Poor Waltyss,having another tantrum are you,take deep breath go upstairs and see what mommy is making for dinner,maybe icecream would help.
MB,nope not speaking for anyone,just reading the comments.But you guys are so super smart it should be a cake walk for you to bamboozle a bunch of uneducated old white rednecks ,or not.

MB

My point is that I get the sense that the left feels the result would be different if voter turnout was higher.

I find that a bit of an insult to those that actually voted.

The left continues, even post election, to quote polls about the majority of BC being opposed to pipelines and tankers. In lieu of the election, those polls are hardly worth the paper they are printed on. We simply don’t know what they actual support or opposition is.

A referendum may be the answer.

@Frances, would it be possible to set up the comments section so that people can reply to specific comments, and we can view a series of “conversations”? That may make it easier for readers to separate the signal from the noise in the discussions.

Thank you

Oooops, left out a rhetorical question for y’all.

Do you think Basi and Virk got shit-faced last Tuesday?

@rf 54:bingo. When Dix nixed Kinder Morgan he began his descent. Most BCers know our wealth comes from resources,accept for a few clueless urbanites.

BC Election according to … the voice of reason, he, he…
Gliss, I think your take at #12 is quite telling. Love your thought of the day at #37 and paraphrasing babalu1 #57 … “Qui s’aime se taquine!” and considering it was a “W – message” … it was simply brilliant! 🙂
I think Ned #27 nailed it:
“The only winners after this election are the Liberals. The “environmentalists” got it wrong this time and they lost Adrian Dix his election and Premiership. If it wasn’t for the ones mentioned in Glissy’s post, he would not have taken such a populist stand AGAINST the pipeline, mining, tankers, which is in fact, what killed his chances on election day.”
and confirmed by rf #54 and brilliant #60.
I add my name to that.

@ rf 54: My point is that I get the sense that the left feels the result would be different if voter turnout was higher.

Totally agree. But it’s everybody, not just the left, who are quoting the polls like they are the Holy Grail.

The NDP loss was firstly a late shift in voter intentions due to the NDP’s failure to read the public concern about the economy and jobs. They really have to address this over the next four years and present viable policy alternatives that balances jobs and environment.

The Green split was secondary to this, but in my view overall Green support should not be underestimated in future. There wasn’t a huge gap in the popular vote between the two big parties. A couple or three points closer — and accounting for the mathematical disparity in seat counts compared to the actual vote — and you’d have Andrew Weaver acting as Queen / King maker in a minority government.

Having a scientist’s mind influencing the final formation of a government would surely shake up the status quo on both sides.

I also agree on a province-wide referendum on the Enbridge project, which is a major new pipeline and tanker project slated for largely pristine environments. Kinder Morgan is an expansion on an existing route and industrial infrastructure, and probably isn’t worth the effort and expense of a referendum, though there are serious environmental concerns.

In either case, the environmental costs and economic externalities (e.g. exported embodied emissions) should be fully estimated and published for public digestion along with independent and realisitic analyses of the benefits. Hype, exaggeration and partisan ideology needs to be tempered on such an important decision.

A provincial and / or federal government willing to underwrite the costs of R&D into alternatives could, for example, promote the development of geothermal power at our numerous volcanic sites which could potentially supply enough of a surplus of base load energy to foster a new clean energy industrial order in BC as well as for export to Alberta and beyond in perpetuity.

How ironic that would be.

The Liberals are focused on petroleum (mostly LNG) to “save” the BC economy from their own deficits without fully understanding the long term consequences of their policies today. The NDP could focus on renewables, transit and the like, and policies that consider petroleum only as a transitional fuel. You don’t ban Kinder Morgan without offering something in return.

Bill 59:

Do you think that the fact the Progressives have controlled the education system for the past 20 years has anything to do with it?

Thanks for reminding us of Christy Clark’s stint as Minister of Education. Very progressive indeed!

@MB #64:

You write “I also agree on a province-wide referendum on the Enbridge project…”.

I agree in principle.

However, the problem with such a referendum is that only one side will really be bound by the result. If the pipeline etc is rejected, it won’t go ahead. However, if it is approved (for lack of a better word), do you really think the environmental groups or native interests will drop their opposition? I doubt it.

Interestingly, if one looks at the history of election results in BC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_British_Columbia_general_elections) one could argue that the recent election result represents pretty much the equilibrium for BC.

