Category: Climate realism

What benefit to Canada flows from “carbon reduction” schemes? None….

By Rex Murphy, Oct. 4, 2022, National Post

The greatest and most characteristic failure of the Trudeau administration has been its war against the oil and gas industry. It was so-early signalled. There is, for example, this brilliant pat-on-his-own-back — a yoga twist Mr. Justin has perfectly mastered — from nine years ago:

“I am pleased to announce that we will keep our commitment to implement a moratorium on crude oil tanker shipping on British Columbia’s north coast.”

From out of that deep but callow mindset came the blocking of pipelines, the wretched, useless (and in this time of rampant inflation) insulting so-called “carbon taxes,” the supine genuflections to the international global warming extremists, the hobbling of a mighty natural resource, and latterly the incredible elevation of a one-time Greenpeace activist and tower-climber, Steven Guilbeault (name his other qualifications), to a ministry in a supposedly mature national government.… Read more

Tim Ball, who fought climate alarmism for most of his career, died Sept. 24 at the age of 83 with family at his side, including his wife of 61-years, Marty. From the family-written obituary:

Tim came to Canada in 1957 at the age of 17. He worked in Toronto and Sudbury until 1960 when he joined the RCAF as an Aircrew Radio Operator. He was trained in Winnipeg, where he met Marty, who was a student nurse at St Boniface Hospital. They were married on June 5th, 1961.

Tim became interested in the climate while being aircrew for search and rescue in Winnipeg.… Read more

Pakistan flooding caused by under-investment in infrastructure and corruption and attempts to meet ‘green’ goals, not ‘climate change’

By Terence Corcoran, National Post, Sept. 23, 2022

No United Nations campaign has done more to exacerbate global economic and energy problems than the UN’S Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Since its first report in 1990, the IPCC has led the global drive to eliminate carbon-emitting fossil fuels from the global economy — even though numerous critics have attacked the IPCC’S alarmist claims.

In a paper this month from the Fraser Institute, Jason S. Johnston, professor of environmental law at the University of Virginia, summarizes the IPCC’S long record of exaggerating claims that the world is on the brink of disaster.… Read more

In humanity’s experience, the best way to solve major problems is to maximize growth and use part of the wealth created to discover new technologies to solve the problem

By Brian Lee Crowley, national post, Sept. 21, 2022

In recent years, childishness has been the dominant fashion in Canada. We obsess about marginal issues that make us feel good, while nasty regimes around the world laugh at our moral pretentiousness and undermine the institutions we have so painstakingly created.

Children, as child psychologist Mary O’kane reminds us, have an innate tendency to engage in magical thinking. They often believe that if they wish hard enough for something to happen, it will.… Read more

CLINTEL Declaration has more than 1,000 signatories opposing politicized views on climate change

By Conrad Black, National Post, Sept. 17, 2022

More than 1,000 signatories, including climate scientists and other experts, have endorsed a “World Climate Declaration,” asserting that there is no present climate emergency. The foundation Climate Intelligence (CLINTEL) produced a one-page statement arguing that climate science should be less political and more open about the many uncertainties in predictions of global temperature changes and more comprehensive in judging the costs and benefits of proposed policy measures, especially radical reductions in the use of fossil fuels.

CLINTEL was founded in 2019 by geophysics professor Guus Berkhout and science journalist Marcel Crok.… Read more

Governments embraced climate policy with enthusiasm—now they reel back in horror as costs and subsidies soar

Wall Street Journal, Sept. 9, 2022

New British Prime Minister Liz Truss on Sept. 7 rolled out an energy-price subsidy plan that could cost £150 billion. Throw that on the pile with the tens upon tens of billions of dollars’ worth of subsidies other European governments are offering to take the sting out of energy prices this winter. It adds up to a stunning cost for Europe’s climate-change ambitions.

The contours of Europe’s crisis are well-known by now. Governments across the Continent for decades concocted increasingly aggressive plans to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions in the name of arresting climate change.… Read more

Continent’s natural-gas crisis is morphing into a genuine power emergency. Canada could help, but won’t

By Henry Geraedts, National Post, Sept. 8, 2022

As the collapse of Europe’s energy structure begins to unfold it’s important to understand that its impact across the socio-economic landscape isn’t yet anywhere near full force. The bankruptcy of utilities and energy providers continues. France recently re-nationalized core utility EDF, operator of its nuclear plants, while Germany opted for a €9 billion bailout to save linchpin utility Uniper.

The true and overarching danger to Europe, however, is the accelerating threat to its industrial base and small businesses.… Read more

For political and ideological reasons his government cannot admit to the terribly damaging consequences of its green policies and the urgent need to fundamentally change course

BY JOE OLIVER, National Post, Sept. 1, 2o22

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should be feeling isolated in his campaign against fossil fuels, especially liquefied natural gas (LNG), as leaders around the world reduce their countries’ reliance on inadequate renewable energy and tone down their own rhetoric about lowering GHG emissions. But for political and ideological reasons his government cannot admit to the terribly damaging consequences of its green policies and the urgent need to fundamentally change course.… Read more

In the west, Gorbachev’s main legacy, apart from the liberation of eastern Europe, should be his rejection of the command-bureaucratic system as ‘suffocating.’ And yet we’re in an age in the west where command-bureaucratic is all the rage

By William Watson, National Post, Sept. 1, 2022

If believing in communist reform was his great strategic error, Mikhail Gorbachev’s great strategic insight was that the “command-bureaucratic system” did not work. It could win a world war. It could put a sputnik into space. If you devoted a big enough share of society’s resources to a given task, command-and-control could get it done.… Read more

Political leaders must admit that, short of a technological breakthrough, the world will need an ample supply of carbon fuel for decades to remain prosperous and free

Wall Street Journal Editorial, July 18, 2022

Soaring oil and natural gas prices. Electricity grids on the brink of failure. Energy shortages in Europe, with worse to come. The free world’s growing strategic vulnerability to Vladimir Putin and other dictators. These are some of the unfolding results in the last year caused by the West’s utopian dream to punish fossil fuels and sprint to a world driven solely by renewable energy.

It’s time for political leaders to recognize this manifest debacle and admit that, short of a technological breakthrough, the world will need an ample supply of carbon fuel for decades to remain prosperous and free.… Read more