Kyoto Motion Passes Tories vote against it

Today the motion to re-affirm Canada's commitment to the Kyoto accord passed the House of Commons but was voted down by the Tories. Certainly this will make people question how genuine the Tories new found enthusiasm for the environment really is. At the same time I am enough of a realist to know the chances of meeting our targets are very low. We certainly could have met them, but we waited too late. It reminds me of when in school, I was aiming for 80%, but going into the final worth 50% of my grade and only having 60% average up to that point. That meant I had to get 100% on the exam, which is not very realistic. That being said, we should still continue to remain committed to Kyoto accord even if we won't meet our targets since we should get as close as possible. In addition if Harper were smart on this, he would promise that however far off our targets we are, we will agree to reductions that are that much greater in the second round. That means if we are 10% off, we agree to reductions that are 10% larger than others. Off course I fear that Harper is amongst the more ideological elements of conservatives who think doing anything on the environment will destroy our economy and that we should therefore do nothing. Thankfully not all right of centre politicians buy this argument. Arnold Schwartznegger, British Conservative leader David Cameron, Brian Mulroney and surprisingly even Preston Manning have argued we need to get serious on the environment. Off course I suspect Harper is more interested in listening to people such as Bush, Cheney, Ezra Levant, John Howard, and the more reactionary elements at the Fraser Institute who want us to do nothing.

There has also been a lot of criticism of those who deny the science behind global warming. I think their arguments are weak and I don't agree with it, but since science has been wrong before, I still think they have the right to make their case. I just hope that politicians don't use them as an excuse to do nothing. We cannot be 100% certain of the future, but with the evidence saying it is 90% certain humans are at least playing a role if not the main cause of global warming, we would be silly to do nothing. In fact the short-term cost of doing something is far less than the long-term cost of doing nothing. I would rather we do something and later find out it wasn't necessary, then do nothing and suffer the severe consequences. So even if you don't believe the science or are uncertain, I would argue that unless you are positive global warming isn't occurring (which I don't know how anybody can be) you have no basis for arguing for doing nothing. Even if there was only a 10% chance of it happening, I would still want the government to take action.

That being said I must say here in Toronto it has been downright cold the last week and we could probably use a little global warming here. It has been -15 without the windchill and -30 with it. Off course people were out on the golf course on New Years Day here, so even though global warming won't mean the end of frigid cold temperatures on some winter days, it will mean more above seasonal days, weeks, months, and years than below seasonal. Perhaps maybe it would be best if temperatures just stayed close to seasonal norms instead of going all over the map as they appear to be now.