Tom Harris

Fighting the Climate Scare to Defend Life

As I described in “Using the Climate Change Scare to Promote Abortion,” climate alarmists are pushing increased access to abortion to supposedly help “stop climate change.” Equally concerning for pro-lifers, the abortion industry has jumped on the climate change bandwagon to promote their agenda as well.

This is why the pro-life movement needs to present solid arguments to show that the climate scare is not based on sound science.

In “How Pro-Lifers Can Fight the Climate Scare Threatening Their Movement,” I explained how to contest the mistaken idea that the rise in so-called “global average temperature” is of concern. Next, let’s consider the supposed increase in extreme weather than climate activists are always wailing about.

Ottawa’s Reliance On Batteries To Back Up Wind And Solar Power

As demonstrated in the report issued by the International Climate Science Coalition - Canada, the City of Ottawa’s Climate Change Master Plan is costly, infeasible and ultimately dangerous to the public. Arguably its most insane element is the plan to introduce batteries to backup wind and solar power for windless periods or when it is cloudy (or at night). In its all-encompassing and nonsensical plan to ‘stop global warming,’ the City has adopted short, mid, and long-term greenhouse gas reduction targets based on 2012 levels. The brain trust at the city actually think they can, and will, reduce Community emissions by 100 per cent by 2050, and city operations emissions by 100% by 2040. All this in a city of one million souls with temperatures often down to minus 30 degrees Celsius.

Polar Bears an Extraordinary Success Story

It really is getting tiresome that so much is falsely blamed on climate change. The most blatantly wrong example is the supposed pending demise of polar bears that, activists claim, will soon occur due to human caused climate change. Any increases in their populations that we currently see are surely insignificant in light of their prospective extinction.

For example, a 2020 press release of Polar Bear Range States asserts:

Ottawa’s Climate Plans “Irresponsible”

---

Testimony of ICSC-Canada’s Tom Harris before the City of Ottawa Environment and Climate Change Committee – 18/04/23 (video of testimony may be see here). Note the logically fallacious attack from Councillor Sean Devine after Mr. Harris’ testimony and Mr. Harris’ response.

Thank you Chair. I’m Tom Harris, Executive Director of International Climate Science Coalition – Canada. I am a resident of Councillor Devine’s ward.

I would like to congratulate those of you who were on Council when the Climate Change Master Plan was passed for your inclusion of adaptation to climate change.

Earth Day Betrays its Philosophical Founders

---

The real founders of Earth Day were not the politicians who rode the wave of environmental consciousness that swept the public in the late 60s and early 70s to establish the logistics of the organization. Nor was it the United Nations or peace and environmental activists who jumped on board the train when it became apparent that people across the world were demanding action to solve the environmental problems of the day.

How Pro-lifers Can Fight the Climate Scare Threatening their Movement

In “Using the Climate Change Scare to Promote Abortion,“ my March 21^st America Out Loud article, I described how climate alarmists are promoting abortion to lessen our population to supposedly help stop climate change. I also showed that the abortion industry is now citing climate change concerns to promote their agenda as well.

But both of these arguments utterly fail if pro-life activists demonstrate clearly that there is no climate emergency—not now, nor at any time in the foreseeable future. And that is exactly the case.

Using the Climate Change Scare to Promote Abortion

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to speak to Campaign Life Coalition Ottawa about climate change and the potential threat that climate alarmism poses to the objectives of pro-lifers. The title of the event is “Why global warming alarmism is a threat to unborn children… and the pro-life movement.”

In preparation for the event, I researched whether climate activist groups had anything to say about abortion and were surprised to see they do indeed. While their position is usually cloaked in supposed respect for woman’s rights, many of these groups strongly support abortion, and it is clear that their drive for de-population is a major reason for it. For example, in his Feb 6, 2017 interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Michael Brune, then Sierra Club Executive Director, was asked:

“Bankrupt, Hungry and Freezing in the Dark”

Testimony of ICSC-Canada’s Tom Harris before the City of Ottawa Environment and Climate Change Committee – 21/02/23 (video of testimony may be seen here):

My name is Tom Harris. I am Executive Director of The International Climate Science Coalition – Canada. I have bachelor and masters degrees in mechanical engineering with a specialization in thermodynamics, heat transfer and fluid mechanics. I worked as an engineer for the National Research Council, other government departments, and in the high-tech sector. As a lecturer at Carleton University, I taught climate change [science] to about 1500 students.

