Saturday, October 08, 2011

B'rer Harper


From the comments and the far north, a letter from Katherine Cukier, who has, in her life had four parking tickets and an arrest for pointing out the obvious. More at the link and thanks to J Bowers for perking up Eli's ears. Oh yes, the image is for the weasel who thinks that things like mountain top removal leave the rest of the land peachy clean and anyhow if it screws up things for any of the bunnies, we can always sue. Here is a hint. These sort of things are owned by incorporated entities that are owned by conglomerates. When you sue and win the entities go bankrupt (they never really hold any money, but just pass it through) leaving the rest of us holding the bag.

Dear Prime Minister Stephen Harper,

I am writing to you because I want to thank you for clarifying some things for me. According to you, I am an extremist. I think it would be amusing and even useful for you to understand the heart and mind of an extremist like me. Indeed, I suspect the country you have been entrusted to govern is full of them... I mean us.

I was arrested last week for participating in a civil disobedience action in Ottawa. We were protesting your government's indifference to the dangers of climate change. This indifference is communicated clearly by your determination to expand the use of bitumen, the tar sands, a high emission, unconventional, fossil fuel.

To begin the clarification of my new identity, I guess I would say that I am an extremist first and foremost because I am a mother. My children are the centre of my world -- I suspect it is the one thing you and I have in common, other than our need for clean water, air and soil. You, too, know intimately that powerful parental love; it feels like an ache and a blessing at the same time. Like all maternal mammals, any threat to the habitat rouses my protective instincts.

And because I am a human being, I use my brain to understand those threats. Not only do I worry about my children and their future being impacted by global warming; I am forced to consider how my children's children will be affected by runaway climate change driven by our unabated and expanding use of fossil fuels. In 50 years, unlike you and me, our children, or at least our grandchildren, will feel powerless to do anything to protect their kids from the instability and economic consequences of a fragile if not collapsing environment.

I am an extremist, Mr. Prime Minister, because I have paid close attention to the science of climate change. The graphs prepared by climatologists fill me with far more emotion than those prepared for you by Syncrude. I suspect your reason is impaired in its capacity for sound judgment when you see graphs showing ever-increasing profit margins and GDP increases to be squeezed out of the Tar Sands. But because I am an extremist, unlike you, I have looked to those ideologically suspect fields of physics, geography and biology to further my understanding of the mechanisms and consequences of climate change.


Much more at the link....

14 comments:

J Bowers said...

Glad you like it, Eli. I certainly did.

(you might want to create a hyperlinked title to here, though)

Anonymous said...

While Mr. Harper is currently the head of the "Harper Government" and the Conservative party, his background is really in the defunct Reform Party of Canada. A mix of Libertarian, conservative religious and right wing politics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Party_of_Canada

He is not going to listen to anybody but himself now that he has power.. notwithstanding his speaches that "he speaks for all Canadians" a great propaganda ploy.

In fact I think this is what marks Mr. Harper's agenda... deflective propoganda, while still driving his agenda to form Canada into his world view, as all egotistical dictators do.

Harvey

EliRabett said...

Sorry J thought Eli had, but Ms. Rabett called. . .

Brian said...

There's always the possibility of bonding the landowner/permit holder for cleanup/liability costs. Devil is in the details though, and whether the local law has adequate details with adequate enforcement.

William M. Connolley said...

I imagine I'm missing something, but if you participate in "civil disobedience" presumably you're deliberately disobeying something, and I presume that thing is "the law". You can disobey the law if you like, but if so you have to accept the consequences. Unless for some reason you're above the law.

As for "According to you, I am an extremist..." - I expected a link to whoever said this, so I could judge context. But I don't see the link.

EliRabett said...

Here, let Eli <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/09/26/oil-sands-protesters-are-job-killing-%E2%80%98extremists%E2%80%99-tory-mp/'>help you with that</a>

William M. Connolley said...

Thanks for the link Eli. So, that's just politics then. One side calls the other "extremists" and in a faux-naif way muses about job destruction; the other side pretends to get all huffy about being labelled extremists, in order to win sympathy.

But it has nothing to do with the substance. In this case, it looks to me as though the substance is: why does the govt push for the tar sands, if the vast majority of the population oppose it as their most important issue, so it knows full well it will be voted out of office at the next election?

EliRabett said...

See Harvey's comment @ 11:46. This has been another service of Rabett Run, answers to the question before you ask.

J Bowers said...

And then there are all those cushy consultancy/non-executive few-days-a-month gold watches waiting, which outstrip a public servant's salary by a mile, if you've been a good boy or girl.

Hank Roberts said...

http://www.kevinandkell.com/2011/strips/kk20111010.gif

*and the Capcha oracle says: "lorrised"

Holly Stick said...

Follow the money:

"...Moreover, of the $9.2-billion in federal funding that was up for review, Mr. Vaughan’s team of auditors could only identify $85.9-million that could be clearly identified as being earmarked for climate change adaptation..."

http://www.hilltimes.com/news/news/2011/10/10/feds-accused-of-creating-a-climate-change-plan-%E2%80%98designed-to-fail%E2%80%99/28419

J Bowers said...

@ Hank Roberts, Van Jones, page 2.

relax said...

It is time for the Canadian opposition parties to put away their pride (there are no insurmountable policy differences) and form a coalition for the next election.

Holly Stick said...

The increasingly stupid and malicious Conservatives cut funding to an environmental network after 34 years of partnership:

http://www.canada.com/technology/Kent+yanks+funding+from+environmental+network/5546925/story.html

While they are especially vicious about anything to do with the environment, they are also opposed to other research that does not support their narrow ideological prejudices:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/wouldn+want+best+information/5546605/story.html