Economy, not environment is Canadians' top priority

(and Americans too)!

Here's some environmental food-for-thought from today's Vancouver Sun:

Economy, not environment, is Canadians' top priority
By Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun

Substantially more Canadians are rating the economy ahead of the environment as their top priority, according to an international survey of green trends that ranks Canada second last among surveyed countries for the second straight year.

Canada's ranking suffered in part due to residents' large homes, the survey noting more than half have seven rooms.
Home heating and hot running water added to our footprint, as did our love affair with the automobile, especially large private ones. "Car and truck ownership is above the 17-country average (86 percent compared with 74 percent) and, of those who drive, Canadians are among the most likely to drive large vehicles," the survey found. "Canadians have the third highest rate of driving alone most days (56 per cent)."

(bold face my emphasis)
Read the rest here.

And which country comes in last? The U S of A! Oprah's jet, Al's big house and all the latte liberals' second homes in the Methow, Cape Cod and Vail certainly can't help our ratings. But it's not just the hypocritical green washing left that has us on the bottom. The use-it-all-up who cares about spotted owls, wolves and grizzly bear conspicuously consuming right wingers lower our rating too! But they don't care. What about the well heeled enviros? They pretend to care. Who are we fooling? We'll never be able to address climate, habitat, and resource issues as long as we don't address our ridiculous levels of consumption (and population and immigration-but that's another topic). And who does cares more about the environment than the economy according to this poll? Can you believe India, Brazil and China (although I seriously doubt that last one-the government anyway)!

(photo- downtown Montreal- an economic center built on exploiting the environment-beaver pelts!)

Russian Christmas Gift to Neighbors: Freeze!

It never ceases to amaze me how hard Russian President Vladimir Putin is competing to be Russian butthole of the 21st century! On this year's Orthodox Christmas he decided to let millions of people freeze in Bulgaria and Serbia by cutting off their natural gas because he is still upset that the Ukraine has a will of its own. Life is tough enough for many people in these emerging economies. I had the opportunity to visit Bulgaria in 2005 and saw stark poverty in the countryside (like in this predominantly Muslim village pictured here). Putin's latest ploy of playing politics with energy and Iran's call to cut off the spigot for countries supporting Israel's right to defend itself from terrorists is yet another wake-up call that we in America (and other sovereign nations as well) absolutely must work toward becoming energy independent! I don't care if you're republican or democrat, liberal or conservative, we must make it a national priority to become more energy efficient, explore viable alternative energy sources such as nuclear (not corn based ethanol which creates food shortages and makes a few Agri-businesses rich) and work for a sustainable population-like addressing our out-of-control immigration- an issue that no one seems to want to talk about. You can't add one million plus people to the population every year and expect that your energy consumption will go down. It'll only be a matter of time before our "good friends" in the Middle East will take a lesson from Putin. They did it in 1973 and they'll do it again. And for Russia, "Tear down your medieval mindset walls!"