Alberta premier must not support the climate scare when promoting her province’s hydrocarbon fuel resources in Washington DC this week
By Tom Harris
Introducing the International Climate Science Coalition video, “Alberta government feeding the fire that threatens to destroy Canada’s main source of wealth”.
History is replete with tragic examples of those who collaborated with the enemy or sought to appease political correctness and wishful thinking for their own short term benefit. Nowhere is this more evident than in today’s climate change debate. Politicians from across the political spectrum, fossil fuel companies and academics who should know better, not only bow to the climate scare, but actively support it. They even use the unscientific, misnomer-riddled language of their opponents.
The situation is especially alarming in oil-rich Alberta, Canada. There, a supposedly conservative government feeds the fire that threatens to destroy the province’s, and indeed the country’s, main source of wealth, their vast hydrocarbon resources. In an attempt to please the Obama administration so as to secure approval for the Keystone XL pipeline project, and to keep climate campaigners and Canada’s mostly left wing media at bay, Alberta Premier Alison Redford has completely capitulated to climate alarmism.
Her approach is doomed to failure. After all, the primary threat to Keystone XL is the feared impact of oil sands expansion on global climate, and XL will certainly facilitate oil sands expansion.
If approved, the pipeline will pump 830,000 barrels of crude oil every day from Alberta’s oil sands, the world’s third-largest proven reserves, to refineries in Texas. That is over 4% of U.S. daily oil consumption and about 20% of all U.S. imports from the Middle East and Venezuela combined. Besides enhancing America’s energy security, thousands of jobs and billions of dollars are at stake in both countries. Significant tax revenue will flow to provincial, state and federal governments and industry and ordinary citizens alike will see enormous benefits.
But oil sands processing produces more carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas of most concern in the climate debate, than does the refining of conventional crude oil. So activists have drawn a line in the sand with Keystone XL. Even though the oil sands contribute only just over 1/10th of 1% of humanity’s total CO2 emissions, anything that helps the oil sands grow must be stopped, they say. XL is symbolic of our dependence on fossil fuels, an addiction that campaigners believe is destroying the climate.
If science supported the hypothesis that CO2 emissions are causing climatic Armageddon, then anti-Keystone protesters would have a point. To the degree possible, we should then be looking for less CO2-intensive energy sources and trying to ramp down, not up, projects such as the oil sands. Rejecting Keystone XL would then be a cogent symbol that President Barack Obama is serious about tacking global warming, a legacy he would dearly love to be remembered for.
But the science is too immature to know how much influence our CO2 emissions have on climate.
Computerized climate models clearly do not work—even the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) admits there has been no overall warming for the past 17 years, something the models failed to predict. Applied mathematics professor Christopher Essex of the University of Western Ontario emphasizes that “the big policy questions are beyond the best models we can currently make. Climate is far from a simple solved scientific problem.”
The geologic record does not support dangerous CO2-driven planetary warming either. “CO2 has played no role in the dramatic climate change of the ice ages, or at any other time over the past 500 million years”, said University of Ottawa Earth Sciences Professor Ian D. Clark. “Only in unverified computer models cited by the IPCC does CO2 drive climate change.”
It is not surprising that the Alberta government dare not contest the scientific foundation of the climate scare. Perhaps they even believe Al Gore when he says that the science is settled. But it makes no sense for Redford and her cabinet to accept, let alone promote alarm. While they do not have the training to know which side of the science is right, they must know that ending our use of fossil fuels entirely, the ultimate aim of climate activists, would cripple the province’s economy, and eventually that of Canada and the United States.
Redford meets with lawmakers in Washington DC this coming week to lobby for the Keystone XL pipeline project and the oil sands. By more carefully crafting her message, and not simply caving in to political correctness, Redford can boost these important projects effectively without helping her strongest opponents.
The 14 minute video just release by ICSC lays out how to do this.
The public can judge for themselves whether Alberta’s premier continues to support the main argument of Keystone XL opponents. Her Tuesday afternoon presentation to the Washington DC-based Brookings Institute, strong proponents of the climate scare themselves, may be heard in line in real time at http://www.brookings.edu/events/2013/04/09-alberta-energy-redford.
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Tom Harris is Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition, and an advisor to the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
She isn’t bright enough to know when she has a nail in her foot. We elected the wrong women as premier last go round. Dee how we do in three years.
Let me make this perfectly clear:
ALLISON REDFORD IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE.
The party is the “Progressive Conservative” party. We just had a memorial for Ralph Klein, the former Premier of Alberta who passed away last week. This man actually eliminated the deficit AND paid off all the debt! Unfortunately, Alison Wonderland as we call her only heeds the “Progressive” part of the party name.
We are now back to heavy deficits and are headed toward serious debt thanks to this dimwitted liar. During the election they managed to sway the vote at the last minute using lefty campaign tactics that were just despicable. She is as hated here as Gillard is in Australia.
Sadly, we have about 2 more years of this despicable, ignorant, LEFTIST twit.
Oh yeah, I got started… grrrrrr
This post highlights the meme that even skeptic sites [like WUWT] accept too much of the global warming argument.
Just the facts:
There has been no warming in nearly[?] twenty years.
There is no evidence that higher CO2 levels harm the Earth.
The computer models that started this hysteria are junk.
The data used by the models has been fudged.
So called “climate scientists” have repeatedly lied.
The warmists explanations for what real data shows of the world grow increasingly desperate and irrational.
I could go on and on and on, but you get the point.
