Beware 'cosy relationships'

http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/lorrie_goldstein/2009/06/28/9959216-sun.html
28th June 2009, 3:38am
Often, when climate hysterics and global warming alarmists don't like what I write -- but don't know what they're talking about and thus have nothing intelligent to say in response -- they come back with what they think is their knock-out punch.

It's always words to the effect of: "I hope you're happy getting your blood money from the oil companies, Mr. Goldstein. How can you look at yourself in the mirror every morning? Don't you care about your grandchildren? What happened to journalistic integrity?"

Sometimes, they include in their missives their membership in some obscure organization, usually built around the idea that if we would all just give all our money to the government, or to some other collection of wise elites, and let them spend it for us on our behalf, the world would be a cleaner, safer and "cooler" (pardon the pun) place.

That's pretty much the theory behind carbon taxes and cap-and-trade, by the way.

However, I'm afraid these rants don't have the desired effect, because while their obvious aim is to make me angry via cheap smears, they just give me the giggles.

That's because the idea that I've been sitting here for over two years reading book after book, doing hours upon hours of independent research and pounding out column after column, trying to get people to calm down about anthropogenic climate change before we do something really stupid, all because I'm secretly in the pay of the fossil fuel industry, is simply, utterly, laughably absurd. Plus, it's a lie.

Besides, if you really want to skim the fiscal cream on the issue of man-made global warming these days, the last place you want to be is in the camp of the so-called skeptics, or, as I prefer to call us -- sane.

No, where you want to be if you're in it for the money, is in like flint with the politicians, environmentalists and energy companies who constantly preach that they're all about saving the planet, even if it costs us every last cent we own.

Tom Adams, now an independent energy and environmental consultant, who for 11 years until 2007 was the highly respected executive director of Energy Probe, explains it all on a video he's posted on YouTube titled the "Green Energy Act Paradox."

While we agree his presentation skills need work (sorry, Tom), Adams, intimately familiar with the passage of Premier Dalton McGuinty's Green Energy Act, succinctly lays out what's going on.

He describes the "cosy relationship" that exists among governments that want power, energy companies that want profits and environmental organizations that want more renewable energy, but also consulting fees and government funding.

The way it works is governments hand out money to environmental organizations, who consult with and for energy companies, who together advise the government on what green energy laws should look like, and who then praise the government -- ad nauseam -- for the legislation they helped design when the government unveils it.

And who are the losers in this neat little drama, you ask?

Why, the public, of course, who are increasingly being presented with so-called "green" legislation in which all the key decisions have been made behind closed doors, long before the so-called public consultations begin.

BLOWING CONCERN

Take, for example, the increasing number of rural communities suddenly finding themselves prospective sites for industrial wind farms, while their concerns about the possible health affects from noise are ridiculed, requests for adequate setbacks dismissed as "nimbyism" (not-in-my-backyard-syndrome) and demands for full planning and environmental hearings ignored.

Why? Usually because a bunch of politicians who don't know the first thing about climate change, have convinced themselves they've somehow magically become experts in the field.

Take Premier McGuinty. When he promised to close Ontario's coal-fired power generating stations in the 2003 election -- a promise he's broken so many times since we've all lost count -- the only problem he identified with those plants was their contribution to air pollution. Not a word about greenhouse gases contributing to climate change, which is just about all he talks about now.

In reality, McGuinty could reduce the air pollution from those plants he now says he'll close by 2014 -- honest -- by installing scrubbers. But the government's argument now is this isn't worth it, because that won't simultaneously lower greenhouse gas emissions, the issue he didn't mention in 2003.

And these folks are going to "fix" our climate? Sure they are.

When pigs fly.

LORRIE.GOLDSTEIN@SUNMEDIA.CA