Wynne's Ignorance Is a Loss for the Environment

Wynne’s Ignorance is a Loss for the Environment

When questioned about the potential costs of cap-and-trade, she responded: “And when my granddaughter, Olivia, looks at me and says, ‘Grandma, what did you do?’ I’m not going to say to her, ‘I put my head in the sand, and I was worried that maybe there would be a cost somewhere that I couldn’t explain, and so I didn’t take an initiative that would have saved the planet for your grandchildren.’ I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to do that.”

Wynne’s granddaughter, if she is taught to think for herself, will wonder how her granny could be taken in by the ‘CO2 causes climate change’ nonsense. Wynne thinks the planet is in peril from the human burning of fossil fuels when there is no evidence to indicate there is anything happening outside the bounds of natural variability. Any weather event that occurs today has happened somewhere in the world in the past.

It is easy to save a planet that is not in peril. So, no matter what actions Wynne takes she will be able to claim success as long as people believe that the planet was in jeopardy from the burning of fossil fuels. The price for her granddaughter will be the opportunity cost of the goods and services that could have been purchased instead of wasting resources chasing a phantom not to mention the debt that the concerned Granny Wynne will leave to those future generations she claims to care so much about. Money spent to fix a climate that isn’t broken by the human emissions of CO2 will not be available to spend on poverty reduction, health care or education - things we can actually do something to alleviate.

Blowing money on wind power for no observable change to the climate is a fool’s errand. And it seems Wynne desires to play the fool.

Neither floods or drought or hurricanes or tornadoes care how much CO2 is in the air. Neither their frequency or severity is on the increase as CO2 has grown unabated in our atmosphere thus invalidating the CO2 centric theory.

Climate Change Minister Glen Murray compared the fight against man-made global warming to fighting Hitler in the Second World War, saying: “We need the leadership of a Roosevelt. We need the leadership of a Churchill. This is (the) time to raise things above petty politics and to unite and challenge risks and threats we have never challenged before.”

He is correct. We need someone with the stature of a Churchill to stand up, acknowledge reality and fearlessly play the role of the little boy who pointed out the Emperor was naked. Natural variability rules the climate. As George Carlin has more colorfully said: it is not the planet that is crazy it is the people who are nuts.