Sorry for the long tittle…
I’m still very skeptical… but at least now they’re saying what can be termed as the “right things”.
From the CBC yesterday:
In a letter to the Prime Minister, the heads of Alcan, Bombardier, Shell Canada, Falconbridge, Home Depot Canada and Desjardins Group, among others, said Canada needs a 50-year strategy to deal with the fallout from climate change.
[They said]
“The world must act urgently to stabilize the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and minimize the global impacts of climate change.”
“We note that Canada is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change”
“ugently” and “50-year strategy” seem, to me, somewhat contradictory. Though certainly a 50 year outlook is better than ignoring the problem all together, what this smacks of is playing up to the public… sounds like Corporate Canada is realising that Canadians actually value the environment, so they want to be seen as sharing that view.
Whether this statement will actually produce any kind of meaningful initiative, or a reversal of the Governments plan to push the burden of reaching our Kyoto Commitments onto Canadian citizens, rather than on the corporations who produce the vast majority of pollution… I doubt it.
But hey, it looks good… especially when it comes right before the opening of the UN Frameworks Convention on Climate Change in Montreal, which the Canadian Environment Minister, Stephane Dion, is chairing.
And on ANWR…I missed this news last week because it was my birthday. But hey! Not a bad birthday present!
Republicans in the House of Representatives decided to remove *both* provisions for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and Offshore Continental Shelf out of the bill they were attached to because “the initiative was threatening passage of a huge bill to cut spending.”
This isn’t the end of the fight of course.. but it’s a positive move!