EnviroSpin Watch

'Oh to be from Britain now the G8's there'.....

Reading online yesterday's The Observer (vitriolic summary courtesy of the ever-excellent Daily Ablution), it was with an intense sense of relief that I find myself in beautiful downtown Vancouver, a third of a world away from the Billy Graham-style religious fervour now attending the upcoming G8 Summit in Scotland. Have you ever read such apocalyptic latterday ranting? Who can question that, in the UK, 'global warming' has become the faith for our North London/East Anglian media masses? They cry out for you to confess your sins in tub-thumping old revivalist style. It is truly dreadful. Thank goodness, therefore, that I am over here in Canada, looking down on Burrard Inlet and Stanley Park, and not at home having to digest all the uncritical hype. It will surely end in tears - and it will eventually pass, like all 'revivals'. But for the moment, we must endure the hysteria or, like me, flee the beaters of tambourines and the pious preachers.

Yet, how civilized and calming it is to be able to open over the hash browns at breakfast two leading Canadian newspapers in which the phrases 'global warming' and 'climate change' do not even appear. It is like finding sanity in a fever hospital.

What is more, the friendly folk of Vancouver seem to be singularly unimpressed by the 'global warmers' (fewer fruit and nuts and more jacuzzis than in California, I suspect), having suffered a rather poor start to summer, with much low cloud and below average temperatures.

So here are seven great reasons why Canada will never meet those bar(l)my Kyoto targets:-

(a) In Vancouver, there are surely more patio heaters than in the whole of the United Kingdom put together - and yesterday evening (coolish), they were all at full blast keeping my seafood pasta at Italian temperatures. "Pooop! Poop! Poop! Pooop!" as the little clock says in Gastown;

(b) There are more SUVs in a single street than on a whole UK school run - indeed, Vancouver doesn't have suburbs, more suvurbs;

(c) The lovely diminutive sea planes (those gorgeous twin-engined sea otters) rev up with immense vigour as they sweep around from Canada Place to cross the forested ridges and the islands to visit that 'Twee Little England with Mountains', Victoria, where the most engaging place to take lunch is unquestionably the Members' Dining Room in the B.C. Parliament Buildings (a hidden gem);

(d) Despite frequent 'No Idling' signs, Vancouver drivers appear to idle their time away with the best;

(e) The jacuzzi at my hotel never ceases to swish and to swirl - Canada is the land of 'The Bear and the Hot Tub' (a potential name for Ye Olde English Pub in Victoria? Too grizzly to contemplate!);

(f) Smart developments are going up everywhere, as Vancouver becomes a port city of the future - some of the buildings along Bayshore, and in the West End, being 'post-post-modern', glass-glinting wonders - simply stunning;

(g) In yuppie Yaletown, there are more designer dogs to go with the designer youth than even the designer cars - and even I winced at the designer dog lead shops! Quite barking.

Thus, 'though my hotel blandly declares that "Environmentality (sic) is a global effort" (saves money on the linen?), I am thankfully far, far away from the self-righteous cant of an overheated UK. Canada talks PC Green, but lives, thank goodness, in the real world.

And who can doubt the mighty benefits of globalisation in a port like Vancouver, a city where that wood-burning marvel, No. 347, first linked the West and the East by rail and where tall-masted ships began a tale of trade that has circumnavigated the world and made Vancouver the joy it is today, a modern marvel looking both west and east on the mighty Pacific Rim? I have seen the future, and Mr. Monbiot and all his ilk are just plain wrong.

And such relief - no British 'bible' bashing! This is what I call a holiday. You should get over here quick - The Gloomiad is promising a 30-page climate change blockbuster for June 30th! Escape the nonsense while you can!

Philip, maple syrup all round on the waffle. Lunch - oysters? Yummie. Must clam up now. "See ya, Guys."