[Centre]

It looks as though Stephen Harper won't find much love when he travels to Mexico for the upcoming North American leaders' summit.


American officials have already bluntly warned Harper not to pester Obama over the Keystone XL pipeline. It was a pretty embarrassing putdown;

The word, delivered by senior Obama officials, is "don't call us, we'll call you" when there's anything to discuss about the Keystone XL pipeline.


http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/White ... story.html



Now word is getting out that Harper might get the cold shoulder from Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto over the Harper government's decision not to life the visa requirement for Mexican visitors to Canada.


http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014 ... alyst.html

[commanderkai]

Centre Centre:

The word, delivered by senior Obama officials, is "don't call us, we'll call you" when there's anything to discuss about the Keystone XL pipeline.

I missed that interesting phrasing during the two articles you posted.

Beyond that, I think just about everybody realizes the Obama administration has been catering to extreme left political interests in the United States when it comes to Keystone XL. I say extreme left because there have been a number of votes in US Congress that went through with significant Democrat support.

[Zipperfish]

You say extreme left because it's a talking point among the curent conservative crop that any concern for teh environment is extreme leftists intent on imposing a single socialist world-gummint. And they'll probably come fer yer guns too!

This has been articulated by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, referring to environmetnalists as radicals. And by the Harper government in general, where it is not an accident that environentalists are often mentioned in the same breath as terrorists.

Trying to mischaracterize people that care about the level of environmetnal deterioration we are seeing as radicals is only going to racthet up the tension, and that is exactly what has happend with Keystone. The level of cynicism of the Harper government is particularly egregious, and is probably contributing to the general level of mistrust Amercians have with respect to Keystone.

[andyt]

Agree with what you said, especially the last sentence. The Harperites haven't helped themselves on this file.

But, what the fuck is the antipathy to Keystone all about? It's just become a symbol by people opposed to AGW without actually doing anything about it themselves, ie giving up creature comforts - or food. As the recent report made clear, that bitumen is coming out of the ground and being used whether Keystone is built or not. The only ones with a legitimate beef are the farmers who's land will be used - well, every pipeline and every railroad has to go over somebody's land.

We should oppose Keystone because it just sells more discounted dilbit to the Americans instead of delivering it to the world market, or better yet, shipping it east and using it ourselves.

While I don't buy the argument that you can't protest environmental degradation unless you live in a cave, I am getting a little tired of the Neil Youngs and Darryl Hannas and their acolytes that suck up just as much fossil fuels as the rest of us (more than me probably) but want to assume the saintly mantel of being an environmental steward. Probably many also buy into the pc position that being against population growth and immigration is racist, although these are the factors that mean we'll never reduce CO2 output enough to made a hill of beans in stopping AGW. (Funny how it's now called climate change, CO2 should cause warming, call it what it is, climate changes without increased CO2 output too.)

[FieryVulpine]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

Trying to mischaracterize people that care about the level of environmetnal deterioration we are seeing as radicals is only going to racthet up the tension, and that is exactly what has happend with Keystone.

Agreed, though there are radicals who do reinforce that perception. Unfortunately, they are much more louder than the rational environmentalists who have very legitimate concerns about environmental degradation. I remember a group of radicals, many of them "professional" activists (I like the sound of the term, "activistocrat" but I will refrain from using it,) trespassed on and occupied an Enbridge site near Hamilton and even chained their necks to the fence with bike locks. Not really the image I would like to convey.

[Zipperfish]

andyt andyt:

Agree with what you said, especially the last sentence. The Harperites haven't helped themselves on this file.

But, what the fuck is the antipathy to Keystone all about? It's just become a symbol by people opposed to AGW without actually doing anything about it themselves, ie giving up creature comforts - or food. As the recent report made clear, that bitumen is coming out of the ground and being used whether Keystone is built or not. The only ones with a legitimate beef are the farmers who's land will be used - well, every pipeline and every railroad has to go over somebody's land.

We should oppose Keystone because it just sells more discounted dilbit to the Americans instead of delivering it to the world market, or better yet, shipping it east and using it ourselves.

