Climate Change: Mankind’s Greatest Threat

As a conservationist, I believe in climate change, man-made or not. Living in Calgary where the weather may change every five minutes, unlike Leonardo DiCaprio I know that a Chinook is not global warming; and that el Nino is a natural occurrence.  However, I now recognize that the assertion by terrorism deniers’ that climate change is the world’s greatest threat is real; and this is why:

After the failures of the Kyoto Protocol, some 200 countries comprising 40,000 delegates, including 380 from Canada attended COP21 in Paris in 2015. The Montgolfier brothers would have been ecstatic at the amount of hot air produced at this conference. With great fanfare, the participants signed an agreement to reduced GHG emissions to somehow prevent the average earth’s temperatures rising more than 2C higher than pre-industrial levels. To take effect the agreement needs ratification by at least 55% of the signatories, and will come into force in 2020, when ironically most leaders who signed the agreement will certainly be out of office.

Once again, this agreement has no teeth, and pledges from 186 countries were achieved because the system is essentially voluntary. While emitting carbon dioxide remains optional the only binding part of the agreement is that nations will do more planning.

 As industrialized countries shift their production to developed countries there will in effect be no change in GHG emissions since most countries like India and China make greater use of coal than Canada, the U.S and European countries. Global CO2 emissions have risen by 42% since 1990, and it is unlikely to decrease very much under the new agreement.

Let us look at why the climate change rhetoric is now the world’s greatest threat. First, the Paris agreement is likely to be the most expensive treaty in the history of the world. Based on several peer- reviewed energy- economic models, the total cost of Paris — through slower growth in gross domestic product from higher energy costs — will reach $ 1 trillion-$ 2 trillion every year from 2030. The International Energy Agency estimates the magnitude of subsidies for renewal power — which still doesn’t eliminate the need for baseload power — could top $3 trillion over the next 25 years.
Second we have the agreement to spend $100 billion, including Canada’s pledge of $2.65B.on climate aid to help the developing world. This is the most useless wealth redistribution policy put together by a number of leftist who want to feel virtuous. Worse, this will be administrated by the dysfunctional United Nations were money is usually squandered, and transferred to despots in the third world. While billions are starving and have no running water; spending billions to provide them with solar panels and wind turbines is the most dishonest way to get rid of poverty.

On the home front Alberta’s new NDP government plans to raise a carbon tax and reduce the use of coal in the province will no doubt damage the provincial economy. In addition the Trudeau government may well add to the problem with new taxes. Obama’s decision to ban the Keystone XL pipeline will further damage the economy. The irony is that the U.S will produce more oil as they lift a ban on oil exports.

Third we have the constant attack on free speech. Skeptics are always attacked and prevented from expressing their opinion. Ecojustice wants the Competition Bureau to stop Friends of Science (FoS) that has put up billboards in Calgary and Edmonton saying the sun, not human beings or CO2, is the cause of global warming. Their claim is that the information by FoS is misleading information. Yet they claim that the science of climate change is backed by 97% of scientists, while the American Meteorological Society and Netherlands surveys which were anonymous found nowhere near 97 per cent support for the IPCC conclusion.

Fourth, children are being indoctrinated instead of being educated to learn about all the facts. They are subjected to views put forward by the climate change religion comprised of  high priests Suzuki, Al Gore et al, who  ignore that the climate has been changing for billions of years, long before fossil fuel became the major source of energy. Rising sea levels are nothing new, the Bible and other ancient texts reports show that there was a major flood; that glaciers have been melting for centuries, and climatic changes happened pre the industrial revolution.

Solutions abound. Alternative sources of energy should be explored and brought on stream, but the main problem will be storage. We should invest in research and new technology. We must not ignore that we are a carbon-based specie, and that economic growth was largely achieved through the use of fossil fuels. A zero –carbon economy will not be achieved for at least 90 years, if not longer. Conservation is the answer, and it should be done through positive incentives, not punitive taxes and ridiculous subsidies which promote crony capitalism and minimize economic growth.
By stealth we are about to lose  fundamental economic and speech freedoms. Yes, climate change has become the greatest threat to mankind, not because of fossil fuels but due to political rhetoric and self-righteous politicians in search of a legacy.

