With COP-21 Paris climate talks on the horizon, we thought it would be only fair to start a new billboard campaign and get our message out.
We’re glad we have Freedom of Speech in Canada – we condemn the censorship of Phiippe Verdier, French TV meteorologist, who was fired after writing a book with dissenting views on climate. We experienced similar attempts to shut us up when we ran our last billboard campaign – from numerous complaints to Ad Standards Council, to a group of students and professors in Montreal wanting to use the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to…. shut down our freedom!
To all those on the witch hunt we say this:
We have a digital billboard campaign running in Edmonton and another digital and static billboard campaign in Calgary. Let’s take them one at a time.
Here are the Edmonton themes. We think our Edmonton media provider, OUTFRONT, has done a fabulous job. We love this creative! What do you think?
This billboard tries to inform Albertans of the costs of the anti-coal campaign, and that there will be serious consequences. Our report – “Burning Questions” demonstrates that the evidence does not support the claims of the anti-coal advocates. According to industry experts, it would cost $11.1 BN in compensation for an early phase out of coal-fired power plants, plus >$11 BN to transition to natural gas plants (based on 8 x 800 MW equivalents – i.e. the new Shepard Energy Center in Calgary at a cost of $1.4 Billion), plus $1 Million per MW to integrate any additional wind/solar to the grid and potentially billions in transmission lines. If we stick to the conventional federal phase out, most of these plants will be off-line by 2030 anyway. Seems to us that the issue is a proxy for pushing renewables, maybe like this report out of the US about the Sierra Club having some big renewable investors as donors. What do you think?
We also thought that citizens and the new Alberta government and the Alberta Climate Panel might not be aware of the 18+ year hiatus in global warming.
And we are pretty sure most people are under the impression that ‘wind is free.’ The chart below (not a billboard) shows that in countries with the most renewables…the highest power prices. The US EIA confirms residential power prices are skyrocketing in the EU.
We also wanted to tell the world that the sun is the main direct and indirect driver of climate change and ask people to think about the…obvious.
This magnificent image is by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons and its use does not imply endorsement of our message.
Fantastic, isn’t it?
Last but not least, for Edmonton, listen up Albertan and Canadian politicians! In fact, politicians everywhere should think about this, and so should TAXPAYER$.
One of our contributors, Robert Lyman, an energy economist of some 37 years experience has written a ‘do the math’ review of the implications of climate change targets for Canada. We hope government officials are reading this – please feel free to send it along to your elected provincial and federal officials as well as your local major industries, senior executives and business groups or Chambers of Commerce. The implications trying to achieve the climate targets would be devastating for our economy and lifestyle. “Climate Change Targets for Canada – Examining the Implications.”
http://friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/climate_change_implications_Lyman.pdf
And how do the Edmonton billboards look in real life? Great!
These are at a number of locations across the city, but all messages rotate through on the digital screen. This is the rotation at one location.
We’d love to hear your comments – post them here on our blog! (Moderated, of course)
If you like what you see and want to tell the world the same thing, please tweet and share with friends and elected officials. If you don’t like, you can tell us, and why. Let’s talk about it.
love it, spread it across the country
Thanks to an Alberta friend I received this e mail, very well done exposure to the cause of Science, simply because your public awareness program is right, the Sun. Not Co2.
Great Bill Board Adds. In flying, as Pilots when on the ground safely, we have a saying “Science triumphs again!” Well done. S. McLeod President, Tower Aerospace Inc.
Thank you, Sir! Please tell all your friends in aviation – look at how some academics at Oxford blithely think they can skim aviation passenger fees to buy off the developing nations with the Green Climate Fund demands; this analysis shows it will be catastrophic for Western aviation industry. http://www.thegwpf.com/drieu-godefridi-the-oxford-climate-policy-climatism-on-steroids/ We appreciate your supportive comments.
It would fantastic if it were possible to have these billboards in every country on the planet. Good job!
You are invited to do this ‘virtually’ – save an image, put with your own flag or language – post it to your facebook or alongside a recognizable image of your town, city or country. Or you can also send us video clips with cellphone video of you saying a line or two about your views on the climate issue (not too long – 10 to 30 seconds) and we’ll make a video montage. Thanks!
Abandon all support for Coal as it weakens our overall argument…… it will persist without our support! Reinforce efforts towards natural gas, LNG and LPGs it is the cleanest and greener than all other fossil fuels and is destined to survive the efforts of Suzuki, Naomi Klein, 350.org etc.
Well Graydon, since we think coal use, in a modern, well-managed context as in Alberta is a suitable energy source and we don’t see CO2 emissions as a significant factor in climate change, we thus support the use of coal. We would hope the COP21 partners work toward POLLUTION reduction – so that as the rest of the non-OECD countries develop energy facilities using coal (since it is most affordable) that they will do so with good emissions management. For Albertans, the costs of phasing out coal are very significant and the benefits… well, we don’t think there are any. Further, we have new technologies in the pipe that could actually harvest graphene from coal plant emissions. So – let’s let that tech get off the ground. Thanks for your perspective, though.
Yes keep it up
Supporting coal? Alberta has some of the worst air quality in the world. How about ending support for coal for the sake of human health, even if you don’t believe scientific consensus on climate change.
