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Archive of posts filed under the Green Shaft category.

In the twisted world of Suzuki logic

There is so much wrong with this David Suzuki interview on Evan Solomon’s Power and Politics, that it would take way more typing to fully cover it than my recovering wrist will allow.

However the following portion made my head explode.

Around the  3:00 mark Evan is questioning Dr. Fruit Fly about the link between Kyoto, climate change and the economy. Suzuki is trying to make the case for an improved economy if a tax is put on carbon.

At 3:51 Suzuki responds to the Harper Government’s more pragmatic environmental stance at Copenhagen, by calling it a ‘bunch of nonsense’ and it’s just ‘all words’.

Suzuki then gives the example of how Sweden supposedly had lower GHG emissions and an improved economy after introducing a carbon tax -  and then he goes off on a very scary and angry tirade against the Canadian Government.

Solomon them attempts to provide a smidgen of balance by reminding him about the decision in France to let the carbon tax legislation die.

Suzuki’s response?

Wait for it.

“I’m not French. I don’t know”.

So what are you?  Swedish?

Keep your lights on tonight for Earth Hour, Canada!!!   David Suzuki’s are clearly dimming.

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Bonus: See if you can find Suzuki’s Stephane Dion put-down further on in the segment.

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Sunday Update

Big Liberal Thinkers want a carbon tax!!!    Hang onto your wallets, Canada.  (H/T Bruce and other attentive readers)

Liberals hear call for carbon tax – Gazette

Liberals across the country tweet carbon tax debate – Stephen Maher, CH

Tough issues grip Grits – Chronicle Herald:

…McKenna said Liberals are particularly “gun shy” about proposing anything controversial since the 2008 carbon tax fiasco.

Yet during an environmental panel later Saturday, imposition of a carbon tax to reduce greenhouse gas emissions seemed to be a popular idea.

Panellist Steven Guilbeault of Equiterre said he was pleasantly surprised.

“I’m happy that there are so many people here who are willing to talk about this because at the end of the day it’s one of the most efficient measures you can use if you actually want to start reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” he said in an interview.

Ignatieff, who first proposed a carbon tax during the 2006 Liberal leadership, has since said he won’t revive an idea that’s been so decisively rejected by voters. He now advocates a cap and trade system instead.

But panellist Michael Phelps, board chairman of the GLOBE Foundation, said a carbon tax is a much simpler and more effective way to influence consumer behaviour.

“I’d be standing on a soapbox saying, ‘Use less carbon, you’re going to pay for it,’ ” he said.

Oh dear. What will the Waffle do?

Inconvenient questions – Lorrie Goldstein

Why Sarkozy Dropped His Beloved Carbon Tax - Time Magazine (Pay attention now, David Suzuki):

The President maintains he is only delaying application of the tax until the E.U. comes up with a similar initiative applicable to all member states. “Environmental dumping threatens our jobs, [and] it would be absurd to tax French companies while giving a competitive advantage to those in polluting countries,” Sarkozy argued, saying he remained committed to a carbon tax as a necessary move to protect the environment — though only once nations “who continue to pollute without shame” agree to become as virtuous.

How likely is that to happen? Not very, according to media reports in France. French newspapers and television news channels said Sarkozy’s address meant the carbon tax was “dead and buried” — most of all because of the high improbability of all 27 E.U. members voting in an identical measure…

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Can we trust the ‘Climategate’ inquiry? – Telegraph:

What Lord Oxburgh kept quiet about, however, is that he is also a director and vice-chairman of a strange little private company few of us had heard of known as Globe International. The name stands for “Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment”, and it describes itself as a worldwide network to lobby governments to take more drastic action on climate change

They try to keep a low profile.

And look who’s president of Globe Canada.

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.

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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)

Province of Toronto?

Maverick Conservative MP Bill Murdoch has caused quite a stir with his recent suggestion that Toronto part ways with the Rest Of Ontario (ROO) and become its own province.  Adrian MacNair touched on this yesterday.

As Lorrie Goldstein notes, “With 2.5 million people, Toronto is larger than six provinces — Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island.”

