Mr. Speaker, I received an interesting e-mail today from a Japanese-Canadian. “Kyo” in Japanese means capital and “to” means city. That is where the word Kyoto comes from. He also said he wanted to reflect on the Kyoto protocol from a Canadian perspective. He created an acronym, KYOTO, Kill Your Opportunity To Outperform. I thought that was interesting, a Japanese-Canadian making that observation.
I would like to discuss the Kyoto accord from four perspectives: environmental, medical, scientific and political.
We have had plenty of opportunity to listen to some other perspectives so I will not spend extra time there. I consider myself to be an environmentalist. I am a hiker, hunter and fisherman. Some of the most enjoyable times I spend are in the wilds on my own away from the telephone. I hate to say that because the telephone follows us as politicians.
I accept that there is warming going on in Canada. As a young man hiking in the Rockies I noted glaciers that were at a specific spot and today those glaciers have receded and there is only one logical explanation for that and that is warming.
I accept that there are changes in the north, that permafrost in areas where it has not melted before is melting today, but what explains this warming to my mind is the issue. I hope that in the summation of the comments that are heard in the House of Commons over the next little while that we will make some sense of this.
Let me go then to the perspective from a medical viewpoint. As a medical doctor most of my life I treated pollution related diseases like asthma. I treated diseases from the perspective of particulates and smog. One of the things I remember as a young medical student was being shown in the anatomy lab the lung from a deceased person who lived in the city compared to the lung from a deceased person who lived in the country. I will never forget that.
The lung from the city dweller was black and tar-like and very scrunchy and the lung from the country dweller was pink and very flexible. The lesson that I was given, as I looked at those two lungs, was that there was a difference between the particulate matter, the smoke and so on that a city dweller breathed compared to somebody who lived in the country.
I understand and know that particulate matter is not beneficial to health but I object to global warming and the Kyoto protocol being equated with pollution. They are not the same thing. I will admit that reducing the use of carbon based fuels would have a secondary effect on pollution but the primary effect is on CO
2
which is not a pollutant. CO
2
is the gas that I am exhaling while I stand here and talk. It is a normal gas and it is necessary for plant life. I object to the use of the phrase pollution conjointly with the change of the temperature on our planet.
Pollution is very, very different. Frankly, I think we are attacking this problem backwards. I said that reducing fossil fuel consumption will have a secondary effect on pollution and I believe that we should be attacking this primarily on the pollution side.
Let me turn, then, to some of the scientific views. The colleague who spoke before me said that there are no scientists in the House. I think he would have been accurate if he had said that there are no climatologists in the House. I know that there are scientists in the House.
Because the issue is complex and does involve global calculations, I ask the question: Is there scientific unanimity on the issue of climate change? The answer, frankly, is no.
The second question I would pose is this: Is human activity hastening the planet's natural warming and cooling cycle? On this issue I have had a very interesting opportunity to look at the science of the past when it comes to the world's warming and cooling cycles. I took geology as a university undergrad. I found it a fascinating subject. I learned about a host of things, about fossil evidence and sedimentary evidence at the base of lakes and the oceans, and I learned about tree rings and how we can look at growth patterns in the past and extrapolate. I learned about carbon dating. Recently I have also learned about satellite observations of temperature.
All these things allow us to look back into prehistoric time. This is evident from a graph I have in front of me, which is called “Average Global Temperature” and which looks all the way back to Precambrian time. It is interesting to note that the world has moved between 12°C and 22°C, with one specific little blip above 22°C, as average global temperatures throughout prehistory. There have been specific times of warming, in the Cambrian and Ordovician periods, in the Silurian and Devonian periods, between the Permian and Triassic periods, with a long warming plateau all the way through the Jurassic period, and in the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, and then there was a significant cooling. There have been cooling times and they are spread out through prehistory in fairly synchronous time periods. The coolest we reached was between Ordovician and Silurian times, and then during the Carboniferous and Permian times.
What does all this mean, this look at prehistory? It means that there has been a cycle of cooling and warming on this planet. What explains the cooling and warming of our planet? What scientists have said is that it is today being aggravated by human activity and what scientists have said that there is an alternate explanation?
Here we get into the scientific debate. It is quite difficult to say for certain that there is no human impact on warming of our planet today.
