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Politics Buffet BC's Carbon Agenda

Premier Clark inherited bold climate policies and strong pressures on all sides. What will she do?

By Tom Barrett, 22 Nov 2011, TheTyee.ca

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Climate policy hot seats inside: Legislature building in Victoria, B.C. Photo courtesy of FerryDude2011 from Your BC: The Tyee's Photo Pool.

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Also in this series:
BC's Quest for Carbon Neutrality: Reports from Canada's Climate Policy Frontier

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[Editor's note: This Tyee Solutions Society series sets out to consider just what B.C.'s four-year-old Climate Action Plan has and hasn't accomplished so far, including what informed observers say deserves rethinking. Part one of this series re-capped how we got here. In this second instalment, Tom Barrett takes the measure of Carbon Plan support -- or not -- in today's political context. Future instalments will look in on how our unique-in-North-America carbon tax is working out; pull back the curtain on the mysterious world of carbon "offsets"; and more.]

Back in 2007, a radio hotliner named Christy Clark proudly announced that she had jumped on the "global warming bandwagon." The environment, she declared, was "the single most important issue facing this country."

Today, hotliner Clark is Premier Clark. Where she sits on the global warming bandwagon isn't so clear. What is clear is that unless her government takes action on the climate front soon, B.C. will likely miss the legally binding emission reduction targets set by her predecessor.

Under a law passed under former premier Gordon Campbell, B.C. is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to one-third below 2007 levels by 2020. Under Campbell, an ambitious Climate Action Plan was put into place. So far, to the relief of environmentalists and the frustration of business, Clark has not repudiated that plan.

But the plan went only so far. Three years ago, the government's panel of experts, known as the Climate Action Team, concluded that the action plan would take the province only about three-quarters of the way to its target. To close the gap, the team proposed a number of measures. A key recommendation urged the government to increase the carbon tax after 2012. A second stressed the importance of putting a price on emissions not covered by the carbon tax.

So far, Clark has shown no intention of raising the carbon tax beyond its last scheduled increase in 2012. Progress on putting a price on untaxed emissions has been slow. Meanwhile, Clark has rolled out a jobs strategy, featuring a beefed-up oil and gas sector, which appears certain to increase emissions.

Even Environment Minister Terry Lake admits that meeting the legislated reduction targets will be "challenging." Currently, the government's response to the Climate Action Team's recommendations is being discussed, Lake said in an interview. A plan could "start to come together" in 2012, he said.

Brave goals, at the time

In his climate plan, Campbell set out some grand goals. In the 2008 Throne Speech, Campbell gave Lieutenant-Governor Steven Point these Churchillian words to read:

"We cannot be paralyzed into inaction by the scale of the task at hand. Rather, we will act now to make a real difference, and to encourage behavioural changes that will drive sustainable growth as a global imperative."

British Columbians were promised a revenue-neutral carbon tax, membership in a regional cap-and-trade system that would lower industrial emissions, "carbon smart communities" and California-style vehicle emission and low-carbon fuel standards. BC Hydro was directed to favour new, clean energy sources.

Despite political controversy, the Campbell government moved ahead with many of its policies. But when Campbell resigned in Nov. 2010, the plan's future was unclear. Would the new premier commit to what was essentially a Campbell pet project?

During her days as a media commentator, Clark certainly sounded onside.

In a 2007 column in The Province headlined, "We Don't Have Much Time Left to Keep Debating Climate Change," Clark wrote that climate change is real, man-made and could have disastrous consequences.

"We could face devastating forest fires, suffocating heat-waves and mass starvation," she wrote.

Clark: 'I was outraged'

A few months later, Clark revealed that, "my jump onto the global warming bandwagon came in a roundabout way." Reflecting on the experience of interviewing environmentalist Mae Burrows, who talked about toxins in the environment, Clark wrote, "I was outraged that those chemicals are allowed in our household products in Canada -- even though they've been banned in Europe."

"Mae got me thinking hard about the environment and what state it'll be in when my son grows up," the future premier continued. "Because it's not just toxins that are a threat to his future, it's thousands of other things as well. Pine beetles have chewed through billions of dollars worth of trees, while we wait for a cold snap that never comes. There's less water in our reservoirs because snowpacks on the mountains above are shrinking. Our streams are warmer. If they warm just one or two degrees more, most of our returning salmon will die.

