“Green energy” opponents ignore the elephant in the room

Oct 10, 2025 By Tom Harris

Most organizations and individuals who are fighting against the expansion of wind turbines, solar power, and battery energy storage systems (BESS) are not addressing the elephant in the room. The truth is that the science driving the climate scare is wrong, and so the energy transition promoted by environmental groups is not required.

For fear of being dismissed as “climate change deniers,” opponents to the “green energy” expansion focus on blocking renewable energy projects in their regions for other reasons such as the infeasibility of the project, high costs, or environmental and health concerns. In so doing, they often unwittingly promote the climate scare. This is because they aren’t addressing the underlying fact that humans are not causing dangerous climate change, so the energy transition is a complete waste of money and threatens to leave us bankrupt, hungry and freezing in the dark for no environmental benefit at all.

Their strategy is analogous to objecting to your doctor that your cancer treatment is costly, uncomfortable, and painful. Your doctor will reply, “Yes, the treatment has serious side effects, but it is needed to save your life.” That argument would make sense if you do indeed have cancer. But what if another, even more qualified doctor doubts that you actually have cancer? Wouldn’t it make sense to thoroughly consider that point of view? If the second doctor is correct, then the anti-cancer treatment is worse than useless, and no amount of expense and discomfort is worthwhile. Similarly, we don’t need any “treatments” for our energy sector: costly renewable energy projects are unneeded, just like cancer treatments for healthy patients.

One organization that falls into this trap is Citizens for Responsible Solar. They promote using solar power on rooftops and commercial land rather than rural farmland. Of course, it makes sense to prevent solar panels from being built on farmland and cutting down forests to build solar farms, but the organization fails to address the fact that the panels are not required in the first place since there is no climate crisis.

Citizens for Responsible Solar say, “Destroying farmland and cutting down trees will not solve climate change.” They advocate for solar power to be used responsibly, which is indeed important, but their message completely avoids the elephant in the room. They write: 

“We believe that true ‘green’ energy solutions do not involve destroying farmlands, forests, wildlife habitat, families, and homes.” 

That is true: but we don’t need “green energy” solutions at all. We need clean, conventional energy that will power our cities and industries, something that solar power is not yet capable of.

There are also many groups opposing wind turbines, for instance, Wind Concerns Ontario. This group has many excellent resources on the detrimental effects of turbines, however, they also say that “the global challenge of climate change is to choose smart, effective solutions.” Unfortunately, this is furthering the climate scare, because there is no “global challenge of climate change” that should concern us, apart from hardening our societies to adapt to natural environmental changes. Many other local groups throughout North America have voiced similar concerns about wind turbines but totally fail to address the climate change propaganda that is driving the push for so-called renewable energy.

Fossil fuel companies, however, are the worst of all. Many are capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) and pumping it underground with costly “carbon” capture and storage (CCS) technologies. They are on the right track promoting conventional power, but CCS is entirely unnecessary and greatly increases the cost of energy for no benefit.

For instance, ExxonMobil has detailed plans on how they will reduce emissions, promoting “Low Carbon Solutions” in their Advancing Climate Solutions report. Directly stating that “Climate change is real and stands as one of the major challenges facing the world today” does nothing to help their goal of providing reliable energy to the world. They want to expand their power but are also crippling themselves with investments to lower CO2 emissions.

Shell too promotes the climate scare with their target to become a “net-zero emissions energy business by 2050,” citing the Paris Agreement on climate change that aims to limit the rise in the so-called “global average temperature” this century to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Not only is this unnecessary, but it will significantly increase the cost of electricity and make heating and cooling our homes especially difficult for those living in poorer communities. Instead, fossil fuel companies should champion CO2 as a life-giving molecule that is greening the planet rather than try to “decarbonise” their industry.

Groups opposing “green energy” should look into the science that is driving the climate scare to see if it actually holds up. A good place to start would be the fully-referenced 88-page book Energy & Climate at a Glance: Canadian Edition (click here to order for $14 Canadian plus tax, shipping and handling) published by Canadians for Sensible Climate Policy and The Heartland Institute. The book is a timely counter to the “Net Zero” push and outlines how that goal is unachievable by 2050, scientifically unnecessary, and will ensure lower standards of living with no appreciable environmental benefit.

Furthermore, groups that oppose a massive expansion of renewables, including BESS, should also oppose events such as Climate Week NYC, which took place at the end of September. Large public events like these are one of the primary drivers of the climate scare and so must be tackled head-on. Rather than just protesting against wind turbines, solar panels, and BESS, we should speak up against the propaganda promulgated at these events. Our message should be clear: the climate scare is not based on sound science. If Climate Week and other enterprises are discredited, it will be harder for companies to build the wind, solar and BESS facilities that have been harming communities around the world.

Another activist group promoting solar and wind energy to be opposed is SunDay, with its inaugural event last month. They say they “celebrate the progress we’ve made [on renewables] and push for more.” Although their messaging is wrong on many fronts (e.g., solar power cannot sustain our society), their primary reasoning is that they need to introduce these new energy sources to “stop climate change.” They write, “If we can keep building solar power, we’ll have a shot to stop climate change” and reference carbon dioxide as “carbon pollution.” This is the principal message that we must oppose.

By staying true to their base and the facts about climate change, organizations opposing BESS and renewable energies will be in a better position to sway public opinion. We need strong leaders who aren’t afraid to call out the unscientific anthropogenic climate change narrative as simply wrong. Instead, they need to promote sensible policies to adapt to climate change rather than trying to stop it with damaging, expensive and inadequate technologies.

Note: Mary-Jean Harris, BSc, MSc (physics), contributed to this article.

Trump Should Have Spoken at Climate Week NYC 2025

Tom Harris | Sep 30, 2025 

 

“If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country is going to fail,” President Donald Trump told delegates in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly (GA) last week. It is a shame the president was not a speaker at this year’s Climate Week NYC, which wrapped up on Sunday, as he would have given them much needed relief from the steady drumbeat of alarmism heard during the weeklong gabfest.

