Energy Probe

Ontario – and that certainly includes rural Ontario – in its unseemly haste to lead the charge towards all things green and beautiful, is much too committed to heed the bugle-notes of the global-warming retreat. Climate change has become our raison d’etre; it is our government and our foreign policy, and, with our manufacturing base and small enterprises succumbing to hard times and regulatory overload, it might even have to totter along for a while as a poor excuse for an actual economy.

The leaders in Copenhagen will reach some agreement. Politically, they have to.

A presentation by Lawrence Solomon, Energy Probe’s Executive Director, to the Standing Committee on General Government in regards to Bill 185, Environmental Protection Amendment Act (Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading), 2009.

Thank your lucky stars to be alive on Earth at this time. Our planet is usually in a deep freeze. The last million years have cycled through Ice Ages that last about 100,000 years each, with warmer slivers of about 10,000 years in between.

Earlier this week, I addressed a meeting of the Conference Board of Canada’s Centre for National Security in Winnipeg. Here is an abbreviated version of my presentation.

A Presentation on the risks of implementing climate change policies, given to the Centre for National Security of the Conference Board of Canada Winnipeg, Oct 21 and Oct 22, 2009.

It was all Sturm und Drang at the Friday morning presentations at the Global Business Forum.

Participants were jolted awake by the comments made by author and journalist Gwynne Dyer, whose grim message was that the world is heating much faster than scientists anticipated. Without strong and swift action aimed at reversing the trend, said Dyer, the world faces an apocalyptic future of famine, unpredictable weather patterns and drought. And these were just a few of the highlights.

Mr. Solomon’s article illustrates a lack of understanding of the potential of carbon capture and storage (CCS) as one of the tools to reduce greenhouse gas emissions globally.

Don’t worry about the risks of earthquakes or suffocation or water contamination. Carbon capture is good, really

You may have heard about the recent study at Oregon State University that examined the effects of reproduction on a parent's carbon footprint. The researchers reached the obvious conclusion that children, who eat, breathe and otherwise have the effrontery to consume resources, deepen that footprint considerably. Being scientists, the researchers calculated that difference with ludicrous precision.

Ottawa’s low-carbon energy projections leave Canada producing more energy from coal, oil sands, nuclear and forests. This is green?

Lawrence Solomon
The Deniers: The World Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud**And those who are too fearful to do so

December 2nd
10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
Conference call only

If you think the causes of the financial crisis are complicated, just wait until we start trading carbon.

'Cut back on carbon emissions," the Third World is lectured. "It's for the good of the planet and it's for your own good, too. Don't point fingers at the West's carbon emissions. Don't protest that you'd like your share of automobiles and air conditioners. Don't tell us that you know what's in your own self-interest. Just do as your told, or we'll punish you."

These threats are sometimes implicit, sometimes explicit, always arrogant. Carbon has become a club with which to discipline the Third World.

India loves the UN's climate change policies and so does India's representative at the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri.

Why the love-in? The Indian government's new "National Action Plan on Climate Change," which Pachauri helped craft, plainly explains why: The UN formally establishes that global warming is a matter of secondary importance to India, allowing the world’s largest democracy to pursue its own best interests.

Two weeks ago, a parent-teacher council blamed the online research source Wikipedia for falling test scores in Scotland.

On Tuesday, Canadian columnist Lawrence Solomon blamed Wikipedia for helping to spread global warming hysteria around the world.

Ever wonder how Al Gore, the United Nations, and company continue to get away with their claim of a "scientific consensus" confirming their doomsday view of global warming? Look no farther than Wikipedia for a stunning example of how the global-warming propaganda machine works.

On a tour earlier this week for his new book on global warming, The Deniers, Lawrence Solomon made a presentation at the Petroleum Club in Calgary. His remarks, adapted, appear below.

Studies are being done to monitor the impacts of wind turbines on landscape ecology and wildlife, such as birds and bats.

According to the Ministry of Natural Resources' Ontario Wind Atlas, winds off of Lake Superior blow more incessantly than anywhere else in the province.

As the province ramps up its supply of "green" energy, the 126 turbines spinning in Prince Township are likely a harbinger of more to come -- and a storm of debate over the pros and cons of harvesting power from the wind.

With less heat and less carbon dioxide, the planet could become less hospitable and less green.

You probably haven’t heard much of Solar Cycle 24, the current cycle that our sun has entered, and I hope you don’t. If Solar Cycle 24 becomes a household term, your lifestyle could be taking a dramatic turn for the worse.

US presidential candidates John McCain and Hilary Clinton vow to combat man-made climate change by curbing America's CO2 emissions. They also vow to give American drivers a tax holiday this summer by suspending the federal gas tax. Voters are upset at the price they must pay at the pump.

Foreign Policy/Prospect lists the world's top 100 public intellectuals, "the thinkers who are shaping the tenor of our time," as it describes them. Now it's up to us to select the best from among them, by choosing our five favourites.

Most of the intellectuals on offer, I confess, are unknown to me. The rest I divide into those I admire, or not.

Fred Singer, one of the world’s renowned scientists, believes in Martians. I discovered this several weeks ago while reading his biography on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. “Do you really believe in Martians?” I asked him last week, at a chance meeting at a Washington event. The answer was “No.”

Coal is back, despite -- and perhaps also because of -- attempts to beat it back.

