Ms. May's Greenshifting.

InjectingChlorophyllIntoThe
TarsandsVille


To the best of my knowledge no one has ever confused the Green's new war room guy Warren Kinsella with Otto von Bismark.

However, someone sure as heck has Ms. May talking out loud about the art of the possible in raw political terms.

Mia Rabson had that story recently in the Canadian Press. Here is her lede:

Federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May would work with any other party in a minority Parliament with a serious climate plan—and even thinks she could influence Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives to drop their crusade against carbon pricing “if it means the difference for them between governing or spending more time in opposition”....


Thing is, Ms. May's own attempts to be pragmatic and serve up something electorally palatable, platform-wise, has caused a bit of a rift in her own party.

And it turns out that the fuss is about something pretty darned significant, namely whether or not to keep all that ethical ooze flowing from the Alberta's tarsands.

Alex Ballingall had that story last week in the Star:

The federal Green Party’s openness to continued activity in Alberta’s oilsands has created a rift with some supporters — including party leaders in two provinces — who want to rapidly shut down the industry that employs tens of thousands of people and is responsible for a large portion of Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions...

{snip}

May defended her party’s plan as a “hugely ambitious” blueprint for political action to slash emissions in accordance with what the international community of climate scientists has called for. The plan seeks all-party co-operation to tackle the crisis of climate change and rapidly reduce emissions by 60 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 — double the government’s current target — and then to net zero by 2050.

The plan would also halt all new development of fossil fuels in Canada — including multi-billion dollar natural gas export projects — and stop all oil and gas imports from other countries. In their place, May proposes that Canada use energy that’s already produced here for domestic needs while the country shifts to 100 per cent renewable energy. By 2050, the Greens would ensure all bitumen produced in Canada would be used only for the petrochemical industry, but May said the country will need to stop burning fossil fuels “well before” that...


Hmmmm....

Interestingly, one thing Ms. May did not mention is the considerable cost, in climate warming terms, that it takes to keep all that ooze flowing:

...Emissions from extraction in the oilsands have climbed 158 per cent since 2005, and the oil and gas industry was responsible for 27 per cent of total emissions in Canada in 2017, according to the federal government’s national tally submitted this year to the United Nations...


Imagine that!



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Why do some actually think of that ooze as 'ethical'?....Well, you can thank the pre-Rebel Glimmer Twins, Mr. Levant and Mr. Marshall for that one...


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