# Where is MacNutt?



## MasterBlaster (Jan 12, 2003)

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## BigDL (Apr 16, 2003)

MacNutt GONE! I’ll try to miss him...really!


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## PosterBoy (Jan 22, 2002)

As convenient as it may seem, I know for a fact that his bottled water is very popular and that this would be the prime time of year for it, so he may well be as busy as he says.


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## iGeeK (Jan 27, 2003)

I wonder how Nutt would repond to this position from* Political Compass*

"It's a sad reflection on our society that something as basic as drinking water is now a bottled, branded consumer product."

Strongly disagree
Disagree
Agree
Strongly Agree

?

 

iG/<


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## MasterBlaster (Jan 12, 2003)

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## PosterBoy (Jan 22, 2002)

He was also gone for more than a few days at a time more than a few times. 

Certainly, I'd like to see him explain where he was reading all those polls that showed the Liberals heading for doom, where he was hearing that the Conservatives were headed for the big win from, but I'm willing to wait until he's available to hear it.

Now, if he's gone for more than a month or so I may start to get suspicious.


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## Peter Scharman (Jan 4, 2002)

He's probably still on the can after having to eat all that crow.


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## Brainstrained (Jan 15, 2002)

Yes, I've heard that eating crow can bring on verbal constipation.


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## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

I think he's off helping the VON fold bandages and towels.


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## Cynical Critic (Sep 2, 2002)

I called a Liberal minority (quick - I should become an internet psychic!). Now I'm here to gloat a little bit. Bask in the easily predictable glory of my earlier post to MacNutt.

MacNutt are you still around? Perhaps you're working hard ... or spending more time at the site which-cannot-be-named.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

No he left in a huff much earlier. Lucky him a double dose of crow would have him spitting feathers for a year or so.


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

It's race season, I seem to remember him mentioning racing.

Dave


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## Dr.G. (Aug 4, 2001)

Macnutt is alive and well at Little Debbie's Den o' Doxies and Dragracing Emporium. He sends us all his well wishes........................and might even sell his yacht to buy a pedigreed dachshund. Now, THAT'S class!!!!!!!


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## PosterBoy (Jan 22, 2002)

*It's race season, I seem to remember him mentioning racing.*

Yes, he is a photographer/videographer for a dirt bike drag race team. I've got one or two of his videos around here, they're nifty if you like racing.


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## Heart (Jan 16, 2001)

MacNutt sent us ( the Mayor and I) a video of his racing.

uhm..... he is nuts and it is racing season.


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## MasterBlaster (Jan 12, 2003)

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## MacNutt (Jan 16, 2002)

Don't worry...I'm still here.

It's just a seriously busy time for me right now. The same as it was last year at this time. If there were two of me...I would STILL be super busy, right now! 









I have an older family member as a partner in this bottled water business. We are currently in negotiations to allow this aged elder to officially retire from the day to day management of my bottled water company. And spend their sunset days working in the garden that they love so much. But this family member is not willing to give up easily...and go quietly into that good night. At least not at this point in time. 

It's a dicey moment...to say the least. The family negotiations go on. (Note: This a family of Highland Scots. This is SCARY stuff!)

I'll let you all know how it goes. In a week or three when it all settles down and a clear winner is declared.

Until then, I won't have much time for this forum.

Just the way it is.


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## used to be jwoodget (Aug 22, 2002)

Ach, Macnutt, ye shid dae wha yur storied ancestors did in such situations - stick a fried Mars bar up their bum and cast em off on a passing ice floe. Tis a tried and tested retirement plan, laddie. Never fails. Have yae no heard of the "Scottish Widows" Insurance Company?


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## MacNutt (Jan 16, 2002)

The torch has been passed. The younger generation hath prevailed...and I didn't have to stick a deep fried mars bar up anyones tender bits. They went quietly into retirement.  

Now my workload has quadrupled and I am faced with the daunting task of unraveling a rather tangled web of bookwork and antiquated accounting whilst trying to keep up with bottled water sales that have gone ballistic because of our protracted heat wave. We haven't seen a cloudy day here for weeks. Bright blue skies and 25-35C temps every single day since sometime in may have left this island paradise knee-deep in tourists and the whole darned place smells of suntan oil.

