The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines doublespeak as “language used to deceive usually through concealment or misrepresentation of truth.”
With the release of their first federal budget on Tuesday, the Trudeau government demonstrated that they are past masters at climate change doublespeak. This is worrisome because of their intense focus on the issue. The phrase “climate change” appears 43 times in the Budget, more than twice as often as “defence.” “Poverty” appears 13 times and, strangely, “terrorism” appears only three times.
Examples of climate change doublespeak in the Budget abound.
For instance, even though most of Canada’s multi-billion-dollar climate mitigation policies are designed to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the Budget never once mentions the gas. Instead, 17 times, it refers to “greenhouse gases (GHG),” which sounds dangerous, while grade school students know CO2 is plant food.
Real pollution includes emissions worth reducing such as particulates, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. But CO2 is the elixir of life and the very opposite of pollution. So the government does not reference CO2. They seem to fear that the public might ask why we are spending billions trying to reduce a beneficial gas. And, of course this would then bring up the highly uncertain science of climate change, a can of worms they would rather leave closed.
Regardless, talking about reducing GHG is problematic. The primary GHG is water vapour. Yet no one is speaking about reducing those emissions. If we were, then we should be draining our reservoirs as far more water evaporates when it is held high above sea level in large surface area lakes than if it were allowed to drain naturally to the ocean.
Even the terms ‘greenhouse gases’ and the ‘greenhouse effect’ are misnomers since the Earth’s atmosphere behaves very differently to a greenhouse. Greenhouses use a solid barrier (the glass roof) to prevent heat loss by convection yet, lacking such a barrier, convection accounts for about half of the heat loss from the surface of the Earth.
The next bit of deception is the Government’s reference to “clean energy,” which appears ten times in the Budget. What they are really talking about is alternative energy sources that emit less CO2 than do hydrocarbon fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. But CO2 is not unclean and increasing CO2 levels pose no direct hazard to human health. CO2 concentrations in submarines can reach levels well above 10,000 ppm, 25 times current atmospheric levels, with no harmful effects on the crew. So this is a trick as well.
Similarly, the Budget references “green” activities 36 times. We hear about “green jobs,” “green infrastructure,” “green projects,” “green funds,” “green investments,” “green bonds,” and so on. The word green is even used occasionally as a verb, the idea being that, by taking part in this kind of activity, we will be helping nature.
But these green things are primarily focussed on reducing CO2 emissions, not pollution. To help nature, we should be purposely increasing our emissions of CO2, not reducing it. After all, commercial greenhouse operators routinely run their internal atmospheres at up to 1,500 parts per million CO2 concentration, a consequence of which is that plants inside grow far more efficiently than at the 400 ppm in the outside atmosphere (and NO warming occurs as a result of these high CO2 levels). In fact, Biological Impacts, a report from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change that cites over 1,000 peer-reviewed studies, documents rising productivity of forests and grasslands as CO2 levels have increased, not just in recent decades, but in past centuries.
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The Budget frequently references “carbon footprint,” “carbon emissions,” “carbon pricing,” and “low carbon economy.” Dropping the oxygen atoms off the CO2 molecule and calling it merely “carbon” makes about as much sense as dropping the oxygen atom off water (H2O) and calling it hydrogen. But again, it is done to encourage people to think of CO2 as something dirty, like graphite or soot.
Tuesday’s federal budget appears to be cleverly crafted to trick the public into supporting the government’s climate change policies. Through the use of misleading and, likely, intentionally deceptive language, the Trudeau Liberals never actually say what they are really doing. Instead they use green propaganda designed by activists in the 1990s to lull the public into resigned acquiescence to environmental political correctness. Canadians deserve better.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines doublespeak as “language used to deceive usually through concealment or misrepresentation of truth.”
With the release of their first federal budget on Tuesday, the Trudeau government demonstrated that they are past masters at climate change doublespeak. This is worrisome because of their intense focus on the issue. The phrase “climate change” appears 43 times in the Budget, more than twice as often as “defence.” “Poverty” appears 13 times and, strangely, “terrorism” appears only three times.
