Cool heads needed for green debates.

In the first creation story in Genesis, God puts responsibility for creation in the hands of humans, the creatures fashioned in the divine image. It is an awesome responsibility and one that we haven't always done well. * Over the next 50 years Canada is set to become one of world's largest exporters of crude, the Alberta tar sands being the second-largest known oil reserves on the planet. Western oil is Canada's pension-plan portfolio. There's just one problem: global warming.

Ignoring the problem of impurities, burning oil of gas produces heat, carbon dioxide and water. Carbon dioxide is a crucial component of the atmosphere, but too much of a good thing causes overheating. Excess C[O.sub.2] wraps the Earth like a duvet, trapping the sun's heat.

Emotions also overheat. Either the Earth is warming like a snowball headed for the devil's lair of global warming is a socialist plot. Nothing is served by debates so crudely framed.

Anti-green critics debunk wild assertions as junk science. But that doesn't explain the brown smog ceiling hovering over cities that sends ever more asthmatics reaching for their puffers.

On the other hand, some green initiatives have been shown to consume more energy than the allegedly wasteful or polluting products and practices they are to replace. (Incandescent lightbulbs, for example, have been shown to be cheap, efficient little heaters in cold, dark Canadian winters.)

Anyone still doubting that humans are warming the Earth can only be called stubborn after a short article just a year ago in The Economist. The influential defender of free-market economics reported on a paper presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science showing that ocean surface temperatures have increased since the 1940s at a rate that cannot be linked to any natural phenomena.

If there is any problem individuals can affect it is the environmental one. As consumers and investors we are ultimately the ones who determine what widgets will be made and how efficient they will be. And if your church parking lot is crowded with SUVs, perhaps there are opportunities for discussion at coffee hour, if not from the pulpit.

With China and India ravenous for energy, not to mention the United States, Canada stands to make billions from its natural resources that will enrich us all--but at what cost?

The debate is just beginning. Will it become more temperate?

Free speech: because one can doesn't mean one should

A Danish newspaper's publication of satirical cartoons of the prophet Mohammed created heated comments and a few tires as Muslims around the world protested, some violently.

The putative reason for publishing the illustrations was itself a protest against the fact a Danish author couldn't find illustrators for a children's book on the life of Mohammed because of a widely held view in Islam that the prophet should not be depicted. The paper subsequently apologized for what was either folly or excruciating naivete.

Freedom of expression is a foundational principle in Western democracies. It has not always been so and it is constantly under pressure. Under the Fundamental Freedoms section of the Canadian Charter, 2b refers to "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication," but it doesn't prevent hate and libel laws circumscribing that freedom.

The violent reaction was absolutely wrong but the repeated publication of the drawings in other newspapers in reaction was still offensive.

One Canadian Muslim group spoke out quickly. Tarek Fatah, a director of the Muslim Canadian Congress, wrote that the "Prophet Mohammed endured insults and ridicule on a daily basis.... Tradition has it that he would ... offer a prayer of forgiveness to those who showed contempt for him.

"The Muslim Canadian Congress strongly believes that as reprehensible as the cartoons were, the issuing of death threats and asking for the killing of journalists and cartoonists, must be condemned with vigour, as it is contrary, not only to the letter and spirit of Islam, but also offensive to the civic society we have chosen as our home."

Well-spoken words for all to hear.