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Live Earth? How about live irony? By Rex Murphy Toronto Globe and Mail Saturday, July 14, 2007 – Page A23 The reviews are in concerning last weekend's eco-sanctimony staged by global warming's Nostradamus, Al Gore, and most of them aren't pretty. It was, according to the advance hype - and the hype for this event matched anything Hollywood roars up for Johnny Depp in a bandana, or a new Jessica Simpson big-screen onslaught - going to command an audience in excess of two billion. There is nothing original in rounding up a beaker full of rock stars and movie...

Hypocrisy takes the stage Lorne Gunter, National Post Published: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 EDMONTON -The '80s band The Police brought their reunion tour to Commonwealth Stadium in early June. Two nights before their concert I had occasion to visit the venue, and when I pulled into the parking lot I thought I had stumbled onto a new-truck show. Really. There were 16 to 20 gleaming semis all lined up, as if for viewing-- with matching trailers. Only when I saw the name of the Chicago-based tour production company on the doors of the cabs did I twig to the...

What the ice tells us, 'experts' don't care to hear David Warren, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Saturday, July 07, 2007 Surely summertime is the best time to think about ice caps. And it is certainly summertime again up here in the northern hemisphere. Down there in the southern, I have noticed from passing weather reports, new cold records have been set in sundry locations in Patagonia, South Africa, Australia -- just as the "global warming" scare is peaking. My reader will of course realize it is winter down there, and winter is when cold records tend to be set....

Al Gore: my favourite Martian Peter Foster, Financial Post Published: Wednesday, July 04, 2007 "Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids In fact it's cold as hell?" --Elton John, Rocket Man Elton John won't be performing at next Saturday's Live Earth series of concerts, reportedly the biggest "charitable" music event ever. However, like his Rocket Man, the concerts' main promoter, Al Gore, has invoked life -- or rather its absence -- on another planet as relevant to our situation on earth. In a piece in last Sunday's New York Times, Mr. Gore suggested that Venus is...

Ontario to distribute Gore's film to schools AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH Mike De Souza And Melissa Leong, CanWest News Service; National Post Published: Thursday, June 28, 2007 OTTAWA - Ontario will be distributing hundreds of donated copies of Al Gore's controversial documentary on climate change to public schools across the province. But Kathleen Wynne, Ontario's Minister of Education, said the government's actions are not an endorsement of the film, An Inconvenient Truth. "It's just a resource that will be available. The teachers can choose to use it or not," she said of the gift from the Tides Canada Foundation. A...

CHINA TOPS U.S. AS NO. 1 POLLUTER Calls for West to assist Beijing to find cleaner ways to deal with economic boom; The Daily Telegraph, with files from news services Richard Spencer, National Post Published: Thursday, June 21, 2007 BEIJING - China and the West are under increased pressure to change economic course after a new study showed Asia's rising power had become the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, the key greenhouse gas. Until recently, China was expected to remain behind the United States in the emissions table until 2010, but its booming economy and surging demand for...

Oilsands gain a dirty name Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post Published: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 Forget Canada's image as a source of secure energy to the United States. That was a couple of years ago, when the flavours of the day south of the border were indignation over soaring gasoline prices, while dependence on Middle East oil was the root of all evil, including the war in Iraq. Now that Hollywood actors are buying carbon offsets to feel even better about their air-conditioned mansions and private jets, Canada is held in contempt for being the source of the dirtiest oil...

This is why people hate Toronto No, not the new ROM - but the pretentious, self-parodic ceremony that launched it Robert Fulford, National Post Published: Saturday, June 09, 2007 TORONTO -The temporary bleachers have long since been cleared away but Torontonians who attended the opening of the Royal Ontario Museum's (ROM) new addition last Saturday night are still trying to forget. It was an occasion to delight those who despise the pretensions of Toronto. No doubt they will savour, till their dying days, how dreadful it was. But we who love Toronto hope we can (as mourners are advised...

Greenhouse grandstanding just a bunch of hot air David Warren, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Saturday, June 02, 2007 Every politician eventually enjoys his 15 minutes of media popularity, and this last week U.S. President George W. Bush got his. All he had to do for it was propose that the world's 15 major producers of industrial pollution -- recently redefined to include carbon dioxide, which is not a pollutant but one of the basic conditions for life -- should meet to decide upon emissions targets. What a brilliant idea. (Irony icon.) This will not happen at Heiligendamm, ye olde...

