Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Edmonton, Canada is hosting an international “Cities and Climate Change” Conference, to give city government officials and politicians a chance to discuss what they would like to do about climate change.
Cities will drive action on climate change, Edmonton council told ahead of international conference
‘You’ve renewed my sense of urgency but also my sense of hope,’ Mayor Don Iveson says
By Natasha Riebe, CBC News Posted: Mar 02, 2018 8:24 PM MT
Cities will play an integral role in curbing climate change in the coming years, Edmonton councillors heard at a special meeting Friday ahead of hosting an international climate conference next week.
Electric buses, public transportation, energy efficient buildings and reducing garbage are some of the initiatives that will drive change, councillors heard.
Council called the special meeting to get ready for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s three-day Cities and Climate Change Science Conference beginning March 5, when about 800 delegates from around the world are expected to attend.
“This is a huge opportunity for not just Edmonton, but for Alberta and Canada, to show our commitment to the world,” Mayor Don Iveson said.
…
Despite endorsing the conference, the Edmonton Journal accuses local city officials of falling behind on climate action;
… About 10 years ago, Edmonton adopted targets to help mitigate climate change. But as the city’s population grew and costs blossomed, the council recoiled. As time went on, the city pulled back on buying carbon credits to support renewable energy and slowed down the replacement of LED street lights.
Mayor Don Iveson said Friday that cities such as Edmonton that have a higher carbon footprint will have to do more. …
The proliferation of increasingly pointless taxpayer funded climate conferences is showing no signs of slowing.
The fact that sea level has not and is not responding at all to atmospheric CO2 is not a factor? You might want to put down the paid-for “research” andy look at the data.
Quickest, most effective and least-cost way for cities to take action on climate change is to make sure that the real effects of UHI in their city are quantified and fully taken account of.
Setting up new weather stations 5-10 miles around the outside of the perimeter of their city (well outside of suburbs) will allow them to record the Real temperatures without any need for ‘homogenisation’ using an arbitrary and typically grossly understated value for UHI.
Once they have done that then they can consider, with actual factual temperature data, what if anything they need to do. I suspect that with that data they would find there are no grounds or need for them to do anything at all ……………
I also suspect that any Council or Authority going down that route would be met with howls of protest from eco-warriors and climate rent-seekers.
Probably why the don’t do it. I mean how much would it cost to have a decent observation system, compared to the cost of running those all singing and dancing supercomputers.
I think they’re scared of what the answer would be.
Those of us paying attention know their real fear is overpopulation crashing up against limited resources. The only way to save themselves (and the resources for themselves) is to sell the populous on a bill of goods, using fear and guilt, so that the great unwashed, except for their brains, will turn to the politicians for salvation from their evil CO2 burning selves, thereby giving the bureaucrats exactly what they need centralize totalitarian power over the rationed individual.
Bill Powers, spot on, this is more of the implementation of globalist UN-Agendas 21/2030.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6b7K1hjZk4
If the Edmonton mayor and city council are gullible enough to think that the ‘global warming’ myth is anything but superstitious nonsense, or that the term ‘climate change’ has any particular meaning, it might be time for them to consider a conference to discuss the health of Mickey Mouse.
Good one, but the fact is cities are another level of government going along with the global hysteria, making it even harder for the tide to turn.
Given that the War on Drugs is a complete and utter failure, the conference slush funds have just sloshed over to the climate change side of the trough. Gotta spend the time somewhere other than that stinking office!
Canada never had a “War on Drugs”. Maybe that is why our government has now legalized cannabis?
great. As temperatures drop, IQ drops with it. Liberals want you stoned and stupid in canaduh.
It is all in Agenda21/30. There is a whole level of responsibility assigned to urban environments. Note that many cities in the US recently stepped into the void left when Trump withdrew from Paris (all but the money). It often is easier to coerce urbanites into action because they really don’t have to face weather/climate head-on on many occasions. Most sjw’s are indoctrinated in urban unis, live at home, and/or take jobs in the cities, where they go from heated/cooled dwellings, to heated/cooled transit, to heated cooled workplaces. The world would be a better place if they all had to work on a farm with livestock for one year. We live in a Walt Disney world.
Karabar,
May I respectfully suggest that perhaps we need to consider a conference to discuss the health of – ahhhhhhhhhhh –
Minnie Mouse.
#MeToo.
Auto – nodding at the tribes’ totems.
Some of them
Pl3ease do not misunderstand – there has been horrible mistreatment of people by other people.
This needs to stop.
And male-on-female behaviour has been a significant (but not the only) part. A.
