Category Archives: climate crisis

An Ally In Nathan

air, climate crisis, green party, ndp

I’ve been pretty critical of the NDP recently. Believe it or not, my motivations are good. I really believe the NDP has a positive role to play in Canadian politics, and for the life of me I can’t figure out why they haven’t been playing it for the past year or so.

Today, I want to give credit where it’s due. This evening I attended a University of Toronto event with Nathan Cullen, the NDP’s environment critic. (Note to the NDP and other parties: that should be environment advocate. Important distinction.) Nathan’s on tour to talk about the amendments that he and members of the Liberal party and the Bloc were able to make to the Conservative piece of #%@! legislation that was originally titled the Clean Air Act. When the NDP first took this bill to committee, I didn’t think they’d get anything of value out of that process. Tonight, I was glad to thank Nathan for proving me wrong.

Unfortunately, whether the government will act on the amended bill or not is still up in the air. When Stephen Harper was in opposition, it was very important to him that the government “respect the will of parliament.” Now, not so much.

Either way, Nathan was very good, not just in content but in tone. By that I mean that not only did he do a good job of expressing what needs to be done in almost exactly the same way I would (it’s strange to hear what you thought were your own soundbites come out of the mouth of someone you’ve never met), he did it in a very positive, reasonable, non-partisan tone. We could use a lot more of that. When I spoke with him afterwards, he seemed genuinely interested in leaning about my candidacy in the last election and what I’d thought of the experience. People like Nathan suggest that our parties could work very well together, and I told him that I hope we will.

Video of Climate Change Rally

climate crisis, green party, toronto

I’m still going to create a version of this video that also includes footage of the crowd and is a bit more polished, but for the raw record of what went down last Sunday, here’s my speech to the “Canadians for Kyoto” climate change rally that took place in Nathan Phillips Square outside Toronto City Hall. Special thanks go to Garfield Lindsay Miller for the videography.

A Negative, Times a Positive, Equals…

climate crisis, conservative party, green party, liberal party, ndp, toronto

Yesterday’s climate change rally (“Canadians for Kyoto”) in Toronto (part of a series that happened across Canada) was a lot of fun, and served the purpose of making it clear that environmental issues are important to Torontonians and Canadians. There were musicians, comedians, climate change experts, and (just when you thought it was safe) politicians. I spoke on behalf of the Green Party, while Maria Minna and Jack Layton spoke for the Liberals and NDP, respectively. (The Conservatives were invited, but didn’t show. Maybe they forgot to change their clocks.)

I also learned an interesting lesson about image. (Though, now that I think about it, it’s the same lesson I learned in elementary school math class.) For our three speeches, we were asked by the organizers not to attack any other political party, and instead keep to a positive message of what we wanted to see done. I respected that request (I’ll have video evidence of this fact up within a few days), while Maria and Jack, well, didn’t. The result is that the National Post reported on the rally with the headline “Tories knocked at Kyoto rally,” and the following opening paragraph:

Politicians from the NDP, Liberal and Green parties used a rally in support of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change to press political attacks against the Conservative government.

That’s just not true — I didn’t do anything of the sort. What’s interesting though, is that as far as the National Post reporter was concerned, we’d all taken the same low-road. All politicians are the same, you see. All we do is attack each other and resort to mud slinging.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming the reporter. In fact, I suspect he has accurately reported the event the way most people will remember it. That’s the problem. What was supposed to be (and for the most part was) a positive, uplifting, and inspiring event got reported as if it was simply an opportunistic partisan attack-fest. The point is, politicians have that power; if we choose to, we can bring everything down to the lowest common denominator.

It’s something to keep in mind the next time you’re listening to a group of us speak. Who’s raising the level of debate? Who’s lowering it? And what’s the net result? Don’t fall into the trap of thinking we’re all the same; we’re really not.

20% by 2020

climate crisis, green party

That’s the goal that the European Union set for itself yesterday. It falls short of the Stern report’s recommendation of 30% by 2020 and 60% by 2050, but it’s still a good, ambitious and achievable target. It’s also miles above Canada’s reduction targets, which, well….

Any successful business or undertaking understands that targets are important because, without them, you have no measure of success. They also need to be SMART, which means in part that they have to serve some greater strategy (namely, preventing the planet from shaking us off like a wet dog). That’s why it’s important to set the aggressive targets that our scientists tell us are necessary, instead of lax targets that derive from political laziness. This is one of those “do it right or don’t do it at all” kind of things.

Another good reason to set aggressive targets is that we’ll be far better off if we over-shoot on carbon emissions reductions than if we underestimate what’s necessary. Consider Elizabeth May’s recent response to someone who still questions the science of climate change:

Obviously, I am in conversation all the time with people who don’t buy the science. The question is this: on the chance that I’m wrong that action needs to be taken on climate change, what are the consequences for society? Then apply it the other way. What if the people who say — we don’t have to do anything, we can keep burning fossil fuels — what if they are wrong? If they are wrong, the consequence is that every coastal city on the planet is flooded, life becomes unbearable, civilization and social structures crumble within the next 20 to 50 years.

If I am wrong– which would be lovely news — and we did all the things on the Green party’s agenda, for instance if we met the Kyoto targets, we’d have a society that was more competitive, had less air pollution, and which would be embracing the low-carbon technologies of the future. Just based on the price of oil and our over-dependence on petroleum products, we’d be better off no matter what.

Finally, we need to set some targets so that we can get on with achieving them. The question of what kind of action to take is the only real debate left. The good news is, there are no shortage of great ideas. Toby Heaps over at Corporate Knights has done a great job of outlining a plan. The Toronto-Dominion Bank has also released their plan. (Both of which, by the way, are largely consistent with what the Green Party has been saying for years.)

And yet, at this rate, in 2020 we’ll still be going in circles. Let’s not let that happen.