Merry Christmas!

Climate alarmist witch hunt

Ezra Levant with Marc Morano and Tom Harris:



 

Anti-pipeline ENGO thugs show utter contempt for democracy and the rule of law

Peter Foster:

... ForestEthics has muscled its way to a seat at the policy table by its thuggish tactics.

... Ben West ... Tar Sands Campaign Director of ForestEthics Advocacy ... declared “The Enbridge line will never be completed.”  ... clearly indicates his group’s utter contempt for legal and democratic processes.

... Surely there are more balanced voices within the ENGO community. What about the giant World Wide Fund for Nature, WWF? they are even more subversive when it comes to undermining democracy, and actually profit from ForestEthics’ anti-corporate antics. ... The head of WWF Canada, David Miller [mighta' known][declared that] Northern Gateway should be turned down whatever the NEB and the democratically elected government says.

Organizations such as ForestEthics, WWF, Greenpeace and the David Suzuki Foundation all despise short-sighted “ballot box” democracy because they claim to speak for the planet and future generations.  Significantly, neither entity is in a position to speak for itself. 

... The ultimate decision on Northern Gateway is, as noted, that of the federal government. That decision should not be subject to veto by a radical minority who are impervious to facts, logic or evidence, and whose careers depend on spreading alarm, threatening violence, and contempt for democracy.

Northern Gateway - glass half full / glass half empty

National Post:                                                                Vancouver Sun:

And coming up empty: Mulcair and Trudeau

Northern Gateway Pipeline approved with conditions

Financial Post:

In a decision that spans two volumes and nearly 500 pages, the three-member panel of environmental and energy regulators led by Sheila Leggett said the $6.5-billion project’s economic benefits outweigh the environmental burdens.

... approval includes 209 environmental, financial and technical conditions. Enbridge must set aside $950-million in liability coverage to cover costs of a potential spill, including at least $100-million available within 10 days in the event of a large rupture and $250-million of “no-fault” insurance, the panel said.

... Five conditions set by the B.C. government are still unresolved, and the pipeline remains deeply unpopular with some aboriginal groups and environmentalists. 

... Reaction from opponents was swift. Greenpeace vowed on Thursday to “do what it takes, from court cases to civil disobedience, to ensure this pipeline never gets built.” 

Vivian Krause shows that opposition to the NGP was largely the work of American ENGO, ForestEthics:

... a large percentage of the fuss over the Northern Gateway pipeline has been generated by a single, American organization: ForestEthics, based in San Francisco.... In its 2012 tax return ... ForestEthics claims credit for having generated fully 87 percent of the letters of comment sent to the National Energy Board regarding the Joint Review Panel for the Northern Gateway.

ForestEthics’s own words in its tax return: ... "... In the last six months of 2012, we amassed more than 25,000 new supporters for this campaign ... In August, we submitted to the National Energy Board 4,119 (out of 4,722 in total submitted) unique Letters of Comment on the Enbridge tankers/pipeline project, written by our supporters.”

... Since 2008, ForestEthics has been the workhorse of the Tar Sands campaign, co-funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Tides Foundation.

 There are many hurdles still to jump, not least those set up by paid agitators and radical eco-fascists organized and funded by foreigners. Also, the BC NDP is still calling for rejection and then there's Christy Clark's "fair share" shakedown to consider.  Et cetera ...

Kathleen Wynne's self-destructive opportunitic mercantilism

Peter Foster: Ontario’s anti-markets deal with Cisco a self-destructive case of ‘opportunist mercantilism’

The loudly-trumpeted news that the Ontario government is to give California-based Cisco Systems “up to” $220 million to create “up to” 1,700 jobs is a typical example of “opportunist mercantilism” — that is, “beating” other governments at self-destructive policies.

...The one relatively clear statistic is that the Ontario government seems to be ponying up well over $100,000 a job. This is nonsensical.

... This game bears little or no relevance to the voluntarily, non-criminal cooperation of the free market, but it does explain a lot about the government behaviour.  ... governments aren’t interested in economically optimal results. They are interested in gestures that will win votes, whatever the costs to the economy. They play. Taxpayers lose.

Ezra Levant's take:

Foreign Policy magazine editors and journalists are "naive children"

Donna Laframboise on FP's selection of the UN IPCC as one of 100 Global Thinkers of 2013:

... Oh, dear. A magazine that can’t write 283 words without using the phrase “climate-change deniers” twice, is out there. I mean, really out there.

... the editors and journalists at Foreign Policy magazine are naive children. They’ve mistaken eco-apocalyptic fairy tales featuring planet-saving superheroes and wicked climate deniers for reality.

The notion that anyone is depending on that magazine’s power of analysis with respect to foreign policy is downright frightening.

Also named among FP mag's 100 Global Thimkers is this quartet of geniuses for proving that the 
devastation of Superstorm Sandy was partly our fault:

... Using the tools of a field known as "climate attribution science," the researchers compared, correlated, and analyzed data on weather and anthropogenic pollution such as carbon dioxide emissions. They examined a dozen meteorological cases from 2012, including superstorms, retreating Arctic sea ice, heavy rainfall in Europe, and intense heat along the United States' Eastern Seaboard.... ["Climate attribution science" would appear to be a "science" of rationalizing preconceived conclusions.]

