Media's hot air on Kyoto
Conservatives get killed for inaction on global warming ... the Liberals got a pass
By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN

I've been doing some research into global warming and the Kyoto accord and boy, have I found some interesting stuff that the Liberal Party of Canada and its media shills don't like to talk about.

Ready? Here we go. Remember that big Kyoto conference held in Montreal last December, the one hosted by then Liberal environment minister, now Liberal leader, Stephane Dion?

Remember how the Liberals and their media shills breathlessly told us when it ended how Dion had provided the leadership that helped hold the conference together when it was in danger of falling apart, before emerging with a series of new Kyoto deals that some environmentalists proclaimed just might save the planet?

Dion's website (stephane dion.ca) boasts that "at the follow-up to the Kyoto Conference on Climate Change in Montreal in December 2005, he won international agreement to extend the Kyoto protocol beyond 2012."

Right. Well, here's a more realistic assessment of what actually went on in Montreal, written by Kyoto expert Robert Henson in his new book, The Rough Guide to Climate Change, The Symptoms, The Science, The Solutions.

Henson, no global warming sceptic -- his book has been praised as "superb ... even-handed and accessible" by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change -- assesses that meeting in this way:

"In the end, the diplomats managed to eke out an agreement for a two-year round of non-binding talks under the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) that 'will not open any negotiations leading to new commitments' (as the official wording says) but could set the stage for future talks. In this light, it's not at all certain that Kyoto-like targets will prevail after 2012."

Gee. Guess Dion and Co. didn't save the world, eh?

And Canada's record on greenhouse gas emissions -- mainly carbon dioxide and methane, identified as the key culprits in global warming -- during all those Liberal governments from 1993 to 2005?

Well, if you're a supporter of Kyoto, terrible. Just terrible.

While the Liberals signed the Kyoto accord in 1998 and ratified it in 2002, not only did our emissions go up by 24.2% compared to 13.3% for the U.S. from 1990 to 2003 -- which the media did report -- but that left us with the sixth worst record among the world's key industrialized nations.

The "evil" U.S., which never ratified Kyoto, finished five places better than we did.

And while the U.S. is the world's biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions (20.6% in 2000, compared to our 2.1% , which put us in ninth place) when you break the numbers down on a comparative basis, we, uh, stink.

Based on emissions per capita in 2000, we were the seventh-worst offender, at 6.3 tonnes of carbon equivalent per person, barely one place better than the U.S., at 6.8.

On the basis of carbon intensity, we were the 10th worst offender at 172 tonnes of carbon emitted per million dollars in GDP, one position worse than the U.S., at 162.

Indeed, you have to wonder what former Liberal PM Paul Martin was smoking when he raced to that Montreal conference last year during the federal election and scolded the U.S. for lacking a "global conscience" on climate change.

Now, remember, we have a Conservative government that has been in power for less than a year. So think back.

How many critical stories and columns do you recall seeing over the last two months in our media, ever since Environment Minister Rona Ambrose released the Tories' proposed Clean Air Act, their response to Kyoto, global warming and other environmental issues? Recall, as well, the unrelentingly dismissive and contemptuous tone of most of that criticism.

Any criticism?

Now, how many critical media stories and columns do you recall, and how many of them were equally dismissive and contemptuous of the Liberals and their record over the previous 12 years that they were in power, while doing almost nothing to control greenhouse gases?

Welcome, again, to liberal (and Liberal) media bias.

None of which means the Tories shouldn't be criticized on environmental issues. Just that the Liberals, by comparison, were given a free pass.

In December 2005, environmental groups awarded the Liberal government with the “Fossil of the Day” award at the Montreal conference that was being chaired by Stephane Dion.

"The majority of Canadians are firmly and strongly behind living up to our Kyoto obligations," said John Godfrey, the Liberal environment critic.

"We are here because we want the world to know that Canadians are united in their commitment to the Kyoto Protocol," said Emilie Moorehouse of the Sierra Club.

It is often darkness at noon in Datong, just 160 miles west of Beijing, where vehicles drive in daytime with their headlights on to grope through the miasma.

One of the four filthiest towns in China, it stands at the heart of the nation’s coal belt in Shanxi province, a region that mines more coal every year than Britain, Russia and Germany combined.
Most Ontarians are familiar with the political fallout from Dalton McGuinty's broken promise to close the coal fired generating plants in Ontario. Compare our situation with what is going on in China...
The Chinese plan to build no fewer than 500 new coal-fired power stations, adding to some 2,000, most of them unmodernised, that spew smoke, carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere.

Is it propaganda to point out that:

Yes, it is, because it also fails to point out that the Conference(while volatile) did make strides on the (faulty) Kyoto Accord.

Every mass emdia article has a personal bias, and an idealogical bias. Both sides have an agenda to push and edit their articles in such a way to make their side seem the most correct and to try to convince. Liberal Media is baised, and Conservative Media is biased. Saying that one is and the other isn't is truly naive and troubling...

Name one conservative Canadian TV media outlet in Canada ?

Global?

The lest biased thing I ever watched was cpac.

NA there are none.

Yes CanWest Global is more Conservative. It was created to be so it could counter the liberal media.

nope wrong.

You can always listen to Fox, when I was last in the U.S. they were bragging on how they were going to change the media landscape in Canada, showing Canadians how they were wrong about just about everything.

I'll bet you more people watch that then CBC @6.