While I don't buy the argument that you can't protest environmental degradation unless you live in a cave, I am getting a little tired of the Neil Youngs and Darryl Hannas and their acolytes that suck up just as much fossil fuels as the rest of us (more than me probably) but want to assume the saintly mantel of being an environmental steward. Probably many also buy into the pc position that being against population growth and immigration is racist, although these are the factors that mean we'll never reduce CO2 output enough to made a hill of beans in stopping AGW. (Funny how it's now called climate change, CO2 should cause warming, call it what it is, climate changes without increased CO2 output too.)

Yes, it seems nobody can complain about the environment unless they live in a cave. Neil Young seems to go out of his way to reduce his carbon footprint adn his impact on the environment. But never mind him, I know tons of folks growing their own fruits and vegetables, shopping locally, recycling everything they can, watching their consumption habits adn maybe now and then peeping up that the decline of the world's fisheries should be of some concern, or that significant changes ecosystems for bees and butterflies bears some scrutiny. You don't have to be a black-bloc anarchist to care about these things.

[andyt]

care all you want, but don't delude yourself that it's enough to reverse AGW. Neil Young may have a fancy bus, but I bet his carbon use is higher than the average Canadian, which is already. way too high. Then what about all the third worlders, exatant and coming on stream, are they supposed to not want to live the way we do, have what we have? Then there's the dependence of our food supply on carbon fuel use. We're already over the carrying capacity of the earth without carbon use. Cut back on that and we have to cut back on people.

I'd like to see some hard numbers of what would be required to keep CO2 at acceptable levels. AFAIK we've already surpassed that point, so my guess is it would take a lot more radical steps than you outline above to really make a difference. I thin what you describe is just middle class Canadians kidding themselves that the way they live is sustainable, if they just do some nice things like recycling or growing a little bit of the food they eat.

Also, you're mixing in other concerns than climate change in your argument - not sure how much Keystone has to do with them.

[commanderkai]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

You say extreme left because it's a talking point among the curent conservative crop that any concern for teh environment is extreme leftists intent on imposing a single socialist world-gummint. And they'll probably come fer yer guns too!

This has been articulated by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver, referring to environmetnalists as radicals. And by the Harper government in general, where it is not an accident that environentalists are often mentioned in the same breath as terrorists.

I say extreme left, in the American political context, because, and, I have shown this to you on more than a few occasions, that there is bipartisan support in the United States for the Keystone XL pipeline. Both the American House of Representatives, and the Senate, have voted their approval for the Keystone XL pipeline, and I believe this has happened on more than one occasion.

I was quite specific, actually.

commanderkai commanderkai:

catering to extreme left political interests in the United States when it comes to Keystone XL

Also, it's not purely environmental interests, considering that, as of right now, there's big money in shipping oil by rail, and certainly there are a few high level Democrat contributors who would be opposed to losing a nice source of revenue.

In the future, don't try to attribute my words to some overall strategy by the "curent conservative crop", but actually address what I said. I know, setting up a strawman is far easier.

$1:

Trying to mischaracterize people that care about the level of environmetnal deterioration we are seeing as radicals is only going to racthet up the tension, and that is exactly what has happend with Keystone. The level of cynicism of the Harper government is particularly egregious, and is probably contributing to the general level of mistrust Amercians have with respect to Keystone.

Right, except this is not what is happening in the United States. Polls of the American general populace constantly show approval to overwhelming approval for the Keystone XL pipeline, and with past bipartisan support for legislation supporting Keystone XL, only the Obama administration is keen on continuing to drag their feet over the issue. You can think that the Harper administration is being cynical, but seemingly, it has won over just about everybody else in the United States BUT the Obama administration.

Now, obviously you can have the opinion that the Obama administration is delaying approval of the Keystone XL over environmental considerations. It is a lofty interpretation of his views, but, I'll be a bit more cynical when it comes to the Obama administration's actions over Keystone, especially when it goes against the American Congress, opinion polls of the general populace, and now even chunks of the American bureaucracy.

I think you're projecting your views of the Harper administration's environmental record onto the American people. Harper's cynicism is well justified when it comes to trying to get the Obama administration to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, as there is very little he can do to convince the Obama administration if his own Congress and the American people can't change his mind.

