A Free-Market Energy Blog

The Carbon Scrooges

By Thorpe Watson -- December 23, 2016

The following article is a revised version of the email recently sent to 186 politicians in BC, Saskatchewan, and Ottawa, including 28 federal Senators.

I urge everyone to include politicians in their circulation lists. Recognizing that politicians are flooded with appeals, you may wish to preface your submission with something that will attract their attention such as the following:

  • Are you prepared to accept Dr. David Suzuki’s climate-related suggestion that “politicians should be thrown in the slammer for wilful blindness”? (For our USA cousins, David Suzuki is Canada’s “Al Gore”. When Suzuki threatened politicians with imprisonment, he was actually threatening climate sceptics, not realizing that his threat could backfire.)
  • Are you prepared to cope with the wrath of an angry electorate that is suffering the lifestyle consequences of a low-carbon economy?
  • Willful blindness will not only jeopardize your political career, it will also undermine the financial soundness of your pension.
  • Failure to give serious consideration to the following message will most certainly jeopardize the integrity of this great country.

Maybe I’m being overly optimistic, but I am hoping that a few politicians will read and be able to understand the seriousness of the message. We are at a “tipping point” and it’s not one of the climate tipping points that have failed to materialize. It is an economic tipping point, which is materializing in Ontario.

My message follows:

Charles Dickens’ 1843 book, “A Christmas Carol”, has provided us with some appreciation of living conditions in a low-carbon economy. It depicts the austere, freezing conditions of the Little Ice Age; more specifically, the Dalton Minimum (1790 to 1830). In this story, Ebenezer Scrooge denies his clerk, Bob Cratchit, an extra shovel full of coal for the fireplace in his freezing office.

The modern-day Scrooge wants to deny us more than a shovel full of coal. He wants to deny us the use of all hydrocarbon fuels (aka “fossil fuels” – coal, oil, and gas). But how can politicians convince the people to willingly make such a sacrifice? H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) has provided us with one answer to this question:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Consequently, we have been told that the carbon dioxide (“CO2”) generated by the consumption of hydrocarbon fuels will cause runaway warming. Our only salvation is to embrace a carbon-free economy or pay indulgences (aka “carbon tax”). How a tax will ward off such a serious threat defies any rational explanation.

As clearly shown in the Appendix, it is absurd to believe that a carbon-free economy will stabilize the planet’s ever-changing climate. However, a carbon-free economy will devastate modern lifestyles. The video entitled, “Hydrocarbon Man”, shows what happens in a home deprived of petroleum products.

HYDROCARBON MAN

https://vimeo.com/31586887

Without coal to fuel the metallurgical blast furnaces, the house would actually collapse because of a lack of nails.

This cartoon depicts the consequences of a carbon-free economy for a cyclist.

Ontario is now supplying us with incontrovertible proof that energy policies driven by the anthropogenic-global-warming (aka “climate-change”) scientific fraud will destroy an industrial economy.

Furthermore, it is delusional to believe that the restriction of Canada’s 1.6% share of the world’s manmade CO2 emissions will stabilize the planet’s ever-changing climate. Anyone familiar with the natural and dramatic variability of the planet’s four major climate cycles would be overjoyed if CO2 really provided us with such power.

A credible climate forecast is provided by scientists who claim that we will be subject to another Little Ice Age by 2030, maybe by 2020. This forecast is consistent with the history of climate change and will subject us to the low temperatures of the Dalton (1790 to 1830) and Maunder Minimums (1645 to 1715). Will our governments wake up in time to develop a strategy enabling Canadians to adapt to lower temperatures and the consequential reductions of farm output?

A weak, low-carbon economy will not only move us towards an impoverished, Medieval lifestyle but will also threaten the unity of Canada and make us more vulnerable to the radicals of the world.

In spite of the anticipated “Bah! Humbugs!” by modern-day Scrooges, I wish you a warm and merry Christmas in your fossil-fuel heated home where you enjoy the comforts and luxuries of a carbon economy.

I also wish you a Happy New Year and hope that politicians will acquire the wisdom and courage to publicly denounce the modern-day Scrooges.

APPENDIX: A REVIEW OF THE GLOBAL-WARMING/CLIMATE-CHANGE CONTROVERSY

  • Do you believe that mankind’s emissions of carbon dioxide (“CO2”, aka “carbon”) will cause runaway warming?
  • Do you believe that we can stabilize the planet’s ever-changing climate by restricting our generation of CO2 or by paying carbon taxes or by adopting a meat-free diet?
  • Do you believe that CO2 is “carbon” pollution?

The thousands of delegates who attend the luxurious, UN climate conferences, embrace such beliefs while ignoring facts that clearly demonstrate the delusional, if not pathological, nature of such beliefs. The pertinent facts are:

  • CO2 is neither carbon nor black soot nor pollution.
  • CO2 is a colourless, trace gas in our CO2-impoverished atmosphere.
  • CO2 is as important as water and oxygen in sustaining life on the planet.
  • Henry’s Law limits mankind’s contribution to the total CO2 content of the atmosphere because the oceans are a huge CO2 sink.
  • Consequently, the consumption of all known coal, oil, and gas deposits will not materially replenish our CO2-impoverished atmosphere (less than 20%).
  • Global warming ceased more than 18 years ago in spite of increasing CO2 levels.
  • Most of the CO2 increases are caused by the natural out-gassing of the oceans.
  • Carbon dioxide is a vital component of the carbon cycle, which greens our planet.

In reality, the climate alarmist narrative is not about science. Christiana Figueres (Executive Secretary UNFCCC) has admitted that the primary purpose of the narrative is to gain acceptance for a new economic world order. Needless to say, the signing of UN climate treaties means the surrendering of our sovereignty to corrupt, unelected, UN bureaucrats anxious to steal/redistribute our wealth.

Let us hope that truth and common sense will prevail in time to prevent a complete collapse of our economy.

 

3 Comments


  1. Dr Tim Ball-Historical Climatologist  

    My latest book, ‘Human Caused Global Warming, the Biggest Deception in History’.
    Available on Amazon and Indigo/Chapters.
    My SLAPP lawsuit to silence me comes to trial on Feb 20, 2017,
    Dr Michael Mann vs Dr Tim Ball.
    http://www.drtimball.com

    Reply

  2. Jay Colburn  

    Yes CO2 is a Greenhouse Gas! That is why Greenhouses use CO2 generators to increase food production and reduce water consumption.

    Reply

  3. J Storrs hall  

    But these are not just Scrooges — they are green Scrooges. And there is nothing you can call a green Scrooge but a … Grinch.

    Reply

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