- Polar bear expert Susan Crockford Xes out that “You don’t hate MSM journalists enough” and then quotes the New York Times that “Last month, the eastern half of Hudson Bay, home to the world’s most-studied polar bears, went ice free a month earlier than usual.” Which it did. But, she observes, the journalist knew perfectly well that it was due to strong winds not fierce melting, and moreover the bears don’t use that area much even if there is ice. We have more to say on the bears below… but she certainly identifies one reason the mainstream media really are in danger of extinction. They’re serving the public badly, and aren’t sorry.
- An outfit called “Sustainable Development Canada” had been unsustainably shoveling out money in a conflict of interest on such a scale that the whole thing had to be transferred to another branch of government in the hope that the problem would magically go away. But that’s not the really hopeless bit. The Deputy Minister of Industry, whose department had failed to oversee SDC, admitted that ideally they might possibly get some of it back: “There are going to be cases where potentially funding was provided and it needs to be recovered”, he said, channeling Sir Humphrey Appleby. And the fog machine went to 11: “It is important to keep in mind what we are talking about here. There are multiple levels of issues that have surfaced by the various reviews and audits that have been undertaken.” As for the 186 conflicts of interest, well, maybe there were clusters around individual grants. Nobody seems to know. Least of all the public.
- J. Budziszewski of the University of Texas has memorably said that people “are more logical than they know; they are only logical slowly.” (In The Revenge of Conscience p. 34) Which we consider a defence of democratic self-government as well as an explanation of why it often seems hopelessly slow and disorganized. But here’s a case in point: We’ve also called support for nuclear power a sanity test for climate alarmists and now it turns out that the American public isn’t just in favour of that particular non-hydrocarbon energy source, support for it in the U.S. is at a record high. You see, most Americans are not climate alarmists. But they are reasonably prudent including thinking, as the hype intensifies, that measures to limit the risk are desirable provided they are not themselves insanely risky (say, geoengineering) or so costly as to be a cure worse than the alleged disease. And nuclear energy is a winning bet in that regard.
- If we tell you someone is advocating solar-powered planes you might think you can easily imagine our response. But no. In fact it’s “OK, that sounds crazy, give it a try” because the Wall Street Journal’s not even slightly pretentiously named “The Future of Everything” says “Solar-Powered Planes Take Flight” and instead of fantasizing about passenger planes somehow hauling heavy baggage and heavy passengers between continents with feebly insufficient fuel, they’re talking about lightweight drones that remain aloft like a Great Frigatebird (or, the new record holder, the Common Swift) for months at a stretch conducting surveillance and maintaining communications including during disasters. Now that’s both imaginative and practical and, who knows, it might even lead to more robust applications. There are real opportunities here, and the zealots should not be allowed to obscure them.
- Speaking of small promising things, Scientific American runs a piece on how “Huge Blobs of Seaweed Are Choking the Caribbean’s Iconic White Sand Beaches” that describes the disgusting way the otherwise cool Sargasso Sea is turning into a nightmare that focuses on fertilizer runoff, industrial wastewater and excessive logging. And it doesn’t even throw in one single mention of climate as a ritual genuflection at the climate cult altar.
- As Eastern Canada faced a heat dome last week we confidently predicted it would be blamed on climate change. And it was; on June 17 Canada’s lacklustre federal Minister for Emergency Preparedness Harjit Sajjan Xed out “Will Conservatives deny this too? Environment and Climate Change Canada can now directly link extreme heat waves and human-induced climate change in just days. The science is clear: climate change is real, it’s here. No more denial, it’s time for action.” Whereas when we had single-digit lows in mid-June, and cool conditions this week, it was just weather.
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26 Jun 2024 | News Roundup
Sajjan was once an Intelligence Officer of the Canadian Armed Forces. He has forgotten all his training in analytical rigor and avoiding the politicisation of intelligence. How sad..
Regarding Sajjan,so a six day heatwave proves climate change and requires action?Well,call up China and India,and ask them real nice-like to please
cancel their plans to build more and more coal plants over the years.See what their answer is.Just don't go to China when to make the request.You may not come back!(sarcasm)