Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - June 17, 2001, Winnipeg, Manitoba B4 Winnipeg free june 2001 sind forum rec room of Trade Liberty of religion leu Allitif of civil rights editorial Kyoto and the technophobes swedish police were Able on thurs Day to spare american president George Bush the sight of dozens of bums bared by protesters in Goteborg outside his the swedish police were not Able to spare Bush from the but kicking he got from americas european allies in the More dignified confines of the european unions official meeting at a Castle in the old swedish but the bared buttocks of the protesters who took part in the mass mooning were Only slightly less convincing than the arguments presented by Europe Lead ers against Bush rejection of the Foury Earold Kyoto agreement under which most Western including pledged to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases to five per cent less than the 1990 Levels by the year Bush has said that this is not economically feasible for the United the worlds biggest Industrial which today produces 25 per cent of the worlds greenhouse Gas and which would pay by far the heaviest Price in meeting the goals set at like the protesters in the Europe leaders were upset that americas withdrawal effectively kills the Kyoto unlike the most of them May have been secretly relieved by the Only Britain and Germany have come close to meeting the Kyoto and they have done it Only through extra Ordinary circumstances that Are unrelated to the self sacrifice that Kyoto Calls Britain shut Down its Coal mines because it could no longer afford to subsidize and As a result had to turn to less polluting forms of after East and West were basically shut Down the entire former East German Industrial which was hugely inefficient and highly and so enjoys a huge credit toward the goals that the treaty like the signed on to Kyoto but has yet to ratify seeks credits As the Canadian government has taken no action to meet the commitments of the but is seeking credits for Carbon sinks in the vast forested areas of this country that naturally absorb Carbon dioxide from the the who destroyed most of their forests centuries think of this As a kind of Ottawa has publicly deplored Bush like the May be privately grateful that the death of the Kyoto Accord at the hands of the americans relieves it of its despite All the hand ringing in Europe capitals and the Baring of Bot Toms in its the so called death of Kyoto May not be such a bad there is perhaps no such global move ment that rests on science As Uncertain As that which underpins the phenomenon of global the world is getting no one disputes but the world has got ten colder and warmer Over the Ages in a Cycle while it May not be exactly seems inevitable and unrelated to human there is a kind of Luddite philosophy underlying the Kyoto in the nations that have most benefited from technology is seen As the source of problems rather than the solution to outside of the industrialized technology remains a rather than a and it is useful to note that two thirds of the worlds population India and most of the third world Are exempt from Kyoto provisions the sacrifices it requires fall squarely on the industrialized the world today is a better place than it has Ever people live they live they eat better food and drink cleaner water than people have throughout the course of recorded even the air we breathe is cleaner than it has been since the Indus trial probably every society has exploited its environment to the limits of its tech the myth of the Noble living in Harmony with his still hangs on with a kind of malignant but the More we know about ourselves and our the less sustainable it recent in indicate that people have always done just the in North America and people hunted whole species of animals into extinction Long before they were cursed by Western whether it is found in a Flint Point or a nuclear is As Good or As bad As the people who use the Hunters and gatherers of years ago could have had no under standing that what they were doing would Render the woolly Mammoth extinct but their technology enabled them to do we have no such the technology available now was unimaginable even 100 years but it is it can be harnessed to whatever purpose we choose and we do not have the excuse of ignorance Avail Able to our by targeting the Kyoto Accord perhaps doomed itself it was just left to Bush to Bury having buried he has assumed the responsibility of redefining of finding a Way to put the amazing technology we have at our disposal to make this world an even better place than it is Hunters May have wiped out the prey the survivors Are says evolutionary biologist John Alroy about the Large mammal species that remain in North America after the wave of extinctions that followed the arrival of the first humans less than years and there is no longer any question about Why All the rest giant giant and Deer the size of Moose in his article in this months Sci Alroy puts the blame firmly on human Paul Martin of the University of Arizona first raised this new world Blitzkrieg theory Back in it has always been puzzling How Many More big animal species there Are in Europe and where humans and their immediate ancestors have lived for hundreds of thousands of than in the americas and where they arrived All of a sudden and relatively Martin suggested that it was because the indians and the australian aborigines killed them off and unleashed a firestorm of the angriest protesters were the North american indians who Felt they were being robbed of their last shred of cultural they had lost their their and in Many cases even their language to the european about their Only Consolation was their belief that they had some special Spiri Tual status As the stewards of the land that they were people with a special gift for Liv ing in Harmony with now the euro peans were saying that it was their ancestors who killed off 32 of the 41 Large Plant eating species that lived in North America years ago several Large carnivores that used to live off of it was just too hurtful to be so they rejected the evidence and so did Many nonnative scientists who were unhappy about this vision of Man the so the theory was roundly con and a generation of academics tried to refute it with implausible theories about How Cli mate change or disease or some other nonhuman cause triggered these extinct the controversy ran on for and into this orgy of native self righteousness and White Steps John to Point out that the Emper or has no he will doubtless regret the extermination of most Large land animal species