CBC’s belated Mea Culpa related to Climate change: Don’t Make the Same Mistake with the SPP

PEJ News - Joan Russow PhD - Global Compliance Research Project - How much further will Canada deviate from its years of obligations and commitments to reduce greenhouse gases, and conserve carbon sinks, when, under the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), Canada undertakes to provide a “reliable source of energy” to the US, and US will declare Canada’s oil reserves a matter of “National Security interest”

www.PEJ.org

Re: fundamental systemic constraint related to climate change: misplaced notion of “objectivity”

On the Sunday Edition, August 12, 2007, CBC finally acknowledged its misplaced notion of “objectivity” related to climate change. On the program, at least on CBC radio, there was a moment of “mea culpa” when they admitted that for the sake of objectivity they had been prepared to gloss over questionable scientific credentials. In 1997, during the flurry of discussion related to the negotiations of the Kyoto protocol of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. CBC and other Canadian media outlets were prepared to profile scientists- captive of the fossil fuel industry- that sought to undermine the Intergovernmental panel.. Rather than respecting the recognition by the intergovernmental panel that there were serious anthropogenic causes of climate change , CBC interviewed industry-front scientists-the deniers- funded by the fossil fuel industry.

I had covered the Fraser Institute’s conference on Climate Change where the climate change deniers with dubious academic credentials were claiming that climate change was purely a natural phenomenon. I contacted CBC, passed on a list of primarily US scientists who had participated at the Fraser Institute Conference and I sent the media information about the Fraser Institutes conference.

FEIGNED ALTRUISM TO DELUDE CITIZENS: FRASER INSTITUTE'S "LOVE-IN"

November, 1997

"We don't need more rules, just more effort" states the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers in their full page ad in the Globe and Mail, November 6. "Canada is helping today".. by providing natural gas to New York" the ad goes on to say. The public can be reassured by the petroleum society's devotion to the public trust.

This deep commitment to altruism was reflected in the Fraser Institute meeting on "the Science and Politics of Global Warming": October 29, 1997, in Vancouver. Marlo Lewis, Vice President for Policy, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Washington D.C. called upon "all fellow opponents of the Kyoto Protocol in public advocacy to capture the high moral ground".

In his paper circulated at the meeting, he warns of the serious consequences of failing to capture the high moral ground in the Climate Change issue. He stated that "the opponents of Kyoto should not fall into the same trap that defeated opponents of another UN sponsored global treaty, the Convention on the Banning of Chemical Weapons. He said "none of the opponents of this Convention made the point that it is right for the good guys (i.e. us) [presumably the United States] to possess chemical weapons ...because we would use or threaten to use such weapons only in the defense of freedom"

With great dexterity he applies his high moral ground principle to the issue of Global warming. He affirms that it is ill-advised to emphasize economic loss because that would be perceived to be serving self interest and be mean-spirited.

NO! what he advocates is to completely rephrase the debate and state that

"curbing energy will harm the health and safety of U.S. citizens [he forgot to update his paper for a Canadian audience]. He also advised attacking the Climate protocol being proposed in Kyoto as being elitist, inhumane and unfair. The poor of the world will suffer.

His campaign has involved extensive lobbying, through advocating his feigned altruism approach in the U.S., and from the enthusiastic reception at the Fraser Institute meeting, Canada will not be far behind. We can expect that the next ad coming from the Coal industry will no longer focus on the crass economic loss that it might face but on the devotion of the coal industry to humanitarian concerns for the poor of the world.

This campaign is bearing fruit in Canada now, Prime Minister Chretien is proposing that the sale of CANDU reactors to China, Romania and now Turkey represents a major contribution by Canada to the Global Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

The United Nations, the scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and citizens and groups from around the world have warned of the existing and potential consequences of failing to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Marlo Lewis ignores the warnings.

Canada and the United States signed and ratified the Framework Convention on Climate Change and are thus obliged to invoke the precautionary principle contained in the Convention :

Marlo Lewis' underlying premise of economic growth at any cost exudes the glorification of self interest and the disregard for the public trust. Principle should rule corporations not be overruled by them.

                         -30-

Canada and the United States along with over 160 member states of the United Nations negotiated, signed and ratified the 1992 Framework.

Convention on Climate Change, and through this Convention willfully undertook legally binding obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and to conserve carbon sinks.

How far has Canada deviated from the admonitions expressed in 1988. How much further Canada will deviate when At the "Changing Atmosphere" Conference held in Toronto, Canada:

In 1988, scientists, government leaders and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) endorsed in their conference statement the following assessment of the impact of climate change:

"Humanity is conducting an unintended, uncontrolled, globally pervasive experiment whose ultimate consequence could be second only to a global nuclear war. The Earth's atmosphere is being changed at an unprecedented rate by
pollutants and wasteful fossil fuel use...These changes ... are already having harmful consequences over many parts of the globe....It is imperative to act now." (Conference statement, from the Changing Atmosphere Conference, 1988).

How much further will Canada deviate when under the Security and Prosperity Partnership, Canada undertakes to provide a “reliable source of energy” to the US, and US will declare Canada’s oil reserves as a matter of “National Security interest”