Conservative MP Sides with Climate Liars

Wondering why the Harper government seems to be dragging its heels on doing anything about climate change? I've argued that it's because the party is teeming with closet climate change deniers.

Well, one Conservative MP has stepped proudly out of the closet. In a letter to La Presse, Maxime Bernier applauded Harper's go-slow approach to climate change because the science, he says, is not decided.

So we've got Gary Goodyear questioning evolution and Bernier questioning climate change. Is anyone in the Conservative party even passingly familiar with science?

Climate Cover-up Author at Selam Tonight

Richard Littlemore, one of the authors of Climate Cover-Up will be speaking tonight at Selam Restaurant (2115 Broad St). His talk runs from 7 to 9pm and the event is free.

This should be a nice palate cleanser after last year's assault of the climate crack-pots courtesy the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Littlemore is an environmental journalist who's worked at newspapers such as the Ottawa Citizen and the Winnipeg Tribune. He's also one of the minds behind DeSmog Blog, an invaluable resource for anyone interested in finding out about the climate change denial industry and its efforts to obstruct the work of legitimate scientists.

For our climate change feature, we interviewed Littlemore's Climate Cover-Up co-author, James Hoggan. You can read the complete transcript of that interview here.

More Copenhagen-Inspired Pranksterism

The Oswald/Harper photo cited in this CBC report is undoubtedly in poor taste, but equally undoubtedly there are plenty of Canadians who wish Stephen Harper and his government weren't representing Canada at the climate summit in Copenhagen. Some of the other photos that people entered in the contest, like the one pictured above, are pretty funny too.

Not a Hoax: Cons Pondering Weaker Emission Targets for Tarsands

The CBC has come into possession of documents suggesting the Harper government is looking for ways to weaken the already lax greenhouse gas emission targets that the oil and gas sector is subjected to.

Geez, guys. Think maybe you're the punching bag of the COP15 Conference because you deserve to be?

More Coming from Climate Pranksters

Here is Margaret Matembe from the Ugandan delegation responding earlier today to the announcement that Canada would be bringing forward aggressive, new carbon emission targets.

Uganda Responds
Uploaded by cop15dk. - Up-to-the minute news videos.

As we noted before, that Canadian press release was a hoax.

So is this press conference with the Ugandan delegation.

There was also a hoaxed article from a hoaxed Wall Street Journal website, hoaxed articles on other hoax media websites, and a press release from the Canadian government denouncing the first press release as a hoax that was itself a hoax.

It's a twisty knot of hoaxery. Here's the Globe and Mail to sort it all out.

It's looking like the Yes Men are behind all these hi-jinx and they're promising more for tomorrow at 13:00, Copenhagen time.

It's been a bad day for Jim Prentice. Here's hoping tomorrow will be worse.

Americans Don't Want to be Seen Shaking Hands with Canadians

The Toronto Star is reporting that environment minister, Jim Prentice, was stood up at planned photo op with US environment secretary, Steven Chu. (Planned by Prentice's people but never approved by Chu's.)

Apparently, Prentice's people were trying to change the fake press release story by having a few chummy shots taken with his opposite number from south of the border. Chu, however, will only meet with Prentice and his people behind closed doors. He has no interest in being seen shaking the man's hand.

Remember when America was the bad guy of the globe and a Canada pin worn overseas could score you free beer?

Times are changing.

Prank Shames Environment Minister

Earlier today, news came from Jim Prentice's Twitter account that the environment minister would be announcing bold, new emissions reduction targets. A press release was up on an Environment Canada website and a Wall Street Journal website confirmed the story.

The announcement was reported in many international news outlets.

Problem: it wasn't Jim Prentice's Twitter account. And, it wasn't a real Environment Canada website and it wasn't a real Wall Street Journal website. The announcement, the targets, all of it, were a hoax forcing minister Prentice's office to announce that, no, Canada will not be bringing new, bold targets to Copenhagen. We will be bringing the same lame-ass targets you already know about because we suck.

The merry pranksters remain anonymous but the whole thing seems very Yes Men inspired.

Elizabeth May is calling the stunt, "damn clever." Here's the full story from over at the Globe and Mail. Here's the press release that started all the hullaballoo.

