King Arthur Movie Tristan

To: Mortal inhabitants of Earth
From: the offices of Beezulbub, Belial, Lucifer and Apollyon
Hell inc.

The rulers of Hell are pleased to announce, in conjunction with the David Suzuki Foundation, the first expansion of the borough of Hell, and it’s surrounding environs.

Pending environmental study, hell will be increasing it’s boundary’s to include a full new, tenth level. Tentatively called Deritus, the new level will be eternal home to global warming deniers and other environmental abasers.

Deritus will be guarded by a three headed bureaucrat, Suzukibus. The three heads of Suzukibus shall be named Amplify, Apply and Abuse. Inhabitants will spend eternity in the over-heated environs of hell, where they will be continually told, "it's not hot," "nothing wrong with a little heat," and "don't worry, an ice age is just around the corner." They will further be made to sort unrecycled garbage into recyclables (paper & plastic), compostables and landfill.

Hell inc. and The David Suzuki Foundation are excited by this opportunity to join together in meting eternal punishment to any and all who dare oppose the opinion as given to them by David Suzuki Ph.D.

Signed
Satan, Lord of the Underworld
Suzuki, lord it over you.

Remember the caterwauling when John Baird released his Kyoto report, and Elizabeth May said a carbon tax would not need to be anywhere near the $195 a tonne the report said, and Stephan Dion said no carbon tax was necessary, a $20 tonne deposit system was all that was needed?

Liberal Leader Stephan Dion also rejected the $195 figure as excessive, saying that his party proposes a $20-per-tonne "deposit" instead of a tax.

"It's a deposit that the companies will have to give to the environmental bank -- and they will have this money back if they decrease their emissions," Dion told Question Period co-host Jane Taber.

"It's like when you have your bottle of Coca-Cola and you bring it back to the grocery store. You get your money back. It's not a tax."

Not a tax. That has been Stephan Dion's line from the start. No Carbon tax.

If that is true, why did Dion's Industry Critic and co-chair of the Liberal Party of Canada's election platform committee, Scott Brison, pen an article today in which he says: "It is clear that... governments eventually will put a price on carbon."

What is a price on carbon, put their by governments, but a carbon tax? Dress it up however you want, but Scott Brison called a carbon tax a sure thing. And since he's helping write their platform, we must assume it's now Liberal policy.

When it comes to global warming, there are three questions you need to ask yourself:

1. Is the global climate warming?
2. Will it be catastrophic?
3. Is it anthropomorphic (man made).

If you answered no to any or all of the above questions, then continue on with life. If, however, you answered yes, yes and well... yes, STOP! what you are doing and fix it now.

You see, those who believe, they are coming, and they will try to change everything. And equivocators, who want to straddle the fence, are emboldening them.

How else to explain such a piece as Pat Watson's in todays Toronto Sun: Will It Be Your Money Or Your Life?

And sure we can assuage our guilt by throwing our empty plastic water bottles into the recycling bins and switching to compact fluorescent bulbs. But what we need to get into our "new" way of thinking is that trying to do the old actions with some slight new twist is not really going to turn this behemoth around. It's not recycling bottles and plastics that will really help, but not using them at all.

Plastic -- and there are myriad products made from it -- is a petroleum by-product. And while it has revolutionized the consumer industry, it has put us in all kinds of peril. Take a look at the rising incidence of cancer worldwide and the relationship between that and the chemicals found in plastic products.

What is so frustrating is there is a critical mass emerging that wants change and wants to change, but the system of our lives is so tied to subsequent environmental damage that it will take more than separating our garbage into different bins to make it happen.

Critical Mass emerging? That's you equivocators. Eliminate plastic, even though it has revolutionized, not just the consumer industry, but the world. (What is the consumer industry anyway?) But the worst is yet to come:

In this 21st century we face a real fork in the road that in truth really means we would have to completely change the way we exist on Earth.

It means not wanting or giving value to the things we used to. It means pantyhose can no longer be an option for looking well dressed. It means the use of nail polish has to end. It means no longer packaging water in plastic bottles. It means air travel as we now know it can no longer be seen as the way to go. It means when we talk about the advantages of hosting something like a grand prix race for two days we should have better reasons for allowing it and the kind of pollution that comes with it then it will bring an estimated $50 million to the city.

The main reason given for so much of why we cannot accelerate the changes to save the planet, and by extension our sorry selves, is it will be a shock to the (economic) system: Job losses, tax losses and the like.

Here's the thing, as if it's not too obvious: It's the way we are making money that is killing this planet and causing an increase in preventable diseases. So what's it going to be: Your money or your life?

See, no pantyhose, nail polish, air travel, car races (not to mention cars, which she somehow neglected, but it's the obvious end result).

