The Canadian conservative government of Stephen Harper has made one of the obvious rational decisions: they have erased the Kyoto protocol from their federal budget and slashed funding for the greenhouse gas programs, bringing their country closer to the rest of the civilized North America. I always believed that they would be trying to act in this direction. Many people including Steve McIntyre did not believe me.
The Tories care about the environment but they also care about common sense. They prefer solutions that make sense and have a high enough chance to work. They will introduce tax breaks to support the public transportation, among other things. Alberta in particular is rather happy and wants to
Note that according to Kyoto, Canadians would eventually have to pay about $600 per family for carbon dioxide credits. It's not a devastating amount but still, it is silly to throw money away for such entirely useless things and it is even sillier to torture yourself even if you know that you will have to pay anyway.
When the Tories planned to return rational thinking to the environmental policymaking, they had to think about possible criticism. But I guess that there exists no real threat to be afraid of. Who are the critics? They're people like Al Gore. If you have forgotten, Al Gore is a megalomanic eco-prophet who has had plans to control the entire territory of the United States of America six years ago. Now he tries to promote his movie full of convenient untrue statements (they're convenient for the producers' pockets):
The movie argues that the planet will face a catastrophe in 10 years (...) unless the instructions of the prophet and narrator Gore will be followed. Moreover, Gore is now explaining that climate change is no longer a political issue: it has become a spiritual (religious) issue! Wow. The debate is over and a new era of crucification of those who find the prophet intellectually challenged is getting started.
When read the "made-in-Canada" quotes from Environment Minister Rona Ambrose, Gore rolled his eyes and made a flag-waving gesture with his hand. During his stay in Toronto, Gore also claimed that the government had no mandate to make any decisions about the environment. I guess that Gore believes that he has a mandate himself - a direct mandate from the God of climate change. ;-)
