The United Nations Climate Change Conference has been touted as the “last best chance” to address accelerating climate change and the issues it poses to the future of humans and of all life on Planet Earth.
From October 31 until November 12, 2021, Environment Ministers and leaders from over 200 countries will meet in Glasgow, Scotland to debate, discuss, sabotage and support the plan of action that will attempt to address the climate emergency that was announced in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization. 33 years later …
COP 26, the 26th meeting of the Council of Parties, the countries who are signatories to the UN Framework on Climate Change, comes 6 years after their historic Paris Agreement in 2015. Unfortunately, only Morocco and Gambia have been able to meet the targets set at COP 25. Why?
There are several reasons. First, apathy and misinformation. Apathy from the general public who are failing to put enough pressure on their governments to fulfil their global commitments. This apathy is generally caused by a comfortable consumer society in the industrialized nations of the world, and the disinformation is developed by the ultra rich at the the expense of everyone else.
If you want to understand why there has been no significant progress by the wealthiest nations on Earth, then read Jane Mayer’s “Dark Money” and our own Chrystia Freeland’s “Plutocrats: the rise of the new global super-rich and the fall of everyone else” Both books document the impact of the 0.1% of the 1% on political and corporate decisions affecting everything from education to the environment. Mayer looks specifically at the insidious influence in the USA of the Koch brother’s cabal, including their far right media mouthpieces, while Freeland gives us a global perspective on the power of nationless oligarchs getting richer in every corner of the world.
Even before COP 26 began, it was revealed that oil producing countries like Saudi Arabia and coal exporters like Australia have been lobbying to water down commitments to move away from fossil fuel use towards renewable energy. Self-interest and greed are the operating principles of the Plutocrats. Whoever dies with the most toys, and the most tax-sheltering “philanthropic” Foundations wins.
If COP 26 is our “last best chance” as a global community to address the impacts of accelerating climate change, then exposing the tax cheating and lobbying impact of the ultra rich is critical to our success. Until the bullies are confronted, their insatiable greed exposed and reduced, we all will be dancing on the strings of the ultra-rich puppet masters to the tune of a plutocratic fiddler on the roof.
The way I see it.
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Skid Crease, Caledon
Canada just had a federal election. I live in Caledon, a riding so safe for the Conservatives that the locals claim you could run a dead cow as the CPC candidate and it would win. The Conservative MP recently re-elected in my riding of Dufferin-Caledon is Kyle Seeback. This parliamentarian occasionally pens a column in the local paper entitled “Report from Ottawa” which one would suppose would be filled with vital information for the riding’s citizens. Alas, the column would better be titled “Raving Partisan Rants from Ottawa” filled with plenty of wistful speculations and accusations but nothing of substance.
It is now Friday, the morning after the English version of the last two Leader’s Debates in the Canadian federal election. The first, held in French, was on more global topics that ranged from international affairs to cultural identity, and produced no clear winner. However, Mr. O’Toole was on the defensive from the outset for his sly release of the CPC platform funding just hours before the debate.
The Bolton Protest of August 27, 2021 continues to make the news as the federal election campaign criss-crosses Canada. The obscene, angry, anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, pro-vapers, pro-smokers. pro-gun, pro-oil pipeline protesters, pro freedom to be selfish continued to disrupt almost every campaign stop made by the Prime Minister of Canada. And yesterday, September 6/21 in London Ontario, a gravel throwing goon assaulted the Prime Minister as he got on his campaign bus.
For example, if we place a People’s Party of Canada sign it lets our neighbours know that we are on the extreme alt-right of the spectrum where the leader of that party tends to racism, sexism, intolerance, and we are basically registering a protest vote because the Maxime will get the minimum.
On the other hand, if we display a GREEN party sign on our lawn, we probably tend to care for the environment and have a respect for diversity, but again a protest vote after the party ate itself alive in public. I have seen one of each of those signs in my neighbourhood.
Sadly, nary a single orange NDP sign, which would however indicate that we had a strong sense of social justice and had bought into the myth that the ghost of Jack Layton, who played footsies with Stephen Harper for years, will save the party from anything but a mid-field finish.
Which brings us to the two parties that will likely battle it out to form another minority government. If you are displaying a Liberal red sign on your lawn, you are content that the current government has brought us safely through the first few waves of this pandemic. We have emerged with a stable recovering economy and strong global health rating. And despite the opposition parties trying their best to manufacture scandals and create crises, it turned out to be all smear smoke and no fire.
Finally, if you are displaying a bluish Conservative Party of Canada sign on your lawn, you probably tend to more right-wing views on things like tax-breaks for the rich, building pipelines for fossil fools, the Right to Choose for vaccinations but not for women, the right to own automatic assault rifles, and a suddenly found respect for drug addicts, all things indigenous, and military veterans. Better late than never. Sorry, my bias is showing here.