Environment

By Stephen Leahy

UXBRIDGE, Canada, Oct 8, 2010 (IPS)

The first comprehensive look at the expected impacts of climate change on Canada offers an embarrassing and misleading “don’t worry, be happy” vision, citing more golf days and better access to northern deposits of oil and gas courtesy of global warming, critics say.

“The chart needs to be withdrawn,” said climate scientist Danny Harvey of the University of Toronto. “It is full of bad science and utterly downplays the serious impacts of climate change.”

The chart Harvey referred to is the “Degrees of Change” interactive diagram released this week as part of a national educational initiative called “Climate Prosperity” by the prestigious Royal Canadian Geographical Society and the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE).

“How can we (Canada) talk about profiting from climate change when most of the world will suffer devastating impacts, in part because of our emissions?” Harvey said.

“It is disgusting.”

In a release about the Climate Prosperity initiative, David McLaughlin, NRTEE president and CEO, said, “Adapt and prosper will be increasingly central to Canadian governments, communities, and businesses as these effects become more and more evident.”

NRTEE officials did not respond to IPS requests for an interview.

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100,000 repetitions of a lie is still a lie

Many of those who deny that burning fossil fuels is altering the climate work diligently to confuse and delay action that would in reality benefit nearly all of us. These professional deniers and their followers can be convincing, citing well-known experts and twisting their views and findings.

So here’s a couple of common sense tips to add to your BS detection system.

Denier Tip #1: Check out suspect claims/sources with a simple Google search

100,000 repetitions or variations of a lie is still a lie. A reader recently told me global warming is really caused by variations in the sun’s activity. His proof was a “science” article from Investor’s Business Daily that said this was the conclusion of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, a well-known research centre in Germany. A quick check of the Institute’s website revealed their actual conclusion: “Solar activity affects the climate but plays only a minor role in the current global warming.” See for yourself: it’s in English and still posted on their website.

Denier Tip # 2: Follow the money. Who benefits from denying climate change?

Among many others, journalist Ross Gelbspan has documented the money trail from the automotive and fossil fuel industry to various right-wing organisations and institutes in his two books, “The Heat is On” and “Boiling Point”.

Ask yourself how climate scientists benefit by concluding that humans are inadvertently changing their climate? Deniers often allege they get grants to do research on climate change. Yes they do, but they could also get grants to research water pollution or the ozone layer.

When scientists conduct research, they are simply asking questions about something and then trying to find answers. They don’t really care what the answers are. They are what they are: Humans are changing the climate.

Scientists are smart people. If they really wanted to make tonnes of money, they’d work on Wall Street, wouldn’t they?

See Last March of the Global Warming Denialists for more on this.

My related articles:

Proof of Anti-Global Warming Cabal: Fossil fuel Interests, Christian Evangelicals and the Media

UN Climate Body (IPCC) Too Slow, Too Cautious