So what is it going to be people, your way of life, your ability to feed your family, or save the planet from yourself and your family?

There is no fence here. People like Pat Watson want to take away everything you have, and will succeed if we just sit around waiting for it to blow over.

From the Desk of Farley Mowat
Dear Green Party Friend:

Eighty-six years as participant and observer have convinced me we are facing an ecological and environmental crisis that could precipitate the greatest die-off in the history of our planet.

The current situation is so ominous and the potential for disaster so diverse and imminent as to threaten not just human life but all of animate creation. If this sounds like Chicken Little, it is because this time the sky truly may be falling.

The unwillingness of the powers-that-be to accept the scope and urgency of the threat convinces me that the cement-heads who currently control our destiny are incapable of responding to the approaching tornado. They will remain engrossed in their own self-interests, trusting that a consortium of super-science, technology, and the Entrepreneurial Gods will see them safely into Heaven on Earth.

I don’t believe it will. Which is why I am now giving my support to the Green Party, the only political entity demonstrating a real and potential effective concern for the planet and its myriad inhabitants.

All of its inhabitants!

For it is not just we human beings who are at risk. We are all in the same crucible together – and the temperature is rising rapidly, both figuratively and actually.

The Green Party, led by Elizabeth May, is the one political party clearly committed to averting the catastrophic consequences of our continuing to treat the Earth as mere dirt beneath our feet, so it is imperative that we elect Green Party members to our next parliament. This cannot happen without a lot of help from a lot of us.

The Harper Conservatives boast of their war chest of $15 million, and their War Room from which they will send out their Attack Ads and fire their Media Barrages. The Green Party and its leader, Elizabeth May, have only the Green Hope Chest, which at the moment is virtually empty. Nevertheless, they are promising a peaceable campaign focused on the survival of a peaceable kingdom.

I very much want them to succeed and I hope you do too, so I invite you to join me in making it financially possible for the Greens to vanquish the vandals and thereby help re-establish a viable future for life on Earth.

Farley Mowat

To all those people who think Green is a good alternative place to put your vote: do you really still think so?

Crossposted from Let Freedom Reign

Today's Sun has an article by Tom Harris and Dr. Tim Ball called Prove it! that challenges an assumption that's become near and dear to my heart: compact fluorescent light bulbs are better for the environment than incandescent:

Prove it! That's how we must respond whenever governments ban established products to "save the planet." If politicians can't validate their schemes with comprehensive and unbiased scientific studies then they should stop telling us how to live our lives.

Take the recently announced ban on incandescent light bulbs. The federal government's "Action on Climate Change and Air Pollution" boasts the ban "will give Canadian consumers real opportunity both to save money on energy and to help clean up our environment." Prove it!

Show us the results of comprehensive life cycle analyses that demonstrate the energy savings accrued when operating a compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) more than compensates for the increased manufacturing and mercury disposal impacts associated with CFLs. Prove to us that the loss of convenience and light quality of the incandescent is off-set by a significant net environmental benefit. Or many Canadians will conclude the move was purely political, designed to look good in the press and trump the NDP who had a private members' bill banning incandescents in the works.

And when studying this, don't forget to take into account the impact of driving your burnt out bulbs to the landfill. The more I read up on CFB's (compact fluorescent bulbs), the dumber the idea of banning them looks.

Instead of handing more regulatory power to the "pimply minions of bureaucracy," any attempt to regulate Canadians lives, whether large scale or in the minutiae like CFBs, ought to require absolute proof of it's necessity, and that the scheme will work as advertised.

More

It is nearly axiomatic that anything Cuban "President" Fidel Castro says will be false, incorrect, misleading, and downright pernicious... recently, el Presidente's grumblings have been worth hearing, not because they are precisely right, but because they are at least on the right track...

interference by politicians in the market for fuel (added to the massive existing interference) has real-world impact, and Fidel Castro, of all people, understands...

The article is called Ethanol Versus the Poor, and it's worth reading.

Food for thought, from the Green Party of Canada website (emphasis mine: put them together to form one sentence):

We believe that to achieve sustainability, and in order to provide for the needs of present and future generations within the finite resources of the earth, continuing growth in global consumption, population and material inequity must be halted and reversed.

- There's a new "Canadian Military Personnel" website that pays tribute to those "who gave their lives serving Canada," called Fallen Canadians.

- A great article here by David Warren on the just how out of touch those who buy into global warming are. Meanwhile, Greenpeace builds an ark. (h/t Joanne)

- This line, about Canada's aboriginals, caught my eye:

Canada's native Indians are so angry about the government's failure to improve their often-impoverished living conditions...

Governments fail to improve people living conditions, it's a little admitted, always reliable, fact. If you want your life improved, it requires doing it yourself.

