Canadian mounties' secret memo casts doubt on climate change threat
[ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... ecret-memo ]
Intelligence report identifies anti-petroleum movement as a threat to Canadian security [ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... ity-threat ] and suggests those concerned with climate consequences occupy political fringe
Suzanne Goldenberg @suzyji Wednesday 18 February 2015 16.51 GMT Last modified on Wednesday 18 February 2015 18.17 GMT
The US security establishment views climate change as real and a dangerous threat to national security. But Canada takes a very different view, according to a secret intelligence memo prepared by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
The memo, stamped “Canadian eyes only”, repeatedly casts doubt on the causes of climate change – the burning of fossil fuels – and its potential threat.
The 44-page intelligence assessment of Canada’s environmental protest movement was prepared for the government of Stephen Harper, who is expected to roll out new anti-terror legislation.
In the memo, obtained by Greenpeace and seen by the Guardian, the RCMP repeatedly departs from the conclusions of an overwhelming majority of scientists – and the majority of elected leaders in the international arena – that climate change is a growing threat to global security.
Instead, the memo on the “anti-Canada petroleum movement” presents continued expansion of oil and gas production as an inevitability, and repeatedly casts doubt on the causes and consequences of climate change.
It mentions the “perceived environmental threat from the continued use of fossil fuels”. It suggests that those concerned with the consequences of climate change occupy the political fringe.
“In their literature, representatives of the movement claim that climate change is now the most serious global environmental threat and that climate change is a direct consequence of elevated anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions which, reportedly, are directly linked to the continued use of fossil fuels,” the memo says.
( Excerpt from RCMP memo Photograph: Guardian ) [ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... memo#img-2 ]
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[ http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... ecret-memo ]