Besides criticizing the UN’s failure to work to end conflicts and properly deal with immigration issues, the president focused on the climate change swindle promoted by the U.N. and nations around the world. He highlighted dire climate predictions made decades ago that have not come to pass, giving an example: “another UN official stated in 1989 that within a decade, entire nations could be wiped off the map by global warming,” adding correctly, “Not happening.” He emphasized how global cooling used to be the concern, then global warming, now “climate change,” creating “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” 

Trump also criticized other countries’ green energy policies, explaining how they are wasting money trying to reduce their “carbon footprint” at the expense of lost jobs and closed factories. “The carbon footprint is a hoax,” he bluntly, and correctly, told the GA.

In stark contrast, 2.5 miles away in Manhattan, Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, the primary UN climate body, told Climate Week NYC 2025: 

“The clean energy transition is booming across almost all major economies and hit 2 trillion dollars last year alone…Meanwhile, climate disasters are hitting every economy and society harder every year. So, we need to step it up. And we need to step it up fast [to avoid catastrophe].”

At the Freshfields energy summit, a high-profile event held during this year’s Climate Week NYC, leaders agreed that coal must be “rapidly retired in developed economies” by 2035 to meet pathways aligned with the Paris Agreement. That developing countries account for nearly 80 percent of global coal consumption (as of 2024) didn’t seem to bother them. China, which alone consumes 58 percent of the world’s coal — more than the rest of the world combined, has made it clear they are going to continue to build coal fired power stations no matter what. In the first half of 2025 alone, China commissioned 21 GW of coal power, about 25 new coal-fired power plants — the most for that period since 2016. When it comes to China and developing countries, the tone shifts from rapid retirement of dependable coal plants in the west to respect for “energy sovereignty” and “national priorities” for Asia. If sovereignty is sacred, it should be respected universally, but the fact that it isn’t demonstrates yet another way China is gaming the system.

Tim Lenton, Professor of Earth System Science at University of Exeter and keynote speaker at Climate Week, chimed in,

“We need decisive mandates for the end of fossil fuel technologies that are going to be the crucial thing to stimulate the clean technologies we need.” Specifically, he wants to “Phase out of coal power stations in developed nations by 2035…mandating no petrol and diesel car sales from 2035…all heating appliances for buildings being heat pumps from 2035, and all trucks to be electric powered from 2040.” 

If this were to actually happen, it would be an unmitigated disaster for businesses and consumers alike. Trump illustrated this well when he told the GA that European electricity bills are now “two to three times higher than the United States, and our bills are coming way down.” Yet, this is only a preview of massive costs to come if Europe continues to replace inexpensive, dependable conventional power with costly, unreliable wind and solar power.

In his 2021 brief for Canada’s House of Commons, Robert Lyman, economist and Principal of ENTRANS Policy Research Group, and former director general, environmental affairs, at Transport Canada, said, “The cost to electrify the U.S. economy would translate into annual cost increases of at least U.S. $5,000 per household” and that “annual consumer expenditures for energy would roughly double.” That doesn’t even take into account the loss of energy security with increased vulnerability to blackouts and brownouts. 

For instance, Texas, the state with the most wind power, also had the greatest number of blackouts between 2000 and 2023. California, the state with the most solar power, had the third most blackouts. Dr. H. Sterling Burnett, senior fellow on environmental policy for The Heartland Institute, said “wind and solar power are particularly unsuited for a large power grid because they work only when the weather conditions are just right.” 

Trump was also right to call out EU politicians for leading their citizens to a health disaster. He pointed out how the U.S. has about 1,300 heat-related deaths annually, while Europe has more than 175,000, caused in large part by the high costs of electricity that prevents people from air-conditioning their homes. The population of Europe is only just over twice that of the U.S., so this means that the chances of a person dying due to the heat in Europe is 62 times that in America. 

Over the past week, New York City showcased the stark contrast between a climate realist president and those advocating overhauling our entire energy infrastructure to address a problem that only exists in the imagination of uninformed activists. Bravo President Trump!

Tom Harris is executive director of Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition.

China’s Climate Confidence Trick

By Tom Harris

China is pulling a fast one on western nations and it is about time we called them on it.

For example, on July 24th, representatives from the EU and China met at a summit in Beijing to discuss their plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Both nations reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris Agreement on climate change and urged greater emission cuts, promotion of “green technology,” and a call for strong action at the COP30 climate summit coming up in Brazil this November. >

But is the west being “taken for a ride” on all this? Is China really committed to overhauling their coal-powered economy with so-called green energy?

Although China has significantly expanded its solar and wind power capacity, the following graphs show that it is still heavily reliant on coal. This is why its greenhouse gas emissions have soared and now stand at double those of the US.

 

As of 2023, China was the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide emissions at 35% of global emissions. While Chinese politicians tout their increased reliance on solar and wind to reduce the country’s “carbon footprint,” they are continuing to build coal power plants at a breathtaking rate. In 2024, they began building 94.5 gigawatts (GW) of new coal-power plants and resumed 3.3 GW of suspended projects in the country. This was an all-time high in the past ten years. In 2024, it permitted more coal capacity than the rest of the world combined.

Moreover, they are continuing to construct and finance coal plants in African, Southeast Asian, and South Asian countries. Although they have committed to halt the introduction of new coal plants overseas, existing plants or those that are in use will continue to run. India is the recipient of most of China’s overseas coal production.

So China’s renewable energy claims are just smoke and mirrors: coal use is expanding and most of their increased production of renewable energy technology is being built using coal as the energy source.

One point of tension at the July summit was that China wants tariffs revoked on its electric vehicle (EV) exports to the European market. China is booming in the EV market, which understandably raises concerns for domestic EU EV production. Concerning the restrictions of Chinese exports into the EU market, President Xi said:

“We hope the EU will keep its trade and investment markets open, refrain from using restrictive economic and trade tools and provide a good business environment for Chinese companies to invest and develop in Europe.”

