Speaking of pieces of sh*t

A close resemblance:

Supplemental update - Ezra Levant on the Kyoto brouhaha:

Kissing off Kyoto - Bravo to Harper

There’s another fine column by Peter Foster in today’s Post praising Prime Minister Harper for aligning Canada with the Asia-Pacific Partnership on climate change:

...Harper is being roundly criticized by the usual suspects -- political opponents, radical environmentalists and Olympian editorialists...

... he didn't even mention the "K" word. ...in other words Anything But Kyoto.

...for Canada to continue to embrace Kyoto is like a swimmer embracing lead weights.

The central nonsense of Kyoto has always been the radical disconnect between its draconian political ambitions, its economic costs and its predicted climate results....

...It cannot be stressed enough that the protocol, even if all the signatories had met their targets, would have produced a minuscule impact on global temperatures by the year 2100.

Not to mention,

...the micro-minuscule impact of even the most draconian action that Canada might take.

As Mr. Foster said, there was predictable derision for Harper. CTV quoted some know-it-all (is there any other kind?) teenager claiming he had been "embarrassed" by the Prime Minister. Following along on this theme, an editorial in my local rag said Harper "shames Canada". Well, the clowns can speak for themselves. I’m with Foster and Harper.

David Suzuki Poll - Looking good!

Poll results just after my vote. Cast your vote here.

(credit to sda).

Update: Poll disappeared from Suzuki site this aft (Mar 3rd)

Climate change - sanity in a sea of stupidity

"Back in the real world, if what many scientists say is true, climate change will not be a media-generated, one-year or one-election wonder. It will be a centuries-long struggle..." - Lorrie Goldstein

Lorrie Goldstein, in today's Toronto Sun, lends some much needed rationality to the media and environmentalist driven climate hysteria:

This is serious, long-term stuff. It's not about whether Dion names his dog "Kyoto" or Baird wears a green tie.
[...]
...I doubt the Liberals, Tories or anyone else in Ottawa believe a word of their own rhetoric on global warming these days. If they did, they'd be calling for a national unity government to address what could be an unprecedented crisis, not taking cheap shots at each other and insulting our intelligence.

[h/t]

Dion on Kyoto - duplicitous or duped?

John Ivison's column in today's National Post raises important questions concerning Dion's commitment to the Kyoto Accord. He quotes B.C.- based emissions management consultant Aldyen Donnelly:

"The only way industry can do its 'fair share' under the Kyoto cap is to shut down at least 20% of existing manufacturing capacity and jobs over the next 36 months," she said. Even if a new government closed all of Ontario's coal-fired power stations, shut down all oilsands activity in Alberta and slapped a moratorium on new development, it would address less than one-quarter of Canada's current "Kyoto gap."

Mr. Ivison then correctly wonders:

Is Mr. Dion prepared to let the Canadian public in on this reality check, or is he deliberately misleading an electorate that polls suggest is in favour of Kyoto, even though two in three acknowledge they don't know anything about it?

[...]

Either Mr. Dion knows this and is being duplicitous for political gain or, worse, he doesn't and has been duped by the environmental lobby. Neither explanation inspires much confidence in him as a future prime minister.

I'd also bet most Canadians are unaware that even if we did meet our Kyoto targets at the expense of a 20% chop to the economy, the net effect on global climate would be near zero. In fact, since Canada's contribution to global GHGs is small, the effect on climate of shutting the economy down all together would be negligible.

That's not to say, assuming there's a chance anthropogenic GHGs are actually the culprit, we shouldn't be doing our 'precautionary' bit. But it does strongly suggest that there's no great urgency, no reason for Canada to commit economic suicide other than to prove itself a global goody-two-shoes. Doesn't the world already know this?

I hope the National Post editorial board gets a chance soon to quiz Mr. Dion, and Messrs Harper and Layton, on these things. Canadians need to be informed.