The Rise of theTroglodytes

Ever since the conservative era of the eighties, the left had been chomping at the bit to get back into power. Stuck for years in the caves of oblivion the socialists changed their names to progressives. Enter Obama, the savior of the left. With his slogan of ‘hope and change’, he gave all leftists the confidence they had been so lacking for years. As a result the left has risen from its ashes and now populate virtually every country and Canadian province. The consequences of this conversion are being felt on a global scale. However, buyers’ remorse is gradually but surely increasing everywhere.

The International arena

The election of Obama, a socialist and terrorism denier, emboldened politicians around the world to move left and with disastrous results. The global economy is still stagnating as the U.S economy stalled for the past seven years. His mantra of income inequality resonated with many politicians, unfortunately the poor got poorer.

Europe turned left despite the recent election of Conservatives in England. Merkel of Germany once thought to be a centre-right politician soon changed her views when it came to bailing out Greece and accepting hundreds of thousands of refugees, without thinking about the security of Europe. France’s Hollande, tried to redistribute wealth by taxing the rich, but that did not work too well. In the U.K the rise of socialist Corbyn is already showing signs of taking root as a two-year commission, chaired by the former senior judge Baroness Butler-Sloss and  involving leading religious leaders from all faiths, called for public life in Britain to be systematically de-Christianised.

The worse part of Obama’s presidency must be the great divide caused by political correctness and his reluctance to recognize the true global threat of terrorism. The former has percolated into the media and increasingly into the education system. It has threatened freedom of speech and created an environment where everybody seems to be offended by everything. No longer can the establishment or individuals be challenged for their views for fear of being labelled a racist, bigot or xenophobe. Today discourse on any subject is immediately analyzed in terms of race or discrimination. However, it seems that this distinction does not apply to the left; they can say or do anything and are never called to the mat. The left is always right and the media has virtually allowed them to become experts on every subject from economics to climatology.

The leftist agenda has not only increased but has taken root in our education system, as increasingly our children are being indoctrinated. Today universities are supposed to provide ‘safe space’, sleeping and resting places, and dogs for stressed students. Students at an early age are being coddled and good teachers are being punished for being disciplinarians and allocating marks according to performance. No longer do we support achievement. Even in sports there seems to be a reluctance to acknowledge that elite athletes exists and should be looked at differently. With the rise of so-called social justice, everybody seems to be given a pass. We must have a Mincom; and no longer should success be rewarded by large salaries. The entitlement society has arrived and it has an effect on every aspect of today’s life.

 

The Canadian dilemma

This socialist trend can be seen in Canada. As of December 2015, there is no government in Canada with the name ‘conservative’. Alberta one of the staunchest conservative provinces went to the New Democrats and the country went back to the Liberals. The consequences of these two elections are already displayed by the dictatorship and arrogance of the left’s policies.

