Tuesday in brief

Lots of items revolving around energy and climate change in today’s Globe and Mail to ponder.

But first, the breaking news item of the day: Garth Turner is to hold a press conference this morning, promising to reveal disturbing details about a certain political party and its leadership. A lot of people won’t be happy with me, Turner said, adding “The die is now cast.” Knowing some of the inside workings of the party and Harper’s rise to power, I can well imagine…

Global warming denier and curmudgeon Margaret Wente‘s quixotic defence of a small minority of climate change science skeptics is illustrative of Wente’s well documented SUV-loving, transit-hating, me-first, me-only, character. Clearly it is not the underdog nor rational skepticism that she champions.

When a small minority of climate scientists first started warning a skeptical world of humankind’s impact on the planet, did Wente hold up those folks as heroic buckers of conventional wisdom then?

Jeffrey Simpson argues in his column that Alberta should become a champion of carbon reduction, in deeds not just word, citing the energy sector’s pitiful spending on research and development (0.75 of revenues as compared to the Canadian industrial average of 3.8%) as a shocking obstacle.

Meanwhile, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is set to release a report said to show ‘much stronger’ signs of human impact on warming of our planet.

And Gary Mason reports that B.C. is headed down the coal path, seemingly inexorably. In this province there are major debates to be had on our energy policy and energy security and what has Gordon Campbell done? Locked up the legislature, claiming there’s nothing to talk about.

That arrogance is why fixed term limits are not appropriate. I would hope that the very next government in B.C. turns back the clock on that particular piece of legislation.