For the sake of Canadian wealth I hope she fails to halt Keystone XL.
@ Tom Harris
I still don’t understand why you, in your second proposal, would mention the reducing of greenhouse gas emissions, inclusing CO2, as something positive. You mentioned earlier that crops are +15% larger thanks to more CO2! So reducing CO2 emissions is something negative imho. We need it to feed the people of the world. You should have focussed on reducing real pollution instead.
Conclusion: you make the same mistakes as what you accuse the Government of Alberta of.
Entire programme (good point at 26 minutes-ish though. Truth in science.
Hmmm…apologies…I meant to link the 10th episode……Ah well, they’re ALL superb.
Albertans have elected the same political party to office – without exception – for over 40 consecutive years.
This has never made sense to me.
They tell me, “Change comes from within the party.”
I’m not convinced.
Didn’t the media go Cuckoo over Cocoa Puffs of Carbon Dioxide during the last Alberta election over a reasonable statement on climate science?
“EDMONTON – Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith was roundly booed and mocked at an Alberta election debate Thursday for questioning climate change, with Premier Alison…”
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/05/09/wildrose-party-leader-danielle-smith-climate-change_n_1504589.html
We are in the midst of an attempt at a world wide restructuring of the West that is mostly out of sight because climate change is the purported emergency necessitating change. And education is the vehicle. Now I have tracked Canadian ed’s role thoroughly and have them admitting that the common core is changing prevailing values, attitudes, and beliefs to support a common good collectivism orientation to get to equity. Socially and economically. Which of course requires constant oversight and opportunities for cronyism. Alberta with its Wheel of Competency and Caring economics that will benefit political favorites and established business and bureaucrats and politicians. Not the rest of us. Keeping the power aggregation and political and noetic transformation going is the whole point of these false models and false learning theories.
Last week I explained that Rio+20 had openly gone into phase 2 of the Green Economy–the Green Urban Economy. You can bet Calgary and Edmonton are deep in the aspirations of these Global Cities Initiative and sympathetic to related Global Cities Education Network. Toronto is explicitly a part. As ids Melbourne, Hong Kong, Seoul, Seattle, Chicago, Denver, Shanghai, and Singapore. And it just rolled out last year.http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/misportraying-the-conspiracy-covers-up-the-broader-plans-of-political-and-economic-transformation/ is the story
As long as politicians in any of our countries at any level are chasing after this vision of a transformed State dominant economy run by a global nomenklatura, they will keep selling off access to our students minds and our economic prosperity. Which are inconsistent with this toxic vision. Toxic for us that is. The bill payers. This really is going into pockets of political favorites in what appears to be a global shakedown. If it’s not climate change research grants or green energy companies it is the massive digital literacy for all boondoggle. All actually weaken us and are lighting real wealth afire.
I find this post very sad as Canada has been one of the few voices of reason on climate in recent years.
Politically speaking the term ‘progressive’ generally means purveyor of goofy expensive ideas which don’t work. The word ‘Conservative’ usually means the exact opposite, however there are many exceptions such as in the UK today.
Hopefully, this lady will be politically astute, but she is in the shadow of a great politician, so this means she is probably going to want to prove something, an all too often recipe for disaster. An incredible amount of rubbish has been spouted about this pipeline by alarmists and greenies; kowtowing to this rubbish is also a guaranteed recipe for disaster.
Maybe, Iran will explode a nuclear weapon sometime soon and try and close the Straits of Hormuz. That should provide a bit of reality focus for the natural climate change deniers who are trying to block the pipeline.
When the Spanish Portola Expedition discovered the Los Angeles valley in 1769 there was a 300 ft tall, 350F hot tar geyser at the site of todays La Brea tarpit museum. This natural outflow continued until drilling of the Long Beach oil wells in 1900. Pismo Beach is the native Chumah Indian name for tar balls. How does humanity and the environment benefit from this unused, continually produced flow of Hydrocarbons spilling out naturally ?
“Peak Oil” is as big a lie as “Carbon Climate Forcing” and promoted by the same group of control freak thieves. Read “Fracturing the Fossil Fuel Fable” and accept Hydrocarbons as a natural, abundant and useful resource for the benefit of humanity….and not a finite commodity to be controlled by economic-ecologic dictators.
Right on CodeTech—- Alison Wonderland. I love it.
By just watching and listening to her, she thinks that she is the “Iron Lady” of Alberta.
{even dresses similiarly}.
Many know that she is a CINO [conservative-in-name-only].
This article is confusing. It states: “In an attempt to please the Obama administration so as to secure approval for the Keystone XL pipeline project, and to keep climate campaigners and Canada’s mostly left wing media at bay, Alberta Premier Alison Redford has completely capitulated to climate alarmism.”
Ok, she wants to please Obama to secure approval for the pipeline. But if she secures approval then the project goes ahead, right? I read further, and can’t find anything explaining what exactly she is doing to “appease” Obama, much less why securing the project is capitulating to left wing agendas.
This whole article is a confusing mish mash of different ideas, even though, the underlying message may well be correct.