In Ontario, as reported by the Auditor General, the Wynn government is fraught with scandals in every sector from healthcare, to the energy file. The government’s climate change policy has resulted in a 70 per cent rise in eight years for residential electricity prices and spending of $1.45 billion out in corporate welfare, made with little accountability. Canadians and Albertans should carefully watch developments in Ontario, because they may be a blue print for the Federal Liberals and the Alberta NDP, who are both hell bent into the redistribution of wealth through climate change policies involving new taxes.
The success of the Liberals and the NPD are in my opinion rooted in the fact that most Canadians do not understand the differences in political ideology. Most Canadians make voting decisions based on information provided by a biased media. Since there are no media outlets to the right, there is only one side of the story. Now that the Liberals are in power, it is becoming very clear that Canadians were duped and bought a pig in a poke.
The federal Conservatives lost the elections, not necessarily due to Harper’s leadership or   bad policies but rather a lack of good communication. The campaign should have focussed on conservative values and the achievements of the past ten years rather than Justin Trudeau. The other major adverse factor was that rarely do governments win four elections in a row – it was just statistically improbable under the same leader.
As for Albertans the death of the Progressive Conservatives started with the elections of leaders who were more progressives than conservatives. The right was fragmented when Allison Redford first decided that conservative federal politicians were not welcomed at the PC’s AGM. After her demise, the party still chose another progressive to lead them resulting in their complete annihilation at the polls and gave Alberta a socialist government.
In the federal election board members of some constituencies, and even elected PC members supported Liberal candidates in Calgary. I do not tell people who to support, but I believe that one should step down or resign as a conservative member before one supports a liberal candidate. The right is fragmented in Alberta due to the treasonous floor crossing by some members of the Wildrose, helped by none other than Preston Manning.
Any movement to unite the right in Alberta should, in my opinion, come from the grassroots. The establishment, past and current elected members of both the Wildrose and the PCs should sit out the initial discussions. There is too much bad blood and mistrust in politicians for them to lead any talks of a united right. We have four years to get ready to oust the NDP government. We should make sure that a new party is made up of true conservatives and not Pretend Conservatives (PC) because they are responsible for the demise of the party. If you govern as a liberal it is very easy for the electorate to move further to the left, and they did.
Only when conservatives at all levels unite and behave like small ‘c’ common sense conservatives again that Conservatives shall form governments and get rid of the troglodytes.

A Horde of Sycophants

Despite the recent cowardly terrorists’ attacks on civilians, we have not seen an objective media reporting of Islamic terrorism. Furthermore we are bombarded by political correctness statements by politicians and other organizations where refugees are concerned. Ever since the appearance of Obama on the international stage and now joined by Justin Trudeau we have been subjected to the irresponsible support for these two vacuous politicians by both politicians and media sycophants.

Despite increasing terrorists attacks President Obama and Justin Trudeau have refused to name the attackers as Islamist Terrorists. Over the years Obama has gone out of his way to use terms which never identifies the true source of terrorism. The term ‘so-called’ is increasingly used by so-called news anchors to describe any terrorist acts; there is so-called global war on terror, so-called ISIS or even so-called work-place violence when a terrorist shot soldiers in Fort Hood, Texas. They have added ‘Daesh’ to their lexicon to identify ISIS.

Sun Tzu said: “Know thy enemy, know thyself”. As I wrote in my book Conservatives: Dead or Alive? “Today’s terrorist may well be a civilian without a uniform. In effect we are dealing with a totally new type of enemy. Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, ISIL, Khorasan, etc., are just different names, but all have the same intentions – They are hell bent on the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate sworn to destroy Israel and the West.”

Recent attacks in Paris, Egypt, Mali, and threats to other cities, clearly shows that this is a global war, even the Pope has said that it is WWIII. Leftists’ politicians, Liberals and Democrats, refuse to acknowledge the threat posed by jihadists. Instead they want to expedite the acceptance of refugees by the West, ignoring the dangers of accepting people who could harm us later. There is no doubt that the Syrian war has created many refugees, but to use political correctness to the detriment of security will be an abject failure if attacks take place on home soil. Sycophants are reluctant to acknowledge that the Syrian problem stems from Obama’s setting a red line, that turned pink and ultimately disappeared when Syria used chemical weapons.

Hypothetical: Now that there exists a threat that terrorists may use chemical weapons, has any thought be given to the possibility that Sadam’s weapons of mass destruction that were never found, could have made their way to Syria?

Now, the sycophantic media and politicians continue to attack any opposition to the fast tracking of refugees into Europe, Canada and in the United States. Ignoring that we are now in a severe Canadian economic downturn due to the collapse of oil prices, the newly elected Liberal government is pushing forward to accept 25,000 refugees by the end of the year. The logistics and costs of $1.2 billion seem to be no barrier to their ideology. It seems that the plight of unemployed, homeless, and First Nation Canadians have taken second place to political correctness.

