Contrarian reader Dana Doiron offers a subtly different take on Elizabeth May's performance in the recent Munk debate on climate change: I suspect that May was uncomfortable with the black and white (not another crayon issue) framing of the proposition.  One can support individual and collective action in response to climate change without making it the end-all and be-all, just as one can support our soldiers while having reservations about the conflict to which they have been deployed....

08 December, 2009

Contrarian reader and tech fixer Mike Targett points out that Guardian columnist George Monbiot, whose blistering denunciation of Canada's climate change policies appeared here yesterday, was in Toronto to take part in a Munk Debate Tuesday. One of a series sponsored by Aurea Foundation, the debate considered this proposition: "Be it resolved: climate change is mankind's defining crisis, and demands a commensurate response." Monbiot and Elizabeth May took the affirmative; Bjørn Lomborg and Lord Nigel Lawson the negative. Audience polls taken before and after the debate showed the con side to be slightly more persuasive. My reading is that Lomborg and Lawson...

03 December, 2009