@karabar, Edmonton is the seat of the provincial government which is now ruled by a bunch of eco-Marxist socialists… the same ones that shrieked to have an opposition member drummed from the legislature because he had the temerity to question man made global warming and the same ones that imposed a carbon tax on our fair province without including it in the mandate they were seeking when they were running for election. They are now considered to be the biggest collective brain fart the province has had in living memory but we have to live with them until May, 2019 when they will removed back to their previous obscurity. In the mean time, big city mayors have to toe the climate change line in order to get needed funding from the klimate kult provincial government or face the cold shoulder.
Thanks Doug. I’m a Canuck domiciled down under since January 1995. Very familiar with Yukon (they used to say Edmonton had a uke on every corner). I used to fly our of Edmonton Municipal and had a sojourn in Fort Muck when we built the original Syncrude plant. I’m appalled at the turn toward the Fascist NDP in Alberta. Wasn’t Ontario a good enough example? Now I read today that the mayor of Vancouver intends to try to ban natural gas. Good Greif!
Since regional climates Are changing, cities had better quickly adapt & prepare for any extremes of flood, fire, insects, heat & cold that might come their way.
Whether their region warms or cools, it’s a good idea to enlarge storm sewers, forbid floodplain housing, encourage reforestation, use less salt on winter roads, save tax money with LED lighting, smarter vehicle fuel use & reduced water consumption, and even encourage distributed energy (wind, solar, etc) to prepare for ice storms, blizzards, floods & other ‘climate disasters’ which Seem to be happening more often.
Cleaner air, water & soil from removing mercury, SOx & other pollutants (not CO2!) in coal & other fossil fuel smoke won’t hurt any of us.
“distributed energy (wind, solar, etc) to prepare for ice storms, blizzards, floods & other ‘climate disasters”
But, but distributed energy (wind and solar) do not work well in ice storms and blizzards. Solar panels don’t work well when covered in snow and wind turbines ice up in ice storms and blizzards.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EmYe2u6J6g
Let m also correct tha last part for you
“which DO NOT Seem to be happening more often.”
” encourage distributed energy (wind, solar, etc) to prepare for ice storms, blizzards, floods & other ‘climate disasters’ which Seem to be happening more often.”
?1507135687
Solar/wind facilities don’t do well in bad weather. First photo – wind damage. Second photo – hail damage.
“Since regional climates are changing, … ”
—-
They do that you know?
Always have.
Always will.
Disconcerting isn’t it.
Solar facility destroyed by hurricane Maria.
I was in Orlando during Hurricane Irma. Disney has some large(ish) solar farms. I was wondering how they would fair. Turns out they were just fine. But my recollection was that the highest sustained winds in the area were 65mph, so not as bad as they could have been.
World needs to avoid the $100 Trillion plan to build Massively unsustainable RE: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/05/monumental-unsustainable-environmental-impacts/
Northern Cities need large amounts of emission free Thermal…the Case for the Good Reactor https://spark.adobe.com/page/1nzbgqE9xtUZF/
It is better to build Natural Gas plants for the next 20-years and wait for the 4th generation Molten Salt Reactor plants to ship in 2025-2030…Save the planet $90 Trillion, stop the industrialization of nature and massive natural resources building low-density intermittent RE that needs fossil fuel backup or expensive batteries.
Nuclear vs RE http://sarahwestall.com/nuclear-energy-and-global-climate-change-a-controversial-science-discussion/
Regional climates are changing? Do you have any evidence to support such a belief?
The exhaust from oil and coal power plants was cleaned up decades ago.
Isn’t it true that 50% of USA states have mercury warnings caused by coal-fired generation?
The Ontario government closed Nanticoke, largest North American coal-fired generator with the prediction that they would save C$3B /yr! in health care costs (OHIP single payer meficare is provincially run). I’ve been waiting for some sharp team of journalists to disprove that statistic, but our media are being replaced by social media so they don’t have the resources to do it.
I was told by a retired Nanticoke operator that he guessed they could have installed a mercury scrubber for $50m, which woukd have been a lot cheaper than closing it.
No, it is not true.
The fact that the government did something claiming that it will save health care costs is evidence of nothing. Especially in regards to the record of various governments when it comes to making accurate cost projections of anything.
Reply to Lorne White March 5, 2018 at 8:02 am
“I was told by a retired Nanticoke operator that he guessed they could have installed a mercury scrubber for $50m, which would have been a lot cheaper than closing it.”
$50 million (U.S.) would be a good ball park capital investment estimate for a brominated activated carbon injection (BACI) system or an amended silicate injected system for a plant the size of Nanticoke (~4,000 MW) located in Canada.
But, the major cost impact of mercury controls are the cost of the feedstock chemicals. Brominated activated carbon currently runs ~$1,400/short ton or roughly 5.2 cents per MBtu of coal burned. That my not sound like much, but Hg removal rates vary considerably and the Hg content in coal is low. Depending on coal type, the Hg content of coal can expect to range from ~4 to ~14 lb/Trillion Btu coal.
