Pope Francis and his Vatican succumb to the ideology of their worst enemies.

Secular progressive leftists and their eco-alarmist fellow travelers are normally hostile to expressions of Christian faith.  But, occasionally, when Pope Francis and his Vatican "experts" come out with a statement seemingly supporting collectivist and eco-alarmist dogma, their natural enemies exploit it to the hilt, as if it came directly from Gaia and/or Marx. The Pope is making a big mistake, much bigger and much farther reaching than the one made by the Pope who condemned Galileo.

Peter Foster: Vatican becomes an arm of godless United Nations with climate statement

... Pope Francis’s encyclical on climate change ...  is due to land in September to rally climate True Believers ahead of the U.N.’s giant policy shindig in Paris.

... This week’s statement, from the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences (PAS/PASS) ... confirms that Vatican not merely has slim or no grasp of economics or history, but is on its knees before tried-and-failed collectivist policies, and committed to a crusade against rich nations.

... The pope, who is an economic ignoramus, has allied himself with forces that would perpetuate poverty, not relieve it.

 A message for Pope Francis: Energy restrictions based on climate fears threaten the poor by Paul Driessen.

... Denying humanity the use of still bountiful hydrocarbon energy is thus not simply wrong. It is immoral – and lethal. This is the real reason that climate change is a critical moral issue. No one has a right to tell the world’s poor they cannot use fossil fuels to improve their lives, or to tell others they must reduce their living standards, based on speculation and unfounded fears about a man-made climate crisis.

Omar Khadr's boosters

His lawyer:

The media:


The National Post (editorial, no author named, but smells like Chris Selley channeling Dennis Edney):

“It is time to give Khadr his first shot at building a life in the country of his birth.”

Riiight! The country he left, with his al-Qaeda father, to fight on the side of our terrorist enemies.
Welcome back, Khadr!

The editorial then goes on to help Khadr build a case for a mega$ lawsuit against Canada.  That's probably his lawyer's real objective - a 30% cut.

Hitler reacts to being denied gay wedding cake

"What moron would ever call me right-wing"


[via Rebel]

Propaganda from the UN climate change bureaucracy

Ramping up the propaganda leading up to the December 2015 UN summit in Paris, UN climate bureaucrat, Christiana Figueres, in today's National Post, addressed Canada's role in the global effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Some of the first words were:

... [human] emissions have been scientifically proved beyond any reasonable doubt to cause global warming, and if unchecked will have calamitous and costly consequences for Canada and the world.

By itself, the statement that "[human] emissions have scientifically proved beyond any reasonable doubt to cause global warming" is true.  However, combined with the second part "if unchecked will have calamitous and costly consequences ..."  and the subsequent blather about the urgency of reducing global emissions, Figueres is saying that it has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt that human emissions are the dominant cause of global warming. and that is flat-out false.

There is a great deal of reasonable doubt about the extent of the human contribution to global warming.  One notable expression of that reasonable doubt comes from Judith Curry, Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology.  She recently gave testimony at the US Congressional Hearings into the President's UN climate pledge. The lead-in paragraphs of her testimony:

"The central issue in the scientific debate on climate change is the extent to which the recent (and future) warming is caused by human-caused greenhouse gas emissions versus natural climate variability that are caused by variations from the sun, volcanic eruptions, and large-scale ocean circulations.

Recent data and research supports the importance of natural climate variability and calls into question the conclusion that humans are the dominant cause of recent climate change.  .... "

Coyne's confused adherence to AGW dogma

Andrew Coyne in his column in yesterday's Nat Post shows that he is typical of many political commentators who have been swayed by climate scare-mongering without having done any due diligence.   Though he is critical of efforts (and the lack thereof) to "fight climate change", he uncritically accepts the underlying premise for doing so.  A letter writer in today's NP captured the essence of his confusion on the subject:

I am in total agreement with Andrew Coyne concerning the futility of the provincial carbon (dioxide) summit but for different reasons than Coyne’s. And, in fact, Coyne’s own words explain why.

“Is climate change happening? Yes.” An empty statement, since the climate is continually changing.

“Are we, as a species, responsible? Probably.” Well, since the modelling of the effect of carbon dioxide on global warming has been shown to be very wrong, this means that at this moment science does not well understand the effect of human actions on the climate. So not even the lukewarm “Probably” has a solid basis, especially if Coyne is implying that humans have a major effect on climate.