Gore's assault on reason Peter Foster, Financial Post Published: Friday, June 01, 2007 The title of Al Gore's latest book, The Assault on Reason, says it all. Illogicalities, non sequiturs, false analogies, fallacies, ad hominem (or rather ad Exxoninem) arguments all tumble forth in profusion from its pages. But one's Spidey sense feels that something sinister lurks beneath the noble words and the plethora of quotations from Great Men. The book has one obvious target, but isn't piling on to George Bush a little like flogging a dead duck? Dubya has certainly had his share of issues. In particular,...

Al Gore's Vulcan Utopia David Brooks, National Post, page A21 Published: Thursday, May 31, 2007 If you're going to read Al Gore's book, you're going to have to steel yourself for a parade of sentences like the following: "The remedy for what ails our democracy is not simply better education (as important as that is) or civic education (as important as that can be), but the re-establishment of a genuine democratic discourse in which individuals can participate in a meaningful way - a conversation of democracy in which meritorious ideas and opinions from individuals do, in fact, evoke a...

Carson's toxic legacy Her book Silent Spring is a case study in the tragedy of good intentions Margaret Wente Toronto Globe and Mail Thursday, May 24, 2007 I was 12 when I read Rachel Carson's newly published book, Silent Spring, in 1962. Although I'd never heard the term "environmentalist," she turned me into one. I didn't understand the complicated science in it. But I was horrified by her evocation of a natural world whose creatures were being wiped out by man-made poisons - the silent spring, where no birds sang. In school, I wrote an essay praising Silent Spring,...

The eco-joke is on Hollywood By Rex Murphy Toronto Globe and Mail Saturday, May 19, 2007 – Page A21 Jay Leno is not a global warming skeptic. The blandly humorous host of The Tonight Show is at one with the Hollywood ethos wherein no fashionable cause can fail to be embraced. Entertainers and those who feed most directly off them may not be climatologists, but they are wonderfully precise barometers of what is hip and trendy. Thus Vanity Fair magazine put out its "green issue" last month. Vanity Fair could offer reasonable competition to Vogue as being the slickest,...

Sun of a gun By Licia Corbella Calgary Sun Friday, May 18, 2007 A few weeks ago in a column I wrote about David Suzuki's rudeness and hypocrisy I admitted that similar to that green guru, I too love this planet and try to have as small a negative environmental impact as possible but unlike him, I don't believe that human-made CO2 is the main driver of global warming. I received hundreds of e-mails -- most recounting often hilarious stories of run-ins people had with Suzuki, finding out for themselves that his TV persona is a lot friendlier than...

Send in the assmonkeys Behold the latest environmentalist fad: going childless Jonathan Kay, National Post Published: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Last Tuesday, I wrote a column for this space entitled "At a restaurant near you, the war between Daters and Breeders." It was one of those airy, self-indulgent pieces of cultural commentary that otherwise self-important op-ed pundits publish every few months to "show their human side." (See: I eat in restaurants with my kids --just like you!) My basic point was that restaurant diners shouldn't go hard on parents whose kids emit the odd yelp at dinner time. I...

The Third World mocks our green agenda Lorne Gunter, National Post Published: Monday, May 14, 2007 Quite rightly, much has been made of the United Nations' bizarre decision to place Zimbabwe's environment minister at the head of its Council on Sustainable Development (CSD). But what has been missed in the coverage of last week's CSD meetings is the UN's utter inability to convince developing nations to join the industrialized world in curbing greenhouse gas emissions. Without such an agreement, emissions savings by developed nations will be completed swamped by increasing emissions from developing nations long before the Kyoto accords...

Anarchist leaker covets disorder By Ezra Levant Calgary Sun Monday, May 14, 2007 Jeff Monaghan, a communications worker in the federal environment department, was arrested last week in connection with an illegal leak of a confidential draft of the government's policy on Kyoto. Monaghan has not been charged with anything, but he has been fired from his job and he has not denied leaking the document. Leaking government secrets can be more than just a political embarrassment. If government announcements are known before they are officially made public, it grants an advantage to anyone looking to take advantage of...