If past years are any indication, the summer won't really end until late september and the touroids won't vacate until sometime in october.

I may be "otherwise occupied" until that time. But, after the mayhem is over, I'll be back...

Trust me on this.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

> LOCAL WARMING: CHANGES FROM COAST TO COAST
> 
> Pacific Ocean
> 
> ...


 

and MacNutt is selling more water cuz it's so hot so long on the shaky coast..

Nah no global warming...................


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## MacNutt (Jan 16, 2002)

Yes, Macdoc...and we mere humans have been keeping such amazingly detailed weather records for the past thousand years or so that we can always spot a weather cycle. Even if it may be one that happens every four hundred years or so.

Or...perhaps we have only been keeping seriously well documented records for about sixty or seventy years . Roughly the same amount of time since air travel became a major factor. Slightly longer in Europe and other areas...but still nothing like what it takes to be able to really figure out how the patterns really work on this hurtling mudball we call Earth.

As someone who has drilled deep into the sedimentary crust of this planet...and who has seen clear evidence of how suddenly the climate can change...I can only sit back and laugh at the misinformed and easily led amongst my fellow citizens who have somehow been persuaded that THIS time around, WE humans have had some sort of effect on the process. Or that we can somehow change the inevitable.

Too funny.









Our Canadian arctic islands used to be a tropical paradise. Just like Cuba or the Bahamas are today.This changed to a deep arctic freeze so suddenly that the tropical trees didn't even have a chance to rot away. They were flash frozen and then became fossilized. Whole, and complete. They are still there, bark and all. 

I've seen this with my own eyes. It's a well documented fact, if you care to look.

And it happened long before modern humans ever descended from their arboreal habitat and began walking upright. Certainly before we started to drive big SUV's and eat masses of junk food.


We are going through a hot dry cycle out here on the west coast right now. We Pacific coastal types went through one of these in the forties, the late seventies and again in the the mid nineties. Our recent one has broken a few of the earlier records...but not all of them.

Ontario is currently experiencing a wet and nasty period in lieu of summer.

My great grandmother (she came from Ontario, by the way), who pioneered out here in the early nineteen hundreds, told me that they used to swim in the ocean arounf here until late november back then. And grow veggies well into december.

We west coasters can't do that now...but we might be able to soon, if current trends continue.

It's all up to the natural weather cycles. Which have been going on for many millennia. And which we do NOT fully understand, at this point.

And anyone who thinks that we humans have had anything to do with this natural cycle has had to ignore a whole bunch of hard data in order to do so.

They have somehow been persuaded that human activity is the actual cause of this latest warm spell. By people who have a vested financial interest in promoting this idea, no less.

They are largely city dwellers who live under a cloud of pollouted air and who are surrounded by concrete every day.. They look out at this dead moonscape and cry out "We are KILLING the EARTH!" while ignoring the fact that almost 80% of the planet is devoid of human intervention.

But THEIR neighborhood reeks and looks awful. So they freak out and demand radical change. Without ever stopping to look at the facts.

And their ego prevents them from realising that we humans haven't a ghost of a chance of altering our climate one way or another. Even if we tried.

Their collective anguish is probably why PROZAC was invented. It helps to quell some of their wilder flights of fancy.

Oddly enough...those of us who live out here in the largely untouched rural areas don't seem to need this chemical crutch to deal with the day to day changes in the weather. Or the changes in our lives that are brought on by nature.

Go figure.


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## PosterBoy (Jan 22, 2002)

While it is true that the earth goes through cycles of being warmer and colder, the community is largely divided on where we are in the cycle right now.

There are those that believe we're headed for warmer times, there are those that believe we're overdue for more glaciers, and both sides have fairly convincing arguments. More recent theories, though, do indicate that the current interglacial period would last ~50,000 years even without humans around.

During the second to last interglacial period, forestation spread as far north as Baffin Island.

But to say that humans haven't had an adverse effect on the environment is a little naive, don't you think? There's lots of rain forest gone directly due to humans. There are lots of extinct species on this planet directly due to humans. There is lots of terrible environment problems directly due to humans.