Goldstein is one of many on the Toronto side that seem quite happy with the idea.  They are tired of Toronto having to go begging to Queen’s Park for permission to make changes in areas such as bylaws, taxation and transportation and feel that Toronto needs more power given the size of the population.

And the rural side is just plain fed up with Toronto, and with  Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty who seems to pander to the large urban perspective on issues that directly impact the farmers and folks in smaller cities who have to deal with wind turbines, coyotes, and closed schools and hospitals.

Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak doesn’t agree with Murdock that Toronto should separate but he acknowledges the frustration among those living in the ROO.

Bill Murdoch’s initiative is unlikely to be successful but it sure does have people talking.

Ultimately the challenge will be how to  reconcile these two Ontario solitudes.  It could even become an election issue.

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Update

Don Martin: Toronto — the province Canada loves to hate? – National Post. (The comments are better than the column.)

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Thursday Update:

MPP happy to have sparked discussion – Sun Times:

...Murdoch has recently taken issue with Queen’s Park’s lack of understanding on dealing with coyotes, a rural nuisance.

Murdoch also cited the Liberal-created Green Energy Act, along with the Endangered Species Act and Ontario Water Resources Act as causing hardship for rural Ontarians. He said his latest criticism of Toronto speaks to bigger concerns with democracy at Queen’s Park. Murdoch said the premier of Ontario’s office holds too much power. Cabinet ministers, deputy ministers and parliamentary assistants should be selected by caucus, he said, and MPPs should not be forced to vote as the party dictates.

Murdoch admits his desire for a Toronto-free Ontario is a “long shot,” but said he hopes his comments will lead to some positive change for rural Ontario.

What’s Dalton’s game with Samsung?

I won’t even pretend to understand all the ins and outs of this single-sourced deal with Samsung but my spidey sense tells me this is just another questionable decision by Dalton McGuinty that is going to cost us poor taxpayers big bucks one way or another.

PC Leader Tim Hudak feels that this should be vetted by the provincial auditor general. He warns that the Samsung  ‘sweetheart deal’ will cost taxpayers $330k per job.

Adam Radnwanski tells us it’s likely about wanting to pull one over on gullible Ontario residents the messaging.

I don’t know about you but I just don’t need anyone else picking my pocket and Dalton is the worst culprit!

Thoughts?

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Related

Ottawa warns provinces will be cutting back, too – Ottawa Citizen

Quebec says it’s ahead of the curve - Globe:

Quebec is emerging from the recession in far better shape than most economies, says Premier Jean Charest, adding that he can avoid slashing government programs and elude major tax increases yet still achieve a balanced budget in four years

Oh good. So what about those equalization payments, Jean?

‘Dalton Days’ still in mix for Ontario public unions – Ottawa Citizen

Win for Ontario in Samsung dealOntario Liberal Party Press Release Toronto Star editorial

First we had two-tier policing and now it’s a two-tier energy market:

…The generous deal announced Thursday has drawn fire from solar and wind proponents, who complain the province has undermined a once equitable marketplace.

“This throws the whole sector into turmoil,” said David Butters, president of the Association of Power Producers of Ontario. “Now we’ve got two classes of people: Samsung, and those who are left behind.”

Ah yes. The folks in Caledonia know how you feel.

More Ontario companies feeling as if they’ve been thrown under the bus by Dalton Quixote:    Samsung deal upsets homegrown competitors – Star:

…[President of Pro-Power and Energy Ltd. Jeff] Andrews is clearly frustrated. “We are the Ontario story. I know that sounds cocky, but we are. Our technology was developed and proven here in Ontario by Ontario residents. The patents were established here in Ontario.”

McGuinty justified the deal Thursday as a way to accelerate Ontario’s green economy, by drawing an “anchor tenant” that can stimulate jobs and exports much more quickly. The alternative, he said, is to “hope” our industry of smaller players will grow over time while the province misses out on export opportunities to a U.S. green-energy market ready to explode.