China’s expanding share in the European EV market threatens European nations’ ability to grow their own green technology sector. Businesses and millions of EU auto industry jobs are at risk, as well as millions of other jobs related to EV production. With the EU remaining as China’s largest export market, these issues have created tensions between the countries despite their joint affirmation of climate change goals. No firm agreement was made about the issue of trade at the late July summit.

Hybrid cars from China are able to enter the EU levy-free, so the PRC have responded by introducing more hybrid models in Europe. The future of electric and hybrid vehicles is anything but certain, but it is clear that it is not in the best interest of the EU to rely on Chinese vehicle production while their own manufacturers struggle to stay afloat.

Moreover, the minerals crucial to EV production are mined by China with little or no environmental or human rights concerns. The lithium-ion batteries used in EVs are primarily composed of cobalt, lithium, manganese, and graphite, which are mined in developing countries. For instance, the Democratic Republic of Congo provides about two thirds of the global output of cobalt. Congolese mines are controlled by Chinese companies which employ child labour in extremely dangerous conditions. For more details on these issues, see “Wind and Solar are the Most Environmentally Destructive Energy Sources” that Dr. Jay Lehr and I wrote in 2021.

China has agreed to create an updated supply mechanism for their exports of critical minerals, which is further concerning due to their poor standards in mineral extraction. Even in their domestic EV production, the EU relies on these minerals from China, and so continued dependence on China’s minerals will only worsen human rights and environmental abuses.

To understand how China gets away with all this we need to examine the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which is the governing document for all UN climate agreements, including the Paris Agreement. Article 4 of the UNFCCC states that the first and overriding priority of developing nations is poverty alleviation and development. Since China is still considered a developing nation under the UN’s climate agreements, and burning coal is the cheapest way to continue to pull their people out of poverty, China will burn all the coal it wants indefinitely as it has full rein to soar past its Paris Agreement target to cap emissions by 2030.

When Xie Zhenhua, the Chinese climate negotiator at COP 20 in Lima, Peru (2014), was asked about China’s exemption from binding emissions reductions under Article 4 of the UNFCCC, he simply pointed to the article and said:

“We are exempt. We are a developing country.”

He then explained that the purpose of the Paris Agreement, then under development, was to enforce the UNFCCC, not to replace or change it.

So China knows it has a sweetheart deal—they can expand their coal usage, build coal stations across the world and grow their emissions without limit while boasting that they are following international climate agreements. All the while, they make a fortune selling wind and solar power equipment and batteries to western nations riddled with guilt over our own emissions that we falsely believe are damaging the climate.

China’s climate strategy is a strategically brilliant confidence trick—an elaborate balancing act in which the country presents itself as a global leader in clean technology, while approving and constructing coal-fired power plants at a staggering pace. It’s high time we called them on this.

Note: Mary-Jean Harris, BSc, MSc (physics), contributed to this article.

Ideology Over Integrity: National Bank's ESG Strategy Undermines Its Fiduciary Duty

By David McGruer and Tom Harris

Earlier this year Canada's National Bank Investments (NBI) proudly released its 2024 Report on Responsible Investment, touting its climate commitments, ESG integration (Environmental, Social, and Governance investment practices), and alignment with the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals. But beneath the polished language and corporate optimism lies a troubling reality: NBI has apparently embraced ideology at the expense of science, economics, and its fiduciary responsibility.

The report opens by declaring climate change an "unavoidable reality" and makes "net-zero" alignment a central tenet of its investment strategy. But such declarations are unsupported by scientific rigor. Nowhere does the report reference scientific findings relating to our climate in any nuanced form. Instead, NBI accepts worst-case climate scenarios as fact, without acknowledging that many experts, including physicists William Happer of Princeton University, and Richard Lindzen of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, challenge the reliability of climate models and warn against the misuse of science in policymaking.

Carbon dioxide (CO2‚), the NBI report's primary villain, is a non-toxic gas essential to plant life, and thus to animal and human life. Increasing atmospheric CO2‚ has coincided with global greening and record agricultural yields. It is not, as NBI implies, an existential threat. Yet they use this false premise to justify a radical reorientation of capital away from energy-intensive industries, regardless of their economic utility or technological innovation.

There is no evidence that NBI performed independent scientific due-diligence before building its strategy around climate catastrophe narratives. Their report references no serious scientific reviews or consultations with dissenting experts. Instead, NBI leans entirely on ESG industry groups and regulatory-driven frameworks such as the UN Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI) and the Canada Climate Law Initiative. In other words, NBI apparently did not verify whether the "climate risk" it fears is real, probable, or material; it simply assumed it.

On the economic side, NBI's embrace of ESG mandates risks undercutting returns and distorting capital allocation. Political scientist and president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, Bjorn Lomborg estimates that global net-zero pledges could cost trillions of dollars annually with minimal impact on global temperatures, money that could address far more urgent issues such as hunger, sanitation, and basic health care. Furthermore, NBI's blanket exclusions of companies involved in thermal coal, oil sands, and Arctic exploration reflects moral judgment, not financial prudence.

This is not responsible investing. It is social engineering through capital markets. Investors are being nudged, or shoved, into portfolios optimized for ideological compliance, not risk-adjusted performance. Climate risk is grossly exaggerated in NBI's report, while the grave risks of energy scarcity, regulatory overreach, and economic stagnation are ignored.

The human costs of these policies are profound. Across Canada, rising energy prices already strain households and companies. Globally, the consequences are even starker. Billions of people in developing nations rely on affordable hydrocarbons to fuel economic growth, build infrastructure, and achieve basic living standards. When Western financial institutions strangle energy investment, they don't just inconvenience multinational oil firms, they sabotage efforts to eradicate poverty. Restricting energy access delays clean water projects, reduces food security, and condemns millions to lives of needless hardship.

By prioritizing abstract and arbitrary CO2‚ emission targets over concrete human needs, NBI's ESG framework perpetuates real-world harm under the guise of virtue.

What is most absent from the report is any genuine commitment to human flourishing. Energy is the foundation of modern life. Instead of vilifying emissions, investment leaders should champion innovation in reliable, affordable energy, including oil, gas, coal, and nuclear. A truly responsible investment framework begins with a clear-eyed, unbiased, full-context view of science, economics, and ethics, not ESG orthodoxy.

