G8 Environment Ministers Meet

This is headline - not my words! "Strong will" means next to nothing unfortunately.

G8 Ministers Pledge ‘Strong Will’ on Climate Amid Doubts
KOBE, Japan - Environment ministers from the world’s top industrial powers called Monday for more effort to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, but little headway was seen in setting more immediate goals....

But to the dismay of some the talks in Kobe did not signal a direction on the more immediate goal — coming up with commitments on slashing greenhouse gas emissions once the Kyoto Protocol’s obligations expire in 2012...

UN scientists who shared last year’s Nobel Peace Prize warned that unless human-made climate change is halted, the world risks a growing number of natural disasters and droughts, putting millions of people at risk and threatening the extinction of some animals and plants.

One might wonder where Canada stands on the critical issue of immediate targets. I checked the Environment Canada website and google news and I'm still looking. I imagine we're right where Bush wants us to be. Stalling.

Remember this guy? He was Mike Harris' poor-basher in chief. This is a bio I wrote a on my blog a couple of years ago about the man who is now Minister of the Environment - John Baird.

Reaching back into memory lane, how many people can forget this story?

When the mother of a severely disabled five-year-old child was ejected from the legislature in 1995 for protesting the Harris government's cutbacks, Baird shouted "She's an OPSEU [Ontario Public Service Employees Union] member" as many as three times. Some considered this to be a cavalier insult, and his seatmate Chris Stockwell later recalled that he told Baird to "shut the fuck up" after the last such occurrence.