Climate Change, Carbon Taxes, Decarbonization and ENGOs – Page 37

Rex Murphy: Notley learns a hard truth about social licence — it’s not meant to be granted, ever. That’s the point – by Rex Murphy (National Post – May 20, 2017)

May 23, 2017

http://news.nationalpost.com/

Social licence is one of those phrases, like cultural appropriation, or — a while back — civil society, that just seem to pop into lexical existence, almost out of nowhere, and instantly take on the authority of unchallenged and long-accepted concepts. They are mouthed in every parliamentary speech, are munched over by the solons of the afternoon panel shows, and crowd the editorial and opinion pieces of all the finest newspapers.

Yesterday they were unheard and unseen. Today they are presumed to be the boundary stones of argument and discussion. It is all so fast. One other note on usage: these terms and their semantic kin usually emerge from the fertile lexicography of the social justice camp, which is only appropriate since “social justice” is itself a term from the same fertile semantic factory.

Today, I turn to social licence (I’m saving “cultural appropriation” and its many novelties and self-contradictions for another day). Justin Trudeau is a fan of social licence. Speaking before the high council of the Sanhedrin at the Calgary Petroleum Club, before he was prime minister, Trudeau (as is his way with nebulous but high sounding concepts) gave the vague, trendy formulation full authority:

Climate of Complete Certainty – by Bret Stephens (New York Times – April 28, 2017)

May 4, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/

When someone is honestly 55 percent right, that’s very good and there’s no use wrangling. And if someone is 60 percent right, it’s wonderful, it’s great luck, and let him thank God.

But what’s to be said about 75 percent right? Wise people say this is suspicious. Well, and what about 100 percent right? Whoever says he’s 100 percent right is a fanatic, a thug, and the worst kind of rascal.

— An old Jew of Galicia

In the final stretch of last year’s presidential race, Hillary Clinton and her team thought they were, if not 100 percent right, then very close. Right on the merits. Confident in their methods. Sure of their chances. When Bill Clinton suggested to his wife’s advisers that, considering Brexit, they might be underestimating the strength of the populist tide, the campaign manager, Robby Mook, had a bulletproof answer: The data run counter to your anecdotes.

That detail comes from “Shattered,” Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes’s compulsively readable account of Clinton’s 2016 train wreck.

Answering Your Climate Questions – by Bret Stephens (New York Times – May 1, 2017)

May 4, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/

My first column, “Climate of Complete Certainty,” was published last week, and drew more than 1,800 comments on the column and on Facebook. I’m answering some of them here, edited lightly for length and clarity.

Len Sherman: You rightfully questioned the ideological rigidity of progressives who sanctimoniously dismiss ANY legitimate questioning of climate change research. But what of the blatant ignorance professed by a president who dog whistles about a hoax perpetrated by Chinese leaders? Or a sizable faction of evangelical voters who reject science as a matter of religious principle?

At the end of the day, based on the scientific evidence I’ve seen, weighed against the credibility of opposing counterarguments, with Pascal’s Wager thrown in as a tiebreaker, the need and urgency for righteous behavior is a no-brainer.

Opinions: Trump’s promise to bring back coal jobs is worse than a con – by Michael Bloomberg (Washington Post – May 2, 2017)

May 3, 2017

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

The writer, New York City mayor from 2002 to 2013, is the founder of Bloomberg Philanthropies and co-author of the book “Climate of Hope.”

“We need to keep it open so we have jobs.” Those are the words of a retired miner, explaining why the local mining operation is so important to his community. But he wasn’t talking about a coal mine in Appalachia. He was referring to a local asbestos mine — in Russia.

Through the 1970s, the United States was one of the world’s top producers of asbestos, which is a set of naturally occurring silicate minerals. As evidence mounted that exposure to asbestos fibers can be deadly, the federal government began limiting its use in consumer and commercial products.

Demand for asbestos declined, legal liabilities soared, and the last U.S. asbestos mine closed in 2002. Those jobs have gone overseas, to places such as Russia, China and Kazakhstan, where asbestos mining and production face few restrictions. Yet there has been no political clamor to put American asbestos miners back to work.

Ontario’s Liberals feed another budget to the Big Green Central-Planning Monster – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – April 28, 2017)

April 28, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

The question all Ontarians must begin asking is how much economic pain — high transportation costs, soaring electricity rates, rampaging housing-market shortages and costs, stalled transit development, soaring debt — are they willing to endure to satisfy the Central Planning Monster.

The beast is everywhere, lurking in the background of every twitch in government policy and every legislative lurch. It’s thick claw-marks are all over Finance Minister Charles Sousa’s new Ontario budget, tabled Thursday, taking control of more and more economic activity and extending policy-making’s reach far beyond the iron grip it already holds on health care.