Using a middle of the road estimate for a variety of potential coal feedstock’s with 90% removal, I’d estimate feedstock cost in the range of $4,100 to $14,400 per lb of Hg removed. However, Hg removal system performance ranges considerably so feedstock cost can easily run as low as $2,000 to as high as $20,000 per lb of Hg removed.
All of that said, if the plant had been equipped with a wet FGD (for SO2 removal) and an SCR (for NOx removal) then the addition of a Hg removal system wouldn’t be required under U.S. law… as the cost would be limited to preventing Hg re-emission from the FGD. I can’t say if this would be true under Canadian law.
Lorne White said
“to prepare for ice storms, blizzards, floods & other ‘climate disasters’ which Seem to be happening more often.”
There are no data to support your statement. There are no more extreme weather events now than there were before in any category. NO MORE HURRICANES NO MORE TORNADOS NO MORE FLOODS, NO MORE EATHQUAKES NO MORE VOLCANOS NO MORE ASTERIODS HITTING US. The only thing that there is more of these days is alarmist statements like yours.
That implies that You believe there’s no need to prepare for any of the events I listed, which do Seem to be happening somewhat more frequently (eg. 2017 BC forest fires, sinkholes in Toronto where few have happened since 1954 Hurricane Hazel) regardless of cause.
I’m not an alarmist, just an old Scout: “Be Prepared!”
RE Lorne White
***That implies that You believe there’s no need to prepare for any of the events I listed, which do Seem to be happening somewhat more frequently (eg. 2017 BC forest fires, sinkholes in Toronto where few have happened since 1954 Hurricane Hazel) regardless of cause.
I’m not an alarmist, just an old Scout: “Be Prepared!”***
Instead of implying that climate is changing, why not just state that we should be preparing for ALL WEATHER EVENTS, Period.
Then we would accept what you say. I see nothing new under the sun.
There is no evidence that any of the things you list are happening more frequently. The only thing that is increasing is the number of alarmists screaming “be ware”.
BTW, have you completed your preparations for the invasion of space aliens from Alpha Centauri? If not, you have just violated the condition you claim to live by.
“Lorne White March 5, 2018 at 7:52 am
That implies that You believe there’s no need to prepare for any of the events I listed, which do Seem to be happening somewhat more frequently…”
Being REPORTED more frequently. What with instant 24hr “news” available etc.
“encourage reforestation…” Forests are the enemy of cities in Alberta. We have had 2 major incidents of cities being almost completely destroyed by forest fires because the forest was allowed to grow naturally right up to the housing divisions. You have obviously never been to Alberta; we have plenty of forest. No need for ‘reforestation’!
Climate hasn’t changed where I live. I’m still growing the same stuff that I grew almost 40 years ago and still can’t grow things I’ve never been able to grow in the very stable climate. Some palms did get killed off about 10 years ago, but they were left out in pots at -20 C. And I’m in one of the mildest climates in the country.
The reality is that according to the paleoclimate record and the work done with models, one can conclude that the climate change we have been experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over wihich mankind including the cities, have no control. There is no real eficence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific reasoning that the climate sensivity of CO2 is zero. If we converted every city and town in the world back into wilderness, the effort would have no effect on climate. There are many good reasons to be conserving on the use of fossil fuels but climate change is not one of them.
Actually WUWT has published 2 articles about the effect on regional climates of deforestation in Brasil & Queensland. Maybe we should be changing our cities…?
The best knowledge is it is 1.5-4.5K/doubling. So it probably is not near zero. What is exiting that 40 years of research into that subject has not reached a consensus better than that. All those billions poured into climate world-wide, and they have not doing any better they did with a pocket calculator and a Pdp-11.
exciting…
Hugs: “The best knowledge is it is 1.5-4.5K/doubling.” … ????, that’s the best knowledge?
Did you use K for kelvin? Is that range equivalent to: 2.7 – 8.1 F/ doubling?
Want to try again? What evidence are you using to rule out zero? Zero is self evident on Mars where the 95% CO2 atmosphere traps no heat, can you describe why CO2 behaves differently in Earth’s atmosphere?
Best knowledge!
ROFL.
1.5-4.5°K (or °C, most people are more familiar with that) per doubling is close to zero. So far, all indications are closer to the low end of that range. Humans have not caused a doubling yet (not even half way there yet), and the chances of a second doubling are almost zero. I do not believe that a few measly degrees of warming will be catastrophic.
Jeff, to believe that the climate sensitivity is closer to the lower end, also requires that you believe that all of the warming over the last 150 years is due to CO2.
A more realistic sensitivity is closer to 0.2C – 0.5C.
I agree with what you write about the probability of a second doubling of CO2.
