Essay by Eric Worrall
According to Windsor Star reporter Nicholas Read, people struggling to house and feed themselves should remember to give some attention to climate change.
Guest column: Improved housing, affordability require habitable planet
Opinion: Caring and doing something about climate change are no longer options for anyone — even to people who legitimately have so much else to worry about.
Published Jan 19, 2024
By: Nicholas ReadWhen pollsters ask the public what their top political priorities are, respondents rarely mention what is unquestionably the most pressing priority of the day: climate change.
…
A Leger poll from late last year showed that the issues concerning Canadians most are inflation (33 per cent chose this as the top issue), housing (16 per cent), and rising interest rates (eight per cent).
…
But what these voters fail to take into account is that without a habitable planet, improved housing and affordability are moot because they both depend on a healthy world. In the same poll, seven per cent of those surveyed listed climate change as the top issue facing the country.
This failure to connect the dots is infuriating, but also understandable. Put simply, if you’re worried about how to feed your family for the rest of the week, the plight of the polar bear isn’t something you are going to lose sleep over.
…
Maybe the truth is just too scary to face. In which case we’re in even more more trouble than I realized.
Read more: https://windsorstar.com/opinion/letters/guest-column-improved-housing-affordability-require-habitable-planet
The author claims Quebec is the exception, that people in Quebec care about climate change even when they are in financial trouble. Is this true?
Otherwise I believe what we are seeing once again is the self limiting nature of climate action. Climate concern is a luxury for the financially comfortable. As soon as climate policies stuff up the economy, people focus on real issues.
The author also suggests people might be ignoring climate change because “the truth is too scary to face”. But given more than 30 years of consistently wrong alarmist climate predictions, I think most people are facing up to the truth just fine.
______________________________________________________________
What a lot of people aren’t facing up to is the politics behind the climate scare.
Yes that is the key to understanding the paradox. Why would Quebeckers worry ‘in a warming world’?
They are professing their allegiance to socialist politics which requires handwringing about global boiling. If called on the irrationality of it sufficiently, no doubt most would recognize the opportunity to virtue signal. Why of course it might be better for me personally, but I am in solidarity with the Maldiveans whose island homes will soon sink below the waves, and of course the polar bears!
The only existential threat of “Climate Change” are it’s “solutions”.
And those blindest to the threat of the solutions are the ones who are petrified of climate change. They aren’t very bright in their problem solving skills.
Methinks he does not know the meaning of that word.
The way he means it is probably along the lines of “things you aren’t allowed to question… whether true or not”.
Unquestionably means don’t question it! Perhaps a Freudian slip?
“unquestionably“?
I think he meant “unquestionable … or else”.
97% would agree I’m right!
(Or is that “left”? What’s “The Cause” again?)
“respondents rarely mention what is unquestionably the most pressing priority of the day: climate change.”
As soon as I read that, the little voice in the back of my head said, “this guy’s an idiot.” Clearly no need to read any further.
In Canada.????
A country where some 90% live within 100km of the USA border because everywhere else to just TOO DARN COLD.
3,4,5 or more degrees of warming would be an absolute blessing !!
These fools are totally delusional. !!
That’s the biggest absurdity – the further north the nation, the more their leftist politicians worry about climate change.
Part of it is a testament to how comfortable those countries are- they can afford to concern themselves with climate change because they have little else to be concerned about. Well, except Russia. The Russians don’t care about climate change, but more and more everyone else is starting to worry about them.
The Russians spend most of the year freezing- they’re praying for lots of global warming.
I’m a Canadian living in close proximity to Toronto, a mere 3 hour drive from Windsor. I defy any of my fellow citizens to show the effects of Climate Change in our geographic are.
No forest fires, no hurricanes, no heat waves, no sea level rise, -11C today with plenty of snow. How anyone here would be concerned about climate change is dilussional!
This article makes me wonder about the sanity of some climate alarmists. Here in Scotland, we currently have a government that thinks that Scotland is too warm.
Same for New England. Gov. Healey of Wokeachusetts insists it’s an emergency. I need to run my furnace 9 months each year. It was 5F last night.
