One Blue Marble Blog

I sent this letter today to several key members of the Liberal Party.

To the Honourable Michael Ignatieff, David McGuinty, Bob Rae, and Michael Savage (who is my MP):

I am not an NDP supporter, but I am urging the Liberal government to put partisan politics aside and vote in favour of Bill-311.

I’m discouraged by Canada’s slow, dishonorable slide on the international stage because of our country’s obstructionist climate policies. I’m ashamed that we’ve been named 2008’s Colossal Fossil as the world’s worst climate change villain by more than 400 NGOs in Poznan, and that the Climate Action Network places Canada in the same league as Saudi Arabia.

But it’s not only environmental groups who are condemning Canada. In article entitled “Canada takes its Lumps at Poznan,” Embassy magazine offered this analysis of Canada’s role: “At the most recent round of international climate change negotiations, Canada once again emerged as a leading “spoiler,” attracting scorn and condemnation from both environmentalists and foreign delegations alike.”

The situation is desperate. Climate scientists convened an emergency session in Copenhagen last March because climate change is occurring faster and harder than even the most dire predictions from three years ago.

When is Canada going get the message to start to transition to a low-carbon economy?

The news from the scientific community has been unrelentingly grim. Climate scientists have been describing a devastating future for Planet Earth, and they are warning that we’re on a path to a 5°C rise (9°F) in global temperatures that will leave barely one billion standing in 2100. We’ve detailed reports that global sea level is expected to rise by at least 40 inches — and perhaps as much as 80 inches — in the next century. And that’s just the beginning.

Scientists now suggest that just 2°C (3.6°F) of warming could trigger bacterial growth in the arctic permafrost and release billions of tons of CO2 and methane, creating a terrible feedback loop in which warming creates more warming.

A rise of 4°C (7.2°F) will eliminate more than 85 percent of the Amazon rainforest by killing trees which are highly susceptible to small changes in temperature, creating yet another massive carbon time bomb. What’s particularly frightening about this study — conducted by researchers at the Met Office Hadley Centre — is that the death of the rainforest has the potential to alter regional weather patterns in ways that researchers simply cannot predict.

The scientists at the congress are worried that politicians are reading from a hopelessly out-of-date policy paper: the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. To drive home their urgent message, researchers are describing a 5°C world that will be wracked by floods, droughts, severe hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons, and desperate heat waves. The oceans will become far less productive, the corals will die, and extinction will take more than 50 percent of species.

Part of the problem is that Environment Canada’s climate experts are no longer allowed to speak to the media without the permission of the Environment Minister’s office. In fact. Don MacIver had to resign his chairmanship from the World Meteorological Organization’s Climate Conference-3 because Jim Prentice would not allow him to attend the recent climate summits.

In recent weeks, Mr. Prentice has been quoted repeatedly in the media as suggesting that his government is on the side of the angels, and doing all it can to solve this vexing problem. In truth, they are trying to lock Canada into a fossil fuel economy for another generation, to protect their Alberta base.

And the Liberal Party, by not supporting Bill-311, is giving them a Get Out of Jail Card.

I don’t particularly like the Jack Layton, but it’s time for the Liberal Party to put the needs of the country ahead of the needs of the Liberal Party.

Tell the world that Harper and Prentice are doing a lousy job. Support Bill-311.

With respect,
Richard Levangie
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

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Editor’s Note: Please write to your Liberal MPs, and to Michael Ignatieff and David McGuinty.

If you’re wondering about the dire science I mention, here’s a link.