Skip to content
Archive of posts filed under the AGW category.

Was Stephane Dion just ahead of his time?

Electricity prices and associated costs will soon be skyrocketing in Ontario. No doubt about that.

According to a recent column by the Star’s Tyler Hamilton (Why paying more for electricity is good for you), the new strategy is to deliberately increase ‘dirty’ power costs to force consumers to use less:

How do jurisdictions with more expensive electricity cope? It’s simple: they use less of it. That’s the remarkable thing about higher prices. It’s an efficient way to squeeze waste out of the system.

“People would be surprised at how powerful that pricing lever is, and frankly how little the price increase needs to be to deal with climate change,” says Heintzman.

Homeowners, businesses, governments and industrial facilities will be motivated to offset rising costs by doing a better job of managing their energy use and investing in energy-reducing retrofits...

So basically you will be forced to go green and you will like it.

And remember Dion’s Green Shift where some of the money derived from the carbon tax would be diverted into maintaining ‘social justice’? Well it seems that Dion was ahead of his time:

…Some will need help. A new $650-million industrial efficiency program designed by the Ontario Power Authority is an example of how government can ease the transition. The program, open to 60 of Ontario’s largest industrial players, will pay up to 70 per cent of the cost of an energy-saving project. Each project aims to reduce energy use by 30 per cent.

Likewise, there are both federal and provincial programs to help homeowners lower their bills through energy retrofits in advance of rising energy prices. The trick is to make sure low-income and fixed-income consumers get support through rebates and changes to the tax structure.

If it all sounds eerily familiar to the Green Shift plan proposed by Stéphane Dion, former leader of the federal Liberal party, that’s because it is.

Dion’s failure to sell the plan doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good idea. It means he failed to communicate it properly or the population, confused by opposition fear-mongering, just wasn’t ready for it…

So are we ready now to have power costs and taxes jacked up so that we can be forced to save Mother Earth and appease our social conscience as a bonus? This is a left-wing dream scenario and it is about to happen.

And what was the problem when Dion tried this? Was it the message that Canadians were against or was it the messenger? Or both?

And why would we be ready to accept it now as we try to recover from the recession?

Of course that would assume that we had a choice.

*   *   *   *

Related

No payoff in off-peak power conservation – Star (re: ‘Smart’ meters)

And from the general realm of Environmental Propaganda:

Time to fight back against oilsands propaganda – Sun

‘No facts, please. We’re British’ – Edmonton Journal

North and Booker on Amazongate: A billion dollar cash cowWatts up with that? (H/T Bruce)

Giving up carbon for Lent

No, seriously!  This is an edict from several church leaders.

I arrived at this incredible revelation on a hunt for the relationship between environmentalism and Catholicism after reading this opinion piece in today’s Record by Community Editorial Board member Ruthann Fisher who is a ‘pastoral associate at St. Francis of Assisi Church’ in Kitchener.  Ms. Fisher begins her piece (which also includes a federal government-bashing) as follows:

“Can we afford to only honour our Earth for one hour or one week?”

As a Catholic and a Christian, I found that sentence very disturbing. I was always taught to follow the first commandment: I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me.

“Honouring” our  “Earth” strikes me as somewhat sacrilegious.  I thought we were only supposed to honour God.

Then there’s that whole ‘afford’ thing – stoking up the old fear factor again.   Is God going to punish me if I burn some fossil fuel driving to the store?  I sure didn’t learn that in Catechism class.  Or is she trying to say that I’ll go broke? Or will my carbon sinning hasten the apocalypse?

As a Christian I believe it is our duty to be good stewards of God’s gifts to us and that includes the earth and all God’s creations therein.

So in my quest for a better understanding of where the Church was going on this I came across this notion of a Carbon Fast for Lent supported by many different religions and organizations.  In fact you are even invited to Light a Lenten candle this Earth Hour -A carbon fast reflects the true meaning of the Lenten season. (Yikes!!!  Are you buying this?)

It’s a strange world today when the only sins that really seem to be ones worth worrying about are those against Mother Earth.

*   *   *   *

Update:

Advice to priests: shut up about climate change, talk about sin
– Telegraph

You gotta ask God about that – Rockin Traddy

*   *   *   *

And please refresh my memory.   Where does the Catholic Church stand on abortion these days?

