Nowhere to be Seen

So you're a student. You graduate in April. You're drowning in student debt and unemployment in your age group is at a 30 year high. You're healthy if you don't count that you breath smog all day and everything you consume from laundry detergent to lunch is full of chemicals. You live on ramen noodles and no-name Kraft dinner to stay within your budget while our government racks up a record deficit.

You may become frustrated. You may ask yourself, why do we talk more about pensions than education? Why are they saying the recession is over when people my age can't find work? Why does our health-care debate revolve around drug benefits and end of life care and not prevention and healthy living? And why is my government so eager to mortgage my future for the comforts of today?

The answer to these questions is that you don't vote. Or if you do, your friends don't or at least not enough of them. When our politicians pander to demographics they pander to the demographics who will help them win. That's not us.

In the last election only about 37% of eligible voters under 25 bothered to show up at the polls. Compare that to your grandparents at 68%, or your parents at 60%.

They vote, so they impact election results. Politicians pay attention to them. For the most part we get ignored and it's our fault. We need to either start voting or start getting used to short end of the stick.

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