“Can we do something about it? So it seems.” But likewise, the evidence for this maybe-we-can-do-something-about-global-warming remark is absent.

But the most inconsistent part of Coyne’s argument is his statement, “There’s no point in us acting alone – we produce just two per cent of global emissions – but there’s no defence for not acting at all.” So even though it doesn’t make sense to act alone there’s no defence for not acting alone. Huh?    Alex MacMillan, Kingston, Ont.

 More on the Quebec Climate "Summit" by Peter Foster.

Stuart McNish at Conversations That Matter interviews environmental and  climate scientist Dr. Ken Green.  Dr. Green is skeptical of climate models and decries the politicization of climate science and the resulting alarmism.  He feels sorry for the pessimists who believe in immanent climate disaster.  He is author of the book Global Warming: Understanding the Debate.

Media bias in coverage of Mike Duffy versus coverage of Liberals

Brian Lilley compares the "wall to wall" coverage of Senator Mike Duffy's trial versus the relatively scant coverage of Liberal and convicted child porn offender, Benjamin Levin:



And, at Crux of the Matter, Sandy compares Mike Duffy's treatment with that of Liberal Senators Jim Munson and Mac Harb. The Duffy/Munson comaprison is interesting because of the similarity of the two individuals:

Both Senators Jim Munson and Mike Duffy were born in Atlantic Canada and are 68 years of age. Both were also former journalists, including being foreign correspondents at crucial events in history.

Carbon Taxapalooza

Last Monday Terence Corcoran declared Carbon Taxapalooza Week:

We hereby declare this to be Carbon Taxapalooza Week. The objective is to acknowledge and deplore the great stampede of provincial governments to tax the hell out of fossil fuels.

On Tuesday, Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission, a self-appointed group of allegedly market-oriented economic policy wonks, will release a report calling for the provinces to adopt “carbon pricing” to help Canada tackle climate change. [Here's the full list Ecofiscal "commissioners".  It includes Preston Manning, Jean Charest, Paul Martin, Bob Rae, Peter Robinson (Suzuki Foundation CEO), etc.  With that rats nest of progressives and eco-illiterates what could possibly go wrong?]

Until now, Ontario hasn’t had much interest in carbon pricing ... But now, having exhausted a range of bad policies, Ontario’s Environment Minister, Glenn Murray, is pushing to adopt another set of allegedly less bad policies.

 Peter Foster: The way backwards on carbon policy:

... On Tuesday Canada’s self-appointed Ecofiscal Commission released a study, The Way Forward, that amounts to a recommendation for policy chaos in pursuit of the ever-more dubious cause of fighting catastrophic man-made climate change. ...

Peter Foster: Chris Ragan, market beautician:

You can always tell a fan of Big Government by the way he or she addresses the Invisible Hand, Adam Smith’s metaphor for free markets. ... This week, McGill economist Christopher Ragan, chairman of the self-appointed Ecofiscal Commission, came up with a more subtle put down - “Sometimes the Invisible Hand needs a manicure, and the way is to improve market signals.”

See also, Dennis Ambler at The SPPI Blog: A nest of carbon vipers

Vast sums of money, influence and power are involved in carbon mitigation schemes, and yet there is never any mention in the media of these massive and lucrative conflicts of interest. They appear quite content swallowing the diversionary tactics pushed by the likes of DeSmog Blog and Greenpeace ExxonSecrets with their claims of “oil- company funded deniers”.  It is doubtful that mainstream journalists ever bother to look behind the scenes at these people, yet it is all available on official websites.

Freeman Dyson on climate change

The Vancouver Sun publishes a weekly video from "Conversations that Matter" hosted by Stuart McNish.  This week McNish interviewed famed mathematical physicist,  Freeman Dyson on the subject of climate change.

The Vancouver Sun has a number of columnists who are dedicated warmists.  They certainly wouldn't have been happy to hear the brilliant Prof Dyson's views.

I'm a Van Sun subscriber, but had no idea that this series existed.  Thanks to WUWT for putting me onto it.

Hysterical, fascistic liberal hypocrisy at work

Ezra Levant's excellent summation of the situation surrounding the Indiana religious freedom law:


See also:
Rich Lowry: "... a perfect storm of hysteria and legal ignorance"
and
Jonah Goldberg: "... Indiana’s Law Is Not the Return of Jim Crow"

Plus: a compendium of hypotheticals [via] including,

"Do we respect a gay baker’s right to choose not to bake a cake for the Westboro Baptist Church with icing that reads God Hates Fags?"