UNION Leader Labels Radical Enviro-Activism as 'Insanity'

Buzz Hargrove is the first leftie who I think has challenged the 'Green' movement to come up with a realistic plan (or at least implied they are 'insane'). Sacrificing Canada's economy (read jobs!!!) for carbon emission controls, that won't have significant impact on global warming, IS insane.

The problem is that some (left-wing) people are quite willing to push Canada into the most extreme recession, read Depression, just to achieve some targets that would only notionally reduce greenhouse gases. It really is insanity when you consider that climate change is a NATURAL process. Use common sense, firstly, the Earth is a dynamic system. Secondly, for Humans and Human activity to have anything more than a small impact, it would have to be competing with the impact of the SUN... the SUN ladies and gentleman. That would be pushing the boundaries of credibility, yet that is exactly what folks like Al Gore would have you believe.

Here's Buzz...

The president of the Canadian Auto Workers union says the “insanity” of the environmental movement is making the auto sector an unfair target in the fight against climate change.

Buzz Hargrove says Canada is only responsible for about two per cent of the world's total greenhouse gas production and even shutting down the entire country would barely make an impact.

He says looming federal and provincial elections are fuelling a lot of rhetoric as politicians try to “out green” one another.

Mr. Hargrove says the country's manufacturing sector could suffer if politicians try to sway voters with environmental standards that are too tough.

Here's TD's chief economist, whom political parties of ALL stripes consult, speaking to this point in the Globe...

federal Environment Minister John Baird will unveil a new study by his department that suggests complying with the Kyoto Protocol would hit Canada hard, a report that is certain to draw swift criticism from environmentalists.

Yes, once again environmentalists condemn the report, even if they haven't read it!

The Conservatives are trying to add credence to the report, however, by also releasing an opinion from Toronto-Dominion Bank chief economist Don Drummond that effectively backs their findings.

“I believe the economic cost would be at least as deep as the recession in the early 1980s, and indeed that is the result your department's analysis shows,” Mr. Drummond writes in a letter to Mr. Baird obtained by The Globe and Mail.

I'm sure enviro-fanatics will claim he's just some Conservative hack, and anyways, more to the point, he's an economist so he must be in league with 'big businesss' or 'the corporations'. Scary.

Mr. Drummond's letter appears to be a political boon for the Tories, and a blow for the Liberals, as parties gird themselves for the possibility of an election campaign fought on hot-button issues such as Kyoto.

It will be difficult for the Liberals to attack Mr. Drummond, a senior Canadian economist whom political parties, including Mr. Dion's, have consulted over the years. He wasn't paid for this latest opinion, which the Tories solicited from him.

What do you know, the Libs have been consulting him as well, 'over the years'. YEARS, I tell you!

Emissions have soared in recent years, making Canada's task that much harder — especially since Kyoto's so-called compliance period starts next year and Ottawa has never enacted a complete plan.

Geez, you'd have thought when the Libs passed the Kyoto Accord they would've come up with a plan at least?? But I guess that's how they always did things.

Mr. Drummond says the magnitude of Canada's required greenhouse-gas reductions under Kyoto is almost unparalleled.

“The policy shock analyzed is massive: a one-third reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for each of the next five years,” Mr. Drummond writes.

“Other than as a side effect of the economic collapse of Russia, nothing close to such a result has occurred anywhere.”

So we're talking about a collapse in the economy about the same size as that happened in Russia. The Ruskies still haven't recovered from that shock, and we're thinking of doing the same thing??? The greens would have to be 'insane' to even think of doing something like that...

His letter dismisses Bill C-288 as unworkable, saying, “I sincerely hope no serious consideration is being given to implementing the policy.”

He warns that such a hefty carbon tax, designed to drive down emissions, would substantially hurt the economy even if Ottawa funnelled the revenue collected from the levy back to Canadians via personal and corporate income-tax cuts.

“This shock would represent a huge loss to Canadian competitiveness. Exports would plunge and imports rise.”

His only substantial quibble with the Environment Canada study is that he's not sure the carbon tax would have a relatively constant impact in later years.

So there you have it, the bank's chief economist and consultee of the Libs, advises against going through with this craziness...

He ends by noting that even if such a insanity were enacted, that it'd be pretty quick before it was reversed simply due to the damage being done to the economy. Enough damage to probably destroy the environmental movement perhaps???

Mr. Drummond says his comments should not be interpreted as anti-environmental or suggesting that economic concerns should trump environmental needs. “The environment will also be a loser if rash policies are implemented because the course will be abandoned long before the environmental objectives are achieved.”

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