The world is getting warmer, this is for sure. Are humans the cause? Probably not. Are humans helping it along (making it happen faster)? Probably, yes. There wasn't a hole in the ozone during the last interglacial, after all.


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## MacNutt (Jan 16, 2002)

There wasn't a hole in the ozone layer during the last inter-glacial period??

This is big news, Posterboy!

Please tell us how you know this. Especially since there was no one measuring such things back then..being as how we humans were living in caves and chewing on the last ragged strips of meat from the half-raw legbones of whatever beast we had slaughtered for supper back about that time.

Call it a hunch...but I'll bet there were no instruments that could actually measure the ozone layer at that particular moment in human history. Or anyone who was of a mind to record that data for future generations to examine in great detail.

As an earth sciences technician who has spent the better part of a normal human lifetime carefully examining the sedimentary record of this planet, I can safely say to you that there is no real way to tell if the ozone layer was there or not, fifty thousand years ago.

Or ten million years ago. Or even 250 million years ago.

But I CAN safely tell you...in total confidence...that this planet earth has experienced massive and radical temperature changes. Many, MANY times in the past.

Even in the very recent past.

And LONG before humans could have ever hoped to have any effect on the process.

Trust me on this.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

*that this planet earth has experienced massive and radical temperature changes. Many, MANY times in the past.
* 

Oh this old planet could care less what the current infestation of life forms is doing to it. 
It just keeps on rolling along providing daycare for competing life forms. The lemmings regularly eat themselves out of their environment then crash and take a few predators with them. Gaia could care less. The Easter Island crew did a good job too.

The current "sentient life forms" civilization might just care a lot.
If we are going to overrun the place at least we could be decent caretakers in the process.

and THAT is what it's about.
Wealth for this life form, is clean air, clean water, a diversity of species whose environments are safe for them to continue to share the planet, careful management of depleting resources and a human community move to sustainable "do no harm" development so my genes can go on for a few hundred more thousands of years.

Western North America indigenous peoples managed their rain forest for 10,000 years. 
How well are we doing in the last 50 years???
I always find it ironic when the phrase "untutored savages" get used. 
Just WHO is untutored and WHO is savage in terms of ecological caretaking.?

The ozone layer depletion was halted by intelligent action by the world community, so was whaling ( almost ). More please...........


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## MasterBlaster (Jan 12, 2003)

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## MacNutt (Jan 16, 2002)

Actually, macdoc..."wealth" to this particular modern society means "enough cash to live a comfortable lifestyle" and to provide the opportunity for an even better one for our offspring.

Everything else takes a secondary position. Simple as that.

We are at a point where some of us seem to believe that we can afford to devote a massive amount of our yearly incomes....while suffering a major potential DROP in those incomes...in order to somehow "repair the damage that we humans have done to this planet".

The leftish among us have been persuaded by their handlers that it is high time that ALL of us dial down our lifestyles...and, therefore, our expectations of a better life for our children...in order to reduce the temperature of our planet's ever-changing atmosphere by a degree or two.

Despite the fact that the method they plan to utilise to attempt this tiny drop in atmospheric tempreature is only going to be actually put into practice by a small number of the nations on this earth.

While the vast majority of Nations...including the very BIGGEST gross pollouters (China, India, the USA and Russia) will continue to spew out noxious polloutants at ever incresing rates.

Gee...sounds like a _GREAT_ plan. Sign me up.

















If the Kyoto Accord is ever officially ratified in the dying days of the Martin government, and becomes the law of the land in Canada...

Then, very soon after, we will ALL soon have an idea of what true "Wealth" really IS.

Because we who have signed onto that terribly flawed agreement will ALL be scrambling to try and maintain the last scraps of what we USED to have...and praying that our children will somehow manage to salvage something from our giant error in judgement.

While the vast majority of the people on this planet earth continue to move forward in their social development...and continue to polloute our environment at will. On a grand scale.

What we _REALLY_ need is an all-encompassing worldwide anti-polloution agreement that ALL the Nations of the world will agree to abide by. Something that might actually make a difference.