The deeper concern is NBI's apparent breach of fiduciary duty. Canadian fiduciaries, under both common law and securities regulation, are bound to prioritize the financial interests of clients, not to champion external political and social causes. NBI's decision to embed ESG into manager compensation and portfolio construction compromises this duty. A fiduciary's primary obligation is to safeguard capital with sound, objective judgment, not to leverage client assets for social experiments.

At its core, NBI's approach reflects a moral inversion: treating human industry and energy abundance as threats, rather than as achievements that have lifted billions out of poverty. As Alex Epstein, founder and director of the Center for Industrial Progress, argues in his book Fossil Future, the environmental and investment success of a project should be measured by how well human flourishing is advanced, not by how minimally it impacts the atmosphere. Energy is not our enemy; it is the enabler of clean water, abundant food, medical care, and global resilience.

If NBI truly wishes to lead, it must reject climate alarmism, scrutinize its assumptions, and re-anchor its investing philosophy around objective inquiry and the advancement of human well-being. That would be leadership worth investing in.

Dave McGruer is an Ottawa-based independent researcher. Tom Harris is Executive Director of International Climate Science Coalition -Canada.

US set for 'battle royale' as Trump admin takes aim at carbon dioxide regulations

Tom Harris is Executive Director of International Climate Science Coalition – Canada, who has written extensively, and has allowed me to publish his work, which can be viewed here, along with Dr. Jay Lehr about the folly of manmade climate change.  

Thousands of Scientists Contest the Climate Scare

By Tom Harris

 

Apollo 17 Astronaut Dr. Harrison "Jack" Schmitt addresses an audience of climate realists at the fourth International Climate Change Conference held in Chicago in 2010. Image used with permission of The Heartland Institute.

Climate change science is “settled,” we are told by activists, politicians, media and official science bodies. It is our emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) that is supposedly causing a climate crisis and we must take action to prevent dangerous global warming. Allegedly, only a handful of unqualified naysayers contest this conclusion.

Besides the absurdity of the notion that humanity, at this stage in our development, could hope to "control climate change" of planet Earth, observant readers will ask: how does anyone know that there is a consensus among climate scientists that our CO₂ emissions are driving global climate, let alone that they are causing a crisis? After all, the climate had been changing for billions of years before we arrived on the scene. Are all the ancient natural climate drivers suddenly being eclipsed by human CO₂ emissions?

No one knows for sure, although much recent research suggests it is highly improbable. It is also true that no one knows, or even currently can know, what the so-called "consensus" is in the world climate science community about whether our CO₂ emissions are causing a climate crisis.

This is because there is not known to have been a conclusive worldwide poll about the topic among the thousands of scientists from the vast array of disciplines related to understanding the causes of global climate change. In “Debunking the Climate Change Consensus,” Part 1 of this series, I demonstrated how none of the open letters and declarations from scientists and scientific organizations about climate change that NASA cites to show the supposed consensus actually address the most important question of all, namely, “Are greenhouse gas emissions from human activities causing climate change so dangerous that it is worth spending trillions of dollars to try to stop?”

And, of course, scientific theories are never proven by a show of hands anyway, no matter how scientifically esteemed those expressing their views are. If it were otherwise, the Earth would still be considered flat and space travel impossible.

And then there is the problem of national and international science bodies endorsing the global warming theory without the known support of a majority of their membership. For example, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) and a leading Canadian energy expert, “Archie” Robinson of Deep River, Ontario, explained what happened with a Royal Society (the world's oldest scientific organisation) climate initiative supporting the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Assessment Report:

“the president of the Royal Society of London … drafted a resolution in favour and circulated it to other academies of science inviting co-signing. … The president of the RSC, not a member of the [RSC’s] Academy of Science, received the invitation. He considered it consistent with the position of the great majority of scientists, as repeatedly but erroneously claimed by Kyoto proponents, and so signed it. The resolution was not referred to the Academy of Science for comment, not even to its council or president.”

A similar episode happened in the United States and Russia concerning the Royal Society effort and a survey of pronouncements from other science bodies reveals that they are usually just the opinions of the groups’ executives or committees specifically appointed by the executive. The rank-and-file scientist members are rarely consulted at all. 

Lord Robert May, former president of the Royal Society, said:

"On one hand, you have the entire scientific community [supporting the climate alarm] and on the other you have a handful of people, half of them crackpots."

But Lord May was completely mistaken. See The Myth of the Climate Change ’97%’ - The Heartland Institute. Not only is there no known broad agreement in the "entire scientific community" about the causes of climate change (and it only matters what climate experts think, not all scientists), but literally thousands of scientifically-qualified individuals have endorsed open letters and other declarations opposing, either directly or indirectly, the CO₂/dangerous global warming hypothesis. Consider the following open letters, declarations and other documents, some linked to the documents and endorser lists, starting with the most recent:

 

2020 - present: World Climate Declaration: Organized by CLINTEL (Climate Intelligence), this declaration, signed by at least 1,983 endorsers, states that "there is no climate emergency" and calls for more balanced climate policies.

2022: No Consensus on Climate Crisis, Scientist Survey Finds - The Heartland Institute

2019: The European Climate Declaration - Oslo: This declaration, signed by hundreds of individuals, stated that there is "no climate emergency" and also called for a more balanced approach to climate policy.

2018: Climate Scientists' Register | ICSC - Canada, signed by 143 scientists from 22 countries who have studied the causes of climate change and agree with the following statement: “We, the undersigned, having assessed the relevant scientific evidence, do not find convincing support for the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing, or will in the foreseeable future cause, dangerous global warming."

2016: The Australian Climate Declaration: A group of scientists and professionals in Australia signed this declaration questioning the evidence for human-driven climate change.

2010: Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) letter to the U.S. EPA--signed by 35 climate and related experts supporting challenges by the US Chamber of Commerce and three states which question the basis for the 2009 "Endangerment Finding" under the Clean Air Act.