Security does not seem to be important anymore. The use of the United Nations as a vetting agency may well prove to be inadequate due to the large numbers of refugees from the Middle East. Europe is being invaded by hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees who at first were welcomed until their sheer number caused problems never thought of when Germany step forward to accept them.

While Canada has been welcoming refugees and immigrants for years, the increasing opposition to the government’s plans is rising. As an immigrant myself I have compassion for the persecuted, but why the haste?

The West faces a new enemy who operates in the shadows. Increasingly it is becoming more difficult to monitor potential terrorists as they are home grown. Our laws are inadequate to protect us. Political correctness prevents surveillance and places citizens in danger. One of the problems which are often ignored is the assimilation of the refugees within our society. Too often multiculturalism prevents assimilation and in many countries we now have ‘no go’ enclaves which are used to harbor terrorism.

 There have been no discussions yet on where these refugees will find jobs in this economy. Many refugees are qualified professionals, but will Canada recognize their qualifications? The result of these refugees not able to find jobs may alienate them and their children, who may then be easily radicalized.

More importantly, too often those who oppose their governments’ political correctness agenda are being labelled as xenophobes, racists and bigots. The real problem is that we are increasingly being informed and then dictated by a horde of sycophants.

Sycophants of the left support these policies because they want to feel virtuous, they want to change the ethnic demographics and most of all garner more votes.

Compassion is a noble character; political ideology to the detriment of security is not.

The erroneous conservative war on women

The left has always used women’s issues as a wedge against conservatives. Aided and abetted by the media this long standing propaganda has served them very well. However, history does not support the left’s assertion on this issue. Once again this preposterous and inaccurate assessment of conservative values has been proven wrong with the election of the Hon. Rona Ambrose as interim leader of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC).

Already lauded by the media the Trudeau cabinet which is composed of equal number of men and women, this notion should be put in a more informed perspective. While the number of women in cabinet is significant, it would be wrong to assume that conservatives have done less. The last Harper Conservative government had 13 women in the cabinet out of 166; the new Trudeau government has 15 women ( 5 junior ministers) out of 184 members. The disparity that the media would have you believe is far from being huge. In fact it is that the Liberals have 3 more women in cabinet; a difference of only 1% based on the size of the government.

Comparing the left and conservatives throughout history is even more revealing. There have been more conservative than leftist women leaders. One of the greatest leaders of recent times has been U.K. Conservative Margaret Thatcher. In Canada there has been only one woman Prime Minister, albeit for a short time; it was The Rt. Hon. Kim Campbell, a conservative. Flora MacDonald was Canada's first female foreign minister; she was also one of the first women to vie for leadership of a major Canadian political party, the Progressive Conservatives. 

In the United States Republicans have more female staff in higher staff positions. There are four Republican Governors: Jan Brewer, Susana Martinez, Mary Fallin, and Nikki Haley compared to one Democrat – Maggie Hassan.

Republican Condoleezza Rice was the first female African-American secretary of state

 On the other hand, arguably we have very few national leftist/Liberal leaders of note, who have made their mark, The Hon, Sheila Copps never made it as leader of the Canadian Liberal Party. Shirley Williams was never elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, let alone leader of the Labour Party. Hillary Clinton, who is seeking the Democrat Presidential nomination for 2016, can only be remembered for her loss to Barack Obama in 2008.

While the departure of Stephen Harper, a great leader, has left a gap in the party, I believe that the elected CPC members have made a very good choice in The Hon. Rona Ambrose. This selection may be for a short time until the CPC has a leadership race. But that does not exclude other female candidates to throw their hats into the race. There are many qualified women in the CPC who could challenge and lead the party. For the time being Ms. Ambrose will not only provide a fresh face, but will most certainly bring another tone to the Party’s conservative principles.

There is no danger of conservatives disappearing in the shadows. Women in the party are not only strong but have more experience than their newly elected opposite counter parts. In fact Rona Ambrose has more parliamentary experience than both Justin Trudeau and Tom Mulcair.