Britain abandoned coal big time after Maggie Thatcher privatized the energy industry system in the 1980s. With the energy industry forced to meet market tests, coal fields were shut down, coal-fired power plants were shut down, and coal-related emissions plummeted. Economic efficiency worked wonders for both the economy and the environment.

Iceland wants to be the world's first carbon neutral nation, an honour that will be bestowed on it by the United Nations' Environment Program if it bests rivals Costa Rica, New Zealand and Norway. If Iceland wins, credit will rest in part with the country's banana industry, the most vibrant in Europe.

Public support for global warming, by some measures, is overwhelming. By other measures, public support more resembles lip-service. As, for example, when the public is asked to put its money where it's mouth is.

Climate change continues to wreak havoc throughout the world, Egypt being the most recent example. In the last year, bread prices have climbed 36%, leading to rioting by the hungry. Bread riots are also occurring Yemen and Pakistan, as they have in other countries over the last year, while in other nations food protests have taken other forms.

The UK is clobbering well-engineered automobiles in a move to re-engineer society. A Land Rover will soon face a tax of £950 when purchased, and then an additional £455 per year. Saab owners are hit less hard (£425 in year one, then £270) and Audi owners even less (£155 and £155). To escape these taxes, dubbed "showroom taxes" because they tend to hit hardest at the time of purchase), car-buyers need to think very small, such as the VW Polo Bluemotion, a diesel vehicle.

The $200-million per year currently spent fighting global warming isn't enough, says "Design to Win: Philanthropy's Role in the Fight Against Global Warming," a report funded by six philanthropies. To get the job done, at least $800-million per year is needed.

Global warming is the biggest threat that farmers face, and not because carbon dioxide threatens their crops -- carbon dioxide is actually a boon to crops, and increases yields. Thanks to increased carbon dioxide emissions, in fact, the world's biosphere is on an upswing, the terrestrial NPP (net primary production) growing by more than 6% in the last two decades of the century.

Since Maggie Thatcher broke up the United Kingdom's s dysfunctional energy monopolies two decades ago, costs plummeted, as did prices for consumers, as a wave of new entrants into the energy business led to a textbook example of the benefits of competition. Today, the typical household has several thousand options in purchasing power that come to it courtesy of six dozen different licensed merchants. Compare that to the choices your local power monopolist provides you.

With climate change threatening us with extinction, many of the best minds going are working on methods to save us from oblivion. Here they are, and how they propose to save us from ourselves:

Prime Minister Harper needs an alternative to Kyoto. Just about everyone seems to agree that our government can't just do nothing about greenhouse gas emissions.

But what if doing nothing is the best way governments can reduce emissions?

Ottawa: One of Canada's leading electricity experts has lambasted suggestions in the Kyoto plan about the federal government helping to finance construction of a coast-to-coast transmission grid as a way to deliver clean energy.

Such a scheme poses risks to Canadians in delivering reliable service. Moreover, it is "grossly unfair" because it would cost taxpayers tens of billions in tax dollars to benefit mostly Ontario.

The federal government will commission a study of Ontario's $10-billion electricity market to determine what impact the province's cap on power prices might have on complying with environment treaties - such as a Canada-U.S. clean air accord and the Kyoto Protocol.

Environment Canada is seeking bids by parties to take on the study, which will determine the future electricity mix in Ontario and the costs the power sector faces in dealing with environmental regulations.

After the most acrimonious battle with federal politicians since the National Energy Program two decades ago, Canada's oilpatch is now preparing for life with Kyoto.

But that doesn't mean the industry likes it.

The federal government passed the controversial Kyoto protocol Tuesday by a 195-77 vote in the House of Commons, committing Canada to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade.

Contrary to the naysayers who claim Western countries would face economic ruin in meeting Kyoto's greenhouse gas targets, three winning models are proven to exist and proven to yield spectacular results.

The first model - the USSR approach - involves privatizing an entire economy. Russia became the world's greatest greenhouse gas reducer by abandoning its centrally planned economy.

This just in from the Kyoto doom watch: The global climate accord, the one Alberta's environment minister warns would sound the "death knell" for the Canadian economy, is now forecast to cost an astounding, stupendous, catastrophic . . . $5-billion. That's measured, not against current output, but as a reduction in expected economic growth over the next eight years.

Now that Canada seems certain to commit to the Kyoto treaty by the end of the year, the choice before Canadians is stark. We can cut greenhouse gases in ways that gut the economy and impoverish Canadians - such reforms could cost 450,000 jobs, according to estimates from business lobby groups - or we can reduce gases by modernizing and liberalizing the economy.

Someone once asked Jean Chrétien who his favourite hockey player was. Jacques Plante, he replied: the Hall of Fame goaltender who played professionally until well into his 40s. Why Plante - other than longevity? "Because he never made the first move."

That is Mr. Chrétien's political career in a nutshell. Like a goalie defending his net against an onrushing winger, he waits, and waits, until the other guy commits himself, or makes a mistake, or just loses interest. Then, and only then, does he make his move.

In the last half of the 19th century, conventional wisdom in North America held that the climate in the Prairies - the vast lands that comprise much of the continent - was changing. In the United States and Canada, tens of governments, thousands of businesses and hundreds of thousands of individuals spent fortunes in line with this wisdom - the only time in human history that great sums were spent in anticipation of climate change.