[Zipperfish]

andyt andyt:

care all you want, but don't delude yourself that it's enough to reverse AGW. Neil Young may have a fancy bus, but I bet his carbon use is higher than the average Canadian, which is already. way too high. Then what about all the third worlders, exatant and coming on stream, are they supposed to not want to live the way we do, have what we have? Then there's the dependence of our food supply on carbon fuel use. We're already over the carrying capacity of the earth without carbon use. Cut back on that and we have to cut back on people.

I'd like to see some hard numbers of what would be required to keep CO2 at acceptable levels. AFAIK we've already surpassed that point, so my guess is it would take a lot more radical steps than you outline above to really make a difference. I thin what you describe is just middle class Canadians kidding themselves that the way they live is sustainable, if they just do some nice things like recycling or growing a little bit of the food they eat.

Also, you're mixing in other concerns than climate change in your argument - not sure how much Keystone has to do with them.

I don't, that seems like a recipe for "who cares?" It's not going to make any difference anyways so what's the point? I haven't reached that point and I hope I never will. I know that there's a huge chunk of the population that is, as you say, "coming on stream." I know that oil affords us the standrd of living we enjoy. But I don't see the point of either apathy or denial to face the future.

Numbers for accetpable CO2--nobody knows. It presupposes knowledge of the response of teh ecosystem. We know the straight physics of it--the excess heat transferred back t9o the earth's surface by the added CO2, but how the ecosystem will respond isn't really known.

[Thanos]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

Yes, it seems nobody can complain about the environment unless they live in a cave. Neil Young seems to go out of his way to reduce his carbon footprint adn his impact on the environment. But never mind him, I know tons of folks growing their own fruits and vegetables, shopping locally, recycling everything they can, watching their consumption habits adn maybe now and then peeping up that the decline of the world's fisheries should be of some concern, or that significant changes ecosystems for bees and butterflies bears some scrutiny. You don't have to be a black-bloc anarchist to care about these things.

- Give me Captain Nemo's Nautilus and I'll have the entire Japanese, Norwegian, and Icelandic whaling fleets sunk to the bottom of the ocean by the end of the year. Ditto with any of the rest of the fishing fleets that leave nothing but devastation behind them with their dredging nets and dozens of miles of driftnets that kill every sea creature (including dolphins, sharks, whales, and seals) that are unfortunate enough to get caught in them. If I was King Of The World, the first thing that would happen would be that I'd impose (by military threat if necessary) a 20 to 25 year long moratorium on all fishing activity in all the world's oceans.

- Every nation on the planet that's contributed to the creation of it has to drop a minimum of $5 billion NOW into a fund designed with the express purpose of cleaning up the Pacific garbage gyre. We helped make the fucking disgusting thing, so everyone has the obligation to pitch in to clean the fucking disgraceful thing up.

- To combat excessive CO2 production, tree-planting and reforestation efforts should be quadrupled be the end of this decade. Buy back as much land as possible from farmers and landowners everywhere, from the Rockies to the Great Lakes to the plains running from France to western Russia and on to the Amazon, to restore as much of the old primeval forests as possible.

- No one here at CKA made a more vigourous and angry case than I did that the BP and Halliburton executives that were responsible for the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig disaster should have all been put in prison for what they deliberately did.

- Dick Cheney's a rotten and evil bastard, and not just for putting the US into two failed wars and for greenlighting torture of prisoners by the US military. He's also the one who's directly responsible for American drilling companies using known toxic and poisonous chemicals that destroy water tables as these guys go about their fracking frenzy. A person in the US who tries to find what's in the fracking fluid that's poisoning their community can actually see more jail time than anyone who destroys an aquifer or water table with this hideous chemical brew. Dick Cheney is the one who pushed for this revolting system to be be put in place so IMO he too should be put in prison. Or worse.

- I recycle vigourously. I have for about 25 years now. I go as far as to bring superceded documents and drawings home with me from the field jobs I do just so I can toss them in the green bins because the field offices don't set up their own recyclable collections. I once came back from Ft. McArsehole with five huge plastic bags in the back seat of my car filled with pop cans and water bottles. I didn't do this to make a buck (I actually gave them all to the Girl Guides when they came to the door doing a bottle drive), I did it because the dumb fucks at the site I worked on weren't collecting them; they were just throwing the damn things out in the trash, and this pissed me off to no end.