2008– 2019 - The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) Reports: While not a single letter, these reports are often cited by realists as counterpoints to the IPCC's findings. Here are the NIPCC reports in which thousands of peer-reviewed papers are cited casting doubt on the climate catastrophe hypothesis:

·         Fossil Fuels (2019)

o   Summary of CCR II: Fossil Fuels

o   Full Text of CCR II: Fossil Fuels

·         Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming (2016)

o   Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming

·         Biological Impacts (2014)

o   Summary of CCR II: Biological Impacts

o   Full Text of CCR II: Biological Impacts

·         Physical Science (2013)

o   Summary of CCR II: Physical Science

o   Full Text of CCR II: Physical Science

·         Interim Report (2011)

o   Summary of CCR: Interim Report

o   Full Text of CCR: Interim Report

·         NIPCC Report (2009)

o   Summary of Climate Change Reconsidered

o   Full Text of Climate Change Reconsidered

• Science and Environmental Policy Project SEPP/Heartland document Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate (2008) Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the NIPCC 
• 2009: Cato Institute newspaper ad campaign letter (right); 115 scientist signers. (Editor's Note:  That list is a picture which I cannot reproduce. RK) The letter focused on skepticism about the urgency of climate action and questioned the reliability of climate models and predictions. It was published as an open letter in major newspapers to influence public opinion and policy discussions on climate change.
• 2009: Copenhagen Climate Challenge which listed 166 experts well qualified in climate science plus some in 'other related disciplines'. Sent during the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, this letter emphasized doubts about the science underpinning human-caused climate change.
• 2009: Open Letter to the Council of the American Physical Society—signed by 61 experts, expressed skepticism about the supposed scientific consensus on climate change. The letter called for APS to change its official statement on climate change, arguing that it overstated the certainty of human impact on global warming. The signatories advocated for a more open and balanced discussion on climate change, emphasizing the need for scientific rigor and debate.
• 2009: The Cornwall Alliance's Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming : Rooted in religious perspectives, this declaration expressed skepticism about catastrophic climate change and emphasized stewardship of the Earth.
• 2008: THE MANHATTAN DECLARATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE , 1,497 endorsers, over half of them well qualified in science and technology and 206 of them climate science specialists or scientists in very closely related fields. Released after The Heartland Institute’s climate realists' conference in New York City, it argued against the urgency of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
• 2007:  Open Letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations (the "2007 Bali open letter"), 100 scientist signers, criticized the IPCC's conclusions and called for a reassessment of climate science. Then UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon never acknowledged receipt of either the 2007 Bali open letter, or the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Challenge but mail tracking showed he did receive it.
• 2007: " Independent Summary for Policymakers" questioning the UN IPCC's 4^th Assessment report (2007) AR4 and contesting many of its conclusions, organized by the Fraser Institute in Canada: list of 10 authors and reviewed by over 50 scientists worldwide.
•  2007: Letter to the American Physical Society: A group of physicists sent this open letter criticizing the society's stance on climate change and asking for a reconsideration.
• 2006:  Open Kyoto to Debate - An open letter to Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, from 60 climate experts, challenging the scientific basis for climate policies.
•  2003:  Protocol lacks 'credible science' - Open letter to Canadian PM Paul Martin, 46 leading scientists endorsed this, challenging the scientific basis for climate policies. 
• Open letter to Canadian PM Jean Chretien , 30 scientist signers , challenging the scientific basis for climate policies.
•  1997:  Global Warming Petition Project  - organized through the  Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine , starting in 1997. That document now claims some 31,487 U.S. scientists and technically qualified signers, 9,029 with PhDs.  see breakdown. Scientists, in this case physicist Dr. Edward Teller, signed the statement as follows.
• 1995: Leipzig Declaration on Climate Change, 80 scientist signers plus 25 TV meteorologists. This declaration questioned the scientific consensus on climate change and opposed the Kyoto Protocol.
• 1992: SEPP Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming, 47 signers. The signatories expressed skepticism about the certainty of anthropogenic global warming and opposed environmental regulations based on "highly uncertain scientific theories."
•  1992: The Heidelberg Appeal: Presented at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, this appeal questioned the urgency of environmental policies based on what the signatories considered uncertain science.

No list like the above would be complete without including reference to the 15 massive

International Conferences on Climate Change put on by The Heartland Institute across the world from 2008 to 2023. Hundreds of climate realist scientists, economists, engineers and policy experts spoke at these meetings, easily the most important climate events ever held.

So how many of these did you see reported in mainstream media? Any? And that is the problem faced by climate skeptics—most mainstream media do not report on these declarations, and, on the rare occasion when they do, dismiss them as endorsed by unqualified 'outliers' from the scientific community. Consequently, even though these open letters and other documents are signed by some of the absolute leaders in the world in understanding the causes of climate change, the majority of the public knows little about these lists, freeing government to proceed as if they didn't even exist.

So, the next time someone tells you that only a few unqualified scientists in unrelated fields disagree with the politically-correct view on the causes and consequences of climate change, send them the above list and ask, “Really? How about these?”

Tom Harris is Executive Director of International Climate Science Coalition – Canada.

Debunking the Climate Change Consensus – Part 1

By Tom Harris 

 

It is a tiresome drone we hear it all the time—the consensus of world scientists agree, we are causing a climate emergency and we must do everything possible to stop it! But it is a stupid statement that means nothing. Most scientists are not expert in the causes of climate change—people like biologists, particle physicists, material scientists, you name it—so most of their opinions don’t really matter.

And even if there were convincing evidence that the vast majority of scientists who do research the causes of climate change thought that there is a man-made climate emergency (there isn’t), they are not really in a position to recommend how society should respond to such an issue. That would be a problem to be addressed by a range of experts in such fields as economics, health sciences, civil and energy engineering, emergency management, demographics, public policy development and perhaps even social psychology and political science.

The 50 to 1 project explored the costs of stopping climate change versus adapting to it, as and if it's required. They concluded that it's 50 times more expensive to try to STOP climate change than it is to simply ADAPT to it (as and if required).  Climatedepot.com executive Director Marc Morano sums up the situation:

“Would you buy an insurance policy on your home that cost more than the house is worth and would pay out nothing if your house burned down. That’s the snake oil they’re selling us.”