The media's Ford fetish

Apparently there's no limit to the media's loopy obsession with Ford.  Now it's Rob's brother Doug Ford's outrageous behaviour - handing out $20 bills to the less fortunate, at Christmas time.

The horror!

What is a human right?

Ezra explains:

WestJet Christmas Miracle

Christmas wishes come true.

... The airline promised when the video views hit 200,000, it would donate flights to reunite a family over Christmas through Ronald McDonald House.

 Three million views - now that's great marketing!

Windfarm victims speaking out

Watch this trailer for a one hour documentary, An Ill Wind, in which people living near wind turbines are interviewed by Dr. Nina Pierpoint:

...we didn't know the full effects,
...it's been sheer hell,
...cattle bleeding out of their noses,
...stray voltage,
...an empire of lies,
...gold rush mentality,
...people are afraid to speak up,
...Obama's Chief Economic Advisor is the principal of First Wind; before that, he was president of Harvard University, until he was fired,
...there is definitively this element of the con artist, the snake oil salesman, the evangelist; the con is alive and with us.

And then there's the the huge added cost to consumers, the unreliable and inefficient energy production, the visual pollution on landscapes and the killing of birds by the millions.  All thanks to "climate change" fanaticism and its accompanying "green energy" fetishism.

[Via FOS]

CPC 10th Anniversary - list of accomplishments

Via Joanne's post  at BLU is the Conservative Party 10th Anniversary Top 10 List of Accomplishments.  In the BLU comments, Sandy of Crux of the Matter points to her comprehensive list of 70 accomplishments 2006-2011.  Great stuff!

Question: I googled for a complete record of Conservative accomplishments and Sandy's excellent list was it, no others came close.  However, Sandy says she's given up on it, as it's too big a job.  Isn't this something the CPC should be doing and posting it on its web-site?  It's certainly worth bragging about.  Such a list, with links to the platform, would be a valuable reference for all conservatives, not to mention the general public.

Time to write another letter to the CPC.

Khadr's lawyer Dennis Edney - Scotland exporting its nitwits

"Omar Khadr's bigoted lawyer defends the terrorist while putting down Sun News Reporter Ada Slivinski"

Flaherty targeting enviro groups' abuse of charitable status

Mark Dunn:

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is ready to play hardball with environmental groups that abuse their charitable status.

... "We're reviewing that. We spent some time on it last year and we're looking at it again now as I prepare the budget," Flaherty said Friday ...

... In last year's budget, the government instructed the Canada Revenue Agency to take a closer look...

OK, that sounds mildly encouraging, but it's long overdue.  ENGOs have been abusing their charitable status for decades. The Conservatives have been in power since 2006.  CRA was instructed a year ago to get a grip on the problem,  and "... we're looking at it again now... "?

C'mon, Jim, stop futzing around and just get on with it!  Thanks.

The distortion and corruption of science in the public square

Richard Lindzen's excellent paper Science in the Public Square: Global Climate Alarmism and Historical Precedents was recently published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons:

 ... in some fields, including climate, the government has essentially a monopoly on such funding.

... Expanded funding is eagerly sought, but the expansion of funding inevitably invites rent-seeking by scientists, university administration, and government bureaucracies.

... This is a crucial element in the climate issue, but comparable examples have existed in other fields, including eugenics and immigration, and Lysenkoism and agronomy. ...






The material for Prof. Lindzen's paper was first presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness. Here's the video of his presentation:

Trying to appease anti-oil-sands thugs is a big mistake - sue the bastards instead

Peter Foster - Oil sands industry risks death sentence if it climbs into bed with its enemies.

The industry has been the subject of a global campaign of demonization, disinformation and intimidation, executed by a wide range of interlinked environmental non-governmental organizations, ENGOs.  That campaign has been based on false or grossly exaggerated allegations of toxicity, sickness and environmental destruction, in particular regarding the significance of the oil sands for global warming.

... Some are now proposing that rather than counter misinformation, the industry should legitimize it by sitting down with its ENGO tormentors. Even more bizarre is the suggestion that the industry might use the Canadian Boreal Forest Agreement, CBFA, as a model.

... The CBFA, does indeed offer lessons, but rather of which path to avoid. ...  the final months [of the agreement] were marked by ... Greenpeace’s assault on one of the corporate signatories, Resolute Forest Products.  Resolute fought back ... sued for “defamation, malicious falsehood and intentional interference with economic relations.”

Some shills for the ENGOs, such as Avrim Lazar ... suggest that it doesn’t matter how the ENGOs came by their power. Since they have it, they have to be dealt with. [Sure, ends justify means. It doesn't matter how the Mafia comes by its power - murder, extortion, drugs, prostitution, robbery - you still have to negotiate with and appease them.]