Pelosi prays to St Joseph to pass this abortion-funding bill for its life affirmation, or something – Hot Air (H/T Maz2 [And I got a trackback from Hot Air. Awesome.]

Deus Vult! Pelosi invokes St. Joseph to pass bill that funds abortions
– Washington Examiner

“Don’t kill babies, kill the bill”
-  From: A House, and nation, divided on health care (Gazette)

Health Bill: Poll Indicates Perils for Some Democrats – Wall Street Journal

*   *   *   *

Saturday Update

In case you missed it -

Seven-month-old baby survives shot to chest in parents’ murder-suicide pact blamed on global warming – Daily News.  (So I guess Al Gore was right after all. Global warming can kill you.)

U.K. warmists now scaring kids – Lorrie Goldstein

Global Warming Nursery Rhymes – American Thinker:

There is a reason why Hitler, Stalin, Mao and other totalitarian rulers have sought to give the state the responsibility for raising and educating their nation‘s youth. Parents cannot be fully trusted to prepare their children to be loyal and productive members of society. It is essential that the indoctrination process begin during those early formative years before any nonconformist values are instilled…

Minister’s global warming nursery rhyme adverts banned for overstating the risks – Mail Online

How will Climategate affect Earth Hour?

H/T to Bruce for reminding us that Earth Hour will be rearing its ugly little head once again on March 27, in spite of the Climategate revelations and all the other scandals that followed it.

I see the WWF is still demanding action on climate change.

How about if we push back and demand some honesty?

*   *   *   *

*    *   *    *

Related

The New York Times Fights Back Against the Climate-gate ScandalMyron Ebell, Fox News:

“Climate scientists are paid to do climate science,” said Gavin A. Schmidt…. “Their job is not persuading the public.”

If only that were so, even in the case of Dr. Schmidt. True, his salary is paid by American taxpayers, but it is almost certainly the case that over the past few years he has been spending a good part of his time during office hours and using government equipment to produce political propaganda for RealClimate.org, a web site run by Schmidt and Michael E. Mann. RealClimate.org has received help from Fenton Communications, the key P.R. firm for the Soros-funded left.
Thus Broder portrays Schmidt as just a scientist trying to be left alone to do his job, but in fact Schmidt is primarily a moderately-skilled political operative working to promote global warming alarmism. Here is Broder quoting Schmidt again:

“What is new is this paranoia combined with a spell of cold weather in the U. S. and the ‘climategate’ release. It’s a perfect storm that has allowed the nutters to control the agenda.”

“Nutters” is English (and Schmidt is English) slang equivalent to “nut” in the sense of crazy person. Well, Schmidt should know—his boss is the director of GISS, Dr. James E. Hansen. Hansen is widely considered to be the leading scientific promoter of global warming alarmism and as such is a highly political animal. He is also increasingly kooky and extreme…

Global Warming: Gore Vs. Gunter – NP:

Honey bees aren’t dying off because of global warming; they’re dying off because of a tiny mite that has plagued hives for decades. Polar bears aren’t dying off for lack of food to eat or ice to cling to. They aren’t dying off, period.

And the devastating melt of Arctic ice in 2007? Turns out the ice did not melt “in place.” According to a recent study by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, wind pushed more Arctic ice than usual out into the Atlantic that year where it melted simply because that ocean is warmer than its Arctic counterpart. Not because the Arctic is warming rapidly.

Could this wind shunting have been caused by global warming? Sure. But it just as easily could have other, natural causes.

The point is, there is no consensus on climate science. There never has been. By flinging names like “deniers” at skeptical scientists, barring them from IPCC deliberations, preventing them from seeing the warmers’ raw climate data and keeping them from having their papers peer reviewed, activists like Mr. Gore and the scientists who agree with them have created an artificial consensus.

While that may be good politics, it is very bad science.

*   *   *   *

Friday Update

Alice in UN Land – Peter Foster

Climate science: Let’s follow the money – Lorrie Goldstein

But can we wish away Al Gore?

There is no shortage of point-by-point criticisms of Al Gore’s New York Times Op-ed, We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change.

My first thought after reading his steaming pile of rhetoric was why did he set himself up for the inevitable drudging?   Or does he actually believe that we’re that stupid?

