In Your Letters on May 16, Julia Lissau articulated her views about climate change.
She advised Doug Macdonald “to broaden his reading selections,” such as UN’s IPCC (United Nations’s International Panel on Climate Change), Globe & Mail, Narwhal, etc. Much of what she writes is correct: "the rich nations are, in fact, over-consuming with our lifestyle”-, “fossil fuels have improved human lives for the past 100-plus years,” and “CO2 is necessary for plant survival and keeping the earth’s overall temperatures stable.”
In fact, a NASA-funded study says "irreversible collapse" of industrial civilization is likely in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.
However, secondary news sources are suspect because they often have a political agenda. Reading selections should be scientific in nature.
For example: Professor Emeritus of paleogeophysics and geodynamics at Stockholm University, Dr. Nils-Axel Moerner (sea level expert for the 2000 UN IPCC), quit the panel because the UN claims scientific consensus for political reasons.
He explains that globally-variable sea levels, inter/planetary influences, IPCC censorship, and the failures of imperialism, and the pro-nuclear origin of the CO2 dictate are important considerations. He informs us that “A new solar-driven cooling period is not far off.”
Indeed, as long ago as 2018 NASA predicted a climate cooling trend due to low sun activity. Ice cores show this cycle.
Dr. Philip Lloyd, South African Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer, (a UN IPCC co-coordinating lead author who has authored over 150 referenced publications) has stated: “The quantity of CO2 we produce is insignificant in terms of the natural circulation between air, water and soil.” His assessment of the UN IPCC reports show how their Summaries have distorted the science.
Canadian IPCC scientist Dr. Madhav Khandekar, retired Environment Canada scientist, wrote that IPCC documents do not represent ‘scientific consensus’—that nothing could be further from the truth.
It is most interesting that the UN IPCC does not include the activities of the military industrial complex and its ongoing global wars. Why is the IPCC blaming only the civilian population?
The Union of Concerned Scientists Data shows that Canada produces only two per cent of global CO2, while China produces 29 per cent; the rest of the world combined produces 69 per cent.
So should the two per cent Canadians pay a carbon tax, submit to 15-minute cities (walking distance only), give up gas-powered cars, give up eating meat, etc.
Anyone who speaks against the mainstream narrative, such as Alex Epstein, is demonized.
What has happened to being open-minded?
Why not consider opposing points of view? Do your own research if you can, or at least stop repeating the out-dated narrative.
Wind and solar electricity generation is unreliable because it is dependent on the weather, expensive, harmful to birds and animals, unsustainable, but lucrative for industry. Even worse: nuclear power is again being touted as the solution—a dangerous solution (think Fukushima)—dangerous to our health. Radioactive uranium has a half-life of billions of years. (This means that future generations will face significant risks from our mining of uranium.)
Lobby for peace!
The real solutions to reducing our harmful consumerist lifestyle, at least from the civilian perspective, is, as usual, reduce, reuse, recycle—and compost.
Even better: don’t buy so much stuff. Mining, processing, transportation, and solid waste disposal are all part of the cost of our consumer lifestyle.
Please stop terrifying our children with “The End is Near” global warming story.
And don’t forget: Give up your private jets.
Lena Warrington
