Makes sense, to be honest. Kyoto has been a farce since conception. The idea that Canadians should be expected to pay through the nose for a solution that has no chance of working was insane. Kyoto is a cure for climate change in the same way that crystals and incense are a cure to cancer.

That's 155-300 years depending on real production. Let the good times roll.

Climate change would probably quite suit Canada, then of course there are all those lovely tar sands to squeeze the oil out of.
http://www.tarsandswatch.org/toxic-tailings-tar-sands-alberta-environmental-resources-conservation-boards-new-directive-worse-use

Octavius, I'd be more inclined to think that was the reasoning behind it if the government showed an inclination to push different more progressive climate bills.

The conservatives will never be a "green" party and they likely don't ever need to be.

Especially considering the global economy, geeving about the environment is probably pretty good short-term economic strategy.

@ Yonni

Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favour of more progressive climate bills either. Meaningful mitigation of climate change is a ship that sailed some time ago. The idea that easy access fossil fuels won't be used until exhaustion becomes more remote each day. It is far better that we accept this and spend our efforts focusing on ways to adapt to climate change, and seriously investigate potential ways to geo-engineer a bit of global cooling to counter a carbon rich atmosphere.

^ That is some food for thought.

I'm not a climate scientist so I don't fully understand the implications or solutions of climate change.

However, I'd have to think that retarding the environmental degradation (not the correct term but I can't thin of the proper one now) would make it easier to realize whatever engineering solution you're thinking of. Not combatting ghg etc. seems a little defeatist. No?

Tories and defeatism about progress go hand-in-hand. Canada never reduced emissions one iota, and then pretends like the problem is double standards with developing countries whom they had a 200 year head start against. Canada pledged reductions and emissions actually increased since they signed on to the protocol. Canada being the only country in the world to formally renounce the treaty just hurts efforts to make any progress on this issue.

Oh well, we knew the oil companies owned Harper.

"The idea that easy access fossil fuels won't be used until exhaustion becomes more remote each day. "

Somebody better tell the Germans, Danes, and Swedes.

@ Yonni

"Not combatting ghg etc. seems a little defeatist. No?"

It is very defeatist, but that is because we have been defeated. Despite unprecidented Green movements across the developed world the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere breaks a new record each year. The IPCC models suggest that even if all carbon emissons stopped tomorrow there are enough ghg's in the atmosphere already to push up global temperatures by around 2 degrees in the next 100 years.

We have lost the battle against ghg's. It is time for us to fight battles we can win before we lose the war.

" The IPCC models suggest that even if all carbon emissons stopped tomorrow there are enough ghg's in the atmosphere already to push up global temperatures by around 2 degrees in the next 100 years."

So your solution is to accelerate the warming but having unfettered fossil fuel use? What logic is that?

"Despite unprecidented Green movements across the developed world the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere breaks a new record each year."

Maybe because Tories and their oil baron masters have wasted billions of dollars deliberately misinforming the public on this issue for decades.

"Maybe because Tories and their oil baron masters have wasted billions of dollars deliberately misinforming the public on this issue for decades"

Face reality, Putin. Across the developed world right leaning governments have dealt with climate change by pretending it doesn't exist, and left leaning governments by relocating their dirty industries to places like China and smugly boasting about how much cleaner their own nations are. It is not a left v right issue, it is a failure across the board. Because of this failure of western democracy the opportunity to stop significant climate change happening was lost long ago.

My solution, Putin, is not to keep on fighting a losing battle using tactics that have failed time and time before like some tired old WWI general. It is to try a different approach that has half a chance of working.

This really isn't a choose one and only one kind of situation. I think you want to minimize the disaster, even if the disaster is imminent.

What do you mean failed tactics? The tactics haven't been tried because we have all this excuse making for why we can't or shouldn't do it. The idea that we'd be better off not doing a damn thing about unfettered Co2 emissions and that somehow that won't make the "defeat" worse than it already is is utter malarkey. Continuing to take the lazy route is just going to cost us more in the long run and make it harder to get a grip on this problem. But it sure is politically easier to reassure people that don't worry, nobody is going to do anything to rein in their wasteful behavior. Certainly makes the oil companies a lot happier.

Canadia (intentional sarcastic misspelling) made a poor choice because the Kyoto protocol even with its faults was at least some progress. Now they are on the same level as the US for failing to address climate change. Which is pretty bad. Not what I expected from our generally smart Canadian friends.