Ian MacLellan, vice-chairman of solar-cell manufacturer Arise Technologies Corp. in Waterloo, said that kind of thinking doesn’t work in the long run. “If you took that approach looking back 30 years to Silicon Valley, they would have funded Xerox and not talked to Steve Jobs.”

Dalton’s big green gamble – Toronto Sun:

...But as energy consultant Tom Adams cautioned, even where green energy manufacturing has succeeded in countries like Denmark, it still has to be heavily subsidized.

“The idea that we’re going to repeat the Danish success by following the same model here assumes that electricity consumers are prepared to put up with this kind of (subsidy) craziness for the long term, and I don’t see it,” Adams told The Canadian Press. “This idea that there’s going to be 50,000 green jobs is just a crazy fantasy that has no bearing whatsoever in reality.

But Dalton just keeps on tilting at windmills – at our expense.

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Update

Please join the FUddle Duddle Dalton McGuinty Facebook Group!   —->  FUDM-11

McGuinty Liberals fear green-deal backlash – Star

Deal turns Ontario into Third World province - Randall Denley:

Dalton loves the deal because it makes it look like he’s doing something. If other foreign companies want to line up to take Ontarians’ dollars, our premier is “all ears,” he says. No doubt, but it’s what’s between the ears that’s the problem.

Don’t protect us from our cash: Goldstein – Lorrie Goldstein

Persichilli: Dalton McGuinty’s shuffle is missing a few key cards
– Star

Terence Corcoran:  Ontario puts $10B in the wind – Post:

The Samsung agreement will also squeeze out other wind and solar power producers from the market, thus eliminating competition and fairness from a power market already grotesquely distorted by the Green Energy Act and the Feed-in Tariff scheme. So not only will the McGuinty energy regime plunder cash from electricity consumers, it will compound the economic mess by squeezing other energy producers.

That’s green energy in action: subsidies, distortion, trade battles, fake job creation and back-room political deals.

A messy deal for clean energyThe Record:

…So, Samsung will be paid the feed-in tariff rate for so-called green energy of 13.5 cents a kilowatt hour for its wind power and 44.3 cents a kilowatt hour for the solar power it generates. Those numbers are far in excess of the current market price of 3.31 cents a kilowatt hour for electricity and will add billions of dollars to the province’s energy bills in the coming decades even though Samsung will produce only 4 per cent of Ontario’s electricity.

But there’s more: Over the 25-year-life of this deal, Samsung gets $437 million in special incentive payments in addition to the feed-in tariff. That hasn’t been offered to anyone else and will cost every electricity customer in Ontario an extra $1.60 a year on his or her bill. When you add it all up, Samsung is guaranteed about $25 billion from Ontario hydro consumers over the life of this deal.

If the costs of this agreement are scary, the process that produced it was shameful: There was no public tendering for the production of clean electrical energy. There was no call for bids from Ontario’s renewable energy producers…

Picking up steam

The National Post has now picked up the CRU hacked/leaked email story.

First we have Terence CorcoranAfter Copenhagen, the end of the science:

Clearly climate science is not Louis Pasteur in his lab or Alexander Fleming searching for antibiotics and discovering penicillin. Providing the proof for man-made global warming is big business and big politics, backed by hundreds of billions of dollar and deep ideological convictions. Have the convictions overtaken the search for scientific proof? The CRU emails, while no smoking gun of fraud and malfeasance, can only add to the already mounting scientific and popular skepticism.

The coming end of certainty over man-made warming was already a possibility before the CRU events. The idea that the science is not settled, or that it is incomplete and uncertain, shows up in many places, even among the true believers

The Post also offers Climategate which provides some background to the story, and Myron Ebell’s CRU’s climate ‘tricks’, which I’m interpreting to be a sarcastic parody of the Warmists’ response.

At the very least the Climate-Change pushers have to acknowledge that the science is NOT settled and there is plenty of room for healthy skepticism.

Now we’re looking forward to hearing from others in Canadian media. What are you waiting for?  Or do you have so much invested that you are afraid to confront the possibility that you may have been duped?

Meanwhile, ChuckerCanuk opines on what Canada would look like now if Stephane Dion had managed to implement his Green Shift.

