Posted on 04/30/2007 9:32:57 AM PDT by knighthawk
Someone needs to take federal Environment Minister John Baird aside and tell him in plain English that he is never going to win a who's-more- environmentally-passionate contest with Al Gore. On Saturday Mr. Gore, appearing at a Toronto trade show, called the Conservative government's new plan for reducing greenhouse emissions and improving air quality a "fraud? designed to mislead the Canadian people." Mr. Baird replied that "It is difficult to accept criticism from someone who preaches about climate change, but who never submitted the Kyoto Protocol to a vote in the United States Senate? [and] who never did as much as Canada is now doing to fight climate change during eight years in office."
We don't think much of the Kyoto Protocol, so it is disconcerting to hear Mr. Baird suggest that Mr. Gore has been less than tireless (and, indeed, takes a back seat to the current Canadian government) in his support for it. Ours readers do not need reminding -- and we will not be the only ones to remind them -- that the powers of a U.S. vice-president are modest to the point of being a 200-year running gag; that an American "administration," unlike a Canadian one, is separate from the legislature; that Mr. Gore consistently supported Kyoto principles in and out of office, and signed the protocol with his own hand on behalf of the Clinton White House; and that the Senate (which has treatymaking powers under the U.S. Constitution) passed a resolution denouncing the protocol 95-0 before it was finalized, making any move toward formal ratification by the executive branch utterly pointless.
Mr. Baird seemingly accepts the premise that the Kyoto Protocol is a good thing for the purposes of his argument with Mr. Gore -- and he thereby loses. He could, of course, have taken a different tack. He could have said that climate change is a problem of uncertain magnitude whose major effects, if any, lie in the distant future. He could have pointed out that the Kyoto Protocol approach would devastate Western economies in the short term, and that most policy-makers are now looking past Kyoto, with some even favouring adaptation and research over carbon cuts. He could also perhaps have challenged Mr. Gore's ridiculous apocalypse fantasy An Inconvenient Truth, instead of praising it as a "success? in highlighting the huge ecological challenge of climate change."
But this is not the environment minister we have. What we have is a man who will brook no suggestion that he is anything less than Extreme Green. It's no wonder he isn't getting along with Mr. Gore: they are far too much alike.
Gore is calling someone a fraud? now that is funny.
Hey there...anyone want to buy a “carbon offset” cheap??
Ping
Al Gore is so green that he doesn't even use one square of toilet paper.
But pays a monthly electric bill for him and his wife larger than my yearly one.
albore is so green, he doenst even cast a shadow, or reflect in a mirror, hmmmmm
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