"I spend enough time thinking about it that I've concluded it's the single most important issue facing this country."

In April 2007, a few months after Campbell launched his war on carbon emissions, Clark wrote that politicians who want to cut greenhouse gases shouldn't promise to make driving less expensive. "Saving the environment won't come cheap," she wrote in The Province.

During the Liberal leadership campaign, Clark spoke in general terms about the benefits of a green economy. She appeared to be cautiously supportive of the carbon tax, but said it contained "wrinkles" that would require review.

Mixed signals

Once in power, however, the first signals Clark sent were anything but green. Her transition team was heavy on the oil and gas industry, with unconventional gas giant EnCana's founding CEO, Gwyn Morgan, and pipeline company Enbridge vice-president Roger Harris at the table. There were rumours that the entire climate action agenda was up for review. Environmentalists worried that the Campbell initiatives might be scrapped.

Then, in May, while running in the Point Grey byelection, Clark released an "open letter to British Columbians." It re-affirmed her commitment to increase the carbon tax, as scheduled, through 2012. She suggested that she might also find some new uses for the carbon tax.

"In the future," Clark wrote, "I am open to considering using the carbon tax to support regional initiatives, such as public transit. If we go this route, we must ensure that the allocation of carbon tax revenue respects regions and communities so that one region is not subsidizing investments in another."

The open letter also said B.C. "will continue to play a leadership role through the Western Climate Initiative to design a cap and trade system that works for our environment and our economy. B.C. will work with California and other participating jurisdictions, while consulting extensively with stakeholders in B.C."

On his blog, University of B.C. resource policy expert George Hoberg called the announcement "great news."

Much of B.C.'s business community didn't take it that way, however.

Jock Finlayson, executive vice-president of the Business Council of B.C., said in an email that he hasn't seen any signs that Clark intends to quit the Campbell climate strategy -- although many of his members wish she would.

"The new premier has given no indication that she plans to back away from the aggressive climate policy positions defined by her predecessor," Finlayson said.

"The Business Council continues to recommend that the government ‘pause and reset’ on climate policy," Finlayson wrote. "Many (not all) of our members believe B.C. moved too quickly on climate policy, without doing the homework necessary to arrive at well-informed policy decisions.

"That said, so far I have not seen any hard evidence that the Clark government is heeding our advice."

There is one point on which Finlayson and environmentalists agree, and that's Clark's jobs strategy, announced in September and loaded with promises of eight new mines and a liquefied natural gas terminal at Kitimat. "It's hard to see how these goals can be met while still adhering to all of the elements of the climate policy framework established under former Premier Campbell," Finlayson said.

The Pembina Institute's Matt Horne says the goals can be reconciled, but the solutions aren't "just going to naturally fall out of the air. We've got to be on top of them."

Said Horne: "I think if we're really going to live up to the objectives of the Climate Action Plan, there's no question that additional concrete steps are needed. And those haven't been taken to date."

Horne said the government has to put a price on the industrial emissions mentioned by the Climate Action Team. While the carbon tax covers almost all emissions from burning fossil fuels, it doesn't cover non-combustion emissions. These gases represent about one-quarter of the province's total emissions and their sources include landfills, gas pipelines, cement plants and aluminum smelters.

At the time the Climate Action Plan was drafted, there was a lack of data on these emissions, making it difficult to place them under the carbon tax. Instead, the government originally favoured including such emissions in the WCI cap-and-trade scheme. That scheme is progressing, but slowly. Meanwhile, Horne said, enough data has been accumulated to apply the carbon tax to at least some of the uncovered gases.

"In 2008 they were defensible gaps. In 2011 and 2012 they're quickly becoming loopholes."

Economist Marc Lee, with the Climate Justice Project of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, shares Horne's concerns.

"As far as I can tell," Lee said, "the B.C. government hasn't done anything [on climate] since its flurry in 2007, 2008." Since then, "All we've seen are increasing efforts to spur more oil and gas development, which are going to worsen the problem and likely mean that we will not be able to meet those targets."

