- Headlines only a Canadian could love: “Senators for Climate Solutions launches official website”. Yes, in the hope of breaking the climate logjam, or possibly just curing insomnia, they sent an email boasting that “Senators for Climate Solutions, a non-partisan group focused on informing and supporting Canadian senators who want to address climate change, launched their website today, nine months after the official launch of the group.” Just nine months? Talk about leaping into committee. And guess what? “Expert speakers include Katharine Hayhoe, Mark Carney, Jerry DeMarco, and many others.” Maybe even Justin Trudeau, Steven Guilbeault or Al Gore. Well, at least you can’t be anxious when you’re asleep.
- And they did: the suggestion to name heatwaves was no sooner made than adopted, with the current European one being dubbed Cerberus for the classical Greek three-headed canine guardian of Hades. Not that it’s a scare tactic, you understand. Now prepare for Beelzebub. Even if we’re told that Europe is “the world’s fastest warming continent” so Germans are advised to duck the heat with very un-Teutonic work-break siestas although “Germany has avoided the kind of temperatures roasting southern Europe this week”.
- The Canadian government apparently plans to end all subsidies for fossil fuels. Which on its own and in theory is a good idea; it should be consumers who pick winners and losers not governments. But of course the government has no intention of ceasing to subsidize other forms of energy (or to tell even the Parliamentary Budget Officer what’s really going on with far-and-away the largest corporate handouts in Canadian history, to electric battery makers). Or know which kind of battery people will want in a decade. Or to stop winner fossil fuel subsidies, like carbon capture measures, as if all dollars did not taste like chicken. Or to tell a special tax break from a normal accounting convention. Or help an industry it wants to, like the media. Or, well, anything really except talk big about its own excellence.
- As for using fossil fuels, Justin Trudeau, Canada’s carbon Bigfoot, jetted off to New York “to participate in the #WorldLawCongress, and to present an award to President von der Leyen for the @EU_Commission’s commitment to the promotion of peace through law.” Sure beats going to the office to deal with pressing files from aboriginal drinking water to a port strike to our hollow military to disastrous productivity figures, and setting an example on “carbon pollution”, now doesn’t it? (Mind you it could be worse; climate activist multimillionaire actor Leonardo DiCaprio was observed taking a helicopter from his giant yacht to restaurants and nightclubs and back. Before the Flood, of course.)
- We got an email invitation to a webinar to “Discover how the younger generation is reshaping the world by embracing sustainability”. Gosh. Imagine that. Youth becoming environmentally conscious. What a game-changer that one is. Stay tuned for our webinar “Does nobody study history any more?” It will discuss the hippie movement of the 1960s including its worries about pollution.
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26 Jul 2023 | News Roundup
The “subsidies” paid to oil companies are often subsidies for something quite different. For example, oil companies get a “subsidy” for providing diesel fuel to northern communities. When the oil companies don’t get that subsidy, the government will have to give the money to the communities instead so that they can afford diesel fuel for heat and electricity. The economies of scale and coordinated deliveries will be lost, which was the reason for the “payment plan” to start with…but eco virtue signalling is its own reward these days. One could note that , on average, these communities haven’t even got a good track record of looking after their own potable water supply, and now heating and electricity are being added to their community management agenda….