WWF-Russia rolls out scare-machine in advance of IPCC’s AR5

Last December, on the heels of a pronouncement from former United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) head honcho, Yvo de Boer, I had asked the question: Where’s the scare in AR5? The UNFCCC is the “main client” of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

de Boer had told an Australian newspaper that:

his conversations with scientists working on the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested the findings would be shocking.

“That report is going to scare the wits out of everyone,” Mr de Boer said in the only scheduled interview of his visit to Australia. “I’m confident those scientific findings will create new political momentum.”

This wasn’t quite the equivalent of Andrew <we are the vote> Weaver’s 2007 “barrage of intergalactic ballistic missiles“, but it was close.

As far as I know, de Boer declined to answer the question. And in the meantime, the dedicated alarmists have been doing their best to pretend that the mounting evidence of failed projections of IPCC reports past doesn’t matter – and they seem unable to meet the challenge of coming to grips with the almost daily collapse of yet another of their Big Green Dreams.

I don’t know if there’s any rivalry between Greenpeace (for whom Weaver might well be considered a PR agent), and WWF; but if the claims of Alexei Kokorin, head of WWF-Russia are to be believed, one might conclude that Korkorin Kokorin has actually surpassed Weaver in the over-the-top Big Scares ‘R Us department.

There’s a Norwegian NGO (that I’d never heard of before) called Bellona. Someone from Bellona interviewed Kokorin [h/t GWPF]. To my ears this sounds an awful lot like “next chorus, next verse, a little bit louder and a whole lot worse”:

Climate experts to announce global climate time bomb will go off by 2040, says WWF’s Kokorin

MOSCOW –The upcoming fifth climate change report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is believed to reveal new, and gruesome, scientific data: Natural and anthropogenic factors contributing to global climate change will escalate in the 2040s, causing ever more devastating effects on the planet. The “climate time bomb” is set to go off – unless humankind does something about it.

Andrei Ozharovsky, 21/05-2013 – Translated by Maria Kaminskaya

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading international body for the assessment of climate change, is working toward a future release of its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), due for finalization in 2014. Compared with previous reports, the IPCC site says, “the AR5 will put greater emphasis on assessing the socio-economic aspects of climate change and implications for sustainable development, risk management and the framing of a response through both adaptation and mitigation.” Last week, the report was sent out from Geneva for closed-access perusal by the governments of the IPCC member states.

[...]

The climate time bomb

Bellona: Can we speculate as to what will be said in this report?

Alexei Kokorin: The main thing that is expected to be there is data saying that the climate “time bomb” may blow up sometime around 2040. Whereas earlier it was believed that man’s impact on the climate was gradual, and that the situation was deteriorating in a gradual way, now – in contrast to the previous report, which was being put together seven years ago – much more information has been obtained on ocean cycles and other natural fluctuations. Scientists have realized that today, in the 2010s, man’s impact is being mitigated by natural cycles that are offsetting the impact made on the climate by man. This situation will hold for about another twenty years. But it is completely clear that after that, this mitigation will yield to escalation.

We are having a sort of a breather now, but soon enough, we’ll see an onslaught of both – both natural and man-made processes that are causing the rise in temperature.

And temperature will surge dramatically. Yes, temperature rise will then slow down again, sometime in the 2070s, but it will soar up again after that. Understanding this is what makes this new knowledge principally different from what was known seven years ago.

A “respite given by nature”: a lucky break to turn the crisis around

Bellona: What must be done in this situation?

Alexei Kokorin: When you’re told that in the past fifteen years, the temperature of surface air on the planet has not been rising, this should not in any way be construed as proof that humankind’s impact on the climate has ceased. Scientists know it hasn’t. They know it’s because of how natural fluctuations are superimposed on the impact made by man. This is just a respite that nature gave us. And we must use this respite not for wishful thinking and inaction, but for reducing emissions, because after this respite, a double effect will ensue. [emphasis added -hro]

I suppose it’s possible that Kokorin was not quite as alarmist in his responses as “direct action” activist Bellona’s report indicates – and/or that nuance got lost in translation.

When the Second Order Draft of Working Group I (WGI)’s report was leaked last year, as I had noted in my post, Dr. Judith Curry had remarked that:

“The extreme overconfidence of many of their conclusions is bewildering”

One would think that – particularly in light of the InterAcademy Council’s recommendations – the IPCC might have at least learned one lesson. And, who knows, perhaps they have. If Kokorin’s claims are actually found in the report, it will certainly be interesting to read the Lead Authors’:

traceable account of the steps used to arrive at estimates of uncertainty or confidence for key findings.