Does the industry really want to sit down with these judges and negotiate its own death sentence?

Let's hope the oil industry unites and shows some backbone.  Resolute Forest Products has shown the way for it to fight the ENGO thugs.  Sue their asses off for “defamation, malicious falsehood and intentional interference with economic relations.”. Surely the entire oil sands industry can come up with the bucks needed to fight that war.

MoveOn.org - American traitors

Buying anti-fracking protestors at $500 a pop:

Former Harper appointee calls Canada a "rogue state"

Eco-extremist and activist SFU professor Mark Jaccard rebukes Canada at Washington DC event:

... Mark Jaccard was one of the first people nominated by the Conservatives to the environmental file, when he was named in 2006 to the federal government's now-defunct National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

The environmental economist delivered a lengthy rebuke of Canada's climate-change performance at the event near the White House, as the Obama administration continued to grapple with whether to approve the Alberta-U.S. pipeline.

"On climate, Canada is a rogue state," Jaccard said ...

Jaccard is a rogue environmentalist with a long history of climate-nuttery. And there are few climate- related issues in BC that he isn't involved in.  It's hard to imagine that the federal bureaucrats who recommended his appointment in 2006 didn't have some inkling of who they'd be getting.

A misguided pope?

Pope Francis Attacks Capitalism, Calls for State Control

In a far-ranging 50,000 word statement released by Pope Francis on Tuesday, he illustrated that he is sympathetic to the tenets of liberation theology and hostile to capitalism. 

... Before the advent of  liberation theology, Catholicism hated socialism and communism, regarding them as “godless.” Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) wrote an entire encyclical condemning socialism.

But now Pope Francis seems to be embracing a condemnation of capitalism instead, and an embracing of socialistic principles.

Some of the Pope's conservative supporters, like Michael Coren, defend his rhetoric, saying that his critics misunderstand him:



I think Anthony Furey is closer to the truth, but even if you accept Coren's point of view the fact that so many on the loopy left just love what Pope Francis has to say is deeply problematic.  He's feeding them ammo.

About that quote from the Pope:

 His opinion of capitalism seems clear.  But he's dead wrong.  Free markets (under the rule of law) actually do "bring about greater justice and inclusiveness".  Everyone is free to participate, and if "justice" includes raising 100s of millions of people out of poverty, then the "facts" overwhelmingly favor free markets.

He's full of BS on everything else as well.  The "naive trust ... in the goodness of those wielding  economic power ..." he says has not benefited some ("the excluded are still waiting").

Capitalism excludes no one.  And what are they "waiting" for? The odds are that if they are waiting in poverty it's because they lack freedom and free markets, not because of capitalism.  One could just as well point to the Catholic Church, centuries old champion of the poor, as having failed those same supposedly "excluded" people.

Senate "scandal" - much ado about not much

Conrad Black on the Duffy/ Wright affair:

- This week’s by-election results ...  suggest that voters are not too much concerned ...

- The PM’s chief of staff advanced his own money that was cycled on a fast track to the national treasury. It was the reverse of embezzlement. ...

- there is something very peculiar about a system that, as in the Duffy case, allows an RCMP corporal to publish such an inflammatory series of allegations against a distinguished figure of the private and public sector such as Nigel Wright. ...

- especially unbecoming, and has failed to impress anyone an all political sides, has been the swift evolution of Harper’s and Gerstein’s and others Conservatives’ references to Nigel Wright [throwing him under the bus]  ...

- overall, this remains pretty thin gruel as a scandal. ...

 Ezra Levant has similar thoughts:

"biting the Invisible Hand that feeds them"

Peter Foster reviews the latest in "The Hunger Games" movie series and finds:

... [the movie] hasn’t quite produced the flood of anti-capitalist flapdoodle that the first did, but one of its stars, Canadian actor Donald Sutherland, still hopes that it might send U.S. youth to the barricades.

One of the more intriguing aspects of our relatively free Western society is that it allows people such as Mr. Sutherland to become fabulously rich while biting the Invisible Hand that feeds them.

Donald Sutherland, another Hollywood Canuk in the dumb and dumber set.

Conrad Black's defence of Mayor Rob Ford

The salvation of Ford: Conrad Black on why Rob Ford can win again

... nothing has come to light that disqualifies him from fulfilling the mandate his electors gave him, and I do not believe that the City Council has any legal capacity to redefine the powers of the mayor ...

... Mayor Ford’s detractors should realize that instead of hounding him from office, they have probably, by their bestial self-righteous excess and implicit mockery of a large echelon of the population that identifies with the mayor, made him more popular than ever. They have mocked human foibles a great many voters share, without shame, if not proudly. ... The law of unintended consequences asserts itself again, and it will be interesting to see whom it strikes.

Conrad at his best. Love it!  Though I'd say that in addition to that "implicit mockery" there was a lot of explicit mockery and insult of Ford voters by many including Post columnists J Kay and A. Coyne.