Hello A Doyl, Alberta’s air quality is some of the best in the world. Canada’s air quality listed as 3rd best in the world in this report, with both Edmonton and Calgary in the top 10 cities. http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/canada-s-air-quality-3rd-best-in-world-1.980695 If you read our report “Burning Questions” http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FoS_BurningQuestions_Health_Coal_Wildfires_Jan2015.pdf you’ll see that long-term studies of patient records show that asthma emergency department visits in Non-Urban Municipalities is double that of the major cities – those places are far from coal-fired power plants or plumes. Actually Paris, venue for the climate talks, has some of the worst air quality in the world, and this is due to very poor climate policy, as explained here: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-23/climate-politics-and-the-volkswagen-scandal
Regarding the alleged scientific consensus, we did a detailed review of the four main studies and found that while most scientists agree that humans AFFECT climate to some degree, very few scientists agree with the Catastrophic view – and more scientists think human impacts due to land use, deforestation, etc – NOT CO2 – are more important than the effects of industrial emissions. Here’s the report breaking down the Math Myths of the alleged 97%… http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/97_Consensus_Myth.pdf
Thanks for your reply. I agree there is great danger in oversimplifying issues to simply consider CO2 as the only pollutant of interest. Similarly, there are many areas that we need to take action to avoid ecological catastrophe, and this is not limited to climate change. Pollution and over-explotation of resources and land are major problems.
I am thinking your data on Albertan air quality needs an update.
News from my hometown of Fort Saskatchewan:
http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/10/24/Alberta-Bad-Air/
And more recent news on our capital:
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/04/14/edmonton-air-quality-toronto-cape-report_n_7064470.html
Here is one map of world air quality http://aqicn.org/map/world/ Pretty much everything in Canada is in the green for below emissions standards.
Here’s another on e- maybe they are using the same database – looks similar: http://waqi.info/
The Tyee story related to an unnamed article in which there were 2 days of testing in the course of 3 years each….this can hardly be a marker of actual air quality. There are many unsubstantiated claims in that article. This study was done using long term patient data and in a time when pollution levels were much higher. http://www.health.alberta.ca/documents/Ft-Sask-Respiratory-Disease-1996.pdf
Go to world air quality and you will see you statement is wrong. Alberta doesn’t even have the worst air in Canada. Except for a couple of the bigger cities in the east Canada’s air quality is rated as good
Where do you get this BS from. Travel to China, or even LA. Stop listening to activists and start researching before making uninformed comments.
Ironically it was the ‘activists’ at Pembina Institute and CAPE that got us asking questions about whether phase-out coal made sense. We did LOTS of reserach and found that their claims on phase-out coal are ot supported by the evidence. If you are referring the coal-fired power and pollution in China – realize that none of the emissions management methods used in Alberta are applied there; likewise over half of the air pollution in the developed world comes from burning off forests (i.e. as in Indonesia http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39366/indonesia-fire/ and http://www.outrop.com/uploads/7/2/4/9/7249041/harrison_09_global_impact_indonesian_forest_fires.pdf and cooking over open fires using biofuels like dung, wood, coconut husks…and coal – all of which create terrible air pollution.
So, we feel our comments are well-informed. If you have specific arguments, please post them. We’d be happy to discuss.
We’d been researching climate sciences for over a decade as a group – our core group has combined some 300 years of training and experience in earth, atmospheric, solar and engineering sciences.
Lindzen and Choi made a realistic estimate of climate sensitivity (CS) of 0.7 °C per a doubling of CO2 by using satellite data to measure the changes in the greenhouse effect. The FUND integrated assessment model designed by Dr. Richard Tol calculates that the social cost of carbon (SCC) using a CS of 1 ºC/double CO2 is negative 18.0 US$/tC, meaning that CO2 is quite beneficial. Dr. Richard Lindzen testified June 1, 2015 that new evidence shows that CS is now “extremely unlikely to exceed 2 ºC”. This is because new evidence shows that aerosols have a much smaller effect on climate than previously assumed, and cannot cancel much greenhouse warming, so to match history, greenhouse warming must be small. The SCC using a CS of 2 ºC is negative 4.05 $/tC, meaning that it is extremely likely that CO2 emissions are net beneficial. The benefits of CO2 fertilization, reduced winter deaths and reduced extreme weather (caused by a reduced temperature gradient from the north pole to the tropics) more that offsets the negative impacts of CO2 warming.
I want Global Warming sycophants to step away. Getting sick of these robotic zombies. They’re noisy and irritating.
Global Warming skeptics talk science — Global Warming believers groupthink.
With increased investment, I am confident that coal could become a cleaner more efficient form of energy. I don’t believe in man made climate change, I prefer to think rationally, so I’ve always believed that solar flare activity was the main cause of climate change. At a young age, our class went on a field trip to a forestry museum, we were shown the growth rings of ancient trees that had been cut down and we were told about the growth patterns, distance between the rings and the effects of the quality of growing seasons. In a poor growing season, the rings are closer together than in an optimal growing season, the effects can be caused by drought, short growing season etc.
We understand from some sources involved in industry research that a process is possible to draw graphene from carbon emissions from coal fired power plants. That would be fantastic. People in Alberta used to only live ntil 50 years old in 1920 – coal proliferated since the 50’s and now we live to 80 years old and have access to excellent medical facilities and services… all driven by affordable, reliable energy…most of it from coal. Thanks for your comment!