Alberta Election Lessons: Transforming Skepticism

Climate change is absolutely real beyond any doubt whatsoever.  I am not in a hospital with a broken back.  My spine is fine.  I am a long time skeptic.  I have not suddenly found climate religion.  I revere the truth like nothing else and would like to share a hard truth with you today.

We saw what happened in Alberta's recent election.  Outright lies, old remarks purposely taken out of context, and bigoted stereotypes were used to scare Albertans back into the clutches of mother PC.  Unfortunatly, skepticism of Climate Science played directly into that narrative.

"Global Warming is a Hoax," or "The Science isn't Settled" or "Climate Change is a Lie," are phrases that must be stricken from the conservative lexicon.  They are dead.  They've acquired the dog whistle quality that instinctively closes minds. 

"Denier" carries the same emotional baggage for some as "truther."  When someone talks about 9/11 and they say "explosives," what do you think?  Oh no, its a truther.  How do I get out of this conversation?  There might even be some interesting facts a truther can uncover that are absolutely true.  I will completely ignore it though because its being used to support the idea that G.W. Bush snuck into the Twin Towers and planted explosives for the Zionists... yada... yada.

We love to point out that the communists have changed their tune.  They are still there and want the exact same things but now they are green.  They want to 'save the earth' rather than 'unite the workers of the world'.  Ask an eco-nut: they want both and will get it through environmental regulations.  They adapted.

Its time to face the facts.  We must concede the classic skeptical rhetoric and embrace the environmental.  Its over.  Its fun to bug warmists with those phrases above.  David Suzuki, Al Gore, and James Hansen are particularly fun to annoy as they fly into a rage and tell us what they really think.  Classic skepticism can still be useful to tease out extremists.  Its not useful for anything else.  It doesn't win any converts.  At best, it earns a good laugh when aimed at an eco-nut.

So what the heck am I proposing exactly?  I want to move this debate into a real policy discussion.  To do that, we can't be teasing the warmists.  Here is how:

"I believe Climate Change is Real.  I believe in Global Warming.  I believe in the Greenhouse Effect.  I believe that science is settled." (-the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and life everlasting. Amen.)  Its an acquired taste.                          

Climate Change is real.  This is the famous "Big Rock" in Okatoks Alberta.  Okatoks is the native Blackfoot word for Big Rock.  It is the biggest Glacial Erratic in the world.  It originated from a rock slide off of Mount Edith Cavell in the Tonquin Valley between 12,000 to 18,000 years ago.  The rock landed on a massive glacier and was carried many hundreds of kilometers.  The climate changed and the Big Rock was dropped in its current location. 

The Badlands of Alberta were also carved out in part by climate change.  A glacial dam burst releasing a torrent of glacial melt water that cut into the earth.  Those same badlands have erroded and revealed evidence tropical climates where dinosaurs roamed and sea levels changed.   

Climate change is real.  The evidence is all around Alberta.  More recent climate changes have occurred in human experience as well.  The Medieval Climate Optimum and the Little Ice Age to name a few. 

Man Made Global Warming too is real.  The earth is a closed system for the most part.  Heating your house in the winter is going to heat atmosphere a little tiny bit.  To a far lesser extent the CO2 from your furnace and BBQ does contribute to the greenhouse effect.  By how much is still up for debate. 

Anyone who says they agree with AGW has to agree with the current state of climate science.  This means they disagree with the climate science of the 1970's that said human activity was going to cause global cooling.  This means they must disagree with the climate science of 20 years ago.  They must disagree with Al Gore's movie which has been shown in court to be full of errors and exaggerations. 

This is only important because the policy goals of the 1990's are still on the environmentalist agenda. Climate Science continues to mature.  Eco-nuts have no desire to own up to their alarmist deceptions.  They don't want to talk about being so wrong and wasting so much money.
 

I want to talk about it.  If you are going to propose policy X because of Global Warming I want to see some real accounting.  How much global temperature change is policy X going to buy?  What will it cost and what will be the result?  Is that money better spent saving lives directly with a hospital or a new air ambulance?

If policy X is really about showing critics that we are doing something rather than doing nothing then lets call it what it is.  Environmental Policy X is nothing but pure PR.  Again how much good PR does policy X buy?  Does it change the opinion of the environmental critics in the slightest?  Would it better spent on some other thing like an Environmental Information Office to officially counter alarmism?  Or maybe its best to outsource it at least to an equal degree of funding now given to alarmists?  Even better, what if we just cut off the alarmists from oil derrived tax money? 

These are the kinds of discussions we need to have.  We are wasting enormous sums of money for no good reason.  People have been befuddled and confused into accepting the waste because of petty name calling and false arguments.  That has to end.  We must abandon the old denier rhetoric and get used to the new language of honest environmentalism.  It will open the door to a real discussion and that is where we'll win this debate: on policy.  Policy is where conservatives win all the debates.