Then again, perhaps this will turn out to be a false alarm from Kokorin whose “speculations” may well be nothing more than echoes and embellishments of de Boer’s.

Oh, well … time will tell;-)

Wastelandia: Andrew Weaver et al‘s big green choru$ and $ymphony … in the key of Gore

Sometimes writing a blogpost is somewhat akin to peeling an onion! I began writing this post during the afternoon of May 15. And as each layer of this particular onion exposed another (thereby delaying the publication of this post!), I did not know whether to laugh at the chutzpah – or cry about the sheer manipulative legislated lunacies being promoted by the oh-so-dedicated (or perhaps not) green-agenda activists and advocates – not to mention the hysterical … ooops … sorry, “historic” election of one of their histrionic own to the provincial legislature – in British Columbia.

With this in mind, and setting aside the European Union’s very slow-dawning recognition of the failure of their Big Green Dreams and landscape-blighting faith in the power of wind turbines and solar panels, my post began …

Much ado was made last week of the super-scary milestone that the dreaded evil Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) had reached 400 parts per million – which means that there are only 999,600 other parts per million that we might need to worry about.

Or, as US ‘climate change superstar’, modeller Michael Mann (as opposed to his buddy, Canadian “climate change superstar” [h/t CBC], modeller Andrew Weaver) had declared [h/t Tom Nelson]:

Climate Tipping Point? Concentration of Carbon Dioxide Tops 400 ppm for First Time in Human History

So, this number, 400 parts per million, what does it mean? It’s the number of molecules of CO2 for every million molecules of air; 400 of them are now CO2. Just two centuries ago, that number was only 280 parts per million. So if we continue to add carbon to the atmosphere at current rates, we’ll reach a doubling of the pre-industrial levels of CO2 within the next few decades.

OMG this does sound very ominous, doesn’t it?! Perhaps I need to rethink my attitude towards reducing my “carbon footprint”.

But help may be on the way – or maybe not!

You see, it just so happens that earlier this week, the friendly people from “thinkgreen” Waste Management dropped off a whole bunch of pretty “organics only” food scraps receptacles at my apartment building:

A confluence of interests … Perfectly designed to line Al Gore’s pockets!

The whole kit and kaboodle (including a handy-dandy fridge magnet [not shown]) was free! Well, sort of. If I want to replace that “small food waste bag” (lined with “cellulose” which looks like – but isn’t – “plastic”) I can do this … At a cost of $5.49 for 10 (although I’d get $1.00 off the first ten, thanks to the generosity of the Help the Earth Help Itself folks at “Bag to Earth“).

The helpful and enthusiastic young lady from Waste Management told me that these receptacles cost approx. $25.00 – $30.00¹ each (but they were “donated”). However, she didn’t know the cost of the Bigger bins into which I must dutifully place my small food waste bag approx. every four days. As I subsequently discovered, these Bigger bins have been placed in the ground level garage – an open invitation to rodents and scavengers if ever there was one!

This young lady and I ended up agreeing to disagree about (inter alia) her claim that the pin-head holes uniformly visible on the lid of this receptacle were there to facilitate air circulation downwards, which would (according to her) prevent the formation of odours in my kitchen. This seemed to be somewhat at odds with Bag to Earth’s claim that their bags (at $0.594 each) are designed to be:

Odour-free when sealed [emphasis added -hro]

At the end of our conversation, the young lady from Waste Management thanked me for engaging in respectful, constructive and helpful dialogue – and for not having thrown the mini-bin receptacle at her, as others had done, elsewhere!

But I digress …

Evidently, Waste Management Canada is a “subsidiary of Waste Management Inc” – a US company with a rather scandal-ridden history. And on Jan. 25 (of some year or other) Waste Management Inc. decided to “invest in Harvest Power to expand next generation organics recycling facilities across the United States and Canada.”:

The agreement with Harvest Power complements Waste Management’s comprehensive waste services in the areas of recycling, landfill, waste-to-energy and consulting services. This investment will also help move Waste Management toward meeting three of its sustainability goals: doubling its renewable energy production and tripling the amount of recyclables processed by 2020, and investing in emerging technologies for managing waste.

But I digress (again!) …

The plan is that the Bigger bins will be emptied by Waste Management and delivered … not to a landfill, perish the thought … but to Waste Management’s “partner” (as noted above), a US company called Harvest™ Power of We™, or Harvest Power for short, with a local (albeit, at times, a somewhat unpleasantly odoriferous) presence. Not that the nice young lady from Waste Management told me any of this, but Google is my friend. And when I asked about Harvest Power’s involvement, she confirmed it!