In the name of climate change and carbon control, Ontario’s Liberal government sent electricity prices soaring, the predictable product of the 2009 Green Energy Act that allows the government to seize control over an expanding range of energy operations.

Canada’s a global leader on clean air – by Lorrie Goldstein (Toronto Sun – April 20, 2017)

April 24, 2017

http://www.torontosun.com/

The question now is whether carbon pricing to reduce greenhouse gases is
worth the added cost to Canadians in terms of the higher taxes and prices
they will have to pay for almost all goods and services, considering that
Canada produces only 1.6% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

A Fraser Institute study released Thursday comes as a welcome breath of fresh air to Canadians tired of being harangued by politicians and so-called “green” activists as environmental laggards. The study shows a dramatic improvement in Canadian air quality since 1970, despite economic growth, an increasing population and greater energy consumption, making Canada a world leader in reducing air pollution.

It won’t change the debate over man-made climate change because the Fraser Institute is talking about traditional sources of air pollution, rather than industrial greenhouse gases – primarily carbon dioxide – linked to global warming.

But the study by University of Guelph economics professor Ross McKitrick and economist Elmira Aliakbari entitled, “Canada’s Air Quality since 1970: An Environmental Success Story” lives up to its name.

If the eco-fanatics hate Justin Trudeau this much, imagine what they think of you – by Rex Murphy (National Post – April 22, 2017)

April 24, 2017

http://news.nationalpost.com/

That Justin Trudeau is a genial and pleasant-tempered man may not be “a truth universally acknowledged,” but that he is as close to that perfect status as any human being is likely to get is not a proposition inviting dissent. From Flare to Vogue the oracles agree that our Prime Minister is the very model of a modern Major-General … er, Prime Minister.

Just last week a grand covey of the rich and gorgeous at the Women in the World Conference pronounced him as “near perfect” as perfect can be (his only deficit “that he is not a woman,” a failing that, properly speaking, is more the mischief of blind Nature, than a flaw of his own devising).

Now, beyond the borders of rational opinion, out in the badlands of raw outrage and wild surmise, a distempered few offer bitterly dismissive terms on the subject of Trudeau. One of the volatile tribunes of Toronto’s Black Lives Matter movement, yearning for a cheap headline and clearly out of the reach of any plausible dictionary, called Trudeau “a white supremacist terrorist.”

For First Time Since 1800s, Britain Goes a Day Without Burning Coal for Electricity – by Katrin Bennhold (New York Times – April 21, 2017)

April 24, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/

LONDON — Friday was the first full day since the height of the Industrial Revolution that Britain did not burn coal to generate electricity, a development that officials and climate change activists celebrated as a watershed moment.

The accomplishment became official just before 11 p.m., when the 24-hour period ended.
Coal powered Britain into the industrial age and into the 21st century, contributing greatly to the “pea souper” fogs that were thought for decades to be a natural phenomenon of the British climate.

For many living in the mining towns up and down the country, it was not just the backbone of the economy but a way of life. But the industry has been in decline for some time. The last deep coal mine closed in December 2015, though open cast mining has continued.

NEWS RELEASE: Poll Shows Mining’s Environmental Accomplishments Unknown to American Voters (U.S.A. National Mining Association – April 20, 2017)

April 21, 2017

http://nma.org/

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The vast majority of American voters are unaware of the environmental and technological advancements of today’s mining industry according to new polling, suggesting mining’s legacy skews perceptions.

A new poll by Morning Consult for the National Mining Association (NMA) shows less than 10 percent of voters could assess the scale of emissions reductions that have been achieved in coal-powered plants, the acreage reclaimed and restored from mined lands, and other benchmarks of mining’s progress. Just one in five voters correctly identified clean coal technologies that have dramatically reduced power plant emissions since the first Earth Day in 1970.

“This poll appears to underscore the stubborn impressions that remain from turn-of-the-century mining before the advent of the environmental era,” said Hal Quinn, NMA President and CEO. “The message here is that we need to do a better job of educating the public about the accomplishments of our industry—which like all basic industries is vastly different today than it was before the first Earth Day.”

Coal Museum Sees the Future; Trump Doesn’t – by Thomas L. Friedman (New York Times – April 19, 2017)

April 19, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/

Did you catch this gem on CNN.com from April 6? “The Kentucky Coal Mining Museum in Benham, owned by Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, is switching to solar power to save money. … Communications director Brandon Robinson told CNN affiliate WYMT that the project ‘will help save at least eight to ten thousand dollars, off the energy costs on this building alone.’”

Go figure. The coal mining museum is going solar, for solid economic reasons, and President Trump is reviving coal, with no economic logic at all. This bizarre contrast speaks to a deeper question of leadership and how we judge presidents.