within a few thousand years of the arrival of the first human beings in North says was he offers a simple computer simulation based on How Early human beings hunted and and where the animals lived and How they repro no matter How you adjust the variables to make the people worse Hunters or the animals More prolific most of them die never mind the sententious Moraliz ing that normally ensues at this stage of the the More important Point is made most clearly in Jared diamonds Brilliant Book germs and it is that ecological destruction is its own the newly arrived Hunters in the americas and Australia were no More efficient or less intelligent than their ancestors in they were just up against species that had not convolved with human like those of the old and this had no inherited fear of so they quickly killed most of the larger species by eliminating precisely the animals that might later have enabled them to build civilizations Able to rival those of the irony is Bru Early civilizations in Eurasia depended on domesticated Ani but the new world Blitzkrieg exterminated All the leading candidates for domestication in the americas and Australia Long before the local people started Down the Road to when they did Start Down in places like the Central and even the Ohio they moved far More slowly because they had almost no domesticated animals the wild pigs and the like were All gone Long and so the new world civilizations were eventually Over whelmed by europeans whose civilizations grew faster thanks to pigs and nobody understood what was nobody was to and if you want a parable for our own make it up what was said this editorial appeared in fridays los Angeles times All which is it among the amazing blessings of this age of technology is that we hear instantly about so much it once took 90 Days to get to 90 min utes for an email reply seems downright and 90 seconds to hear about a major news event Miles away is among the Damnable curses of this High Speed Era is that half of what we hear now seems to contradict the other so what really happens these Days is that were getting puzzled a whole lot quicker than in the and a whole lot Gore wins crime is up actually its what you know depends on which version you which is great for dinner debates but creates a chronic mental even hard feel Ings Bush wins did you hear Britney Spears was in a terrible car which half of Australia still believes some of us know that others mar Vel at her rapid slower communications used to allow corrections to catch inaccurate initial versions before millions were Misin like the Distant Earth quake that just killed which becomes which becomes 189 a minute ago Vitamin c was really Good for us now did you hear it or might not same for a daily sip of and oestrogen which helped women Bones As recently As now might of editorials Are always Gay Pride Parade loses its Sharp Edge the organizers of Gay Pride celebrations must be wondering if it is possible to be too to make Gay Pride too too this horrible thought crossed my mind last weekend when i read in the papers that conservative Leader Joe Clark had consented to ride openly in an open car in the Calgary Gay Pride footage of a beaming Joe Clark was seen on various news pro Grams last Sun Day and while he appeared if not absolutely the More conservative conservatives May Well have been somewhat relieved to note that Maureen Mcthers husband was not in full not too Many years ago Gay Pride Day organizers in Many cities across Canada had trouble getting a permit to hold a party or a in As i mayor after blushing mayor coyly declined to sign proclamations giving Gay Pride Day official status As a civic times change and i under stand that that particular problem has been in Many cities that did allow or Toler ate Gay Pride parades in years past participation was largely confined to actual Gay people and their friends and Fame civic politicians and other Public figures tended to steer Well Clear of such preferring to stay at Home washing the lifting weights in some cleaning out the some politicians made a Point of saying that they did not wish to appear to con done whatever it was that Gay peo ple were intent on doing while others seemed to be terrified that if they appeared on a float with a Bevy of drag Queens or on a motorcycle with a Squadron of Dykes on bikes they might be suspected of being the sort of person that Ernest Hemingway would have thought twice about having Over for drinks and dinner Back in a few years ago All that changed and the Stampede to be seen to be Broad minded and up Iodate began in Nowa dignitaries and Public figures Are so anxious to be t seen marching or Riding on a float in a Gay Pride Day Parade that if it goes much farther there will be no room for Bona fide Gay people to they will be left on the curb with the rest of the straight population watching it go by without their own Parade will have passed them i usually take my grandchildren Down the Block to see the Gay Pride Parade that wends its Way through Vancouver West end every summer and i have noted that in recent years More and More dignitaries and officials have been tempted to take part in the Jollif cation As per in so Many politicians Are getting involved that the Parade is in danger of becoming about As colourful and interesting As a funeral procession or a Parade of academics at last for we had the the several Cabinet min various members of the Legisla City Council and As Well As the chief of the archbishop and various other Public functionaries and bigwigs marching along stolidly among the Gaudy floats and our own member of Parlia the singular Hedy seemed to be performing a sort of cabaret act in the Middle of Beach much to the annoyance of a number of Large men in dresses who were attempting to dance on a float directly behind As the premiers and Public officials take a growing number of Gay people appear to have Given up on the Content to leave it All to the Premier and the i noticed the trend some years ago when on a Bright summer saturday morning we found our taxi held up by crowds As we attempted to get to a lunch engagement on the other Side of As the cab inched along i realized that we were trapped in the Gay Pride Parade i crowd with our Distant lunch growing colder by the i 11 we also had time to i contemplate the fact that our a High profile Gay had clearly decided to give the festivities a miss that the movement away from a pub Lic Celebration was summed up in a cartoon in a recent new a Gay couple is relax ing at one of speaking to a Friend on the says were not any thing for Gay Pride this were were were used to ;