Last week, as I was standing on my head, it occurred to me: the world is upside down.
It wasn't my immediate vantage point that suggested this observation, but a reflection on the conduct of radicals and conservatives in Canada. The radicals have been acting conservatively and the conservatives radically.
The climate change issue provides the first bit of evidence.
On January 9, Canada's Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver claimed that "environmental and other radical groups," including "jet-setting celebrities" funded by foreign money, "threaten to hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological ends. They seek to exploit any loophole they can find, stacking public hearings with bodies to ensure that delays kill good projects. They use funding from foreign special interest groups to undermine Canada's national economic interest."
The Conservatives are brandishing a new weapon in their fight to exploit the Alberta oil sands, pulling a figure from a recent article published in the science journal Nature, written by climate scientist Andrew Weaver. "The oil sands will raise temperatures by only 0.03°C," announced Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver triumphantly in question period on February 28, quoting from Weaver's article.