To believe in the high end, you not only have to believe that all of the warming of the last 150 years is due to CO2, but that there are massive positive feedbacks that have remained inactive over the last 150 years, but are about to leap to life to supercharge the impact of CO2.
Good point Mark regarding the human caused portion of recorded warming.
If CO2 ever gets to the range of 1100PPM (that would be the second doubling we discussed) it won’t be because of humans.
Initial calculations performed decades ago came up with a climate sensivity for CO2 not including feedback effects of 1.2 degrees C which is close to your 1.5 degrees C. One researcher has noted that these calculations ignore the fact that a doubling of the amount of CO2 in the troposphere will cause a slight lowering of the dry lapse rate in the troposphere. This is a cooling effect and lowers the climate sensivity of CO2 by more than a factor of 20. So rather than 1.2 degrees C we have less than .06 degrees C
According to the AGW conjecture, H2O acts to amplify the effects of CO2 by providing a positive feedback. CO2 warming causes more H2O to enter the atmosphere and since H2O is also a greenhouse gas with LWIR absorption bands, more H2O causes more warming. An amplification factor of roughly 3. is often assumed. However: what the AGW conjecture ignore’s is that besides being the primary greenhouse gas, H2O is a primary coolant in the Earth’s atmosphere moving heat energy from the Earth’s surface which is mostly some form of H2O to where clouds form via the heat of vaporization. The net cooling effect of H2O is evidenced by the fact that the wet lapse rate is significantly less than the dry lapse rate So rather than assume an amplification factor of 3 for H2O, a more realistic amplification factor would be 1/3 yielding a climate sensivity for CO2 of less than .02 degrees C which is totally insignificant.
The above calculations assume that the radaint greenhouse effect caused by trace gases in the Earth’s atmosphere exists. A real greenhouse does not stay warm because of such a greenhouse effect. A real greenhouse stays warm because the glass limits cooling by convection. So it is a convective greenhouse effect and not a radiant greenhouse efect that keeps a real greenhouse warm. So too on Earth. Gravity and the heat capacity of the atmosphere act together to provide a convective greenhouse effect that on average keeps the surface of the Earth 33 degrees C warmer than it would otherwise be. 33 degrees C is the number derived from first principals and 33 degrees C is what has been measured. Additional warming caused by a radiant greenhouse effect has not been observed. In fact, a radiant greenhouse effect caused by gasses with LWIR absorption bands has not been observed anywhere in the solar system. Without the existance of a radiant greenhouse effect, the climate sensivity of CO2 must be 0.0..
AGW is a conjecture based on only partial sceince. The AGW conjecture depends upon the existance of a radiant greenhouse effect that has not been observed anywhere in the solar system. The radiant greenhouse effect is science fiction. Hence the AGW conjecture is sceince fiction.
LOL, I’ll take CC seriously when people start fleeing from urban heated cities due to being too hot. Currently people flock to cities, so ROFLMAO is the appropriate response … as long as I’m not being taxed to pay for this self-indulgent bilge.
Edmonton is so hot…
I notice they didn’t have it in January. I lived there years ago. -35C was not uncommon in winter.
-21C this morning in Edmonton.
This has been one of the coldest winters on record in Calgary, (near Edmonton, so probably Edmonton too) and THE snowiest winter on record. I would love some global warming about now. I am sick and tired of the cold we have been having. This morning at 9AM, -19°C. WTF this is March! The so called ‘normal’ for today is +2°C.
Jeff in Calgary at 8:50 wrote: “The so called ‘normal’ …”
Actually ‘a Normal” or “climate normal” is defined as a 30 year mean where the beginning year ends with a ‘1’ and the last year ends with ‘0’ (zero). For example: 1981–2010 [ LINK ]
Instead of “Normal” they could have used: What the middle aged adult remembers of experienced weather.
It just seem better to use a short word. They used “Normal” and defined it to mean the italic version just above.
(Also, this was set up in the mid-1930s — before the use of digital computers.)
Wouldn’t it be more helpful to all the cities if 800 “delegates” plus staff stayed home and participated by teleconference? Obviously not Edmonton, who will profit from this tourism, but it would be better for the residents of the other cities, who are the ones stuck with the bill. And if they are really all so concerned for the environment, having a convention is the last thing they should be doing. All the CO2?
Oh well. I suppose turning down an all expenses paid fancy vacation is hard.
And the delusion that man can affect climate plods on.
To what destination?
I’m all for looking after the environment: I have 8 grandchildren, but I look on with dismay at the dishonest dross pushed out by our mainstream media & the pointless posturing of our poxy politicians.
John Doran.
@jd, “And the delusion that man can affect climate plods on.”
Wake me up tomorrow and prove that the area I live in, the country I live in, the planet I live on, and the universe I exist in has not changed…….then, and only then, will I become an alarmist…_
Precisely. Man, Earth, Sun, Galaxy, Universe, all evolve & change.