In my judgment, the debates about whether global warming exists or whether it is caused by man generated greenhouse gases or natural variability may soon become mute. A major heating fuel and electrical energy crisis affecting most Northern Hemisphere nations might only be a couple of years away as the planet cools to possibly the 1880-1910 or lower global temperature levels due to natural climate variability . This period of colder weather will last for 2-3 decades at least since the climate factors that cause the cooling typically last at least 30 years . We are already seeing 100 year plus cold temperature records being broken in Europe .The global winters of 2008, 2009 2010 and regional cold spells of 2012 and 2013 were just a prelude of what is coming fast down the pike. As we saw during the cold spells of 2012/2013 winter, the extra cooling is coming partly from the very cold stratospheric air entering into the lower levels of the troposphere plus the simultaneous cooling from other natural planet variables like the cooler ocean cycle and the low solar cycle. Many countries in the Northern Hemisphere appear to be doing the opposite to protect and prepare their citizens by prematurely shutting down all existing fossil fuel generating plants , restricting the building of new ones and restricting the use of fossil fuel generally as may happen with the Keystone pipline . That is similar to removing your furnace and oil storage tank before the onset of winter with no other reliable alternate to see one through the winter Wind and solar will be of little help in most areas due to the extreme winters, winter clouds and significant snow. It is sheer suicide and we can already see many actual examples of this throughout the Northern Hemisphere and currently more notably in UK and Eastern Europe. Now North American nations are being urged by environmentalists who only think about global warming to do the same. Only Germany, China and India may escape some of the worst heating problems as they retain all their former fossil fuel plants and are continuing to build new ones, If Keystone pipeline is cancelled , North America will loose one of its key sources of fuel during the upcoming cold years and United States will feel the impact as the renewables such as wind and solar sources will fail during the cold and stormy winters , exactly when they are needed the most. Other countries will realize the wisdom of having a secure source of fuel for the coming years and will wisely invest in such a source well ahead.. This is not be about politics or global warming but one of pure survival..If you thought that the 2012/2013 winter and snows were bad , much more severe winters lie ahead.
Alberta has a population of 3.6 million people, but 2/3rds of the entire population live in Calgary and Edmonton. These two cities are cosmopolitan and like most cities tend to support environmentalism and lean toward the left, while the remaining rural population leans right. The Premier’s main support is in these cities Calgary and Edmonton, so she must be an environmental premier.
She could always try the Canadian Prime Ministers approach, he’s also an Albertan. He is methodically closing coal fired power plants across the country under the excuse of environmental concerns and carbon emissions, of course the coal fuel will be replaced by oil fuel. Alberta oil. The Canadian Prime Minister is Alberta’s best oil salesman.
The word for these people is Quislings.
As to the biggest of them, I disagree. The biggest Quislings are those liberals, feminists and activists of the atheist Left who offer help, support and encouragement to Islamic states, parties and pressure groups (such as your CAIR).
Your president is the greatest of these since….well, Quisling himself.
There is only one way, and one way alone that Alison Redford can pull this off. Ok, two ways. She could have her makeup artists and seamstresses to outfit her and make her look like Morsi. But I suspect Valerie and Michelle would see through that. (How do the two of them get along?) So, there is only one way. Redford has to offer to build the Keystone pipeline, not to Louisiana, no, but to Washington instead, right to the airport that houses Air Force One, Two, and so on. Now, the amount of fuel that’s slurped up by these, shall I say, rather large personal jets on important diplomatic junkets for Obama, Michelle, and the little ones to such important hot spots as Idaho (for skiing junkets), Bermuda (for Atlantic beach conferences), Hawaii (Pacific beach conferences), and Chicago (to institute steps to prevent voter fraud) probably is equal to the capacity of the pipeline anyway. Now, I recognize that, unlike us, for whom our CO2 emissions reek of flatulence, the CO2 emissions of Washingtonians are probably sweetly perfumed and thus able to perfumigate the very theories they, themselves present to us. So, the voters have no right to complain about the prodigious amounts of fossil fuels Obama sucks up. But, at least, sending the pipeline to Washington will free up some of that fuel from other sources for our use. And, even if those theories are utter nonsense, well, I have to save that for another time.
As CodeTech says April 7, 2013 at 3:27 am
ALLISON REDFORD IS NOT A CONSERVATIVE.
She’s a typical Canadian Liberal, who cannot get elected in the West without pretending to be something else. She believes all that Warmista carp. She probably has secret trysts with Joe Clarke. She is also an idiot to give one inch of ground.
An example of what extremism does to reduce judgement and critical thinking is demonstrated by the enviro extremists who have decided that somehow Canadian oil sands are going to destroy the Earth.
They are so extreme they do not recognize real threats and instead obsess over their contrived beliefs..
The real threat is lack of energy, not oil. The real danger is reliance on distant oil supplies, not Canadian supplies. The real risk in transporting oil is not pipelines, it is rail, and ship. The threat to the climate from Canadian oil sands is zip.
Total world consumption of petroleum is unlikely to be affected much by the pipeline decision. However, without the pipeline, Canada ships its petroleum overseas, while the US imports an equivalent amount, also from overseas. The main difference in fossil fuel consumption will come from the fuel needed for the additional tanker trips, minus any reduced sales because of the consequent higher prices. It looks like blocking the pipeline will actually increase world CO2 emissions.
herkimer says:
April 7, 2013 at 6:13 am
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Well Said.
In the UK, the government is still pushing the cAGW meme and the political correct response thereto. The Met Office is still projecting global warming, although it projects that there will not be a return to warming before 2017.
What is being overlooked is that CET Winter temperatures have not simply stalled similar to the stalled global warming. CET Winter temperatures for this century (ie., post 2000) show a fall in temperature of 1.5degC . Incidentally, this is more than the entire late 1970s warming! or 20th century warming.
