Richard Zurawski

How many politicians does it take to squander a planet? Take your pick. There are American, Japanese, India, Saudi and now even Canadian representatives who are playing Russian Roulette with rhetoric, pointing fingers at everyone except us.

Mr. Baird stop with the hot air! Enough already! This is a deadly serious. Climate scientists tell that the we are at 420 parts per million of CO2 and if we get to 450 we are in uncharted dangerous territory with no turning back. And at 3 parts per million per year increase we will be there in ten scant years!

So now we are hearing that we have to have every one side or there is no deal, we will not do anything and point fingers at the Americans, the Japanese, the Indians and the Chinese. Do we not get that water, air and climate are no respecters of political boundaries and that we in Canada are consuming thirty times our share compared to what is sustainable. Canadians consume, produce and take as much from the Earth as the entire continent of 600 million in Africa do!

So what if the Americans do not agree to cut back on CO2 emissions. Does it matter that the Indians and the Chinese have their own agenda? What does that have to do with our consumption, lack of planning, our ever increasing emissions and greed. To quote a great sage named Zappa, “the real world is high school with money!” We have a federal environment minister whose agenda is all about railing against the actions of others, about obfuscation, playing politics and doing nothing meaningful to halt our precipitous slide to oblivion. Talk about fiddling while the planet burns.

Just last week yet another damning study came forth telling us that the tropics have expanded in the past 25 year some 250 miles from the equator. Scientists knew that it was bound to happen. The problem is that they thought it was going to happen in the next 100 hundred years not the last 25! No explanation just yet, because the information is has just come to light.

Add to that another tasty tidbit. The IPCC report was watered down in its severity. The US, Saudi Arabia, Chinese and Indians pressured the committee to limit the language as much as possible. Even so its frightening. And still we have a politician who is representing us at the Bali conference, embarrassing not only himself, but all Canadians with his inexcusable rhetoric.

Its not his or Canada’s planet. It belong to us all, humans, ants, trees and all the myriad of species on this beautiful, frail planet. And if we want to be part of it in the future we have to stop with the hot air!