Dear Editor:
I am responding to Pamela Gardners letter of Nov. 25 (Burnaby NOW, Climate change warning). Her letter is well-intended and she is obviously concerned about the subject and, I take it, she wants all of us to join her to make things right again. . .
Being skeptical about many things, including matters pertaining to global warming, it always amazes me how people with the best of intentions address us without finding the right buttons to push. I do not write on behalf of skeptics, however. Just myself. Here is why Ms. Gardner has failed to change my mind.
When I meet other skeptics at book launches or lectures they are mostly well-informed, or, interested in informing themselves and I have never left without learning something relevant.
Attending a round table with Ujjal Dhosanje, those present just wanted to bash the Harper Government for not complying with Canadas Kyoto commitment. It soon became apparent that even my limited knowledge outshone those of the 35 present, including Ujjal. Therefore, he became eager to switch topic afte I had managed to point out that it was his Liberal government who signed the Kyoto accord, never lifted a finger to implement any of their commitments, but howled for Harper to do something on the day Harper took over government. When I mentioned that Canada is required to reduce its C02 emissions by 80% by 2050 Ujjals response was Oh, come on!. . .
I also attended a showing of Al Gores an inconvenient truth by Bill Siksay.
This is why I do not expect to learn much about global warming when the presenters have a political agenda.
But, please let me explain how I function as a skeptic. Only those in the other camp think that global warming deniers deny that the climate changes. What I question is why the climate changes and the suggested remedies to interfere in the process.
Ms. Gardner calls the Physicist Richard Muller a former prominent climate change skeptic. Try as I might, I was unable to find evidence of this. I did find an article written by pundit Patrick Moser, featuring Richard Muller. If this is Ms. Gardners source of reference I would caution her. It was written in the usual inflammatory style of the eco-activists with political purpose. It made me question why on earth an oil company would expect the benefit from the proclamations of a physicist, when they could go to those involved in the climate sciences, a diverse group mind you, but much more relevant. I do not take a tooth ache to my dermatologist and if I do join my dentists church it is not because of his treatment of my gums!
Ms. Gardners position and others in the church of Gore/Suzuki must believe that a warmer climate is bad. I believe cooling would be worse. When my flowers wake up on the balcony they may have to handle a rise of 20 degrees by Noon. (One degree below Celsius and they are dead.) An increse of 2 degrees in 100 years from now will be disasterous? Why?. . . The planet has gone through many warmings and ice ages.
Our known oil reserves will only last another 100 years at current consumption rates. The way things are going we will increase that consumption, but, on the other hand, we may find a few more black puddles un-expectantly. But our reserves are finite and by then, we have no choice but to use the much more expensive alternates.
Most laughable, of course, is that we, who successfully improved our standard of living, should now be taxed for being successful. Why would giving money to those who are clueless (3rd world countries) fix a problem we are just beginning to understand, let alone know how to correct it? When we tried this with fixable problems it turned into taking money from poor people in rich countries to give to rich people in poor countries. We cant even get disaster assistance right. Just look at Haiti.
We are told, pumping CO2 into the air will increase the global temperature. We have done this vigorously since the beginning of the industrial evolution. Yesterday more than ever before, and tomorrow even more. Yet, the temperature has not gone up during the last few years. As a matter of fact we have seen a slight cooling. Last years mean temperature was the same as in 1991! If we release more and more C02 the temperature either goes up or we are dealing with junk science. Period. Is suspect that is why no one speaks about annual increases anymore and Richard Muller is reaching back 50 years to show preferred results. Did you notice has a few years ago global warming switched to climate change?
Next is the fact that in the past the planet warmed up first then the atmospheric amount of CO2 increased. Why should this be different today?
This was held up by a higher British court who ruled on October 2, 2007 that Al Gores inconvenient truth may not be shown to students unless teachers point out factual errors (lies!) including the above, plus glaciers atop Mt. Kilimanjaro, Hurricane Katrina, the drying of Lake Chad, disappearing polar bears, halting of the Gulf Stream, destruction of coral reefs, the melting of Greenland ice and the status quo of ice in Antarctica.
Presenter of this was James H. Taylor, senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute, [email protected].
From day one I was amazed that those who wanted to do something about climate change never mention the part the sun must be playing!
The other thing is how those wishing to slow down warming are discounting a major fact: the US, China and India, just to mention the big ones, are not on board. Canadas emissions of C02 amount to 2% of the global total, equal to Chinas annual increases! (Oil sand emissions are 5% of Canadas total!) To meet our original Kyoto commitments we would have to shut down most of our industries by 2050. Just to see China wipe out the gain the year after?
Our financial global demise has put a bit of a damper on the enthusiasm of those still praying at the altar of Gore/Suzuki. Seldom is it mentioned that our eagerness to switch to green energy is partly responsible for the pigs doodoo we are in. Spain invested heavily In wind power. The cost of electricity production has tripled there. Still, only 2% of their power is produced by wind now.
Getting back to Richard Muller, if he confirmed IPCC results, he must have had very deep pockets because the IPCC is spending many Millions annually of our taxpayers money to gather the data. Some of this is, not surprisingly, questioned by experts, other skeptics. However, setting up a secondary information gathering system sounds bizarre. And, how does Ms. Gardner know, that C02 pumped out today will be in the atmosphere 1000 years from now? C02 is not a poison. It is what our plants live and thrive on! As a matter of fact it is used to increase plant production in greenhouses.
Now. If anyone wants to fret about the legacy we are leaving our grandchildren, it should be the enormous debt some of us are willing to pile up by insisting our government do something about the perceivec pending disaster called global warming
Pamela Gardners letter is typical of how effective our eco terrorists instill fear. Anyone interested in how they are financed may wish to check out Ms. Vivian Krauses website at fairquestions.com. Ms. Krause is a well-known investigative reporter from North Vancouver. She received a bit of publicity by shining a light on aspects of the recent elections. But she is otherwise totally under-appreciated!
In one of her published papers in the National Post of Oct. 15, 2010 she insered the following paragraph:
U. S. tax returns for 2008 show that Tides Canada paid two costal First Nations US $23.7 million in a single grant. This mega-grant was to fund conservation planning projects and conservation initiatives and was earmarked for the Nuxalt and Lux Kwaalaams. Tides Canada objective was to pay for Mobilizing First Nations Against Climate Change in B.C. and for Support of Costal First Nations to hire a co-ordinator to engage with the government, industry, environmental groups, media and the public regarding the proposed Enbridge gateway tar sands pipeline.
The same paper lists about every known Canadian environmental organization as recipients of sizable amounts of money.
Most disgusting is, how the priorities of these charities seem totally lopsided. After funding 36 Canadian operations with millions every year, they also saw fit to award a rape intervention project in Sub-Saharan Africa with US $9,000. A project to support people with aids in Indonesia got US $9,998 Is this telling? What are their priorities?
If, by now, I have proven to you that I ust be raving mad for the way I am going against a lot of what is to be found in the mainstream media, this will really blow your socks off: I like clean air. I also like clean water and I am against polluting our lakes, streams and oceans. I also think stream keepers are cool! And, I will bend down every so often to pick up a piece of litter.
Ziggy Eckardt
Burnaby, B.C.
