Posts

If all vehicles are EV by 2040, will we have enough electric power? Answer: Not even close….

To meet the 2040 objective at least eight more projects the size of Site C and Muskrat Falls are required. How likely is that?

By Kent Zehr, May 13, 2019

This article first appeared on the Friends of Science website and has been slightly edited. For the original article, click here.

The Canadian government under Justin Trudeau has stated that by 2040 all vehicles sold in Canada will be zero emission vehicles, generally meaning rechargeable electric vehicles.

While projecting the usage and mileage of such vehicles is difficult and subject to interpretation and speculation, the amount of energy being expended by that sector of the economy today is measured and reported, which means we can have some idea of the conditions that must exist for all vehicles in Canada to be electric in 2040.… Read more

Economics, not politics, prevents climate ‘fix’

A political solution to acid rain, pollution, and the ozone layer, was possible because these solutions cost much less than abandoning fossil fuels

By Ross McKitrick, July 26, 2022

Twitter recently decided I needed to see an exchange between some angry greens and snide conservatives that went something like this:

Snide conservative: Greens have been telling us for decades to panic about overpopulation, acid rain, pollution, the ozone layer and now climate change. Yawn. Angry greens: Yeah, but that’s because we took action and fixed all those issues, but now we’re ignoring the climate crisis because the good conservatives who used to care are all gone and now all we have are bad conservatives who hate the planet (and are stupid).… Read more

‘Climate alarmism’ is the new totalitarian religion, but we can stop it

Climate change has become a religious movement, based on dogmatic belief rather than scientific facts. 

by Michael Blair, August 8, 2022

Climate alarmism has captured the minds of political leaders across the globe. But why is this alarmism accepted so easily by scientists, the media and the public in the face of so little actual scientific evidence?

Millions of people share a common belief. This belief is backed by intellectuals who claim to have deep understanding of the issues facing mankind. The intellectuals have published erudite papers reviewed and adopted by their peers. Their papers are collected and published in comprehensive outpourings of their writings.… Read more

Climate hysteria based on outdated science

Much of climate research is focused on implausible scenarios of the future, but implementing a course correction will be difficult

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

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

The Big Green Lie about carbon dioxide

The Big Green Lie that carbon dioxide is a pollutant is so pervasive that even those considered skeptics generally adhere to the orthodoxy, differing not in their stated belief that CO2 is a pollutant but only in how calamitous a pollutant it is

By Patricia Adams and Lawrence Solomon, Epoch Times, August 2, 2022

Almost every member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, pays homage to the Big Green Lie. So do all the past and remaining Conservative candidates vying to be prime minister of the UK and every candidate currently vying for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. So does virtually all of the mainstream press.… Read more

Think we can get to Net Zero without a working prototype? Think again

Our politicians think they can just order up a functioning wind/solar electricity system and assume that backup energy storage devices will magically get invented and it will all work fine and not be financially ruinous, all by some arbitrarily ordered date in the 2030s

By Francis Menton, July 28, 2022

From the Manhattan Contrarian

The single most astounding universal failure of all jurisdictions pursuing Net Zero is the failure to pursue any sort of working prototype or demonstration project of a Net Zero electricity system before committing the entire jurisdiction to the project on the basis of a blank check to be paid by the taxpayers and ratepayers.… Read more

James Lovelock: From ultra-alarmist to realist

Lovelock outraged many Greens by criticizing as irrational the green movement’s fear of nuclear generation as a way to reduce carbon emissions

By Paul MacRae

James Lovelock, the inventor of the “Gaia” theory of planetary wholeness, died July 26, 2022, at the age of 103.

Lovelock, a medical doctor and ecologist, came to prominence with his theory of “Gaia,” which proposed that thanks to human consciousness the Earth had achieved a kind of sentience. He wrote that he was not “thinking of the Earth as alive in a sentient way, or even alive like an animal or a bacterium,”1 but Gaia is nonetheless a “vast being who in her entirety has the power to maintain our planet as a fit and comfortable habitat for life” and she is “now through us awake and aware of herself.”… Read more

Green governments are using ‘carbon footprint’ ideology to destroy agriculture—and freedom

By Leslyn Lewis, July 14, 2022

Climate Realists of Victoria does not take an official position on the Conservative Party of Canada leadership contest. However, this blog (which has been edited for length) by candidate Leslyn Lewis on the farmers’ protests in Holland and Sri Lanka is worth reading.

The obsession with carbon footprints has led to the extreme policies in Holland and is one of the driving forces towards the shift to digital currency—so that every activity, every purchase can be tracked for its “carbon footprint”.

This is what happened in Holland and Sri Lanka to calculate that farming was bad for the environment.… Read more

‘There is no climate crisis.’ A Q&A with Steven Koonin

By James Pethokoukis and Steven E. Koonin, AEIdeas, December 20, 2021

Is the world going to end in 10 years or 20 years? Absolutely not.

“The science is settled on climate change,” eco-pessimists tell us. But can science ever really be settled? In this episode, I’m joined by Steven E. Koonin to discuss the consensus within the climate science community, popular misconceptions about the climate, and how we should respond to warming global temperatures given the costs climate change will impose down the road and the costs of cutting our carbon emissions today.

Steve is a professor at New York University and a non-resident senior fellow here at the American Enterprise Institute.… Read more

Wind power fails the test in Ontario—again

On July 7, 2022, wind, solar and biofuels delivered only 3.3% of the province’s electricity needs

By Parker Gallant, National Post, July 12, 2022

Older readers will remember Frank Sinatra’s 1966 hit Summer Wind, with English lyrics by Johnny Mercer from the German original (Der Sommerwind). The song was about changeability and time passing. In the end, Sinatra/mercer concluded, the summer wind was a “fickle friend.”

It’s a tune Ontario power generators may be humming these days as they try to meet electricity demands with — an annual seasonal occurrence — wind falling off in the province.

Wind’s summer sag was evident on July 7, as Ontario’s industrial wind turbines (IWT), which have a total generating capacity of about 15.6 per cent of Ontario’s total supply when all sources of energy are operating flat-out, were at the bottom of the heap in respect to generation.… Read more