One of Harvest Power’s “largest investors” is a company called Generation Investment Management LLP (GIM), “an independent, private, owner-managed partnership established in 2004 with offices in London, New York and Sydney”.

GIM rang a somewhat familiar bell; and, sure enough, when I followed the link I found that the (unprincipled) principals of GIM were none other than hypocrite-extraordinaire, Al Gore and his buddy, David Blood⁴ who, these days, are flogging a concept called “Sustainable Capitalism” – which may (or may not) be synonymous with Stewart Elgie‘s (almost all) Canadian “Sustainable Prosperity“.

[Sidebar Be sure to check out GIM's About page. I got quite a wry chuckle out of the fine-print at the bottom of this page:

Although Generation seeks to provide superior investment performance, potential investors should be aware that this is an aspiration and there is no guarantee that this goal will be obtained.

End sidebar]

So, reasonably certain that Harvest Power was not taking on this challenge of processing “organic waste” out of the goodness of its heart, I began to wonder about the chain of events and/or pronouncements that might have led to finding myself carefully separating “approved” food scraps from other waste … in order to line Al Gore’s pockets!

I started my search in BC’s 2007 150+ page “Climate Action Plan” – a document whose authors, as I’ve previously noted included Greenpeace propaganda peddler and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Lead Author, Andrew <we are the vote> Weaver!

This, ostensibly made in British Columbia, “Climate Action Plan” includes the following (p. 42):

Waste disposal accounts for about 5 per cent of B.C.’s GHG emissions. Most is from municipal landfills. The remainder comes from wood residue landfills, mostly run by forestry companies.

In both cases, decomposition of organic matter produces methane, also known as landfill gas. Proven technologies already exist to capture this gas and use it as a source of cleaner, renewable energy. [emphasis added -hro]

Excuse me?! A piddling five per cent?! For which a supposedly “proven” technological “solution” already “exists“?! Tell me again – while I may have some choice now, by 2015 I most certainly will not² – why I shall be forced to separate my “approved” food scraps (the accumulation of which, in this counter-space hogging receptacle, may well create unpleasant odours in my kitchen) in order to line Waste Management’s, Harvest Power’s and Al Gore’s pockets!

But wait, there’s more!

This is all part and parcel of the grand plan to make BC “carbon neutral”. This legislated lunacy (which includes BC’s “carbon tax“) is overseen by the province’s “Climate Action Secretariat” (CAS):

As a leading jurisdiction on climate action, the Province has a legislated target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 33% by 2020 and achieve an 80% reduction by 2050 (from 2007 levels). The Climate Action Secretariat works with ministries and other jurisdictions to develop policies to support this goal. Through the suite of LiveSmart BC programs, British Columbians can demonstrate leadership addressing climate change as well.

[...]

Carbon Neutral B.C.: A first for North America, 2 years running [emphasis added -hro]

Hmmm … well, this Secretariat is entitled to blow its own horn, I suppose. But it would be nice if they corrected this part of their self-congratulatory epistle, to reflect the findings in the recent report of the Auditor General, in which it was specifically noted that, in addition to the fact that the Secretariat (and yet another invention of Weaver and his fellow green dreamers, the notorious Crown Corporation, Pacific Carbon Trust) was not doing its job. The Auditor General had clearly stated that:

this claim of carbon neutrality is not accurate [emphasis added -hro]

But I digress … It turns out that one of the “other jurisdictions” referred to by the CAS just happens to be the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM). One doesn’t often hear much about the UBCM and its activities, except once a year when they hold their annual gathering, and the news media report on which provincial politicians addressed this confab of municipal politicians (and which did not!)

It seems that on September 26, 2007, the Government of British Columbia, the UBCM and “Signatory Local Governments” agreed to a (“not intended to be legally binding”) “British Columbia Climate Action Charter“. Here’s the … uh … framing of this Charter:

(1) The Parties share the common understanding that:

(a) Scientific consensus has developed that increasing emissions of human caused greenhouse gases(GHG), including carbon dioxide, methane and other GHG emissions, that are released into the atmosphere are affecting the Earth’s climate;

(b) the evidence of global warming is unequivocal and the effects of climate change are evident across British Columbia;

(c) reducing GHG emissions will generate environmental and health benefits for individuals, families, and communities;

(d) climate change and reducing GHG emissions are issues of importance to British Columbians;

(e) governments urgently need to implement effective measures to reduce GHG emissions and anticipate and prepare for climate change impacts;

(f) protecting the environment can be done in ways that promote economic prosperity; and

(g) it is important to take action and to work together to share best practices, to reduce GHG emissions and address the impacts of climate change. [emphases added -hro]

I cannot possibly imagine how – or why – these municipal representatives might have arrived at the conclusion that there is a “scientific consensus” – or that “evidence of global warming is unequivocal”. But perhaps someone decided to adapt a recipe from this “cookbook“.