And how is it that the alarmists can continue to hold him up as some kind of prophet and still keep a straight face while they warn us all of impending doom?

Anyway, here are some of the better fisks that I’ve come across. If you find more please let share them in comments. Thanks.

Al’s latest global-warming whopper – Alan Reynolds, New York Post

Al Gore’s weird, disconnected op-ed on climate change – Rick Moran, American Thinker

Al Gore Comes Out of Hiding and Gets a Fisking – Bluegrass Pundit

EXCLUSIVE: Inhofe Blasts Gore Over Climategate – Connie Hair, Human Events

But in response to Gore’s statement that “what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption”,   Bill Kristol said it most succinctly:

“Redemption comes from God, not Gore.”

* * * *

Related

More inconvenient news for the global warming alarmists:

UN’s climate link to hurricanes in doubt – Times Online

Cyclone climate link rejected
– The Australian

El Nino killed Costa Rican toad, not global warming – Oneindia

British scientist in climate row admits ‘awful’ emails – Sydney Morning Herald

‘The Acceleration of Disbelief,’ Starring ‘Floor Mat’ Al Gore - Big Journalism (this is a must-read)

So is this one: Climategate: ‘a lot of common data’ – Phil Jones exposes AGW dominoes to Commons committee – Gerald Warner, Telegraph:

...And oh, yes – one further interesting fact emerged from yesterday’s Select Committee grilling. Professor Edward Acton, the Vice-Chancellor of the “University” of East Anglia, now thinks more money should be devoted to researching the Mediaeval Warm Period. So apparently it exists after all.

Who knew?

*   *   *   *

Local ‘Green Energy’ issues:

Wind farm faces opposition – Guelph Mercury article via Windaction

Ontario power risk – Parker Gallant, Full Comment

*   *   *   *

*   *   *   *

Wednesday Update

Welcome Jack’s Newswatch readers!  And please check out Crux of the MatterTrust Conservative gov’t timetable to refute AGW.

Peter Foster: Climate snow jobs
– FP Comment

Wind power the worst kind of mirage – Henk Tennekes, FP

*   *   *   *

Friday – Saturday Update

Waiting to hear ‘we’re sorry’ – John Robson, Ottawa Citizen

Blowing away taxpayers – Michael Trebilcock, Financial Post

The Audacity of Caution

Dr. Jack Kruuv, Professor Emeritus of Physics at the University of Waterloo has a few choice words for Maxime Bernier in today’s Waterloo Region Record:

“Politicians should keep their trap shut, when they don’t know what they are talking about.”

And since politicians represent the people that elect them, then by extension he is telling us to keep our traps shut. So much for open debate in Canadian taxpayer-supported universities.

This is the kind of attitude that we’re up against.

Have at it, BLY nation.

*   *   *   *

Update

Fantastic post at American Thinker by Rick Moran (H/T Maz2) where he savages Al Gore’s NYT op-ed – Al Gore’s weird, disconnected op-ed on climate change:

…In other words, Gore obviously believes we should sit down, shut up, and let him and his buddies reach into our pockets and remove trillions of dollars without demanding proof of the scientific basis for his power grab…

Sound familiar?

Phil Jones on the hot seat – not sharing data is “standard practice”WUWT (H/T Maz2)

And a terrific comment  from a reader at the Daily Mail:

“Prof Jones today said it was not ‘standard practice’ in climate science to release data and methodology for scientific findings so that other scientists could check and challenge the research.”

It is standard practice in every proper science to release date and methodology in the greatest of detail so that every aspect of the research and of the argument can be ‘falsified’ (using the Popper meaning of the word).
That is how science works.
That is why science works.
Not to do so puts climate research at the level of iridology, homeopoathy, and alchemy.
Add political agenda, and finding, and you have a bastardised pseudo-science barely worth another look. Unscrupulous people making money out of the latest political bandwagon, to justify further taxation by this dreadful government.

Which many of us have suspected for a long time.

- PeterMac, Ronda, Spain, 01/3/2010 18:45

Maxime Bernier – Climate Realist

Thank you Maxime Bernier for being the first politician to have the courage to publicly acknowledge what we all have been aware of for the last several months – that the so-called ‘settled science’  is unraveling and the alarmists’ hysteria is a crock as Lorrie Goldstein points out today – Mad Max makes sense[Sidenote:  MP Colin Mayes was pilloried by climate alarmists for expressing doubts to a constituent in December.]

