Monday Thoughts

I apologize for to my three readers for my week long hiatus. I was off on the Rock where they call Prime Minister Harper Steve because "he doesn't like being called Steve." Wait, you mean promising everything to everyone can backfire? What a shock! Some other quick fire thoughts:

• Just finished Fareed Zakaria's "The Post-American World." I tend to agree with Mr. Zakaria on most points although I think he is slightly on the optimistic side in terms of the United States. At any rate an easy read and quite informative on many points. I definitely recommend it. Fans of The Daily Show will undoubtedly recognize Mr. Zakaria who has an appearance rate only rivaled by John McCain.
• Seeing the anger towards Harper in Newfoundland was refreshing. How long do you think it will be before Quebec dumps him like they did Mulroney and Borden before him?
• Harper's electoral math may be challenged by a few losses on the Rock if he doesn't do some repair work. Luckily for Mr. Dion, Newfoundlanders don't tend to vote anything except Tory and Liberal. If they are mad at Harper, he should be the beneficiary no matter what the impact of The Green Shift may be on the oil producing province.
• It is remarkable how the media insists on saying that the American race is close. Anyone look at an electoral college projection lately? Could McCain win? Sure. Is it going to take a major shift in public opinion? Definitely.
• The economy may be in the tubes, but everything's coming up roses in Gotham. Seriously, I need to see this movie. I never need to see a movie. I really never need to see a summer blockbuster. This one, I want to see.
• Speaking of the economy being in the tubes, $1.50 for a litre of gas in St. John's? Holy mackerel... or I guess cod.
• Note to self: Post on Suzuki report on provinces and climate change.

Have a good week everyone!

Monday...

Ah, the last Monday of the summer... Okay, on with some thoughts from the last few days:

• The Globe's editorial this morning is an inconvenient truth. We have to fight climate change. We also have to give up on meeting our Kyoto targets.
• Dion now faces a challenge akin to the one Chretien faced on free trade. Move the party away from an economically disastrous if internally popular position.
• CNN reports that the perjurer in chief is no more. I'm not sure this makes it any easier to get him for all that nonsense surrounding the federal prosecutors but I don't think it makes it harder.
• I like the idea of the Canada-Russia 35th anniversary superseries. However, I got a chance to watch a few minutes before coming in to work this morning and, well, let's just say you can tell it's August. It is hard to get excited for something when the play is so sloppy.
• The population growth in Toronto's suburbs is frightening. There should be one priority above all others for GTA politicians: density.
• For Iraq to succeed it must have complete and unfettered control of who leads its country. For Ms. Clinton to comment on the job performance of the Prime Minister of Iraq is both inappropriate and dangerous. Ms. Clinton may claim to be from about 5 different states but she is not Iraqi. Therefore, who the Iraqis decide to elect is none of her business. I certainly wouldn't want an American leader commenting on elections in this country.
• The Americans have a serious constitutional crisis on their hands. The ability of a modern president to go to war without Congressional approval makes it very difficult for Congress to stop or end a war. This is a check and balance that needs to be reinforced.
• I don't see a major difference between pre-election spending and campaign promises. If a party that is in government hasn't taken any steps to do what they now promise to do if re-elected, we would be highly suspicious. Sorbrara has the money and is going to spend it. If you want to criticize how it's being spent, fine.
• This article on MMP is mostly pointless. There are already prohibitions on parties campaigning for or against MMP. I do agree that the most important thing in this whole process is to have a well-informed public. Referenda with an ignorant populous are rubber stamps in democratic clothing.
• Contrary to what Christiane Amanpour may think, the diaspora support for Israel is much more a case of nationalistic sympathy than religious fervour. It is much more about memories of the Holocaust than memories of Judaea. Furthermore, the majority of Israelis are highly secular. They are certainly not at war with modern secular society. To paint the Arab-Israeli conflict as purely religious is to miss most of the point.

