Open Letter to Mayor Nenshi and City of Calgary Council

May 29, 2020

Open Letter to Mayor Nenshi and City of Calgary Council
cc: Honourable Kaycee Madu and Auditor General W. Doug Wylie

Your Worship and Council,

RE: Enactment of City of Calgary Climate Plans and Impending Major Decisions such as the Green Line

We have recently completed a critical review of the “Alberta’s Climate Future” report by Dr. Katharine Hayhoe and colleague Anne Stoner. We understand from various public sessions, that the City of Calgary has been consulting with Dr. Hayhoe regarding climate change matters.

We find that Dr. Hayhoe’s findings are misleading and inaccurate and ask that the City of Calgary pause their imminent decision process to review the findings in our report “Facts vs Fortune Telling”. There is no climate emergency imminent and no need for drastic ‘climate action’ – it would be wise to slow down, think twice, and deal only with practical municipal needs for the foreseeable future.

The City of Calgary has been on a long, hard trail on climate change matters. Since 2010, ImagineCalgary and the Sustainability 2020 task force have been busy planning for a prosperous future by 2020 with full employment for all. Whatever the City of Calgary spent on this collection of task forces is obviously wasted money, and though COVID19 has exacerbated the challenges facing Calgary, it did not create them. The focus on ‘sustainability’ through unsustainable practises like going 100% renewable is costly and a simple self-deception, one that we cannot afford anymore.

In 2013, we sent you our report “Renewable is not so Doable” which rebutted the Pembina Institute’s claims that renewables were an inexpensive and cleaner/greener way to power the city. Based on their recommendations and the influence of other climate activist groups, the City of Calgary has proclaimed itself to be 100% renewable, which in effect means you are using taxpayers’ money to purchase carbon offsets, because the Alberta power grid runs on fossil fuels, not the wind. The C-Train runs on fossil fuels. Not the wind.

According to the Rockefeller Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP Worldwide) page on Calgary:

In 2012, the city approved a motion to purchase 100% renewable electricity to cover all electricity consumed in City operations. This policy resulted in electricity provider, ENMAX, constructing and operating two wind farms with a total capacity of 144 MW in southern Alberta. Additionally, the city has installed more than 3000 kW of solar photovoltaic systems on city-owned facilities.

As Robert Lyman’s recent reports show, renewables offer “Broken Promises” to consumers and “Empty Wallets” to taxpayers. As stated in our recent Open Letter to Premier Kenney: “The promise of renewable energy to provide economical electricity and declining emissions has failed. From 2006 to 2017 nearly U.S. $2.5 trillion of subsidies were provided to renewables while oil demand grew twice as fast as renewables and global emissions increased by almost 20%. The fact that many institutional investors, representing public sector pension plans, cash in on these subsidized renewables industries constitutes a form of taxation without representation, not to mention the greenwashing involved. Contrary to claims of ‘sustainable’ development, this is an unsustainable burden on taxpayers, based entirely on faulty scientific premises.”

We believe Calgary taxpayers are owed clarity on whether or not municipal unions have direct or indirect (i.e. mutual funds) investments in any of the companies that are beneficiaries of the 100% renewable or “Sustainable” program spending – whether the carbon offsets companies, natural gas, wind or solar device manufacturers, transmission line companies or any part of the supply chain for the Green Line.

As Councillor Sean Chu has tweeted, the costs of Calgary’s make-believe wind-powered train and other offsets are exorbitant. In this time of austerity, how can this continued expenditure and activity be justified?

The Green Line is born out of the objectives of Sustainability 2020 – a program that has failed miserably. Calgary’s downtown is virtually vacant, small-and-medium sized businesses are groaning under the burden of taxes, and yet you persist in attempting to reach the strategic objective of the failed Sustainability 2020 plan, by pushing ahead with the Green Line.

As Robert Lyman has reported, mass transit is “Squandered Money: Funding Mass Transit to Reduce Emissions”.

Around the world, climate change programs are being cancelled because of two things. Climate Prophecy has Failed – and taxpayers are broke and unwilling to become carbon serfs to green billionaires or subsidize their ‘charities’ like Al Gore’s Climate Reality, and the carbon offset kings of “We Don’t Have Time” who are exploiting Greta Thunberg and terrifying millions of children worldwide.

Please review our material, including our earlier reports critical of the climate change programs of the City of Calgary.

Sustainability 2020 and other climate change obsessions at city hall in Calgary have exacerbated the downturn in oil prices, heightened anti-oil and gas activity, dramatically increased operating costs for no good reason, and have brought us to the brink of municipal economic disaster.

Please step back, cut back, and come back down to earth.

Calgary is a jewel that has seen many hard times, but few such times have occurred by the city actively engaging in activities that can only be described as self-harm. In doing so, all the citizens of Calgary are suffering in one way or another.

Please review our reports.

Sincerely,

FRIENDS OF SCIENCE SOCIETY