Elizabeth kicking ass

Another blog from Copenhagen by Victoria Cate:

I just got out of a briefing from the head of the Canadian negotiating team to the NGO representatives. The head of our delegation is a miserable suit who relies on double speak to avoid saying anything substantive and operates his delegative responsibilities as though he were in charge of conducting a Public Relations machine.

So in the mess of political calculations, vested interests in business as usual and power struggles between wealthy and poor, vulnerable and secure, the millions of voices calling for urgent action are not being regarded as authoritative or realistic.

Elizabeth has been kicking ass. During the briefing this morning, she asked the suit to explain how the government could call their target in compliance with science when they hadn't accepted a commitment to reductions of emissions except to say that they will avoid globally reaching 2 C rise in temperature. This is a modest target and the science suggests we aren't out of the woods (these being the region of runaway global warming due to positive feedback loops) unless we hold it to 1.5 C. To do this, global emissions have to stop rising and begin to decline rapidly by at least 2015. Meanwhile the Conservative minister of environment is telling Canadians that we don't need to reach any targets for CO2 reductions until 2050 so no hurry.

The demonstrations outside the conference center are sure to escalate today, such is the feeling of frustration and anger on the parts of activists and civil society participants. I will stay inside the conference center, watching the high level negotiations speeches on a tv broadcast, as hardly any NGO people are being allowed into the plenary room.

That any of this is happening is insane, terrifying and perhaps unfathomably ridiculous.

Canada: Lead, Follow or GO HOME

Victoria Cate, young green and former YGC councillor, is in Copenhagen and wrote this blog for Granola Unit.


As the final days of the COP 15 in Copenhagen approach, NGOs and other non governmental organizations are having their admission passes to the key negotiations area cut substantially. Many activists and people of civil society are only arriving now to find that their accreditations are not given to them due to an overload at the registration and that they will likely not be admitted to the conference hall once in the final week. As of tomorrow the participants from nongovernmental delegations will be cut by 40%. Due to the increase in the number of high level participants in the final days, the other participants will be increasingly shut out and by Friday, the final day, only 90 of 10000 accredited attendees will be admitted.

The overall sense of the negotiations is one of resignation. Almost every person here believes that nothing meaningful can be achieved this week. I was with Elizabeth May this afternoon as she spoke with members of the Canadian youth delegation about the expectations for this COP, the possibilities still open and the best way to react to the conclusion, whatever it involves. Above all, she encouraged the youth not to despair and not to become cynical. Her overall optimism is driven by the knowledge that this conference must succeed or else threaten many countries in the world and their people with losses, both in economic terms and in lives. It is difficult for the participants of this conference to endure what is happening.

African delegations threatened they might not attend this morning to communicate their dissatisfaction with the game playing and uncooperative strategies of the developed countries delegations.

This afternoon, china and the g77 stalled all their working groups and walked out in what looked like a political power play. Amidst all this uncertainty and reticence, Canada is still coming out worst of the pack with no meaningful commitments or action plan.

Canadian youth wore signs on their backs today, reading: Canada: Lead, Follow or GO HOME.

There are many people here from all over the world who are dedicated to seeing real progress on climate change. It is unhelpful to downplay our expectations at this time. We have to hope for a decent agreement because it is not acceptable to walk away empty handed when we know the consequences of inaction.

Elizabeth May - Hope

A great video that really shows why we NEED Elizabeth May in the House of Commons:

Want to help elect Elizabeth? You can no matter where you are in the country. Email Nicole Parker at nicole.parker@greenparty.ca and ask her to sign you up for phone canvassing.

Green Party and Youth Involvement in Politics

I recently answered a few questions on the Green Party and youth involvement in politics for a journalism student at Wilfrid Laurier University. Here's the link: http://thereluctantindependent.blogspot.com/2009/11/interview-with-katie-gibbs-leader-of.html

Maiden Blog

The Green Party's Objection to the India-Canada Nuclear Trade Deal

Yesterday the Green Party of Canada “expressed grave concerns” that PM Harper was close to concluding a nuclear deal with India that, at a minimum, does not require India to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Green Party Leader May wants to see Canada adopt Australia’s policy of not exporting uranium to countries that have not signed the NPT.

While I believe that nuclear non-proliferation is beneficial and the prospect of these weapons falling into the possession of some of the world’s more unsavoury regimes is problematic. I think the NPT is the wrong avenue for non-proliferation and therefore the Green Party’s recommendation is misguided and concern misplaced.