Clark's jobs plan "moves us totally in the wrong direction by putting so much emphasis on mining and oil and gas development," Lee said. The proposed LNG terminal in Kitimat would be "an utter disaster environmentally," he said.

The anti-carbon-tax B.C. Conservative party may be one factor scaring Clark's Liberals away from climate action, Lee suggested.

"It may be that with the Conservative party gaining strength the Liberals are more worried about their right flank than their left flank. It would be nice if behind the scenes the NDP and Liberals sort of said, 'Okay, we agree we're not going to beat each other up on this carbon tax thing, we're going to do the right thing.'

"Instead we have the opposite case. Neither of the two big parties is supporting any new meaningful climate action."

Still afloat, but adrift

Political scientist Dennis Pilon was at the University of Victoria when the Campbell government rolled out its climate plan. Newly relocated to York University in Toronto, Pilon questions the seriousness of Campbell's commitment to fighting climate change.

"The premier was a man of quickly changing tastes," he said. "The carbon tax came up -- Oh gosh, this is exciting -- then it got pushed aside for some other issue de jour that he thought was terribly important and was talking with somebody over dinner about."

The action plan, he said, looks like a bid to steal away middle class supporters of the NDP. "I was never really entirely convinced that the premier was putting any muscle behind the policy."

Given Clark's background in the federal Liberal party -- albeit on the right wing of the federal Liberals -- Pilon expects she will maintain her commitment to the Campbell climate plans. "I think the fact that the party won quite decisively last time despite the carbon tax suggests that it won't kill the party," he said.

No 'Axe the Tax' in 2012

New Democratic Party environment critic Rob Fleming is another who says B.C. won't meet its GHG-reduction targets unless its climate policy changes gears.

"You can't give industry a free pass and give out environmental permits to major new emitters in the province," Fleming said. "It just doesn't add up."

The NDP's "Axe the Tax" election slogan proved unpersuasive in the last election. The party now supports a carbon tax, but not its revenue neutrality.

As created under Campbell, the levy was billed as a tax shift, rather than a tax increase -- all the revenues collected by the tax were, by law, going to be given back in personal and corporate tax cuts.

In fact the government has been giving out far more cash than it's been collecting from the carbon tax -- millions more. The most recent B.C. budget says the government collected $740 million in carbon tax revenue in the last fiscal year. But it gave up $395 million in personal income tax cuts and $467 million in business tax cuts.

That means the government lost $122 million on the carbon tax last year. This year, the shortfall is forecast to hit $191 million.

An NDP government would instead use some of the carbon tax money to fund green infrastructure like transit.

"The carbon tax in B.C. has not been well structured to contribute towards the kinds of investments that will allow British Columbians in their daily lives to reduce their carbon footprints," Fleming said. "They accelerated corporate tax cuts to such an extent under the guise of making the carbon tax revenue neutral that in actual fact it's contributing approximately $200 million to the province's deficit right now.

"So not only has it failed to fund smart green infrastructure investments, it actually hurts the province’s ability to fund public services that we enjoy currently."

An NDP government would pay for this infrastructure by either cutting the business tax breaks or "growing the carbon tax revenues," Fleming said.

As for the sectors of the economy not covered by the carbon tax, they "need to be brought into the scheme, either through the carbon tax or through some sort of regulation that will help them contribute to the province-wide legal target of a 33 per cent reduction by 2020," Fleming said.

The NDP would also overhaul the carbon neutral government initiative. Schools and hospitals would no longer be required to buy offsets from the Pacific Carbon Trust, which uses the money to pay for carbon reductions in the private sector.

'A fine balance': BC enviro minister

B.C. Environment Minister Terry Lake told Tyee Solutions that growing the economy while shrinking emissions is "not an easy task." He added that it would be irresponsible for the government to ignore the fragile world economy.

"There's a balance we have to strike between the greenhouse gas side of things and the economy and competitiveness and creating jobs on the other side," he said. "You know, that's a fine balance sometimes and so that's why we're doing a lot of work, looking at all of those different factors that come into those types of decisions."

