Bill McKibben has it in for Canada. In a new article in The New Republic, he calls it "one of the earth's most irresponsible nations," admonishes liberals that they need to find a new country to dream of emigrating to, and stops just short of calling Canadians (and Americans, but what else is new) giant hypocrites.
What's pissing McKibben off? Tar sands, of course. Canada is pushing to become an "energy superpower," in the words of one government official, by mining its tar sands for oil. And, as Grist readers know, oil extracted from Canadian tar sands would dump a disastrous amount of carbon into the atmosphere. (Clearly, exporting tar sands oil is part of Canada's evil plot to take over the world, or at least win out over the United States. They're not going to be screwed by global warming.)
McKibben points out that if a country that wasn’t our bro tried this nonsense, we'd be on them like flies on honey. He rubs in Canada's face the example Brazil has set by conserving, rather than exploiting, the Amazon rainforest. "Shouldn't Canada feel the same kind of responsibility to keep carbon safely in the ground that Brazil feels to keep its trees rooted?" McKibben asks. Why, yes, Bill. Yes, it should.