The con that man-made CO2 can change climate is second only to the con that is money made out of thin air, as debt, to enslave people to the Banksters.
Best,
JD.
JD
That is ‘Banksters’ to rhyme – and be cognate with – ‘Gangsters’.
Auto
This would be a perfect venue for the Makenzie Brothers to appear and provide the entertainment. Got the back bacon on the Coleman, hoser, it’s a beauty way to go. Picking up garbage is going to help fight global warming? Might even help the cities image!
Such fine words/intentions..
They are stepping-on-the-gas into a headlong collision with Jevon’s Paradox.
All these things will do is to increase the consumption of ‘stuff’ and resource.
Nobody in their right mind will suggest that there is an infinite amount of ‘stuff’ out there to be consumed.
Coming over ‘all philosophical’ and that, when it all boils down, is that the reason every previous attempt at civilisation has failed?
Is that our Achilles Heel? Is that what civilisations ‘do’ and simply cannot stop themselves?
How many times has it happened before and how many times has Climate Change been blamed. Make it easy, how many times has Climate Change NOT been blamed?
How does The End manifest you wonder – what does the monster coming over the hill actually look like?
There is somewhere in the UN, a really dire prediction that all the world’s dirt will be gone inside 60 years.
A bit steep I think.
My calculation assumes farmers are using dirt at 1 inch per decade.
Dirt naturally develops down to 2 feet deep (as far as oxygen penetrates) – hence there is a 240 year supply
The use of dirt started in earnest during WW2 – call that 1950 – plus 240 years means we’ll have run out of dirt in year 2200
Some other folks are on the case.. http://www.farmlandinfo.org/soil-loss-erosion
But people in cities know nothing about dirt – a lovely positively fedback system if ever there was
“Is that our Achilles Heel? Is that what civilisations ‘do’ and simply cannot stop themselves? How many times has it happened before and how many times has Climate Change been blamed.”
—
Well, none at all actually. Maybe it’s judt a product of your imagination?
Those words are neither fine, nor are their intentions honorable or honest.
Running empty buses to maintain promised schedules is always inefficient. Changing to ultra expensive technology will not increase the efficiency. Especially if buses have to spend substantial portions of their days, charging.
“Public transportation” is a classic empty political promise…
If public transportation was feasible, any city would already have public transportation (see above, about buses).
“Energy efficient buildings”, another empty political promise. An especially hollow promise for a politician in Canada, given that Canada’s weather has people insisting on “energy efficient buildings” for decades.
Nor does this loser of a politician explain how expensive increasing regulatory burdens forcing city residents ito remodel, reconstruct, or build new replacement buildings to meet new city regulations.
“Reducing garbage”; well there is an ideal accomplishment for the city to pursue.
First: remove the piece of garbage spouting empty promises.
If they aren’t bright enough to accomplish that; then they can request explicit suggestions on how to ‘reduce’ garbage?
Less food?
Less packaging?
Incinerators in every yard?
“Cities will play an integral role in curbing climate change in the coming years”
They already have not one, but TWO dedicated organisations of their own to push the AGW meme:
http://www.iclei.org/
https://www.globalcovenantofmayors.org/
It is so interesting that there is really only 1 factor that could make our future unsustainable. That is somewhere in the far future we could overpopulate the planet. I havent done the numbers but there is a finite limit to how many people the earth could support. However the above organizations do not have that as part of their agenda. Only China has implemented a one child policy and they are getting rid of that because it turned out to be a disaster cause most families wanted boys so they aborted the girls. however as families grow wealthier in a developed country they tend to have less children so I hope that is the mitigating factor. With all other factors, the future will be sustainable (as long as we control pollution). Thus these sustainable organizations are founded on a false premise. THEY SHOULD NOT EXIST AND ARE A WASTE OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS.
The number of people that the earth can support is a number that is 100% dependent on the level of technology being used to support them.
The carrying capacity of resources is logarithmically relative to the ingenuity of the people that possess said resources.
Actually it’s geometrically related to the number of people available.
I just hope Trump has ensured that we Americans are no longer paying for these hypocritical boondoggles.
What has Canada to lose from a degree or two of warmth? That it might be as warm as Minnesota?
Exactly, MN is experiencing a long and cold winter. I guess they are running out of CO2.
I live about 5 hours north of Bismarck ND. A 2C temperature increase would make our climate about the same as Bismarck. Wow- the banana-belt! guess I’ll have to plant the wheat varieties they use, and sell my seed to friends a couple of hours further north. A true hardship.
Edmonton and Calgary have long competed to see which city has the worst civic government. Calgary was clearly winning under Mayor Bronco, but now Mayor Nenshi and Mayor Iveson of Edmonton are running neck-in-neck, tied for last place.