As for meeting the legislated GHG targets, Lake said: "It certainly is challenging to meet the 2020 targets when you look at the advent of shale gas and liquefied natural gas. I wouldn't be frank if I said it wasn't a challenge. But I think it's a challenge that I’m quite excited about trying to meet."

The government is meeting with industry and environmentalists to discuss the next steps, Lake said. "We have to have discussions about the carbon tax and further increases past 2012," he said. "That's still up for debate." The best way to cover emissions not currently covered by the carbon tax is also up for debate, he said.

Lake said the government is watching the progress of the WCI cap and trade system. Next year will be a sort of test run for the scheme, with California rolling out a program that will not require immediate emissions reductions.

Lake said it's too late for B.C. to impose cap and trade for 2012. "We want to keep our options open for looking at cap and trade beyond that," he said.

Asked when decisions might be expected on the carbon tax and cap and trade, Lake replied, "I don't want to put any time lines around it," adding that he doesn't want to go ahead without adequate information.

"I would hope that in 2012 these things would start to come together and we'll be able to move forward with a sort of comprehensive plan about how we're going to meet those different challenges."

Lake said he believes it is possible to reconcile the government's economic development and climate change agendas. In the face of a cooled-off economy and a warming planet, business and environmentalists alike will be watching to see what the Clark government chooses to do.

Tomorrow: Chris Pollon reports on B.C.'s carbon tax: The risks and rewards of pricing carbon. [Tyee]

Tom Barrett is a widely published freelance journalist and Tyee contributing editor.

This series was produced by Tyee Solutions Society (TSS) in collaboration with Tides Canada Initiatives Society. Funding for this series was provided by the Bullitt Foundation and Hospital Employees' Union. All funders sign releases guaranteeing TSS full editorial autonomy. TSS funders and Tides Canada Initiatives neither influence nor endorse the particular content of TSS' reporting. To republish articles from this series, please contact TSS editor Chris Wood here.

31 Comments:

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  • Bucketbrigade

    26 weeks ago

    What a waste of words

    The article, the premis of the entire article is..

    "Gordon Campbell started an ambitious carbon reduction strategy" and how would Christy clucking Clark follow through?

    Wrong, wrong, wrong, Gordon Campbell is/was a [UNSUPPORTED CHARACTERIZATION REMOVED. -MODERATOR.], it never was about anything but hoodwinking the voting public..

    It never reduced one fucking gram of carbon, our emissions have risen, not one drop in emissions.

    So please get your story straight, the story should read...

    Does Christy Clucking Clark have the courage to carry on with Gordon Campbell`s useless carbon reduction SCAM!

    Sheesh, what a sad piece, especially with Gordo lobbying for dirty fuel and higher Euro emissions!

  • freebear

    26 weeks ago

    Clark will do the 'green' dance shuffle while 'Rome' burns!

    It is all a con when:

    "B.C. Environment Minister Terry Lake told Tyee Solutions that growing the economy while shrinking emissions is "not an easy task." He added that it would be irresponsible for the government to ignore the fragile world economy. "

    Economy trumps environment until one or the other crashes; until then it is a con!

  • mopled

    26 weeks ago

    Uh oh, global warming loons: here comes Climategate II!

    "Breaking news: two years after the Climategate, a further batch of emails has been leaked onto the internet by a person – or persons – unknown. And as before, they show the "scientists" at the heart of the Man-Made Global Warming industry in a most unflattering light. Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Ben Santer, Tom Wigley, Kevin Trenberth, Keith Briffa – all your favourite Climategate characters are here, once again caught red-handed in a series of emails exaggerating the extent of Anthropogenic Global Warming, while privately admitting to one another that the evidence is nowhere near as a strong as they'd like it to be.

    In other words, what these emails confirm is that the great man-made global warming scare is not about science but about political activism."

    Read all about it:
    http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100119087/uh-oh-global-warming-loons-here-comes-climategate-ii/

  • Christophe

    26 weeks ago

    Let me tell you, Moped:

    Christy Clark is most certainly keeping up Campbell's sham of concern about climate change, in terms of reducing greenhouse gases. She has to. I sincerely doubt our ability to do anything about it myself, and I am a conservationist. I doubt that anything we do in Canada will affect the rate of increase in GHG's, because other countries have much more impact on GHG emissions.

