Michael Smyth on the Premiers and Climate Change
Posted January 29, 2008 by Sacha Peter - Link
Category: Environment
Comments (2)
This one was is paraphrased roughly from the Vancouver Province:
By standing up for the oil industry, Mr. Stelmach seizes a critical “wedge issue” prior to the election while appealing to Albertans’ well-honed sense of western alienation when it comes to their oil reserves. The other premiers understand that kind of hardball politics. Ontario Premier McGuinty wants to be seen as a leader on climate change, but he has a huge industrial economic base that is on its knees. Every politician wants to look like they are saving the planet, but does not want to stick their own necks out while they do it. Premier Campbell is sitting in the cat-bird seat: he has promised to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 33 per cent by 2020 and 80 per cent by 2050, but he does not have an auto industry to worry about. Going green is easier for Campbell and it has transformed him into a national leader on the issue, to the frustration of his domestic political enemies such as NDP Leader Carole James. Climate change is a losing political issue for a guy like Stelmach. It’s a winner for a guy like Campbell. And he’s milking it for all it’s worth.
That Gordon Campbell could be considered a ‘national leader on the issue of going green’ is so outrageous when he:
1.thinks that the liberals’ policies on trophy/sport hunting in our province are fine. Not only is trophy/sport hunting going “great guns”in our province, trohy/sport hunting is also allowed in those newly protected areas that he takes credit for creating–I think he calls them “Conservancies”. Like the “Spirit Bear Conservancy” where black bears are still allowed to be shot for a trophy or for sport–even though the black bears there likely carry the recessive gene necessary for a Spirit Bear.
This government also thinks that the trophy/sport hunting of the slowest reproducing land mammal in North America, the Grizzly Bear, should also be allowed.
2.He still thinks that open pen fish farming is okay even when science shows that this kind of fish farming is destroying our wild salmon populations!
3.We don’t hear him protesting the possibility of oil super tankers returning to our coast–specifically to an area of the Great Bear Rainforest that offers some of the most unique ecosystems and wildlife in the world.
If allowed to come to our coast, the oil super tankers will transit right by an island that is home to the Spirit Bear, for example.
Those are JUST 3 ways that he’s likely to continue to destroy our province’s environment and unique eco systems.
Do these sound like the makings of a Green Premier? Hmmm, I don’t think so.
A gas tax is nothing new–and certainly doesn’t mean that Gordon Campbell cares about the environment.
I completely agree with Green in N.Van.
As well, I would like to say that if fish farming continues the way it has been, with all the sea lice issues and the continued escapes of the live Atlantic salmon from the pens, we definitely won’t have to worry about the trophy hunters. If our wild Pacific salmon continue to dwindle in numbers, there won’t be any Grizzly Bears left to hunt–the ones on the coast at least will die of starvation.
When will everyone get it that our WILD PACIFIC SALMON ARE THE LIFE-BLOOD OF OUR COASTAL ECOSYSTEMS!!
There’s an election coming people–let your government know that continuing to abuse our environment is unacceptable!