Of course, no one knows whether this temperature trend will continue, ie., whether winter temperatures will remain low, or will fall even further. But the UK government should be alive to the fact that these past 12 years Winter temperatures in the UK have fallen by 1.5degC which is a substantial amount and should this trend continue, the UK is in for an unpleasant spell where citizens will wish to receive not simply reliable energy (free of brown outs) but will require more than usual energy consumption in the winter months imposing an additional strain on an already over strained system. The UK government should be planning for that possibility.
The UK energy system is truly resting on the edge of a precipice. It could go into freefall even as early as winter 2013 if 2013 turns out to be another cold frigid winter such as that of 2009/10 or 2010/11 where a blocking high persisted for approximately 6 weeks bring cold and little wind. In those winters, wind energy was producing only about 1 to 3% of installed capacity (ie., next to nothing) whilst that blocking high persisted.
XL not being built would be a pain, and it seems more likely than a BC pipeline (picture Texas wanting to build a pipeline to California’s coast without a lot of direct benefits for them. It might be feasible, but less so than XL), however it seems like Quebec’s Premier is pretty friendly with Redford about a pipe going the other way through Canada. It seems like we’ll eventually go somewhere. I’d actually like an eastern pipeline even if less optimum as there’s enough east/west friction. And it would be hilarious if Quebec and Alberta pushed the agenda for a pipeline together.
I feel like this is a lose lose situation for the enviros right now. If they block XL leaving more oil to be transported by rail they’ll look like they don’t really know what’s going on and people will feel like Obama’s allowed a minority voice to make the decision. It might be better for them to lose the fight – they could look ineffective, but they could regroup and expect some other kind of concession in the government’s policy to make up for it. Obama’s on his last term but he might be wanting to wait out a round of House/Senate elections before he’s ‘home free’.
She should just stay home, keep her mouth shut and let Brad Wall do the talking. As the Premier of Saskatchewan he has defended Alberta’s interests better than REDford (the former UN consultant) ever has since she took over from the NDP in Conservative clothing ED Stelmack. Ever since King Ralph left office liberals and socialists have been infiltrating the PCs in Alberta since they can’t get elected any other way. The growth of the public service employees in Edmonton and Calgary is what is keeping the PCs in power now. The people af Alberta missed a golden opportunity last election IMO and now have to suffer until the next election. Wild Rose may not have been quite ready for primetime but neither was Social Credt or the PCs when they first came to power.
I agree with one of the earlier bloggers comments and found that the author spent a little too much of his time faulting ALBERTA and not enough time presenting his own good ideas or alternate points of view that urgently need to be told to the public. .If you spend too much of your effort reviewing, discussing or opposing the other guy’s ideas instead of presenting your own good ideas or alternate points of view, you have very few reasons for the public to hear your truth or vote for your ideas .. What is it that you stand for? Plus you give too much public attention to the oppostion story , which is the worst thing that you can do. Lot of politicians have lost many an election for the same reason. Instead of devoting most of his time criticizing ALBERTA’s ad, he should have spent more time shooting down the global warming science that the alarmists use , with all its many obvious mistakes, failed predictions and flawed science and why using this flawed science to shape a critical public/ interantional energy policy is so wrong . What are the reasons why this project should go ahead should be the prime focus of Alberta pr ad and not to explain a flawed global warming science .
Why do Canadians care whether Americans prefer to run a pipeline across their land or pay Warren Buffet to cart the oil around in rail wagons.
Alison Redford is a big believer in Climate Hysteria and CO2 (Carbon) Hysteria. Redford also sees herself as the smartest person in the room. And she lies a lot.
Last April during a CBC hosted election forum, Wildrose leader Danielle Smith made basic factual statements and was attacked for doing so.
Calgary radio station News Talk 770 has many program hosts who expose the flaws in CAGW. The news director, Laura Knop, however seems to be an intense alarmist. Every newscast the next day went after Smith portraying her as believing in a “flat earth”.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/technology/Debate+crowd+heckles+Smith+statement+climate+change/6488113/story.html#ixzz1sayLaLnw
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“We’ve been watching the debate in the scientific community, and there is still a debate,” Smith said. “I will continue to watch the debate in the scientific community, but that’s not an excuse not to act.”
Smith said she is frustrated by the climate change debate because politicians set impossibly high targets then do nothing to achieve them. She said the Wildrose will take a different approach, putting in place “constructive policies” that reduce overall emissions.
———-
Unfortunately, Danielle Smith appears to be losing her backbone.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/opinion/op-ed/Thomson+Wildrose+Party+warms+global+warming/8166518/story.html
Richard Verney
You might highlight how Uk is coping with the recent record cold winter and the government’s policy of phasing out coal and fossil generating plants . I understand that the energy supplies were so low that had Uk not received two shiploads of fossil fuel gas at the last moment , a lot of people would have been without heating fuel. Why are the renewables not doing the job . ? Not enough of them or unreliable ?
Herkimer – the word is moot, not mute. Though I guess debates can become muted.
DirkH says:
April 7, 2013 at 7:27 am
Why do Canadians care whether Americans prefer to run a pipeline across their land or pay Warren Buffet to cart the oil around in rail wagons.
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This is not about running “a pipeline across their land”. The pipeline has been approved, is in the process of approval and actually been built where the States have authority. The American people know what is right and approve of this project. What this is about is where the US Federal Government has jurisdiction, namely the border crossing, and whether we have an integrated economy between Canada and the USA or not. Not approving the deal due to purely political reasons and throwing actual science and the rule of law out the window is what is worrying. If at the end of the day Obama continues to hold this up we will simply refine the fuel ourselves. Even the NDP and Ellie Mae (Green Party) want that to happen so the enviroradicals will have to step aside for that.
