Danielle Smith: Politicians' climate-change yowling leads to voter mistrust

Thank you, my friend LTC (Join to see) for posting the perspective of Danielle Smith.
I particularly like the contrast between radical predictions and facts.

"It’s a sorry state leading into the next federal election that most voters say they don’t believe politicians.
An Angus Reid poll this week found 64 per cent of respondents agreed most politicians can’t be trusted. I think one of the biggest reasons for this is politicians have become a source of polarization and division, rather than a source of consensus and solutions.
Take the issue of the ongoing battle around what to do about greenhouse-gas emissions. I think most Canadians want to reduce emissions while protecting jobs and keeping energy bills reasonable. There are solutions that would achieve all of these goals, but you have to cut through a lot of noise to hear them.
What started out as global warming became climate change. Climate change then became a climate emergency. Instead of natural disasters, floods and fires are now “climate disasters”. This week the United Nations declared we were on the cusp of climate apartheid, described as “a scenario where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer” in despair, disease and death.
I guess the only place to go from here is to declare a climate genocide. Watch for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to be the first to do that.

As the rhetoric gets more extreme what we really need is a reality check. A new online web portal called the Climate Discussion Nexus came out with what they called a Crystal Ball Check this week. It went back to 2001 and examined what politicians were telling us computer models said was going to happen unless we took urgent action.

Prediction: Canadian cities will experience longer and more intense heat waves.
Fact: Summertime daily highs have shown no discernable change.

Prediction: Heat waves will make air pollution worse.
Fact: Air pollution has been steadily declining.

Prediction: Sea levels on the northern coast of British Columbia will rise by up to 30 centimetres by 2050.
Fact: Sea levels have barely changed.

Prediction: Crop yields on the prairies will start declining due to increased droughts.
Fact: Canola and spring wheat production are both up by more than 60 per cent.

Prediction: There will be more frequent forest fires.
Fact: The number of forest fires has gone down.

Prediction: Water levels in the St. Lawrence Seaway will fall by up to 1.25 metres this century.
Fact: Instead of being down 25 cm as predicted, it’s hardly changed.

So what do politicians do when they’ve been proven wrong? They make even more wild predictions and declare even greater urgency.

Fortunately, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has come up with a balanced approach to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions globally without unduly punishing Canadians. He would keep a carbon price on big emitters but eliminate the carbon tax on home heating and gasoline.

That makes sense, because it’s a lot easier for a large company to install emissions-abatement technology to capture CO2 than it is for a middle-class homeowner to upgrade to electric heating or buy a Tesla. He would hold Canadian companies to an increasingly high standard to adopt new emissions-abatement technologies, then export those same technologies and cleaner fuels abroad.

Contrary to what you might have heard from his opponents, we are allowed to do this under Articles 6 and 10 of the Paris Agreement. If China adopted carbon capture on just 100 of its 3,000 coal-fired electricity plants, it would offset half of Canada’s annual emissions.

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna predictably panned the proposal — but here’s where it gets weird. In a national interview where she was being pressed to explain how her carbon tax would allow Canada to meet its Paris targets of reducing greenhouse gases by 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, she admitted that the carbon tax would only get them 20 per cent of the way there. The remaining 80 per cent reduction would come through — wait for it — developing and exporting new technology.

So the only difference between the Conservative plan and the Liberal plan, is Scheer thinks 100 per cent of the reduction can come through technology and McKenna thinks only 80 per cent can be had that way. Put another way, the Liberal and Conservative plans are 80 per cent the same, and yet you’d never know it from all the yowling.

Angus Reid has found that people don’t trust politicians? No kidding.

Danielle Smith is a radio host at 770 CHQR in Calgary and former leader of the Wildrose Party. She can be reached at [login to see] "

FYI LTC Wayne Brandon LTC (Join to see) Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj Robert Thornton CPT Scott Sharon SSG William Jones SSG Donald H "Don" Bates PO3 William Hetrick PO3 Lynn Spalding SPC Mark Huddleston SGT Rick Colburn CPL Dave Hoover SPC Margaret Higgins SSgt Brian Brakke SP5 Jeannie Carle Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey Sgt Albert Castro

I have come to believe that I cannot trust any professional (or beginner). Each has their own agenda, no matter what the people think or desire.

I don’t know what it looks like up there, but from down here Canada seems pretty far gone.