- I put one 5-to-7 lb. bag of household garbage out once a week for collection. Sometimes more, but usually that amount or even less. I throw every conceivable eligible object I can into the blue bin for recycling.

- I was so horrified by what happened to a duck here in Calgary years ago that got a plastic holder from a six-pack wrapped around his throat that, ever since I saw it in the paper, I shred those holders completely into about a dozen pieces so no loop of it is left that any animal could get stuck in.

- I detest "recreational" activities like ATVing and 4x4ing. I think it's idiotic and is completely destructive against the landscape. If I could I'd ban the retarded nonsense altogether.

Don't tell me I don't care, dawg. Or that I'm not doing my bit to help the place be cleaner. On half of this shit I'm more radical than the global warming hysterics are with their schtick. Just because I don't believe that an entire civilization that was essentially built by fossil fuels can be taken off of it cold-turkey, with absolutely nothing else currently in place that can provide the energy and industrial/technological base that oil & gas does, doesn't automatically mean that I'm some sort of caricature of an earth-raper. This is what I mean by the puritanical shit that gets pushed by clowns like David Suzuki and Neil Young. They're just rich pricks who have the money and options to live in a way the vast majority of other people simply can't. Real solutions for the real world, and no more listening to wealthy "activists" who are pushing some fantasy-land ideology far more than they are any realistic and doable changes in human behaviour.

[andyt]

I'm pretty apathetic about reducing our CO2 output in any meaningful way, at least in the sense that we'll be able to reduce it enough to really make a diff, so I don't want to impair our economy chasing a futile dream. And Keystone won't make a whit of diff in this, as the report pointed out. It's just symbolism and people kidding themselves they've made a difference by stopping it and driving home in their cars from the protest to live in their house heated and cooled by carbon to eat the food grown and delivered by carbon and wearing clothes and using implements made from carbon. Apathy may allow us to stop and quit moving in the wrong direction, thinking we're doing something. There are other reasons not to be a carbon hog, ones I embraced a long time ago, but I still live in Canada, and my environmental footprint is still 2.4 vs the average Canadian's 4. So my lifestyle is still unsustainable, getting more so every day we add people to the planet.

I think we're better off spending money on learning to live with climate change.

Ideally we'd stop breeding right now, but that's not going to happen. So learn how to love the heat, and there's always those mine shafts.

[Zipperfish]

commanderkai commanderkai:

I say extreme left, in the American political context, because, and, I have shown this to you on more than a few occasions, that there is bipartisan support in the United States for the Keystone XL pipeline. Both the American House of Representatives, and the Senate, have voted their approval for the Keystone XL pipeline, and I believe this has happened on more than one occasion.

I was quite specific, actually.

So anyone that disagrees with wide bipartisan support in the US is a radical wing nut? No, I don't buy that. There was wide bipartisan support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as well. But, in fact, protests aginst that war were actually much larger in number than those against Vietnam. Those protestors weren't necessarily radical wingnuts. POliticians, particular in the US are a vain and venal lot. I don't think they define, in any way, how a lot of folks think, globally or even in their own country.

$1:

Also, it's not purely environmental interests, considering that, as of right now, there's big money in shipping oil by rail, and certainly there are a few high level Democrat contributors who would be opposed to losing a nice source of revenue.

In the future, don't try to attribute my words to some overall strategy by the "curent conservative crop", but actually address what I said. I know, setting up a strawman is far easier.

My point was that environemtnalists are not necessarily radical leftists, and those opposed to Keystone are radical leftists. It looked to me like that was the point you were trying to make.

$1:

Right, except this is not what is happening in the United States. Polls of the American general populace constantly show approval to overwhelming approval for the Keystone XL pipeline, and with past bipartisan support for legislation supporting Keystone XL, only the Obama administration is keen on continuing to drag their feet over the issue. You can think that the Harper administration is being cynical, but seemingly, it has won over just about everybody else in the United States BUT the Obama administration.

Now, obviously you can have the opinion that the Obama administration is delaying approval of the Keystone XL over environmental considerations. It is a lofty interpretation of his views, but, I'll be a bit more cynical when it comes to the Obama administration's actions over Keystone, especially when it goes against the American Congress, opinion polls of the general populace, and now even chunks of the American bureaucracy.