To Moderators – please do no publish, just fix the errors.
to
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It should be obvious that there are a lot of tentacles to this issue. Source processing of the oil sands has improved greatly over the last ten years, so much so that emissions are marginally higher than conventional oil. That is why it passed the last environmental review in the U.S. This put the option on the table for the Obama administration. TransCanada Pipeline has a good track record, and current construction is vastly better than that of the older technology. Trains now carry the oil south, but the pipeline capacity is far greater and probably safer. The current production will be limited by transportation – expansion requires the pipeline.
A pipeline to the Pacific is possible, but costly. It also will face a First Nations blockade- they have been scared and bought off by the big greens. Last week a representative of Canada’s “Idle No More” Aboriginal movement lobbied against the simple construction of a two-mile spur line on a local Reserve to move Bakken oil in Western Manitoba- and won. This First Nations equation is huge in Canada and will have to be dealt with. Canada would be better off increasing our refining capacity, but that is a very expensive proposition in a limited domestic market.
The fact that Obama has hedged on this issue even after clearing all assessments bodes poorly for the final outcome. There is a lot of chatter up here about a trade-off. In essence, Canada will be pressured to adopt a carbon tax in exchange for the pipeline. I think that is where Alberta will come down because it’s economy is not in good shape right now, and, like Obama, they could use the tax revenue to cover poor fiscal governance. My guess is that Obama will sign if a major concession of some kind is offered. Otherwise he will not risk his base votes until after the mid-term election.
I wish both Canada and the U.S. could simply base resource/energy decisions on sound economic and environmental information. In this case, the bases have been covered and it should be a no-brainer. But we have Suzuki (and now Hansen) and the sky is still falling.
On the point of Canadians being a voice of reason, take a look at Michael Fullan’s (based in Toronto but a change agent with global aspirations) work on using education to drive transformative social, political, and economic change. Starting at the level of a student’s values and beliefs especially if school can be used to make emotion the driving force. They emotionally believe as an article of faith in climate change and it guides their behavior and creates a belief that they and we must all act.
Remember the cardinal rule of the social sciences which is where Climate Change Models originate in is that a theory does not need to be true factually to be influential in its consequences if it can change beliefs that guide or prompt behavioral action. In fact I am off this morning reading through the transformative potential of personal construct theory. The margins of the 1971 UK book can barely contain all my recognitions of how this factually incorrect theory is being implemented globally in order to both alter and make the prevailing beliefs of the next generation of voters predictable.
We adults past a certain age writing about the nonsense being foisted on us in the name of catastrophic climate change are really not the audience to be influenced.
“symbolic of our dependence on fossil fuels, an addiction that campaigners believe is destroying the climate”
DUH!
What hasw the human species de[eded upon for energy since the dicovery and harnessing FIRE?
Tom Harris knows that Alison Redford campaign was and still is supported by Globemedia, one of the fiercest scare mongering media in Canada, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters that keeps offering Op-Eds to the Tzeporah Berman (former Greenpeace), Maurice Strong, Thomas Homer-Dixon, David Suzuki and likes, even timing up openly with Tides astroturfed political groups for domestic political purpose, once their US funding and influence in Canada was courageously exposed by Vivian Krause.
Redford is a watermelon bankrolled by the Carbon Capture industry which she obliged with billions of government money for some dubious capture project in Alberta. She will be the Alberta Gillard.
As for the opinion of some Postmedia journalist in Edmonton on Danielle Smith, we all know the Edmonton Journal publishes anything that fits the carbon lobby, including a while ago some Op-Eds by some PhD student who since has made a flagging name for himself in deeper climates…
The climate scare diktat is being enforced by any means available. How long will the Canadian government be able to deflect it? Will the Conservatives cave in a backstab Canadians with some Carbon Tax as they did with the Income Trust issue?
Science, real or the bad one, is old news. Let’s see if Australians will be able to rid themselves of Gillard and her green bankers… That should give us an idea of how democracy has been perverted.
Dirk H: Why do Canadians care . . . ?
Because at some point in time we need to stop the Faux Environmentalists from forcing special interest, minority based, politically motivated decisions on the populace to decisions based on sound economics which operate within the existing laws of today. Trans Canada Pipelines isn’t trying to do anything illegal. It is trying to provide oil in what it believes is a more economically viable manner. The companies which extra oil from the oil sands operate in one of the most environmentally stringent jurisdictions in the world.
FYI, there are good arguments much of the protest is supported by American based environmental NGOs, specifically so Americans continue to receive oil at a significantly discounted rate from world market pricing. See Vivian Krause: http://fairquestions.typepad.com/rethink_campaigns/. She looked at the tax returns of Canadian based so called environmental groups and there are a lot of suspicious donations by Tides, etc.
Once the CAGW HOAX is finally thrown on the trash heap of history, which shouldn’t be much longer, there will be long-term repercussions to future scientific funding as taxpayers will no longer trust governments to fund scientific research given the $trillions already thrown do pawn the toilet on the CAGW charade to obtain political objectives rather than conducting true science.
In the future, the private sector will fund both basic and applied research through corporations, universities, Alumni, organizations, NGOs, associations, etc. There will obviously be less total scientific funding available, but there will much less corruption and waste that currently exists under public funded scientific research.
