Moldy Peaches

An Inconvenient Truth and The Weather Makers. Two recent releases that you make you question how you are consuming on this earth and what can be done to curb global warming and climate change.

Al Gore, spare some of the sappy political stories, is actually quite good at deconstructing a fairly complex issue. Al Gore has come along way since he opponents used to brand him "radical."

In the 1992 campaign against Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush mocked Gore as “ozone man” and claimed:

“This guy is so far out in the environmental extreme we’ll be up to our necks in owls and outta work for every American.”

In the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush cracked that Gore “likes electric cars. He just doesn’t like making electricity.” The younger Bush, a classic schoolyard bully with a contempt for intellect, demanded that Gore “explain what he meant by some of the things” in his 1992 book, “Earth in the Balance”—and then unashamedly admitted that he had never read it.

W, however, was a fan of the pulp science-fiction novel: “State of Fear,” by Michael Crichton (of Congo and Jurassic Park fame). Bush was so excited by the story, which pictures global warming as a hoax perpetrated by power-mad environmentalists, that he invited the author to the Oval Office.

One of the most encouraging signs coming from the movie was that, although the United States - along with Australia - refuses to sign the Kyoto Accord, many states and cities (coincidently with heavy concentrations of Democratic leadership) are endorsing the Accord. This is good news for Canadians. Provincial and municipal governments should start to get involved more in these issues and take the lead. The Conservative government clearly shows no signs of knowing their ass from their elbow on environmental issues. All tax credits, all the time is not a strategy.

The other encouraging thing is we can view the environment and the economy as partners not adversaries. We need to step past the rhetoric of "we can't afford it."

Here is hoping the G8 leaders spend some time on this important issue this week.