Global Warming Hysteria

"Climate advocates are brainless parrots and short term politicians" - Peter Foster

In recent days and weeks, owing to extraordinarily warm and sometimes stormy winter weather, climate change alarmism has been ramped up considerably. The alarmists take the warm weather to be proof positive of man-made global warming and use the opportunity to warn of the need for immediate action. And seemingly on-cue, Prime Minister Stephen Harper shuffled his cabinet, primarily to appoint a new more powerful environment minister, John Baird, who instantly declared (quoting from memory) "The science is settled. The time for study is over. It is time to take strong action."

But against the army of climate Chicken Littles there are, thankfully, a few level heads. Peter Foster, in his column in today’s National Post reminds us of "...three unavoidable facts about the pretensions of climate policy":

(1) Canada cannot meet its Kyoto obligations without wrecking its economy.

(2) If Canada did meet its Kyoto commitment the effect on climate would be zero.

(3) Even if ALL Kyoto signatories met their Kyoto targets the effect on global climate would be minimal [probably unmeasurable].

In an excellent companion piece U.K. researcher Benny Peiser documents the damage being done to the European Union’s economy through its unilateral efforts to meet its Kyoto targets. For example:

- energy-intensive companies are forced to close down, cut jobs, or pass on costs to consumers.

- Europe’s policy threatens to redirect energy-intensive production to parts of the world that reject mandatory carbon cuts.

- it has led to a significant slowdown in European R&D budgets, a sliding trend that is hampering the development of low-carbon technologies.

So, if the climate alarmists prevail and our government takes immediate radical steps to cut emissions we’ll ruin our economy with a net effect on global warming of .... ZERO. And in the process of ruining the economy we’ll kill our ability to develop new technologies for reducing emissions and otherwise adapting.

If every nation were to sign on to this approach, the cost of fighting global warming would be global depression, or worse. The rich would suffer least; the middle class would be poor; and many of the poor would be dead. Would any of this human suffering concern the environmentalists and the radical activists. Not likely. After all, the poor are happiest being poor and there would just be that many more ‘happy’ people. And who will hear complaints from the dead.

Kyoto - Speaking of heads in the sand!

Global warming as religion. Dogma as 'science'.

In today’s National Post is an article by Timothy Ball and Tom Harris on the Kyoto non-debate. Conservative MP Bob Mills, as opposition environment critic, once put forward a very sensible motion:

"That given the importance and impact of the Kyoto Protocol on Canada and the entire world, and given that this committee has never studied the science behind the Kyoto Protocol, that several prominent climate (and other related fields) scientists from both sides of the issue be invited to testify on the science behind the Kyoto Protocol before the Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development at a mutually agreeable time and date."

Very sensibly, Mills argued:

"To just hear one side of an issue is certainly not what I think a committee should do and it's not in good conscience that we can do that."

But Liberal MP Charles Cassia, disagreed:

"I couldn't think of a more undesirable use of the committee's time."

And "the motion was soundly defeated."

Now, with the Conservatives in power, Mills has done a complete about face. Apparently he, like the opposition Liberals, NDP and BQ, has become a Kyoto "true believer". There is no longer any need to hear from anyone who might have different ideas on climate science.

Well, as disappointing as this is, I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised. Kyoto never was about sound science. Despite the facts that the GHG hypothesis remains unproven, that there are good reasons to doubt it and that there are compelling alternate theories, human-induced global warming has become an article of faith. So, as with any religious dogma, it's sacrilege to question it. And since 'Kyoto' has been so effectively ‘sold’ to the public, it is now completely politicized. The Tories know if they don’t manage it carefully their re-election prospects could be seriously damaged.

So, non-true-believers are in a bind. Beyond continuing to delude ourselves that there will ever be real debate on the science, we can only hope our government doesn't do anything to wreck the economy for negligible effect. Because, even if Kyoto science were accurate, given the small size of our economy, no matter what Canada does, or does not do, its effect on global climate will be somewhere between unmeasureable and nil.