In “We don’t amount to a hill of beans” Margaret Wente says she “almost feels sorry for Rona Ambrose.” I guess maybe I don’t entirely blame Ms. Ambrose either; she is, after all, suffering from what I would call, Battered Minister Syndrome.
The figurative gonads some have said Ms. Ambrose lacks, I think is more about her lacking the moral and ethical gumption it takes to at least walk-away if she can’t find the courage to fight-back and say ‘no, Mr. Harper, I am not going to do what you have ordered [or implied] I do; I am not going to be your lackey.’
I appreciate this is the very essence of any battered [fill-in-the-blank] syndrome. You apparently don’t know you’re in it, and you are apparently powerless to escape it. That’s one theory anyway.
The other theory is not everyone has the spine of say a Garth Turner to constructively tell Steven Harper, in no uncertain terms, what his constituents think. Then again, I don’t imagine Rona Ambrose’s Alberta constituents in Edmonton-Spruce Grove have been telling her to go cap the Tarsands.
It is therefore up to the rest of us to come to the rescue and call it like it is. For now I think we can afford to let Ms. Ambrose’s friends and family worry about rescuing her. But I don’t think we can afford to assume someone else is going to rescue the rest of us. Each of us and the “collective we” has an important role to play. On that note, the general tone and direction in the above noted column is, in my view, a little off. The information as it is presented, isn’t just wrong, it’s dangerously wrong.
It’s unfair and misleading to represent Canada’s contribution to global warming as 2% of total global emissions. First of all, it’s more than that and secondly, I bet the number of murders in Canada expressed as a percentage of total world kills is relatively small too. Does this mean we shouldn’t get too concerned about the next Dawson College? Does this mean just because we aren’t exactly sure what’s inside the heads, or how to effectively prevent the likes of a Kimveer Gill or a Paul Bernardo, that we shouldn’t bother trying?
Indeed, the proper statistic to be referencing isn’t Canada’s total emissions, but rather Canada’s per-capita contribution to emissions. By that measure there is little argument Canada is among the worst, if not the absolute worst offender. Imagine if Canada had the highest murder rate in the world. Would we be satisfied and contently in despair over not knowing how to solve that one either? I think not.
Moreover, to suggest we don’t have within our grasp the knowledge, the opportunity, or the ability to do better than say 65% less emissions 44 years from now is as lacking in journalistic responsibility as it is guilty of civil negligence insofar as the government is concerned.
I’ll spare you the list here, but we have at our fingertips more tips and things we can do in our everyday lives that would go a long way toward conservation and preservation, that to suggest these don’t exist or aren’t easily accessible and doable is, plain and simple, more evidence of questionable reporting.
Macro level solutions are also obvious and available for the taking. For example, if “base loading” the grid is an inescapable requirement for now, then why are we not at least diverting the excess capacity in the form of say stored Hydrogen. Electricity can’t be stored. We know that. But Hydrogen can, and stored hydrogen can be used later to top-up the grid when we need to.
There are numerous-numerous other carrot-stick incentives and big ideas that could lead the biggest emitters down a different road than the one they are traveling today. Of course I don’t expect they will, on their own, choose a different road so long as Ambrose-Harper continue to make the easier road – well – easier. This is where true vision, leadership, and political will comes to bear on the matter instead of feeding that other propaganda machine; you know, the one that says it’s junk science or that time is our friend, or waiting for a geological catastrophe to occur that finally and urgently jump starts us in the right direction. I am not sure we need more evidence that Ms. Ambrose isn’t the only one beaten and battered.
The Wente column concludes with: “Global warming is like peacekeeping, only harder. We want to do our bit, and that’s an honourable thing. Doing our bit is also exceedingly important to our self-image as moral beacons unto the world.The trick for the government is to make it seem as if we’re doing way, way more than we really are, while also making sure it doesn’t cost us very much.”
With all due respect; the trick – if one wishes to refer to the important task ahead as a trick, is not to make it seem as if we are doing more, but to actually do more so that we don’t look like world beacon hypocrites when we urge China and others to also choose a different path. Examined in this manner, our contribution to climate change is a heck-of-a-lot-more than a mere 2 percent.
If “global warming is a nightmare issue for the Conservatives — just as it will be for every government that comes after” can we at least hand the reins over to that style of “government that comes after” that is at least be willing to make a better effort?