We’re being flayed in Copenhagen by know-nothings, but our country is actually one of the good guys
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN, TORONTO SUN
I’m not sure which is worse.
Is it painfully self-righteous journalists-cum-environmental-radicals like the U.K.’s George “Moonbat” Monbiot, falsely accusing Canada of being a “corrupt petro-state” as the Copenhagen climate follies drag on?
Or is it the cheering from their sycophantic, know-nothing journalistic admirers in Canada, one of whom recently wrote a piece of such spectacularly uninformed drivel that appeared across the pond in the wake of the Moonbat’s ravings, that it practically screamed: “Oh, flay me, George, flay me, you great big, greenhouse-gas emitting hunk of Canada-bashing flatulence, you”?
It was yet another monumentally ignorant expression of environmental self-loathing, typical of Canada’s chattering classes.
Show these folks a credible study indicating Canada has one of the best environmental records in the world — and heaven knows you’d have to show it to them because they never do any research — and they’d be the first on their feet demanding a recount … to lower our score.
In this, they are the intellectual heirs — to use the phrase ironically — of Canadian environmentalists, who only seem pleased when Canada is being selectively and unfairly firebombed at UN forums like the Copenhagen farce, and only too happy to throw the first Molotov cocktail themselves.
Never mind facts. Never mind reality. Never mind that in last year’s exhaustive environmental survey by The Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and The Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University, Canada finished with the world’s 12th best environmental record out of 192 countries — including almost 50 that don’t even compile enough credible data to be assessed.
Judged on 25 environmental factors, including climate change, Canada achieved an aggregate score of 86.6 out of 100 on the study’s Environmental Performance Index, ahead of Germany (land of the useless wind turbines) in 13th place, the Moonbat’s U.K. in 14th, and, oh, look, 14 places ahead of Denmark, whose capital is Copenhagen, site of the latest UN carbon dioxide-spewing festival of indignation on the dangers of spewing carbon dioxide.
The U.S., home of Nobel Peace Prize winners and warmists extraordinaire Al Gore and Barack Obama, finished in 39th place, although no doubt Canada’s self-loathing chattering classes, now aware there is such a study, will blame it all on George Bush.
Do we face serious environmental challenges in Canada? You bet we do.
We can’t figure out where to dispose of our nuclear waste.
We can’t even supply clean water to aboriginal reserves.
We have polluted harbours and toxic waste dumps galore.
Ontario is years behind its promised elimination of coal-fired energy plants, among the worst polluters in North America.
Alberta’s oil sands are a growing concern, not especially for their carbon dioxide emissions, but for the air and water pollution they cause, destruction of boreal forests and the huge amounts of water and energy they consume.
We need to address these issues. But let’s get real. Let’s stop the hysteria.
The oil sands are currently responsible for less than one-tenth of one per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Canada is responsible for 2%.
Until China and the U.S. — the world’s number one and two greenhouse gas emitters, responsible for 40% of global emissions — wean themselves off coal as their major electricity source, Canada could turn out the lights tomorrow — shut down everything — and it wouldn’t make any difference to the planet.
NOTHING FAIR ABOUT KYOTO
That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do our fair share, but “fairness” has nothing to do with the Kyoto accord, a UN treaty that was rigged from the start against a big, cold, northern, sparsely-populated, energy-producing nation like Canada, and whose main purpose was not to save the planet but to throw a monkey wrench into the U.S. economy.
Only thing is, the Americans weren’t stupid enough to ratify it, even when Gore was their vice-president. We were, thanks to Jean Chretien, who, like our chattering classes today, had absolutely no idea of what he was talking about on the subject of climate change.
LORRIE.GOLDSTEIN@SUNMEDIA.CA