I think you're projecting your views of the Harper administration's environmental record onto the American people. Harper's cynicism is well justified when it comes to trying to get the Obama administration to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, as there is very little he can do to convince the Obama administration if his own Congress and the American people can't change his mind.

This is just ludicrous. I haven't seen any overwhelming support for Keystone in the US. A quick google showed a mild level of approval in the first few hits. Again, this is just that attempt to try to taint environmentalists as radicals. Why would Obamam be playing this game if it were just a tiny percentage of the populace opposed, as you seem to be trying to say? It wouldn't make any sense.

Harper has convinced everyone in the US except the Obama administration? I don't think so. Most Amercians probably don't even know who Harper is. I happen to think that there concern for climate change is well placed, though their concern about pollution from the oil sands is overestimated. But, where are they supposed to get their information from? Politicians? Corporations? Media? Scientists? The same folks telling them that the oil sands are nothing to worry about, are the ones telling them that climate change is a pile of crap.

[Zipperfish]

andyt andyt:

I'm pretty apathetic about reducing our CO2 output in any meaningful way, at least in the sense that we'll be able to reduce it enough to really make a diff, so I don't want to impair our economy chasing a futile dream. And Keystone won't make a whit of diff in this, as the report pointed out. It's just symbolism and people kidding themselves they've made a difference by stopping it and driving home in their cars from the protest to live in their house heated and cooled by carbon to eat the food grown and delivered by carbon and wearing clothes and using implements made from carbon. Apathy may allow us to stop and quit moving in the wrong direction, thinking we're doing something. There are other reasons not to be a carbon hog, ones I embraced a long time ago, but I still live in Canada, and my environmental footprint is still 2.4 vs the average Canadian's 4. So my lifestyle is still unsustainable, getting more so every day we add people to the planet.

I think we're better off spending money on learning to live with climate change.

Ideally we'd stop breeding right now, but that's not going to happen. So learn how to love the heat, and there's always those mine shafts.

I think adaptation is the reality at this point as well. But I alos think that planting our heads in the sand and denying that CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing is just plain stupid. Those are the guys I want to satnd up to.

[Thanos]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

I think adaptation is the reality at this point as well. But I alos think that planting our heads in the sand and denying that CO2 in the atmosphere is increasing is just plain stupid. Those are the guys I want to satnd up to.

I'd like to go cosh one of them in the back of the head with a sock full of sand myself, just because they're so obnoxious. I'd also like to see though more recognition that industry is doing a lot to ameliorate the effects and continuously researching methods to remove more and more carbon from the process as it goes along. Vehicles are incredibly more efficient in fuel consumption that they were even two decades ago, and are constantly improving. All the players in the oilsands are engaging in land reclamation as they go along. It's isn't perfect, but they're certainly not leaving the place looking like the abandoned industrial areas of Russia and Eastern Europe once the extraction is finished. People and businesses and governments are trying the best they can, and the purists telling a bunch of endless lies to the contrary serves no practical purpose whatsoever.

[andyt]

Nothing to do with Keystone. Very few people argue that CO2 isn't increasing, that's easily measured. What's arguable is how much temp is increasing in response to it, and what happens in the future, since current temp increases aren't very much and we seem to have hit a plateau. But who knows if we're approaching a tipping point where the mechanisms that reduce the heat trapped by CO2 stop working.

Agree that calling protesters against Keystone radicals is dumb. I wish they were. I think they're just well meaning deluded people, led on by some grandstanders and yes, financed by people who stand to gain if Keystone doesn't happen.

Long ago, when I was still far more environmentally engaged, I used to rage against the middle class women who used their own cups instead of styrofoam (remember that stuff) and thought they were saving the world, while they lived their consuming life. Keystone is just another example of that, except I don't really worry as much because I'm older and I figure we're already past the point of no return in terms of population. Apres moi le deluge and all. I'm sure this idea sucks if you have kids, but I think there's some validity to it. Not being an enviropiggy is still worth it, for your soul as much as anything, but, again, I think it might be pretty futile in the end.