OK, so are there at least surveys that show that there is a consensus of scientists who study the causes of climate change who support the notion that we are causing a climate emergency? If there is, it could provide a foundation on which other experts could recommend how to respond.

NASA have a special page dedicated to revealing the supposed consensus about problematic climate change. But, despite citing numerous scientific organizations and surveys, it doesn’t really address the question. Here are some of the organizational statements they cite.

Statement on Climate Change from 18 Scientific Associations:

"Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver." (2009)

 Well, of course climate change is happening. The only constant about climate is change. It changes all the time. If it didn’t, we would still be stuck in the last glacial period when the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered most of Canada and reached as far south as present-day Illinois, Ohio, and New York. Thank God there is climate change.

If it were true that “the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver,” it still wouldn’t make any difference since the primary driver of a small change, namely a 1.1-degree Celsius warming since 1880, is unimportant from a policy perspective.

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS):

"Based on well-established evidence, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that human-caused climate change is happening." (2014)

Well, duh, of course it is happening. Witness the urban heat island effect where it is warmer in cities than in the countryside. But, unless “human-caused climate change” is a serious problem, there are no policy implications of the AAAS statement.

American Chemical Society:

"The Earth’s climate is changing in response to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and particulate matter in the atmosphere, largely as the result of human activities." (2016-2019)”

Again, so what? (for the reasons discussed above).

American Geophysical Union (AGU):

"Based on extensive scientific evidence, it is extremely likely that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse gases, are the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20^th century. There is no alterative explanation supported by convincing evidence." (2019)

Even if that were true (it isn’t), warming since the mid-20^th century is very small, so again, there are no policy implications of this statement.

American Medical Association: I won’t even quote them since medical doctors have no expertise in climate change causes. Regardless, their assertion is akin to the others above.

American Meteorological Society:

"Research has found a human influence on the climate of the past several decades ... The IPCC (2013), USGCRP (2017), and USGCRP (2018) indicate that it is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-twentieth century." (2019)”

Again, so what?

American Physical Society: 

"Earth's changing climate is a critical issue and poses the risk of significant environmental, social and economic disruptions around the globe. While natural sources of climate variability are significant, multiple lines of evidence indicate that human influences have had an increasingly dominant effect on global climate warming observed since the mid-twentieth century." (2015)

That is a little better in that at least they are speaking about problematic climate change, but the statement is really self evident. Of course, “changing climate is a critical issue and poses the risk of significant environmental, social and economic disruptions.” That has always been the case—witness how the Viking settlements in Greenland were wiped out by the return of cold conditions in the 14th century. Or the Ancestral Puebloans who were forced to abandon their settlements when the American Southwest faced a series of droughts between 1275 and 1300 CE.

The list of societies that failed because they didn’t adapt successfully to climate change is extensive: The Akkadian Empire of 4,200 years ago collapsed due to a prolonged drought which led to widespread famine. The Mayan Civilization’s cities declined around 900 CE when they faced severe droughts. The Khmer Empire in Southeast Asia also declined when they suffered from unpredictable monsoons and prolonged droughts between the 13th and 15th centuries.

The message of history is simple “adapt to climate change or die!”

And the messages NASA boosts from the Geological Society of America, the Joint Statement of International Academies, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the U.S. Global Change Research Program are all essentially the same: human activities are the main cause of recent climate change. While many scientists who research the causes of climate change disagree (which will be the subject of part 2 in this series), so what?

In the final analysis, the reliance on consensus to determine what is real in science is simply a logical fallacy anyways. A show of hands, even from experts in the field, does not decide the validity of scientific hypotheses. The award-winning American author and filmmaker Dr. Michael Crichton put it well in his January 17, 2003 lecture presented at the California Institute of Technology:

“I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.

“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world… The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

“If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”

Dr. Christopher Essex, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics and Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario sums up how we should approach climate change:

“Stop being afraid. I think that is the single most important thing. Stop being afraid and start thinking.”

And thinking leads us to ask, if our climate is so sensitive to humanity’s emissions then why has the 50% rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations the past 140 years led to temperature changes too small to even be unnoticeable in a single human lifetime? If man-made climate change is causing increasing extreme weather records, then why were there no extreme weather records set on a state-wide basis in 2024, while in 1936, 27 records were set, records that still stand today? 

If polar bears are in such grave danger due to man-made, or any other kind of, climate change, then why are there five times as many bears now as there were in the mid-20th century? And why didn’t the bears go extinct during the Holocene Optimum 8,000 - 5,000 years ago when studies have indicated that summer temperatures in parts of the Arctic were 2–3°C warmer than now?

Climate activists clearly regard a thinking and questioning public a Pandora’s Box they must keep the lid firmly on. Which is precisely why we must not be intimidated by spurious claims of consensus. Think for ourselves and rip the lid off the box by asking the questions that reveal the climate change scare for what it really is—an unscientific hoax that is impoverishing the world for no benefit.

Conservatives must raise Cain at Public Events, using Alinsky’s Rules!

By Tom Harris 

The climate change movement has managed to closely associate themselves with the left of the

political spectrum, producing a huge boost for their campaigns. After all, the majority of mainstream media are left of center and so this results in climate alarmists having a massive unpaid communications arm supporting their crusade.

But most “progressives” fail to realize that following climate catastrophists’ agenda results in outcomes that violate causes leftists hold dear, or at least want us to believe they hold dear. This would include support for social justice and environmental protection, issues I dealt with in parts one and two of this three-part series (“To Win the Climate Debate, We Must Use The Same Tools That Were Used To Defeat Science and Common Sense,” Jan 14 and “Catch the left violating their own “book of rules” in the climate debate,” Jan 19). And, by pointing this out to them in front of public forums, we are employing Saul Alinsky’s rule #4 from “Rules for Radicals – A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals,” which is as follows:

“Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.”

