John Duffy, the Liberal known for supporting the “beer and popcorn” quote has put his name behind a website called climateliberal.ca.as one of the founders. The website was initiated as a forum to 1) Focus on the Climate Crisis, 2) Use the Liberal Party as a vehicle, and 3) Organize via the web. Ironically, they refuse to scientifically argue the Climate Crisis, and as you will read below, the website seems to be going nowhere fast. But aren’t Liberals glad they have such a well organized group preparing to dip into envirodollars one day?
The site is clearly a failing prospect. To quote one of their recent commenters:
Slick appearance and over-the-top promotion aside, this website is a dud — from its patronizing, self-congratulatory home page to its unused forums.
Unless Liberals take the entire month of December off — that might partly explain Canada’s retreat from its Kyoto targets during their tenure, I would have expected them to flock to this site after the convention. Everybody there wet their pants in excitement at the prospect of this Internet Leviathan single-handedly toppling the hapless Conservatives. But, nobody came — not even Harry Potter and his “dream team” have bothered to participate.
Not simply putting my trust in the commenter, I took a peek around and found the comment above quite accurate. The forum section is not only unused, but when it is used it is clearly not open to discussion, which is the whole point of a forum.
There is a great initial post by Tom Harris about the flaws in Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth that presents Tom’s credentials as someone with a M. Eng in Thermofluids and links to an article he wrote with tons of great information on climate change and global warming.
The counter argument by the webmaster, Al Booth is as follows:
I Googled you Mr. Tom Harris. I think others visiting this forum might like to know the following (simply in the interests of transparency).
Here’s what Ajax-Liberal MP Mark Holland has to say about you on his web site in an article titled…
Petroleum money drives Conservative climate change skepticism
Here’s the part about you:
Tom Harris, once a legislative assistant to former Conservative Environment Critic Bob Mills, has been a prolific writer of anti-Kyoto op-ed pieces, typically quoting scientists associated with Friends of Science. He is a lobbyist with High Park Group, a firm with a number of energy industry clients. Previously working as an associate with the public relations firm APCO Worldwide (Canada), he organized a news conference of climate change skeptics in 2002. Most of those who spoke at the news conference have ties to both Friends of Science and the petroleum industry.
So a masters in engineering with a specialization in thermofluidity presents technical documentation on a website dedicated to addressing the enviromental issues surrounding climate change and it is met with what, in essence, translates to “You’re a filthy conservative, you’re science isn’t good here!”
What I find especially disheartening is that Tom was even nice enough to follow up and address all the concerns regarding his past ties to Bob Mills and the Conservative Party, but even that gets a response like this:
The one critism that can legitimately be leveled at Al Gore’s film is that it understates the threat to our planet and it doesn’t suggest any really workable, effective solutions. Changing a few light bulbs certainly won’t solve our problems.
What we need are huge federal programs and massive expenditures immediately invested in clean, green energy and totally revamping housing construction and our transportation system.
Even the NDP are calling the site sleezy. You know when the party that is traditionally known as the environmentally friendly party calls an environmental site sleezy, something REALLY has to be wrong with the site.
And the Liberals wonder why the greenest Prime Minister in history was a Conservative. And when Kyoto is explained as a carbon dioxide problem and not a pollution problem, people begin to understand why the previous government, and it’s environement minister, Stephane Dion, do not have a leg to stand on.
I would even go so far as to say that this site is a preliminary ploy by liberal supporters to lay the groundwork to receive a nice big paycheck should the Liberals be returned to power and pour millions, if not billions, into the environment. Can we say Enviroscam?
That payday would buy Mr. Duffy a heck of a lot of beer and popcorn.