With the exception of some “notable” Premiers giving rise to massive swings (Vander Zalm, leading to the big NDP majority in 1991 and Clark leading to the big Liberal majority in 2001), the results seem somewhat uniform, give or take.

Given that history, it looks like the result of the recent election, while surprising at the time, is pretty consistent with the pattern in this province.

@IanS, 68: I’m not sure about that. Do you think that if the referendum answered “no”, Enbridge and the federal Conservatives would drop their advocacy? Or would they try to find some other way to make it happen?

The referendum would, presumably, form the BC government’s position – nothing more, nothing less. BC is only one stakeholder, but there are more forces at play than them and the environmental opposition.

@Augustin #72,

I would imagine that, if the referendum came out with a “no” result, the BC gov’t would have no choice but to oppose the pipeline, at least from a political standpoint.

However, if you are correct and no one is bound by the result, it is difficult to imagine any reason to undertake the exercise.

“It’s strange that the the description “progressive” is used as a epithet.”

You forgot the capital “P”.

I always thought Progressives were talking about their insurance underwriter. You know:”Save the planet and 15% on car insurance”.

“LNG is not petroleum.”

Debatable.

pe·tro·le·um (p-trl-m)
n.
A thick, flammable, yellow-to-black mixture of gaseous, liquid, and solid hydrocarbons that occurs naturally beneath the earth’s surface, can be separated into fractions including natural gas, gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, fuel and lubricating oils, paraffin wax, and asphalt and is used as raw material for a wide variety of derivative products.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/petroleum

ERRATA

Dix got the same result as James’ two efforts, and who both got the same average as Barrett’s 3 consecutive losses in the late 70s, and Skelly.

@boohoo #82

Probably the most succinct definition I have come across adapted for Canada:

“A word left-wingers now use to describe themselves, because the word socialist has gained a negative connotation.

Once the term progressive has been dragged through the mud by right-wing pundits, a new term will again be chosen.

“Whoa man, who are you calling a ‘Socialist’? I support alternative fuels and the work of Bono and Al Gore. I’m a Progressive.”

Probably answers your question too, IanS.

In case anyone wants an antonym to Progressive, I nominate the term ‘Midger’

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2013/05/its-thomas-midgeley-day.html

What is a Progressive?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUzMPlQb2G4&feature=player_embedded

@IanS #84

Is it their music you like or is it how they have skillfully arranged their affairs to reduce the amount of income tax they pay? While it is a tad hypocritical it doesn’t come close to Al Gore selling out his cable network to Qatar while preaching to the world about the evils of oil.

@bill

How about dropping the right wing talking points. Al Jazeera often has excellent coverage of climate change issues. Often better that the American media. The fact that it is owned by oil rich Qatar hasn’t seemed to affect its coverage of the issue.

For example: http://m.aljazeera.com/story/201351865032465413

“The disinformation campaign can only survive for so long. We saw, as in the case of tobacco, there was a similar disinformation campaign decades ago to obscure the science and the scientific link between the use of tobacco products and lung cancer. But eventually the truth of what the science had to say became accepted. There are some positive signs that we are moving in that direction; the rest of the world is moving increasingly towards renewable energy …. We are lagging behind but we are slowly making progress ourselves.”

– Michael Mann, director of Penn State University’s Earth System Science Center

Richard@91
Mann has turned into a laughing stock,his work has been completely discredited and that’s why he continues to rattle on about tobacco and the debunked consensus. And if you think Qatar has no interest in the west leaving their oil and natural gas in the ground you really are delusional,their entire existence depends on it.
His latest appearance is nothing but a propaganda fest and only shows that him and his ilk are still trying to manufacture yet another fake “consensus” and they failed miserably,these guys are a joke.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/18/mike-manns-tobacco-claims-on-al-jazeera/#more-86511
Richard you really have to look a little closer at how they arrive at the garbage they put out rather than blindly believing every scary headline they put out.

@gman

Might want to take your own advice and look into the websites that you refer to. It only takes a minute or so to figure out watts up with that.

Richard even CNBC is starting to get the picture.This would have been unheard of even a few months ago.What we are seeing is the slow unwinding of what was a huge mistake,again.
http://motls.blogspot.ca/2013/05/william-happer-on-cnbc.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+LuboMotlsReferenceFrame+%28Lubos+Motl%27s+reference+frame%29

@Tessa 98-in other words, one half who works and one half who lives parasiticaly off of them