Sadi Broncho Options for this story Another mixed review, and it raises some good points...when the silent government officials deem something worthy of a response, WE KNOW they are getting WORRIED! And rightly so...the level of attack that has been directed at Neil Young is nothing but a bullying tactic to deflect the attention away from the BIGGER CONCERNS! Young’s crusade is necessary because the federal government, which is supposed to be balancing interests in the oilpatch, is not doing so. It acts like an industry association, aggressively promoting the oilsands at home and abroad, attacking critics, doing what it can to block emission treaties, pushing hard for maximum growth. Ottawa is full of oil lobbyists in expensive suits, pulling the levers of power, funding think-tanks, buying slick ads, pushing an official story that does not include “significant adverse environmental project effects.” It is the job of poets like Young to make us notice when the official story and reality diverge too greatly. This week, while politicians were attacking Young, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird was down in Washington, undiplomatically demanding that Barack Obama reach a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. In 2008, when Baird was environment minister, he promised that Ottawa would impose “tough new emission standards” on the oilsands to cut national emissions 20 per cent by 2020. In 2013, there are still no such standards. We won’t come close to our 2020 targets and the oilsands emissions are increasing dramatically. It’s funny that everyone’s attacking the singer.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 20:39:26 +0000
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