Mr. Speaker, I am surprised at my colleague quoting from that particular reference. Just to use his comments on the measurement of CO
2
, it is the gas that people mainly have mentioned, but it has been measured since the middle of the 19th century. True, methods of measurement have improved, but the measuring site was in the middle of the Pacific, far away from human effects. If a change could have been detected there from the middle of the 19th century to the present time, it certainly offsets any changes in measurement.
He also mentioned other things such as nitrous oxides, for example. Although they do not really sound like it, they are greenhouse gases and are far more powerful greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide although lesser in quantity. Generally speaking, they are also poisonous. The member mentioned particulates as a kind of sidebar to the production of CO
2
, which also seriously affect human breathing. I have mentioned ground level ozone. It is a poison and in Ontario has increased to the point that it costs tens of millions in reduced crop production alone.
From a public policy view rather than a science point of view, what is the difference, whether one believes in climate change or not? We should clean the atmosphere, which kills hundreds of people in Ontario every year and kept our kids last year inside school on 23 smog days. What would we do differently in cleaning that atmosphere and in tackling climate change, which might be debatable?