Climate of injustice

 A response to a letter in The Low Down, Sept 14-20, 2022 titled "Together for climate justice"

I am responding to the seemingly endless demands by the La Peche Coalition for a Green New Deal to forcefully implement policies to combat the gas of life - carbon dioxide. It is sad to read so many letters based on ignorance of science, economics and most of all a proper ethical framework.

For over 20 years I have closely followed the evolution of scientific knowledge about our climate by reading many books written by eminent scientists and subject-matter experts and keeping an eye on many of the thousands of studies connected to the Earth's climate. Long ago I could tell from a broad review of the literature that climate alarmism was based on distortions, bad statistical and scientific methodology, and most of all bad ideology. The premise that the Earth is a delicate nurturer best left untouched by man's activities is contrary to the nature of human life, which is to apply reason to the challenges of survival in a naturally dangerous and deficient environment. Humans thrive only by reshaping and improving our world. I have come across thousands of studies and many basic facts of reality that directly contradict the idea that there is any kind of climate crisis and anyone who does a broad reading of the literature would easily find the same. I encourage readers to see for themselves, perhaps starting with the recent book "Fossil Future" that provides an irrefutable case and moving on from there for those who want more technical information.

Economically, fossil fuel energy presently makes up more than 80% of the world energy supply and is always the best and preferred way for poor countries to solve their problems of starvation, disease and suffering. Three billion people have less energy than a typical refrigerator and have a massive need for more energy. Alarmists almost always ignore the massive benefits of fossil fuel energy and focus only on the manageable side-effects, like focusing only on vaccine side-effects and ignoring the benefits. Wind and solar may have a small role to play in generating electricity but due to their intermittent, dilute and unreliable nature they are spectacularly unsuited for economical grid-scale power, plus require massive mining projects mostly in third world countries and dictatorships, leading to horrible pollution problems. A call to end fossil fuel energy is a call for the continuation of uman suffering for the billions of people who do not yet enjoy our level of energy capability and te mass murder of those who would lose the life-giving energy from fossil fuels we now enjoy. 

Politically, a call for a green new deal is a call for fascism, as few populations will voluntarily choose societal suicide for very long. Witness the dramatic policy reversal in the UK when it became clear that mass suffering would quickly result from the loss of reliable, cheap energy. If all state coercion and subsidies was removed from the energy market and humans were free to produce and trade, I know there would be almost no wind and solar infrastructure built and human progress would leap forward.

Ethically, the right framework is one of respect for human rights: your right to peacefully pursue your own values and to keep the product of your work. It is unethical to lie about the state of scientific knowledge in an effort to achieve power over the lives of others, unethical to call for the destruction of a safe, cheap and reliable energy system that sustains the lives of billions of people with no viable replacement in hand, unethical to cry for the use of political force against billions of innocent people trying to live in peace. The right ethical path is one towards an objective assessment of reality, the recognition of the ability of individuals to think for themselves and to produce values to trade with others and a government whose function is to protect our rights and never violate them. We have a long way to go but a move in the right direction would be a good start. It begins with every individual thinking.

Kids skipping school to chant empty slogans and wave ridiculous signs around political hangouts

With kids around the world being encouraged by teachers to skip school to protest about global warming, many cities had their own band of anti-reason students. I thought to give them a little guidance. Ottawa, Ottawa, Montreal, Saskatchewan, BC, National Post, HuffPost Canada, Kingston

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I have been studying the subject of climate science as a personal interest for almost 20 years. There is a vast body of research including fundamental findings that proves the alarm over dangerous man-made global warming is vastly overblown and that in fact the world is becoming ever better for humanity. I am not referring to a few studies, but many hundreds, even thousands of them, published over decades of work by some of the most experienced and prominent scientists in their fields, available in the peer-reviewed literature with another such study published on average every day all year long.

For any youth interested in this subject, I encourage them to learn more about the scientific method and the various disciplines related to climate, then your minds will be at ease and you will be able to dedicate your life to creating value for yourself and others through productive work and helping humanity to flourish and progress instead of spending time lobbying scientifically ignorant politicians. There are professors right near where I live in Ottawa, at Carleton University and University of Ottawa who are experts in this and if you ever make it to their classes you will learn much more than I could explain here.

Please, read widely and weigh the research - you will find one side that tells you to stop thinking there are alternative explanations, that the science is settled, is filled with exaggerations, unwarranted extrapolations, models that are poorly constructed and have failed to forecast anything, misused statistical methods, a reversal of cause and effect, suggestions for a massive violation of individual rights and essentially a reversal of human progress since the industrial revolution, while the other side urges caution, asks you to check all your assumptions, to be thoughtful and to weigh all the evidence.

