Conservatives Must Stand Up to Climate Change Bullying
(Image by Pete Linforth via Pixabay)
Canada
and the United States have many things in common – we love our hockey
players, our astronauts and our veterans. We value freedom and
prosperity and, when push comes to shove, will fight tooth and nail
against those who would take either from us. We also have our shares of
misguided conservative politicians who think they can win over
left-leaning voters by promoting the climate scare.
In
Canada we had Stephen Harper who was elected prime minister as a
conservative and a committed climate sceptic but changed sides after
being elected in an apparent attempt to curry favor with the left. It
did him no good whatsoever and he was crucified by mainstream media,
which swept the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau into power.
Today’s federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is no better,
promoting the climate scare and promising to present his party’s climate
change plan by the beginning of summer with a focus on so-called clean
energy.
In
the U.S., we have seen many prominent Republicans actively supporting,
or at least acquiescing to, climate alarmism. After all, it was the late
President George H. W. Bush who signed U.N. Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the Earth Summit in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro.
The UNFCCC dictated the climate alarmist stance of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change that set the stage for the Kyoto Protocol and
the Paris Agreement. Bush also started the National Climate Assessment
through legislation he signed in 1990. The NCA has been a thorn in the
side of Republican presidents ever since.
More recently, we have Republicans like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.),
Neil Chatterjee, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,
and even former Texas governor and current U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, embracing what are essentially climate alarmist views.
"I believe climate change is real. I believe man has an impact," Chatterjee said at
the 6th annual Columbia Global Energy Summit in New York City on April
10, 2019. “And I believe that we need to take steps to mitigate
emissions urgently.”
After dismissing Republicans who do not support global warming alarmism, Graham’s comments at the April 24 EarthX2019 conference in
Dallas on climate change were truly absurd. “The first thing you gotta
do is say greenhouse gas emissions are real and they are caused by C02 emissions. They trap heat,” said the senator, concluding, “Climate change is real, the science is sound and the solutions are available.”
Perry was less ridiculous in his remarks at
the EarthX2019 event, instead supporting the climate scare indirectly.
In a bombastic, rambling presentation, the energy secretary boasted that
the United States “continue[s] to lead in reducing energy-related
carbon emissions. That’s something to be proud of… We are determined to
lead the drive for cleaner energy in this world… Back in Washington,
people argue endlessly on what “clean” or “cleaner” means. Does it mean
carbon-neutral or carbon-free?”
All of these statements are stupid. They are either wrong or irrelevant, both scientifically and politically.
Perry’s "carbon" is actually carbon dioxide (CO2). In contrast to carbon, which is a solid, CO2 is an odorless, colorless gas. It is crucial for plant photosynthesis and so required for life. That’s why the CO2 concentrations
inside commercial greenhouses are often kept up to 1,500 parts per
million (ppm), a level at which plants grow far more efficiently than at
the 410 ppm in the outside atmosphere. We should not spend a single
cent trying to reduce the air’s CO2 content.
And
of course, climate change is real. So is continental drift. But no
sensible person would conclude that humans are the master controller of
either. And despite the demands of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project
that media “Call it a Climate Crisis” in their May 7 “day of action” Twitter storm, recent climate change has been well within expected natural variability.
Concerns
about dangerous human-caused global warming are based on only one
thing: computer model forecasts of the future. But these models simply
do not work, having predicted three times the warming that has actually
occurred between 1979 and 2017. Contrary to Graham’s assertion that “the
science is sound,” our understanding of the science is so poor that we
do not even know what mathematical equations to program into the models.
That
abandoning their base and supporting the climate scare is terrible
political strategy for Republicans was well demonstrated in the 2018
midterm elections. Only 53 percent of the 43 House Republican seats that
were occupied by members of the bipartisan congressional Climate
Solutions Caucus remained in Republican hands. In contrast, almost 90
percent of the seats held by House Republicans who did not belong to the
caucus remained Republican after the election.
In
support of his position, Graham argued that Republicans need to appeal
to young people who support the climate scare. Marc Morano, publisher of
the influential Washington DC-based Climatedepot.com,
responded, “I can’t imagine that any millennial who cares about this is
going to be voting Republican because they are activists at their core.
If you’re a millennial and you’re skipping school and all excited about
the Green New Deal (GND), there is no way Republicans can appeal to
them with some sort of lite version of the GND.”
“You
don't capitulate to young voters because they have been brainwashed
into believing that mankind is driving a climate 'crisis,'” said Morano.
“You lead and reveal to them that what they think they know just ain't
so.”
Morano
explains why so many Republican support climate alarmism: “They just
don’t want to be seen as ‘evil deniers’ and they are prepared to give in
wherever they can. They want to have less toxicity in the media, in
town halls, in social circles around the Washington establishment. By
supporting the climate scare, they’re going to be better liked, less
embarrassed by their positions and can say, ‘you can’t call us deniers
anymore!’ That gives them a level of comfort at parties, campaign
events, speeches and town halls.”
Clearly,
what is now urgently needed is for the Trump administration to go ahead
with the President’s Commission on Climate Security. Then there would
be an alternative federal climate change report with the seal of the
U.S. government on it. Morano summed up, “We’ve never had a challenge to
the UN from an official source. A Presidential Commission report would
be the first one ever. Let’s just hope that it goes through.”
Indeed.
For the sake of the country and all other nations which depend on a
free and prosperous America for their survival, let’s hope it does.