Why can May mix pulpit, Parliament? If a Conservative politician had said what she said, the media would have pounced Lorne Gunter, The Edmonton Journal Published: Friday, May 04, 2007 "We have a moral obligation to our Lord and Father to ensure we don't destroy the creation that was given to us. Through the power of our Lord and Jesus Christ, we can meet this moral obligation." Who said that, some pro-life zealot railing against abortion? Some Evangelical Christian who fails to recognize the separation of church and state? A Conservative politician with a hidden agenda to enslave us...

Y2Kyoto: Al Gore Strikes A Blow For Intelligent Design A global warming disciple was troubled by the Goracle's presentation in Regina; The slide I found particularly interesting/shocking/sad, was his new(?) slide containing a graph of human population growth over the past couple hundred-thousand years. It started off good. He pointed at the beginning of the graph, showing the population of humans on Earth from 200,000 years ago, and referred to the “rise of humans." Cool beans. So he believes that Homo sapiens evolved from other hominid ancestors, right? Nope. In the very same breath, he then continued to explain...

Elizabeth May's bizarre speech National Post: lead Editorial Published: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 On Sunday, Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party of Canada, returned to London, Ont., where she lost a byelection five months ago. Although Ms. May was not on the campaign trail, she was preaching the Greens' environmental catechism, this time from the pulpit of a local United Church. Her odd sermon should concern not only Green party members who hope to take the party into the political mainstream, but also Liberal leader Stephane Dion, who recently struck a controversial political alliance with Ms. May...

May preaches green gospel The Green party leader comes to tears during a London sermon on the climate change threat. By Jonathan Sher, Sun Media London Free Press Mon, April 30, 2007 Preaching in London about the threat of climate change, Green party Leader Elizabeth May brought herself to tears yesterday, not for children who will inherit the Earth, but for the God she believes created it. It wasn't the first time May has mixed politics and faith -- she says she speaks often at churches. But her voice broke and her eyes filled with tears as she delivered...

First, they came for the guns ? George Jonas, National Post Published: Saturday, April 28, 2007 Human beings live in worlds of their own making. This is true of individuals as well as nations -- even entire periods. I suppose a person couldn't help being born in the Dark Ages, but it was still people who created the Dark Ages and people who ended them. They weren't cosmic events. If we recreate the Dark Ages in the 21st century, it will be our own doing, too. Nobody is making us. None of our Evil Empires came from outer space....

Green Party says Potvin will not be its candidate in Vancouver-Kingsway ... as this was obviously coming, here's the vile Potvin's self-pitying barf-a-rama: To be brutally honest Author of "A revolting confession" responds to widespread media criticisms The Republic of East Vancouver "Vancouver's Opinionated Newspaper" Current Issue • April 12 to April 26, 2007 • No 161 By Kevin Potvin John Keats wrote 123 years ago, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,-that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." On the confusing afternoon of September 11, that didn’t appear to be quite enough. I went...

Stephane Dion, meet Kevin Potvin National Post: Editorial Published: Saturday, April 14, 2007 It is hard to know which party has made the bigger blunder in the electoral deal officially announced yesterday between Liberal leader Stephane Dion and Green leader Elizabeth May. Ms. May was elected leader by Green members last year in good faith, and we feel sure not all of them are happy that she has essentially decided to endorse Mr. Dion for prime minister (again), earning for herself an extremely slim chance of unseating Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay in Central Nova. The Green Party was...

Green candidate, 9/11 theorist stirs debate By Brian Hutchinson, National Post Published: Friday, April 13, 2007 Kevin Potvin, a federal Green party candidate in Vancouver, has admitted his spirits soared while watching the 9/11 terrorist events unfold on television. "Beautiful!" he describes a little voice inside him saying, when the second twin tower in New York City fell, and thousands died. Then came news that the Pentagon in Washington was hit. More deaths. "I felt an urge to pump my fist in the air," wrote Mr. Potvin in the smudgy pages of the Republic of East Vancouver, a biweekly...

