Beware the climate change boogey man

Just when you thought the hysteria about global warming and climate change was on the decline, a plethora of idiots emerges on the scene to warn of falling skies. Reading the weekend papers was a real chore as one had to wade through so many lies and inaccuracies it was sickening.

---

For openers, there was a story about so-called ‘climate change refugees’ that would soon be banging on Canada’s doorstep seeking asylum. “We can expect some immigration impact from climate change.” Professor Peter Penz of York University’s Faculty of Environmental Studies warned a conference on immigration. Speaking of Cyclone Nargis, which struck Myanmar in early May and the Boxing Day, 2004 tsunami, which killed nearly a quarter of a million people Penz is quoted as saying, “These are climate change events...” that will produce large numbers of refugees, most of whom will seek asylum in areas closest to the disaster scenes, although some will seek admission to Canada. Now I’m not a professor of environmental studies at York University, but even I know that the 2004 Asian tsunami had nothing to do with climate and everything to do with earthquakes. Also, cyclones regularly appear at this time of year in Asia, as it’s called the rainy season, so Nargis isn’t all that unusual, as for thousands of years before the first coal fired generating station started, the cyclones struck with regularity. Could it be that Professor Penz is so contemptuous of normal people’s level of intelligence that he would blithely fib because he doesn’t think non-university types wouldn’t catch it? Or has the idea of anthropogenic climate change assumed such religious proportions that reality no longer matters? Then there’s Jack Layton and his insufferable mouth. In an interview with Sun Media, Layton lamented Prime Minister Harper’s record on the environment, claiming that Harper didn’t understand “the nature of the problem”. Then he blasted both the Liberals and the Green Party for their proposed solutions to climate change, continuously referring to the problem as, “pollution”. Just to get the facts straight, Jack, pollution is what happens when sulphur dioxide is spewed into the atmosphere or when phosphates are flushed into lakes and rivers. Greenhouse gas emissions (GHG’s) are not considered “pollution” in that carbon (the chief GHG) is a natural by product of life on the planet. Carbon is what comes out of people’s mouths every time they exhale. It comes out of cattle and sheep anuses in the form of flatulence and the oceans exude it. Yes, and it also comes out of the tailpipes of cars and coal plant chimneys, but it is not “pollution”. Pollution is what often comes out of Jack Layton’s mouth when he is critical of others without having a rudimentary understanding of what he is criticizing. Then there was the Stephane Dion show. Dion is floating a trial balloon called the Green Shaft, er Shift, which is a carbon tax that is said to be revenue neutral. Claiming that a tax, any tax will be revenue neutral is like claiming root canal is a pleasant experience. The problem with Dion’s carbon tax scheme is that it just might get him elected to a majority, as the idea of screwing Western Canada and the oil companies is one that might find resonance among the class-envy prone voters of Quebec and Ontario. And let’s face it, those are really the only voters who decide which party runs the country. Trouble is if it does gain Dion a majority, he will either have to do what so many of his Liberal forebears usually do and renege on his election promise, or he will impose a carbon tax that will have the net effect of killing the goose that’s laying the golden eggs and taking the entire Canadian economy with it. One wonders if Dion has ever wondered what his carbon tax would do for the fortunes of the Western Separation Party. When it comes to climate hysteria any event out of the usual supports the tautology of climate change. Warm temperatures, cold temperatures, rain, drought, storms, you name it, all support the premise that the climate is drastically changing and man is responsible. It’s an easy way to fool people into acquiescing to programs that are contrary to their own best interests. There isn’t enough scientific evidence, the UN notwithstanding, to make an informed decision that could forever affect our economic survival. And now that the demagogues are at work, the outcomes of their decisions could be much more devastating than anything dished up by the climate.