Canadian Government Should Ignore Greenhouse Gas Impacts In Energy Policy Formulation
Pretending that climate science is settled, as authors of new open letter do, deceives the public
Ottawa, Canada, May 9, 2013: "Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver should reject the pleas of twelve climate scientists, economists and policy
experts who signed an open letter urging him to make greenhouse gas impacts “a central consideration” of Canada’s hydrocarbon resources development,”
saidTom Harris, executive director of the Ottawa-based International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC). “Energy plans should be restricted to addressing only the environmental concerns we know to be real, such as
air, land and water pollution. The linkage between energy usage and climate is far too tenuous to be included in any
serious national discussions about energy.”
“It is utter nonsense to say, as the open letter signers did, that ‘the responsibility for preventing dangerous climate
change rests with today’s policymakers,’” said ICSC Science Advisory Board member, Dr. Tim Ball, former University of Winnipeg climatology professor. “We can’t even properly forecast global climate, let alone
control it. The open letter’s advocacy of “avoiding 2 degrees C of global warming” by altering our energy policy is
ridiculous when cooling is more probable, and may have already started.”
“Spending billions of dollars to reduce Canada’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in a vain attempt to stop non-existent
global warming is a tragic waste of our resources,” continued Ball. “By all means, we should work to control real
pollution, but CO2, the greenhouse gas most under attack by climate campaigners, is a benefit to the environment, its
rise resulting in more crop yield and a densification of forests.”
Speaking about the primary basis of the climate alarm, the forecasts of computerized climate models, applied mathematics
professor and ICSC science advisor Dr. Chris Essex of the University of Western Ontario explained, “They can't predict the future because they are not comprehensive
implementations of known physics. They are empirically based models of the type that would be used in an engineering
problem, but without the empirical validation that must be done for engineering.”
“Many people, including people with PhDs, are very weak on this issue,” asserted Essex. "The big policy questions are
beyond the best models we can currently make. Climate is far from a simple solved scientific problem, despite rampant
proclamations and simplistic analogies suggesting otherwise. Policymakers, not to mention academics, must come to terms
with that."
“Climate change appears to be driven primarily by natural variability,” said former Environment Canada Research
Scientist and ICSC science advisor Dr. Madhav L. Khandekar. “The Earth has not warmed in last 16 years, despite about 250 billion tonnes of CO2 put out by human activity
worldwide. Regardless, the net effect of any possible future warming and rising CO2 is most likely to be beneficial to
humans, plants and wildlife.”
The real concern is possible global cooling, something that could have a disastrous effect on Canada, Khandekar, a
contributing author to the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, warns. “Since the start of the new millennium, winters have become colder and snowier in Europe and North America.
Winters in South America and South Africa have also become colder,” Khandekar explained. “North America may also quite
likely see even colder winters in the next few years if forecasts of dropping solar activity prove to be correct.”
“The dozen academics who signed the open letter to Minister Oliver are right about one thing: we do need a ‘serious debate about climate change and energy in this country,’” saidHarris. “ICSC also encourages the Government to convene open, unbiased hearings into the state of modern climate science,
inviting experts of all reputable points of view to testify. Only then will the public come to appreciate the vast
uncertainty in this, arguably the most complex science ever tackled.”
ENDS