Question: How do Canadians find truth about climate change and these carbon emissions?
It's such a push button topic these days but how much do we really understand about the climate that surrounds planet earth. If there are a lot of average Canadians like me, you are mildly obsessed with weather forecasts but deeper knowledge of what creates climate is limited. Factor in blatant, unfactual information imbedded in articulately constructed news from climate change extremists and our knowledge of what creates climate is reduced even further.
It's so tempting to lash out at the purposeful and calculated deception that has unfolded over the last 20 years on global warming /climate change / carbon footprint / slash / slash / slash. What is really needed is more information.
I found real momentum to follow this rabbit trail discovering a NOVA program titled "Earth From Space". This documentary detailed data collected from a fleet of spacecraft circling earth. Emerging as I watched, was a powerful, understandable conception of the universal forces of sunlight, polar icecaps, earth rotation, magnetic force fields and additional significant scientific discoveries that form the origins of climate on earth. Even so, it was barely fathomable to get my feeble human reasoning around the sheer immensity of the information being revealed. Our world may seem smaller through technology. But the size of the planet is the same and the universe has not been minutely affected by humans. What seemed a little like a throw in at the end of the NOVA program was the effect of human activity on the earth.....still miniscule when stacked up against the scientific realities of the climate that creates the atmosphere that fuels the very survival of the wonders that we see and experience on our planet. Most significantly what we humans contribute to the big picture.
You many or may not notice that climate change comes in waves into our media world. The most recent example is the past few weeks. Various stories about rising temperature, melting polar ice caps government inaction on carbon emissions and the increasing need for green energy solutions. A National Post article on December 12th, written by Peter Foster laid out the foundation of why this happens. The Conference of the Parties(COP) in Lima, Peru. Apparently, news releases are highly organized to reveal alarming studies that will validate the need for a global agreement to change the climate: the stated goal of this U.N. inspired organization. Not incidentally, this 8000 strong delegation is trying to pry loose 100 million dollars from governments to fund this pursuit. Their tactics this year included Greenpeacers trespassing on a sacred Peruvian Heritage site to trample out their own politically loaded message on renewability. Another of their stories on climate change stated that Antarctic glaciers were shedding Mount Everest of ice every year.
There is great disparity on the buy-in of countries supporting carbon emissions controls. Promises versus actions from many countries and organizations are wide ranging. India and China give lip service but not much else. It's not secret that they see oil and gas as the fast track for economic development. Europe and the U.S. are not on the same page. Many countries' subsidies to renewable industry are disappearing fast than Antarctic ice. Closer to home, the Ontario Provincial Liberal government has saddled consumers with an extra 50 billion dollars of debt with their misguided foray into building renewable electricity infrastructure. Our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has always expressed a clear stance on this subject, foremost not to throw money blindly at COP. Most recently on their latest strategy to impose unilateral restrictions on the oil industry, he states this would be a crazy move in the current environment of depressed oil prices.
The CBC and especially news anchor, Peter Mansbridge have long been on a desperate mission to fuel the demise of Prime Minister Harper. Mr. Mansbridges' annual Christmas interviews can border on the pathetic, saved only by the intelligence and leadership qualities of the PM. And witness the ambush interview by Mansbridge at the UN in New York with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon as reported by Philip Cross of the National Post. Mr. Mansbridge seems to have lost any journalistic integrity in his anti-Harper quest.
The momentum-building for the Lima COP gathering had this 'bit' of good news to cling to heading in to this years meeting. After 18 straight years in which global temperature refused to climb, 2014 statistics to the end of October from the World Meteoroligical Organization recorded a new record, a 1/100 of a degree increase. In an article published by environmental writer Lawrence Solomon, he reports that Arctic ice is over its average of the last 15 years. Antarctic sea ice cover is at an all time high and is thicker than previously thought. The Polar Vortex is spreading to Europe and produced 9000 record lows in November in North America.
Whatever the climate, there is a new sheriff in town. Plummeting oil prices are ushering in a new age of oil and gas popularity. Remember when 'peak oil' was a buzz phrase. A little historical reading on what 'science' said then might be quite interesting! Conversely, the International Energy Agency is expressing a lot of confidence these days regarding the popularity of oil and gas products for the next quarter century.
So, fellow Canadians, where do we go from here? The NOVA, Earth from Space documentary should be a must see in order to establish any perspective on how climate works on this planet, regardless of the input by humans.
The climate change media machine will never provide us with perspective and many of their 'facts' are highly suspect when checked out. Don't fully trust those on the other side either. Once the NOVA program is processed, it's quite logical to recognize that 'computer modelling' creates the worst case scenarios such as the famous Al Gore 'hockey stick' and many others. With hindsight we now know that none of these models have proven out The Conferences of the Parties is supposed to be the beaming reinforcement of the lofty aspirations of this gathering to motivate humans to reduce the horrible carbon footprint we are making.
A report from writer Nota Bene even casts doubt on this endeavour. The stated intention of COP at their Lima meetings was to neutralize all the greenhouse gas pollution they created at the convention.
Bene reports these findings in the U.S. News and World Report on December 9th. Quite the opposite happened....a record 50,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide were created. Some of the reasons: 13 temporary buildings were assembled for the 2 weeks of the meetings. Some components flown in from Brazil and France. Electricity supplied entirely by diesel generators(other plans like solar power didn't work out according to organizers), A bicycle parking lot was meagrely used. 8000 delegates mostly used vehicles for the 10 km., hour long traverse between the meeting site and their hotels.
Reality can be such a harsh judge of idealistic intention.
What we need to do is work a little harder to find out as much as we can about climate and the role of humans in it. This means to also study the information from the numerous scientists who believe we have as much effect on climate as 'a fart in a wind storm'. It means not giving up on efforts to reduce waste and minimize pollution on our planet. Whether or not we are a factor in climate, we still need to maximize efforts to become better housekeepers of our home in this vast amazing universe.
Is their climate change? Of course there is. It's been happening since the very beginning. If indeed you subscribe to the theory that there were enough fossils to create all this oil, can you imagine the flatulence that occurred. Today, India's cows are know to be a worse contributor to green house gasses than most countries. Maybe even Canada.
In the long run, people will respond better to truth than manufactured alarmism that carries stupendous financial implications for a small lobby group. We are getting better at waste control and pollution practises. Let's concentrate on that for a quarter century and see what happens.
