Contributed by Michelle Stirling ©2019
For the past few days, all major TV news stations in Canada have been tweeting a clip of Green Party leader, Elizabeth May, bloviating about not leaving fossil fuel workers behind in the Green Party’s proposed “Mission Possible” plan.
I say ‘bloviating’ because she offers no evidence to support any of her claims – and worse, the media and journalists whose mandate is to make sure we are not being fed ‘fake news’ …just let her go on and on!
Ask the woman a few hard questions.
Here’s one for starters – since the world runs almost entirely on fossil fuels, with wind and solar providing a tiny percentage of energy generation, why does she think oil and gas and oil sands workers would not be employed – if pipelines to market were built?
Ask Elizabeth May what wind turbines and solar panels are made from. Ask her. Ask her why oil and gas and coal workers…and oil sands workers…would not be employed when no renewables are possible without scads of oil, natural gas, coal and oil sands?
These are not tough questions – and they are not meant to embarrass the Green Party leader. But if Elizabeth May is making claims that are based on unicorns and fairy dust – and planning to impose these on the Canadian taxpayer, shouldn’t we know if they are at all workable or not?
And Ms. May claims the Green Party will not leave any one behind.
Ask her about her days in the Sierra Club as Executive Director -from 1989 to 2006 – and the Sierra Club’s role in pushing for the Ontario Green Energy Act.
https://www.pembina.org/reports/plugging-in-ontario-report.pdf
In Robert Lyman’s report on the Ontario Government’s Climate Legacy, he documents the almost absolute destruction of the industrial heartland through that plan.
With the current push for public policy to adopt ‘green energy’ schemes, it is time to reflect on the Ontario experience.
Ontario’s disastrous electricity policy has been publicized and commented on extensively by many sources, so this is not news. What is news is to lay the blame squarely at the door of its climate policy motivation, and, perhaps, to remind people of high the bill has been – $9 billion for poor contracting practices, $133 billion in global adjustment fees from 2015 to 2032 (at least 20 per cent of which relates to renewables), $3.6 billion to build the “smart grid and smart meters”, up to $55 billion in deferred costs that will hit future ratepayers, and 75,000 lost industrial jobs. That is quite the tally for zero global environmental benefit.
Most Canadians think the #TarSandsCampaign is just about Alberta crying over collapsed international oil markets and coming up with conspiracy theories. I ask you to look at the players funded by the tar sands campaign and realize that it has attacked every part of the Canadian economy – and look who the consistent players are.
Seventy Five THOUSAND Ontarians were left behind by the Green Energy Act – promoted by Elizabeth May’s Sierra Club.
That’s pretty close to the 100,000 Albertans left behind by the NDP and Liberal climate policies…and look who spoke at the Sierra Club sponsored 2010 Zombie Duck rally.
Upon Elizabeth May leaving the Sierra Club to run for the Green Party, Board President Louise Comeau noted, “Elizabeth has led the Club at the national level from its infancy to the enormously effective entity it is today.”
Sierra Club is so effective that it also helped put 7,000 coal workers out of a job in Alberta and is responsible for the devastation of 30 coal industry communities.
The Sierra Club has been funded for millions of dollars by billionaires with vested interests in renewables to demarket coal, oil, gas and oil sands. http://leftexposed.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2014-Senate-Billionaire-Club-Report.pdf
Now Ms. May, in her new incarnation as Green Party leader, is promising more of the same in terms of unworkable green policies…yet claiming no worker will be left behind!
Elizabeth May also claims that geothermal can become a big player in providing energy – but if you look at the global reality of geothermal, even in the US, the world’s largest geothermal generation market…..geothermal only provides 0.4% of the power generation.
And what of wind and solar in the US? After 40 years and TRILLIONS of dollars spent on wind and solar in the US, wind generates only 6.6% of US energy and solar – thermal and PV combined? Just 1.6% – and that’s in a country with far better solar and wind resources than Canada.
Not to mention, looks like Ms. May is leading Canadians down the garden path to a dead end. The CEO of Iberdrola says the renewables sector is heading for an Enron-style endgame. Enron was a huge energy company in the US that collapsed into ashes due to a combination of fake holdings and off-the-books accounting – fraudulent accounting.
Enron was also one of the main advocates for various cap and trade, carbon pricing and renewables schemes that we see today.
Back in the world of reality…
Oil, gas, coal and oil sands grow in demand worldwide…but Canada just can’t get these resources to market like our competitors can – and none of our competitor nations are trying to be climate leaders….they are all trying to get more market share.
