canadensis

The same questions should be asked of the Global Warming scientists that recieve grant money. They have interests to look after as well. Actually when you ponder the question Smitty we are all connected to the oil, gas, and/or energy industries is some regard, even moreso residing in Alberta. Some people choose to fill the trough and others choose to feed from it. Tell me where the difference lies?

The bottom line is the more money you have, the greater your net worth, the bigger your carbon footprint is; there is no way around this fact. Same goes for countries based on their per capita GDP. In Calgary the people with the smallest carbon footprint are the homeless (except of course those in the morgue), and those with the largest footprint live in Mt Royal, and all varying degrees in between. Sorry, but just because mama drives a hybrid and fills the blue box every week does not change this either. Personal wealth is what Copenhagen has the potential of attacking, in a BIG way!

Thanks for dummin' it down for me Smitty. I would think that near 100 years of fire supression would be a big part of the population explosion, but that is just my uneducated hunch..

And your refusal to accept a common sense approach to problem solving is both evident and self-serving.

It will never be cold enough to kill the Mountain Pine Beetle. If it was, then what would all of the Scientists and Biologists do that are currently studying how to stop them? There certainly aren't enough Grizzly bears or Bull trout for them all to count..

Alot of people, including on this board think that the small things do make a difference. I find it tough to swallow that the leaders cannot lead by example? What about a shuttle bus or some kind of transportation that makes a statement about what they want to achieve. People this should be a wake up call about what Global Summits such as Copenhagen are all about.

It takes 1200 limos to save the world Copenhagen climate summit: 1,200 limos, 140 private planes and caviar wedges Copenhagen is preparing for the climate change summit that will produce as much carbon dioxide as a town the size of Middlesbrough. On a normal day, Majken Friss Jorgensen, managing director of Copenhagen's biggest limousine company, says her firm has twelve vehicles on the road. During the "summit to save the world", which opens here tomorrow, she will have 200. "We thought they were not going to have many cars, due to it being a climate convention," she says. "But it seems that somebody last week looked at the weather report." Capitalism can lead the way on climate changeMs Jorgensen reckons that between her and her rivals the total number of limos in Copenhagen next week has already broken the 1,200 barrier. The French alone rang up on Thursday and ordered another 42. "We haven't got enough limos in the country to fulfil the demand," she says. "We're having to drive them in hundreds of miles from Germany and Sweden." And the total number of electric cars or hybrids among that number? "Five," says Ms Jorgensen. "The government has some alternative fuel cars but the rest will be petrol or diesel. We don't have any hybrids in Denmark, unfortunately, due to the extreme taxes on those cars. It makes no sense at all, but it's very Danish." The airport says it is expecting up to 140 extra private jets during the peak period alone, so far over its capacity that the planes will have to fly off to regional airports – or to Sweden – to park, returning to Copenhagen to pick up their VIP passengers. As well 15,000 delegates and officials, 5,000 journalists and 98 world leaders, the Danish capital will be blessed by the presence of Leonardo DiCaprio, Daryl Hannah, Helena Christensen, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Prince Charles. A Republican US senator, Jim Inhofe, is jetting in at the head of an anti-climate-change "Truth Squad." The top hotels – all fully booked at £650 a night – are readying their Climate Convention menus of (no doubt sustainable) scallops, foie gras and sculpted caviar wedges. At the takeaway pizza end of the spectrum, Copenhagen's clean pavements are starting to fill with slightly less well-scrubbed protesters from all over Europe. In the city's famous anarchist commune of Christiania this morning, among the hash dealers and heavily-graffitied walls, they started their two-week "Climate Bottom Meeting," complete with a "storytelling yurt" and a "funeral of the day" for various corrupt, "heatist" concepts such as "economic growth". The Danish government is cunningly spending a million kroner (£120,000) to give the protesters KlimaForum, a "parallel conference" in the magnificent DGI-byen sports centre. The hope, officials admit, is that they will work off their youthful energies on the climbing wall, state-of-the-art swimming pools and bowling alley, Just in case, however, Denmark has taken delivery of its first-ever water-cannon – one of the newspapers is running a competition to suggest names for it – plus sweeping new police powers. The authorities have been proudly showing us their new temporary prison, 360 cages in a disused brewery, housing 4,000 detainees. And this being Scandinavia, even the prostitutes are doing their bit for the planet. Outraged by a council postcard urging delegates to "be sustainable, don't buy sex," the local sex workers' union – they have unions here – has announced that all its 1,400 members will give free intercourse to anyone with a climate conference delegate's pass. The term "carbon dating" just took on an entirely new meaning. At least the sex will be C02-neutral. According to the organisers, the eleven-day conference, including the participants' travel, will create a total of 41,000 tonnes of "carbon dioxide equivalent", equal to the amount produced over the same period by a city the size of Middlesbrough. The temptation, then, is to dismiss the whole thing as a ridiculous circus. Many of the participants do not really need to be here. And far from "saving the world," the world's leaders have already agreed that this conference will not produce any kind of binding deal, merely an interim statement of intent. Instead of swift and modest reductions in carbon – say, two per cent a year, starting next year – for which they could possibly be held accountable, the politicians will bandy around grandiose targets of 80-per-cent-plus by 2050, by which time few of the leaders at Copenhagen will even be alive, let alone still in office. Even if they had agreed anything binding, past experience suggests that the participants would not, in fact, feel bound by it. Most countries – Britain excepted – are on course to break the modest pledges they made at the last major climate summit, in Kyoto. And as the delegates meet, they do so under a shadow. For the first time, not just the methods but the entire purpose of the climate change agenda is being questioned. Leaked emails showing key scientists conspiring to fix data that undermined their case have boosted the sceptic lobby. Australia has voted down climate change laws. Last week's unusually strident attack by the Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, on climate change "saboteurs" reflected real fear in government that momentum is slipping away from the cause. In Copenhagen there was a humbler note among some delegates. "If we fail, one reason could be our overconfidence," said Simron Jit Singh, of the Institute of Social Ecology. "Because we are here, talking in a group of people who probably agree with each other, we can be blinded to the challenges of the other side. We feel that we are the good guys, the selfless saviours, and they are the bad guys." As Mr Singh suggests, the interesting question is perhaps not whether the climate changers have got the science right – they probably have – but whether they have got the pitch right. Some campaigners' apocalyptic predictions and religious righteousness – funeral ceremonies for economic growth and the like – can be alienating, and may help explain why the wider public does not seem to share the urgency felt by those in Copenhagen this week. In a rather perceptive recent comment, Mr Miliband said it was vital to give people a positive vision of a low-carbon future. "If Martin Luther King had come along and said 'I have a nightmare,' people would not have followed him," he said. Over the next two weeks, that positive vision may come not from the overheated rhetoric in the conference centre, but from Copenhagen itself. Limos apart, it is a city filled entirely with bicycles, stuffed with retrofitted, energy-efficient old buildings, and seems to embody the civilised pleasures of low-carbon living without any of the puritanism so beloved of British greens. And inside the hall, not everything is looking bad. Even the sudden rush for limos may be a good sign. It means that more top people are coming, which means they scent something could be going right here. The US, which rejected Kyoto, is on board now, albeit too tentatively for most delegates. President Obama's decision to stay later in Copenhagen may signal some sort of agreement between America and China: a necessity for any real global action, and something that could be presented as a "victory" for the talks. The hot air this week will be massive, the whole proceedings eminently mockable, but it would be far too early to write off this conference as a failure

