[Newsbot]

Title: Canada won't follow U.S. plan on greenhouse gases
Category: Environmental
Posted By: wildrosegirl
Date: 2010-11-28 07:40:35
Canadian

[Arctic_Menace]

If there's one thing we should've followed the US on, it should've been this initiative.

[Khar]

I honestly disagree with you there, as would, I hope, most Canadians who either live in the West or are in provinces living off of transfer payments/energy originating from the West for the time being. Living in a nation with a good amount of investment in energy, and some provinces based very heavily on the production of oil, including Alberta and the Maritimes.

This is all well and good for the States, but I find that this article just doesn't touch on a few issues here. Yes, the oil sands have likely increased emissions, but they've also played a role in Alberta's and Canada's economy. Energy is one of the few industries which endured the downturn well, is core to our stability (hence this is a sizable part of our economy), and is more prominent in the Canadian economy than in the American one proportionally. Asking for us to harmonize is basically asking Canada to sacrifice a lot more than America to reach the same environmental goals.

Canada has a resource based industry, and this is asking for us to try and cripple this industry for the nation which buys a lot of those resources from us. This feels very much like the softwood lumber dispute, or the steel industry dispute. Sounds more like "Canadians should sacrifice more for the good of the States" to me, except this time they are discussing green topics and climate change instead of evoking protectionism and bypassing NAFTA. This is like pointing out stats that Canadians use a lot more natural gas and oil than Americans per capita, forgetting that a larger proportion of us Canadians have to do things like heat our homes than Americans do. I'd hate for Canadians to have to deal with cuts to social programs, reduction in investment, or reduction in opportunities because the loss of these is considered less socially responsible than more marginal gains in Canada and the States.

Talking about climate "experts" without referencing these experts besides a nameless representative from the Pembina Institute (which I have to admit I do find questionable) also bugs me, to be honest. I'd like to know at least someone's name here so I can read up on what these folks actually said. I have a feeling that it's more climate "activists" than climate "experts" because of the exclusion of these details, but again, that's just me.