The City of Ottawa municipal election has been poisoned with corruption, censorship and intimidation

Corruption: the first four mayoral candidates debates were organized by climate activists. Not surprisingly, they made the debates about "climate justice" and eliminated from the 4th and most important climate debate, Mike Maguire, the candidate who most seriously opposed the City’s energy plans. Also eliminated, even though he accepted, in writing, a written commitment from the organizers that he would participate in the 4th debate, was candidate Ade Olumide, who has registered a formal complaint. But then Olumide had criticized candidate and current councillor Catherine McKenney, a favourite of climate activists, on several issues. He especially condemned McKenney’s wild plan to boost Ottawa’s cycling budget (for bike paths) by 1,250% to $250 million while, as Olumide put it in his October 5 press release, “people [are] dying due to the waitlist to enter a drug treatment program and the lack of supportive housing.”

Earth Day Still Focussed on Immoral Climate Crusade

Today is Earth Day, an event that has been almost entirely hijacked by the ridiculous and dangerous climate change movement.  “Climate” appears a total of 10 times on the earthday.org home page and 15 time on the subpage for this year’s event. The first action item on the Greenpeace USA home page is a link to a new report, “How Social Media Companies are failing to Tackle Climate Information.” The United Nations International Mother Earth Day home page starts with the childish statements “Mother Earth is clearly urging a call to action. Nature is suffering.” as if our planet were a conscious entity, and cites “climate” no less than seven times. Pollution is referenced once. Land once. Water and air not at all. 

Ottawa's Suicidal Climate Plans a Cautionary Tale for Governments Everywhere

Politicians leading the City of Ottawa have fallen hook, line and sinker for climate alarmism and, as a consequence, Canada's national capital is on the verge of a deadly self-induced crisis. This is being brought on by their obsession with "stopping climate change," prioritizing it over real world environmental, health, economic and energy supply concerns. The forecast cost of achieving the City's net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 target is astonishing: $57.4 billion to be spent over the three decades between 2020 and 2050, with a present value of $31.8 billion. And this is just the estimated direct cost. The actual cost, including spinoffs, to the Ottawa economy and residents will be significantly higher. And one cannot ever begin to place a dollar value on eliminating people's choices about how they wish to live.

UN Claims to "Climate Truth" Impossible

Missing from most, if not all, coverage of last month's climate science report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was the fact that their most important conclusions are impossible; not merely contested or exaggerated, but literally impossible.  Consider the following from the IPCC full Working Group I report, Climate Change 2021: the Physical Science Basis, issued on August 9:

"Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level."

Biden overlooks real climate change moral crisis in debate

In Thursday’s presidential debate, Democratic nominee Joe Biden said, “global warming is an existential threat to humanity. We have a moral obligation to do with it and we’re told by all the leading scientists of the world we don't have much time. We’re going to pass the point of no return with the next eight to ten years.”

Biden can’t have it both ways on Paris climate accord

In his climate change plan Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden says that the United States will “re-enter the Paris Agreement on day one of the Biden Administration.” The former vice-president reassures readers in his “Plan for a Clean Energy Revolution and Environmental Justice” that he will “not allow other nations, including China, to game the system by becoming destination economies for polluters...”

On Saturday, Switch off Earth Hour

Rather than switch off lights to show their support for Earth Hour on Saturday from 8:30 to 9:30 pm local time, the public should switch off Earth Hour. While the event has expanded from its original focus on the impossible goal of ‘stopping climate change,’ global warming is still a primary rationale.

Environmentalists responsible for much of Australia's bush fire problem

Recent climate change has not caused Australian bushfires. Besides the fact that many of the fires are set by people, either intentionally or by accident, a major cause of Australia's fire problem has been the high 'fuel loads,' underbrush that, left to accumulate over years, acts as a tinder box for bushfires. Craig Kelly, Liberal member of the Australian House of Representatives (Hughes, New South Wales), told ITV's Good Morning Britain on January 6:

Cold a harbinger of severe winter to come

The past week has certainly been rough on people across eastern North America. The Washington Post reported on Nov. 13 that “The most severe early November cold snap in more than a century has plowed over the East Coast, where record low temperatures were set in the majority of population centers Wednesday morning.”

Time to Give Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding a 'Tremendous Whack'

On Tuesday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (Washington) that it be granted intervenor status concerning the litigation launched by environmental groups against the Trump administration's new Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule. The case in question, American Lung Association v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 19-1140, concerns attempts by environmental groups to strike down the ACE rule and resurrect the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan (CPP). The Chamber wants to be able to intervene in the case in defence of ACE.

Coal key to National Security Strategy

Energy Secretary Right on Climate Change

Energy Secretary Rick Perry did a remarkable thing last week: he expressed skepticism about the causes of climate change in a TV interview and, even after widespread condemnation from environmentalists and the press, he did it again a few days later before a major Senate committee.