Kyoto ain't it. Not even close.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Seems neoCons tend toward the dim light side of the intelligence scale, sure shows in the shrub and I guess Gerry's distain of IQ tests must mean a similar position on the bell curve. ( if you want to hand out the pejoratives expect response in kind.....in case it's not obvious ).

While I knew Cons tended to resist change, historically they also were traditonal conservators. I guess the SUV crowd missed that somewhere.

This is worth posting in it's entire for the link challenged amongst us. It's a microcosm for intelligent approach to reducing global warming AND conserving energy resources AND having a "bundle of cash" for the kids.



> *Welcome to green land*
> Why a group of 800 condo owners invested $700K to revamp their building from the garage up Major energy retrofitting project savings
> 
> Richard Harrop, a retired teacher with a degree in environmental education, was all for embracing a greener lifestyle.
> ...


You afraid Gerry..........
Let's have your neo-Con analysis of how stupdi these people are for both meeting a Kyoto level of energy conservation AND saving themsleves a bundle of cash for years and years.

Tell me how stupid Germany is being able to cope with energy costs 14 times higher than Ontario's ( electricity cost ) yet having 3 times the holidays that the average Canadian.

How dumb it is that a European driver can go as far or farther as North American driver expending the same relative amount

Efficient use of resources IS a measure of an advanced society. In Gerry's view - well if the rest want to squander resources we should too.....to remain "competitive".








THEY won't have to invest so WE SHOULDN'T  

Real wealth Gerry, not SUVs or a Lexus.









Of all countries we NEED efficient energy management as we have geographic issues that WILL affect us badly if we don't. Europe and parts of Asia have population density, we don't.
We have resources but we need not squander them *if we are smart.*

We've got lots of of bright lights who given the resources can make Canada a leader in efficient use of energy. The kind of project shown above.

Just as the intercontinental railway was a national goal in its day, a concerted national policy towards energy conservation and alternate use should be given a similar spotlight today.

Trouble is there's a bunch of "dim bulbs" around arguing otherwise.
Same types that used to argue.....

"Aw don't worry about clear cutting"....it'll all grow back."

"There's plenty of salmon, drift netting is fine"

ad nauseum.  

So Gerry.......let's hear how stupid the condo owners are.....I'll be sure to pass it along. You'll likely to be able to hear the







from there.

"*experts argue it is the best offence to defend against escalating utility costs. It also offers a much needed respite for the environment.*".......sounds like win/win to me.


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## MacNutt (Jan 16, 2002)

Okay macdoc...I give.

YOU are now the Official holder of the "Ehmac Long-Winded Post" award!

Your recent posts have vastly eclipsed mine in length and in long-windedness.

And have been rather obtuse, as well...when all is said and done.

Care to explain to ALL of us how that the Kyoto Accord will somehow manage to make one single whit of difference to the atmosphere of this planet?

Especially when FOUR out of the SIX billion of the people on this planet are NOT governed by this agreement?
















Kyoto is a silly joke. 

Or...would you PREFER to see almost ALL of the manufacturing base of southern Ontario move to sunnier climes in the next four years or so?

The Kyoto Accord won't do a DAMN thing to fix the pollution problems in our cities.

But it WILL effectively move much of our manufacturing base into non-Kyoto terrotories (that would be the USA, by the way) in order to avoid the expensive Kyoto cash penalties.

Do you really want that? Are you REALLY prepared to see the economy of Southern Ontario take a massive downward hit??

If so...why?

Please explain, in detail.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

_"And have been rather obtuse'_...... perhaps to the lower end of the bell curve.

I suggest you ask the other readers how an article on a successful energy project that both saves money and goes further than the 6% reduction Kyoto calls for is "obtuse".

By the speed of your response I wonder if you read it at all since you ducked the point. Perhaps you missed the Doonsebury satire on "wealth".....maybe that's "obtuse"....would not surpise me.

"Longwinded"?????
I didn't write it but since you claim trouble with links I used the space to make sure you didn't have THAT dodge to work with.

It's quite straight forward - you did not in anyway answer my questions about how being energy wise and efficient is foolish.

