Climate column hit home, pleased few
By John Twigg
My previous blog on climate policies didn't get many retweets, probably because it wasn't popular with either side in that polarized debate, but it did hit home, it got lots of pageviews and it did get some notable likes on Twitter (e.g. from Unifor president Jerry Dias and ex-Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore).
I've long since learned that when you're fighting for truth and justice or fairness and equity you often must be satisfied with small victories, at least at first in on-going campaigns, but hopefully in the end the main thing that emerges is truth, and that's what I was and still am aiming for here.
Happily my predictions about the summit between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Barack Obama mostly came true, especially their agreement to have both nations move forward on reducing methane emissions, which could be a hugely important move far beyond any affects on greenhouse gases, but also generally that Trudeau is doing a good job of liberallizing Canadian politics and federal-provincial and international relations after a dark decade of Stephen Harper's dictates (e.g. Harper unilaterally cancelled the previous planned Canada-U.S. summit, albeit for some rational reasons regarding trade issues at the time).
As Obama cleverly noted, "It's about time, eh." Meaning that Canada and the United States should have been happier fellow-travellers long before now.
The trip would have been a success for Trudeau if he got nothing other than Obama's promise to "get it done" on negotiating a renewed softwood lumber agreement, an item of such major good news for British Columbia that Premier Christy Clark rightly called it "fantastic" - perhaps unwittingly echoing the rhetoric of former premier Bill Vander Zalm.
Of course it remains to be seen how that commitment by Obama will work out with the American Congress in an election year but having the President on-side and coming to Canada to speak in Ottawa in June could give further impetus to a timely renewal of good trade relations that would be of benefit to B.C. lumber producers.
Methane moves portend continental energy strategy
Meanwhile the agreement to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas industries in both countries by 40 to 45% by 2025 could be even more important, not because it might slow global warming (which is debatable because that warming is part of a cycle driven by a multitude of complex man-made and natural factors) but moreso because it portends something that few if any other analysts have noted yet and that's that it presages a North American energy strategy!
As I listened to Obama and Trudeau explain their agreement (text viewable here) to the media I got the sense that the Americans felt they could not afford to proceed unilaterally on cutting methane emissions because then the Canadian oil and gas producers would have some cost advantages on sales into the U.S. market which under NAFTA can enter more or less duty-free, but now that Trudeau has assured them that Canada will play along on methane emission cuts now they both can proceed apace - and that's a good thing even if you're a climate-change denier because methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than CO2.
But step back a moment and think about what a continental energy strategy will mean for global trade and international relations: it means the U.S. will no longer be so dependent on imports of offshore oil and gas!
The U.S. at present happens to be a net exporter of energy, due to fracking and low prices and other factors, but moving forward the U.S. and Canada can be and probably will be self-sufficient in oil and gas (backstopped by the massive tarsands) and that in turn means the Americans will be less obliged to be militarily active in the oil-rich Middle East, such as keeping open the Straits of Hormuz, the Suez Canal and the Strait of Malacca for oil tankers.
So what? Well that means the Americans can stop being the world's policeman and that job will fall by default to . . . the European Union led by Germany, which is/are a major oil and gas importer, and that is precisely what is predicted in Bible prophecy! (e.g. "oil shall be carried through Egypt" in Hosea 12:1).
To make it clear for those who have difficulty with strange concepts, the modern-day Israelite or Anglophone nations (aka the "Five Eyes" of USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) are barely mentioned in the context of Armageddon and instead we read that a "Prince of Meshach, Tubal and Rosh" (i.e. Russia) will go down into the Middle East (where the Russians under Vladimir Putin already are active propping up Syria) and begin threatening the residents of Jerusalem until a "King of the North" comes to protect them and briefly drive the Russians back into Siberia - with that King of the North probably being the North Atlantic Treaty Organization almost certainly to be led then by Germany and possibly minus the U.S. and U.K. and Canada (or with those three in diminished roles). And then of course the "Kings of the East" agree to help the Russians, they cross over the dried-up Euphrates River and are just about to invade Jerusalem when Jesus returns and miraculously prevents mankind from exterminating itself.