It is interesting to note on this graph that in today's time period we are just above the coolest that the earth has ever been, which was 12°C. We are sitting at 13°C today, as best I can tell from this graph. There is, on the graph, a very slow warming trend.
Is human activity the major determinant? The scientists I have talked with have said no, that human activity is not the major determinant. The obvious question, then: What is? The correlation between these warming periods throughout the earth's history, according to the scientists I spoke with, relates to sunspot activity. During the periods where the earth warms up dramatically, there is an increase in sunspot activity.
I raise all this not to say that this is conclusive, because it would be wrong for me to say that. I say that because there is another explanation for the cyclical warming and cooling of this earth. It is pretty obvious that we did not have industrial activity and carbon fuel consumption during the Jurassic period, where we were warmed, and I would be wrong if I even said how many years this was, during a significant period of prehistory. We had no industrial activity during the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, when suddenly in the middle of the Tertiary period the earth cooled down. I have had scientists tell me that the earth cooled down because of cloud cover. I am not certain that there is a conclusive body of evidence on the issue of the cyclical warming and cooling of our planet.
Let me now go to the political component of this issue. Here we have the debate that is taking place in the House. Canada produces 2% of the world's man-made CO
2
emissions. We do not produce much. Seventy per cent of the world is not going to go down the road of the Kyoto protocol process. Canada is large, northern, cold and energy rich. From my perspective, the Kyoto protocol is going to impact Canada more than any other country that has ratified it.
Will there be economic costs to Canada? There will. Harmonization with the U.S. has been something that we have undertaken with our motor vehicles up to this point in time. As the U.S. backs away from the protocol, harmonization with the U.S. on our motor vehicles is going to suffer. Frankly, California has driven more pollution reduction, and I use that word outside the Kyoto context, than anything that Canada has done. Investment by U.S. sources will be reduced. This news is coming today from a very large survey of investment brokers in the U.S. saying that if we ratify Kyoto then the investment decisions from the U.S. will change. That will impact upon us. Exploration will shift to non-Kyoto jurisdictions, out of Canada to parts of the world where the Kyoto protocol is not being signed.
It is only fair to say that in fact there will be, in some parts of Canada, some economic benefits to ratifying Kyoto. If we are going to talk about this in a balanced way, there are. In my own constituency there is a very windy part of this country: Pincher Creek. There will be a benefit to Pincher Creek with wind power augmentation in Canada. There will be a benefit to the fuel cell technology developed largely here in Canada, the Ballard fuel cell technology, if we go down the road of the Kyoto protocol. Will there be a benefit if we insulate more of our homes? Yes, there will, in the long term. It will return a benefit to the homeowner.
What I want to be able to tell my constituents is whether the cost-benefit ratio is balancing out in favour of Kyoto or not. At this point, I must say that I cannot see the cost-benefit analysis well enough to make an informed judgment. I could see it if the government had an implementation plan laid out plainly, a plan that had costs and sectoral breakdowns. I would love to be having that debate here with individuals who I believe are sincere when they say they want to have our environment looked after better.
What does the Alliance propose? What does my party propose so that Canadians will know that it is not reactionary about the environment, that it is concerned about the environment? I am talking now specifically about Kyoto, not pollution.
Number one, we want to have no decisions without a good plan that shows the costs, no permanent, binding decisions.
Number two, we want an accord that reflects our distinct geography, climate, economy and energy supplies. That equates to a made in Canada solution accord.
Number three, we think the idea of international emissions trading is the most counterproductive thing that could be allowed, allowing some countries money from Canada to allow us to continue produce CO
2,
presuming that CO
2
is the problem, as has been stated. That is counterproductive. We are absolutely opposed to international emissions trading.
Next, and this is now my perspective rather than that of my party, I believe that we should be attacking pollution and then getting a secondary reduction in CO
2
emissions, rather than the other way around. I have spoken to that. I believe that would enhance alternative energy production. I believe that hydro, wind, ethanol, fuel cell and all the other things would be enhanced, and I strongly support that.
Finally, we should be spending research dollars in Canada to enhance changes to pollution, not Kyoto, so that those dollars will be spent in Canada.
I think I could belabour the issue and talk about it for ages. Those are the points I did want to make. I feel that it is a privilege for me to speak in a debate that will affect my kids and, in fact, the Speaker's children.
