Offset System for Greenhouse Gases shows Government Unconcerned with Reality,

One of the most significant climate science documents ever produced was released in Washington, DC last week. Coming to conclusions diametrically opposed to those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the new Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) is essential reading for all politicians, or at least those who want to develop policies that actually benefit their countries and the environment.

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This week's carbon dioxide cap and trade announcement by Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice clearly demonstrates that he does not fall into that category. By totally ignoring the NIPCC and, instead, announcing policies that are, according to economist Professor Ross McKitrick of Guelph University, "like a carbon tax, only far more costly to administer, more volatile for the economy and more economically burdensome to households," Prentice reveals that real science and economics play no roles in the file. If they did, he would have welcomed the results of the NIPCC as an opportunity to begin the transfer of public funds away from the impossible goal of "combating climate change", as Prentice labels the purpose of the government's new plan, to real environmental problems such as toxic waste dump clean-up and air and ocean pollution abatement. We can expect Prentice's politically correct, but hopelessly misguided climate rhetoric to worsen as we approach the massive international climate conference in Copenhagen in December (the 15^th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) which has as its primary goal the establishment of binding carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gas emission limits after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, a target Prentice says his government strongly supports When he announced the release of the next documents corresponding to the government's ill-founded "Offset System for Greenhouse Gases" in his presentation to the Economic Club of Canada on Wednesday, Prentice asserted:

"failure to make progress in Copenhagen is simply not an option. I say that because I don't think that any of us who are associated with this, or the countries we represent, can afford, for the sake of our children and our grandchildren, not to succeed in the battle against climate change. The consequences are too great, the stakes too high, not to bring to that meeting our best efforts and unwavering resolve. ... there is a strong consensus that this is something that simply must get done. That the time has come, the moment is now and the world must act."

