environment focus/title> </head> <body> <table width="680" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td><strong><em><font size="5" color="#009966" face="Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">Infinite Outdoors</font></em></strong></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left"><strong><em><font size="5" color="#990000" face="Trebuchet MS, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">Feds need to focus on environment</font></em></strong></td> </tr> </table> <table width="500" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <p><em>Jan. 16, 2010</em></p> <p>Except for the really dedicated folks who continue to push society to change significantly for the good of the Earth and everything that lives on it, the Homo sapiens species can be a woeful lot. On the environment, we have recently been called everything from selfish to stupid for not demanding action.</p> <p> If you follow politics at all and expect results from our politicians, you’d add dreamer to the list.</p> <p>I’ve kind of given up expecting governments to do anything that can actually make a difference to our environment, the rationale being that governments don’t appear to work in the interests of the masses. As well, I can control what I do to or for the environment, but I can’t control governments.</p> <p>I can curse them, however, and naively wonder what are they thinking? Pick any level of government, led aptly by the federal Conservatives (although the Liberals weren’t much better) and you’ll find environmental dithering.</p> <p>Prime Minister Harper goes to Copenhagen only after he finds out President Obama will be there; he does nothing, comes home and prorogues Parliament saying Canadians won’t care and he needs time to work on the economy or that the workings of Parliament create instability. Critics accuse Harper of neatly ducking scrutiny on Afghan detainees and, brief mention about accountability over his climate change record.</p> <p>So, he continues down the bleak, do-nothing path exemplified by his party’s 2006 introduction of the Clean Air Act and “Notice of Intent to demonstrate a clear commitment to the establishment of short-, medium- and long-term industrial air pollution targets.”</p> <p>The release on the Conservative web site included setting new regulations, targets and timelines over three years that would lead to “significant and long-term reductions in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from industry, transportation and consumer products.”</p> <p>Although the Clean Air Act was to come into force last week, it never made it past second or third reading. The last indication of action on the bill is a March 30, 2007 report from the Bill C-30 Legislative Committee. The report recommended the Act should be called the Clean Air and Climate Change Act.</p> <p>As well, the committee wanted as part of the preamble the following whereas:</p> <p> “The Government of Canada recognizes that air pollution and greenhouse gases constitute a risk to the environment and its biological diversity and to human health of national and international concern which cannot be contained within geographic boundaries.”</p> <p>That obviously went nowhere. Must be waiting for Obama.</p> <p>But, Harper says he needs to focus on the economy. Thank god for the Convenient Recession, the Greens have said. He’s an economist, after all. Great. We’ll have an economy the CEOs like, that he’ll no doubt take credit for, but we’ll all be gagging on GHGs.</p> <p>I guess it’s too much to ask for the feds to get back to work on a whole bunch of issues, not the least of which should be the environment.</p> <p>It seems easy to ignore polls this week that showed Canadians do care and see climate change as a much bigger threat than terrorism.</p> <p> </p> </td> </tr> </table> <p><a href="../index.html"><font size="3">Crows</font></a><a href="../index.html"><font size="3">nest River Flyfishing Home Page|</font></a><font size="3"><a href="../oldmanTU.html">Oldman TU page</a></font></p> </body> </html>