A crushing minority Susan Riley, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Wednesday, April 04, 2007 In theory, a minority government should be more responsive to voters and, overall, provide a more accurate reflection of a country's political mix than a majority. In reality, we have a federal government as arrogant and dismissive of dissenters as any majority we have seen and an opposition that appears impotent and marginal -- even when all three opposition parties are acting in concert. Why? Because Stephen Harper's forceful personality and strategic guile more than compensate for his party's numerical weakness -- and leave his rivals...

More Gore-bull from the Goracle By RACHEL MARSDEN Toronto Sun Sunday, March 25, 2007 NEW YORK — Former U.S. Vice-President Al “The Goracle” Gore crash landed in Washington, DC, last week and spewed more hot air on the Gore-bull warming issue at a congressional hearing. The Goracle said “the planet has a fever.” He continued: “If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don’t say, ‘Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it’s not a problem.’ If the crib’s on fire, you don’t...

Gore pays for photo after Canada didn't Environment Canada wrongfully claimed credit for polar bear Image Joseph Brean, National Post Published: Friday, March 23, 2007 TORONTO - For Al Gore's presentation yesterday to a conference of human resources executives, his second Toronto visit in a month, the Oscar-winning envirogelical recycled just about everything from his documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. From his opening line -- "I used to be the next president of the United States" -- through the Churchill quotes, the slick computer graphics and the boiling frog analogy, to his rousing finale, the presentation was a live action...

Al Gore's rough ride National Post: Editorial Published: Thursday, March 22, 2007 The last month has not been kind to Al Gore. Instead of basking in the warm afterglow of winning an Oscar for his blockbuster documentary An Inconvenient Truth and being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, the former U.S. vice-president turned global warming evangelist has had to spend much of his time fending off questions about his own personal impact on the environment. He has also had to ward off allegations from scientists -- many of whom nonetheless support his views on climate change -- that his...

Eco-extortionists the real Holocaust deniers - Joseph C. Ben-Ami Institute for Canadian Values March 07, 2007 Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher used to say that she was happy when her opposition resorted to attacking her or her colleagues’ character. It meant, she said, that they (her opponents) could not win the battle of ideas. If that is true, then the eco-extortionists are definitely on the run. For almost four decades, the left has been using the environment as a weapon in their ongoing war against free markets and free societies. “The world is on the verge of an...

Suzuki: Mean and not so green By LICIA CORBELLA Calgary Sun Wednesday, March 7, 2007 Many years ago -- about 20 -- I was a green reporter (in every sense of the word) and was assigned to cover an event for my Vancouver newspaper in the Stein Valley of B.C.'s coast mountains. The gala in that pristine alpine meadow included performances by the likes of Long John Baldry and John Denver. Besides the incredible view, my most vivid memories were that Denver was kind and accessible, Baldry was as zany as you would expect; and David Suzuki was surprisingly...

Dion's leadership may be heading for palliative care Don Martin, CanWest News Service Published: Saturday, March 03, 2007 OTTAWA - Pummelled in the polls, his House of Commons attacks muted by faltering English and his performance privately panned by insiders, Stephane Dion is off on a national damage-control tour to defend a Liberal leadership swaying between pathetic and pitiful. It was a lousy week for Dion, a pattern in danger of becoming a trend. Not once or twice, but three times in four days we saw Dion flip-flop on positions he'd taken during the leadership race or his party...

Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research Canadian Conservatives Reach 40% MarkMarch 2, 2007 (Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The Conservative party holds a 14-point lead in Canada, according to a poll by Angus Reid Strategies. 40 per cent of decided voters would support the Tories in the next election to the House of Commons. The Liberal party is second with 26 per cent, followed by the New Democratic Party (NDP) with 15 per cent, the Bloc Québécois with 10 per cent, and the Green party with eight per cent. In Quebec, the Bloc has the support of...

Conserve as I say, not as I do Lorne Gunter, National Post Published: Monday, February 26, 2007 On July 7, enviro crusader Al Gore will host "Live Earth" concerts in seven cities around the world to raise awareness of global warming. Over 100 top groups have already pledged to perform, among them Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, Keane, Snow Patrol, Snoop Dogg, Bon Jovi, Duran Duran and Kelly Clarkson. Do they all plan to play acoustical instruments on candle-lit stages? If you have ever been backstage at a rock concert, you'll know that the place is crisscrossed with...