In case you missed it, Maxime Bernier had the audacity to suggest that perhaps a bit of healthy skeptism might be in order before committing tons of money to attempt to solve a unsubstantiated problem that may or may not be able to be solved by human intervention.  The opposition parties are saying that this is proof of where the Harper Government really stands on climate change, but many of us grassroot supporters only wish that were so.

Lorrie Goldstein is also a climate realist and truth seeker who feels that PM Harper should be taking the same approach as Bernier, but he gives the Conservative Government a back-handed compliment:

The good news is Harper is better on climate change than the opposition parties. The bad news is, that’s not saying much.

That’s for sure. Here is the alternative, Lorrie:

“The fact is, no one with any scientific credibility denies the science behind man-made climate change,” said Liberal science, industry and technology critic Marc Garneau, the former head of the Canadian Space Agency.

No one with any scientific credibility – Oh you mean Phil Jones? Bernier refers to him in a portion of his letter that was edited out by LaPresse:

Phil Jones has admitted that we still do not know if the medieval period when the Vikings colonised Greenland was really warmer than today. But that if that was the case, it would contradict the claim that our era has been exceptionally warm due to human activity

Marc Garneau must be living in a cave somewhere to make a statement like that. Does he not keep up with the news?

Lorrie Goldstein points out that we can still take a healthy, common-sense approach to the environment without buying into the alarmism:

The reason he should pull Canada out of the UN-inspired Kyoto-Copenhagen madness, now, is that none of what it leads to — global cap-and-trade markets and/or carbon taxes — has worked in the real world.

Besides, unelected warmists have had their day with their never-ending “do what we say or the planet gets it” hysteria.

Canadians want sensible policies to (further) reduce air and water pollution and automobile emissions, make oilsands development environmentally sustainable, conserve energy, clean up toxic waste dumps, safely dispose of nuclear waste, provide clean drinking water to native reserves, preserve forests, put scrubbers on coal-fired electricity plants and expand public infrastructure, including effective public transit.

(As for renewable energy, let’s figure out what works and is economically viable before ramming unwanted industrial wind factories down people’s throats in rural communities, while savaging their democratic rights.)

All of these things make sense regardless of where one stands on climate change

But back to Mmmm-Mmmm Maxime Maxime as some of my readers refer to  him. Is it possible that Bernier is setting the stage for a future leadership bid?  Robert Silver seems to think so.  He’s comparing Bernier to Sarah Palin!

And ChuckerCanuk thinks this could herald the beginning of the Second Quiet Revolution in Quebec.

Jim Prentice seemed a bit testy yesterday when questioned about Maxime’s remarks:

“I did not talk to Maxime about that (letter) before it was published. As you know, there are many points of view on the science debate that is currently circulating around,” said Prentice in an interview in Washington, where his is discussing climate and energy issues with U.S. officials.

“The views that Maxime has put forward are his personal views. They are not the government’s view. I don’t specifically share them. He is certainly entitled to his perspective, but it is his perspective as an individual. It’s not the government’s perspective.”

Is it possible that Jim Prentice wishes he could also be as forthright as Bernier, but that he is shackled by his Cabinet position and by the fact that Canada must also be careful about policies that could affect trade with the U.S.?

*   *   *   *

Update

Britain’s Weather Office Proposes Climate-Gate Do-OverFox News

The debate is NOT over

Yesterday saw two huge news stories but you’ll only hear one from most of Canadian MSM.  And make no mistake.  Alexandre Bilodeau’s historic Olympic achievement is certainly worth celebrating.

But another major event may be in danger of slipping under the radar unless we force it to the forefront -  Professor Phil Jones is now backtracking on previously-held dogma about global warming and climate change. One wonders what fellow High Priest Al Gore is thinking right now.   In fact, where is he? Hiding in a snow drift somewhere on the east coast?