Both cities have lost their way in terms of intellect and integrity, and their civic governments act as though their entire purpose is to extort the maximum amount in taxes to pay for bloated city salaries and services,
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/calgary%E2%80%99s-property-tax-increases
I participated in a small meeting with Mayor Nenshi and he is one of the most vain and childish (alleged) adults on the planet. On second thought, Calgary wins – Mayor Iveson cannot be such a spoiled brat.
Prosaic urban heat island effect’s overprinting of mere prosaic natural variability of weather cycled = the myth of human-induced climate-change.
Beyond that a dog chasing its own tail would be more convincing than this dismal myth of AGW.
There’s something humorous about cities in Canada worrying about having weather that is a degree or 2 warmer. Are they afraid their winters will start looking like those in North Dakota?. These people should welcome warming. Too bad for them it is so exaggerated.
The people who live in the cities aren’t worried about warmer winters. Only the idiots who run the cities.
2 C warming is too much for the Mayor. Minus 20 C winters in Alberta are perfect.
“I can calculate the motions of heavenly bodies but not the madness of men.” – Isaac Newton
+1
Another +1. That’s impressive…
Well, that isn’t in Edmonton, looks like maybe Rogers Pass along the main rout from Alberta to Vancouver’s ports. It is a very important line that links us to the world markets.
PS, that isn’t unusual amounts of snow. That is normal in that area all the way into April.
It is also in a snow chute or avalanche path. That snow is not just the accumulation of fallen snow. Note the surface texture and the absence of trees, while just behind is grove of trees clearly in between regular avalanche paths.
The surface texture is the result of the snow being plowed off of the tracks and blown to the sides.
Notice the surface of the visible wall, smooth half way up, then it becomes jumbled.
As of 8:00AM today, the temperature in Edmonton is -20°C / -4°F. Global warming is real, I tellz ya!
“Council called the special meeting to get ready for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s three-day Cities and Climate Change Science Conference beginning March 5, when about 800 delegates from around the world are expected to attend.”
Another knees-up on March 5th you say? Wonder what’s special they’re commemorating that day? The deaths of Hugo Chavez in 2013, Uncle Joe Stalin in 1953 or
‘1616 Nicolaus Copernicus’ revolutionary book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium is banned by the Catholic Church
In the book, Copernicus claimed that the Earth revolves around the sun. The Church maintained Ptolemy’s geocentric system. The book is considered a milestone in the history of astronomy.’
Hmmm..can you tick more than one box with these multiple choice answers?
Why not hold the conference outdoors to connect with nature and the human caused catastrophe?
“Electric buses, public transportation, energy efficient buildings and reducing garbage are some of the initiatives that will drive change, councillors heard.”
Oh, look. It turns out that all the things the left want to do anyway are essential for solving Climate Change.
Who could have guessed?
Edmonton is very good at reducing garbage. They have been for 20+ years. But Electric buses? They used to use electric buses, but moved away from them. The fact is that Edmonton’s electricity is generated by coal and natural gas. So electric buses just means moving CO2 generation out of the city into the country side. That might help the farmers…
Edmonton city council is full of left wing loons and crackpots. The latest insanity that they were floating just a couple of days ago was to get rid 55% of private vehicles, and force those people to either use the cities transit system, ride bicycles or walk. I’ve been boycotting their puzzle palace of a city for several years now.
The green jet at the top has its wing-edges going thru its engines…..
And, that big green jet on the top of the page has a impossibly inverted (convex-concave) radar dish on its nose.
Also coming to Edmonton (altho no mention of Government support):
http://nationalpost.com/news/local-news/flat-earthers-from-around-the-globe-coming-to-edmonton-for-international-conference/wcm/ce86a941-c9cb-4548-963b-936c931095dc
Eric, you said “The proliferation of increasingly pointless taxpayer funded climate conferences is showing no signs of slowing.” , buttttt ‘modelled taxpayer funded climate conferences’ is showing a definite acceleration in taxpayer funded climate conferences based on CO2 exhalation sciencey statistics.
Edmonton, poster child of climate catastrophe: https://www.yourenvironment.ca/climate/alberta/edmonton.
Perhaps the Edmonton Oilers hockey team could use the Edmonton city council members for a bit of slap shot practice?
Edmonton Oilers? Should they not make a start by renaming the hockey team?
No. The Oilers hockey team should take turns re-educating the city council, using the traditional open ice ‘check’ that leaves their opponent prone on the ice wondering ‘What happened???’.
Catastrophic warming would be a boon to Canada, opening up millions of acres of fertile land to farming and making untold regions that are currently uninhabitable. Canada would become the US, and the US would become Mexico.
It sure is very Canadian of them to spend money to make it less likely to happen.