Long Weekend Wrap-Up

Quick thoughts after the long weekend:

• I think Lawrence Martin's article in yesterday's globe was great. Canada has four major economic advantages going forward. Oil, cold weather to make global warming bearable, water and a young population that is willing and able to engage the world. Martin calls the younger generation Phoenecian. I'd call them the new internationalists. At any rate, the world is Canada's for the taking.
• I think Bush's alternative climate change meetings are a distraction. The U.S. needs to be brought into the post-Kyoto negotiations already in progress. Countries should not be excluded just because they didn't like Kyoto.
• I think power outages are annoying. Apparently there is something wrong with the transformer or something in my area. The power was off most of yesterday afternoon and went out again some time over night and is still out as of this writing.
• I think the UK has horrible luck with cattle. Another outbreak of foot and mouth? Yikes!
• I think the fact that David Beckham sat on the bench to a sellout crowd in Toronto is not much of an issue. Toronto FC is selling out most of their games. Becks or no Becks. This team will be a fan hit for at least a couple of years. I want to see what happens in year four.
• I think I'm looking forward to Summer Fling this weekend.

Random Thoughts on a Friday Before the Long Weekend

It's Friday and I don't have any coherent post ideas so here goes everything:

• Peter McKay is right that you don't claim land by putting your flag there. However, it seems to me that Harper's whole "Arctic Sovereignty" thing is about going around on ships carrying the Canadian flag. Also, isn't that exactly what we and the Danes keep doing on Hans Island? The Russian kettle might be black, but I don't like hearing it from the pot.
• On a related note, can someone please explain to me why we waste resources on fighting over Hans Island? It's a rock. It's not a big rock either. Also, if it isn't Danish why is it named after some guy named Hans?
• The L.A. Galaxy are in town to face Toronto F.C. I'm more concerned about the injury-riddled home side then whether or not Becks will play. Without Marvell Wynne, Jeff Cunningham and Danny Dichio, we're toast against anyone.
• Continuing with TFC, for all you European football fans, keep an eye out for Marvell Wynne when he comes back from this little hamstring injury. If TFC doesn't pay him a ton of money he could defend in Europe. I don't think, like Mr. Lalas, that this is true for most MLS guys but Wynne is just plain good.
• Can someone please get Iggy and Rae to kiss and make up?
• Harper's feud with the media is more funny than scary at this point.
• Why don't we do civic-minded things on the civic hoilday? You'd think there would be some charitable organization that could use the day to organize massive clean-ups or something.
• Another round of congratulations go out to George Smitherman and his husband to be. The pair will get married this weekend.
• What happened in Minneapolis is a tragedy. My heart goes out to the families who lost loved ones. That said, it was a fluke. Bridges are not about to start collapsing everyday. And CNN, quick question: how many Americans have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since you started your 24 hour bridge coverage? I think five but I wouldn't have heard it from you.
• Stephen Colbert missed a chance to expose intelligent design hack Michael Behe last night. Irreducible complexity was Tolstoy's favoured proof of God. It's not science.
• By the way, The Daily Show piece (I think it was Aasif Mandvi) on Live Earth on Wednesday(?) was brilliant. If anyone thinks Stewart and co. only go after the right, watch that piece.
• Caribana is this weekend. Apparently, it is actually supposed to make money this year. If you want to see the entirety of the Toronto Police walk through downtown the next couple of nights. I really do like Caribana but all the idiots who think it is a good time to settle old gang scores make me nervous. I know that the morons are a small fraction of the community but, unfortunately, Caribana is the only one of Toronto's summer parties that makes me hold my breath. Also, it is remarkable how the weather is always Caribbean hot for this thing.

McGuinty Shows Courage

Ontario has a garbage problem. Well, Toronto has a garbage problem and when Toronto has a problem, everyone has a problem. Ontario also has an energy problem. Lo and behold, a politician has put two and two together. Incineration is an excellent idea. However, it is not an easy sell. From all indications, if done correctly garbage can be burnt with very little environmental damage. My beloved MPP (I'm sorry, I have a personal issue with Tabuns) who is quoted in the article above may not believe so, but it can. It's funny how little the NDP who claims to be progressive believes in progress. Technologies change and improve. The depressing thing is that my neighbours in Toronto-Danforth will agree with Mr. Tabuns. The NDP has scared them half to death with all the fear-mongering done about the building of the natural gas plant. If they say incineration and there will be old Greek ladies having heart attacks. With the NDP gaining strength in Toronto this was a dangerous position for the premier to take. Also, Toronto does about all the waste diversion you can do. We do a lot more in the Big Smoke than they do here in Sweden, I'll tell you that much. Trucking the garbage to Michigan or half way across the province to ruin the soil in some landfill is not any better for the environment. All those who say that Liberals are only about getting elected should take a good hard look at this one. The Liberal Party, okay, my vision of the Liberal Party is about doing the right thing at the right time. McGuinty has nailed it on the head with this one.


