Last weekend two broadsheet newspapers, the National Post and the Epoch Times, published lengthy discussions of climate change and the contribution of human beings to its causes..The Post story, written by Jesse Klein, bore the headline Do (almost) Nothing. I was anticipating a sensible account of the untenable assumptions governing climate alarmism that might lead a sensible person to the conclusion expressed in the headline..Alas, the author was in no way concerned with the science or lack of it that undergirds Canadian government policies..Rather, he accepted the notion that human-caused or anthropogenic climate change was a big problem and the solution was to allow the “private sector” to fix things by means of nuclear power and geoengineering..The latter, he said, was a way of “dreaming big” and putting dreams into operation. His advocacy in fact endorsed a sci-fi fantasy that has been around for a long time. Humans can save themselves and the planet by erecting a space-based sunshade that, like my lady’s parasol, would keep sunlight off the face of the earth..He did have sufficient commonsense to allow that the alarmists’ views had grown more extreme over the years. Indeed, they respond with aggression and appear slightly deranged when they are treated with skepticism and derision by genuine climatologists. This is both a psychological and a political problem, as it always is when the inmates take over the asylum..Klein also argued the real objective of the enviros, nearly all of whom are self-described leftists, was to enhance “coercive, big-government, wealth-killing policies.”.And he noted the chief beneficiary of policies that promoted renewable energy sources was China. China produces about three-quarters of the world’s solar panels. Canadians are urged to buy them even though their construction depends on coal-based electricity production, which seems like a contradiction. With several hundred years’ worth of thermal coal just beneath the topsoil, would it not make more sense for Albertans to burn their own coal?.A final intelligent observation Klein made was that, despite the prospect of decreased prosperity for Canadians, the country was “not on track to meet its climate targets.”.Unfortunately, Klein did not connect the political dots..He said nothing about the effect of the Liberals’ “ideological goals” on the chief source of hydrocarbon production: Alberta..Rather he was content to criticize Canada, not for it predatory policies towards Alberta, but for “swimming against the stream of progress” and legislating such useless trivia as banning plastic straws. Having become a Laurentian journalist, I guess that’s a start..Klein’s account, stretching over nearly four full pages, was refreshing when compared to the usual discussions of climate change in the mainstream media, but compared to the report by Katie Spence in the Epoch Times, it was still a disappointment..Spence began by referencing the World Climate Declaration: There is No Climate Emergency, published by the Global Climate Intelligence Group. The latter, rather like the Calgary-based Friends of Science, is an educational organization that seeks to “put science back into climate science,” as they said on their website..The Declaration was signed by more than 1,600 informed scientists, including 72 Canadians, three of whom teach at Alberta universities. It argued the entire alarmist message was political. Moreover, the Declaration was based on facts inconvenient to the alarmists..Here are a few..The climate of the earth has warmed and cooled for millennia. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Why should subsequent warming be a surprise?.Before the Little Ice Age, the Medieval and Roman warm periods were hotter than today. Indeed, temperatures were higher shortly after the end of the last major ice age about 12,000 years ago..Warming is far slower than announced by alarmists and is far less than predicted by their models..One obvious reason is the models “are not remotely plausible.” There are several reasons why climate models are invariably wrong, and they have been known for years: solar variability, ocean cycles, the chaotic influence of clouds, and several other factors that simply cannot be modelled, and have nothing to do with humans, such as the place of the earth and the solar system in the universe..Worse, because the alarmists’ models are designed to look only at anthropogenic factors, but because natural CO2 production is more important, attempts to reduce human-caused CO2 emissions are simply pointless. Ed Berry, a theoretical physicist quoted by Spence, called the modelling scam “the biggest public delusion and costliest fraud in history.”.Carbon dioxide is plant food, not a pollutant. One learns about plants and CO2 in high-school botany. Alarmists, however, ignore this basic reality..There is no evidence that climate changes are correlated with more intense hurricanes, floods, droughts, or wildfires..Spence also discussed the changing language used to describe the non-existent problem..First came “global warming,” but people lost interest and no one was scared. Then came “climate change,” which at least referenced the reality that the climate changes. Then we entered a climate “crisis” and now we are amid a climate “emergency.” As we note below, a climate apocalypse is not far away..The problem of course is the whole series of language terms refers to nothing real..Genuine climate scientists, such as Richard Lindzen, MIT emeritus professor of meteorology, have noticed all this nonsense and they offer a clear and distinct explanation: it’s all about money and power, which is true for most corrupt schemes in political life..Another meteorologist, Joe Bastardi, observed at present the earth is in “a climate optimum, not a climate emergency.” This is good news..They have also noticed, as did Klein, all the policies designed to reduce CO2 emissions have not worked. But Lindzen drew a sensible conclusion: “if you believe CO2 is an existential threat and your policies are doing nothing to prevent it but are making you less resilient, one would have to ask: are you a pathological sadist?” Maybe. Or maybe you are just an asset of China..Albertans should hear the wisdom of genuine scientists in mind when listening to the rants of self-serving fanatics. That would include the apocalyptic words of the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, who recently had a vision: the “gates of hell” are open, he revealed, and we are all facing “global boiling.”.And as for the silliness emerging from the mouth of Canada’s sorcerer’s apprentice, environment minister Monsieur Steven Guilbeault, it is to laugh.