Before the US could become like Mexico, we would first need to import a lot of Mexicans. Oh wait …
This is one of the reasons I am happy to have left Edmonton 20 years ago. Back then it was unions and safety nuts. Now it is greenies. They keep electing these nutjobs.
Edmonton is one of the coldest, most Northern major cities is the world. Yet they are happy to [waste] their citizens’ money trying to prevent warming? The entire 1.4 million people there (0.02% of the worlds population), if they reduced their carbon emissions to 0, would have NO effect on the total global carbon emissions. And in Alberta, there is no way to significantly reduce our CO2 emissions anyway. LED bulbs and other efficiency improvements can have a small effect, but the big ones like hydro power generation or nuclear are not available. Hydro because of our geography; well nuclear could be used, but so far Albertans have shunned it. At our latitude, solar is a hopeless waist of time. Wind works OK in a small portion of the province near the US boarder, but will never be a major contributor to our power grid. The fact is, coal and natural gas will always be the main eclectic and heating energy sources (and EVs will have to use that electricity).
So they are spending millions of dollars in a hopeless attempt to make their (ridiculously) cold city even colder. One of the stupidest things you can imagine. And really, this applies to the entire country of Canada. The 2nd coldest country in the world is trying to prevent warming? Imagine how much more forest and farmland we could support with even a measly 2°C of warming.
Edmonton City council has no interest in CO2 or climate per se. They have a keen interest in virtue signalling in exactly the same way they have dealt with the land fill crisis of the 80s. A crisis is declared, they go through all of the think tank, symposia, focus group steps to give them the political grounds to raise taxes and fees, something Edmonton has never been shy about.
A few years ago there was a gathering which required a fairly significant amount of volunteer time and as broad a profile of citizens as they could manage. And some surveyor had the good fortune to locate ME! An actual living ,breathing climate skeptic!
” Do you agree that the climate is changing, but the human influence is insignificant? ”
Ok, I’ll play along. I’ll volunteer 12 evenings to sit and talk about what to do about climate change. Then I receive the materials… The first paragraph in the intro states something like, ” Human induced climate change has been shown to be a problem, and we are gathering to find steps toward a solution, yada yada yada.”
They were REALLY un-happy that I could not participate under this premise….. sigh.
They also refused to acknowledge that a skeptic might not want to play along.
As I mentioned, they pulled the same crap about landfill in the 80s. Edmontonians now pay more for garbage removal and waste treatment than any other North American City.
For the last 20 years or so, Edmonton city council has been significanly more progressive than the good citizens they claim to represent. As such, they have consistantly exceeded their mandate, and caused considerable damage through progressive fiats that always result in taxes and fees climbing beyond the means of many Edmontonians to pay.
Edmonton has quite a number of “Green” initiatives underway, right now. A vast expansion of light rail which will jam traffic like never before. Infill housing projects to vastly increase population density, and my personal beef, the closure of the city center airport, to make way for a green development which may never see completion,( and some of the hands in the pie are not so clean. )
So, we pander to the greens and and the good citizens pay, pay pay.
Here’s a thought: Stop organizing climate conferences that require fossil-fuel based transportation to get to the conference site as well as associated increased travel during the conference that requires more shuttling of people who do not drive their own cars. Stop using time and resources for conferencing, and start spending this time and resources on something immediately useful. Maybe I need to organize a conference on how to to THAT.
And if you are going to have those conferences, perhaps you need to re-think the logic of holding them in remote places, in the middle of a cold winter.
This from the mayor of Edmonton who just presided over the multi $$ billion dollar completion of the Anthony Henday Ring Road 6-8 lane Freeway around the city. Or is just in the works of getting approval for the billion dollar upgrade of the old Yellowhead Trail into a major Freeway through the middle of the city. Don’t get me wrong, this was and is great investment in infrastructure for Edmonton. Especially by a city who is the gateway to some of the largest oil reserves on the planet. But this is just free green advertising for the mayor and council for the dedicated hard core enviro’s who vote in Edmonton.
Edmonton has alway had a bit of a yellow civic city council, probably because historically Alberta, the Province, has been so Conservative. I suspect this is the same old tired signal virtue politics we see everywhere where it costs nothing to spout all this nonsense about somehow saving the planet from a fatal fever by cleaning up the city and promoting some public transportation. Which won’t really work well in a city the geographic size of Edmonton…Or worse Calgary, whose city has the highest land size per capita of any city in North America. You would be half a day taking the bus across Calgary.
I suspect this is more about 800 people showing up with cash in hand to attend the conference at the newish Shaw Convention Centre, and all the hotel rooms and restaurant business this will generate. A 3-4 day convention like this is worth millions to the city, so hard to fault them for accepting the business. Hopefully they get some common sense stuff approved like better traffic flow computer software. That would be a great start in reducing traffic congestion in a large city, and actually do something about all those idling vehicles stuck in traffic. That would actually be a huge success if they could actually get something like that done, and prove that better traffic flow could be done in every other large city on the planet saving countless hours wasted in traffic as well as wasted precious fossil fuels getting no where fast.