See also, Peter Foster's: Unravelling the Fordian Knot

Consensus on global warming crisis

Peer-Reviewed Survey Finds Majority Of Scientists Skeptical Of Global Warming Crisis:

... Now that we have access to hard surveys of scientists themselves, it is becoming clear that not only do many scientists dispute the asserted global warming crisis, but these skeptical scientists may indeed form a scientific consensus.

David Cameron orders: "Ditch the green crap"

In yet another sign of a return to climate sanity:

David Cameron has ordered ministers to ditch the ‘green crap’ blamed for driving up energy bills and making business uncompetitive, it is claimed. 

The Prime Minister, who once pledged to lead the ‘greenest government ever’, has publicly promised to ‘roll back’ green taxes, which add more than £110 a year to average fuel bills. 

But a senior Tory source said Mr Cameron’s message in private is far blunter.  The source said: ‘He’s telling everyone, “We’ve got to get rid of all this green crap.” He’s absolutely focused on it.’

Politicians are waking up, one at a time - and none too soon.

[Via]

Update: On the other hand, James Delingpole writes: "On green issues no one talks more 'crap' than David Cameron"

 ... Let us not forget that only last week Cameron was explicitly linking Typhoon Haiyan to "climate change." 

... David Cameron talking about cutting green crap is like King Herod talking about improved babycare for male children in Judaea.

How modern climate hysteria resembles that of the Little Ice Age

Dr. Sally Baliunas discusses the history of people's reactions to extreme weather. Those skeptical of the official line are not well treated:

How fossil fuels are greening the planet

Matt Ridley explains why the greening of the planet in recent decades appears to be happening because of, not despite, our reliance on fossil fuels:



[Via]

Canada praises Australia for ditching its carbon tax

Statement by Parliamentary Secretary Paul Calandra on Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's Introduction of Legislation to Repeal the Carbon Tax

Ottawa, November 12 2013 — Today, Paul Calandra, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, issued the following statement on behalf of the Government of Canada on Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s introduction of legislation to repeal the carbon tax: “Canada applauds the decision by Prime Minister Abbott to introduce legislation to repeal Australia’s carbon tax. The Australian Prime Minister’s decision will be noticed around the world and sends an important message. 

“Our government knows that carbon taxes raise the price of everything, including gas, groceries, and electricity. Prime Minister Abbott has said that, in Australia, the repeal of the carbon tax will reduce the average household’s cost of living by (in Australian dollars) $550 a year, take $200 off household power bills and $70 off gas bills.
“Our government has reduced greenhouse gas emissions while protecting and creating Canadians jobs – greenhouse gas emissions are down since 2006, and we’ve created 1 million net new jobs since the recession – and we have done this without penalising Canadian families with a carbon tax.”

The Guardian and its readers, however, were appalled:)

... Canada has dropped any remaining pretences of supporting global action on climate change by urging other countries to follow Australia's example in gutting its climate plan.
... Australia is the developed world's worst polluter per head of population, but Canada, under the Harper government, is close behind at 16.2 tonnes .

Well, at least it's a small signal that things may be shifting in the right direction.  But the Harper government has also signalled that it will mirror whatever action the Americans take on the climate front.  And the Obama "Climate Action Plan" appears to include every crazy CAGW alarmist premise and myth out there.  It sure doesn't include any contingencies for the what to do about global cooling.

[Via]

The unsustainability of renewable energy

Lawrence Solomon:

Non-renewable energy is sustainable; renewable energy is not, not even close, not by any meaningful yardstick, not in our lifetime or in that of our children.

... Fossil fuels, in contrast, have gone from success to success for several centuries now, with no end in sight.

When governments try to impose large-scale renewable technologies, they lay waste to nature

Justin Trudeau's "China Derangement Syndrome"

Peter Foster:

Justin Trudeau’s mind may be a bit like a teenager’s bedroom, but the Liberal leader’s recent praise for Chinese dictatorship was surely more a case of careless wording than careless thought. He used “dictatorship” when he should have used something like “sustainable well-designed central coordination.”

... Dictatorship – that is, control of people’s lives — has always been the central motivating force of leftist ideology. Praise for dictatorship as a more efficient and even more moral system has a long history among not just Fellow Travellers and Useful Idiots on the left.

In Flanders Fields - importance of the poppy

John Robson explains:

a mockery of a mock trial

Once again Peter Foster does the heavy lifting and attends an event so that we don't have to.  This time it's the nutty left/lib fake "trial" of David Suzuki put on by and for Suzuki fans at the Royal Ontario Museum:

... The event was a cross between a mock trial and a bizzaro Soviet show trial. In show trials the victim had already been condemned. In the Suzuki version, the environmental celebrity’s innocence was never in doubt.

... The audience was treated before the show to sounds of chain saws, and giant projections of open pit oil sands mining and refineries. I think that’s called “priming.”

... Then came the vote. Would it be a nail biter? No, it was a Suzuki super landslide from the audience, and an acquittal from the jury. There were whoops of victory over, er, nobody except that tiny handful of brave masochists who had suffered through this charade then dared to put up their hands for “Guilty.”

