October 2019
Regarding letter writer Carol Bell’s letter (Climate crisis must be faced, 3 October, Barrie Advance): How smoggy is the sky in her world? This climate hysteria has to stop. Look, we all want a clean environment with smog-free air, clean water sources and our trash properly and safely disposed of, but all this talk of an impending apocalypse is irresponsible and putting undue stress and fear in our children.
Bottom line, what comes out of the smokestacks of factories and the tailpipes of cars is a lot cleaner than it’s ever been and getting better through better improved technology that has resulted in better emissions controls, improved fuel efficiency, use of cleaner energy sources like natural gas and nuclear and just a greater consciousness about our impact on the environment.
Toronto used to routinely have numerous smog days each summer, but these have been pretty much eliminated. I grew up in Burlington and remember back in the 1980s looking across Burlington Bay and seeing the smog hanging over Hamilton. That brown haze is now gone.
Burlington Bay/Hamilton Harbour also used to be a very polluted body of water and is now much cleaner.
My point is we are already doing a good job of cleaning up the environment, all without an economy-killing carbon tax. Can we do better? Absolutely and with continuing advances in technology, we will get even better.
I’m sure some day electric cars will be able to travel the same distances on a single charge as a gas-powered car, be re-chargeable in the time it takes to pump gas and be affordable to most families, but we’re not there yet.
Let’s stop terrorizing our kids with an impending apocalypse that will likely never come. How do I know? I remember discussing global warming in my high school geography classes; in the mid-1980s. Al Gore predicted in 2006 that the polar ice caps would have completely melted by 2014 at the latest. They are still here in 2019.
How many more times are the climate alarmists going to keep crying wolf?
Now there have been reports of some recession in the polar ice caps but remember, there have been two ice ages in Earth’s history. Twice the polar glaciers advanced and retreated; both long before humans walked the earth and certainly before the industrial age when we started burning fossil fuels. Are we just in midst of natural a recession?
Right now, Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg is on a world tour, paid for by her activist handlers, to lecture the rest of us on how we have destroyed her future and falsely perpetuate the doomsday hysteria. While I do admire her environmental enthusiasm and social awareness, the science is NOT settled; the climate does change, but human influence is only a small part of it.
We are NOT in a climate emergency and we will all be fine in 12 years.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t realize that she is being used and manipulated by environmental activists who only care about their own agenda and will use her with little care for her emotional well being, discarding her when they are done.
My advice to her is after her current tour, I think she should go back home, go back to school and spend time with her family and friends. The world WILL be fine.
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An edited version that appeared in the Barrie Advance, 7 October 2019:
Climate change alarmists cry wolf
Regarding letter writer Carol Bell’s letter (Climate crisis must be faced, Oct. 3): How smoggy is the sky in her world?
This climate hysteria has to stop. Look, we all want a clean environment with smog-free air, clean water sources and our trash properly and safely disposed of, but all this talk of an impending apocalypse is irresponsible and putting undue stress and fear in our children.
Bottom line, what comes out of the smokestacks of factories and the tailpipes of cars is a lot cleaner than it’s ever been and getting better through better improved technology that has resulted in better emissions controls, improved fuel efficiency, use of cleaner energy sources like natural gas and nuclear, and just a greater consciousness about our impact on the environment.
Toronto used to routinely have numerous smog days each summer, but these have been pretty much eliminated. I grew up in Burlington and remember back in the 1980s looking across Burlington Bay and seeing the smog hanging over Hamilton. That brown haze is now gone.
Burlington Bay/Hamilton Harbour also used to be a very polluted body of water and is now much cleaner.
My point is we are already doing a good job of cleaning up the environment, all without an economy-killing carbon tax. Can we do better? Absolutely and with continuing advances in technology, we will get even better.
Let’s stop terrorizing our kids with an impending apocalypse that will likely never come. How do I know? I remember discussing global warming in my high school geography classes — in the mid-1980s. Al Gore predicted in 2006 that the polar ice caps would have completely melted by 2014 at the latest. They are still here in 2019.
Now there have been reports of some recession in (some) but remember, there have been two ice ages in Earth’s history. Twice the polar glaciers advanced and retreated. Are we just in midst of a natural recession?
How many more times are the climate alarmists going to keep crying wolf?
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Some of the responses my column generated:
Re: “Climate change alarmists cry wolf,” Letter, Oct. 24.
Crying wolf? Really? I think those who, from time to time, cite the overwhelming evidence from the scientific community about the increase in CO2 in our atmosphere as a result of human activity, and its effect on ocean temperature, are hardly “crying wolf.” They are responsibly sounding an alarm that requires sounding.
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