    What Christy Clark IS concerned about is the estimated impact on the province in terms of flooding, erosion, property damage and forest fires. Those impacts have already taken a bite out of our forestry industry and they have threatened the safety of our cities. If you want to argue that, go to Kelowna or Slave Lake, to Barrier or New Orleans.

    Arguing about conspiracies and contradictory scientific data is just plain stupid. It completely misses the point. You are eating your own faeces my friend if you think you are changing anyone's mind with your bafflegab and name-dropping.

    We already have a climate change plan but it deals with the consequences of rising sea levels etc, not the cause. Look at your city stream-crossing bridges. They are being upgraded to handle a 1:200-year flood event at a cost of millions of dollars. Now smack your head against a wall until you realise why. A 1:200-year flood event based on historic data will be a 1:20-year event in the future.

    In Quebec, there is a law that if houses are flooded, an engineer must provide a report that they will not be flooded again within 20 years before they can be rebuilt. Beat yourself up until you realise why. Please go elesewhere; your talents are wasted here.

  • mopled

    26 weeks ago

    And the truth shall set you free!

    From the Climategate 2.0 collection, Phil Jones reveals the Department of Energy supports hiding temperature data:

    "Any work we have done in the past is done on the back of the research grants we get – and has to be well hidden. I’ve discussed this with the main funder (US Dept of Energy) in the past and they are happy about not releasing the original station data."

    The technical term for this sort of conversation would be “conspiracy.”

    http://junkscience.com/2011/11/22/climategate-2-0-department-of-energy-involved-in-hiding-temperature-data/

    The rate of average sea level( 3.2mm year) rise is well below the average of the last 20,000 years (6mm year).
    http://sealevel.colorado.edu
    http://www.real-science.com/average-sea-level-rise-20000-years-6mm-year

    UN Experts Make The Case That CO2 Has No Effect On The Climate
    "Greenhouse gases are rising faster than Scenario A, but temperatures (green below) are trending below Scenario C (the zero emissions scenario.) What they are telling us is that climate sensitivity is essentially zero, and that it is time to shut down their global warming scam. CO2 has essentially no effect on the climate."
    http://www.real-science.com/experts-case-co2-effect-climate

    Christophe Old Bean, where's the proof that CO2, measured in parts per million can change climate and produce more flooding?

  • record

    26 weeks ago

    Dog and Pony Show

    The whole idea of pricing to effect necessary environmental goals is a joke. Debating carbon taxes and their amount, cap and trade, and so on is theatre meant to make lots of noise and very little change. That we even have articles here discussing them in this fashion is a waste of time and space. The solution lies in hard caps on the extraction, refining and sale of carbon based fuels, with price controls and rationing to equalize access. And that is only part of the answer since climate change is only the symptom of our problem, not the problem itself. The real problem is over production and over consumption of everything, including food, and until we address that in a manner that makes a fair share of resources that we are able to use sustainably available to everyone we are going to have serious problems. The real question to pose about the government is what is it doing to reduce production and consumption and shrink the economy to a sustainable size.

  • Christophe

    26 weeks ago

    Moped: do your math

    The sea level has risen about 150 feet in the last 10,000 years, as the ice receded after the last Ice Age.

    If it had risen 6 mm per year for 20,000 years, it would have risen 120 metres or 390 feet, which I don't believe to be true. If you were there and saw it heppen, do tell.

    In 10,000 B.C. there were a million or so people on Earth. When the sea level rose, they just move their tents or found a new cave.

    Seven billion people are going to have a hard time finding somewhere to pitch their tents because all the viable land is spoken for. Since about half of us live on the shoreline, we better look out.

    Your sources speak for themselves; Junkscience.com and Real-science.com are not credible sources and you are a fool.

    I am not an old bean, but you seem to be full of hot gas yourself.

    Talk to your insurance agent to ask about risk assessment in the light of Katrina and other recent disasters. They havethe statistics andthey are more reliable than Screwed-up Science sites.

    What matters is that we can't stop or even slow down the use of fossil fuels anyway. We got on that bus 1-00 years ago and we can't get off.