.. the fact that a real judge and real lawyers took part brings discredit on the legal system.  The real lesson of this mockery of a mock trial was what it said about the objectivity and openness of Suzuki nation.  They reach consensus by having conversations in echo chambers. They try themselves, certain of acquittal. They claim persecution while suggesting their opponents should be silenced. If you want to know what’s wrong with the IPCC, and why there is still no real debate over climate, the trial of David Suzuki exposed it in microcosm.

Great column! Suzuki and his nit-wit followers will hate it.

Update: The Aussies take note.

Jim Flaherty's humanity to Rob Ford

Kelly McParland: Jim Flaherty’s humanity to Rob Ford sticks out from the baying mob

Jim Flaherty went up a couple of notches in my estimation on Thursday, when he found himself unable to speak coherently about the fix his friend, Rob Ford, is in.

... It appears the federal finance minister has failed to grasp that Rob Ford is no longer an extremely flawed human who has manoeuvred himself into a horror story of his own creation, but prey to a self-righteous pack that sees him only as a target to be brought down, and feeds on its shared callousness. He feels bad for the man; he doesn’t care about the story, which is what the mob cares about.

... The Star, which congratulates itself on its leading role in the unhappy tale, has abandoned even the pretense of civility.

... We’re not talking about anyone human here, just a target. He gets the thumbs down from the crowd, you stick a sword in him. It’s been going on for centuries.

Mr. Flaherty, at least, stands out for retaining some compassion. You won’t find any at the Star. I’m glad I don’t work there. If I did, I’d be embarrassed.

Meanwhile, about that video showing Ford's supposedly out-of-control rant -  "Rob Ford sounds like he’s doing a Hulk Hogan impression because… he’s doing a Hulk Hogan impression"

Well, that was fun!

NOT!  But it's good to be home (last night).

 It took a little longer than expected to be cleared from the cardiac recovery ward; though I have nothing but compliments for VGH's cardio surgery team and facilities from pre-op to surgery to recovery.  Everyone from the surgeon to the specialist doctors and nurses to the technical and the food service staff performed admirably with competence and good cheer.  I guess heart surgery is one of those areas that, thankfully, get a high priority and is well done in spite of the system.

Update: Looking good!

Surgery went well.  JR should be back home by Tuesday or Wednesday.

Booking out for surgery

I will not be writing any posts for the next week or so as  I will be going under the saw and knife tomorrow for valve surgery at Vancouver General Hospital. 

This will be my second valve job in 14 years and, confident though I am in my surgeon and his team, I am definitely not looking forward to it.

Ciao for now.

A despicable, cowardly media

It almost goes without saying that the so-called mainstream media has a significantly leftist political bias.  We also know that the MSM is weak on press freedom and is prone to self-censor and to downplay or ignore certain issues.  They do this out of politically correctness (ie. upsetting lib/leftists who share their biases).  They also do so out of simple cowardice in the face of potential physical danger.  Altogether this highly unfortunate situation is just short of earning the MSM the title "despicable".

This week they (the journalists and executives of CTV, Global TV, CBC) crossed the line during the anti-fracking "protests" (riots) near Rexton, NB.  They displayed all of the above near-despicable negatives plus failing to come to the defence of fellow journalists who were attacked by Indian thugs and criminals.

The violence and thuggery of Indian "protesters" was bad enough.  But Ezra Levant hits the right target when he calls out members of the despicable "Media Party" for their cowardice and duplicity:

Charles Krauthammer tries to educate Jon Stewart

Fat chance:

A phony poll to boost a fraud's image

Ezra Levant shows how a poll manipulated by a PR flack at Angus Reid got David Suzuki to the top of a "most admired" list:



Update: Ezra's column.

The Marxist cat-fight in Toronto Centre

Terence Corcoran: Linda McQuaig and Chrystia Freeland stage Marxist battle in downtown Canada

On the left running for the NDP stands journalist Linda McQuaig, co-author of The Trouble With Billionaries, a book that plays to ancient leftist theories of alienation ... She prescribes tax rates of up to 70% and radical confiscation of the assets of the wealthy ...

Ms. McQuaig came out swinging Monday with a direct video challenge to her opponent, Liberal candidate Chrystia Freeland. “Hi Chrystia. It’s Linda McQuaig!”  says Ms. McQuaig in her best innocent-friendly trap-setting manner. “You’ve written a book on income inequality and I’ve written a book on income inequality.” But they are very different books, she says, with very different policy prescriptions.  So let’s have a debate, one on one, “any time, anywhere.”

Ms. Freeland’s book is Plutocrats:  The Rise of the New Global Super-rich and the Fall of Everyone Else.  The premise is false—everyone else has not fallen. ... To say that Plutocrats is “very different” from Ms. McQuaig’s The Trouble with Billionaires is somewhat misleading. ...  Both books are identical in their foundations, political tracts that popularize class warfare ... her analysis is no less Marxist in its origins.  She frequently quotes Karl Marx, the granddaddy of state socialism. Marx, she says, understood the dangers of a capitalist class ... 

