Targets set without a plan” –The Globe Editorial Thursday October 28

This morning I read the Globe and Mail’s précis of the new TD sponsored Suzuki Foundation - Pembina Institute study. I followed up that dose of reality with today’s various editorials on the subject. All seem to agree that a wide gulf exists between that report’s findings and what our Government will likely present at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December. It’s a depressing scenario for anyone who cares about the subject. The new Pembina-Suzuki study tells us how we could reach or even exceed the 2020 targets for reducing carbon emissions but we can’t realistically expect a government of any stripe to follow the course of action the report lays out. The Globe editorial points out that the authors of the report acknowledge that: “what is proposed is no less than economic upheaval”. My impression, like the Globe’s, is that we Canadians are prepared to make some minor sacrifices to this cause but the measures as presented are too costly to our comfortable life-style and as the article noted “no politician who wants a chance to govern Canada would dare”.

My dismal morning was complete when I read Jeffrey Simpson’s lead in which he pointed out that the government knows its policies on climate-change must fail. But if Canadians don’t care enough or just think the issues too complicated, we can be fooled into thinking its putting a plan in place that will allow us to meet the 2020 target. We are apparently destined like Neville Chamberlain and his ilk before us, to await the “gathering storm”.