By Jim Harrison
Dec 29 2006
Kamloops This Week [Link]

Nations within a nation — now laws that apply only to some people.

First, the prime minister is musing about the Quebecois being a “nation within a nation,” although even Stephen Harper isn’t quite sure what that really means.

Now we have the Supreme Court of Canada, in a split decision, telling us it’s OK to hunt wild animals in the dead of night using lights, as long as you are of First Nations heritage.

The ruling overturned a lower-court decision that found night hunting to constitute a danger.

The practise is legally frowned upon because it’s unfair to the animals. Not only are they killed, but the exercise doesn’t even give them a sporting chance, since they are often frozen by the light, giving the so-called hunter a soft target.

Legal counsel for the natives involved in the court case call it a major victory that will change the way First Nations people provide for their families.

More of them can hunt at night now, says Louise Mandell, when there are more animals running about.

Most communities have grocery stores nearby, but even if they choose to hunt game to feed their families, they, too, ought to resort to their traditional skills and not blind some poor animal before snatching the life from it.

Hunting at night with lights is hardly traditional First Nations practise, since portable battery-powered lights are a relatively modern-day invention.

This practise is not acceptable behaviour for the rest of the population, no matter which of the nations within our nation we live in. Consequently, it should not be lawful for any specific segment of it either, regardless of race, religion or any other circumstance.

With storm after storm battering B.C, people may have the urge to join the “sky is falling” crowd.

That the climate is changing is self-evident.

What’s dangerous is the notion we can somehow influence it by spending enormous amounts of money managing greenhouse gas emissions.

Ken Green, formerly of the Fraser Institute, believes “this is the view of a lethal coalition, who for their own ends, have until now managed to kill off any attempt to look at climate change rationally.”

As Green puts it, “temperance fiends who’ve hated fossil fuels, cars, urban sprawl, highways, rich people, fat people, industrial economies, airplanes, meat consumption, and just about everything else that might make someone smile-see energy rationing via greenhouse-gas controls as the answer to their prayers.”

But now, some scientists who’ve been on those bandwagons are beginning to understand they may have overplayed their hand.

The latest likely estimates for doubling of the world’s carbon-dioxide level (which many argue will never happen) would produce a warming between 1.5 to 4.5 degrees Celsius, with only a 15 per cent chance of going higher.

“Not a walk in the park, but not the stuff of Hollywood disaster epics.”

It shows a fissure forming in the body of opinion that we had to immediately reduce greenhouse gas emissions, even if the cost was the collapse of national economies.

We do need carefully considered strategies to adapt, but we need to be careful not to leap to irrational and unproven responses that satisfy the alarmists, but will have zero impact on climate change.