High loonie causing harm says Mulcair

Thanks Jeff

Some folks don't think dinasaurs existed either.

JeffWells wrote:

Has everyone seen this, from yesterday's New York Times? Because every Canadian needs to. Especially the ones who believe the NDP are going too hard on the tar sands. (Oops, I mean oi- no; I mean tar sands.)

Quote:

Game Over for the Climate

By JAMES HANSEN

 

Published: May 9, 2012

GLOBAL warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obamain Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.”

If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.

Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.

...

James Hansen directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and is the author of “Storms of My Grandchildren.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/opinion/game-over-for-the-climate.html...

He might want to do a tour that includes Lloydminster and Fort McMurray.  He should then travel the two proposed pipeline routes to get a feel for the communities that will be affected.

Then he will be able to have an informed view of the issues involved in the tar sands.  He needs to be at least as brave as Peter Lougheed in calling for a dramatic reduction in the pace of development and for higher revenues going into the government coffers.

CFL