Sunday Morning 'Toon: Climate Change Edition

Have to say, I've always been skeptical of the whole "cap & trade" idea. Back in the 2008 election, when everyone from Jack Layton to Stephen Harper was prattling about how hard to understand the Green Shift was with its carbon tax, I kept wanting to say, "Okay, smart guy, how'll one of those cap & trade schemes you're offering as an alternative work?" None of the candidates came to my door in 2008, so never got to ask that. And the mainstream media never bothered to ask them about it either. The election seemed to be so much about tearing down the Green Shift regardless of the merits of what it was proposing.

Well, congratulations, guys. Mission accomplished.

Anyway, the people who made the Story of Stuff animation, have put together a new video called the Story of Cap and Trade. They do a pretty good job of explaining how the system works. And they do an excellent job of highlighting the serious problems with cap and trade. (I find the tone of the narration a little irritating, though.) Turns out -- surprise, surprise -- cap and trade is awfully complicated and some really nasty problems can be hidden in the fine print. And it looks like cap and trade is just another scam by financiers to make a pile of bucks without providing much in the way of benefit to society.

Not being an expert on such things, I can't say if any of the cap and trade schemes proposed for Canada are as corrupt as the one examined in this animation. But this makes me pretty damn skeptical that any cap and trade system could be the magic solution to our carbon problems.



I still can't help but think that taxation is the easiest way to put a fair price on carbon. I wouldn't even demand it be a revenue-neutral sort of deal. Pity that idea's been pretty much scuttled in this country... at the federal level, at least.

Saturday Morning 'Toon: Climate Change Edition

A little animation on how the climate tipping point works.

Toronto Mayor Accepts Fossil Award

Canada took home two Fossil of the Day awards in Copenhagen today, taking the first and second prize for promoting inaction on climate change. This means we've six in total now, more than any other nation -- we're even decisively out ahead of the Ukraine. (Er... yay?)

We scored our twofer first thanks to a declaration from our cheif negotiator that Canada's carbon emission reduction target of minus 3% over 1990 level is "science based" (real scientists say developed countries should be shooting for minus 25 to 40% over 1990 levels), and second for our environment minister saying that the Kyoto Protocol should not be extended and something new put in place.

Toronto mayor, David Miller was on hand to collect our "prize", saying that, like most Canadians, he's ashamed of our government's appalling record on climate change.

Monckton Calls Protesters Crazed Hitler Youth

This bit of coverage of the Copenhagen Climate Conference is a couple days old, but here's some video of protesters who crashed an event put on by the Americans For Prosperity -- that'd be one of those groups of climate cranks and deniers in Copenhagen trying to sabotage any constructive work being done. Speaker Christopher Monckton -- who visited Regina earlier this year -- is shown on tape calling the protesters "crazed Hitler Youth."



Notice how poorly attended this denier event is by actual deniers. The vast majority of the audience is protesters. Goes to show how out in the cold this gang's ideas really are.

Anyway, as Kevin Grandia points out over at DeSmogBlog, apparently the potty peer hasn't heard of Godwin's Law as he spends the next day wandering about Copenhagen ambushing young delegates, spouting nonsense at them and again accusing them of being Nazis. (The Jews among them aren't too pleased by the comparison.)



He even goes so far as to calmly explain to one delegate (who's posing as a climate denier) how climate scientists should be rounded up and jailed for fraud.



Don't forget this is the same guy who, back in the 80s, calmly and rationally explained how AIDS patients should also be rounded up and jailed. (He sort of recanted this in one publication by saying, essentially, that there are now too many AIDS sufferers to jail them all.)

I'm happy to see his lunacy exposed so clearly but have to say it's like shooting at bug-eyed mutant fish-creatures in a barrel. Monckton clearly adores the attention. More than any of the A-list climate liars, Monckton's arguments are completely indefensible. It'd be kind of nice if he quit getting so much attention. That'd really hurt the bastard. Talking to him only seems to be making him stronger.

Visuals Of The Greenpeace Banners Because CBC Doesn’t Show Them

I'm trying to figure out why CBC put a really boring picture of tiny people on a roof on their site, and buried the story way down at the bottom of their page under the headline "Police break up climate protest on Parliament Buildings."

Sure, we didn't vote for Greenpeace, but most of us didn't vote for Harper either.