[I have previously given the Bible scriptures for all of those mentions but if you're keen to study them yourself they're easy to find now via Google searches, or send me a note at john@johntwigg.com .]
Anyway, the Canada-U.S. pact on reducing methane emissions is a big deal for several reasons:
1. it may do a bit to help slow climate change,
2. the appearance that the U.S. and Canada are acting on the recent Paris agreement on climate change will send a message to the world that responsible rich nations ARE trying to do some things beneficial to the whole world (thereby shaming China into action?) and maybe shielding themselves from Third World and eco-activist complaints that rich Western nations should be doing more and doing it faster,
3. smokescreening the existence of some really serious other problems, which I wrote about previously,
4. it portends a continental energy strategy.
Of course there are many more details, such as the goal to phase out diesel use for power in Arctic communities, but the bigger picture is more significant, with young Trudeau wisely telling CBC-TV's Rosemary Barton at the end of his visit that the depth and complexity of Canada-U.S. relations goes beyond any two personalities - meaning that will continue regardless of who wins the next U.S. Presidency.
And that's a good thing.
Water went unmentioned in summit announcements
Strangely another very big issue - a continental water strategy - went unmentioned in the summit but I suspect it will be raised anew behind the scenes when Obama visits Ottawa in June because it is becoming increasingly obvious that several states in the American southwest - especially California - are becoming increasingly desperate to get more new supplies of water, to the point that several more hugely-expensive desalination plants are being considered there but even if they're built they will meet only small proportions of the needs.
That reality leads to a renewed consideration of the long-standing North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWAPA) which is a highly-contentious plan to collect water in Canada (mainly in northern B.C. such as the proposed Site C dam on which construction is just now beginning) and run and pump it all the way down to southern California (which the elevation change makes feasible)
The notion of B.C. and/or Canada exporting water has long been contentious, as well-described on the Water War Crimes website www.waterwarcrimes.com/ , but may be becoming inevitable, probably after Obama is gone as President though it's also likely he will move into some kind of one-world-government role, maybe even leader of the United Nations.
Trump gets endorsement from Carson
Meanwhile it's looking more and more like the next U.S. President will be business mogul Donald Trump who today (March 11) got an endorsement from Dr. Ben Carson, the only black person in the contest to be the nominee for the Republican Party.
That's important for several reasons, not just that Carson is Afro-American but also because he is seen to have a high level of integrity, he is not an extreme right-winger and he is a strong student of the Bible - which are all key factors for the American electorate.
Some people speculate that a Trump-Carson ticket could prove to be quite effective in the coming election but Trump himself was talking about Carson as a potential Secretary of Education (because of his background as a top teaching surgeon?). In any case the clamour about the supposed divisions in and imminent breakdown of the Republican Party seems to by calming down.
Nonetheless Trump will still have a difficult time defeating Hillary Clinton, for whom the Democrat fix is in, though it's still possible that Bernie Sanders could emerge as the Democrats' candidate, but Trump does have massive momentum, he seems to be learning to tone down his outlandish rants and now he has the backing of a moderate stalwart in Carson.
So kudos again to Justin Trudeau for avoiding the pitfall of prattling against Trump's demagoguery because a year from now we could be watching Trump hosting Trudeau anew at another gala summit.
Talk about changes, eh.
Vander Zalm makes radical comments in new video
And by the way, the above-mentioned Bill Vander Zalm is still around and still kicking some butt too, as seen here in a video interview in which he reviews his history in politics and his struggles to implement reforms against the interests of bureaucrats, socialists, the HST, smart meters and various elitists - and then rants about how it's all moving towards a one-world global government! He even now supports the legalization of marijuana.
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