... The poor voters of Toronto Centre are about to get a heavy dose of such crypto-Marxist revivalism. ...

Foreign-funded homegrown terrorists

Not to mention latter-day-Luddites and Palestinian Wanna Be's:

Influential Canadian climate model one of the most extreme

Study: The Canadian Climate Model 's Epic Failure

The Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis located at the University of Victoria in British Columbia submitted five runs of its climate model CanESM2 for use in the fifth assessment report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The climate model produces one of the most extreme warming projections of all the 30 models evaluated by the IPCC. (See Note 1.) The model badly fails to match the surface and atmosphere temperature observations, both globally, regionally, as presented in six graphs.

... The results from the Canadian climate model were used in a U.S. Global Change Research Program report provided to the US Environmental Protection Agency to justify regulating CO2. The authors of that report were told that the Canadian climate model produces only anti-information. They confirmed this fact, but published their report unchanged. The Canadian government has indicated it will follow the lead of the U.S.A. in regulating CO2 emissions.

... Climate alarmism based on climate models that don't work has so far cost the world $1.6 trillion in a misguided and ineffective effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These efforts have caused electricity prices to increase dramatically in Europe causing fuel poverty and putting poor people at risk.

Note that the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis in Victoria is a division of Environment Canada's Climate Research Branch, formerly run by CAGW alarmist Andrew Weaver (now BC Green Party MLA).  So that's where the feds have been getting the "science" on which to base their "climate change" policy.

Do Canadian university professors lean left?

Do fish swim?:

... A 2011 study found that Canadian university professors were left leaning but were not "hugely different in this respect from the Canadian university-educated population."

So, for left leaning professors - "mission accomplished".

"Smart" grids, "smart" cities, "smart" growth - "subversive, or dumb or both"

Peter Foster:

... “smart” has ... become a ubiquitous weasel word that, like “social” and “sustainable,” conceals a multitude of political dangers. 

When it comes to smart grids, smart cities and smart growth, we are dealing with concepts that are potentially subversive, or dumb, or both.  

... Technology will obviously continue to shape the city, but the dangers of “over-specification,” that is inflexible top-down design, are highlighted in a recent pamphlet, “Against the smart city”, by New York based urban designer Adam Greenfield. 

... Mr. Greenfield does a wonderful job of explaining the manifest shortcomings and dangers of the overdesigned smart city, but his critique ultimately flies off the rapid transit rails because he sees these urban monstrosities as an offshoot of the “neoliberal agenda,” a Chomskyan phrase that speaks volumes about anybody who uses it. 

... The smart city may be a cover for the moralistic city, and moralism is often a cover for power-seeking.  Indeed, the overweening ambition of “seamlessly coordinating everything” is the very model of sustainable development as conceived by the likes of Canada’s former UN mastermind Maurice Strong.

In fact, the "smart" concept reeks of U.N. Agenda 21, the sustainable development mantra, which a whole lot of "smart" bureaucrats and politicians in a whole lot of cities round the world have enthusiastically signed on to.  Subversive indeed!

It's too easy for thin-skinned hypocrites to sue for "defamation"

Mark Steyn reviews the defamation lawsuits brought against him (by Michael Mann) and Ezra Levant (by a touchy Muslim lawyer):

... the urge to litigate disagreement is never far from the surface in contemporary discourse. So both Ezra Levant and I find ourselves back in court yet again. 

... In that sense, Dr. Mann is, indeed, a fraud. It is a fascinating legal question whether a man guilty of serial misrepresentation can, in fact, be defamed. But it’s not that fascinating, and certainly not worth the court’s time and seven-figure legal bills. 

...  it’s a pretty basic free speech case. Dr. Mann, whatever his other gifts, is an inveterate name-caller.  

... In court, our notably unimpressive judge Natalia Combs-Greene declared, even before we got anywhere near the trial, that she was with Dr. Mann: “The court agrees with the arguments advanced by Plaintiffs. To place Plaintiff’s name in the same sentence with Sandusky (a convicted pedophile) is clearly outrageous.” 

... Mann is entitled to insult me ... and anyone else who has the temerity not to prostrate themselves before him. It is remarkable that an American jurist is too obtuse to grasp this 

... Mr Awan said something that was not so and was exposed in court for so doing, and in a free society Ezra ought to be well within his rights to characterize such a person as he pleases. 

... What else? Awan complains that Levant called him an anti-Semite. Big deal. Awan called Levant a racist. He’s called me and my book racist, Islamophobic, virulent and hateful. Likewise: big deal. 

...  If you’re going to be a partisan warrior in the public arena you need, as the Toronto blogger Kathy Shaidle likes to put it, “insensitivity training.” Miss Shaidle also argues that the matter of honour was better handled before the libel laws replaced dueling. When a fake Nobel laureate and a frontman for a terrorism-sympathizer are suing for their “reputation,” I’m inclined to agree. If Dr. Mann’s up for it, how about hockey sticks at dawn?