I gave you an exact example of how the Kyoto targets and can be met and exceeded project by project..........and you continue to blather about lost jobs.
Bet the contractors who undertook this would beg to differ

Seimens is a pretty smart company too.
They had a bit of problem convincing the "dim bulbs" as well that they had a "bright idea" as was very obvious in the article.
Now the condo owners are laughing all the way to the banka nd can be proud of their "globally conscious" effort.

Sounds like a pretty good presciption for Canada as a whole. Care to answer why not or just continue to thump the hollow log.

*"Kyoto bad, job loss, Kyoto bad, job loss, Kyoto bad, job loss"*.....not much variation on a theme......sounds down right.....primitive.

Slash and burn for the modern man.









Pundits have called Canada the first post-industrial nation. Let's make it so.


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## MacNutt (Jan 16, 2002)

If Canada ratifies the Kyoto Accord...it will be one of a very FEW smallish countries to actually do so...

The vast number of the poeple on this planet Earth...that would be FOUR out of SIX BILLION people (and their manufacturing facilities)

Will NOT be ratifying the Kyoto Accord!

MOST of them are specifically EXCLUDED from the Kyoto Accord, by the way...

These are the very same four billion people (and the vast amount of the dirty smokestack industrialised countries, by the way) who are NOT a a part of the Kyoto Accord.

In other words....just when we humans could really USE an all-encompassing pollution agreement that would govrern ALL of our industrial emmissions...

We have the horribly flawed Kyoto Accord, instead!







  

It's time we all abandon this silly political excercise and proceed to make a world-wide agreement on this, instead.

Kyoto will only make the situation far WORSE than it is right now. ANY thinking human can see this.

We need to abandon Kyoto...and proceed on to REAL agreement between ALL of the Nations of the World.

Before it's too late.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

So Europe can be smart about energy, and a few other "smallish nations" but we shouldn't.!!!!









Oh that's terrifically progress thinking. D'ya think maybe those skills and manufacturing for energy saving just might be a good national effort to get into......ahead of the pack. Y'think other countries just might want to do the same thing.???

You still haven't explained your position to the "idiots" in the condos who happen to be proud of their contribution to Kyoto.

*Dodge, dodge, dodge*...a monotone on a drum.....even more primitive........regressive I'd say.......nah NeoCon covers it.


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## MACSPECTRUM (Oct 31, 2002)

remember the big energy crisis a couple of decades ago?
remember the lofty promises by gov't and industry alike for fuel efficient vehicles?
slowly but surely the auto makers have eroded the promises and now people actually defend Hummer purchses and other monster SUVs

No excuse why each vehicle on the road should not be getting 50 miles per gallon

only oil sector with their secret meetings with VP dick(head) cheney have set the energy policy

money good = pollution good
cigarette smoking was **** one time too

and one wonders why cancer and other diseases rates are so high

clean air, water and food are the best and cheapest way to keep a population healthy


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Another excellent piece in the Star today'



> *Spending now to save later*
> 
> MAUREEN MURRAY
> STAFF REPORTER
> ...


........
much more 

The URL above also has the entire Energy series listed for reading. A worthwhile undertaking in my opinion. No question we are and will be facing higher energy costs AND lack of capacity. Saving is one key to both and by far the fastest response. It feels good AND results in real dollars. Those would be "after tax" dollars as well so a dollar saved is te equivalent of a $1.30+ earned.  
Very few investments these days would show that return. Perhaps self directed RRSPs can function as "energy saving financial vehicles:. RR*ESP*......sort of forestalling instead of foretelling the future  

Included in the Star article is a terrific graphic in pdf format. The first I can remember. 
http://www.thestar.com/static/PDF/040731_house_energy.pdf 

Floor by floor of how to save energy in the average house. I certainly learned a few things. I am regretting putting in my "oh so nice" halogen pots.  
Now I yell at the kids to "turn em off"









I wonder how many jobs a 20% across the board energy savings program for every household in Canada would fund.
Let alone businesses.

Better a one time cheque to the local energy efficiency contractor than ESSO et al ad infinitum.


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## MasterBlaster (Jan 12, 2003)

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## MacNutt (Jan 16, 2002)

I confess...I have a weakness for American Muscle Cars.

I just flat out love em!!







