Canada is at 28% of total energy from fossil fuel, you're at 90%, maybe to save the planet we should open the dykes or raise your taxes triple of ours
I dunno about that, we import a lot of energy from Norway, Switzerland (water) and France (nuclear). But it's a bad, bad situation in the Netherlands yes. It's because we've a government that wants everything as cheap as possible so that they can fund their pet projects (welfare, economic stimulus).
But as a mitigating effect, we spend less energy per capita than for the USA or Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC
So while your country profits off of selling and burning fossil fuel in massive amounts, you actually keep stating that other countries should pay to keep your already below sea level country from disappearing?
I didn't say that... I'm saying all the rich countries should do so. That includes the Netherlands.
It'll be tough, but I think we can manage. Our welfare state is more or less based on the gas sales... we'll have to rethink that, for starters.
Does it really matter how much fossil fuels Canada uses? Canada is also part of this world and has a shared responsibility. It should also reduce its CO2 emissions as much as possible, it cannot be an exception. It should also give up its export of fossil fuels ...
I'm not claiming that Canada should pay for the Dutch of course... we're rich enough. Canada should however take part in developing a new energy infrastructure, it should not act on its own. It should also share some of the development cost, and should share the burden of exporting the technology to less fortunate countries later on.
You act like this is going to be some biblical event that happens instantly
On a geological and even on a civilization timescale it's more or less instantly, yes.
It worse than just a few centuries - in the coming 100 years we humans will put enough CO2 into the atmosphere to melt most if not all of the large icecaps on the world. Even if the melting will take a longer time than that, it cannot be stopped because of our actions in this very century.
You act like this is going to be some biblical event that happens instantly when your great grand children will have plenty of time to either immigrate to Canada's north
And what's that going to solve... the future Dutch people will have to abandon everything we've spent building for the last 1,000 years. They'll have no homes, no work, no money left. They'll have to start a new civilization FROM SCRATCH. And then they'll have to live in a place where the sun doesn't shine for half a year... talking about a depressing future.
haha, I like this comparison between Canada an Dutch, only Libya beats us.
Wildness
Hmm yes. Even our nature is artificial... there's actually an important wildlife reserve in one of the lands that were reclaimed from the sea 50 years ago ...
It's a bit funny writing this stuff while it's cold, dark and cloudy here in the Netherlands. It's like nothing's wrong. But this is not about the "now", it is about the "in 100 years from now" and that's a completely different story.