My father was a small-town businessman who accepted cars as payment for his services. One such car was a 1964 Rambler American and it showed up in the backyard just as I received my driver’s license. I spent from age 16 to age 18 driving a Rambler American with a four-cylinder engine. If you believe in genetic survival of the fittest, driving a Rambler American is not a good platform from which to start one's sexual life. By contrast, my friend whose father owned the local Chevrolet dealership, drove a 1970 Corvette which was upgraded each year. In case you are not familiar with the Rambler American, I once drag raced a friend in his Volkswagen Beetle and lost…. badly. All this to say that the scars are deep and I would love to own a Tesla electric car if only to be 'cool' for once in my life. I am running out of runway to make that dream a reality.But my desire to own a Tesla cannot hide the fact most people do not share my desire to right a personal, historic wrong. Electric cars are not selling very well and automotive companies are losing billions of invested dollars. The problems with such cars are manifold and time is running out on fixing the issues before the internal combustion engine is banned.Even as the Canadian government struggles to reduce its carbon footprint, Canadian citizens are recognizing that if our footprint goes to zero it will have no impact on the world’s rising carbon dioxide levels. In Canada at least, 'net zero' means that whatever we do has zero impact. With increasing regularity, we are reading about the greening of the earth due to these rising levels of the dread pollutant. Our bane is the plant kingdom boon. Some climate scientists, especially as they near the end of their academic careers and have little to lose, are pointing out the obvious — the only greenhouse gas to significantly impact temperature is water vapour, aka clouds. And the impact on temperature is illusory because no one knows what “the world’s average temperature” means. Even our young Hamlet is not so sure about the science especially when it puts Atlantic votes in jeopardy. Just how existentially necessary is all this net zero stuff anyway?It is time to stop the mewling about how Alberta is getting to net zero “our own way” by sequestering carbon and allowing fewer emissions in the first place.It is time for the oil sands industry to put on its big boy pants and stop offering to work with me to fight climate change. I have no interest in fighting climate change because such a quixotic fight is a declaration of ignorance and not virtue. Don’t believe me, read the scientific sections of the United Nations IPCC reports.I fully understand there are others who believe my views are “dangerous” and find much to fear in “the science." Good. Let’s finally have the scientific debate devoid of ideology and political power moves and make policy decisions based on data as opposed to well financed pressure tactics.One of my guilty pleasures is to secretly believe that Jean Chretien ranks among our greatest prime ministers. He drove me nuts when he was in power, but I always laughed at his shenanigans. The best of those shenanigans was his treatment of climate change hysteria. He talked the talk and then did nothing about it. I am hopeful that our premier is channeling her inner “Jean” by yakking nonstop about “fighting climate change” in hopes that our next federal election will deliver the knockout blow in that fight.And when Mr. Trudeau’s fatuous nonsense about climate change is silenced here is hoping that oil companies will similarly pull their virtue signalling commercials. I would love to own a Tesla, but I’ll settle for a Corvette. Just don’t put me back into a Rambler American which is where this climate nonsense is pushing me economically.Murray Lytle is a professional engineer and one of the last National Energy Board commissioners.
My father was a small-town businessman who accepted cars as payment for his services. One such car was a 1964 Rambler American and it showed up in the backyard just as I received my driver’s license. I spent from age 16 to age 18 driving a Rambler American with a four-cylinder engine. If you believe in genetic survival of the fittest, driving a Rambler American is not a good platform from which to start one's sexual life. By contrast, my friend whose father owned the local Chevrolet dealership, drove a 1970 Corvette which was upgraded each year. In case you are not familiar with the Rambler American, I once drag raced a friend in his Volkswagen Beetle and lost…. badly. All this to say that the scars are deep and I would love to own a Tesla electric car if only to be 'cool' for once in my life. I am running out of runway to make that dream a reality.But my desire to own a Tesla cannot hide the fact most people do not share my desire to right a personal, historic wrong. Electric cars are not selling very well and automotive companies are losing billions of invested dollars. The problems with such cars are manifold and time is running out on fixing the issues before the internal combustion engine is banned.Even as the Canadian government struggles to reduce its carbon footprint, Canadian citizens are recognizing that if our footprint goes to zero it will have no impact on the world’s rising carbon dioxide levels. In Canada at least, 'net zero' means that whatever we do has zero impact. With increasing regularity, we are reading about the greening of the earth due to these rising levels of the dread pollutant. Our bane is the plant kingdom boon. Some climate scientists, especially as they near the end of their academic careers and have little to lose, are pointing out the obvious — the only greenhouse gas to significantly impact temperature is water vapour, aka clouds. And the impact on temperature is illusory because no one knows what “the world’s average temperature” means. Even our young Hamlet is not so sure about the science especially when it puts Atlantic votes in jeopardy. Just how existentially necessary is all this net zero stuff anyway?It is time to stop the mewling about how Alberta is getting to net zero “our own way” by sequestering carbon and allowing fewer emissions in the first place.It is time for the oil sands industry to put on its big boy pants and stop offering to work with me to fight climate change. I have no interest in fighting climate change because such a quixotic fight is a declaration of ignorance and not virtue. Don’t believe me, read the scientific sections of the United Nations IPCC reports.I fully understand there are others who believe my views are “dangerous” and find much to fear in “the science." Good. Let’s finally have the scientific debate devoid of ideology and political power moves and make policy decisions based on data as opposed to well financed pressure tactics.One of my guilty pleasures is to secretly believe that Jean Chretien ranks among our greatest prime ministers. He drove me nuts when he was in power, but I always laughed at his shenanigans. The best of those shenanigans was his treatment of climate change hysteria. He talked the talk and then did nothing about it. I am hopeful that our premier is channeling her inner “Jean” by yakking nonstop about “fighting climate change” in hopes that our next federal election will deliver the knockout blow in that fight.And when Mr. Trudeau’s fatuous nonsense about climate change is silenced here is hoping that oil companies will similarly pull their virtue signalling commercials. I would love to own a Tesla, but I’ll settle for a Corvette. Just don’t put me back into a Rambler American which is where this climate nonsense is pushing me economically.Murray Lytle is a professional engineer and one of the last National Energy Board commissioners.