 

But I have only one of them at this point in life. A huge-motored fire breathing monster that sucks high octane fuel like a hoover on steroids.

But it hasn't even been fired up in the last three years. It sits, forlorn and neglected in my barn right now...awaiting total restoration.

It ran for two days in 2001 when I drove it out here from it's temporary Alberta home. But it hadn't run in almost four years before that. And hasn't run since.

I've put about 900 Kms on it since 1996. All in a period of a few days.

My daily ride is a super high-tech diesel truck with a Caterpillar motor. It can haul seven tons but gets better fuel mileage than me mums Mazda Miata.

It has such a clean exhaust that, if it was running in Mexico City right now, the emissions coming out of the tailpipe would be signifigantly CLEANER than the "air" that was being sucked into the engine.

I kid you not.

Yep...macnutt is a nasty gross pollouter all right. A guy who wants to se the Kyoto Accord defeated because he just wants to crap up the environment at will.

This is a guy who, by the way, who raises all of his own food using only organic principles and who drives a vehicle that doesn't screw up the atmosphere...who recycles everything he uses and who heats his house exclusively with wood grown on his own property and who generates enough excess clean electricity from his mountain spring to feed into the hydro grid...and who is so conscious of the environment that he is a signatory to every single local environmental movement on an island paradise that is well known for it's leading role in the stewardship of this earth.

And who makes ALL of his spending money by selling natural spring water (that is untreated by chemicals) to pretty much everyone in his area.

And who will NOT allow weapons of any sort on his own property (despite the fact that we often have bears and cougars and raccoons as regular "visitors" here).

Yep...I'm a total right wing whacko allright. Ready and willing to "rape the earth" and take what I want while not giving a single sh*t about anyone else.

Perhaps some of you who live in southern Ontario might want to take a slightly closer look at your OWN lifestyles...and see just EXACTLY how much damage YOU make to the environment each day, before you point an accusing finger out my way.

Might be quite illuminating. Once you stop and think about it.


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## MacNutt (Jan 16, 2002)

Having pointed all of that out...I should like to stop and say that Kyoto is a silly joke. It will NOT make one whit of difference in our planetary atmosphere.

What we REALLY need is an all-encompassing anti-polloution agreement that covers EVERY SINGLE country on earth. Not just a tiny few who have already moved well beyond the smokestack days of our personal development.

It's time we abandoned the fallacy of Kyoto and started to work on something REAL. Something that will make a real difference.

WE need to get working on this right NOW! We don't have a moment to lose.   

Trust me on this.


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## used to be jwoodget (Aug 22, 2002)

Kyoto is flawed. No question. But the antagonists of Kyoto would be happy with nothing that restricted energy consumption. Kyoto is at least a stake in the ground and until someone comes up with a better series of ideas to contain the rampant waste of energy and finite resources on this hunk of rock, it stands tall.


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## MacNutt (Jan 16, 2002)

Agreed Jim...Kyoto is terribly flawed. (and ultimately useless for it's widely stated goals)

It is simply a watered down and totally ineffectual "feel-good" program that will allow the less informed (but well-meaning) general public to IMAGINE that they are actually subscribing to something that is actally _HELPING_ the environment.

But will actually NOT be helping anything. In fact...it will probably make the situation much WORSE than it is today!

That's because the very same grassroots movement that would still be pushing for a real and effective set of world-wide polloution controls will be tamed into a false sense of security by the fallacy of Kyoto.

We should ALL be demanding something that really works. And something that must be adhered to by ALL of the Nations of the earth.

_ESPECIALLY_ the ones who have the vast number of "dirty smokestack" industries. And, by the way, the largest populations.

NONE of them are governed by the current Kyoto Accord. They will be left free to pollute at will. 

And any manufacturing that WE do in our still industrialised areas of the so-called "modern world" will be free to move to these ungoverned areas of the world if they so choose, in order to escape the heavy monetary penalties of the terribly flawed Kyoto Accord.

And will then be allowed to pollute at will. With NO controls at all!

Does that sound like a "solution" to you?

It sounds like a recipie for disaster to me.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Emperor MacNutt - "off with their heads".