Here now is a video from the Canadian Press, that actually shows the "giant banner" mentioned in the CBC story:

(EDIT BY EDITOR STEVE: Carle's video appears to be broken but here's a link that should work.)

Tsk Tsk.

Climate Denier Crooks Attempt Another Computer Break-In

Okay, this is insanity. Desmog Blog is reporting that earlier this week two "technicians" showed up at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis at the University of Victoria and attempted to gain access to the computers there. When their identities were questioned the two "technicians" vanished.

The story's been verified by a UVic spokesman in an interview with the National Post.

Okay... let me get this straight.... climate deniers from Rex Murphy to Rush Limbaugh are crowing about how some emails hacked a few weeks ago show that there's "collusion" among scientists to squash debate about climate science. "It's an environmentalist conspiracy!" they're squawking.

Meanwhile, these same scientists' emails were hacked, their offices have been broken into, and now mysterious, undercover agents are showing up attempting to break into their computers. Doesn't this pretty clearly suggest that there is ACTUAL COLLUSION among climate deniers and ACTUAL CRIMINAL ACTIVITY by climate deniers going on to discredit legitimate climate science?!?!?!

That all this stuff is exploding in the news right now -- in the lead up to the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change -- just goes to prove that what James Hoggan and the climate science community have been saying all along is true: there is an organized effort taking place among climate liars, deniers, hacks and morons to derail any action on climate change.

And... as Hoggan ably proves in Climate Cover-Up, support and funding for the activities of these deniers and cranks is coming from the fossil fuel industry.

Call me crazy, but if it squawks like a conspiracy, and slinks around in the shadows pretending to be a computer technician like a conspiracy, maybe it's a conspiracy. I'm just saying....

Regardless, whatever paranoid behaviour the CRU scientists exhibited in those emails is looking entirely justified right about now.

This is outrageous. My fury is boundless.

James Hoggan on Climate Change Denial Industry

The CRU e-mail scandal broke while I was working on that climate change article in the latest issue. It kind of ended up hijacking everything I was writing. Not necessarily a bad thing. It's a complete gong show, sure, which the media has -- as usual -- completely bungled. But, the hacked e-mails are a perfect example of the ridiculous extremes to which the denier crowd is willing to go to discredit climate science. It became a nice little case study in how the denial industry works.

Unfortunately, though, I wound up not using nearly as much interview material as I would've liked. For instance, my interview with James Hoggan was awesome but I only ended up taking a couple quotes from it. So, here for all to read, is a transcript of my interview with him. It's very good (because of Jim's answers, not my questions). Here's a sample....

prairie dog: Your book gives a good overview of the state of climate denial in Canada. But I came away feeling like Canada is a real hotbed for denial. Are we really the centre of the denial industry?
James Hoggan: No. The Americans are by far. They’re the ones who set up the echo chambers. In the States, you see it working much better than it does in Canada where you have more of a loose connection. But in the United States, you have this powerful combination of the extreme right religious movement, the libertarians, basically just contrarians, vested interests, then you have this extreme right-wing media, and en masse you have massive numbers of Glen Becks and Fox News and the list just goes on and on. Those are the extreme right-wing guys, then you have these libertarians who are in the media as well. So the echo chamber down there is really very impressive. And for some reason, a lot of these libertarians and extreme right-wing groups have joined forces with the anti-science interests that are working for business. And I think it’s because they’re just anti-government. We have those kind of people in Canada but not in the organized way they do in the States.

James Hoggan, by the way, is the author of Climate Cover-Up, which details how the fossil fuel industry supports a massive, decentralized climate-change denial industry. It's a scary but important book. By day, Hoggan is a public relations consultant and he is also one of the founders of DeSmog Blog, an essential source for those who want to track the misdeeds of the deniers.

Read the full James Hoggan interview.

Climate Change Debate Starts at 6pm

If you're reading this post roughly around the time I'm posting it, the 2009 Munk Debate starts in about 15 minutes so you still have enough time to sign up and watch it live on-line.

As mentioned in this post, the subject of the debate is climate change and it pits George Monbiot of the Guardian and Elizabeth May of the Canadian Green Party against Bjorn Lomborg the "Skeptical" Environmentalist and Nigel Lawson.