It is clear from their signs, their attributed quotes and the interview clips that the marching kids have no idea of the meaning of what they are saying. For example:

• They demonstrate their ignorance of environmental science when they say the environment is getting worse, when in fact every important measure of air, water and food pollution has been improving at a rapid rate for decades. One sign I saw said "the planet needs you to give a shit" - the sign wielder apparently is ignorant of the fact that before industrial scale energy from carbon fuels, the streets were actually full of shit and the water was polluted by it, causing plagues and death on a massive scale.
• They demonstrate their ignorance of politics by holding signs saying "change the system, not the climate" with big fists pictured (typically indicating a Marxist ideology) when in fact many countries are clearly already headed towards Marxism and the concept of a free, capitalist society is almost completely unknown and has certainly never existed.
• They demonstrate ignorance of health science when they claim people are killing others through carbon dioxide, when in fact the death rate from extreme weather events has fallen 98% since we started using carbon fuels in earnest almost a century ago; so the correlation between carbon dioxide production and deaths has an extraordinarily strong negative correlation.
• They demonstrate their ignorance of chemistry, being against the use of carbon fuels yet they wave signs made from carbon fuels, march on carbon-based and carbon made roads, wear clothing and knapsacks literally made of and with energy from carbon fuels, carry phones made of carbon fuels eagerly use an internet powered by carbon fuels, drink from bottles made with the energy of carbon fuels - the list goes on and on because 85% of world energy comes from carbon fuels.
• They demonstrate ignorance of economics because they hold signs claiming the economy is being prioritized over human life, when in fact the economy is nothing except human beings working to improve their lives through production and trade with other human beings.
• They demonstrate ignorance of history because before the industrial revolution and especially since the availability of safe, reliable, cheap energy from carbon fuels, 95% of humanity lived in abject poverty for all of history, suffered from disease, starvation and a short, brutal life while dangerous nature tried to kill them at every turn.
• They demonstrate ignorance of finance and the very meaning of wealth because they protest against the pursuit of money, clearly not understanding that money is not a goal, but rather is simply a means of recognizing and exchanging productive values like food, shelter, transportation, communication, education, health care, entertainment, etc.
• They demonstrate a hatred of human life - I saw a sign showing a skull and crossed swords saying "artist activist for the Earth" suggesting the valuing of non-human Earth above the advancement of human civilization.
• They demonstrate their ignorance of how the planet has been improved for human life, not made worse - the planet is actually greening as farmland is made more productive and so less of it is needed. A higher carbon dioxide level in the air is recovering from its historically low level and feeds hungry plants of all types, nourishing forests and shrinking deserts.

In summary, these student marchers and their supporters have no idea what they are talking about and should get back to studying reality if they hope for a good life in the future.

Audience question 1 from the debate

  1. What will you do to support French school boards?

Paraphrasing the other candidates: I support French education more than the other guys and will spend more than they will. Vote for me.

David McGruer: In a free society there are no government obstacles to French schools or any other type of schools. By removing government controls, parents can support only the precise schools they want their children to attend and are not forced to pay for all the other schools. The simple solution is to remove the use of force from education.

Response to questions from the Canadian Secular Alliance

I received this questionnaire and have placed my responses in the text.

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I am writing to you on behalf of the Canadian Secular Alliance - a national and non-partisan non-profit organization whose objective is to advocate for church-state separation and government neutrality with respect to religion.

We have prepared a short questionnaire regarding issues relevant to our mandate in Ontario. We would greatly appreciate if you could complete the questionnaire and send your responses to president@secularalliance.ca.

We understand that some of the questions reference propositions that might be complicated to implement, but we are looking for your position on the principles they embody. The responses we receive will be posted, without modification, to our website and circulated to our members. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration and best of luck in the election.

Question 1. Do you support saving the province a minimum of half a billion dollars every year by amalgamating the public and Catholic school systems into a single, secular taxpayer funded school system for each language?

David McGruer: Such a question can only arise in a society where government has forced students into state-run schools and forced citizens to pay for it, and further implies that such a coercive arrangement is desirable. In a free society, individuals establish schools that offer what they believe parents want in an educational institution, parents choose among the schools offered, competition between all such institutions requires them to remain relevant and productive, and so families obtain the educational services they want, not what is dictated they must have by those in central command.  I am in favour of a free education system, meaning all participants are free to choose, instead of the current one.  Using more force to reduce existing choice in schools can only make things worse and validates the use of force in education.

Question 2. Is it acceptable to allow religious leaders of any denomination to conduct prayer sessions on public school property during school hours?

David McGruer: Again, such a question can only have meaning in a society where citizens are subject to government force in educational.  The moral role of government is to protect the rights of citizens – that’s all – and so I am in favour of the separation of religion and state.  Thus, in the current non-free state-run schools there should be no religious component except for the study of religion, if individual parents and students so choose.  As a small step towards such separation, prayer sessions should not be permitted during school hours.

Question 3. Should students in publicly funded Catholic schools be allowed to form Gay-Straight Alliance groups?

David McGruer: In a free society, citizens are permitted to do, join or form anything that does not cause or promise physical harm to others.  Thus, students should be free to form any group they wish, as long as it does not violate another’s right to liberty or property.

Question 4. The Ministry of Education took two years filled with extensive public consultations to create a current, relevant, and appropriate sex-ed curriculum. Do you support implementing the recommendations that the provincial government proposed in 2010?