- Now this is funny, thanks to Road Hammer for finding it.

Last week I reported that "I emailed the environment department in my region (Waterloo) last week, but they haven't got back to me." Nice representation, I concluded.

That was Monday, on Thursday I received a reply. First, here's the original e-mail:

I am wondering, now that both provincial and federal governments are
legislating compact fluorescent bulbs, if the region of Waterloo recycles
them? If so, how does one go about doing so? If not, are there plans to do
so, and who will pick up the cost (as this is a downloaded service)?

Thank you very much

Brian Gardiner
http://hespeler.blogspot.com

This apparantly got passed on within the department, "As per our conversation this morning, please find the e-mail below." I then received the following reply:

Hello Mr. Gardiner:

At this time, you are able to recycle your compact fluorescent bulbs at the
Waterloo landfill site, Monday to Saturday 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The Cambridge landfill accepts them on certain Household Hazardous Waste
days, and you can find all the information in the front green section of
your telephone book.

When the full transition takes place, there may be some changes as to where
residents drop off the bulbs (at particular retail outlets, perhaps) but
this has not been established as yet.

First off, thanks to Sue the Manager Waste Collection & Diversion for the Region of Waterloo, who replied. Also thanks to Pamela, Council/Committee Support Specialist, Council and Administrative Services who passed this message along to Sue.

Now about the reply. As I suspected, the Region will recycle your compact fluorescent bulbs (CFBs), at a cost of 30c a piece: what will that cost when everybody is using exclusively CFBs in their homes and businesses? I conservatively estimate $150,000/year here in Waterloo Region. But note also, you now have to drive your light bulb to the landfill every time it burns out. How is that environmentally friendly? The other option, of course, is to throw it in the garbage, but that's a lot of mercury in the landfills. Sooner or later the regions will a) ban throwing them out and b) have to find a better way of disposing of them. But again, at what cost? Can our already crying poor municipalities really handle the extra expense?

The mandatory conversion to CFBs is going to be a travesty, and in ten years we will be calling them an environmental menace, just as once environmentally friendly plastic grocery bags are now seen as a menace.

Who said the following?

"[It is] useful to know the laws of nature - for that enables us to obey them. To act otherwise would be to rise in revolt against heaven."

Give you a hint: It is related to this:

"We have a moral obligation to our Lord and Father to ensure we don't destroy the creation that was given to us."

The second of course is Elizabeth May, but the first? They seem a lot alike, certainly both could come from the same speech. But they don't. Here's another hint: The next quote is what relates the two:

Stephen Harper's stance on climate change is "a grievance worse than Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of the Nazis."

Again, Elizabeth May. And the first, if you haven't guessed is Adolph Hitler. A few other quotes from real Nazis:

"At the end of the last century the progress of science and technique led liberalism astray into proclaiming man's mastery of nature, and announcing he would soon have dominion over space ... In any case, we shall learn to become familiar with the laws by which life is governed, and acquaintance with the laws of nature will guide us on the path of progress." -- Adolf Hitler, 11 July 1941.

Laws of nature will guide us on the path of progress? In a test, I would have said Stephan Dion.

"From now on, one may consider that there is no gap between the organic and inorganic worlds." -- Adolf Hitler, 24 October 1941.

"Man is not above nature, but in nature." -- Ernst Haeckel, Father of German Ecology.

"Man must not fall into the error of thinking that he was ever meant to become lord and master of Nature." Hitler again.

We National Socialists demand of ourselves that we live as naturally as possible, that is to say in accord with the laws of life. The more precisely we understand and observe the laws of nature and of life and the more we keep to them, the more we correspond to the will of this omnipotent force." -- Martin Bormann, NSDAP Party Secretary.

I by no means wish to call Elizabeth May or Stephan Dion a Nazi. Merely to point out that Elizabeth May should be very careful who she calls what. Quick comparisons with Neville Chamberlain are easy, but cheap. Worse comparisons come easy as well, and there are worse things to be than a Nazi appeaser.

All National Socialist quotes from NAZI GERMANY AND THE ENVIRONMENT.

Does your municipality recycle compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFB's)? I emailed the environment department in my region (Waterloo) last week, but they haven't got back to me: Nice representation. However, I haven't heard of them recycling CFB's, although it's possible the local hazardous waste depot takes them.

CFB's cost 30c/bulb to recycle according to Dan Power of FLR. My house has about 24 bulbs in it. If each bulb lasts five years (a very optimistic assumption), that's 5 bulbs/year out of my house. That's $1.50 per year for one household.

Now Waterloo region has over 400,000 people. Lets assume 100,000 households in the region. If we further assume my house is average i.e. four people, 24 light bulbs, that's a cost of $150,000 per year just to recycle light bulbs once every household has no choice but to use compact fluorescents.