Who is the WE??
There is no world body remember.
Killing initiatives like Kyoto because they are not "perfect" is head in the sand thinking at it's worst.

The first world uses most of the resources and can afford to develop solutions to both use them more efficiently and cleanly.

You still fail to answer the condo owners. That represents the exact manner in which Kyoto can make us more efficient as a society AND move the planet to a cleaner state.

Whaling was stopped ( almost ), slavery has been halted in most part. The world CAN make changes.

The Thames is cleaner than it's been in a hundred years, the Great Lakes immensely improved salmon and trout off Toronto!!!!

Kyoto represents a credible start and it can only benefit Canada to make us more efficient in our energy use.
We are presented with a large nation and small population so we developed excellence in long distance communications which we turned into a national industry.
We cando the same with energy saving housing and technology.

If Europe can use its resources to go farther on one litre than North Americans do....then they are the more efficent society.
As resources dwindle, competition for them rises - use them inefficiently and pay the price.

How would we fare with Germany's electricity rates of 90¢ per kwh. Yet they have 3x the vacation time of Canadians.

It takes national vision on the level of a FDR to put in place the energy saving policies we need now. Like the national railroad this is the challenge currently and it WILL create jobs and will make us more competitive.
Adam Beck went way over budget but his power provides real wealth to Ontario decades later.
The same with Churchill Falls. Power was cheap then - took vision to see the need.

Do it wrong - become a Stelco - on it's death bed - do it right - like Dofasco where innovation and embracing change is the watch word and conquer the world and teh coing population/energy crunch.

It's all about vision and will starting right at the municipal level.
Mississauga recycles OVER 50% of it's waste. Brampton gets power for thousands of homes from it's waste.

Combine clean with efficient - they ARE symbiotic.
The US is shamed by one of it's own states. California has done excellent Kyoto like effort in regulating car emissions and forcing an entire industry towards change.

Here's a city that "gets it".










The US and Albera could both be leaders in making world changes. Investing as with Ballard ( a dead end in some respects for the moment but thats what progress is about ) in efficient and clean energy sources.

Job export is happening anyway...big time. Putting people to work making first world society cleaner and more efficient is a terrific vision.

It does not have to have a "perfect solution" - that's a crock. The labour price gap alone eliminates the energy gap for now.
What will come into play as resources are competed for in scarcity is how far the energy goes towards furthering each society's goals.

If Germany can make it go farther than North America - we lose.
Look at an average power bill in Canada and do 14x higher - that's where Germany is for electricity.
They are building 80 megawatts of windpower a WEEK!!!!

Kyoto is a start and a goal. It SHOULD be a 60% reduction to really make a difference, that is unrealistic.......for now.

FDR put the US to work building for the future - his projects provide energy 70 years later.
World accords like Kyoto are starting points for larger problem solving.

I was heartened by the "agree to agree" move forward on farm subsidies. Now THAT is going to cause some dislocations.

Tell the condo owners why they can't save money AND meet Kyoto targets.
"Wisdom" seems the key word lately. 

[ August 06, 2004, 11:56 PM: Message edited by: MacDoc ]


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## MacNutt (Jan 16, 2002)

Kyoto is NOT a "Good Start" by any measure.

It is just a silly excersize by the less-informed who need a "feel-good" program to help ease their bland minds into a sense of purpose.

In that, it is a giant sucess.

In the cruel reality, it is but a silly smokescreen that will divert the attention that needs to be focussed on the REAL problem...and will divert attention from the REAL solutions.  

Cancel Kyoto. NOW!

And then lets get to work on a worldwide set of pollution controls that will actually have a REAL effect on the crap that we spew into the atmosphere.

One that ALL the Nations of the world will abide by. Not just a few.

Dirty airborne polloution CAN be stopped in it's tracks. But we HAVE to have all of the gross polluters on board to do it. We need a set of worldwide regs to do it!

Kyoto doesn't even come close. And it will effectively prevent a REAL set of regs from ever becoming law. Because it allows the biggest and worst pollouters to keep on spewing at will. With no regulations at all!!

DUMP this turkey NOW! And then get to work on something REAL!! Something that will actually WORK!!


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