Bob the Moose has his day in court By MARK BONOKOSKI Toronto Sun Sunday, February 25, 2007 The longest-running custody battle in the history of moosedom resumes tomorrow in a Newmarket courtroom, with hordes of media — a herd of hacks, perhaps? — hoping Bob the Moose will finally be physically hauled before Justice of the Peace Ann Forfar in a last-minute “habeas capitis” motion. In other words, “show me the head,” or set him free. Will JP Forfar then say this has gone too far? Or will Forfar say so far so good? Until the gavel drops, supporters...

Polls hide the truth about climate change Questions should ask what we're prepared to give up Diane Francis, Financial Post Published: Friday, February 23, 2007Canadians, like Americans and others living in developed countries, always tell pollsters they are concerned about protecting the environment. But this is like being asked if you are in favour of apple pie and motherhood. Of course you are. But that's not the point. The real question that pollsters, and politicians, should put to the public is how big is your footprint and how much are you prepared to shrink it to protect the environment?...

David Suzuki vs. Michael Crichton Barbara Kay, National Post Published: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 Last Thursday, environmentalist guru David Suzuki stormed out of a Toronto AM640 radio interview with host John Oakley because Oakley dared to suggest that global warming might not be the "totally settled issue" Suzuki insisted it was. Oakley only reported a fact: Many accredited scientists -- some full professors from top universities, including Nobel prize winners and a former president of the National Academy of Sciences -- would argue that "global warning is at best unproven and at worst pure fantasy," according to novelist and...

The Kyoto horror show While the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters take a pass, Canada gets clobbered By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN Toronto Sun Sunday, February 18, 2007 Here's my list of the "top 10" problems with the Kyoto accord on global warming. Feel free to add your own. 1) The United States, the world's biggest man-made greenhouse gas emitter -- 20.6% of all global emissions as of 2000 -- refuses to participate, arguing it would irreparably damage its economy and makes no demands on the developing world. 2) China, the world's second-biggest emitter (14.8%), is exempt from reducing greenhouse gases...

Dion paints himself into green corner Liberals' push to make Tories toe the Kyoto line will backfire on them Lorne Gunter, The Edmonton Journal Published: Sunday, February 18, 2007 As that great philosopher Kermit the Frog often said, "It's not easy being green." Liberal Leader Stephane Dion found that out this week. When he was first in his new job -- say, oh, a month ago -- he was treated to favourable headlines such as "Dion paints Tories into green corner," "Voters embrace Liberal stand on Kyoto," and "Environment could be key to next election." So Dion promptly went...

Deadline on Kyoto not doable By RORY LEISHMAN London Free Press Saturday, February 17, 2007 In forcing a bill through Parliament that gives the Harper government 60 days to come up with a detailed plan for fulfilling Canada's commitments under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the three opposition parties are simply playing Canadians for fools. The leaders of these parties know full well that no government -- not even one led by them -- could possibly meet this absurd deadline. Under terms of the Kyoto Protocol, Canada is supposed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to six per...

Only thing truly warming is rhetoric David Warren, The Ottawa Citizen Published: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 For Sunday, I wrote metaphorically about the absurdity of last week's global warming warning from the United Nations ("IPCC/2007," as it will henceforth be known in bureaucratic legend). This was my own warning to my reader, never to take entirely seriously any proclamation that claims to be rocket science, and is endorsed by everyone in sight who has relevant credentials. A look through history will quickly confirm that while a mere majority may sometimes be right, the unanimous agreement of every available expert...

The folly of Kyoto National Post: Editorial Published: Saturday, February 10, 2007 Pablo Rodriguez, a Liberal MP from Quebec, has a private member's bill proceeding through the House of Commons that has the backing of all three opposition parties. If it passes, as appears likely, the resultant Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act would require Ottawa to honour Canada's Kyoto commitments and reduce the country's greenhouse gas emissions by more than a third over just the next five years. Note: this illustration ran on the front page of today's paper,with an accompanying article, effectively heralding this editorial. Working Canadians and taxpayers...