30 Fairmont Park Lane S
Lethbridge, AB
T1K 7H7
Phone: (403) 328-1804
Monday, December 05, 2005
The Editor
The Lethbridge Herald
P.O. Box 670
Lethbridge
AB, T1J 3Z7
Dear Editor,
Gwynne Dyer’s column of December 4 anticipates the Kyoto agreement will fail. He seems disappointed and blames governmental indecisiveness. Perhaps he can afford to support Kyoto. He lives in England now, isolated from Canadian taxes.
There is a place for hesitancy and the climate change issue provides the perfect example. Predictions of imminent climate catastrophe from human produced greenhouse gases are based on vaporous projections from tentative computer models. Solutions which are being proposed and implemented are ill thought out. Many are already proving completely ineffective. More time is needed to establish understanding of climate change, and climate management action should that actually be required.
Canada is in a particularly uncomfortable position on Kyoto. Simply put, Canada stands to foot a lopsidedly large part of the Kyoto bill. Europe is relatively comfortable, with little population and emission growth. Russia hopes to collect payment for emissions already below her Kyoto commitment. China and India have no emission reduction obligation. The United States and Australia have wisely dropped out. Canada has been duped with unjust Kyoto measures on energy and forest, and no allowance for population growth. The entire Machiavellian machination leaves Canada to pay the bills Russia and the developing countries will be submitting.
Canadian government representatives at the United Nations Conference in Montreal are still talking Kyoto talk, but are slow to take the walk. We might conclude there is hope that Gwynne Dyer is right and “holding action” in anticipation the whole Kyoto initiative will collapse is deliberate. If so, why on earth did we ever get so involved?
Yours truly,
Duane Pendergast