However you cut it, being sued in a real court is far better than being persecuted by a kangaroo "human rights" tribunal.  But either way it's expensive and, with clueless and/or ideological judges and juries, risky for defendants. The bar seems to be set way too low for getting these anti-free-speech and hurt-feelings lawsuits into court in the first place.

Ezra Levant needs help in the fight for freedom

Ezra is being sued by a Muslim waging legal jihad:

... Today in a Toronto court, Khurrum Awan is suing me for critical comments I wrote at the Maclean’s hearing in 2008. I said nothing that hadn’t been said by many critics across the political spectrum, who universally condemned the nuisance suit. But the rest of the media soon dropped the free speech cause. I turned it into an ongoing campaign.  

... Maclean’s spent [huge sum$]. And every other media company was sent the message: Don’t you dare talk about radical Islam, or you’ll face a nuisance suit, too. 

... Khurrum Awan ... later boasted: “We attained our strategic objective — to increase the cost of publishing anti-Islamic material.” 

... So time to apply the “strategic objective” to me. 

So, it's also time once again to Stand with Ezra.

Ezra Levant forces "trial" judge to recuse herself

Suzuki mock trial judge withdraws after questions of bias:

Ontario Superior Justice Harriet Sachs announced that she would no longer be participating in a mock trial of environmentalist David Suzuki.

... [Suzuki] was barraged with questions by Sun News host Ezra Levant, including queries on Judge Sachs and her possible bias.

... A Superior Court judge since 1998, Judge Sachs is the wife of Clayton Ruby, a prominent Toronto lawyer known for championing liberal [including radical environmental] causes.

No doubt, without Ezra shining a bright light on her, judge Sachs, having been dumb enough to accept a role in this eco-propaganda stunt in the first place, would have blithely gone ahead with it.  But now that she has let us know who she is, Sachs has compromised any claim she might have had to objectivity in environmental cases that might come before her.  So she might as well permanently recuse herself from hearing any such case. 

Ezra is the man!

Ezra Levant gets in David Suzuki's face

Ace reporter and pundit, Ezra Levant, attended a Suzuki anti-oil media event and produced this brilliant episode of The Source:




Peter Foster also attended. He opines on Suzuki's "Carbonist Manifesto" and on Ezra's role at the event:

The occasion was a photo op ... at which Mr. Suzuki would reveal his “Carbon Manifesto” and generate publicity for his upcoming “trial,” an event due to take place at the Royal Ontario Museum on November 6.

... His Carbonist Manifesto, however, amounts to a plan to wreck the Canadian economy. Oil exploration has to stop at once. Seventy per cent of energy has to be generated from renewables within a generation. A carbon tax of $150 a tonne must be applied immediately.

... Usually ... Mr. Suzuki expresses his wacky beliefs within the safe and scripted confines of the CBC, not with Ezra Levant in his face.

The problem, however, is that the photo-op event to promote the mock trial had already been hijacked by Mr. Suzuki’s nemesis, Sun TV’s Ezra Levant.

Mr. Levant, whose persona might be described as somewhere between a steam roller, a legal pitbull and a right-wing Jon Stewart, has been a relentless critic of Mr. Suzuki ...

... Mr. Suzuki fled, with the Sun TV mic hounding him all the way to his waiting Chevy Volt. ...

... I asked Laurie Brown, the “veteran” CBC-er whose brainchild the trial is, what would happen in the unlikely event that Mr. Suzuki were found guilty. Would there be a sentencing?

Sure she said with a laugh, they’d take him outside and hang him.

Maybe they should have had a gallows at the photo op. I’m sure Mr. Suzuki would have had no trouble imagining Mr. Levant swinging from it.

Update:  The two Suzukis - Saint Suzuki and Secret Suzuki

An insane federal proposal to expand Indian reserves

It's a potential nightmare for municipalities:

B.C. municipalities are raising concerns over a proposed federal policy change that would allow First Nations bands to buy land and create satellite reserves anywhere in B.C. - even if they're not next to their traditional territory.

... the changes to the so-called "additions-to-reserve policy" would allow residential, commercial and industrial development in cities across B.C., resulting in the loss of land, taxes and costs associated with servicing agreements.

It could also create a "proverbial patchwork quilt" of jurisdictions, with municipalities wrangling with First Nations over bylaws and regulations on everything from fire services to house inspections.

... the policy, which would allow satellite reserves in cities like Burnaby, which has no reserves, and "turn community planning on its ear,"

... "If they bought a large block in middle of Surrey and it's a tax-free zone, imagine the impact on the surrounding businesses,"  ...

This idea is beyond nuts.  With few exceptions Indian reserves are among the most dysfunctional jurisdictions on the planet.  And the feds propose to multiply the problem?  Insane!  The object should be to get rid of reserves, not multiply them.

And whose money would be used to make the property acquisitions?  Taxpayers of course.  The Minister of Indian Affairs needs a good smack upside his head.

