Government neglect and ignorance about climate change

June 1, 2011

Academics from universities throughout Canada are demanding immediate, informed and responsible action on climate change. Canada’s 41st Parliament convenes on June 2, following the complete omission during the current election process of any discussion about climate change. All pales against this gravest environmental and social justice threat ever faced by humanity.

Canada initially supported science-based recommendations in the 1990s. Since then Canada has worked to obstruct mandatory emission reductions and has in fact significantly hastened the threat of uncontrollable, runaway climate change through the tar sands industry. In addition to the direct emissions from dirty tar sands oil, the extraction process requires enormous quantities of carbon-based energy, deforestation destroys a major resource for absorbing atmospheric carbon, water needed for agriculture is irretrievably lost because of the polluting extraction process. Water supplies are not unlimited, and are growing scarcer with changing climate.

The open letter states: “It is especially grotesque that when life is endangered, death should be given priority: the military is entirely exempt under the Kyoto Protocol. The U.S. armed forces constitute the largest single consumer of oil in the world, using one quarter of the world’s jet fuel. In the first three weeks of “Shock and Awe” in Iraq, they burned 40 million gallons of fuel, as much as was used in all of World War I.”

See the open letter: http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?urgent11&151


For more information contact:
James Deutsch
M.D., Ph.D., Board Member
Science for Peace
Phone: 647-240-3608
Email: j.deutsch@utoronto.ca
Website: www.scienceforpeace.ca

Click here to view our Sources Listing:

Science for Peace

Topics:

• Alternatives to War
• Arms Reduction Strategies
• Arms Trade
• Biological & Chemical Weapons
• Conflict Resolution Strategies
• Defence Alternatives
• Defence & Conflict Resolution
• Defence Policy
• Development & Peace
• Economic Conversion
• Environment/International
• Environmental Conflict Resolution
• Environmental Ethics
• Environmental Health
• Environmental Research
• Global Climate Change
• International Affairs/Relations
• International Research
• International Security
• Militarism
• Militarism & Democracy
• Militarization of Space
• Military Exports
• Military Funding
• Military Industry
• Military Psychology
• Monitoring Technologies
• North-South Relations
• Nuclear Energy
• Nuclear Physics
• Nuclear Warfare
• Nuclear Waste
• Nuclear Weapons Testing Ban
• Nuclear Winter
• Peace
• Peace Education
• Peace Research
• Peace Studies
• Psychology of Peace
• Refugees
• Satellite/Airborne Remote Sensing
• Science Education
• Science Policy
• Science/Technology & Society
• Terrorism
• Treaties
• Treaty Monitoring
• War
• War/Laws of
• Weapons