Thank you Julia Lissau (letter May 16) for your encouragement to read the research.
Fossil fuels ignited the Industrial Revolution 170 years ago lifting people out of poverty while adding over 6 billion people to the world. During a time of rapid expansion, industrialization and innovation, earth's temperature slowly rose. Ninety-seven per cent of climate scientists believe this warming will continue; raising the earth's temperature by one degree celsius and coinciding with CO2 levels doubling around 2050.
During this period estimated CO2 levels were .03 per cent (280 parts per million) of earth's atmosphere and are presently .04 per cent (420ppm) and projected to be 560ppm by 2050 (United Nations-Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - IPCC - review). Historically, we are already at low CO2 levels, to put it in perspective most plants will die when CO2 levels are 150 ppm or below. CO2 is plant food and necessary for life; that is a scientific fact.
It would seem to me, things had been going along quite nicely, even though not all people have experienced health and prosperity. We have a balance between humans and nature, less land is needed for food production now, and trees are filling that space. One billion more people have been lifted out of poverty in the last 25 years with better health, education, increased food supply, all due to fossil fuels. Man has tamed nature in ways we never thought possible, but that is never mentioned.
There are many good benefits that come from this warming but are ignored by the IPCC. The IPCC takes the 97 per cent consensus and attaches it to future projections with climate scientists producing models that wildly overstate the warming. This is very misleading. Upon releasing the IPCC Summary for Policymakers, the mainstream media sensationalizes the headlines, awakening the apocalyptic environmental crowd. Cries of "doomsday," "an overheated planet because of fossil fuels," etc.
Because of this, pressure is brought to bear on federal and local governments and the powers that be are about to change your life and you will lose your freedom. Controlling what you buy, regulating home energy devices, and imposing new carbon taxes; etc. We do have a choice, we can say no. We can say no to electric vehicles. It may work elsewhere but not here, our country is too large, and at times very cold. We do not have the economies of scale to make it practical, affordable and reliable. Solar and wind are not the answer. We need reliable inexpensive industrial heat to provide industrial infrastructure and transportation for a sustainable economy.
Why are fossil fuels blamed for climate change? Locally, people have lost their homes, valuables, items they may never recover due to wildfires. Wildfires are not caused by global warming as the environmentalists would have you believe, they are a part of our history. Environmentalists have tipped the scales in favour of nature, man needs to reassert control, we have that choice. What happened to controlled burns and reducing fuel load practiced by stewards of the forests for centuries? Time to rewrite the Forest Practices Code to enable efficient and effective forest management that puts people first and the pine beetle a distant second.
Doug Macdonald