It would be nice to impose some sort of experiment on the comfortable climate alarmists. Progressively deprive them of more and more income until they too are burning down any savings and spending many nights anxiously worrying about how to maintain a first world lifestyle. Keep depriving more and more, charting their desperation and anxiety levels, testing their religious faith in the WEF priests dire concern that the laity observe Climate Change’s asceticist rituals and practices.
The first step of the experiment would look like:
If I craft a grant proposal properly, do you think I can weasel a few million from the loose pocketed government to test this hypothessis?
AWG
“If I craft a grant proposal properly, do you think I can weasel a few million from the loose pocketed government to test this hypothesis?”
My guess is that – with Western Gubbmints hosing cash [borrowed cash] across the landscape – the answer is ‘Yes’.
So many ‘accdemicks’ – so little learning.
And ‘Science … ??
In the UK we now have 166 ‘Universities’.
Some are certainly not former typing schools and bicycle repair colleges.
But all have Vice Chancellors, and perfessers and up-wardly mobile Diversity, Incusion and Equity [DIE] staff to support.
Go for it.
And, if you do get a pot full of gold, divert a few bob to the IPCC’s numeracy charities, if you can.
Auto
They are worried for the Eskimos- who might be unhappy if the temperature goes up a couple of degrees.
Tsk tsk Joseph! You live in Wokeachusetts and don’t know that Esk*mo is a racist colonizer word?
I’m going to have to report this to Maura and zir team.
Now please read this npr article as your penance. And for Gaia’s sake, try to do better!
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/04/24/475129558/why-you-probably-shouldnt-say-eskimo
And you better read this one too
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/20/business/dreyers-eskimo-pie-name-change.html
I apologize to all the …. uh… er.. Inuits who read this site. I’ll no longer use the “E” word.
The first link does say –
“But unless you’re native to the circumpolar region, the short answer is: You probably shouldn’t use the word Eskimo.”
And, Shirley, Wokeachussets is part [a small if noisy part] of the Wider Circumpolar Region … so, you’re probably OK!
Auto
At -12°C currently in Windsor, Ontario, the homeless probably could do with about 20° or 30° of “global heating”
“… 100km of the USA border” – – – An interesting geographic concept
It is nearly 340 miles from Edmonton, AB to the Montana (U.S.) border. In a north-south sense, it is another 340 miles south to Toronto. In early settlement times the area close to Lake Ontario, upstream from Montreal along the St. Lawrence River and along the Ottawa River, was called “Upper Canada“. There is a web page.
I live in central Washington State and to visit, say Cleveland, Ohio on the north shore of the USA, I go 400 miles south.
Yes, the Lower Canada (Québec) vs. Upper Canada (Ontario) distinction was an elevation or upstream-downstream thing, not a north-south question.
It’s almost a fact, nearly 80% of Canadians live within 100 miles, not kilometres, of the US border, there are many reasons for this all you have to do is look it up, https://brilliantmaps.com/half-canada/,
““Seventy-five percent of Canada’s population resides in a narrow 150-kilometre band pushing up against the U.S., with close ties south of the line. We are a border people. The border is our livelihood. The border is our identity.”Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
This particular quote is old and recent immigration changes may have altered the number. It will go up not down as most immigrants live in the major cities close to the border.
And other countries expect Canada to pay for cc damages. If I were in Canada I would tell them to pay ME for the cost of going to net zero. They are the theoretical beneficiaries. A warmer world would be a more productive world.
Of course you know this but climate reparations are just the pretense for wealth redistribution. Canadians are wealthy so they gotta pay.
‘This failure to connect the dots is infuriating’.
To a towering intellect like Nick Reed, of course. How much more arrogant or smug can it get?
“”people struggling to house and feed themselves””
Can always fall back on MAID
””Poor and disabled people are being encouraged to choose death instead of ‘burdening’ the state.””
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/01/15/canada-has-revealed-the-horror-of-assisted-dying/
Time to bring the program to the US. Start with all the leftists crying about the need to stop using FF. Since they, by nature, are ssoooo compassionate, knock them off and give everything they own to the homeless and drug addicted.
Start with Algore and his family, then to John Hines (Kerry), Bill Gates, Zuckerberg and on and on.
Funny, I can’t see any of the New York socialists going for that.
