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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhen it comes to climate hypocrisy, Canada's leaders have reached a new low
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/05/when-it-comes-to-climate-hypocrisy-canadas-leaders-have-reached-a-new-lowA territory that has 0.5% of the Earths population plans to use up nearly a third of the planets remaining carbon budget
@billmckibben
Wed 5 Feb 2020 05.30 EST
Americans elected Donald Trump, who insisted climate change was a hoax so its no surprise that since taking office hes been all-in for the fossil fuel industry. Theres no sense despairing; the energy is better spent fighting to remove him from office.
Canada, on the other hand, elected a government that believes the climate crisis is real and dangerous and with good reason, since the nations Arctic territories give it a front-row seat to the fastest warming on Earth. Yet the countrys leaders seem likely in the next few weeks to approve a vast new tar sands mine which will pour carbon into the atmosphere through the 2060s. They know yet they cant bring themselves to act on the knowledge. Now that is cause for despair.
The Teck mine would be the biggest tar sands mine yet: 113 square miles of petroleum mining, located just 16 miles from the border of Wood Buffalo national park. A federal panel approved the mine despite conceding that it would likely be harmful to the environment and to the land culture of Indigenous people. These giant tar sands mines (easily visible on Google Earth) are already among the biggest scars humans have ever carved on the planets surface. But Canadian authorities ruled that the mine was nonetheless in the public interest.
Heres how Justin Trudeau, recently re-elected as Canadas prime minister, put it in a speech to cheering Texas oilmen a couple of years ago: No country would find 173 billion barrels of oil in the ground and leave them there. That is to say, Canada, which is 0.5% of the planets population, plans to use up nearly a third of the planets remaining carbon budget. Ottawa hides all this behind a series of pledges about net-zero emissions by 2050 and so on, but they are empty promises. In the here-and-now they cant rein themselves in. Theres oil in the ground and it must come out.
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When it comes to climate hypocrisy, Canada's leaders have reached a new low (Original Post)
G_j
Feb 2020
OP
mr_lebowski
(33,643 posts)1. No one can convince me we aren't gluttons for our doom ...
I'm glad I'm pretty old at this point ... and have no kids.
Kids these days are going to be totally screwed when they're my age.