Humans are excited by nuclear weapons, their mere mentions conjures up images of the end of the world. However, nuclear weapons have been a big disappointment. They have been militarily useless. Countries that possess them have not found them valuable in conflict (e.g., the US in Korea, Vietnam, or Iraq; the USSR in Afghanistan; France in Algeria; the British in the Falklands; Israel in Lebanon and Gaza; and China in Vietnam). Not only are they militarily useless, but their deterrence capability has been questioned. John Mueller argues that conventional military hardware would have been enough to deter the Cold War from becoming hot (see John Mueller, Atomic Obsession) The Green Party’s (and everyone else’s) concern is out of touch with reality, this adds to their allure and seemingly usefulness.

This fixation with nuclear weapons adds to the hysteria over proliferation. However, nuclear proliferation has been modest. Most countries that have wanted nukes have developed them (despite the NPT) and all have acted responsibly with them (e.g., during the upheaval of China’s Cultural Revolution the security of their nuclear weapons was never in doubt). Most technologically able countries, however, chose not to develop nukes (because they recognize their uselessness).

Currently, it seems as though the world is moving past the nuclear age. The US and Russia have cut their nuclear weapons from 50, 000 during the height of the Cold War to around 18, 000. France and Britain have significantly reduced their stockpiles. And countries like India and Pakistan have kept them in far lower numbers than expected. This was all done outside of the NPT. In fact, there is some evidence that arms limitations agreements between the US and Russia increased the levels of nukes during the Cold War. Nuclear weapons as bargaining chips.

The Green Party should let the deal pass with no objection and should work towards letting nuclear weapons becoming near-extinct on their own, outside of formal treaties.

This is a cross-post form Duke Peterson's Blog.

This is a cross post from davebagler.ca

Fill the Hill was this Saturday and it was a very successful outing for the Green Party. Katie had the great idea a week or so ago to make an other batch of the new Young Greens buttons for Power Shift/Fill the Hill. We ordered 500 assuming that we would be able to give out most of them and still have some leftover to have available to visitors of the office or other small events.

We quite simply underestimated the excitement for the Green Party found in Canadians under 25. Walking through the fill the hill crowd I was able to easily give out the 500 buttons and I'm sure had I had 1,000 they would have all gone. It wasn't so much that we were able to give away all the buttons but how excited people were to get these buttons.

About a half dozen times while snaking my way through the crowd I would get swarmed by people who wanted buttons. They were taking a couple for themselves passing some to friends, and generally pumped that the Green Party was there and that they could get an "I vote Green", "I heart E May" or an "80% less bullshit" button.

There were dozens of speakers but Elizabeth May received the loudest applause for her short but passionate speech about why she was at fill the hill.

We need to make sure that in the next election Canadians 25 and under go to the polls. If we can do this we will increase our vote dramatically and have a significant impact on the results of the election at the national level but we'll also have far greater success in ridings where we have yet to be competitive.

Events like this point to a shift in public opinion. Many young people are reaching voting age feeling like Climate Change is the great challenge of our generation. These people are Green. If we get them out to vote they're going to vote for us.

This is a cross post from davebagler.ca

your parents f*cked up the planet...

So there's been a lot of talk re the Young Green's new front page...

Well, we could have posted a pretty image on our front page: maybe a picturesque meadow, blue skies overhead, young people joining hands and singing... Unfortunately, if we'd gone that route, it’s unlikely that people would be talking right now.

We are not attacking any individual parents out there; many of them are part of the solution. The bottom line though is that the planet is f*cked up and we now do have to deal with a great many growing environmental, social and economic problems of global scale.

This is not about blame, but rather a call to action. What some people may construe as an offensive tone is in our eyes appropriate, for we indeed see many reasons for indignation. Besides which, it's all about perspective and, frankly, we find certain things much more outrageous and offensive than the "f" word:

• The arctic ocean is currently warmer than it has been in the last two thousand years and will be free of ice in our lifetime

• Canadian asthma rates have quadrupled in the last 20 years

• Canadian leaders, including the Prime Minister, make no apologies for declining to even attend major international climate talks

• Youth unemployment in Canada is at a 30-year high

• Annual global military expenditure reached over $1.46 trillion in 2008 while nearly half of the world’s 2.2 billion children live in poverty

• In Ontario alone, tuition fees have jumped by over 200% since 1990

• Canadians are so disengaged that only 6 in 10 eligible voters actually vote, and the rates are much lower for those under 30

These are things the Young Greens find truly offensive.
The planet is f*cked up, and it's time we all do something about it!
Explore our website to see what you can do.

(Also, see what Elizabeth has to say here.)

Young Greens

Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize!

I’m going to break my rule and write about Obama today because he’s made truly international news. He’s won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 and I couldn’t be happier. 

The committee stated that they awarded the prize to him “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

The award must be very meaningful to Obama because it represents vindication for his decisions to close Guantanamo Bay, stop American torture, give a speech in a major muslim city, pull out of or at least draw down the troop levels in Iraq, have America join the UN Human Rights Panel, and praise the International Criminal Court.