Maybe Canadians though. They’d be like “So sorey, eh? I’m like a burden, eh? I’m here aboot taking that jab now. If it’s not too inconvenient, eh? Or I can wait.”
Only one Canadian pronounces about aboot and he’s a Youtuber trying for clicks
Right. Everybody jokes about Canadians saying aboot or aboat because of one Youtuber. That makes sense. My mistake, eh?
Did you mean this “guy”?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ecoGoCwr2Rk
What an inordinately bizarre comment. The more so since not one serious forecast of a consequence of ‘climate change’ has ever materialised, few scientists are now able to get funding for research and publication unless they toe the line, the entire concept of net zero has been shown to be based on manipulated science (see link) and now we see regular falsification of temperature data to turn a falling trend into a rising one even on the basis that past temperatures were wrongly measured – oddly all ‘needed corrections’ being less in in the past and more nearer today so the resulting graph shows a rise. When will this fraud stop?
https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Challenging-Net-Zero-with-Science-digital-CO2-Coalition.pdf
There seems to be a definite correlation between scientists’ alarmism and grant money.
“When pollsters ask the public what their top political priorities are, respondents rarely mention what is unquestionably the most pressing priority of the day: climate change.”
When the people in the cold wintery North US are concerned about “climate change,” they move to Florida or Texas where Winters are warm and sunny. Businesses have been moving south for decades.
Yeah, they want a better business climate, where they won’t be taxed and regulated up to their ears.
Eric, I thought this phrase needed a little adjustment…
“Climate concern virtue signaling is a luxury for the financially comfortable”.
After seeing the amount of CO2 poured out because of Davos…
That’s great. I’ll print and pass this out at our town’s homeless shelters. They’ll more appreciate the sacrifice they’re making for the planet.
As for myself, I stopped caring about the climate after the predicted imminent ice ace killed me in the early ’80s.
People only started caring about the environment after the masses climbed high enough up the Maslow curve. Intentionally pushing the masses back down again will be devastating to the environment, far beyond CO2 emissions.
The author claims Quebec is the exception, that people in Quebec care about climate change even when they are in financial trouble. Is this true?
Well you simply borrow your way to Green Prosperity don’t you?
Labour MP ensures party will remain committed to green prosperity plan | Watch (msn.com)
If every country borrowed off each other then they’d all be green prosperous. Simples really.
https://www.sott.net/article/487981-Quebec-man-pleads-guilty-to-setting-14-forest-fires-burning-hundreds-of-hectares
Will a story like this recent one change the minds of Quebecois?
“…the plight of the polar bear isn’t something you are going to lose sleep over.” [Nicholas Read]
Poor Nicholas, bless his little heart, watched Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” movie of 2006 and hasn’t learned anything in 18 years.
I grew up in Michigan’s UP on the South Shore of Lake Superior. A cold winter meant Lake Superior completely froze over…anything less was considered a gift.
Climate was a major reason we left Quebec as soon as we could. Just consider getting 3 kids to school/daycare at -20 with a brisk wind before work every day.
Meeting the needs for immediate survival are higher priorities than meeting the needs for long-term survival. That’s a surprise? Being concerned about climate change is only possible after all needs are met. It is a luxury many cannot afford. And that’s true whether the fear is of natural or manmade climate change.
Nicholas Read is showing how far removed he is from Canadians’ real priorities. As in most of the world, polls of citizens on climate change show it ranks at or near the bottom of their concerns. In Canada, surveys consistently show people feel that it’s the responsibility of governments, businesses and industry to deal with as problem that they created; and when it comes to higher taxes and prices to take such action, consumers feel they’re being taxed enough already and are increasingly intolerant of new levies. As well, when they hear that the major emitters are doing little to cut emissions and that fossil fuel consumption continues to rise worldwide, they feel it’s up to them to take the action, not those in Canada which is responsible for only 1.6% of the total.
I have no respect for Read. Whether the earth is hot, cold or something in between people need shelter, water and food. More importantly they need to be able to afford it. There is absolutely no reason to sacrifice any of these for a make believe cult. He needs a trip to the woodshed and he should have to go cut the switch.
Globalists to the proletariat, “when we want your opinion, we’ll give it to you. Now be good little slaves, stay home and eat your bugs. There is only enough filet mignon, caviar, and champagne for those of us who know better”.