Fun and games with diversity

The oceans are not more acidic now

As claimed by the Guardian and carelessly re-Tweeted by the usual suspects:

Fiona Harvey’s article in the Guardian on 3 October 2013 Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is at highest for 300m years misrepresents the scientific literature. This error has propagated across the Twittersphere. 

... Hönisch et al. 2012, cited by the State of the Oceans report, showed in Figure 4D that the ocean has been more acidic for most of the past 300 million years than it is now. The rate of acidfication may be faster now, but Hönisch’s graph has a resolution of 20 million years, so cannot address that question.

It is unfortunate that an environmental journalist should confuse the rate of acidification with levels of acidity, but appalling that this story was tweeted uncritically by Nature Geoscience and a number of climate scientists other influential accounts. This is not some esoteric area of climate science. It is well known that CO₂ was much higher during parts of the past 300 million years than it is today and therefore ocean surface pH would be expected to be lower. Why was Harvey’s assertion that “[the] oceans are more acidic now than they have been for at least 300m years” not challenged (as far as I can see) by anyone from the scientific establishment?

A little misrepresentation goes a long way in the world of climate scare-mongering.

[via]

Legal jihad - Ezra in court next week

Remember Mark Steyn's wanna-be censor, Khurrum Awan?

The case goes to court on October 15th.

Go get 'em Ezra!

Statism

Buy the T-Shirt.

[h/t: Vinney]

BC's many Nobel pretenders

Donna Laframboise, on the 9000 people who helped the UN IPCC "win" the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize:

... When the IPCC was awarded half of the Nobel Peace Prize back in 2007 (Al Gore won the other half), its chairman profoundly over-stepped his authority. Writing to IPCC-affiliated academics en masse, Rajendra Pachauri proclaimed: “This makes each of you Nobel Laureates.”

This, of course, led to many claims by individuals (or by their organizations on their behalf) to be Nobel Prize winners or Nobel Laureates. British Columbia has more than its fair share:

In March 2013, The Walrus magazine published an article it said had been written by a “Nobel laureate” and a “Nobel economist.” But Mark Jaccard, who teaches at Simon Fraser University, has never won a Nobel prize — not in economics or any other field.  

... [Jaccard] is a special advisor to the BC environment ministry’s Climate Action Team. An official web page claims that eight members of that entity were awarded the 2007 Peace Prize. When we stretch the truth so extravagantly, this is where we end up.

It got so bad that the IPCC was prompted to issue an official statement (Dec 2012) to try to stop the practice:

... The prize was awarded to the IPCC as an organization, and not to any individual associated with the IPCC. Thus it is incorrect to refer to any IPCC official, or scientist who worked on IPCC reports, as a Nobel laureate or Nobel Prize winner. ...

As an aside, if anyone has any doubt as to where the BC government stands on the issue of "climate change" it's "Climate Action Plan", "Climate Action Team" and its carbon tax are hints that it brooks no skepticism.

Dirty politics trashing the oil sands

Claudia Cattaneo explains how the EU dishonestly targets the oil sands:

Much like the Keystone XL debacle in Washington, the EU’s proposed Fuel Quality Directive illustrates the hypocrisy of climate change politics — tough to sell at home, the pain of reducing greenhouse gas emissions is pushed abroad to feign the appearance of progress.

... What’s disappointing is that years of Canadian pushback that the directive is discriminatory has not changed the anti-oil sands’ nature of the proposal, spearheaded by EU Climate Action Commissioner Connie Hedegaard. ...

 Thanks to the lies and distortions of disloyal Canadian eco-extremists (like the Pembina Institute and David Suzuki) heavily funded by foreign interests, the oil sands have been turned into an international eco-whipping boy. Naïve, goody-two-shoes Canadian companies and governments have spent boat-loads of cash to reduce carbon emissions and to be environmentally responsible.  On the international front all Canadians ask for is a level playing field and honest dealing.

And what do Canadians get in return? Blatant lies and hypocrisy from the likes of  Connie Hedegaard and Barack Obama who threaten trade restrictions and deny approval of pipelines.

The bitter irony is that all of this (the disloyalty, the hypocrisy, the lies, the naïve, earnest good-faith efforts of Canadians, the waste) is premised on fears driven by dubious, unproven theories of catastrophic global warming - theories that are contradicted by 17 years of credible scientific data - data gathered by and for the fear-monger-in-chief, the UNIPCC.

IPCC spin doctors release their 5th report

Ezra explains why it's "not worth the paper it’s printed on":

The IPCC's "decision-based evidence making"

Tom Harris explains:

David Suzuki, a national embarrassment

Ezra Levant continues his outstanding exposé of David Suzuki and expresses gratitude to the Australian Broadcast Corporation (ABC) for doing what the Canadian media has failed to do for over 40 years - a professional job of interviewing their celebrity guest, exposing him to real questioning by experts in their field.  Suzuki is revealed as an out of date, out of touch huckster and mystic with some truly kooky ideas:





Bravo to Ezra for a fantastic job!

FYI, here's the entire ABC program complete with viewer comments. It seems Suzuki has many uncritical Aussie fans.