He also served as the first American president to chair a meeting of the security council. He could have used this opportunity to reveal evidence that Iran was constructing a new facility to produce nuclear fuel and, consequently, push for additional sanctions against the country. Instead, Obama choose to use this unique opportunity to push for nuclear disarmament. He knew Iran’s time would come soon enough. 

And he’s done all this in less than a year. Amazing. Unbelievable. I only wish I had time to devote as many blogs to this as the Large Dead Lizards. It’s 2 in the afternoon and they already have 5 entries supporting this decision [and 24 Obama references on the front page]. Kudos to them! They truly are the best progressive blog on the continent.

Of course, I could be a little happier. It seems many people don’t think he deserves it. For example, the Toronto Star claims that ‘praise and shock greet Obama’s Nobel win.’ Why is this though? Like Canadian Hip-Hop innovator D.O. tweeted, ‘big up Obama on the Nobel prize! i hate when people say he hasn't accomplished anything... open your eyes!’ Clearly, people are keeping their eyes closed to the partial list of accomplishments above.

We need more leaders like Obama. And we also need more people like the Large Dead Lizards and D.O. out there speaking truth to the masses and letting everyone know that Obama not only deserves this award--he deserves it by a mile! 

So everybody start tweetin’ and facebook updatin’! Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize and the future is looking brighter!

On Britney, Iggy and Proper Dating Etiquette

I read something interesting today about Liberal MP’s thinking about defecting from Iggy and possibly joining Harper’s conservatives. Combined with last week’s news that his Quebect Lt. was stepping down, this started me thinking about what this means in terms of Iggy failing to appropriately address the needs of different areas of the country. 

But then I realized that this is really about the Liberal Party as a whole and not just Iggy’s failings. In fact, I realized that the Liberal Party is just like Britney Spears. Let me explain.

Back in the late 90’s Britney was flying high. Everything she did was gold and people thought her reign would last forever. So did she. Remind you of anyone? Yes, the Liberals! They had their heyday in the 90’s and couldn’t seem to lose an election. They even convinced some people that they were Canada’s natural ruling party (as though that term even makes sense in a democracy). Mostly, it seems they managed to convince themselves of that ‘fact.’

Still not convinced? Don’t worry, the analogy goes deeper. What was Britney’s downfall?  Cheating on Justin of course. She decided to leave a great dancer with a future for a back up dancer with none--except his own personal ambition. That’s right, K-Fed was just using Britney to get rich, famous and make his own ‘music.’ 

Now the Liberals are famous for the Chretien-Martin rivalry but I’m going to suggest that this situation is more akin to Dion vs. Iggy. The Liberals started out dating Dion. He was a nerd but a nerd with a plan. Sure he was too humble to really force his will on others and make the plan come to fruition but at least he had a plan and wasn’t in it for himself. 

What did the Liberals do? Well, without so much as a Leadership race or even review they dumped Dion and started dating Iggy (He is hotter, I’ll give them that). The problem is Iggy is just as much of a nerd as Dion ever was except he doesn’t have a plan. Worse, he really is just driven by his own ambition (you can tell because he doesn’t have a plan for Canada just a plan for him becoming Prime Minister). Like K-fed, Iggy is using the Liberals to get famous and release a hip-hop album.... I mean, become Prime Minister.

What does this mean? Well, I think it means that a lot (not all, of course) of the Liberal MPs are backstabbing assholes and a nerd like Iggy should have known that they’d stab him in the back too.

I was about to sign off here but I just checked the ‘news’ sites again it seems those MPs that were threatening to defect have been given plum critics positions in the shadow cabinet. What a surprise. But this does remind me of Britney’s latest CD: Circus

G-Unit out!

What Lady Gaga and I Have in Common

All joking aside, there is a reason Jack Layton always wears an orange tie and Stephen Harper would never be caught dead in one. It’s the same reason Kanye West calls himself the Luis Vuitton Don and Lady Gaga works so hard to dress herself in a logical, sensical, and even enviable manner before every s how. S tyle matters  -- it’s  how you pr esent yours elf to the world and how the world knows you. 

Which brings me to the point of this post -- the colours, templates, fonts and general layout of this blog. Believe or not, people actually care. And they care a lot. And they disagree with it. All of it. One person claimed it made them throw up a little in their mouth (in my defence that could have been from the five little cats  running around this  pers on’s  home leaving little reminders of why I’m not a cat person everywhere). Another person said the spacing after the letter ‘s’ when it appears in the fifth line of a paragraph seems odd. Of course, I assured this person I would ‘get on it right away.’