Alternatively, as they did with the “Climate Action Plan”, perhaps the bureaucrats and green dreamers who drafted this “Charter” simply lifted the phrasing from that Nobel Peace Prize award-winning body, the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report – and dropped it into this “Charter”. How very, well, convenient, eh?!

Ventures in Wasteland certainly received honourable mention in this (cooked-up?!) “Charter”:

(2) (b) Local Governments have taken action on climate change, including [...] implementing innovative infrastructure technologies including landfill gas recapture and production of clean energy

Here’s a potentially² worrying caveat, though:

(5) (a) (i) being carbon neutral in respect of their operations by 2012, recognizing that solid waste facilities regulated under the Environmental Management Act are not included in operations for the purposes of this Charter.

Needless to say (not unlike productions of the exemplary IPCC and its “main client”, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC]), this “Charter” includes provision for the establishment of:

(6) [...] a Joint Provincial-UBCM Green Communities Committee and Green Communities Working Groups that support that Committee with the following purposes:

(a) To develop a range of actions that can affect climate change, including initiatives such as: assessment, taxation, zoning or other regulatory reforms or incentives to encourage land use patterns that promote increased density, smaller lot sizes, encourage mixed uses and reduced GHG emissions; development of GHG reduction targets and strategies, alternative transportation opportunities, policies and processes that support fast-tracking of green development projects, community gardens and urban forestry; and integrated transportation and land use planning

YMMV, but to my eyes and ears this looks and sounds like an awful lot of green-agenda driven interference and conformity – under the rather deceptive guise of environmental do-goodery!

I haven’t had a chance yet to dig up any minutes of meetings of this “Joint … Committee” – or any of these “Green Communities Working Groups”. But one thing I did stumble across during the course of my searches to ascertain the true cost of these initiatives was a “Draft” document that (according to the document properties) appears to have been authored by a Judith Cullington, for the Province of British Columbia. Here’s a screen-cap of the beginning of this masterpiece (yellow highlights mine -hro):

Excuse me?!! I’m supposed to “reduce my carbon footprint” by doing my part to divert “organic food waste” from ending up in a landfill (which amounts to a mere 5% of our greenhouse gas emissions – for which there supposedly already exists a “proven” process for dealing with the methane gas created) to comply with a future environmental regulation [pls. see footnotes below] that results in the “creation” of … the dreaded – and constantly demonized – Carbon Dioxide … all the while lining the pockets of Waste Management, Harvest Power and Al Gore!

Now, don’t get me wrong! I am not opposed to composting – or to those who choose to do so. Hell, some of my best friends are avid composters! But I do think there’s something rather off-key – if not inherently sour – about far too many of the notes³ in this Big Green choru$ and $ymphony. Don’t you?!

Footnotes:

¹ During a conversation with the primary contact person responsible for recycling efforts in the municipality in which I reside, I learned that the cost of these receptacles is closer to $5.00 to $10.00 each. This person also disclosed that the number of multi-family dwellings in this (relatively small) municipality in the Greater Vancouver Area is 20,500. So even at his lowest estimated cost, that’s $102,500 – for one small municipality.

And on the matter of other costs that will be incurred by this initiative, this person could not disclose the cost of processing by Harvest Power. However he did say that it is less than 50% of that which is currently paid for landfill treatment ($107.00 per ton). Well, there’s an incentive if ever there was one, eh?! Although I do wonder how long this very attractive price might last [see footnote ³ below].

There will be an increase in the bill to owners for collecting this organic waste: $1.60 per unit per month. According to my calculations that’s $393,600 per year from the multi-family dwellings in this small municipality alone – much of which, one might reasonably surmise, will end up in the pockets of Waste Management, Harvest Power and Al Gore.

Will we see an increase in 2015, if not before? Who knows, eh?!

When I surmised that much is being decided by the green dreamers in the Big City of Vancouver, and made a comment to the effect of “whatever Vancouver politicos want, the rest of us get”, this contact person did not disagree.

² During this same conversation, this contact person advised me that if I don’t like their receptacle, I could use something else – and that my participation, while hoped for and preferred, is entirely voluntary. However, when I pointed out that somewhere along the way, my research had led me to conclude that by 2015, my participation will not be optional, he did not dispute this. It all has something to with the provincial Ministry of the Environment’s “landfill” regulations, with which all municipalities are required to comply, but over which no municipality has any control.