    By the way, many AGW deniers claim that CO2 is not toxic. Well it is. At 5% it creates panic attacks and at 8% it is lethal to humans. It is toxic and is probably more toxic to some of us than others.

    Good Luck with your spoof science sites.

  • realisticman

    26 weeks ago

    Insurance Agent, Christophe!

    Talk to who for the truth? Franchement! I just read a story that claims that the insurance industry is pushing climate change so they can charge higher rates for disasters the guys they hire are paid to predict.

  • realisticman

    26 weeks ago

    Ping Pong

    So, the Liberals brought in a carbon tax, which the NDP opposed, but now the NDP supports the carbon tax and the writer suggests that the Liberals no longer do.

    Sounds like a squabble at a marriage counselor's office.

  • realisticman

    26 weeks ago

    The Independent

    ...just reported one gem from Climategate II.

    "On the threat from Freedom of Information requests

    From Phil Jones: I've been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts [Freedom of Information requests, forcing the handing-over of information to the public]. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process."

    Maybe I missed it and it was already in Climategate I, but it pretty well says everything. We don't know the truth. They didn't want all to be known. They lost us with their blatant firewall, conspiratorial deceit and fear of transparency.

  • realisticman

    26 weeks ago

    God was Not on Their Side

    "From: Phil Jones

    To: James Hansen

    Keep up the good work! [...] Even though it's been a mild winter in the UK, much of the rest of the world seems coolish – expected though given the La Niña. Roll on the next El Niño!"

    Much like the rest of the world. Pray for Sun!

  • Christophe

    26 weeks ago

    Realistic Man: So the insurtance companies rip us off

    But they also have the real statistics, too.
    And it is getting harder to get insurance at all if you live in a floodplain or near an eroding coastline.

    So it isn't just an insurance premium ripoff, it is actually getting harder to get them to rip you off in the first place.

    Climate change was first reported in the Canadian federal government's State of the Environment Reports from the 1980's. The data presented in those reports has been proven over and over again. the only 'conspiracy' is that Canadians paid no attention whatsoever to the data. In fact, a denial industry has grown up to refute the data, even though no one was interested.

    The level of energy put into the denial industry says more about the real threat than the data itself.

    Meanwhile it is a matter of time before some zealot puts a bullet through someone else's head and claims that climate change made them do it. It could come from either side.

  • mopled

    26 weeks ago

    "Global warming is all a lie" says Windsor Star

    The fraudulent "global warming" swallowed by gullible governments has already wasted billions of dollars and will soon destroy all business. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's faked models, ignored UV energy, ozone layers and changes, solar winds and water vapour that creates clouds and energy and prevents the freezing of oceans, and avoided the truth.

    Thermometers were placed upon concrete roofs, on parking lots and buried in snow. Humans occupy but 1.4 per cent of Earth's surface, of it, 98.6 per cent ignored. "Nature does not play computer games."

    The IPCC scientists vilified the anti-warming PhDs, condemned them and barred them from publishing in national magazines and in our media.

    Climate is created and con-trolled by our sun and its gravity, by the Earth's position in our galaxy, by the wobbles of the orbiting, by continental drifts, according to Dr. Plimer and dozens of other anti-global warming scientists.

    Our Earth revolves round the sun at 160,000 miles an hour, travelling in its orbit 3,840,000 miles in one day. It rotates on its axis at 329 miles an hour. These rapid movements create winds, ocean currents, plate tectonics, affect sea levels and ice sheets. Carbon has nada effect.
    see the rest
    http://www.windsorstar.com/technology/Global+warming/5747606/story.html#ixzz1eSggEHIa

  • record

    26 weeks ago

    Something to Consider:

    http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Ruddiman2003.pdf

    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-did-humans-first-alte

    http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8014.html

    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/04/an-emerging-view-on-early-land-use/

  • realisticman

    26 weeks ago

    Christophe

    We are pleased to hear that those living too close to flood plain or an eroding coastline cannot obtain insurance. That would be like insuring a re-entering satellite - we know what will sooner or later happen.

    By the way, how come no hurricanes have hit the US coast for the past 3 years? We were told that they were going to be plentiful and frequent.

