The Globe and Mail

Head stuck in the sands

With Stephen Harper’s preferred method of communicating being the well co-ordinated “photo op,” how appropriate it would be for the Conservatives to stage his arrival at the climate talks aboard a mammoth tar sands three-storey tall, 400-tonne dump truck (The World Is Coming To Copenhagen But Canada Is Coming With A Tarred Image – Dec. 7).

Perhaps it could be chauffeured by John Baird? He could double park outside the climate-talk venue while Mr. Harper dashes in to make his standard speech demanding relaxed regulations for countries unwilling to diversify from a carbon-fuel-based economy.

Kelly Rivard, Vancouver

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I’m 26. I recall being 6, in 1989, and hearing teachers and speakers tell us climate change would cause strange weather, horrible storms and that the ice caps would melt.

It is pathetic that Canada, one of world’s richest nations, is also one of the greediest and most selfish. Our elected officials are championing the tar sands and, in doing so, will cause the world’s poorest people to suffer even more as drought, plagues and storms worsen. For decades, Canada has been in a position to be proactive on climate change. Instead, we have chosen denial.

To say we have stuck our heads in the sand is a perfect way to describe Canada’s justification of our tar-sands development.

Christina Bouchard, Toronto

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An independent study published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests pollution from the tar sands is nearly five times greater than the industry admits – the mind-boggling toxic equivalent of a major oil spill every year (Oil Sands Pollution Much Higher Than Official Estimates: Study – online, Dec. 7).

I am so ashamed to be Canadian. So, so, so ashamed.

Janet Raymond, Calgary

What’s really worrying

Thomas Homer-Dixon and Andrew Weaver’s intemperate article skirts around the basic disagreement that the most qualified of the skeptics have with the central statement of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Responding To The Skeptics – Dec. 7). The statement is this: “Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” The skeptics’ concern is that the scientific basis for this statement is thin, fragile and highly questionable.

Overwhelming preoccupation with climate has displaced much more substantial and urgent concerns about fossil-fuel use. Two of these concerns are its contribution to poor air quality in urban areas and motorized transportation’s almost complete dependence on a limited resource: petroleum.

If the ill-founded Copenhagen meeting inadvertently addresses local pollution, oil dependence and several other pressing issues, we should all be pleased. If the talks collapse because of the shaky foundation of the IPCC’s central statement and other reasons, thereby reducing humanity’s appetite for addressing well-founded issues related to fossil fuel use, the IPCC should take much of the blame.

Richard Gilbert, expert reviewer, transportation section, IPCC’s 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, Toronto

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As a scientist, I have never doubted that the carefully contrived natural balance developed over millenniums is being seriously impacted by the ceaseless activity of humans. Exponential population growth is leading to an impasse and each individual’s footprint, be it in carbon or waste, is depleting the delicate buffers of nature’s systems. Watching the debate, I am reminded of the fatal human flaw, the power of denial.

Carolyn Inch, Ottawa

The Richard Colvin affair

Peter MacKay’s spokesman, Dan Dugas, states that Mr. MacKay “has said what he has said based on the advice of generals and senior officials in the department” (Proof Of Detainee Abuse Exists Despite Mackay's Denials – front page, Dec. 7).

No doubt the generals and senior officials were advised by junior officers, who were advised by … Woe betide the poor sucker who, in the end, gets fingered for hiding the truth.

Jaggi Tandan, Hamilton, Ont.

Credit Google, but not so much

Margaret Wente correctly describes how the Internet has been responsible for what economist Joseph Schumpeter calls creative destruction – the process by which innovation can bring long-term prosperity and social good, but in so doing can disrupt existing business models (Magic Box ... Pandora’s Box – Dec. 5). However, she wrongly conflates Google with the entire Internet. Google is only a part of the Internet.

Due to the incredible innovation, competition and consumer choice made possible by the Internet, Canadians are shaping our cultural and business landscape in ways never before possible. It’s not Google or any single company doing this but Canadians broadly.

Canadians are using Internet tools such as Google, Wikipedia, Facebook, Flickr, Skype and many other useful applications and fun stuff from Canada and around the world. The open Internet makes this possible.

At Google, we celebrate this change but we’re not hubristic enough to claim credit for it.

Jacob Glick, Canada Policy Counsel, Google Inc.

Problem’s cause is no solution

Your editorial State Care Is No Home (Dec. 4) suggests a solution to aboriginal overrepresentation in the child-welfare system is to return to a system of non-aboriginal adoption of aboriginal children, based on the unsupported assertion that “adoption is different in many respects today” and non-aboriginal Canadians are better equipped to maintain dual cultural identities than during the disastrous sixties scoop.

This suggestion that non-aboriginals would be better able to care for aboriginal children than their own communities is ignorant of the current climate in aboriginal communities and culturally insensitive.

More aboriginal children are in state care now than at the height of residential schools; the majority have been removed based on a Eurocentric standard of neglect, which essentially means poverty. Instead of advocating a system that would remove native children from their cultural heritage, why not call for greater support to aboriginal communities to alleviate the poverty that creates this situation? Many of the difficulties within aboriginal communities stem from cultural extinguishment and forced assimilation by the government; it is hard to see how this can be touted as a solution when it is the cause of the problem.

Heather Gough, Toronto

It’s a pity, but it’s not unfair

Lysiane Gagnon hits the right note in calling the “shameful public trial” against Tiger Woods “a pity” (On The Fairway Of Life, The Culture Of Voyeurism Sandbags A Gentleman Golfer – Dec. 7). But in saying “far from seeking the spotlight, he jealously guarded his private life,” Ms. Gagnon misses the point: By accepting millions of dollars in endorsements, Mr. Woods very much sought the spotlight – not to feed his ego or achieve further celebrity per se, but to propagate a finely honed image intimately tied to the products he’s endorsing.

If Mr. Woods wants to show his mug on ads for Nike, American Express and Gillette while things are going well, then it’s only reasonable to see his mug on CNN, CBS and CBC once things start going badly. It may be a pity, but is it really so unfair?

Scott Poole, Toronto

What are you calling ugly?

Although Marcus Gee wants to reduce the push to save the hangars at former CFB Downsview to the fetishism of misguided “heritage buffs,” he is missing the bigger conservation picture (Some Reminders Of The Past Don’t Deserve To Be Rescued – Dec. 3). The move to grind these structurally sound, historic hangars into landfill is symptomatic of our throwaway society. If built today, the amount of energy expended would be equivalent to more than eight million litres of gasoline. With the Copenhagen talks just getting under way, Mr. Gee would do well to connect the dots. Discussions on reducing greenhouse gas emissions can’t happen in a vacuum.

The hangars’ value has far more to do with their cultural and environmental qualities than their age. Whether in Paris or Toronto, the growth of the aviation industry was a mid-20th century phenomenon.

The rehabilitation of former industrial sites like Wychwood Barns, the Distillery District and the Don Valley brickworks required the vision, commitment and determination of developers, elected officials and community leaders who persevered against those who saw only “unremarkable” and “ugly” structures.

Natalie Bull, executive director, Heritage Canada Foundation

Gender math

Worries that campuses will become “too female,” deans struggling to find ways to “better balance” programs in favour of men, male vet school students describing the high female-to-male ratio as having “some obvious advantages” (Who’s In The Know: Women Surge, Men Sink In Education’s Gender Gap – Dec. 7). So much for the women’s movement.

Andrea Jakaitis, Toronto

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How to get more men to go to university? What part of being in a room with 60 per cent to 80 per cent women is hard to understand? If men can’t do that math, we really don’t belong in higher education.

Peter Merrison, West Vancouver