Quick side note: My beef with Tabuns stems from when I met him during the last by-election. I answered the door at my parents house (where I'm registered to vote) and Tabuns immediately asked for my parents. Okay, I was only 19 at the time but he has a voters list with him. There are four voters in the house including two males. Maybe there are university students in the house? The NDP is supposed to be the party of youth. I wouldn't have been offended had he asked if I was old enough to vote. However, I have no respect for someone who doesn't bother to ask for my vote when they're talking to me.

Suzuki on the Environment

Okay, this is slightly out of context but from the Mercer Report:

David Suzuki "The planet?! Hell! what about my nuts?"

Isn't that what Alberta's asking?

The Emperor has No Clothes

No, this post is not about Bush or even Harper. This is about Kyoto. Stephane Dion is barking up the Kyoto tree again. This time a resolution in the house. This might be politically savvy. It is also bad policy. I've written about the flaws of Kyoto before. I will simply say that the Kyoto process is dying. The post-Kyoto negotiations are going nowhere. In order to stop global warming, we must engage the entire world. This cannot be a white people plus Japan thing as it is now. The argument that the first world are the major polluters is only valid until a billion Chinese and a billion Indians are driving cars. Dion has credibility on the world stage on this issue. If the Conservatives want to steal our environment policy, let's steal theirs. A "made in Canada" solution is viable but not just for Canada. Let's find a way to engage the Americans, engage the Indians who are currently outside the Kyoto process. Let's see if there's any legitimacy to that whole "honest broker" and "middle power" thing. We can stop global warming. We can't do it through Kyoto. Let's lead the world and find a real solution. Let's give the emperor some clothes.

Eureka!

I've done it. I've figured out how to fix Kyoto. Okay, maybe not fix it but make it a hell of a lot better. I might not be alone here but I'm not hearing it in mainstream discussion. Here's the deal. As I've said before, Kyoto does penalize growth. If you, as a country, had economic success since 1990 Kyoto becomes very difficult to implement. Kyoto as it is encourages resource based and manufacturing industry out of the Kyoto bound countries and into the global south and gives carbon surpluses to weak economies. This is one of the reasons the United States will never ratify Kyoto. Therefore, this is what you do: you tie emissions to GDP growth relative to other developed countries. Instead of taking CO2 emissions straight you create the following formula.

Target= 1990 CO2 emissions x (Reduction Factor/(2012 Percentage of Kyoto bound GDP/1990 Percentage of Kyoto Bound GDP)

Here are the changes in the G8 as of 2003 (the last year I can find emission stats for):

Old Target New Target 2003 Level
(all in Millions of tons of Carbon)

Canada 106,678.72 108,094.60 154,392
Russia 541,492.00 230,980.70 407,593
United States 1,222,776.09 1,306,077.58 1,580,175
Germany 223,752.28 200,558.74 219,776
France 91,005.48 86,568.62 102,065
Italy 97,831.88 86,098.80 121,608
United Kingdom 142,945.00 153,170.64 152,460
Japan 274,679.28 237,830.32 336,142

A few things jump out from these numbers:

1. Russia's environmental record is exposed: The Russian economy collapsed between 1990 and 2003. It's percentage of the world economy has been nearly halved. It should not be producing the same kind of emissions.
2. Countries with strong economies (CAN, UK, US) get a bit of a break. It doesn't mean they get off the hook as both Canada and the US are still above their targets.
3. The Europeans are shown to be not as green as they may like. Now it is possible that if these were the existing targets Germany would be closer to meeting their requirements but it seems doubtful.
   

There is still one major problem with this formula. It relates to the Tory argument that the Bush administration has done a better job on the environment than the Liberals. This sort of statistic ignores where the GDP growth occurs. Obviously, the strong US service and tech sectors are not as polluting as the oil and other resource industries in Canada. So yes, by getting out of manufacturing cars and into telemarketing the US has become a greener country.

It is important to note that this formula would actually reduce emissions further than the one currently in place by about 12%. It makes more sense for industry and for the environment.

I appreciate any input on this proposal. If anyone could find a more recent link for CO2 emissions I'd also be grateful.

