Kyoto now

Last Saturday, on the global day of action to mark the Bali climate conference, we attended a climate rally here in Toronto. I was hoping to see thousands of Canadians at the demonstration, eager to show their disappointment to prime minister Stephen Harper and his government for not only doing nothing to meet the targets set by the Kioto protocol, which Canada has ratified, but for also actively speaking against Kyoto.

Well, there weren't thousands of people there, but maybe 500 in the beginning and then perhaps 1000 or so at most, though the organizers claimed there were more.

After I came home, I read about the climate rally held in Helsinki the same day, and got the understanding that though the demonstrators there had a very cool, entertaining theme (Lunta, perkele! :), the number of people who attended the march wasn't much bigger than here in Toronto.

Jack Layton (NDP) speaks at D8 rally
So an average Finn isn't much more interested in attending a demonstration for saving our climate than an average Torontonian. But there is one significant difference there. That is that it's better to have a government that has at least 1. ratified Kyoto and cut emissions and 2. believes in the scientific evidence on climate change and promises to do more about things, together with the European Union, than to have a government which 1. has ratified Kyoto but hasn't done anything at all to put it to work and 2. actively denies climate change and works against reaching an international agreement to fight against it.