You've Picked a Fine Time to Leave Us, Lucille

It's an old song.

Canada's first major climate calamity* arrives and the Greens are nowhere to be found. Annamie Paul has only just handed in her key to the executive potty. The Green Party of Canada is, for all intents and purposes, non-existent. 

That leaves southern BC and the rest of Canada for that matter in the hands of the parties that helped perpetrate this disaster - the Conservative Party of Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada, and a gaggle of provincial New Democrat parties.  Like hogs at the trough they have all pursued the illusory wealth of fossil energy, ignoring the building havoc they were unleashing.

Christ, can you imagine if an atmospheric river hit those tailing ponds in Athabasca? There'd be no fixing that. Northern Alberta and the Mackenzie River watershed (the world's 3rd largest) would be a giant Love Canal in perpetuity.

Can the Greens rally? I wouldn't take that bet. What might have been probably will never be.

* The Fraser Valley flooding is not the first or only major climate calamity to hit Canada. There are plenty of others - our warming and acidifying oceans (don't forget "The Blob"); the worsening wildfire season; record setting heatwaves and lethal Heat Domes; our altered precipitation patterns and drought; the melting Arctic.  These are climate calamities that we've become inured to. They make the papers then they're flushed down the Memory Hole until next year when they're even worse. It's called "creeping normalcy" and it's a killer in its own right.  


 

Comments

  1. TrailblazerNovember 20, 2021 at 4:52 PM

    Annamie Paul has only just handed in her key to the executive potty. The Green Party of Canada is, for all intents and purposes, non-existent.

    Perhaps we are better with the underachievers we know tan the underachievers with no governing experience.

    Christ, can you imagine if an atmospheric river hit those tailing ponds in Athabasca?

    I m not sure if such weather event occurs inland , it seems to be a coastal issue!
    That , as you said it would be a world class disaster unlike anything before it.
    Alberta is a disaster in waiting.

    * The Fraser Valley flooding is not the first or only major climate calamity to hit Canada..

    The Fraser valley has flooded before just not so badly as this time.


    TB


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibNovember 20, 2021 at 5:13 PM

      In 2013 it was an atmospheric river that parked itself over the foothills. It wasn't as intense as what the Fraser Valley had this week but it remained parked for a few days, long enough for the runoff to reach and flood Calgary.

      Atmospheric rivers can go far inland. That's what ravaged Germany and central Europe this summer. https://blogs.agu.org/geospace/2013/07/19/most-of-europes-extreme-rains-caused-by-rivers-in-the-atmosphere/

      Then again, I could never imagine tornadoes in Britain either or, for that matter, UBC in November.

      Delete
  2. Northern PoVNovember 21, 2021 at 7:21 AM

    In Canada, the Green Party has mostly been a tragic dead end exit off the fptp freeway.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibNovember 21, 2021 at 11:21 AM

      That was certainly a big part of the GPC problem, NPoV. When it came to elections both the NDP and the Libs were effective at poaching the Green vote.

      Delete

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