….people need to get this straight. Redford and many (probably most) politicians don’t care about anything other then themselves and the liberal left causes. they only fear the left not the right. the left will f##k them up. the right wont.
that said they are often leftists/marxist anyhow as Redford is.
there will be no pipeline to the USA …stop kidding yourselves. you are confusing logic with the lefts agenda. they intend to destroy the west so what do you think they will do. WAKE UP …the WAR started long ago and YOU ALL STILL don’t see it.
right now the USA is able to buy Canadian oil at a discount, that will end if a pipeline to a deep water port in the Gulf is built. The US Navy says that the planet is getting hotter and that around summer of 2020 the polar ice cap will be gone and they will have to look for a new place to hide their subs from the surface fleet. The people who think that the planet isn’t getting hotter live in the same bubble as those who thought Romney was going to win
I’m not pitching in about Canadian politics, although the comments here are familiar. Almost all political leaders in the developed world seem to be incompetent, venal, morons.
But I have no difficulty in understanding Tom Harris’s piece. Recent history gives a plethora of examples of oil, coal and gas firms whose executives lavishly funded the greenie alarmists and spouted their greenie claptrap, either because they were so dumb that they believed it, because they thought it would deflect criticism – perhaps towards their competitors, or because they recognised the long term advantage of always being able to sell energy products (at an increasingly good price) when the politicians had screwed up with their stupid Ruinable Energy projects.
Best example? BP and its advertising campaigns a year or so back. The greenies took the dough and just accused BP of “greenwash”. (Google it!)
So if Redford tries to have her greenie agit-prop cake and also eat it by promoting the pipeline, she will be able to point to plenty of precedents. Of course, they didn’t work either.
Best defence? Attack, for sure!
Herkimer, what you and Richard Verney said about future colder winters, I cannot agree nor disagree as I do not have the appropriate knowledge. However I do have common sense and what common sense is telling me is that in the UK, we have had four cold winters on the trot, to turn off our coal fired power stations on a whim of some EU directive is suicide and short sighted stupidity. There is no way that the useless windmills blighting our landscape can produce enough power to keep the country going, either economically or socially. Due to our last governments energy policy, which has been perpetuated by the present coalition government, we are heading for disaster.
At the moment I am in Southern Spain and everyone has been talking about the very wet winter. The reservoirs are all full to overflowing, and if there is no more rain at all, there is enough water to supply the Costa del Sol for 30 months. The desalination plant near us has not been used for years. It is obvious that this region of Spain has our normal winter weather while in the UK we have had Arctic and Scandinavian weather.
Will this happen again? I don’t know, but we would be pretty stupid to take the risk by irreversibly decommissioning our major sources of power, especially as it is based on a theory that is falling apart at it’s computer modelled seams!
Oh and one more thing, snow is not a rare and exciting event in North East England, neither is the Costa del Sol turning into a desert with millions of climate refugees heading for the balmy north, as was predicted 20 years ago
“The US Navy says that the planet is getting hotter and that around summer of 2020 the polar ice cap will be gone”
John: We’ll have lots of polar bears surfing around on ice. In fact, pick ANY amount of money and you’re on. Please, oh please, oh please say yes you’ll take my bet. I would love to have my mortgage paid off.
OH, and my post above should read “extract”, not extra.
Alberta had better get their pipeline built quickly or it won’t get built at all. British Columbia is now hosting a poison pill.
Commenters above have presented two general facts:
1) The weather is getting colder, which causes more difficulties with crops and basic winter survival. And it won’t likely improve for decades to come.
2) Fossil fuel use is threatened by anti-development environmentalists, even as reserves of these fuels are expanding. Controlling CO2 is the excuse that has proven to be effective in persuading low-information voters.
The vast majority of people are completely unaware of a paradigm shift that is now afoot. This shift will be as significant as the invention of fire itself. And while some may wish to ignore it or deny it exists, their myopic view won’t change the radical changes that are in progress.
Several companies are gearing up to implement this technology into hundreds of applications–replacing the vast majority of fossil fuels in the process. Expect the dismantling of wind farms and solar panel facilities, as well as nuclear power plants.
Here’s what the company from Vancouver, BC has been doing in the shadows, since marketing isn’t even needed:
http://pesn.com/2013/04/04/9602290_Defkalion-laying-low-preparing-to-make-a-big-splash/
An interesting side show will be whether “watermelon” environmentalists embrace it, or reject it as it destroys their quest for control. But regardless of the outcome (for someday the perception of CO2 will switch from being a toxin to a highly desirable fertilizer), we certainly live in interesting times.
And whether Alberta gets a pipeline not, production of fossil fuels and the revenue from these will soon be in drastic decline. Alberta will find that building a pipeline won’t matter.
My neighbour, an older gentleman and longtime conservative chastised me for the “Wild Rose” (Danielle Smith) sign on my lawn during the election. I recently asked him how he thought his party was doing. He just put his head down and grumbled something under his breath and went in the house.
I saw Redford coming from a mile away.
The coalition government in the UK and some Pro-Cons in Alberta are following the old “convergence” line of the Cold War when it comes to energy policy. This is all in an attempt to appear fashionably reasonable to a left-leaning press which beats them a little less for their trouble. We have the same tendencies among our wet Republicans here. Bob Dole was once dubbed “the tax collector for the welfare state” and deserved it.
… as to the US Navy I can personally attest to the craven nature of the filling the upper ranks. Like many in science they should have a “will work for funding” sign hung around their necks.