UPDATE: Debate has started. It is also streaming live at Grist.com , The Mark News, The Globe and Mail, The Canada Int'l Council.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Why isn't Elizabeth May our PM? She is kicking Bjorn Lomborg's ass.

LAST UPDATE [8:10PM]: Wow. Lomborg's diabolical sophistry was a thing of monstrous, evil beauty. I no longer think of him as a "soft-in-the-middle" sceptic. He may be one of the most dangerous sceptics out there. Bravo to May for taking him to task repeatedly. She scored the best debating point of the night when she demanded to know why it is that he and his think tank, while claiming to want to come up with solutions for the poor of the world, were silent when $4trillion was spent bailing out the banks and only ever seem to decry spending money on climate change mitigation. She went on to accuse him of being a propagandist. Lomborg shouted her down and came on all slick and lizardy but never answered her questions.

Without a doubt though, Monbiot was brilliant and while I think May made some of the best points on the Pro side, Monbiot was the most persuasive speaker of the night.

As for Lawson... a blithering idiot. When the debate veered into discussion of peak oil, he demonstrated that despite being a policymaker at one point in the UK government, he doesn't understand even the simplest points of the energy scarcity issue.

I suspect this debate will be available for viewing via the Munk Debate website. I can't say watching it was enjoyable. But I did come away with a greater respect for May and Monbiot.

Canada: A Corrupt Petrostate

The 2009 Munk Debate will be held tomorrow night. The Globe and Mail is having some kind of pre-debate show live streaming "chatty" type-a-thingy on it's website where you can send in questions. And you can sign up to watch the debate free on the web at the Munk Debate website.

This year's debate will see climate liars... er... "sceptics" Bjorn Lomborg and Nigel Lawson face Guardian science columnist, George Monbiot and Green Party leader, Elizabeth May.

Should be interesting.

I don't know much about Lawson, but Lomborg is one of these soft-in-the-middle climate deniers. He's not like, say, Christopher Monckton who scoffs at the idea that people are warming the planet. Lomborg accepts the scientific consensus on this (up to a point), he just figures that based on his cost/benefit analysis, we would do better to invest in things like ending poverty instead of making massive investments in reducing carbon emissions.

Oh, and he also thinks that we should stay away from international treaties because we've been trying that route for 20 years and look where it's gotten us.

Gee, Bjorn, the lack of action on climate change couldn't have anything to do with chaps like yourself sowing discord and discouraging action on the subject, could it? You're not really being on the up and up when you say a particular solution won't work if you're the guy fucking with it?

As for the "feeding the poor instead of fixing climate change" thing.... it's a false dichotomy. We're not making such massive investments in solving the climate change problem that it's taking aid away from developing nations. In fact, all this line of reasoning he's been trotting out for the past decade has accomplished is to give developed nations (like ours) a good, compassionate-sounding rationale to not invest in reducing carbon emissions. Of course, we don't ever seem to make any corresponding investments in helping the developing world, either.

Still, Lomborg's style of scepticism is a tough one to debate as he'll be doing an end run around the moral highground. (I can almost hear him trilling, "All you care about is carbon. I care about people.") Plus, I think Lomborg's one of these guys who got into the denial game out of a desire to be thought clever and be loved. In a debate I could see him moderating his position just to stay on the audience's good side and to diffuse Monbiot and May's position.

Which brings me to Monbiot... Love his column. Can't say much more except that he has some choice things to say about Canada -- that, as the title of this post suggests, we're turning into a corrupt petrostate. And, I hasten to add, I agree with him.

And May... well... she sure would make a fine PM.

Climate Rap: Monckton Vs. Gore

This is just too good.



I was a little worried this was going to be one of those bullshit "both opinions have merit" things, especially since it was pretty obvious the writers of this brilliant video were going to rip Al Gore. But actually, it's more than reasonable: they portray Gore as kind of a dick connected to the wealthy and powerful who wrecked the climate, and Monckton as a raving and manipulative upper-class twit. And climate change? Of course it's happening. Sounds about right to me. The short is the work of The Juice Media. Here's the Guardian's story on this video, and here's the creator's Yootube page.

