- Check out this article from Resource Conservation Manitoba’s “Living Green, Living Well” page: “Reducing Greenhouse Gases “Utterly Pointless” According to Canada’s Environment Minister”.
If you want to tell Mr. Prentice that it is pointless to ignore the risk of global climate destabilization from climate change any longer, click here for his contact info.
- In an interesting twist, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is now saying he wants to work on saving the most vulnerable people on earth, women and children. In a recent opinion article in The Toronto Star, Harper wrote:
“As president of the G8 in 2010, Canada will champion a major initiative to improve the health of women and children in the world’s poorest regions.”
However, as Star environment columnist Peter Gorrie points out, the most recent UN “State of the World’s Population Report” states women are the segment of the population most vulnerable to suffer from climate change -related effects:
Women … are among the most vulnerable to climate change, partly because in many countries they make up the larger share of the agricultural work force and partly because they tend to have access to fewer income-earning opportunities.
Women manage households and care for family members, which often limits their mobility and increases their vulnerability to sudden weather-related natural disasters. Drought and erratic rainfall force women to work harder to secure food, water and energy for their homes. Girls drop out of school to help their mothers with these tasks (creating a) cycle of deprivation, poverty and inequality.
Gorrie goes on to conclude:
If Harper were serious about his new campaign, he’d put Canada in the lead on climate change rather than keep us a laggard. He’d make that policy part of a coherent effort to change the conditions that condemn so many women and children to desperate, short lives.
Click here to read Gorrie’s full article.