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(((stereofect)))
Joined: 09/02/01
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 1333
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Yup... just Flick Off!
That's the latest campaign by the Ontario Government ($500,000 of taxpayers money) to get people to turn off lights that aren't being used in order to conserve energy and raise awareness of the global warming myth... erm... crisis.
See:
http://www.flickoff.org
For all the fun wow details.
So far the people (read: taxpayors) of Ontario are not warming (pun intended) to the idea. The overall feel is that the campaign is in poor taste and the timing is bad.
I am left kinda  over this one.
Oh, well....
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” Albert Einstein
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Kylo
Joined: 02/16/05
Location: San Francisco
Posts: 787
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At least there's an action being taken ya know. 
Always the toughest step.
"Energizer bunny arrested- charged with battery."
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(((stereofect)))
Joined: 09/02/01
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 1333
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Firstly (and you had to know this was coming)... the message is aimed at a sector of society that doesn't pay taxes. That, my friend, pisses of tax-payors in this country.
Second:
A lot, and I mean a lot, of hard working, tax paying citizens have alrady bought into and practise daily, the "energy saving" techniques they've been taught. Flourescent bulbs, evergy efficient homes, less heat consumption in the winter, turning down the temp on air-conditioners in the summer... all resulting in big savings for the consumers and less strain on the power grid. But it comes with a catch. The catch being that local energy suppliers are now crying that they need to raise electricity rates in order to recoup the revenue they've lost from everyone using less electricity.
Flick off they say?
Flick you I say!!
It should be noted:
The McGuinty Liberals (or fiberals as they are known as here) have broken every promise they made when asking to be re-elected in 2003. What's even worse is Dwight Duncan, Ontario's energy minister, says Ontario's Liberal government won't install scrubbers (as promised) on the smokestacks of its coal-fired electricity generating stations -- among Canada's, and North America's, worst emitters of air pollution and greenhouse gases.
Why?
Because... as Duncan put it: "We're not going to spend $1.6 billion on technology that doesn't help climate change. That's just dumb."
Actually, what he said is dumb. It's so dumb that whenever anyone looks up "dumb" in the dictionary, there should be a picture of him.
By announcing that Ontario will do nothing to clean up the airborne pollutants pouring out of its coal-fired generating stations, Duncan (and ultimately Premier Dalton McGuinty) have decided not to fight smog -- which is choking the life out of thousands of Canadians every year -- particularly seniors and children with respiratory diseases like bronchitis and asthma.
Their reason? Because the scrubbers won't remove greenhouse gases that are a byproduct of burning coal and linked to global warming. The reason the scrubbers don't do this is the technology doesn't exist.
So, Duncan isn't going to address a problem -- pollution and smog -- we have the technology to deal with and we know is killing people, because it won't also address greenhouse gases and global warming -- which, if the science is right, might kill people in future because of increasingly violent weather patterns.
This is what happens when the ongoing hysteria over global warming links up with foolish, trendy politicians.
Global warming has become the elephant in the room that is sucking out the oxygen -- literally -- from every other major environmental concern, especially smog.
In 2003, when McGuinty was running for election, the only thing he talked about regarding Ontario's coal-fired energy plants was air pollution. Not a word about global warming.
Among the 231 election promises he made was this: "Air we can breathe. No more coal. We will shut down Ontario's coal-burning plants by 2007 and replace them with cleaner sources of energy."
Since then, McGuinty has broken and rebroken this promise, pushing back the date (because Ontario needs the electricity these plants generate) to 2014. Duncan argues it will take five years to install the scrubbers and by then the plants will be about to close -- assuming the Liberals are still in office and still intending to keep a promise they've broken twice.
What's clear is that in 2003, their promise to close these plants referred only to pollution. That was the crisis. There was nothing about greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which isn't a pollutant.
Here's McGuinty in 2003: "Our five coal-burning plants (four are still open, including the largest) are the worst polluters in Ontario. They create smog and threaten our health. Asthma is the most common reason for admitting children to Ontario hospitals. Polluted air is a major cause of this epidemic. We think our most vulnerable citizens -- seniors and children -- should be able to go outside in summer without consulting a smog index."
That was then, this is now. Now, McGuinty is transfixed by global warming and we can all choke on it.
And they want us to "flick off!"??
This continuing political obsession with how planting a few trees, hanging your laundry outside and switching to flourescent bulbs will save us from ourselves is ridiculous. I refuse to believe their fear mongering and will only believe they are truely interested in change when they say they will ban air travel... completely and absolutely, 'cause it's the real culprit here (airplanes dump more CO2 directly into the upper atmosphere than anything else).
Come October (when the next provincial election takes place) the electorate will be telling the McGuinty government to flick off!!
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” Albert Einstein
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