Why I Oppose Kyoto

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of the accord, let me just say that I think global warming is real. I think that it is a crucial issue which must be confronted. I do not think that the Kyoto Protocol is the way to do it. Here are 5 reasons why:

1. A State Based Solution to A Non-State Based Problem

The Kyoto Protocol asks certain countries to reduce their emissions to varying amounts below 1990 levels. The measuring tool used is all emissions that are actually made in a given country. So a widget produced in Canada causing 1 unit of pollution is added to the Canadian total regardless of where the widget is sold/used. Thus, the ecological cost of a barrel of oil produced in Alberta or a car produced in Ontario is charged to Canada even if it is being used in the United States or Europe. Kyoto assumes that all goods produced in a country are used in a country and that all goods used in a country are produced there. Neither of these things are true. Thus, a country that produces a lot and imports little looks better than a country that produces more and imports less. The great irony of course is that a large importer of goods is actually taxing the environment further by shipping goods from one place to another. A barrel of oil produced in Nigeria and sold in the US is a far greater damage than one produced domestically. These problems are ignored by the protocol because it is trying to work at the state level. The globalized economy is not under state control.

As both Stephane Dion and Gerard Kennedy point out in their policy documents on the environment, it is essentially an economic issue. Any real solution to the environment on the global scale are to be found at the International Monetary Fund. Well, maybe not the IMF, because it can't do anything, but at an economic summit. It will not be found at a meeting of environment ministers.

2. Europe Does Not a Global Treaty Make

One of Kyoto's most deadly flaws is that it is not a global treaty. The number of non-EU countries still committed to actually doing anything under Kyoto (Appendix I countries) is eight. Of those eight, only three are really non-European: Canada, Japan and New Zealand. The rationale for this is that these are the only countries that can afford to make the changes necessary to abide by Kyoto. I would say that their are a quite a few non-European countires missing from the list. Ignoring for the moment the fact that the US and Australia have withdrawn, where are the oil rich arab states? How about Singapore? South Korea? The list goes on.

However, this accepts Kyoto's logic that only the first world is responsible for cleaning the world. Major polluters like China and India are left to do as they please because they are developping countries. CO2 emissions from China and India are as damaging as they would be from Canada. People argue that it is wrong to deny developping countries a chance to develop as the West did. If China and India are allowed to develop in the same way as the West did, we are in for an environmental catastrophe. Global warming requires a global solution, not a Europe and friends solution.

3. What's In A Date? Quite a Bit!

Ever wonder why Russia has all these credits to sell (see point 4) under the protocol? Well, that's because instead of using as a start date the day the treaty was signed, the signatories agreed to the seeming random date of 1990. Let's see what's happened since 1990 in Russia? Oh yeah, the economy collapsed! Russia didn't go green, it went to shit! However, it isn't just Russia that benefits from that early date. The whole Eastern Bloc has rebuilt the old horribly environmental damaging industries since 1990. Even the Germans benefit.

In North America, a different problem arises with 1990. 1990 is of course before NAFTA came into effect and just after the FTA. Industry from the United States has found home in both Canada and Mexico since 1990, raising our pollution numbers and lowering the Americans. Does it mean that American industry is cleaner? No, it means there's less of it.

4. Pollution for Sale! Today's Special: Carbon Monoxide!

Okay, so that's a little crass. However, the idea that environmental credits can be bought and sold like stock futures is absurd. The world will not get cooler because the Canadian government pays the Russian government for their collapsed economy. Kyoto is supposed to be a starting point. It is supposed to be a first step. Allowing countries to buy their way out, makes it a non-step.

5. Oh, Nobody Else in this Treaty actually has Natural Resources? Woops!

Okay, that's not entirely true but let's face facts. Russia the largest oil producer in the treaty, doesn't have to do a thing about its oil industry in order to comply with Kyoto. The Norwegians, the only other major oil producer outside of Canada, realizing that oil is slightly polluting, set a target for themselves of 101% of 1990 levels. That's a full seven points higher than the Canadian level and 9 points higher than EU states. The reality is, no other country with Canada's committment has an economy so based on the extraction of natural resources, a very environmentally damaging process. Canada is a special case. Kyoto does not acknowledge this. Canada would need to bend over backwards in order to reach its Kyoto targets. I don't think its worth hurting ourselves for a treaty that will not do very much good from an ecological perspective.

Canada should work hard to make its industries as green as possible. We should also work with the international community to get a treaty that will actually help the environment.