The Famous Leaked Climate E-Mails

Here's George Monbiot's take. To sum up for the link-clicking averse: Those awful illegal e-mails DO expose shady scientific shenanigans--but they don't prove global warming isn't real. But they are a public relations disaster. Here's a funny joke that makes a point.

Climate Change: Much Worse than Predicted

Earlier today, 26 of the world's leading climate scientists released a report entitled The Copenhagen Diagnosis. It's an update of what we have learned about global warming since the IPCC's fourth report in 2007.

What does it tell us? That climate change is accelerating beyond all expectations.

The report took over a year to complete, and here's some of the new evidence the authors have uncovered (I'm quoting the bullet points from the press release):

• Satellite and direct measurements now demonstrate that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass and contributing to sea level rise at an increasing rate.
  
  
• Arctic sea-ice has melted far beyond the expectations of climate models. For example, the area of summer sea-ice melt during 2007-2009 was about 40% greater than the average projection from the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
  
  
• Sea level has risen more than 5 centimeters over the past 15 years, about 80% higher than IPCC projections from 2001. Accounting for ice-sheets and glaciers, global sea-level rise may exceed 1 meter by 2100, with a rise of up to 2 meters considered an upper limit by this time. This is much higher than previously projected by the IPCC. Furthermore, beyond 2100, sea level rise of several meters must be expected over the next few centuries.
  
  
• In 2008 carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels were ~40% higher than those in 1990. Even if emissions do not grow beyond today’s levels, within just 20 years the world will have used up the allowable emissions to have a reasonable chance of limiting warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius.

The report concludes that if we don't take immediate action to reduce our carbon emissions, we won't be able to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Yes, but how does that jive with what Lorne Gunter was squawking about in today's Leader Post? Well, it doesn't. Why? Because Gunter is hopelessly confused and misled on the science of climate change. (I say "confused and misled" because the alternative is that he's lying.)

Look, I just haven't got time right now to tear apart all of Gunter's latest nonsense. Suffice to say, that everytime I've gone off to fact check one of his anti-science screeds, I've found that his opinions are based on a misreading of scientific reality. Usually, all he is doing is parroting the talking points being issued from propaganda machines such as the Friends of Science.

I'll post more later. But in the meantime, you can read some actual science on climate change by reading the Copenhagen Diagnosis. Unlike this hacked-email circus Gunter was crowing about, this report is probably the most important thing you'll read about this year.

Take Two Aspirins And Read The Leader-Post In The Morning

Today the Leader-Post printed a couple of articles specifically (I suspect) to raise my blood pressure. Lucky fucking me.

First, there's this piece on Saskatchewan Conservative MP MauriceVellacott's opinion that it's just peachy how women in Saskatoon have restricted access to abortion.

The article's fine but Vellacott's views (which are of course not the Leader-Post's fault) are loathsome.

I'll say it for the one zillionth time: there's nothing wrong at all with being opposed to abortion. But when you're an elected lawmaker pushing your old-fashioned, sloppy-sentimental, anti-science and frankly medieval moral values on normal 21st century people who don't agree with them for good reasons (i.e. women's rights supercede fetal rights and when you make abortion illegal women die and in any case a fetus ISN'T A BABY you manipulative, fact-twisting propagandha-spewing dicks), you are a thug.

Unless I'm profoundly mistaken Maurice Vellacott opposes all legal abortion, period. He's an extremist. That's fine for him personally but it's disgusting that he's trying to push this junk on the rest of us.

(Fume!)

Much worse is this opinion column by climate change unbeliever Lorne Gunter stating that global warming is a fraud.

I don't understand why the Leader-Post is printing it when anthropogenic warming is a near-universally accepted scientific fact. Would they print articles arguing the sun revolves around the earth? Would they print articles saying the earth is flat? Would they print articles saying cigarettes are safe? No they would not. They'd dismiss those as the raving of crackpots.

Yet they'll print this crap. It's ridiculous.

(You know who accepts global warming? NASA. The United Nations. Most scientists. You know who doesn't? Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. Case closed.)

More on how Lorne Gunter is full of crap here. And here. And here. (Desmog Blog)

And here's a terrifying article in the Guardian on the consequences of decades of climate-change denial propaghanda.

Our civilization is threatened and the Leader-Post is running junk opinion columns by deluded ideologues. It's inexcusable and you should tell them so. You can send letters to the editor here.