Punishing the Young

At Durban two weeks ago, a young woman rose and addressed the delegates:

I speak for more than half the world’s population,” declared Anjali Appadurai of Maine’s College of the Atlantic. “We are the silent majority. You’ve given us a seat in this hall, but our interests are not at the table. What does it take to get a stake in this game? Lobbyists? Corporate influence? Money?”

Out of the mouth of babes. Conservatives howl that we are burdening our children with a mountain of debt. But they will not lift a finger to stop the crisis that will engulf us all. Thomas Homer Dixon writes in this morning's Globe and Mail:

The climate negotiators lie to each other and the world when they claim the world can still limit the planet’s warming to two degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, the point at which many experts believe the risks from climate change rise sharply.

It’s a lie because we’ve already experienced 0.8 degrees warming, and we’ve got at least another 0.6 degrees on the way due to carbon already in the atmosphere. Given that global carbon dioxide emissions of about 35 billion tons each year are now growing at an average of 3 per cent a year – which means they’re doubling every 23 years – it’s virtually certain we’re going to use up the remaining 0.6 degrees of leeway. In fact, the emerging consensus among climate experts is that we’ll be lucky to limit warming to 4 degrees.

Our best and our brightest have become very accomplished liars. Last week, the Speaker of the House ruled that spreading lies about Irwin Cotler was "reprehensible"  but acceptable. The next day the press revealed that the company which had spread the lies had helped Scheer get elected. International Development Minister Bev Oda claimed she had not altered a document -- and then admitted that she did.

No one has been relieved of his or her duties. One would expect that the government would issue an apology for its treatment of Cotler. No, said Peter Van Loan, the Conservatives were merely exercising their right to free speech. And, unlike the impotent elites in Europe and the United States, Canada's government is getting things done.

But the young are not fools. They know for whom things are done -- and it's not for them.

Canada At Durban

David Olive writes in today's Toronto Star that Canada has many "firsts" to its credit:

First in North America with universal health care and prudent branch banking. First on this continent to take up arms against the fascist overthrow of Europe, and first with peacekeeping. First to spearhead the Commonwealth sanctions that hastened the demise of apartheid in South Africa. First with insulin and first to explore the potential of stem-cell research. 

But when it comes to the world's most pressing problem -- climate change --  Canada is racing to the back of the line, and trying to get other nations to follow. It is deeply ironic that the Harper government -- which claims to know how to manage the nation's economy -- should be so pig headed about climate change:

To be crass about it – and maybe that’s what environmentalists should do – the financial punishment we inflict on ourselves by failing to reduce emissions translates to between $21 billion and $43 billion in lost economic activity for Canada by mid-century.

That’s the financial price we’ll pay for global warming, calculated not by NGOs but Ottawa’s own National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy. And that estimate is based on a modest degree of global warming.

Moreover, trumpeting their majority, the government refused to accept Elizabeth May as a member of the Canadian delegation. So she sits at Durban, representing Papua-New Guinea. The latest polls suggest that Ms.May speaks for the majority of Canadians:

The latest polling on environmental attitudes, reported by Environics Research Group late last month, finds that even at this time of peak concern over the economy, more Canadian identify global warming as the greatest threat to the world than terrorism or any other issue.

And 56 per cent of Canadians want Ottawa to sign onto a new global climate treaty, even if its more ambitious CO2 reduction commitments mean job losses at home and higher prices for energy.

Canadian proclamations at Durban make absolutely no sense, until you remember that the Government of Canada is headed by Stephen Harper -- a man who, according to Peter C. Newman, has "the best medieval mind in the Commons."