John Chuckman
COMMENTS TO AN ARTICLE IN THE CBC NEWS
Justin Trudeau and his carbon tax efforts
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Response to a comment about “the arrogance of the climate-change deniers is ridiculous:”
I'm sorry, but your words are troubling in two ways.
First, you use a pejorative term to describe others, "deniers," and it is a pejorative term worn so thin from a variety of uses and abuses that it has become almost silly.
Second, you assume that all opposed to such measures as a carbon tax are "deniers."
No, there are many who accept the clear evidence of climate change. That is scientifically established.
But many are not convinced that human agency is involved and some who believe, in any case, that such measures could well be without effect while causing still other harm.
And there is a powerful argument for humanity's simply adjusting and adapting over time as may prove required.
I don't know about you, but Justin, with his collar open and sleeves rolled up and eyebrows arched up to suggest sincerity, as we see him in the photo at the top of this article, just does very little for me or for the scientific case.
It's the televangelist addressing his flock to send in donations.
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Response to another comment:
If you really care about the health of our world, you might focus on America's massive, destructive military.
It has killed at least two million in the recent Neocon Wars and sent millions fleeing for their lives – all of which implies massive environmental destruction apart from its obvious human horrors.
It has dumped massive amounts of poisonous stuff into a number of countries: millions of pounds of Agent Orange and depleted uranium dust, open burn pits, leaking fuel dumps, old warships scuttled into the ocean, all kinds of dumped material involving asbestos and other serious hazards, leaking stores of poison gas agents, the leakage at old atomic weapons-manufacturing sites, over 1,000 atomic tests conducted before the treaty, plus many other delights. And it never cleans up after itself when abandoning a facility. It just leaves a polluted mess behind every time.
Read about what they and the British have done to the people at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
And in attacking Iraq, the American military was paying a bill of $20 billion a year for a complete city of air-conditioned tents on the desert. A record squandering of resources, and all in the name of killing a great many people and destroying a fairly advanced society.