Small wonder, then, that (5) (a) (i) was included in the wording of the “not intended to be legally binding” Climate Action Charter.

Perhaps the province of British Columbia has a “green police” force in the planning works!

³ In an undated Waste Management newsletter, one finds the following:

WASTE TO ENERGY BURNS BRIGHT IN WORLD’S WASTE PROJECTS

Waste to Energy projects have dominated the waste management category of KPMG’s latest global infrastructure report. Here’s a look at the report in more detail and an insight into what caught the judge’s eye about the winning projects.
[...]
The winning projects
[...]
The Energy Garden Project

Harvest Power’s 27,000 tonne per year Energy Garden in Richmond, outside of Vancouver received $4 million funding from Natural Resources Canada

Harvest Power’s Energy Garden in Richmond, outside of Vancouver, is Canada’s first high-efficiency system for producing renewable energy from food scraps and yard trimmings. The project uses a number of different funding sources including a $4 million grant from Natural Resources Canada (NR-Can) and will process more than 27,000 tonnes each year.

The BC Bioenergy Network (BCBN), a provincially funded, not for profit organisation supporting the acceleration of bioenergy development in British Columbia, has provided $1.5 million funding to Fraser Richmond Soil and Fibre – a Harvest Power company.

The funding supports two components: a $1 million loan towards the commercial demonstration of a High Solids Anaerobic Digestion (HSAD) plant that will convert municipal green waste (food scraps and yard trimmings) to produce electricity under the BC Hydro Community Based Biomass Power Call.

Secondly is a $500,000 grant towards acquiring a pilot scale mobile HSAD testing unit – a ‘Mobile Energy Harvester’ – that will be used initially in Richmond and later toured throughout North America.

The biogas produced by the facility will be used to produce more than 6000 MWh of electricity per year, enough to power around 700 homes. The residual organic materials remaining after the digestion process will be further composted and returned to local farms and gardens as nutrient rich soil amendments.

So that’s $5,500,000 of taxpayer funding in Harvest Power’s (and its investors’) pockets. Some might wonder if these generous grants and loans are designed to “incentivize” participation by municipalities (such as the one in which I reside) by enabling Harvest Power to offer such an attractive price for processing “organic waste” – at least until 2015. But I couldn’t possibly comment.

[Additional Footnote 05/19/2013 05:21 PM PDT]:

⁴ GIM’s David Blood (aka David Wayland Blood, former CEO of Goldman-Sachs) in addition to being “Co-Founder, Senior Partner, and Managing Partner” of GIM, is evidently a Director of … Harvest Power (and The Nature Conservancy, amongst others), according to Bloomberg’s Business Week’s database. Gore is listed as “Co-Founder, Partner, and Chairman”.

For the record, GIM has a whole slew of “Partners” – and a five-member Board (including Chairman Gore and former Irish PM and UN Human Rights Commissioner, Mary Robinson; but excluding Blood)

The “Companies in the U.K.” site also indicates that Blood is one of two directors listed for GENERATION INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT SERVICES LIMITED (a different company, evidently formerly known as “HURRICANEBRIDGE LIMITED” which seems to have disappeared without a trace. But, this new kid on the GIM block was registered in 2009)

Interestingly, none of the above is found on the GIM website. Some might find this to be considerably less than transparent. But I oouldn’t possibly comment.

CBC and Camp Weaverland vs reality

So the British Columbia provincial election is over. Premier Christy Clark and the BC Liberals (contra all the pundits’ and pollsters’ great expectations) came through with flying colours that landed them – and their platform – a majority government, with more seats in the provincial legislature than they had before the election was called!

No doubt trying to make the best of a bad situation unfolding, CBC’s green-heart-on-sleeve coverage on May 14 was, well, appalling!

They continued to honk for Weaver‘s unearned laurels at least twice during the early part of the evening. Whether my unacknowledged tweet:

@cbcnewsbc You need to change your Weaver script! Nobel Prize not for science & awarded to IPCC (Panel of nations) http://wp.me/pJtnm-1c6

caused them to drop this over-hyped example of deliberately misleading Weaver-spin, I have no way of knowing. But I do know that in their post-election coverage of their favourite “star”, the CBC was right back at it:

Greens not to blame for NDP loss, says leader Sterk

Green-NDP vote split allowed Liberals to win 12 ridings, say critics

In the aftermath of the NDP failure to win the B.C. elections, some pundits are blaming the Green party for splitting the vote on the left, but not everyone agrees with the analysis.