Two other ideas the left have historically championed and would be loath to admit they no longer support are:

• Rejection of absolutism (truth) and authority (consensus) 
• Tolerance of alternative lifestyles & opinions

Demonstrating, very publicly, that following the climate alarmist agenda works against both of these ideals would also be an effective application of Alinsky’s rule #4. It will also help sway well-intentioned leftists, at least those who are not also climate change fanatics, to distance themselves from the climate scare.

Historically, liberals have tended to reject absolute authority and often ridiculed conservatives for being inflexible about morals, politics and even science. For example, Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity was supported by the German left, while those on the right opposed it, believing it threatened their cultural worldview (which, ultimately, it did). In fact, the assertion that science discovers truths about nature, not merely opinions based on empirical evidence that is always subject to interpretation, led to the ‘science wars’ of the late 20th century. In that conflict the intellectual left were the skeptics of the idea that we could have absolute knowledge in science. To learn more about this, watch the superb course “Science Wars: What Scientists Know and How They Know It” by Dr. Steven L. Goldman, the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Lehigh University in Chicago.

But this expected approach—relativism and skepticism from liberals and absolutism from conservatives—has been turned upside down in the climate debate. While right-wingers call for open debate about the causes of climate change, the left generally consider such discussion intolerable and behave as if we know the future of climate decades in advance, a position that is indefensible, scientifically and philosophically.

So, climate campaigners try to shut down debate about the causes of climate change, regarding it as a Pandora’s Box they desperately want to keep firmly shut. Why else would they steadfastly refuse invitations from climate realist scientists to engage in public debates? If the public regularly heard about the vast uncertainty in climate change science, arguably the most complex science ever tackled, their patience for the $1.27 trillion USD devoted in 2022/2023 to climate finance would quickly evaporate. So, instead, most of the left ignore the thousands of well-qualified experts who do not support the scare (for example, see World Climate Declaration There is no climate emergency) and enthusiastically support the confident, but nonsensical, climate change forecasts of people like United Nations Secretary General António Guterres and former vice-president Al Gore with his “Inconvenient Truth.” We must regularly call them on this, pointing out that it violates one of the left’s fundamental axioms.

So, we need to bring up forcefully in public sessions, the fact that unquestioning acceptance of ‘truth’ in science—in the sense of fulfilling Plato’s definition that truth is universal, necessary and certain, characteristics impossible in science—has impeded human progress throughout history. For example, when the Greco-Egyptian writer Claudius Ptolemy proposed his Earth-centered system, he did not say it was physical astronomy, a true description of how the universe actually worked. He promoted it as mathematical astronomy, a model that worked well for astronomical observations, astrology and creating calendars.

It was the ultra-conservative Catholic Church that, relying on a literal interpretation of the Bible, specifically Joshua 10:12-14, promoted the Ptolemaic system as truth to be questioned at one’s peril. Here is that Biblical passage:

“Then Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel: Sun, stand still over Gibeon; and Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon. So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the people had revenge upon their enemies. Is this not written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hastened to go down for about a whole day. And there has been no day like that, before it or after it, that the Lord heeded a voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel.”

It is important to understand that Joshua’s army had marched all night the 20 miles from Gilgal to Gibeon to do battle with their enemies, the five strong kings who had pooled their resources to fight the Israelites. Joshua’s army had prevailed in the battle and his enemies were in retreat. But Joshua did not want them to be able to get back to their fortified cities to regroup. More daylight was needed for Joshua’s troops to finish them off. To prevent their return, he asked God to lengthen the day (see painting below). 

 

There are many interesting interpretations of this Biblical passage, some of which can be read here, but, it was clear that the Church wanted the public to believe that it was the Sun that moved, not the Earth about the Sun. According to many writers, this was why Nicolaus Copernicus, a Canon in the Church, waited until he was on his death bed before he allowed his revolutionary book showing the Sun to be the centre of the universe to be published, even though the text was completed 30 years earlier. To read more about this, including an alternative theory about why the book was so delayed, see here.

This is also why Galileo ran into so much trouble when he claimed that the Church was wrong and that Copernicanism was the truth, a position that Galileo could not really know with certainty either (to be fair, it should be noted that the Church was already dealing with the unrest of the Protestant Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, so maintaining doctrinal control was crucial for them. Galileo's opposition to the Church's geocentric teachings was viewed as a threat to their authority and theological doctrines, an understandable position, given the times).

Similarly, the assumed truth of Isaac Newton’s laws of motion and law of universal gravitation eventually acted to slow the advancement of science until Einstein showed them to be incomplete. We need to remind leftists, at least those who are not climate extremists, that when authorities preach truth about science, progress stops. They should welcome, not condemn, questioning of the status quo. Science advances through fearless investigation, not frightened acquiescence to fashionable thinking, let alone the smearing of intellectual opponents as “deniers.”

I did this a few years ago in a Government of Ontario public meeting ostensibly set up to identify obstacles to progress on “climate action.” After several members of the public were roundly booed and harassed for voicing doubt about the science being relied on by the government, I went to the microphone and said:

“We have just seen a demonstration of what I think is the greatest obstacle to progress on this file—it is the intolerance of alternative points of view about this highly complex science. We should welcome and discuss skeptical inquiries, not try to silence them!”

The reaction? Dead silence. You could hear a pin drop. The government representative had nothing to say and the audience recognized that the activists had violated what is supposed to be a fundamental tenant of progressivism, namely keeping an open mind to different perspectives.

And, of course, the reliance on consensus to determine what is truth in science is simply a “bandwagon logical fallacy” when we base the validity of our argument on how many people believe it. A show of hands does not decide the validity of scientific hypotheses. When Albert Einstein was told about a book titled Hundert Autoren gegen Einstein (A Hundred Authors Against Einstein), published in 1931, he replied, “Why 100? If I were wrong, one would have been enough.”

The award-winning American author and filmmaker Dr. Michael Crichton also put it well in his January 17, 2003 lecture, “Aliens Cause Global Warming,” presented at California Institute of Technology:

“I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled."

“Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had. Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world."

“In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

“There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.”

