Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the past couple of days my fellow colleague Mr. Bromley, who is well respected among his peers and the citizens of the Northwest Territories on his views on climate change, was cited on the use of strong language to describe the seriousness of his thoughts. Although I tend to agree his choice of words may have been used in the wrong context, I do agree that his passion for making our government more accountable for our carbon footprint is dead on accurate and for that I do thank him.
It would be ill advised for me to stand before you and attempt to mimic or regurgitate statistical data or convince you of my green ambition to save the planet. This is not my intention here today. I do wish to inform the House that we all have an important obligation to perform, not only for our constituents but for our families and for our children. I would hate to tell my future grandchildren that I had an opportunity to make positive changes for our climate and I chose the easy road. That, Mr. Speaker, will not happen.
I think many here have seen and heard Mr. Al Gore throughout his Inconvenient Truth crusade, yet many have not seen or heard of Bjorn Lomborg’s Cool It economic approach to climate change, where Mr. Lomborg clearly claims that there has been much hype and exaggeration of global warming solely to root much needed research dollars.
Now, my intention here is not to split hairs about the economics of climate change, science, or Hollywood drama. My intention here today is to disseminate that there are different points of view when it comes to global warming and the realities of scale. This is especially true when our government is forced into accepting unrealistic climate targets based on science that is equally being questioned.
So what is one to do? One of the principles that always served me well in the business world was catching people doing something right. It was much more productive for the performance and success of a resolve than trying to be punitive or restrictive. The same basic principle can be easily introduced throughout the Northwest Territories when it comes to positive affect in our climate in the North.
In simple terms, providing tax incentives or financial credits for businesses or individuals doing good behavior is an easy and affordable step in the road to climate recovery. I say with conviction, let’s do away with unattainable targets and unrealistic goals set by so-called purveyors of catastrophic thinking and let’s embrace a cleaner delivery model of our everyday footprint on our environment. Our real mission should be to deal with the economic realities of options.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Our real mission should be to deal with the economic realities of options in dealing with climate change and rewarding those who take the positive steps of change. In the end we all want the same thing. Maybe in the process we can reach the NWT’s true climate goals. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