As usual with the CBC, comments are restricted on the story… Says it all.
It really is a special kind of stupid permeating Canadian politics these days.
It is -10C here right now. It looks like the temperatures will be 5 to 7 degrees below average through the conference. Why not turn the heat inside the building down to 5C and conserve energy? I bet the temperature is kept toasty warm for all the southern folks who come from warm climates.
You get this in the US, the UK, Australia and Canada.
The idea is twofold. That what people do locally can lower the nation’s emissions, and that what these nations do unilaterally can lower world emissions.
Both are false. The bulk of our per capita emissions are overhead. They are from things that we as individuals or cities cannot change. There is no such thing as a low emission city. Its part of a country, with malls, freeways, industry, armed forces… These can be changed by central government, but cities cannot have any real effect.
Then there is the problem that the countries themselves are doing very low percentages of world emissions. The UK for instance is well under 2%. The US is only doing about 14%. Canada, don’t know, but its going to be tiny. So these initiatives end up making tiny reductions if any in tiny proportions of global emissions.
And yet people claim this is in some way doing something about global emissions? Its mad.
The question to ask these guys is, have you invited Beijing and Shanghai and Mumbai to your conference? And if not, why not?
The result will be an embarrassed silence. Because it challenges the false narrative that this is all about the West making reductions. Same narrative as in Paris.
The question you have to ask the Green movement is simple: why do you continually advocate doing at great expense things which will make no difference to the supposed problem?
Inquiring minds really want to know. They suspect it cannot be because the Green movement is very concerned about the problem and looking for the best ways for the world to fix it.
More than anything else, what cities can do is undertake measurements in their vicinity to determine the extent and degree of their urban heat islands. Since, outside the U.S., the great majority of long-operating met stations are located in urban areas, their historical temperature records usually provide a highly biased, non-climatic depiction of long-term temperature changes. UHI-induced changes are then blithely projected to the countryside through “homogenization,” thereby corrupting estimates of global surface temperatures.
It is only by incisive comparison with (often non-existing) temperature records from the undeveloped countryside that reliable, site-specicfic compensations for UHI effects can be made. The usual practice of ignoring the essential problem, or of rationalizing it away via superficial global statistical arguments, merely perpetuates an illusory view of physical reality.
So they are all going to use fossil fuel to get to Edmonton to figure out how to not use fossil fuel while pretending to be able to control the climate . Forget all those natural variables that have been driving the climate for Billions of years LED bulbs will ensure a cool climate . Come on … Albertans aren’t you tired of this complete BS by now ?
Yes, Albertans are tired of this BS. But let’s talk about Vancouver, BC where they are planning on outlawing all Natural Gas utilized for home heating, water heating and even the kitchen range stove top for cooking. This has all the restaurant Chef’s outraged, obviously. So His Worship, Mayor Gregor Robertson and some of his city council states that ‘green’ gas from landfills will be allowed for cooking and perhaps even gas fireplaces.
But no ‘carbon’ based natural gas. If they tried this in Edmonton where -40 is the same in Fahrenheit as it is in Celsius, there would be heads rolling. The stupidity on the West coast of Kanada is well, just like Kalifornia, but on steroids. Never, ever, allow a leftist marxist or even a progressive liberal to run a city, as it will soon be taxed to death and mismanaged beyond belief.
As always MUNDUS VULT DECIPI…
There’s a lot of wishful thinking here if anyone believes there will be any rapid shift in Canadian cities toward electric buses, increased rapid transit, energy efficient buildings, and major garbage reduction, or Green initiatives in general. Most of that country is plagued by long, cold winters that often begin by mid-November and last well into March, so energy demand is quite intense for four months of the year. As a result, few Canadians are going to be willing to depend on alternates like wind and solar, which are best described as intermittent power sources. They expect easy and inexpensive access to light and heat in extreme conditions and aren’t particularly concerned about climate change when they experience two weeks at a time of below normal temperatures during those four months. That light and heat has been provided best by hydro power and natural gas and this scenario is likely to continue for well into the future.
I am very impressed with those 800 delegates enduring all the hardships of travelling by sailing ship, horseback or on foot and sacrificing so much time, just to get to this conference so they can inspire us to live the way they do.
It gets worse.
An Edmonton paper interviewed Katherine Hayhoe.
Then it gets even worse. Bill Nye is interviewed with Justin Trudeau.
And if it cannot get worse.barbie shows up in Edmonton.
And why would Edmonton be “replacing LED street lights”? And what would they be replacing them with?