[...]

[...] the Green Party’s first MLA Andrew Weaver denied the Green Party split the vote.

“We didn’t split the vote. We are the vote in Oak Bay-Gordon Head,” said Weaver on Tuesday, after winning his seat. [emphasis added -hro]

“We are the vote …”?! That’s almost as inane and meaningless as another Weaverism™ that appeared in the National Post on the eve of the election:

“Government doesn’t have the information, government is there to facilitate the information.”

The reality is (to use one of Weaver’s repeated appeals to his own authority – and repeatedly unchallenged – prefaces in an “interview” with CBC’s Evan Solomon on Solomon’s “Power and Politics” show, complete with yet another viewing of Weaver’s unearned Nobel laurel), as even the Weaver-cheerleading Victoria Times-Colonist acknowledged yesterday:

Oak Bay-Gordon Head is a relatively affluent riding. The 2006 census reported a population of 48,420, with 36,500* voters [emphasis added -hro]

* Eligible voters in Oak Bay-Gordon Head for this election was 37,443. Total votes cast in all 134 polls in this riding was (courtesy of National Post):

Your math may vary (as, evidently does that of Andrew “I’m a climate scientist and we are the vote” Weaver) but by my count, of the eligible 37,433 voters in Oak Bay-Gordon Head a mere 9,602 (< 26%) actually voted for Weaver! I know we have a first past the post system of voting which does have some inherent problems, but that’s the way it is.

However, Andrew “we are the vote” Weaver seems to be (conveniently?!) oblivious to the fact that those who did not vote for the CBC’s “star”, garnered 14,351 votes – a “significant” number in excess of those garnered by Andrew “we are the vote” Weaver.

Did the CBC tell its readers/listeners/viewers about Weaver’s [free speech for me but not for thee] libel suit against the National Post (and the “novel” remedy he’s seeking)? Not bloomin’ likely!

Did the CBC tell its readers/listeners/viewers about Weaver’s practice of slamming the virtual door in the face of those who dare to ask … uh … inconvenient questions? Not bloomin’ likely!

But I digress …

Did the CBC learn any lessons about its dutiful recitation of Weaver-spin vis a vis the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore? Not bloomin’ likely!

As the right-side visual “effects” in Solomon’s “Big Green win” story at one point predictably and dutifully visually reiterated:

Did the CBC choose to repeat the Weaver-spin unearned laurel on which he continues to choose to rest? You betcha! The CBC piece at the top of this post dutifully reported:

Weaver, a Nobel Prize winning climatologist, defeated long-time Liberal incumbent Ida Chong by about 2,400 votes in the Vancouver Island riding of Oak Bay – Gordon Head.

In light of all the above, I invite my readers to gimme’ one good reason why I – or anyone – should trust the word of Andrew “we are the vote” Weaver, or of the cheer-leading green-heart-on-sleeve CBC. Perhaps one might be forgiven for the rather distinct impression that – with a throw of the election dice – the voters of Oak Bay-Gordon Head have landed on one of the squares of Monopoly … the climate change game.

CBC honks for IPCC-nik Andrew Weaver AND censors comments

In my previous post of May 8, I had posed the question: CBC censoring again – or honking for IPCC’s Andrew Weaver?

And I believe that the CBC has now provided the answer. Well, actually wrt the “honking” this was provided sooner than I had thought – and broadcast on National TV (h/t Alex Cull in his comment).

Alex’s link is to a segment of the April 28 National News. Here’s a screen capture from that segment:

The adulation and glorification inherent in Wendy Mesley’s introduction (with the following long-lingering image in the background):

before the cutaway to the main event of Chris Brown’s report, included a statement that the BC Greens are turning to “star power“. And we all know how very impressed the CBC is with green “star power”! Check out today’s Sunday Edition on CBC radio. which includes a 30+ minute segment with hypocrite-extraordinare, Al Gore who’s currently flogging his latest fact-free predictions of doom and gloom (not to mention bad-mouthing Canada’s oil-sands deposits, which no doubt delighted Weaver!) But I digress …

In his April 28 “report”, Brown reinforced (by accident or design) Mesley’s intro. He described Weaver as a “climate change superstar“. And – for reasons perhaps best-known only to himself, to Weaver and to the cameraman (if not the CBC editor(s) who scrupulously vet all stories before they go on air) – provided viewers with yet another glimpse of Weaver as “Nobel-award winning” scientist:

I didn’t count how many seconds the camera lingered on the above before panning down to:

[Sidebar: A funny thing happened on the way to capturing the Mesley-Weaver image above. You will notice that the other three images (which I had captured yesterday) are ... uh ... framed by the red banner "CBC Television" above - and by a "footer" which indicated that this was from the April 28, 2013 3:17 segment of  The National, followed by:

Green Weaver

Global warming expert Andrew Weaver is running for the Green Party in the upcoming provincial elections in B.C.