Trump took two major national security decisions in the past few weeks. One was to strike Syria for using poison gas. Trump summoned his national security team, asked for options on Syria, chose the cruise-missile strike — which was right — and won praise for acting “presidential.”

Albertans are about to find out just how messy and expensive kicking the coal habit can be – by Peter Kuitenbrouwer (Financial Post – April 10, 2017)

April 10, 2017

http://business.financialpost.com/

Eight years ago, Ontario passed its Green Energy Act. It then closed its
coal-fired power plants and signed pricey long-term deals to buy wind and
solar energy. As a result, the province that once had some of the cheapest
electricity in North America now has some of the most expensive.

About half the electricity Albertans rely on to power their smartphones, toasters and light bulbs, as well as everything else they plug in, comes from burning coal.

Coal is a lifeblood of the Alberta economy, as it has been across Canada for generations. But coal releases carbon into the atmosphere and contributes to global warming, which is why the province’s NDP government wants to eliminate it by 2030. “It’s aggressive,” said Gary Reynolds, an energy industry consultant in Calgary, about the government’s timetable to kick Alberta’s dependence on coal.

It’s also expensive. And messy. Albertans are only now waking up to just how expensive and messy the cost of going green might be, something Ontarians already know all too well.

[Power Issues] Actually, witchcraft is a pretty good explanation for all that’s happening in Ontario – by Rex Murphy (National Post – April 1, 2017)

April 3, 2017

http://news.nationalpost.com/

Weird things are happening in Ontario. The premier of the province, a woman generally agreed to be well educated, confident, thoroughly in tune with the times, is virtually keelhauled in recent polling where she resides at an appalling 11 per cent. She is only slightly more popular than traffic tickets and overcooked broccoli (and even those are within the margin of error).

What gives, is the question whispered on every street corner and in every coffee shop. How can Kathleen Wynne have fallen so far when her competition is that other fella, whassiname, that the Progressive Conservatives recently front loaded into their leadership. His charisma floats in the same shallows and he has the inspirational force of kelp. Yet he is miles ahead of the impeccably progressive Wynne. It is not natural. The order of things is awry.

Other unnerving and eerily disturbing manifestations trouble this once stable, well-grounded, equable province. A businesswoman I met recently — on her way, incidentally, to meet with a spiritual adviser — showed me the energy bill for her company. She was distraught and clearly frightened. And with good reason.

Environmental groups vow to fight Trump climate actions – by Tammy Webber (Detroit News – March 29, 2017)

March 30, 2017

http://www.detroitnews.com/

ASSOCIATED PRESS – Chicago — Environmental groups that have hired scores of new lawyers in recent months are prepared to go to court to fight a sweeping executive order from President Donald Trump that eliminates many restrictions on fossil fuel production and would roll back his predecessor’s plans to curb global warming. But they said they’ll take their first battle to the court of public opinion.

Advocates said they plan to work together to mobilize a public backlash against an executive order signed by Trump on Tuesday that includes initiating a review of former President Barack Obama’s signature plan to restrict greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants and lifting a 14-month-old moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands.

Trump, who has called global warming a “hoax” invented by the Chinese, said during his campaign that he would kill Obama’s climate plans and bring back coal jobs. Even so, “this is not what most people elected Trump to do; people support climate action,” said David Goldston, director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, who said Trump’s actions are short-sighted and won’t bring back the jobs he promised.

Trump signs order dismantling Obama-era climate policies – by Valerie Volcovici and Jeff Mason (Reuters U.S. – March 28, 2017)

March 29, 2017

http://www.reuters.com/

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an order to undo Obama-era climate change regulations, keeping a campaign promise to support the coal industry and calling into question U.S. support for an international deal to fight global warming.

Flanked by coal miners and coal company executives, Trump proclaimed his “Energy Independence” executive order at the headquarters of the Environmental Protection Agency. The move drew swift backlash from a coalition of 23 states and local governments, as well as environmental groups, which called the decree a threat to public health and vowed to fight it in court.

The order’s main target is former President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which required states to slash carbon emissions from power plants – a key factor in the United States’ ability to meet its commitments under a climate change accord reached by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015.

Trump’s bid to reverse climate agenda puts pressure on Ottawa – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – March 29, 2017)

March 29, 2017

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

OTTAWA — U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order Tuesday aimed at boosting coal-fired electricity and unravelling key elements of his predecessor’s climate-change policies – a move that will increase political pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s own climate agenda.

Mr. Trump’s push to reverse the climate plans of former president Barack Obama is raising concerns in Canada that domestic industries will find it tougher to compete and raise capital, especially in energy-intensive industries.

Through his use of executive orders, the new President has signalled he has little interest in meeting U.S. commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that were made at the Paris climate summit in December, 2015.