In any case, Tim Ball was on the Roy Green show yesterday for a brief chat on the significance of all this [click on Sunday Feb. 14 at 2 pm and fastforward to the last 10 minutes].  Roy asked Tim if ‘this thing is totally unraveling right now?’ and Tim answered ‘completely’ and the question is now ‘how long is it going to take for the politicians to realize it?’ They both agreed that the pols would be ‘breaking their ankles jumping off the bandwagon’, but they have a problem having already committed so much money to it.

Tim Ball reiterated that opinion in his column in CFP – IPCC Corruption Included Ignoring Facts and Science:

Watch the Richter Scale as Politicians Jump Off the IPCC Wagon

Jones only concedes some points but they are enough from the high priest of the CRU and IPCC to completely destroy its credibility. What will the sycophants and exploiters like Gore and the Mainstream Media do now? What about politicians who based positions and policy on environment and energy on the IPCC? What about the massive scams of Cap And Trade? What about the extreme environmental groups who have bullied and preached from the moral high ground? What about the scientists who took vehement positions without understanding? It is a very sad day for science, the people and the world.

Well I hope that politicians wake up but I fear they’ll only do the right thing once the public is made aware of the inconsistencies and contradictions. And that will only happen once the media decides to cover the stories or if ordinary citizens start taking up the fight for truth.

As Adrian MacNair brilliantly pointed out, the pols are only going to do what’s popular:

…Don’t expect our politicians to drop everything either. “Conservative” Environment Minister Jim Prentice is still sending Canada’s industry on a suicide pact with the United States’ own Obamachange legislation, and the province of British Columbia still has a carbon tax on fuel that isn’t making the unemployment rate any better right now. They don’t care. They still believe utterly that the public believes utterly in the science behind boiling pots of frogs and hockey stick graphs.

You can’t really blame them. They’re politicians. If Canadians believed that the world faced the grave danger of alien abduction and medical probing, you can bet the government would install some kind of alien-abduction and probing prophylaxis system that would make us feel better. Just like we do when we strip for the peek-a-boo cameras at the airport…

Meanwhile, expect to see some media outlets continue to stick tenaciously to the old party line until media consumers and ordinary citizens start demanding the truth.

*   *   *   *

Update:

Al Gore sticks his nose out of the ground – Al Gore sticks to his guns, says ‘climate crisis is unfolding before our eyes’Washington Times

Is Global Warming Dead?Blake D. Dvorak at Chicago Now:

All of which leads the Post’s Dana Milbank, no friend of conservatives or Republicans, to write in his column that all that talk about more frequent and worse hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts because of global warming was about as scientifically valid as the recent babble that record-breaking snow storms in DC disprove global warming. “Argument-by-anecdote isn’t working,” he says. Only too true and it’s about time someone not on the right had the courage to say it.

But Milbank takes his column further. Noting recent revelations and contradictions in the science, he writes: “The science is overwhelming — but not definitive.” There was a time when such blasphemy would earn Milbank the title of “denier.” But that time is swiftly passing and there’s beginning to be a general retreat from the global warming crowd on all the doomsday scenarios and “we have X number of years to save Earth” talk. Milbank notes that even Al Gore’s outfit is switching from TV ads about climate change to the importance of green energy

*   *   *   *

Tuesday Update

Lots of great links out there. Too many to keep up with really.

Follow the money: BBC exposed in biggest climate racket on planet – Climategate

IPCC scaremongering is destroying its credibility
Bjorn Lomborg

Less horror and Gore, more honest debate Paul Schneidereit, Chronicle Herald

And this is a blockbuster of a column – Climate: Politics of fear by Chris Vander Doelen of the Windsor Star:

To me, the most important lesson to be learned from climate change and its believers isn’t about the environment at all. It’s about mob behaviour and the politics of fear.

The global warming cult came so close to taking over the free world because it mixed the fear-mongering and moral superiority of old-time religion with the central control of classic Marxism.

The brilliant mix of do-gooderism and totalitarianism explains why those huddling under the climate umbrella are an unlikely coalition of church ladies, the well-meaning, union hardliners and college-age anarchists.

The people who pushed global warming didn’t want to save the planet — they wanted to enslave it through taxation.

The money — trillions of dollars — would have been redistributed by shadowy forces at the United Nations to those with favoured political systems. Capitalism, of course, would have been dead in a matter of decades. Liberty would have disappeared along with free markets