Blood Sucking Industry Bastards
So our premier has signed up with the Kyoto Accord to fight air pollution, some aren’t as happy. To them I say “so what?” Did you really expect the industry that makes it’s money off of pollution to really sit back and rejoice at this? No, of course not. They say that the technology is “unavailable”. Bullshit I say. Yes, dear automakers, you’ll have to speed up production and maybe even start to act as if the hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles (which have been around in one form or another for ages, though not in the grasp of the consumer until recently (hmm…. I wonder why?)) are actual things you can sell. I wonder if maybe the oil industry and the auto-makers are in some sort of agreement, a “cartel” of sorts?
Could getting 80mpg in a hybrid vehicle be a detterant to those who would prefer that we get 20mpg in the latest and greatest SUVs? I saw something on TV a bit ago that said they were making huge progress with SUV fuel economy and you could expect to see an efficiency increase of 1.5mpg in the coming years.
These are the people that say that the economy will suffer. Again, I say “too bloody bad”. Big businesses will report losses, the stock market will crash, boo-friggin’-hoo. This is about (or at least should be about) clean air. Not having to wear a respirator just to go outside. Kids with asthma not being told to stay inside on particularily smoggy days. Is being able to breath not as important as making money, or corporate profits? I guess not. Of course, these are the same people that find it more economically sensible to pay the tax for dumping toxic waste than to not dump it. The same people who felt that it made more economic sense not to tell people that their tires were defective but to pay out the life insurance and lawsuites. Makes sense to me. Lets let some people die because it’s cheaper to pay their families off than recall a bunch of tires.
So anyway, my point to the people who say that the Kyoto accord will be bad for business, or that instead of spending money on saving the environment, we can educate the world, well, what good is education or health care if the air isn’t fit to breath. I’d personally have no problem taking a little economic hardship if it meant that my children, and their childrens children have the same green grass and blue sky that I, my father, and my grandfathers enjoyed.
I totally see your point Derf, and if it was you and me doing it, I say sign away, we’ll figure it out. But we’re talking about stupid politions here. They’ll totally screw it up. Besides, if we sign and the yanks don’t (which appears the way it’s going) all that’s going to happen is all our business/industry will move south and make their polution there. We need governments with balls who will stand up to large corperations and tell them to straighten up! I swear I don’t understand how these CEO’s of major polution making companies live with themselves….
In the mean time, little people like you and I need to recycle everywhere we can and drive as little as possible. I have kids…. I want there to be a world for them.
(mr. comment boy here again)
Me thinks you’re over simplifing kyoto a tad here. One of the big concerns is that Cretian (mis-spelled on purpose) will sign the document without having given an ounce of thought into HOW Canada will be able to meet these goals. Will it mean that everyone will have to buy a new car since the old cars polutute too much? By doing that we’ve just punished poor people. The ideals of Kyoto are what we need to strive for. We need to stop using fossil fuel as much as we can. In the last 10 years, there has been like zero work seemingly done on Solar power… why is that? To me, it’s clearly the best power source available, but it’s not around for us to use cheaply. I fear that the oil companies have a hand in that.
Ideals of Kyoto, yes…. sign Kyoto without thinking about how to achive it?… No.
Problems to overcome? yes. Potential benifts? Lots. I believe there are many opportinities to be had in the coming years as we work towards it. My problem about waiting for better ideas is it will be a least another 10 years before we start making any improvments. By then it may be too late. š
Good points raskal. Without the US it makes things a lot harder.:( WEll, I’ll continue to recycle, driving my 50mpg car. No kids (yet?), but if we do, I want the same for them. As for CEO’s., see Arc’s link about firestone tires… Makes me :mad:.