Our oilsands, climategate and home conversations

[whosinpower]

On the news the other night was the topic of Copenhagen, climategate and Canada. We listened to what the news had to say - they interviewed people who live in Fort MacMurray, the hub of the canadian oilsands project.

The vast plums of smoke which turned from white to dark black were also shown. People in Fort Macmurray were hesitant to discuss climate change. Economically, it hits them right in the pocketbook - and that is the crux of the canadian dilemma.

I asked hubby his thoughts. He said, "That Al Gore is making a fortune from this. Climate has changed in the past, will change in the future and there is nothing we can do about it. It is all natural."
I retorted, "And those poor oil companies didn't make a cent eh?"
We argued.
And then I told him something I have been thinking about for awhile. I said, "You know there are almost 7 billion of us living on the planet right now."
He retorted, "you listen to CBC too much. Where did you get that number?"
I answered, "From the UN website. The thing is, here is the question...knowing that there are 7 BILLION people living on the planet, do you think that we could affect climate?"

He thought for a moment - "Well of course we COULD affect climate, but that isn't the point."
I interuppted him. "No - that is exactly the point. Regardless of whether it is natural or not - if we CAN affect climate, then we should at least try to do so in a positive manner. We should not ignore our impact and leave it for the future to deal with."

We canadians are pretty big polluters, and I am not proud of that. From an individual consumers standpoint, there is only so much a person can do to reduce their carbon footprint. The reality is that our winters are long and cold. I know we have replaced our furnace with an high efficiency one, we have replaced some appliances with energy star appliances and are slowly converting our windows as we can afford. We replaced all the lightbulbs. I bike to work in the summer, and the air conditioner is off limits, period.

But the biggest problem for us is a total lack of leadership. Our own government has set up a war room to battle those who will want us to reduce our carbon emissions. A war room to fight those who say the oilsands are bad. They ARE bad. I am ashamed of our government.

[Grey]

1. I'm right there with you on this.

How anyone could vote for harper defies belief, it simply dumbfounds me.

[tavalon]

2. Thank you for the reminder that Canada is not all good

It pulls at me so, living so close to Vancouver.

[GliderGuider]

3. In this area we are one of the world's bad guys.

Between the oil sands, Stephen Harper, John Baird, Peter Mackay and companies like Barrick Gold and Blackfire we have plenty to be ashamed of.

The good news is we have single-payer health care. The bad news is that with the way we're screwing the environment we're gonna need it.

[MH1]

4. Yikes. "7 billion people on the planet" ; "Where did you get that number?"

Wow, just wow. But that's a big clue why we are in so much trouble. (Both the fact, and the complete ignorance of the fact and its implications)

[Nihil]

5. There was a good programme on BBC2 last night ...

... with Sir David Attenborough examining the problems of human population
and so many people didn't have a clue about just how many people are on
the planet at the moment ...

No wonder that they think "Well, it's only a little <whatever> and a big
planet so what difference does it make?"

:-(