I have three articles for your mental digestion today.
First, an important reminder of why this is all important. NASA released an article detailing some of the basic science about how the ice caps are melting, and how this is a progressive process. You will note that all scientific research in the climate change field refers to total concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. I should also point out that NASA notes that the current CO2 concentration is 383ppm. On Friday, I said it was 385ppm. please trust NASA's numbers over mine... they do this for their day jobs.
Here is the article: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/06/01/nasa-warming.html
Second, a frustrating article from the Canadian Press (CP) of which I read a condensed version in today's Halifax Daily News, but I am forwarding to you from their parent website canada.com. The title suggests that there is some debate whether Stephen Harper's intensity based targets are acceptable. This article immediately reminded me of a portion of An Inconvenient Truth, (which you better have seen by now) where Al Gore compares the opinions of scientific publications to the opinions expressed in the media. My frustration stems from the fact that in Daily News, the comments from the UN (paragraph 11) and the comments from the Pembina Institute (paragraph 13) were left out, but the supportive comments from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers were included.
Despite my frustration, I did learn something new from the full CP article from the above noted UN comment, which i wanted to make sure you all read:
"A United Nations study released last month pointed out that while energy intensity decreased by 33 per cent between 1970 and 2004, the growth of global income and population still caused greenhouse-gas emissions to rise precipitously"
The final thing that I would like to point out in this article is that Harper says that Conservative's Plan "could be a model for some developing countries". Although he may be right - intensity based programs are great for countries that are only developing their heavy emitting industries - his plan falls far short of all other non-George-Bush-led industrialized countries.
Here is the article: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=609888fa-7eba-41d8-9580-44f2dcf9907f&k=98940&p=1
Finally - if you are still reading - I wanted to point out something mentioned in some of the extensive coverage of Harper's meeting with France's new leader Nicolas Sarkozy. This is the notion of a tax against all non-Kyoto compliant countries. The concept is pretty simple - protecting a market for those producers that are enduring short term cost increases to address climate change. With much of Canada's resource-based economy concentrating on the US and China, both non-Kyoto compliant countries, this may not have a huge potential to have a real impact, but it may very well become a political nightmare for Canada's New Government. Here's hoping.
See: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/06/05/harper-france.html
I think that is enough for now. thanks again for all of the positive comments... they are truly appreciated and are very inspiring.
- Dan
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