The left took over many of our institutions by effectively applying Saul Alinsky’s rules. It’s about time conservatives read his Rules for Radicals – A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals",  available for free on the web, and then got out and raised Cain at public events. Our children will never forgive us if we do not.

Catch the left violating their own “book of rules” in the climate debate

By Tom Harris January 19, 2025

 

If those of us who do not believe in the so-called “climate emergency” are to win the day, we need to take a page out of “Rules for Radicals – A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals.” Written in 1971 by Chicago-based community organizer Saul D. Alinsky, “Rules for Radicals” included the crucially important Rule #4:

“Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.”

As discussed in part 1 of this series, progressives say that their “book of rules” includes basing their assertions on the findings of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). But alarmists’ fears about increasing floods, extreme rainfall, heat waves, intense storms and forest fires are, in fact, not supported by the UN IPCC. So, making them live up to their own rules, we need to call them on this every time.

I also discussed how we must hold leftists to their own book of rules when it comes to social justice, especially caring for the poor, the elderly and those who are disadvantaged in society. We do this by pointing out that, of the $1.27 trillion USD spent on climate finance in 2022/2023, only a paltry 5% went exclusively to helping poor people adapt to climate change, however caused, a clear social justice violation. Similarly, progressives need to be held to account for the violations in social justice that occur as a result of:

1. The huge increase in electricity rates that is the natural result of the transition to wind and solar power, which hurts the poor and those on fixed incomes the most 
2. The diversion of food crops to the production of biofuels, causing food shortages and soaring prices 
3. The human rights abuses in developing countries that accompany the production of electric vehicle batteries as well as wind and solar power equipment 
4. The ruining of well water on farms in the vicinity of wind turbines.

Another item in climate alarmists’ “book of rules” is the requirement that they are helping protect the environment and wildlife when they promote wind and solar power and grid-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS). Yet nothing could be further from the truth and we should hold them to account for this in public meetings, etc.

In their 2021 book, “‘Clean’ Energy Exploitations: Helping Citizens Understand the Environmental and Humanity Abuses That Support ‘Clean’ Energy,” authors Ronald Stein and Todd Royal explain:

“Green energy uses materials from some of the worst ecological and human rights offenders that exist on Earth… The volume of wind turbine waste is projected to soar in years to come, with mining and manufacturing waste, service waste, and end-of-life waste being the major sources. It is estimated that there will be 43 million metric tons just of [wind turbine] blade waste worldwide by 2050.”

Lithium ion-based batteries used in BESS systems rely on a mix of materials that require massive amounts of energy to mine, transport, process and refine, far greater than the extraction and transport of oil and natural gas. Consequently, while batteries are often portrayed by manufacturers as generating no greenhouse gases, even the left-leaning Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has pointed out that: “Mining and processing the minerals, plus the battery manufacturing process, involve substantial emissions of carbon.”

The CBC cites Jennifer Dunn at Northwestern University’s Center for Engineering Sustainability and Resilience, who explained: “The material that helps power the battery is produced from a number of different metals, things like nickel and cobalt and lithium.” And of course, China controls most of the lithium and cobalt, which are often produced with no environmental standards, and often employ child labor and near-slave labor and follow practically no health and safety safeguards. University of Houston Professor Larry Bell reports (“China Targets US Weakness for Afghan Rare Earths, Taiwan Chips,” America out Loud, September 25, 2021):

“China has amassed stunning control over 70% of the world’s lithium supplies and 85% of rare earths supply chains to dominate global industries and jobs that depend on them.”

Mining and mineral processing of lithium also requires large volumes of water and can pose contamination risks from mine drainage and wastewater discharge. Readers are encouraged to watch the 2020 documentary film “Planet of the Humans” by left-wing film producer Michael Moore. This 2-minute clip from Moore’s movie demonstrates that, when you consider how these machines are made, and the huge volumes of toxic waste that is released when they are manufactured, wind and solar power may very well be the dirtiest and most environmentally destructive energy sources on the planet.

But perhaps the greatest lie we hear from “green energy” advocates is that the contribution of Industrial Wind Turbines [IWTs] to bird and bat mortality is negligible. In reality, IWTs cause mass slaughter of these animals, especially raptors such as golden eagles, which the Ontario government labeled as “Endangered.”

Here are some statistics:

According to a 2004 study by leading expert, Dr. Shawn Smallwood, financed by the California Energy Commission, an average of 116 Golden Eagles are killed every year by collisions with turbine blades at Altamont Pass Wind Station in California. Extrapolating that number, well over 3,000 eagles have been destroyed since the wind facility was built in the eighties. Other birds killed at Altamont Pass per year include: 

• 300 hawks 
• 333 kestrels 
• 380 owls 
• 2,526 doves 
• 2,557 meadow larks

And the situation is no better in other countries. Mark Duchamp, President, Save the Eagles International Chairman, World Council for Nature, tells us that birds are killed in Spain at a rate of about 200 birds per turbine per year. It is twice that number for bats, which die simply by flying in the low-pressure zone beside the blades which causes their lungs burst.

The slaughter of birds and bats by wind turbines is a powerful issue to bring up in public meetings with politicians. Click here to watch a superb example of a member of the public—retired teacher Karen Bourdeau—confronting candidates for Ottawa mayor with this issue. Note especially the pathetic answer from the leading candidate for mayor, climate activist Catherine McKenney.

Ms. Bourdeau was so effective because she applied, not only rule #4, “Make opponents live up to their own book of rules,” but also rules #2 and #3 which are:

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people. The result is confusion, fear, and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty of your opponent.

As one would expect of a teacher, Ms. Bourdeau did her homework before asking her question and so knew far more about the issue than any of the candidates for mayor. Consequently, she came across as strong and confident while McKenney looked hopelessly uninformed. 

 

 

Saul Alinsky must be rolling over in his grave that concerned citizens from the right of the political spectrum are using his rules to defeat the left. Let’s keep doing exactly that!

____________________

Note: In part 3 of this series on the use of Alinsky’s rule #4, I will discuss how to take advantage of the left’s supposed support for:

• Tolerance of alternative lifestyles & opinions • Rejection of authority & absolutism