Tom Rude mentioned the Tides Foundation. Previously (last week was busy) I laid out a description of a document called The Acceleration Agenda from the Tides project, New Policy Institute, that envisions restructuring and increasing US federal revenue sharing around achieving a regional Race to the Top around urban areas and a green “clean economy” vision. Thus using our tax money or future indebtedness to bribe politicians at all levels into supporting this vision. It was also explicitly a formal embrace of Industrial Policy as what governments everywhere should be doing in the 21st century.
These 12 regions are so pie in the sky of what can work once federal money is withdrawn that it has California’s economy being built on the high speed rail project. The Southwest is to be the Saudi Arabia of Solar. Economically it makes no sense but when even the report mentions the Green Gold Rush that everyone wants to cash in on, politicians at the state and local level love the idea. It is OPM after all. Regions are also supposed to be equal so the well-functioning areas can subsidize areas like Detroit and Chicago and Cleveland that are dysfunctional by any measure.
The Global Cities Initiative envisions this kind of federal encouragement of local Urban push everywhere. The last presentation of 2013 is in Mexico City. These initiatives should definitely be on everyone’s horizon in appreciating what can perhaps best be described as a return to a feudalistic view of the State vs subject. I think we are seeing this attitude almost daily now from politicians globally. How to advance the power of the Predator State.
As a Alberta PC party insider, I know for a fact that Redford’s days as a leader are numbered. During the upcoming leadership review in November 2013 she will be stripped of her current title. She has alienated caucus members by her end run approach and that does not sit well with the democractic process. She will not survive and the successor will be from the right camp. Only question is how much more damage can this UN mole accomplish.
Socialist Alberta premier Alison Redford hijacked Progressive Conservative”sell out party. Need I say more. She ain’t no hero like ex Alberta premier Ralph Klein. RIP.
Canada is full of elitist like Alison Redford’s watermelons all, and fully ensconced in the utopian dream of UN agendas 1 to 1000 – take your pick!
Canada has such promise, but the Alison Redford’s of the world have infiltrated every fiber of the Canadian fabric!
If Obama does not OK the Keystone XL expect to see a very slightly shorter version proposed. Stopping a few miles South of the Canadian border near a rail line. A couple of unit trains comprised of oil cars on a very short shunting job to a spot just North of the border and you have a solution that can be built without State Department approval.
As an Alberta resident and oil patch worker, I’m dismayed at what Redford has done. There are two things, though, I get out of this:
Canada, not just Alberta, has no say in anything relative to the United States. The States is like Rome, Canada is like Britain in the year 100. We do as we are told, or God help us. So if Obama wants a stupid carbon tax and emissions target of rediculous amounts in order to “allow” us the American-made pipeline to take American-owned oil to American-owned and -staffed refineries in the American South, then we have both tax and emissions control.
I can only imagine Redford on her knee kissing Obama’s ring.
The second thing is that Redford came out of a meeting with a (minor) official explaining Obama’s decision, rubbing her hands and nodding vigourously, thinking of all the lucre flowing into her tax department. Grinning like the drug dealer whom the mafia say WILL take their heroin, and by the way the expectation is that he will double his income in the process.
King Richard becomes Queen Allison, driving the tax collectors into the streets to empty the pockets of the peasants. The choice was a reborn Richard vs a reborn Boetica, she of the Britons. The latter didn’t fare too well.
I am with you DaveG. When someone spends their entire career as a bureacrat with ties to the monstrousity of the UN, it is impossible to make decisions to benefit Joe Six pack. They never had a real job and become career politicians with an agenda supported by acedemia. It’s sad to see. The public is at threat to each leader with these characteristics. We are in trouble in Alberta and globally because of marxism. The general public doesn’t see it because of the leftist happy talk media pushes the same agenda. History shows it will not end happily because the passions of man have never changed.
I thought Canada had built a terminus for loading the oil onto Chinese tankers.
Related articles
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/04/04/carbon-taxes-pain-for-no-benefit/
http://www.torontosun.com/2013/04/05/damn-yankees–how-dare-they-support-the-keystone-xl-pipeline
At the end of the day… Is there not a “notwithstanding” clause in the Canadian “Charter of Rights” which allows the federal government to override the provinces in, what it deems, “the national interest”?
Clipe
The notwithstanding clause is so the provinces and the federal government can overide the constitution, usually after a supreme court ruling, in areas of their jurisdictions. In Canada the provinces have jurisdiction over natural resources. The federal government only has jurisdiction over natural resources where issues cross provincial or international borders or on federal land or as it pertains to navigatable waters. That being said the notwithstanding clause is toxic politically in Canada and has only been used once since 1982 and that is Quebec ‘protecting’ language rights.
Wamron says:
April 7, 2013 at 12:59 pm
I thought Canada had built a terminus for loading the oil onto Chinese tankers.
Are you thinking of gas maybe?
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/plans+Kitimat+turn+doom+town+boom+town+says+mayor/7816270/story.html
If you think Alberta is wrong headed, just wait till the NDP takes the wheel here in BC.
Then we’ll see real economic carnage!
WTF says:
April 7, 2013 at 1:40 pm
Clipe
The notwithstanding clause is so the provinces and the federal government can overide the constitution, usually after a supreme court ruling, in areas of their jurisdictions. In Canada the provinces have jurisdiction over natural resources. The federal government only has jurisdiction over natural resources where issues cross provincial or international borders or on federal land or as it pertains to navigatable waters. That being said the notwithstanding clause is toxic politically in Canada and has only been used once since 1982 and that is Quebec ‘protecting’ language rights.