Yet when I went back earlier today to capture the Mesley-Weaver medley, the banner and footer were nowhere in sight! Now this certainly wouldn't be the first time that the CBC has engaged in undated and undocumented now-you-see-it-now-you-don't posting behaviour, as Morley Sutter has noted in a comment on my previous post. But it is somewhat odd, don't you think?! End Sidebar]

How strange that the CBC seems incapable of basic fact-checking regarding Weaver’s unearned “Nobel” laurels. As Donna Laframboise had reported last October:

The facts are as follows: Weaver is merely one among thousands of scientists who contributed their time to the preparation of IPCC reports over the past two decades. The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Al Gore and to the IPCC. The IPCC is an intergovernmental body. Its membership consists of nations – not individuals.

Weaver’s Nobel claim is spin. Self-aggrandizing, inaccurate, misleading spin.

See also Laframboise’s follow-up post in which she provides photographic evidence of Weaver’s bobbing and weaving around his unearned “Nobel-winning” laurels:

Last October when he announced his “reluctant” [see below!] candidacy, Lavin Agency’s bio of Weaver was headlined as follows:

Lead Climate Scientist & Co-winner of Nobel Peace Prize

By January of this year, this billing had … uh … evolved to:

Lead Climate Scientist & Member of Nobel Peace Prize-winning Panel

But this new improved billing is an instance of Weaver engaging in “Self-aggrandizing, inaccurate, misleading spin”.

If he had any commitment towards truth in self-advertising, rather than puffing up his image with such unsustainable claims as:

“his groundbreaking work in the field – in the trenches – of climate science [and that he is one who has] re-energized a new generation of discussions on climate change and sustainability”

Weaver would have acknowledged that the “trenches” in which he works are primarily high-priced computer simulations. He would further have acknowledged that his “new generation of discussions” includes slamming the virtual door in the face of those who dare to question his claims and assertions, or who might not agree with his prescriptions for what he calls “the action we need”.

And speaking of Weaver’s “Self-aggrandizing, inaccurate, misleading spin” consider the following excerpts from Weaver’s recent exercise in Huff-Po self-puffery:

Andrew Weaver.Professor and Canada Research Chair, University of Victoria

I Joined the Green Party Because I’m a Scientist

Posted: 05/08/2013 11:43

[...] I guess, despite being a climate scientist whose work is recognized around the world, according to Megan Leslie, that means I am not concerned about climate action.

The reason I joined the Green Party of BC was not because I was yearning for power, or willing to parse the truth and join in the hyper-partisan spin of the major parties. I joined the Green Party because it is the only party to consistently support climate action — carbon pricing, an end to fossil fuel subsidies, aggressive efforts in energy efficiency and demand-side management and the steady expansion of renewable and green energy. These steps would improve our economic performance, create tens of thousands of new jobs across Canada, while preserving a sustainable world for our children.

The only time a major party was willing to call for a tax shift, to reduce income taxes and increase pollution taxes, was in 2008 under Stephane Dion’s Liberal leadership. [...]

What Canadian politics needs is a party that is more interested in respectful debate and dialogue, in pressing for climate action as a daily commitment, than parties that swing with the winds of political expediency.

I never imagined I would be a candidate for any party. As a scientist, I am way outside my comfort zone. But when I look at my children and imagine what their future will be if we continue with politics as usual, I realized I could no longer sit on the sidelines.

The decisions being made in Victoria and Ottawa are too important to be left to the politicians. [...]

Greens understand we will not be forming government any time soon. But we equally believe it is critical to have representatives in our legislatures who will support other parties when they have a good idea, criticize those who twist the truth, condemn those who block action, and work to promote cooperative, positive decisions to reduce greenhouse gases. Let’s stop pointing fingers and work together to get the action we need. [emphasis added -hro]

Well, I suppose his current claim that he “joined the Green Party because [he's] a scientist is somewhat consistent with his telling CBC’s Brown that his decision to “engage” in the political process because he believes that it’s the “final thing a scientist can do”. But, to my mind, this is considerably at odds with his earlier claim that he has “a passion for politics“.

Indeed, some might ask: was he lying then, or is he lying now? But I couldn’t possibly comment!