Bam! Now go to sleep.

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Update:

Inhofe Says He Will Call for Investigation on “Climategate” on Washington Times Americas Morning Show – EPW (H/T Craig)

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Tuesday Update:

Lots of good stuff this morning. While Al Gore continues to preach his propaganda at the Red Star and blasts Alberta’s Oil Sands (“…But, you know, junkies find veins in their toes”), we find that even  George Monbiot is admitting that he should have been more skeptical (via Watts up with That – H/T Daryl).

As Andrew Bolt writes:

Scepticism is the essential disposition of our craft, yet too many journalists have abandoned it. Remember: the opposite of sceptical is gullible.

CTV seems to be supporting the Warmists with a token report discussing hackers cherry-picking data out of context. Perhaps they should check out Monbiot. (H/T Springer who has a link to a Glenn Beck report)

Obama’s Science Czar John Holdren involved in unwinding “Climategate” scandalCanada Free Press (H/T Bruce):

...Obama Science Czar John Holdren is directly involved in CRU’s unfolding Climategate scandal. In fact, according to files released by a CEU hacker or whistleblower, Holdren is involved in what Canada Free Press (CFP) columnist Canadian climatologist Dr. Tim Ball terms “a truculent and nasty manner that provides a brief demonstration of his lack of understanding, commitment on faith and willingness to ridicule and bully people”…

Global warming with the lid offWall Street Journal:

Some of those mentioned in the emails have responded to our requests for comment by saying they must first chat with their lawyers. Others have offered legal threats and personal invective. Still others have said nothing at all. Those who have responded have insisted that the emails reveal nothing more than trivial data discrepancies and procedural debates.

Yet all of these nonresponses manage to underscore what may be the most revealing truth: That these scientists feel the public doesn’t have a right to know the basis for their climate-change predictions, even as their governments prepare staggeringly expensive legislation in response to them...

Why You Should Be Hot and Bothered About ‘Climate-gate’ - John Loft, Fox News

Peter Foster: Let the climate debate begin - National Post (H/T Bruce)

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Also please check out Alex Jones’ Infowars.

Global Warming Fraud Exposed

Props to Maz2 and others for the Tim Ball article at CFPThe Death Blow to Climate Science:

Of course the IPCC Reports and especially the SPM Reports are the basis for Kyoto and the Copenhagen Accord, but now we know they are based on completely falsified and manipulated data and science. It is no longer a suspicion. Surely this is the death knell for the CRU, the IPCC, Kyoto and Copenhagen and the Carbon Credits shell game....

But my fellow blogger Biff wonders as I do where the Canadian media are on this story. It’s huge! All this hype about climate change is a sham.

The Telegraph’s James Delingpole describes how the story is being treated in U.K. and liberal U.S. media circles – basically it’s just a ‘routine data-theft story’.

That’s right. Nothing to see here. Please move on.

There are more important things to do. Like selling carbon credits.

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Update

More noteworthy links here:

Climate Depot – Probably the largest link resource on this story right now

Release of CRU files forges a new hockey stick reconstructionWatt’s up with that? (Guaranteed to make you smile)

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Sunday Update:

Jack’s Newswatch has a great post up – The evidence of climate fraud – with a related link to American Thinker.

Over at SDA, Kate reports that MSM is slowly starting to pay attention to this game-changing story – The Sound Of All Hell Breaking Loose, Pt. 4. Kate cautions us not to be too harsh on our Canadian media:

The story is moving from the blogs to mainstream. Don’t be too critical of the delay – I do know that there are Canadian journalists working on this, but it takes time. Anyone who has been sifting through the database will understand why.

This is a great line at Salem-News (Greenscam: Scientific Mass Manipulation in Action):

If the goal is to produce a dumb animal that will walk calmly into the slaughterhouse, then providing this animal with information would be grossly counterproductive.

This is a very balanced must-read article – The Climate Research Unit Emails and The Pentagon Papers. Greg Schiller finishes his excellent essay with this:

…At a minimum the 2009 Climate Conference in Copenhagen must be canceled until the IPCC can rework its governance structure for complete transparency, otherwise, there will be something very rotten in Denmark.

