Wednesday, February 07, 2007

A brief thought

I've got one foot out the door, but when it comes to environment and energy policies, there's something that people need to keep in mind. And it's something that doesn't get said a lot in Canadian politics. But it's utterly central to any reasonable attempt to lower Canada's carbon dioxide emissions:

The goal of Canadian national policy should be the dismantling of all fossil fuel industries in Canada, especially coal but including the natural gas and oil industries.

We can disagree on timelines and methods, but the end state is clear: a Canada that is right with the world needs to include an Alberta that doesn't produce oil or gas.

Sometimes the obvious goes unstated, and this shouldn't be the case.

So serious proposals to reduce Canada's greenhouse gas emissions need -- as a political reality -- to grapple with how to sell the issue to the constituencies that most depend on fossil fuel profits.

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