NEP II - Hammer Alberta and Saskatchewan to meet climate goals

Bolstering the hype leading up to the December Copenhagen Conference, the Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute today released a report recommending that Alberta's and Saskatchewan's growth be curbed:

Ottawa will have to lead a massive restructuring of the Canadian economy, with wealth flowing from the West to the rest of the country, if it is to meet its climate-change targets, a landmark report has concluded.

The Conservative government's goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 can be achieved, but only by limiting growth in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Environment Minister Jim Prentice ain't happy:

“The conclusions [the report] draws are irresponsible,” said Mr. Prentice

Still, the fact that the federal government appears to believe the ever more clearly dubious AGW hypothesis and continues making plans to waste huge gobs of money chasing that hypothesis is disturbing enough. And so is the fact that the "landmark" idiot report was funded by the TD Bank.

A Globe poll today is somewhat encouraging:

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And, coincidentally, here's Mark Steyn's timely column in Maclean's today: "Gullible eager-beaver planet savers". It's brilliant in it's exposé of statist Big Brotherism in the name of environmentalism. And good for Maclean's for publishing it. The TD Bank could use some of the same kind of intelligence and moxie.

Updates: Kevin Libin's "Carbon report’s bloody portent" [h/t Wilson in the comments].

Also see Peter Foster's "Muddled models":

... [the Pemina-Suzuki] report was leaked to The Globe and Mail, and ... the thrust of coverage appeared to contradict the smiley-faced conclusions of the report, which was titled “Climate leadership, economic prosperity.” Or, please hobble us so that we can run faster!

Under reasons for draconian action, the report quotes the widely discredited report from British economist and climate extremist Nicholas Stern....

Lord Stern is increasingly becoming a figure of ridicule. This week, he suggested that vegetarianism might save the world, and projected that attitudes towards meat eating might become like those towards drunk driving. He has also predicted climate change would turn Europe into a desert and turn the world back in time by 30-million years....

... The TD’s Mr. Drummond apparently doesn’t “endorse” the report. He told me he just wanted people to have “something to shoot at.”

But such a study, while an inviting target, should hardly be the starting point for rational analysis of the greatest policy threat to freedom and prosperity in living memory.

What it does confirm is how far the policy “debate” has been taken over by activists, supported by Big Corporate money.

Those useless climate models

More evidence confirming Lawrence Solomon's assessment of useless climate models (see previous post) comes from James Hansen's GISS modeling of ocean heat content.

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Oops, wrong again, James!

... What Mr. Hansen fails to acknowledge is that ENSO also has significant impacts outside of the tropics.

If and when GCMs like those used by GISS, and in turn by the IPCC, are capable of reproducing ENSO events and their multiyear aftereffects on SST, TLT, and OHC anomalies, they may be capable of determining Earth’s energy imbalance ... At present, they are not.

And since AGW alarmist fanatics like Hansen are only interested in models that "predict" catastrophe they never will be.

A lonely voice at a climate change meeting

From Lawrence Solomon’s presentation at a recent Conference Board of Canada CNS meeting on climate change:

You are hearing at this conference that there is little doubt that human activity is causing profound and negative changes to our climate. Distinguished speakers are warning ... that Canada will need to be prepared for the chaos to follow, chaos that could include mass migrations of refugees, social unrest, pandemics, war and terrorism and riots born of social injustice.

I’m here to tell you that there are no such likelihoods. That there is no consensus on climate change. That the science that the doomsayers describe cannot credibly be seen as having the weight of scientific opinion behind it. ...

... All scenarios of catastrophe are based on nothing more than output from computer models that have been fed what-if scenarios. These models can’t even model the past, let alone the future. The climate is simply too complex, with too many variables, to project into the future with any degree of confidence.

... we need to be prepared for emergencies in the future. But we should base our preparations on real-world conditions, not the fantasies of climate modelers at computer keyboards.... the greatest threats to public safety and national security come not from man-made climate change but from man-made climate models. ...

... To date, attempts to mitigate global warming have caused enormous human suffering and ecological harm. With the globe not having warmed in the last 11 years — once again, to the surprise of the computer modelers — the safest thing we can do on global warming until we know more may be to do nothing; the most dangerous thing would be to continue to act boldly and in ignorance.

Bravo Lawrence Solomon! Read the whole thing.

The man has real guts. I suspect his was a very lonely voice at that meeting. It would be interesting to hear how his message was received.

Communism, fascism and now climatism

Terence Corcoran in yesterday’s Post:

... a corporate-driven global PR machine, ... an avalanche of business-government co-operation the likes of which the world has never seen. ... the world’s leading environmentalists and green NGOs: The World Wildlife Fund, David Suzuki, the Sierra Club, Environmental Defence, Forest Ethics, the Pembina Institute and many more. Together with industry, they pressure government in the creation of the green industrial state. ...

The shape of the green industrial state rises out of a not-so-attractive place in history. The two great theories of modern statism are part of the recent past: Communism has been dead for two decades, discredited with the fall of the Soviet Union; and full-blown fascism, with government in total control of a subservient corporate private economy, has been a non-starter since 1945. What we have now rising out of the ashes to fill the void is climatism.

Some of the culprits:

... the Forest Products Association of Canada, whose president, Avrim Lazar, threw Canada’s forest firms behind a World Wildlife Fund campaign to stop global deforestation.

... the Canadian ENGO-Industry Cap-and-Trade Dialogue ... a rogues gallery middlemen, energy consumers and green activists: The David Suzuki Foundation, Dow Canada, DuPont Canada, Environmental Defence, Forest Ethics, Pembina Institute, Royal Bank of Canada, Rio Tinto, Sierra Club of Canada, the Toronto-Dominion Bank and the World Wildlife Fund. ...

... In Ontario, the list of corporations supporting and circling the province’s new Green Energy Act is an appalling demonstration of climatism run amok. From TransCanada to GE, from wind farm developers to solar panel makers, it’s a corporatist free for all. All have joined forces with David Suzuki, Environmental Defence and other green groups in cahoots with government ...

... The model for Ontario’s green renewable schemes is Germany, where climatism is well advanced and where solar and wind power programs ... has created an economic fiasco.

... Last week ... a Canadian green business summit boasted Walmart, Maple Leaf Foods, Coca-Cola Bottling, McDonald’s, Home Depot as leaders, with a keynote speech by David Suzuki ...

Any guesses as to what Canada’s position at the Copenhagen climate treaty will be?

And from the comments at the Post:

Lord Monckton calls it the traffic light syndrome: Greens too Yellow
to admit they're really Reds.