A few more links here that you might find interesting:

Mike’s Nature trickClimate Audit

Hackers expose climate brawl – The Australian:

...In a statement, the university acknowledged the security breach, saying hackers had stolen its data “to undermine the strong consensus that human activity is affecting the world’s climate in ways that are potentially dangerous”.

The emails were leaked just weeks before the Copenhagen climate talks and just days before federal parliament considers an emissions trading scheme for Australia.

Some of the emails directly refer to the debate in Australia. In 2003, for example, Professor Jones says: “It’s nice to know that our friends down under are doing their best to fight the misinformation. Is it true that the sceptics twist the truth clockwise rather than counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere?”

Oh my, that’s so clever. /sarc off

LA Times Changes Its Mind: Science Doesn’t Matter On Climate BillNewsBusters:

When scientific findings were there to warn that global warming would kill the planet, the Times was quick to support it; when science was later found to be riddled with tricks that tainted its credibility, climate legislation was suddenly all about fixing the economy.

This is one more example in the long list of ways the liberal media has played fast and loose with the global warming agenda.

Even when faced with plausible evidence the whole thing might be a fraud, global warming believers simply found a way to assert that evidence was not necessary.

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Monday Update:

Another Tim Ball article at Canada Free Press!Gore’s Manipulation Allowed By Mainstream Media Climate Change Bias – Continues With CRU:

...What are the mainstream media going to do? How can they ignore the biggest scandal in science history and then claim any credibility? We already have a strong indication because they either don’t cover it or claim, like Andrew Revkin of the New York Times, there is nothing of consequence. No surprise because he was in direct communication with the CRU gang. Other left wing outlets have similar reports such as the Guardian in England and Harrabin at the BBC...

Excellent and very balanced article by James Murry at Thunder Bay’s NetNewslegerClimate Change Brought into Question Over Email Hack.

British climate expert ‘cheered’ by Aussie’s death – Caroline Overington at News.com.au:

One email from Professor Jones to Michael E. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Centre at Pennsylvania State University, has as the subject line: “John L. Daly dead”.

It is dated just hours after Daly collapsed from a heart attack in his home in Launceston, on January 29, 2004, shortly after doing an interview with the BBC.

The email says: “Mike, in an odd way, this is cheering news!” and it attaches the death notice placed by Daly’s family. The family yesterday said they had no comment.

The day global warming stood still - Investor’s Business Daily via Yahoo News:

…If true, this is massive scientific fraud.

To add to the warm-mongers’ woes, patron saint Al Gore, the man who claimed to have invented the Internet, might also have claimed the discovery of Photoshop. Dr. Roy Spencer, of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, formerly with NASA, has taken a look at the pictures used to illustrate Gore’s new book, “Our Choice: A Plan To Solve the Climate Crisis.”

Gore Photoshopped NASA imagery of the earth for the fold-out cover photo, adding four hurricanes at once, including one spinning in the wrong direction next to Florida and, in a physical impossibility, one on the equator next to Peru. Somewhere in the process, the island of Cuba was deleted.

It is the warm-mongers who are spinning in the wrong direction. We win. You lose. Get a life.

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(H/T Moose and Squirrel)

Three cheers for the fossils!

As Lorrie Goldstein says, every time Canada is given a fossil award from environmentalists, let’s put out a great cheer right across the country. (H/T Maz2)

It means that our Conservative government is concerned about the potential ramifications to our economy at the present time, and the actual efficacy of the actions on a global basis.

And that’s a good thing.

Jim Prentice explains:

“Instead, our government and the United States government will be aiming for a still-ambitious, but we believe more responsible, goal: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as fast as possible without killing the economy and without resulting in a situation where the cure is worse than the disease.”

The minister’s comments did not sit well with Mike Kennedy, senior resource economist with the Calgary-based Pembina Institute...

Oh yeah. That Pembina.

Lorrie should be happy.

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Friday Update:

Show leadership: Reject CopenhagenKevin Gaudet and Maureen Bader