So let us not discard the appeal of a woman leader for the party, but in fact revel in the notion that conservatives have been more favourable to women leaders than the left. The war on women by conservatives is a myth perpetuated to create a wedge among women voters and a growing, less informed younger electorate.

 Hang on to your hats, if the CPC elects a woman as their next leader. The vitriol used against Harper will be nothing compared to what will be coming, because if there is a politician that the media hates the most, it is a conservative woman. Then it will be the true war on women.

Canada from C to C to C.

The longest Canadian election campaign is over. The Canadian electorate chose to elect a Liberal government after ten years of Harper’s Conservative rule. There is no doubt that Trudeau played a masterful hand and won. While many will analyze the results and arrive at different conclusions, in my view there are three particulars that can explain the result and give us a look into the future. They are change, chaos, and possible catastrophe.

Change

So Canada voted for change; but from what?  Lower taxes, less government spending and the preservation of Canadian values? For many younger Canadians it was the environment. But the facts have been ignored in every case. Lower taxes gave Canadians the choice of spending their money as they saw fit. Government programs are not the answer to many of our problems we need different ways of providing services. As for the environment, many ignore that the Oil Sands account for 8.5% of Canada’s GHG and 0.12% of annual global emissions. Signing a treaty does not automatically mean that implementing it is easy. Promising change is easy; implementing it is not and more notably based on many promises made by the Liberals. It will costs a lot and creates deficits – the only promise that will be kept. Canadians will see the disappearance of income splitting and the reduction of the TFSA annual contribution limit among many other policies. In fact the middle class will see very few real gains.

So now that we have change was the election really about policies or was it about Harper? His policies were sound but his character had been damaged by the media for so long that many Canadians viewed the election as a change in leadership style rather than the direction of the country. In the campaign he rarely connected with the people, and he never showed passion in support of his record...

Chaos

As from October 20^th 2015, Canada will have to live with a new government for at least another four years. The biggest problem will be to fulfill all the promises. Can Canada afford the costs of the promises? Or shall we be witnessing a slew of government programs that pick winners and losers. The biggest promise will be to The First Nations. Any additional spending without clear transparency and accountability will bear no fruit.

With a global economy in stagnation and the world’s security under attack virtually every day, it is not too far fetch to see chaos on the horizon. The first international foray for the new government will be the Climate Conference in Paris. How will any agreement affect Canadians now that we do not have a PM who would defend Canada’s oil industry? If we accept the proposed agenda without conditions, Canadians will see a gradual increase in the costs of goods and taxes and further restrictions on Alberta’s economy.

Catastrophe

The Middle East is on fire. How will this government react to threats from terrorism? Aligning Canada with Obama’s foreign policies will create more problems than solutions. Remember that Obama will be gone in just over a year. Furthermore going back to collaborating with a dysfunctional United Nations, especially on the refugee problem, without a clear strategy may result in an open door policy that may bring sleeper cells to our shores? These are not just issues based on paranoia; they are real considerations that this government will have to consider. For those who accuse many conservatives of intolerance, they confuse compassion with a lack of assimilation in our immigration policies. As an immigrant I appreciate the values of a Canadian society but I am not blind to the threat coming from terrorism based in a sick ideology that demands vigilance. Lest we forget what has already happened in the past.

While I am disappointed in the final results of the elections, I accept the will of the people. Conservatives must look at the future with optimism. Harper created the foundation for conservative policies. We have just lost the battle but the final days are a long way off.

The party must choose a new leader; one who is more approachable, one that can match the so-called charismatic personality of Justin Trudeau. A younger leader, possibly a woman, would be a great choice to bring the Conservative party of Canada in the 21^st century. The new leadership must attract ‘millennials’ by making sure that the message is not lost on the internet garble but through direct communication of conservative principles.Most importantly the Conservative party must compromise on process and procedures, but never compromise on principles. 

During the next four years elected Conservative members should embrace this quote by Napoleon Bonaparte: “You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.”