It’s 5:00 am EST and we have just arrived at our modest hotel in Copenhagen, where it’s 11:00 am local time.
Clearly we all have our work cut out for us in the coming days. In the column below, Canada is devastatingly described as a “thuggish petro-state” and “the greatest obstacle to a deal in Copenhagen.”
These words appear in respected author and journalist George Monbiot’s recent column in the Guardian UK.
Monbiot writes, “I am (in Toronto), watching the astonishing spectacle of a beautiful, cultured nation turning itself into a corrupt petro-state. Canada is slipping down the development ladder, retreating from a complex, diverse economy towards dependence on a single primary resource, which happens to be the dirtiest commodity known to man.”
He adds, “Until now I believed that the nation that has done most to sabotage a new climate change agreement was the United States. I was wrong. The real villain is Canada.”
He asks, “why is Canada acting in this way?’ and lays the blame squarely on the tar sands. “The tar sands, most of which occur in Alberta, are being extracted by the biggest opencast mining operation on earth. …Already it looks like a scene from the end of the world: the strip-miners are creating a churned black hell on an unimaginable scale.”
Monbiot concludes, “In Copenhagen, this country will do everything in its power to wreck the talks. The rest of the world must do everything in its power to stop it.”
The Council of Canadians will also do everything in our power to stop the Harper government from derailing a desperately needed new climate agreement in Copenhagen.
George Monbiot’s full column – which I encourage you to read – is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/nov/30/canada-tar-sands-copenhagen-climate-deal.