The Canadian public are starting to recognize that such pontifications are nonsense. Like Prentice's "Clean Air Day 2009" confusion between carbon dioxide emissions, which are benign, and air pollution, which is not - "The Government of Canada is taking concrete action to support clean air by establishing stringent regulated standards to limit tailpipe carbon dioxide emissions from light-duty vehicles": Jim Prentice, June 3^rd news release --most of what is said today by the Government about climate change has nothing to do with real science. Environment Canada scientists know this, and Prentice probably does as well, but communications spin and politics rules the file, not science, engineering or economics. To see how far the Conservatives have strayed from their previous common sense approach to climate change, one need only go few years back in Hansard, the official record of Parliamentary debate and Committee hearings. Preston Manning's November 26, 1997 "Take Note Debate" speech in the House of Commons just before the UN climate meetings in Kyoto, Japan, remains as the best ever delivered in Parliament on the science of climate change. In it, Manning, then leader of the Reform Party of Canada, a precursor to today's Conservative Party of Canada, asserted, "An underlying weakness of the government's approach is its inability to sort out good science from bad, real science from pseudo-science and basic science from science as applied by those with vested interests in its application on either side of the issue." During their years in opposition, many other conservatively-oriented Members of Parliament also stood fast against the winds of political correctness on climate change to support what they believed was real and best for Canada and the environment. A student of Manning's, then Opposition Senior Environment Critic MP Bob Mills (now retired after five consecutive electoral victories in Red Deer, Alberta) put forward a motion in environment committee on March 24, 2004, "That, given the importance and impact of the Kyoto Protocol on Canada and the entire world, and given that this committee has never studied the science behind the Kyoto Protocol, that several prominent climate (and other related fields) scientists from both sides of the issue be invited to testify on the science behind the Kyoto Protocol before the Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development at a mutually agreeable time and date." During the debate that followed, Mills sensibly argued, "To just hear one side of an issue is certainly not what I think a committee should do and it's not in good conscience that we can do that." Committee chair, former Liberal MP Charles Cassia, rebuked Mills and said, "I couldn't think of a more undesirable use of the committee's time." The motion was defeated by a six to two margin. For Mills, such displays of courage and conviction were nothing new. As far back as March 19, 2002, he told the House of Commons "The government has apparently accepted the myth that we can magically stop the Earth's climate variations by simply fiddling with our carbon dioxide emissions". Mills further asserted, "only through encouraging open-minded investigation into the field do we have any hope of understanding what is really happening." Mills sponsored the Commons' 2002 science-focused Kyoto "Supply Day" which completely dismantled climate change hysteria and then gave the 11-hour science-based filibuster speech in December, 2002. Through Question Period debates, position papers, press releases, speeches and newspaper articles, Mills repeatedly criticized former Liberal environment minister David Anderson for listening only to climate experts who accepted the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide were causing a global climate crisis. In those days, Bob Mills set the standard when it came to climate realism, something many in the party openly admired. Mills was not alone among conservatives advocating a rational, science-based approach to the climate file. In stark contrast to today's tightly controlled, politically correct messaging, at one time or another, many Conservative MPs, from back benchers to party leader Stephen Harper, said what they knew to be true on climate change. For this the Canadian Press chastised Harper (e.g. Toronto Star, January 30, 2007) saying that in a 2002 fundraising letter sent to members of the Canadian Alliance party (another Conservative Party of Canada precursor), "He also blasted the treaty for targeting carbon dioxide --which he said is "essential to life" --and played down the science of climate change as "tentative and contradictory."" According to the Toronto Star of June 13, 2004, following a campaign stop in Barrie, Ontario, Harper promised supporters that "a Conservative government would scrap the [Kyoto] protocol" adding that "I think the science is still evolving." During the January 2006 federal election, the Conservatives committed to re-examining the climate change file from top to bottom, if elected. Many voters were impressed with this apparent sincerity and, after 13 years of politically correct but error-riddled climate policy from the Jean Chrétien and, later, Paul Martin Liberals, voters were ready for a change and the Conservative Party of Canada won power for the first time. But things changed quickly, once the Harper Conservatives actually took the reins of government. Totally betraying their core supporters, they gradually converted the party's 'talking points' to flavour of the day climate alarmism and began to incorporate the mantra of the previous government into their announcements --'climate change is caused primarily by human 'greenhouse gas' emissions and we must impose severe emission limits to avoid future catastrophe,' or words to that effect, the new Harper government now told Canadians. There was no examination of the science and the Conservative government blocked climate science realists from testifying before the environment committee far more effectively that the Liberals ever could, given the effectiveness of the then Conservative opposition in keeping debate alive. Under the Liberals, dissenting scientists had occasionally been permitted to testify before committee. Under the Harper government, climate realists are persona non grata and have never been allowed to testify. Even though Canada has been able to legally announce its withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol since February 2008 (three years following its coming into force --see Article 27 in the Protocol), the new Conservative government reneged on its promise and Canada remains in the treaty to this day. Everything changes, but nothing changes when it comes to the climate file in Canada. The Conservative's conversion to spin over substance on climate was finally completed by the time of the October 2008 general election. Even while blasting Liberal leader Stéphane Dion's 'carbon tax' throughout the campaign, the Conservatives promoted their recent conversion to cap and trade, an even more expensive 'solution' McKitrick labels, "a cartel-forming device, like agricultural marketing boards, where a privileged group of rent-seekers profit from the cartel and immediately start lobbying to tighten the supply in the future." Of course few among Conservative party brass actually believed in the climate crisis at all but their new approach sold well in main stream media and kept outspoken climate campaigners from attacking too viciously, so Conservative strategists concluded it was indeed 'good spin'. Since most Canadians did not realize it was the more costly of the two plans being put forward, and that neither plan would accomplish anything of value for the environment, assisted by Dion's weak image, the Conservatives won again. By the time of the United Nations IPCC release of its Summary for Policymakers for its Working Group I report (that deals with the causes of climate change) on February 2, 2007, the Conservatives were comfortable in their new shoes. Here is what Environment Canada said in a press release issued within hours of the IPCC Summary unveiling: "Paris, France, February 2, 2007 -- Environment Minister John Baird stated today that he and Canada's New Government accept the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report and called on Canadians to get ready for some tough decisions on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. "The IPCC has presented compelling scientific proof that the world's climate has changed because of human action and industrial growth," said Minister Baird. "This represents an important contribution to the body of scientific research on the topic. The evidence is in, and it is clear the time is now for concrete and realistic actions to deal with climate change and air pollution to improve the health of Canadians." Baird would not have had a chance to even read the Summary so soon after being released, of course (indeed he probably never read it), but PMO insiders had clearly decided that immediate, enthusiastic support was necessary so as to be seen to be on-side with the IPCC in the ever critical evening news and in newspapers the next morning.
Contrast this with Prentice's total silence about the NIPCC report. Well over a week has now passed since the document was issued and yet all today's environment minister does is regurgitate climate catastrophism, telling the Economic Club of Canada on June 10^th:

".... this is a critical time - when science dictates that we reach an international agreement on climate change. One with real, achievable targets - and all parties on board.I'm confident that we can get there. That we can summon the wit and the will to join in common purpose to secure our planet's common future."

The party that many Canadians initially trusted to help get Canada out of this expensive mess is simply taking us further down the drain. Left to their own devices, the Conservative Government appear determined to inflict far more damage to Canada than previous governments, which merely wasted a few billion dollars on misleading propaganda, government climate change 'make work' programs and propping up climate campaigner advocacy groups. Today's government is actually moving to impose on Canada climate change plans more ruinous that previous Liberal leader Dion's so-called 'carbon tax' ever could have been. McKitrick said this week, "In the last election the Conservatives blasted the Dion plan as a "tax on everything". What they [the Conservative] have proposed instead is a "bureaucracy on everything." They are creating, in effect, a giant milk marketing board for fossil fuels. At least a carbon tax is transparent, people know what they are paying, and the government can use the funds to reduce income taxes. The tradable quota system tightens supply and raises the price of everything. Then the extra revenue from consumers goes to a cartel of rent-seekers, activists, and big corporations." "Whether or not greenhouse gases come down, income and employment certainly will," concludes McKitrick. So, today's government is not interested in real science, most environmental groups don't want to hear real science as the climate scare is now their main fund raising tool and mainstream media have latched on to the supposed climate crisis as a windfall for media sales --if nothing else, the 9/11 tragedy forced media to relearn the old axiom that 'bad news sells' so the last thing most news directors want to hear is that the climate change is natural and no more a problem now that it has ever been. So, what can we do? Coming soon: Part 2 --Using the NIPCC to fight back.