are too wrapped up in hockey scores or trying to pay off the Canada Revenue Agency to remember something so trivial as Dion's abject failure as environment minister under a previous Liberal government. But then the Libs are probably correct in their assumption, as if indeed the populace really cared about such matters, then Dion would not be the leader of the Liberal Party today.
I do not believe that Dion, or Stephen Harper for that matter, really believes in the concept of man made climate change, but sees it rather as a political opportunity to be exploited to their best advantage. Now that the IPCC's Chicken Little hysteria has gotten everyone's attention, Dion believes he can score an end run and wind up as Prime Minister following the next election. Only trouble is that fate is against him, as his cynicism will surely catch up to him.
First and foremost, it's pretty hard to convince voters that the earth is in an uncontrollable warming spiral that will end with the melting of the polar ice caps and the flooding of all of the world's coastal regions in the middle of a record cold snap. By the time this cold snap breaks, the news cycle will have moved on to another, more interesting story. And even those citizens who have taken the trouble to actually read what the IPCC has said, rather than what the former mainstream media is saying they said, discover that the doom and gloom forecast issued by that body have been downsized considerably. The only clear thing that has emanated from the IPCC's report is that they believe there is a 90% chance that the current changing trend is man-made, which is up from the 60% chance they claimed two years ago.
Secondly, Dion's ploy is so transparent that even the densest voters can see through it. But then, this is Canada, one of the few places on earth where politicians actually campaign on a platform that promises to increase taxes, so there might be some justification to his belief that the voters' collective memory doesn't reach beyond last week's Canadian Idol outcome.
Lastly, but most importantly, the climate change debate has reached a fevered pitch and in most social democracies has attained the status of a religion. If all you have to back up your contention that we're doomed unless we dress in sackcloth and ashes, then the basis of your argument is less than rational.
M. Dion's assertion that the trading of greenhouse credits will put Canada into the forefront of a new world economy is ludicrous. How much wealth can one create by paying good money for nothing? The greenhouse credit economy is a Ponzi scheme that will force the developed world to freely hand over bushels of cash to the developing world. It's like a macabre game of "May I?" Country "A", a developed nation will buy a factory from country "B", a developing nation. "A" then dismantles the factory and uses the calculated emissions that the dismantled factory did not spew into the atmosphere as a credit to emissions belched out by its factories. Country "B" then builds yet another factory that it plans to sell to another developed nation. But here's the kicker: developing nations would not have to pay for their greenhouse emissions and can freely sell them on the open market. So the cash only ever flows one way.
Who benefits? Certainly the planet doesn't benefit, as there is no actual reduction in the amount of greenhouse gases emitted. Country "A" doesn't benefit either, as it is paying for the privilege of emitting carbon dioxide, which it could do without paying. Country "B" would benefit marginally, as it would earn cash for essentially doing nothing and needless to say, little if any of that cash would finds its way to those developing nations' poor.
M. Dion couldn't possibly believe that this emission credit scheme is good for Canadians. If he did, he would have taken some concrete steps to implement it during his tenure as environment minister. This has a lot more to do with getting back into power than it does with saving the world.
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