@ Putin

The oil companies will continue to find a market for their cheap energy until their cheap energy is gone. To think otherwise is madness and flies in the face of any evidence you can get your hands on.

What we have is a stark choice. We can dedicate our efforts to reducing ghg emissions, and endure all the economic hardship, social unrest, and reduction of industry that comes with it, in an attempt at reducing climate change from a very bad and rather scary problem to an ever-so-slightly less but still very bad and rather scary problem. Or we can refocus our efforts down routes of adaption and geo-engineering that in the worst case scenario will help us to live with the pain, and in the best case scenario may actually help us avoid it.

being the technologist that i am, i can't help but agree that geo-engineering solutions should be explored, but that doesn't mean that we should ignore greenhouse gas emissions.

There will be no single solution which fixes everything.

Octavious, i think if you were serious about avoiding the worst case, you would be talking about implementing crisis migration rules, to allow the relocation of populations from land which can no longer support them to land which can.

This would help avoid the worst case, which is the warfare which will be associated with lack of water resources.

As someone for whom sustainable development is part of my job description, I am seriously terrified by the prognosis for the future.

The way we are currently going, there will be a global temperature rise of AT LEAST four degrees centigrade by the end of the century.

Do you know what that means? It means MILLIONS of people will fucking die. Fucking millions.

And still some cunts carry on as if this isn't the most important issue facing the world today. People should be rioting in the fucking streets over this. My own country's Prime Minister, a spineless toad called David Fucking Cameron, claimed his would be the "greenest government ever" and, unsurprisingly, has done FUCK ALL since making that claim - in fact he has deliberately made things worse by deciding to end a policy which promoted the installation of solar panels on homes and offices.

Cunts, the lot of them.

@ Jamiet

I think you'll find his actual name is David William Donald Cameron. He only goes by the name David Fucking Cameron when he's out on the pull.

Out of interest, what sort of job do you do? I did a bit of work a few years back with SWEEG (the South West Energy and Environment Group) where it was generally agreed that the promotion of solar panels was one of the worst and most self defeating ways of fighting climate change ever devised. Scrapping it was one of the greenest things Cameron has done (although I admit he's not done much).

Well said all around, Octavious.

Well said? Octavious is feeding us a load of self destructive bs. Its like recommending heroin to people who need to detox.

wait, what? Why aren't solar panels the awesomest thing ever? My mother just got them installed... after a few years they pay for themselves, and then the electric company starts paying her! Not to mention it's infinitely renewable and, to my understanding, minimally polluting.

Please explain why this should not be encouraged?

I just don't like the fact that we went against our word.................we never do that shit - fk this gov't

It's more like letting someone with lung cancer keep smoking while science looks for a cure, Putin33. And just in the news today there's some vaccine that shrinks tumors.

I know you want to use global warming as an excuse to impose world socialism, but that's a separate issue from whether de-industrializing will do any good in reducing the CO2 already there.

If only anyone proposed deindustrializing. Just more greed laziness and excuse making. Thats all your kind offers anymore.

Yeah evil cuba developed a vaccine a while ago. Glad our overpriced shitty system finally caught up to an embargoed third world island. Hoorah for markets indeed.

@ Yellowjacket

From the point of view of the average UK energy consumer (not sure where you are from, but if not the UK then perhaps somewhere with a similar system) getting solar panels has been a great deal, and congrats to your mum for spotting this. You get a huge amount of money for the energy you produce which pays for them pretty damned quick, and you get to advertise your green credentials to the neighbours.


The trouble is that they paid for themselves not because they were producing bucketloads of supercheap, green energy, but because the government had offered insane prices for whatever they produced (I forget the exact figures, but it was several multiples of what it was actually worth). This money all came from the governments cash pile, so instead of spending money doing useful things the government was giving it away in profit to canny householders and a load of businessmen who had jumped on the solar panel cash bandwagon. For the amount of clean energy produced the cost was astronomical, and the opportunity to invest in more realistic green options was lost.

Pretty much any other form of producing green energy is cheaper than solar panels, especially in the UK which gets a fair bit less solar energy than most. If your goal is to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere, the cheapest way remains planting a tree. An acorn is cheap and it will capture a hell of a lot of carbon.

Octavious, I would have to say that your explanation fails to take account of the fact that due to the policy of encouraging solar PV, the UK solar industry has experienced substantial growth which, in turn, has substantially reduced the cost of solar panels (the actual underlying unit cost, not just the subsidised cost).

In response to your question to me, I'm a procurement officer with a specifc remit to promote sustainable procurement.