That's $150,000 a year over and above present expenses. Who's paying for that? Both my province and country have banned incandescent bulbs, which one of those jurisdictions is going to pick up the extra expense to every municipality of recycling CFB's? Or do they expect that we should just throw them out, and let all that mercury lie around the landfill?

And is it really smart to make virtually mandatory something that you need to take to the hazardous waste depot to get rid of?

The Environment Ministry last week produced a report, The Cost of Bill C-288 to Canadian Families and Business, suggesting that the cost to Canada of Bill C-288 would be a 6.5% GDP decline (the largest post WWII recession), a doubling of Natural Gas prices, $1.60 litre gasoline, pestilence and locusts - lots of locusts. While the last two may not be in the report, both opposition leaders, Stephane Dion and Elizabeth May, have insinuated as much about the report.

The criticisms are based on the figure of a $195/tonne carbon tax the report says is required. Elizabeth May suggests that realistic figures are more like $30 - $50 tonne. I can only guess she is confusing a carbon tax with carbon credits, which most experts agree need to be in the $40-$50 range. If she thinks $50 would do it, consider that it would increase gas at the pump by 12c litre (not including increase in refinery costs). That's a long weekend jack-up, not a fix to reduce carbon by 33% (even more laughable is Dion's $20-per-tonne 'deposit' for companies - a 5c litre increase. I get that now between going to and leaving work).

In order to test Dion and May's theory, I put the numbers to a quick test: $195 tonne gives an at the pumps increase of .47c (1 litre of gasoline produces 2.4 KG of CO2. 1KG - .001 tonne. $195x .001 = .195. 195 x 2.4 = $0.468/litre of gasoline increase.), before refining costs. Considering the carbon tax will be on both sides of the equation, pump and refinery, it is not unreasonable to assume a 60c increase in gas. If the gas numbers are accurate, then I can accept the others without evidence to the contrary.

But is that too much, can we make Kyoto reductions next year with a 12c litre increase. The report says we need to make a 33% total reduction in GHGs. It estimates that 25% of those credits can be bought on international markets, leaving every person and industry to make a 25% cut in their emissions. How much would gas have to increase to make you reduce consumtion by 25%? Twelve cents? Four? Or John Bairds Sixty Cents a litre? (In fairness, Elizabeth Mays number should be closer to 20c.) Same rule for home heating. To cut your Natural Gas use 25%, what does the price have to be?

I have analyzed various reports in the past few months, and 60c a litre on gasoline is the number I expect to see from any serious report. Frankly, I think it's low - I expect a doubling of gas prices from current prices are required. Sixty cents a litre is the low end of the scale. So I have no trouble accepting the environment ministry's report.

There are however, various problems that crop up with the report, and Kyoto, when you read this. A carbon tax is expected to produce a significant decline in energy exports, as tar sands production loses some of it's cost advantage. This energy production has to be made up somewhere, so while Canada is suffering a Kyoto induced recession, someone else is producing the carbon we refused to.

Then there is electricity. Coal will be hit more than Natural Gas, which will be more expensive than hydro. However, Alberta and Ontario are more reliant on coal. While long term "... planned new hydro-electric generation capacity in northern Quebec, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador that together with development of an east-west electricity grid, could dramatically reduce the dependence of Canadian industry and consumers on high GHG-emitting energy sources..." sounds good, how does Ontario and Alberta becoming dependant on Quebec and Newfoundland for hydro affect provincial politics. Does Ontario really want to be beholden to confederations blackmailers? (I know Alberta doesn't.)

Meanwhile, doubling Natural Gas prices implies much more for dirty electricity generation. A person wonders how high prices would have to go to make new nuclear generation a worthwhile investment? Sooner or later an Ontario Premier will have to consider it.

Further economic activity that can be anticipated, according to the study, is a weakening of the dollar and "effects on monetary policy." I presume that to mean stimulative effects, i.e. lowering of the interest rate, but as a lower dollar and increased carbon prices are not inflationary, I can't rule out higher interest rates.

And in the end, how effective would all this be? Consider this statement:

Revenue received from a broad carbon tax could be recycled back through the economy through changes in other tax rates, although at the same time it would be essential to ensure that the government's overall fiscal situation be kept whole in order to avoid returning to deficit.

Translation: they will give some of the extra tax money back through other tax relief (although not all), however expect tax increases as you decrease usage. You benefit what from cramming yourself into a tiny car, and wearing sweaters to bed in February? Nothing, because that savings will be taxed back to protect government revenues. Now isn't it funny how Stephan Dion and Elizabeth May never got upset about that bit of sophistry?

And who said that would happen? And what was that quote again? Something about farthings and "pimply minions of bureaucracy?"