Responsibly Framing What is “Irresponsible”

There is an interesting contradiction between what our Minister of the Environment is saying about what is “irresponsible” and the physical realities of our planets carrying capacity. The need for leadership in addressing global warming is at or approaching a tipping point. Meanwhile Prentice is calling it “irresponsible” to take the action our best science tells us is necessary to address climate change.

In fact many argue that our best science dictates that we need to re-think the very idea of economic growth as we know it. Does the report Prentice critiques even go far enough? Professor Bill Rees the founder of the ecological footprint concept spells out realities the limitations to growth in this youtube video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evJuzFARDJk

I believe Prentice’s comments are utterly irresponsible and in fact dangerous. Calling Canada taking action on climate change “irresponsible” is such warped framing that it makes your head spin. Canada’s economy, if based around the expansion of the tar sands is making us a profiteer of the climate crisis. If the world is addicted to oil then do we really want to be profiting from feeding this addiction? Is that what we call responsible?

Finally why is Prentice our Environment Minister at all given that he seems more focused on opposing environmental action?

Perhaps Prentice should be Minister of the Tar Sands?

clipped from www.theglobeandmail.com A landmark report on the economic impact of meeting climate-change targets has run into a storm of opposition, with Western provinces calling it divisive and the federal government saying it would spell economic disaster. Federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice said there is no way Western Canadians could absorb the deep economic hit projected by the report’s environmentalist authors – the David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute. “The conclusions [the report] draws are irresponsible,” said Mr. Prentice in an interview with The Globe and Mail from Kingston, where he was meeting with provincial and territorial environment ministers. Specifically, he said Canadians will not accept the report’s advocacy of emission targets for 2020 that would reduce Canada’s gross domestic product by 3 per cent nationally and 12 per cent in Alberta from business-as-usual estimates.

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