One way to do that of course, is for any of our competitor to fund environmental groups like the > 100 international groups that participate in the tar sands campaign to drive off investors, shakedown banks and insurance companies…to block Canada from world markets….and to demoralize Canada’s industrial workforce.
If you want to know what Canada will look like after the ‘go-green’ environmental groups are done with our country, just look at Ontario. Crippled. Nearly bankrupt.
Maybe that debacle wouldn’t have happened if the media had been more critical, more questioning, more demanding of the facts instead of fawning over enviro-celebs.
We have many reports with these facts – but the media have mostly locked us out because an influential PR guy who is an Al Gore acolyte has successfully labelled us as ‘deniers’.
So, you read our reports. Make up your mind for yourself. Instead of an eco-activist making up things, we rely on Robert Lyman, a former public servant of 27 years, 10 years a diplomat, who provided non-partisan advice to government at a time when experts were helping the government, not activists.
Then demand that your local media report on the facts and ask the hardball questions of ALL politicians and environmental groups. After all, it’s YOUR money, your jobs and your environment they are toying with – you will be left behind and hurting if you don’t speak up now.
For Friends of Science Society, I’m Michelle Stirling.
Michelle Stirling is the Communications Manager for Friends of Science Society, a member of the Canadian Association of Journalists, AAAS, and APS.
Read our reports:
Climate Change Your Mind
The Stakes Are Too High to be Tricked by the Numbers
https://blog.friendsofscience.org/2019/06/19/the-stakes-are-too-high-to-be-tricked-by-the-numbers/
Futile Folly: Canada’s Climate Policy Goals in the Global Context
Ontario Government Climate Legacy
https://blog.friendsofscience.org/2019/06/28/the-ontario-government-climate-legacy/
Look Before You Leap into Climate Emergency Mode
https://blog.friendsofscience.org/2019/05/13/look-before-you-leap-into-climate-emergency-mode/
Shocking Reality
Climate Science Basic Issues
In the Dark on Renewables
Transition to Reality
https://www.thegwpf.org/energy-policy-needs-to-transition-to-reality/
Related: Oak Foundation grant databases(s) (downloaded from their public site)
oak-foundation-all-current-grants_latest-update-18.03.2019
ClimateWorks – ‘green’ billionaires and their influence on public policy via funding local ENGOs
ClimateWorks Foundation – WikiLeaks
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/fileid/57594/16165
Nisbet https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wcc.524
Nisbet (Not paywalled)
This woman idolised Australian Bob Brown at one stage. A question for Mrs. May is “Are you aware that Brown has seen the light and has come out AGAINST windmills because they are an eyesore, they are a health hazard to the community, and kill millions of birds and bats”. Brown opposes a proposed windmill project in the State of Tasmania. A former Senator, Brown was at one time the quintessential greenie.
Another question for Mrs. May might have to do with the State of South Australia. With green insanity in control for a couple of parliamentary terms, this State loaded up on windmills, solar panels, batteries, and similar paraphernalia, only to discover that it led to a State-wide blackout which cost the State in the order of $350 million AUD. South Australia now leads the world in ridiculously high prices for electricity; even worse than Germany and Denmark.
There are three other key questions to ask the Green Party: 1. What will each of your proposals cost? 2. Who will pay for them? and 3. How long will it take to implement them?
For example, the proposal to build a high voltage East-West electricity transmission line will be costly, will be strongly opposed by local residents, and will require socio-economic impact assessment under C-69, the new Impact Assessment Act. That assessment process normally takes at least 8 years before any construction starts.
There is no plan to provide transmission to any First Nations off that narrow transmission line, or to northern communities like Whitehorse or Yellowknife. Do they use fossil fuels or just freeze in the dark?
When Ms. May wants to travel from her BC riding to Parliament in Ottawa will she take the train, drive her electric car or fly on a battery powered airplane?
Ms May should ‘walk the walk’ from fantasy land – and travel to parliament on a solar powered electric airplane manufactured from non-fossil fuel sustainably harvested wood products.
You could ask her if she is motivated by the beliefs of a previous Canadian Energy Minister Christine Stewart who told the Calgary Herald in 1988, “No matter if the science of global warming is all phony . . . climate change [provides] the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.” Then ask her if it will bring justice and equality to deny the poor of the world reliable cheap power, whose main benefits are to improve standards of living, longevity, and reduce poverty, malnourishment and disease?