Category: Climate realism

Decarbonization is a project with no clear beginning or end and the costs will be stupendous

By Vaclav Smil, Sept. 29, 2022, IEEE Spectrum

IN HIS 1949 book The Concept of Mind, Gilbert Ryle, an English philosopher, introduced the term “category mistake.” He gave the example of a visitor to the University of Oxford who sees colleges and a splendid library and then asks, “But where is the university?” The category mistake is obvious: A university is an institution, not a collection of buildings.

Today, no category mistake is perhaps more consequential than the all-too-common view of the global energy transition.… Read more

A Leger poll of 1,535 Canadians found 72 per cent of respondents either “somewhat” or “strongly” supported “developing and exporting more oil and natural gas resources”. Needless to say, Canada’s Prime Minister is opposed

By Colin Craig, National Post, Oct. 26, 2022

Over the past decade, many European nations grew dependent on Russia for their oil and natural gas needs. The folly of this policy was revealed by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. That is why, since February, many of those same European nations have been knocking desperately on Canada’s door seeking to purchase some of our enormous supplies of oil and gas resources.… Read more

From a column by Gerard Baker, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 20, 2022

The left has always deemed itself morally superior—peace, love and understanding and all that. Conservative ideas and solutions are characterized as the product of self-interest, bigotry and greed. They might be grudgingly tolerated, but morally defensible in their own right? Never.

Take climate change. The obligation to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions has been established firmly as the ultimate moral imperative. If you oppose it you are condemning us literally to a future of hellfire—and doing so out of your own selfish desire to drive a big car or fly somewhere for a vacation.… Read more

The Canadian and U.S. governments continue to stifle production of oil and gas for domestic markets, never mind for increasingly desperate allies, at the cost of our national interest

By Derek H. Bur­ney, National Post, Oct. 19, 2022

Derek H. Bur­ney is a for­mer 30-year ca­reer diplo­mat who served as the Am­bas­sador to the United States of Amer­ica from 1989-1993

Shortly after sabotage operations blew ruptures in the Nord Stream pipelines from Russia to Germany, OPEC announced plans to reduce oil production by two million barrels per day. Both actions increased pressure around energy shortages, notably in Europe, where prices are already substantially higher than last year and are likely to get worse as winter nears.… Read more

Science has momentum and that momentum can be hard to change, even when obvious and significant flaws are identified

By Roger Pielke, Jr., The Honest Broker, Nov. 30, 2020

A 2015 literature review found almost 900 peer-reviewed studies published on breast cancer using a cell line derived from a breast cancer patient in Texas in 1976. But in 2007 it was confirmed that the cell line that had long been the focus of this research was actually not a breast cancer line, but was instead a skin cancer line. Whoops. 

Even worse, from 2008 to 2014 — after the mistaken cell line was conclusively identified — the review identified 247 peer-reviewed articles putatively on breast cancer that were published using the misidentified skin cancer cell line.… Read more

Behind climate fanaticism and narcissism lies an apocalyptic religion born from nihilism

By Michael Shellenberger, Oct. 19, 2022

“The fiercest fanatics are often selfish people who were forced, by innate shortcomings or external circumstances, to lose faith in their own selves. They separate the excellent instrument of their selfishness from their ineffectual selves and attach it to the service of some holy cause.”

—Eric Hoffer, The True Believer

Over the last few weeks, climate activists in Britain have blocked highways (because cars emit carbon dioxide), poured milk onto the floors of supermarkets (because livestock emits methane), and thrown tomato soup at Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” (because climate change is more important than art.… Read more

Governments should not be promoting Net Zero policies, such as curbs on nitrogen-based fertilizer and reduction of cattle herds, that will make life less affordable for British Columbians

In mid-August, the B.C. Liberal Party expelled 18-year-veteran MLA John Rustad from the caucus for republishing a Tweet by climate realist Patrick Moore that did not support the party’s alarmist policies.

Rustad, born and raised in Prince George, was first elected in 2005 in the riding of Nechako Lakes. He has served as a Liberal cabinet minister for Aboriginal Relations and for Forests, Lands and Natural Resources. He has also been Official Opposition critic for Forests, Lands and Natural Resources.… Read more

Exploding energy prices are creating a wave of bankruptcies in Europe. North America will follow if we continue our suicidal economic efforts to promote green energy

By Joseph C. Stenberg, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 9, 2022

Let’s come right out and say it: Anyone who still thinks climate change is a greater threat than climate policy to financial stability deserves to be exiled to a peat-burning yurt in the wilderness.

Lest you’ve forgotten, the world’s central banks and other regulators are in the middle of a major push to introduce various forms of climate stress testing into their oversight. The Federal Reserve, Bank of England and European Central Bank, among others, want to know how global temperature variations a century hence might weigh on Citi’s or Barclays’ or Deutsche Bank’s capital and risk weightings today.… Read more

It’s easy to blame Russia’s Putin for the current energy crisis. In fact, the U.S. and Europe brought the crisis on themselves through poorly thought out ‘green’ energy policies

Emmet Penney, The Spectator, Oct. 10, 2022

Since the beginning of the Ukraine war and the sanctions it triggered, energy prices have skyrocketed. But are the high prices really Putin’s fault? He didn’t sanction himself, after all. It’s the West that chose to cut itself off from the Russian fossil fuels upon which it had come to rely.

So what are the origins of the current energy crisis? When did it really begin?… Read more

To meet the federal government’s goal of a net-zero economy by 2050, virtually all homes would need to have heat pumps or similar technology. This would require retrofitting more than 400,000 homes per year — more than 1,000 every day.

By Charles De­land, National Post, Oct. 11, 2022

The federal government’s Emission Reduction Plan, which it published in July, calls for economywide greenhouse gas reductions of 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. In particular, it projects emissions from homes and commercial buildings that will fall 37 per cent from 2005 levels. Judging by reasonable estimates of what it would take to achieve this, however, that goal appears wildly unrealistic.… Read more