Climate Change - a political rant

While driving up to Sudbury the second week of May I noticed the snow on the side of the hills and the piles along the side of the road left by the plows. It made me thing about climate change. For so long people have been talking about global warming. And of course those who wish to deny that there is a change in the global weather have always been able to argue that it is not getting warmer- it is getting colder - “just look at the summers we have been having".

The issue is not whether it is getting warmer/colder, but how drastic the changes will be. There are all kinds of indicators that something profound is occurring. The fact that the North West Passage is open in the summer time for the first time in either recorded history or in the oral traditions of the Inuit should be a clear warning sign. People such as Stephen Lewis are suggesting that we are already past the point where there will be consequences. Less scientific perhaps but equally as telling is the fact that some of the sayings of my youth are no loner valid. Such things as “April showers bring May flowers” or for March “in like a lion out like a lamb” just don’t seem to be as true anymore.

Unfortunately there are still too many people who deny that something is happening and that we humans may be responsible. Even more unfortunately our prime minister is one of those people. In fact he was during the Copenhagen Conference disingenuous and perhaps even intentionally he misrepresented the truth when he stated that Canada only is responsible for 2% of the world’s production of carbon dioxide. According to the 2007 report of the CDIAC done for the UN, Canada did only produce approximately 1.9% of the world’s CO2 emissions. BUT the more relevant statistic is the production of CO2 per person. Canada, according to the above report, is second only to the USA in emissions and produces almost four times as much CO2 per person as does China.

We as a nation continue to use more of Mother Earth’s resources than we should. It is not sustainable. While it would be nice to have some national leadership on this topic - I guess it is up to us to make the changes required.
Of course I was thinking about all of this as I was driving up to Sudbury - by myself in a vehicle that uses fossil fuels and pollutes the atmosphere.