    If you'd like to learn more about your friendly insurance companies and how they've suckered you, the read this:

    http://www.thegwpf.org/opinion-pros-a-cons/4372-lawrence-solomon-green-insurance-fraud.html

  • Christophe

    26 weeks ago

    Thasnks Record: interestng stuff.

    Now Moped can go back to sleep in his drug-induced coma. I never knew that the Earth's movement through space generated heat. I thought the lumeniferous ether theory was debunked by Einstein. But in Moped's world, anything can happen. His science is wobbly. He will be quoting the bible, next.

    We may only occupy 1.4% of the Earth's surface, and we only breathe a little oxygen, but our machines consume hundreds or thousands of times more.

    Our production of fertiliser is so prolific that humans fix about 40% of amount of nitrogen that all the plants do, naturally.

    Those are the parameters we should consider when we think of the effect we have on the world. We may be tiny but we have an enormous impact. Evolution produced the Blue whale, but humans produced the supertanker.

  • the real ODB

    26 weeks ago

    dumb and dumber

    mopled. realisticman. Someone should EDITED FOR OFFENSIVE INSULTS -- MODERATOR

  • zalm

    26 weeks ago

    good luck Christophe

    We don't have an "ignorant" button here at Tyee, but it's lots of fun watching someone trying to push one on the troll. Most of us just ignore mopled. But it sure is lots of fun watching someone with fresh energy bat the Weeble around.

    "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down!"

  • mopled

    26 weeks ago

    My, my! It's getting nasty out !

    Warmists resort to insult and invective, even four letter words as the wheels come off the biggest scientific fraud since Lysenko.

    Some of the gems from the Climategate 2.0 emails
    <1939> Thorne/MetO:
    Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these further if necessary [...]

    <3066> Thorne:
    I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.

    <1611> Carter:
    It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group.

    <2884> Wigley:
    Mike, The Figure you sent is very deceptive [...] there have been a number of dishonest presentations of model results by individual authors and by IPCC [...]
    <4755> Overpeck:
    The trick may be to decide on the main message and use that to guid[e] what’s included and what is left out.
    ... <4923> Stott/MetO:

    My most immediate concern is to whether to leave this statement ["probably the warmest of the last millennium"] in or whether I should remove it in the anticipation that by the time of the 4th Assessment Report we’ll have withdrawn this statement – Chris Folland at least seems to think this is possible.

    <1485> Mann:
    the important thing is to make sure they’re loosing the PR battle. That’s what the site [Real Climate] is about.

    .. <4141> Minns/Tyndall Centre:

    In my experience, global warming freezing is already a bit of a public relations problem with the media

    http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2011/11/breaking-news-foia-2011-has-arrived.html

  • realisticman

    26 weeks ago

    The real ODB

    Obviously, you work for an insurance company.

    Those that are real believers say that unless $30 trillion (BBC) is spent on alternative energy sources soon, the earth can kiss it's sweet arse goodby.

    So. where shall we get this money?

  • G West

    26 weeks ago

    baloney

    An inquiry by a federal watchdog agency found no evidence that scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration manipulated climate data to buttress the evidence in support of global warming, officials said on Thursday.

    The inquiry, (done) by the Commerce Department’s inspector general, focused on e-mail messages between climate scientists that were stolen and circulated on the Internet in late 2009 ...

    ...

    In a report dated Feb. 18 ... the inspector general said, “We did not find any evidence that NOAA inappropriately manipulated data.”

    Nor did the report fault Jane Lubchenco, NOAA’s top official, for testifying to Congress that the correspondence did not undermine climate science.
    Source: NYTimes and this letter to James Inhoff:
    http://www.environbusiness.com/News/2011.02.18_IG_to_Inhofe.pdf

  • G West

    26 weeks ago

    furthermore

    Anyone who's sanguine about the actual 'effects' which demonstrate climate change ought to spend a little time doing some careful reading.

