In a significant, but hardly surprising move, Canada's new conservative government has made it clear that it will abandon the plans made in accordance with targets under the Kyoto Protocol. These are impossible to achieve according to environment minister Rona Ambrose who will probably be mandated to come up with a unique Canada-based formula to reduce greenhouse gases. These efforts are supported by a letter from 60 leading international climate change experts who once more reiterated the near impossibility to seperate the various causes that are contributing to climate change:

"'Climate change is real' is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause. Neither of these fears is justified.

"Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural 'noise'."

To be frank, I am no expert in climate or environmental matters but the theory that earth will warm up over time (the impact of the evolution of the sun comes to mind) has been around long before the environmental movement started to sound the greenhouse gas alarm bell. There is evidence that the latter does accelerate some of the climatic shifts. However, until we really get a better sense of what each component contributes to global warming there is no point in signing up for politically expedient, arbitrary and costly measures which in the end only seem to contribute to a weird feel-good factor. A healthy dose of realism is required here.