Sheila Copps cops out over greenhouse effect THIS IS a column about how Environment Minister Sheila Copps cops out. The deputy prime minister from Hamilton, Ontario, who is quite leg- endary for a number of reasons, dou- bles, as you may have noticed from the photo ops, as the minister in charge of protecting Canada's envi- ronment, dropping in at press confer- ences to announce federal govern- ment infrastructure handouts to deserving politically useful causes. After the Chretien landslide in the last election, there was a glimmer of hope in green circles, if for no other reason than that the neoconservative anti-ecological regime of the Mulroneyites was over. They couldn’t possibly get worse, could they? At least the Liberals didn't seem actively hostile towards conservation, unlike the kill a tree for Jesus attitude of the Tories. Alas, inaction is just as bad at this stage as pigheaded unbri- dled bottom-line thinking. And that’s where the Grits come in. In order to appreciate just how horrendously Sheila is copping out, one has to ask the question: What is the single biggest challenge facing a Canadian Environment Minister today? Arguably, it might be vanishing fish stocks or disintegrating forest ecosystems or deterio- rating soil cover, but since these items are . deemed part of other federal departments, what does that leave for Sheila to do? Weil, she could do somethig that would have a positive effect on all these issues, while addressing some- thing really big. I refer, of course, to climate change. Polls tell us that Canadians, as a whole, are basically in denial about the fact that the globe is warming up at an alarming rate, and the implica- tions for all of us, or at least for our children and grandchildren, are cata- strophic. Just to fill you in, in case you're among those in denial, the fact of the matier is that global greenhouse gas levels have increased by about 25% since 1850, methane levels by 100% and nitrous oxide levels by 15%. Ina recently released report enti- tled The Carbon Bomb, Climate Change and the Fate of the Northern Boreal Forests, Greenpeace notes that ‘for at least the last 160,000 years before the start of the Industrial Revelution, atmospheric concentra- tions of carbon dioxide never exceed- Bob Hunter STRICTLY PERSONAL ed 300 parts per million. “In 1992, carbon dioxide reached 35 parts per million, meaning that some climatic change is already inevitable.” “Roughly 7.6 billion tonnes of carbon are currently being released into the atmosphere each year. A run- away greenhouse effect is therefore a possibility.” the report, written by Greenpeace climate campaigner Kevin Jardine, states. And what is a “runaway green- house effect"? Take a look at the 66 Take a look at the planet Venus. That’s a runaway greenhouse effect. 9? planet Venus. That's a runaway greenhouse effect. To understand the appalling extent to which Sheila is copping out on this paramount environmental cri- sis by stalling, delaying stonewalling, obfuscating, dithering and putzing around, we have to go back to 1988 when there was a big scientific con- ference on the changing atmosphere hosted by Environment Canada in Toronto. It happened to take place at the same time as massive fires were sweeping Yellowstone Park and awful drought gripped the United States, which meant that the media was suddenly, if only briefly, on the case. The conference concluded that climate change was “second only to global thermonuclear war” as a threat facing the planet. Since then, the risk of nuclear war has more or fess disup- peared, which leaves, as the Number One threat, climate change. The conference recommended that industrialized countries cut their carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2005. as a first measure and as a sec- ond measure, they move on the cut- ting of their emissions by 50% by the year 2030. Because of the publicity generated by the conference, and the weird weather at the time —- which contin- ued to get weirder, reaching a tempo- rary peak in 1990, which was the hotlest year in recorded history — politicians everywhere began to climb aboard a sort-of bandwagon. The same year as the conference, spurred on by its dire warning, the United Nations decided to pull together the world’s leading climate scientists to find out if this apocalyp- tic new threat was real. Thus, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed. In 1990, the IPCC released its first rt which concluded that unprece- dented climate change was indeed inevitable unless fossil fue] consump- tion was drastically reduced, in the order of something like 60 to 80% This would mean, basically, the phas- ing-out of coal, oi] and natural gas. The panel also states categorically that the Earth's temperature would soon be warmer than it had been in 150,000 years, and this would happen as a direct result of the dou- bling of greenhouse gas missions, which is expected to happen around the year 2030. The IPCC added that it was scientifically credible that the atmosphere could easily get hotter, as a result of all those emissions. than it has been in 20 million years. Al] this, by the way, is because of contaminants that human beings have generated in roughly the last 100 years, A change on that order of mag- nitude in such a flicker of a geologi- cal moment is the equivalent of a tidal wave coming out of nowhere in the middle of the sea. Any sane cup- tain would, at the very least. come about. The IPCC also warns that its cal- culations do not include climate feed- backs like biomass reactions to rising temperatures. That's the big picture. but for the next couple of columns I'l concentrate on how Sheila Copps. our ecological helmsperson, has fall- en asleep at the wheel on her watch. BONUS WITH EVERY STORE PURCHASE, RECEIVE A DISCOUNT COUPON FOR GRASSROOTS CLOTHING COMPANY &S ON CUSTOM DRAPERIES, TRACKS AND VALANCES Labour $8.59 per panel unlined, $9.50 lined, GUSTOM BEDSPREADS & BLINDS At low, low prices. For FREE Estimates call 987-2966 fAsk about Seniors’ Discounts) Serving the North Shore for 23 years Clearly the best Capilano Optical (Capilano Mall) SOFT. 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