    Reading which would reveal the following:

    Selected Global Highlights for October 2011

    The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for October 2011 was the eighth warmest on record at 14.58°C (58.14°F), which is 0.58°C (1.04°F) above the 20th century average of 14.0°C (57.1°F). The margin of error associated with this temperature is +/- 0.07°C (0.13°F).
    Separately, the global land surface temperature was 1.10°C (1.98°F) above the 20th century average of 9.3°C (48.7°F), making this the second warmest October on record. The margin of error is +/- 0.11°C (0.20°F). Warmer-than-average conditions occurred across Alaska, Canada, most of Europe and Russia, and Mongolia. Cooler-than-average regions included the southeastern United States, most of southern and western South America, parts of Algeria and Libya, part of Eastern Europe, and far southeast Asia.
    The October global ocean surface temperature was 0.39°C (0.70°F) above the 20th century average of 15.9°C (60.6°F), making it the 11th warmest October on record. The margin of error is +/- 0.04°C (0.07°F). The warmth was most pronounced across the north central and northwest Pacific, the northeast Atlantic, and portions of the mid-latitude Southern oceans..
    The United Kingdom marked its warmest October since 2006 and sixth warmest in the last 100 years, at 1.5°C (2.7°F) above the 1971–2000 average.
    Spain had its warmest October since 1990 for the and fifth warmest over the past 50 years, at 1.8°C (3.2°F).
    The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the January – October period was 0.53°C (0.95°F) above the 20th century average of 14.0°C (57.4°F), making it the 10th warmest such period on record. The margin of error is +/- 0.09°C (0.16°F).

  • mopled

    26 weeks ago

    Gee West

    You still don't get it.

    Whether it warms or cools is meaningless unless a connection can be made to human produced CO2.

    There isn't any.

  • G West

    26 weeks ago

    Greenhouse Gas Concentrations Concentrations Continue Climbing

    http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_934_en.html

  • record

    26 weeks ago

    Actually

    Thanks, GW. Mopled should read your link and tell us where it is wrong. It is not just CO2. The connection has to be made between human activity and the increase in concentrations of various so called green house gases in the atmosphere. CO2, as we see, is one of them. The rise in the amounts of these gases since the beginning of agriculture, and a steeper rise since the beginning of the industrial revolution would be good circumstantial evidence that human activity could be responsible to some degree. The fact that the planet is not cooling as some research suggests that it should helps to bolster the argument. Even if the proof is not absolute the precautionary principle dictates that it be taken seriously until proven otherwise. Those who deny this evidence may best be understood by what they and or those behind them stand to gain from stopping any action to deal with it.

  • the real ODB

    26 weeks ago

    mop-man

    You 2 are pure geniuses. Everyone else is wrong and only you know the facts. Quick! Someone censor me before this drivel gets out! THE HUMANITY!!!

  • igbymac

    26 weeks ago

    What I always find bemusing

    ... is that in the late 1980s, when the world took collective action against CFCs regarding the ozone layer damage, the science on greenhouse gases was settled. The table had been set, or so it seemed, for a joint action to pick up on the greenhouse gas emissions.

    Then in the early/mid 1990s, BigOil got together and launched a major propaganda campaign to disrupt the collective thought. Evidently it worked.

    Between the population explosion, perpetual warfare, the inevitable economic meltdown and the ecological destruction we refuse to address in any sane fashion, we humans are bound and determined to pull the trigger in order to confirm we have loaded the chamber.

  • record

    26 weeks ago

    @ igbymac

    :)

  • realisticman

    26 weeks ago

    ODB

    Everyone else?
    Maybe here. Perhaps you should get out a bit more.

    Did you also get suckered into that whole Y2K thing? Air traffic was going to be chaos, utilities were going to crash and millions would be in the dark, billions were spent on new computers and modifying the old ones, etc., etc. There were more believers than a Baptist revival meeting. Same thing here. The believers are right and everyone else is doomed or an agent for the devil. Yawn....

  • record

    26 weeks ago

    History of Climategate

    http://motherjones.com/environment/2011/04/history-of-climategate

  • G West

    26 weeks ago

    Thanks record

    I only hope our local skeptics take the time to read your link...especially this line:

    "Climate science has basically been at the receiving end of the best-funded, best-organized smear campaign by the wealthiest industry that the Earth has ever known—that's the bottom line,"

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