Toxic as it may be, it gives the federal government veto power over areas of provincial jurisdiction, (in the national interest) or not?
jones, above, posted a link to a James Burke program. Now, I used to watch almost everything I could from him. Arguably, he was the most influential presenter in my youth, the guy who actually got me thinking about connections and how our society came to be what it is, the importance of scientific discovery and understanding.
Sadly, I see him online now promoting the IPCC position. It does make me sad. I guess I thought that someone who taught me skepticism and thinking outside the box would understand the importance of skepticism and thinking outside of consensus. I guess I was wrong.
The problem is several pointed out here is the Redford government is just that, a “Red” left wing party.
As far as co2 capture goes? Alberta is spending over 1 billion of tax payers’ dollars.
The BIG HUGE untold story is we already have a carbon price levied in Alberta. The problem is they NOW need a big sink hole and carbon capture so the GOVERNMENT can purchase those credits and allow the previous government cronies on the trading board to TRADE that CO2.
So as far as Alberta and the current government?
They are AHEAD of Obama in promoting and spending taxpayers money on co2 trading.
So it not that the REDford government is entertaining carbon trading and capture, but in fact are one of the largest supporters of this idea.
If you roll Al Gore, Obama, the IPCC and Hansen into one ball, you would get something like a UN laywer.
Guess what? Redford managed a judicial training and legal reform project for the Ministry of Justice and the Supreme People’s Court in Vietnam. So she is as RED as they come.
So we basically have the IPCC group of people running the government in Alberta.
So we are talking about a leader in Alberta’s that is WORSE than Obama, WORSE than Al Gore and the IPCC, and they have earmarked 1+ billion dollars for this co2 capture.
The current project of a WHOPPING 800+ million dollars being spent on pumping co2 into a hole is beyond amazing stupid.
Why does this continue? Very simple:
We don’t have any major paper or magazine that dares to point out the carbon trading schemes that are moving full speed ahead in Alberta. And the press knows to simply NOT cover this issue since Albertans would react.
Without the co2 sink hole, then the Alberta cannot fund all their carbon credit programs to dole out billions at the taxpayers’ expense.
Alberta government commits to carbon trading (read = co2 sinkhole).
http://www.solutionsstarthere.ca/
The Alberta government is running record deficits, they are proposing a local provincial sales tax, and are spending over a BILLION dollars on carbon capture to enable carbon trading schemes in Alberta.
So basically right now a bunch of UN cronies are running Alberta and carbon schemes are a leading policy of the Alberta government.
Super Turtle
CodeTech-James Burke has been of this mindset for decades. <y metaphor of the Axemakers Mind actually comes from reading his book The Axemakers Gift where he bemoans the rational mind because of it ability to manipulate nature. Therefore we need ed that creates instinctual, emotional minds. Note that his co-author Robert Ornstein has co-written books with Paul Ehrlich on same general theme. The need for New Minds incapable of creating transformative technology.
Told you ed reform and CAGW were deeply related. Everywhere. It's just not generally appreciated.
For all the number crunchers in the crowd, see if you can reproduce this. McIntyre, hope u are available to rip at this one and post your results.
http://environment.gov.ab.ca/info/library/6151.pdf
For the sake of all tax payer in Canada can someone please try reproduce the above analysis. It would be a vital first step to holding off a forced public carbon tax in Alberta once it is proven to be scientifically invalid. It appears to me the results will be extremely hard to replicate.
Allison Redfraud supports anything that may have potential for more graft and pork trough use of taxpayers money. She may support a Carbon Tax but she would equally support government run training programs to teach pigs to fly if she thought the people would be foolish enough to accept that. After 40 years of PC party rule, Alberta’s Health Care system is the most costly in all of Canada but surprisingly it is also the leader in the worst service in all of Canada. The PC party approach is simple: pay bureaucrats ever more in bonuses, expenses, junkets and periodic house cleaning golden handshakes in order to try to have as many pigs at the trough as possible whilst pretending to try to find a solution to the problems that were, in the first place, mostly created by PC bureaucrats (over their 40 year tenure). The height of the hypocrisy is that the PC party are on record as having some paid government committees that NEVER actually meet. (Perhaps there is so much pork to slosh around that sometimes there simply isn’t enough time to actually meet!)
Carbon Tax has nothing to do with science and everything to do with pork.
I see my fellow Albertans have already commented on Redford. Let it be said, she is a full on UN – Hack Lawyer that drinks the CAGW coolaid. Obama isn’t forcing anything down her throat.
Bill says:
Albertans who voted from Allison were fooled into thinking that the Conservative party would never select a left lib UN lawyer to lead the party of Lougheed and Klein. But it happened and now Albertans can see her for exactly what she stands for. Now we have to deal with the debt, the weak and ineffective policy, the strategic long term mistakes and the eventual higher taxes. The sooner she can be removed from the office of Premier, the better.
The environmental liabilities that result from the various steps in oil sands extraction and refining process include:
Destruction of the boreal forest eco-system
Damage to the Athabasca watershed
Heavy consumption of natural gas
Creation of toxic tailings ponds
Increased release of greenhouse gases
http://www.raventrust.com/beaverlakecree/thetarsandscatastrophe.html
An example of “Canada’s mostly left wing media”.
To try for some balance i include a citation celebrating the prosperity of jobs and the billions of implied dollars. Damn, for a job i would open-pit mine Eden.
http://www.fortmcmurraytoday.com/2013/04/07/oilsands-employment-to-balloon-report