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Home My WebLink AboutClinton News Record, 2016-08-03, Page 5Wednesday, August 3, 2016 • News Record 5 1 1 www.clintonnewsrecord.com John Kerry's climate confusion Every few months, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry calls climate change as great a threat, or a greater threat, than ISIS. He did it again Friday in Vienna at one of the United Nations' never ending meetings on cli- mate change, this one about eliminating man- made greenhouse gases called hydrochloro- fluorocarbons, under the UN's Montreal protocol. "What you are doing here right now is of equal importance, (to fighting ISIS and other terrorist groups) because it has the ability literally to save life on this planet," Kerry said. The problem with such statements is that they reveal not only Kerry's lack of focus on fighting terrorism, but a misun- derstanding of man- made climate change. In Kerry's world, appar- ently, there is some sort of perfect climate that would exist if not for the presence of humanity on the planet burning fossil fuels for energy in the lat- ter half of the 20th century. In this world, Kerry apparently believes, there would never be droughts, or hurricanes, or floods, or long periods of natural cooling or warming, resulting in people dying, or being forced to flee from where they live, or nations going to war over a lack of resources such as water and food. The reality is natural climate change has caused all these events throughout human history. Indeed, before human history began, natural cli- mate change repeatedly led to major extinctions of life on Earth. The scientific thinking about climate change is that there has been an abnormal warming start- ing in the latter half of the 20th century, caused by humanity's burning of fossil fuels and various land use practices send- ing abnormally large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But the idea that with- out this, the climate would never pose a potential existential threat to life on Earth is absurd. Natural climate change has always posed that threat. To think other- wise borders on delusional. Fighting ISIS and other forms of Islamic terrorism (a term the Obama administration won't even use) is an AP Photo/Cliff Owen Secretary of State John Kerry holds a news conference at the conclusion of the Meeting of the Ministers of the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL at the State Department in Washington, Thursday, July 21, 2016. entirely different issue from addressing man- made climate change, in terms of both the imme- diacy of the threat and the strategies for addressing it. That Kerry constantly Doctors divided over four-year fees deal n the wake of its tenta- tive deal with Premier Kathleen Wynne's government on a new contract covering doc- tors' fees for the next four years, the Ontario Medi- cal Association is fighting a civil war within its own ranks. On the one hand, it has to join Health Minister Eric Hoskins in selling the deal to its members, lead- ing up to a series of rap- idly approaching votes by doctors on whether to approve the contract. On the other hand, the deal is being attacked by a grass roots organization called the Coalition of Ontario Doctors, which is planning a protest rally on Friday starting at the Ontario Ministry of Health on Grosvenor St., and ending, symbolically, at the OMA's offices on Bloor St. W. The coalition -- repre- senting Concerned Ontario Doctors, Doctors Ontario and nine OMA sub -sections -- claims to represent more than 19,000 of Ontario's 34,000 doctors and medical students. It's urging doctors to reject the tentative deal OMA negotiators approved. Behind the scenes, a fierce war of words is playing out between the OMA -- which is warning doctors they could face another $1.1 billion in funding cuts if they don't accept the offer -- and Coalition members, who describe the deal as a sellout which will force doctors to cut services and further ration health care to their patients on behalf of Queen's Park. These groups are par- ticularly angry that the OMA dropped without prior consultation a key doctor demand heading into the negotiations for binding arbitration on unresolved contract issues. Because doctors can't strike, the government can unilaterally impose fee and working condi- tions on them in the absence of a negotiated deal, since it controls the purse strings. The internal fight within the OMA is part of a larger story about gov- ernments not just in Ontario, but across Can- ada, increasingly ration- ing health care as the demand for services exceeds the supply of tax dollars available to pay for it. Ontario doctors have long complained the OMA gives in too easily to the government and doesn't adequately repre- sent doctors and their patients, even though the OMA represents them. But they have also, conflates the two suggests that he and the president he works for are incapa- ble of effectively address- ing either one. -Postmedia Network Veronica Henri/Toronto Sun Minister of Health and Long - Term Care Eric Hoskins. historically, approved OMA deals by wide margins. Should they reject this one, Ontario's health-care system will be heading into unknown waters. PoV: Balanced Grit budget just a reckless mirage Aday after Premier Kathleen Wynne boasted Ontario's economy is growing faster than any country in the G-7, Financial Accountability Officer Stephen LeClair gave us the bad news. He said Ontario will increase its current total debt of $300 billion by a staggering $50 billion in just the next four years. By 2020-21, the Liberals will have recklessly hiked Ontario's debt 152 per cent from the $138.8 billion they inherited in 2003. Wynne's boast she will bal- ance the budget in 2017-18 — achieved through such things as the fire sale of 60 per cent of Hydro One — is a mirage, because the Liberals will plunge us back into annual deficits starting in 2018-19. Ontario's debt is the high- est among Canada's prov- inces in absolute terms. We also have the highest debt burden among the major provinces — $2.40 of debt for every $1 of provincial revenues. Relative to population, Ontario's debt is the highest at $20,806 per person, save only for Quebec at $22,591. The Liberals have increased the province's debt -to -GDP ratio, a key indicator of economic health, from 26 per cent prior to the 2008 global recession to 39.6 per cent in 2015-16, decreasing slightly to 38.4 per cent by 2020-21. LeClair has noted the Wynne government prom- ised to reduce this ratio to 27 per cent, "but has not pro- vided details of how or when it plans to achieve this goal." While the main reason for the rapidly increasing debt load is the Liberals' 12 -year, $160 -billion capital spend- ing plan, most of the prov- ince's new borrowing is actually going to financing debt. LeClair notes that in 2009- 10, for example, 56.2 per cent of the province's addi- tional borrowing went toward financing the deficit, only 25.8 per cent to financ- ing capital spending. Paying interest on debt is Ontario's third-highest expenditure, more than we spend on post -secondary education. LeClair warns if interest rates spike above the 3.6 per - Postmedia Network cent average rate the Ontario government is now paying on its debt due to market fluctuations, the Lib- erals will need to borrow even more money just to finance it. The bottom line is they haven't just mortgaged our future to pay for their money -wasting policies, they've mortgaged the pre- sent as well. -Postmedia Network