Why the apology? Some of the best eats are cooked over a campfire.

I once knew a strict vegetarian girl who when she had a few drinks loved an A&W Teen burger..

Hey look on the brightside; Today I will guarantee you will have the whole river to yourself!

You missed step #5; 5. Once all ingredients are ready, toss the Tofu in the trash; throw the Ribeye on a grill heated to 500c and enjoy!

I was at my local Safeway yesterday and I noticed "vegetarian chicken wings" . There was also hot dogs, meat balls, chicken strips, and sausages, all meatless. They were in a cooler in the Fruit and Vegetable area BTW.. Why is packaged vegetarian cuisine made to look, smell and taste like meat? Makes about as much sense to me as hot dogs in shapes as carrots and celery. Seems even the vegetarians need a meat fix.

You mean that these discussions/debates/arguments on the internets don't accomplish anyhting? Say it isn't so...

I get a kick out of all the pothead stage names. I could just imagine all these "potheads" fishing together. They probably get out there, the bong gets filled then they sit on shore eating dorito's; just like a Cheech and Chong movie! I wonder if their parents and employers know how they like to be identified with the herb? Gay pokey thing here;--------------->

Refugia..

There is also a book called "How to make the data match your conclusion"; maybe the same author? But really Copenhagen is not about any data, CO2, global warming, etc.. Think of it as Kyoto's big brother on steroids.

Great commentary from someone who lives in a big developed hole in the forest- well the size of Banff in a federally protected "Park", smack dab in the center of one of North Americas most important wildlife corridors, and a world heritage site.... Nothing like elbowing out a Grizzly bear and a cougar because of where you choose to reside, eh? Since you are looking up words in the dictionary you should look up necessity and purpose..

Well that settles it then...

They do not start driving on the ice hiways until it is deemed safe and then there are daily inspections, closures because of ice and weather contitions are common. This is a bit different from Bubba and his buddies with a case of beer and the power auger driving around on a frozen a resevoir that has water fluctuation causing unsafe ice. Trucks breaking through early in the season and late in the season are common. A simple solution is to park on shore, pull a sled with your gear and tent onto the ice; cheap foolproof insurance. So to answer your question, no I do not think it is too harsh. Talk to rural EMT and get their point of view on it. Ice fishing deaths from trucks breaking through the ice are no accident, 100% preventable.

The same tactic the global warming advocates have been using all along; fear and gross exaggeration based on a percieved outcome that they are trying to match data to.

It's a political summit where they are using the data supplied from the global warming scientists. some of these organizations think they are Robin Hood.

Sadly the people who drive trucks and farm implements on the ice probably have difficulty reading and seem to lack total common sense. I know one individual that phoned his insurance company to make sure that he was covered insurance wise if his truck broke through the ice? He was an avid ice fisherman. Sometimes you cannot stop natural selection....

I get a kick out of people who say that athletes are not worth what they make? Tiger Woods, or any other athlete making 10's of millions off endorsements are certainly earning their money, just think of them as a salesman on commission. They are simply getting a % of what they sell. And as far as the money he makes in tournaments, rellly no different. sponsors put up the prize money and he earns it by winning the tournament. There must be a reason that the sponsors are putting up the prize money, it sells product. I bet if you were capable of pulling off something like this you would not be griping about it.

This video shows how collectively desperate the Global Warming advocates are. Good way to start an unbiased scientific conference...?? I wonder what the warlord leaders of some of the Rogue African countries will do with all the transfer payments they recieve, all under the guise of "fighting climate change" ??

Kyle, Hats off to you and what you are teaching! Grade 9 is the perfect age (seems to me) to get them interested in this sort of thing. Well done!