So before I’m forced to make some changes let me explain the rationale behind my choices. First, the black background. I was told any other colour would better. Any. Even puce. Well, there is a reason for the black background -- Most people believe that a black background saves electricity. S ome people claim it’s  hard to read but s cience s ays  otherwis e (and us granolas love science right?) 

Another problem is the font. Well I chose a ‘sans-serif’ font because supposedly that’s the most readable on a ‘screen.’ 

Someone else commented that the banner at the top was 22 pixels too long. Fair enough, I’ll try to get that fixed.... 

But enough.... I don’t see Lady Gaga justifying her decisions. Heck I think she’s trying to start her own clothing line! What does everyone else think?

Announcing my Pollution Kills tour with Lady Gaga

The other night I was hanging out with my thirteen year old cousin when I remarked that Lady Gaga might not be that supremely great at singing, kinda looks mannish, and wears, let’s say, the most interesting costumes. Basically, my point was that I don’t get Lady Gaga and am perplexed by her popularity. So you can imagine my surprise when my cousin replied with something along the lines of: “omg, I know, everything she does is so kewl. Just everything. I don’t know how she does it.” At that point it became clear to me that the two of us would have a great deal of trouble discussing what is ‘cool’ because the word ‘cool’ has such vastly different meanings to each of us.

Why do I bring this up? Well, I had a very similar experience recently while reading Large Dead Lizards concerning the word science. Or should I type ‘science?’ I cheerfully started reading a recent post by one of the lizards with the title: The Sound of Settled Science which began with the line: The science on Global Warming is now, without a doubt, settled

Obviously, I knew I was in for some thoughtful, coherent and timely reading. But believe it or not, the ‘science’ they referred to supposedly demonstrated that climate change is not happening and, according to some commentators, lots of carbon in the atmosphere isn’t a long-term problem.

Like debating ‘cool’ with my cousin, I know I can’t constructively debate ‘science’ with this particular lizard (in fairness to my cousin, she does know cool better than me). Our definitions of the word are just too different. So I’m not going to try. The truth is, over the long haul, all science is wrong or, at least, still to be improved or refined -- in other words it is a work in progress. Who would have thought Newton could be wrong/incomplete -- but Einstein had something to say about the fundamental properties of the universe. And of course, no one understands quantum physics. 

Instead I’m going to pose a challenge to all those who doubt the climate is changing (and remember, Sarah Palin believes the climate is changing). Let’s agree that pollution harms human beings. So it’s bad to breathe polluted air and it’s bad to drink polluted water and it’s bad to touch polluted things. Therefore, we should have laws that reduce pollution. Surely, you’re still with me right lizard? In the past environmental laws have been very successful at reducing air and water pollution. I believe we even have laws restricting the level of lead in things in our homes. 

Now here is the challenge: Help pass environmental legislation that reduces pollution instead of just yelling “I don’t believe in climate change!” If you disagree with a particular ‘solution’/‘bill’ to this problem then propose another one that meets your standard of actually reducing pollution and improving human health. If you don’t do this you start to sound like all you really want to do is oppose any ‘liberal’ idea and I’ll start to get the impression that you don’t have any ideas of your own.

So... is pollution bad lizard? Can you acknowledge it’s harmful effects and propose some solutions?

p-p-p-p-pokerface! errr dammit! G-Unit!

Lady Gaga I tried, I really did

Hello all, my name is Curtis and I’m one of the g-unit bloggers. You might be wondering what ‘granola unit’ or ‘g-unit’ means... I honestly don’t know. Personally I voted for the title: Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi -- but you can’t win ‘em all.

Now I will freely admit that I was inspired to get involved in the Canadian political scene by an American -- Barack Obama -- but one of my goals is to keep my Obama references to a minimum in this blog. I often find, even for an Obama devotee like myself, that good blogs can really degenerate into an Obama lovefest if they aren’t careful. What he’s done is truly amazing but the world doesn’t need to hear your thoughts on every little thing he does. 

A good example of this is the formerly readable blog Large Dead Lizards. This is a blog that every now and then used to contain some pretty good insights into the Canadian political scene that has really just become an Obama lovefest. Like I said, I love the guy but the mainstream media gives him enough coverage in my opinion. Case in point, on October 4th LDL had 4 posts about Obama and a search for the word Obama on their front page delivered 22 matches. 22! Come on people, there is more to the world than The One!

Honestly, I prefer to read about someone’s UFC picks (especially when I know my picks are better: Go Silva!) rather than how much you love ObamaCare because Americans will finally be getting the good health care us canucks have had for 800 years (actually, I’m not a student of history so that number may be off by a little).

In fact most Canadians don’t seem to realize that Obama doesn’t even necesarily want a public health care system... but that’s too much Obama for now. I’m going to sign off.

puh-puh-puh-puh pokerface! err.... I mean, guh-guh-guh geeee-uuuunit!