Elizabeth May Supports "Climate Change"

"Climate Change" not Just for global warming any more

If the recent controversies surrounding the Green Party were a Michael Creighton novel, the plot twist would clearly be the best part.

While addressing the Nova Scotia Green Party convention in Cornerbrook, May promised the Green Party wouldn't campaign based on negativity or fear.

Yet, a look at the Green Party website tells a different story.

In one particular blog post, Wence Horak warns that we are "RUNNING OUT OF TIME" (capital letters his). "Anyone, including ms May, who read George Monbiot's Heat will know that we would have to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2030, to (perhaps) prevent a "runaway" greenhouse effect from taking place, while maintaining the current living standards and level of consumption. Yet, even mr Monbiot does not really believe such a reduction is possible."

Yikes. The sky, as it were, is truly falling. Or so it would seem.

Monbiot's credentials? A zoology degree (albeit from Oxford). Given the environmental lobby's tendency to dismiss the credibility of scientists who dissent on the topic of climate change by noting whether or not they are climate scientists, this should give individuals such as Horak pause, but I digress.

On May's own blog she describes the Conservative party's foreign policy as "the aye, aye, sir approach" (clearly implying the Conservative government kowtows incessantly to the world's number one bogieman, George W Bush), while declining to mention that she so recently struck a non-competitive pact with the party that committed Canadian troops to combat operations in Afghanistan in the first place.

To paraphrase Bob Dylan, "the climate, she is a-changin'." Feel free to roll your eyes at your own discretion.

Perhaps it's best not to pay too much attention to all of this. After all, May's going to "change the climate in parliament". "We are not going to be telling people how bad everything is, how scared they should be -- we'll leave that to the other parties," May announced. "We're going to be talking about how we have it in our power to have a better world."

Frankly, it is all to reminiscent of American Republicans' promises to "change the tone". They made this promise even as Karl Rove planned a series of electoral campaigns that would become infamous for their outright partisan viciousness.

If comparing the Conservative party's environmental plan to the appeasement of Hitler (which is precisely what Elizabeth May has done, whether her Green Party cronies will admit this or not) can be described as anything other than vicious, it isn't immediately apparent.

Now, is that changing the climate, ms May?

Did anyone think it would change?

If not, they were actually mistaken. See, the climate (or tone) has been changed.

...By "Jack Layton and the NDP". A few scant weeks ago, the NDP released a series of ads outlining what they consider to be the most important goals of the NDP. On the topics of environmental leadership, better health care and the "prosperity gap" (whatever the heck that is supposed to mean), the NDP has indeed changed the climate, from the attack ads released by both the Conservative party and the Liberal party. A marked improvement in the cimate (tone), indeed.

Yet, May has verbally committed herself to changing the climate. "I think a lot of Canadians are horrified and disgusted by what they see as behaviour in the house of Commons," May insisted. "They'd like to see a party committed to respectful discourse, to advancing solutions, to be willing to work with others."

In this, May is absolutely correct. But so long as May is indulging herself in Munich pact analogies and allowing members of her party to manically spread panic over climate change (that is, the changing climate, not the climate to be changed...), she won't be able to lay a credible claim to this.