David McGruer: Such a question can only arise when government operates a monopoly in education and effectively forbids and outlaws parental choice in educational institutions and curriculum content.  Sex education is a sensitive subject for many people and curriculum content should be subject to parental choice.  I am not in favour of having the government force any particular content upon students, so there is no way to objectively answer this question, just as there can be no way to answer a question about any item in the curriculum unless it is about my children’s education.  In a monopoly system, curriculum content is determined by political pull instead of parental choice, and all of it necessarily is a violation of rights.  I am in favour of restoring parental freedom in education and removing government coercion from this crucial industry.

Question 5. Do you support amending the Assessment Act to remove the requirement that municipalities must grant full property tax exemptions to religious organizations, even though other charitable organizations are entitled only to a 40% rebate?

David McGruer: In a free society all contracts and exchanges are voluntary and property ownership is absolute. Thus, I am opposed to the use of government force against citizens through coercive property taxation.  In the current system there is little relationship between the actual use of services and the property tax paid.  In the current mixed economy, if there is to be a property tax then it should be applied objectively and as fairly as the system permits, at least approximating the services used, and there should certainly be no discrimination between institutions based on religion.

Question 6. Do you support eliminating all religious invocations at the start of legislative sessions?

David McGruer: In a free society, religious beliefs are a matter of individual choice and are neither imposed on nor denied to anyone.  This implies a complete separation of religion and state and so, by extension, religion should not play any part in government ceremonies.

Regards,

Greg Oliver

President

Canadian Secular Alliance

president@secularalliance.ca

416-591-7378

Politicized science in Orleans

In an attempt to create fear of the future among adult citizens, Ottawa-Orleans MPP Phil McNeely continues to spread his grossly mistaken version of climate change.  McNeely was quoted in the Star, saying “I have a couple of grandkids and don’t see much of a future for them.” He sponsored a climate change forum for Orleans high school students where he has been trying to create fear in our children and was quoted “The kids are going to suffer in 2030, 2040 and 2050.”  Meanwhile, the Ontario government under the control of his party has implemented a plan to take hard-earned money from innocent citizens, harming the weakest the most, and give it to people willing to implement the politically distorted version of electricity generation, people who will be generally well-off already.  This short paragraph illustrates the damage done by political interference in science, education and the economy.

To gain a basic understanding of the science of climate change McNeely has only to attend a class or two at Ottawa University.  There, students learn of recent research from the scientific disciplines of geology, physics, climatology and mathematics that Earth’s temperature changes with several natural cycles (examples: ocean currents, planetary rotation, solar, galactic) over all time scales.  They will learn how there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature in the last 100 years and how temperature changes precede CO2 changes by an average of 800 years over the last few hundred thousand years.  The world’s top satellite data expert, Roy Spencer’s research shows that cause and effect have been reversed in the minds of most people and that satellite data proves man-made CO2 does not have any dramatic effect on global temperature.  Students may also learn about very recent work using satellite data by researcher Ferenc Miskolczi who identified the equilibrium equation for Earth's gain and loss of heat.  Miskolczi's work shows that when the carbon dioxide level rises then water vapour concentration falls exactly enough so the Earth maintains its energy balance. Thus, even large changes in carbon dioxide will have no effect on the global temperature.

Climate science has been thoroughly taken over by people who feed off money taken from citizens by government.  Some of these people desire to control the lives of others, and often try to create large-scale fear in the public to get people to give in to the control.  Fear of planetary disaster through man-made warming is the clearest example. Socialists who think they know better than you implement thousands of policies that gradually erode your freedoms.  The second group is scientists and their staff who want to work and support their families but rely on government funding instead of a free market to do their research.  Once the power-seekers have taken control of taxpayer funded science, they direct funding to those who will reinforce their point of view and block contrary finding and a dogmatic bureaucracy becomes entrenched.

When power-seekers can’t get adults to react enough to suit their liking, they go after the children.  Since government has gradually assumed control over most of the nation’s education, it is quite easy to change the curriculum to introduce a particular political agenda.  By assembling students and placing a politician (himself) who knows almost nothing of the science in a position of authority, MPP McNeely takes the final step in replacing science with political dogma – a fear-induced frenzy in our children about a non-existent threat.

Meanwhile, out in the real world, government force is implemented in the economy.  Just look in your newspaper for ads about a new Ontario government program that will give money to people who install solar electric panels at ten to twenty times the going rate for electricity while making everyone else pay for it.  Obviously, if solar power was economic then people would use it of their own free will with no government force needed.  Since it is non-economic, the price difference is pure economic waste – electricity that could be produced at far lower cost but is not.  Those most harmed are the poor, for whom electricity is an essential and significant part of their budget.  Of course, since power is used to produce everything, the price of everything will rise.  This is most clear in developing countries, where environmentalists using political force have blocked the construction of hydro and coal powered electrical generation, leading to the continuation of hunger, sickness and death for millions of human beings.  People who have freely chosen against solar power are being forced to use and pay for it by the very people they once to elect to protect their freedom to choose – a clear perversion of the purpose of government.

What is needed to eliminate the problem of the politicization of science, education and the economy is not simply a replacement government with slightly different ideas about how to control your life, but a government willing to return to its moral and proper role: the protector of individual rights through objective law, the police, the courts and the military.  What we need is a change from various collectivist philosophies to one based on individual freedom.