As for Weaver’s singing the praises of Stephane Dion’s “green shift” platform … perhaps he has (conveniently?) forgotten that Canadian voters resoundingly rejected Dion’s green dreams. Then again … considering his claim during his prime-time-live April 28 CBC interview, that fellow greenie and Federal MP, Elizabeth May, has far more “influence than 100 backbenchers” perhaps Weaver doesn’t really give a damn what Canadian voters might think – or how they might have chosen.

And please spare us this ludicrous appeal for “respectful debate and dialogue”. Unless Weaver and/or one of his fans would care to tell us what exactly is “respectful” about his rants against PM Stephen Harper, as noted in the Apr. 28 video and in a Nov. 2010 Victoria Times-Colonist interview which I had documented here:

The UVic climatologist, sputtering words like “unbelievable” and “dictator” and “shocking affront to democracy,” says he hopes the opposition will force Harper’s minority government to fall. “He’s got to get kicked out. This is Canada, not Zimbabwe . . . or maybe it is.

In that November 2010 post, I had concluded by observing:

Perhaps it hasn’t occurred to Weaver that he needs to make a choice: Does he want to be known as a thoughtful, respected scientist or an incoherent environmental activist/advocate who is only capable of mindlessly mouthing echoes of Michael Mann’s mantras?

It would seem that in the interim, Weaver has definitely opted for the latter. Ironically, shortly after Weaver first launched his campaign last October (long before he slammed the virtual door in my face!) when I had asked him via twitter [see my Update to this post] to give me one good reason that I should tell my friends in his riding, Oak Bay-Gordon Head, to vote for him, Weaver had responded:

Ensure evidence forms the basis decision-making rather than decisions forming the basis of evidence-making

Wow! What a slogan, eh?! Too bad that all the evidence to date, strongly indicates that for Weaver, his “decisions” as to what the Province (if not the country!) needs – as embodied in his litany of policy prescriptions and dutiful recitation of the latest and greatest scary stories (not the least of which are his rapidly escalating extinction fictions) – have no basis in empirical evidence. Regardless of what his computer-simulations “in the trenches” might show.

So, I can only suggest to my friends in Oak Bay-Gordon Head … Do be very careful out there when you’re casting your vote on May 14.

As for the CBC’s comment-censoring practices … I believe that the evidence is now in: Yes, they do censor comments for no valid reason.

But – before I write to the Ombudsman, regarding their failure to correct the false claim that Weaver is a “Nobel-winning” scientist – I would invite a representative of the CBC to provide me with chapter and verse of their Submission Guidelines in accordance with which the “moderator” was acting (and which I must have “violated”) when rejecting my post, repost and subsequent comment, as I had documented in my previous post, and updates thereto.

CBC censoring again – or honking for IPCC’s Andrew Weaver?

[Please see updates at end of this post -hro]

The CBC occupies a unique position of trust. Not only is it the most substantial and broadly-based broadcast journalism organization in Canada, it is funded, through Parliament, by the people of Canada. The CBC therefore considers it a duty to provide consistent, high-quality information upon which all citizens may rely. [emphasis added -hro]

From CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Policies

In my CBC News Online – British Columbia Morning Digest – 2013-05-07, the following had “top billing”:

For readers not familiar with the British Columbia political scene, there will be a provincial election on May 14; currently the BC Green Party has no seats in the provincial legislature. So they would need to jump from 0 to 4 in order to achieve “official” party status. As I have noted previously, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Lead Author, Andrew Weaver, is a candidate – and the Deputy Leader of the BC Green Party.

Needless to say the headline grabbed my attention, so I followed the “more” link.

This was at approximately 10:00 AM PDT or in CBC-speak (as I discovered a few minutes ago when I saw that the video had changed and the page Last updated read 7:19 PM) PT. The text indicated that the Party Leader, Jane Sterk, does not stand much of a chance in her riding, followed by:

A conscience in the legislature

But the party might have a better shot in neighbouring ridings, namely Oak Bay-Gordon Head, where Nobel-winning climate scientist Andrew Weaver is representing the Green Party.

“We’re really pleased,” he said. “It’s exciting. It’s been a really, really solid campaign. The momentum is building, there’s a lot of volunteers, a lot of enthusiasm.”

Oh, my … there he goes again: resting on Nobel laurels he knows has not earned! Because the CBC has a “duty to provide consistent, high-quality information upon which all citizens may rely“, I felt it incumbent upon me to advise the CBC of this error. So I posted a comment:

“where Nobel-winning climate scientist Andrew Weaver”

Sorry, someone needs to do some basic fact-checking, here. Weaver, a climate modeller, is NOT a “Nobel-winning” anything. To describe him as such is to allow him to rest on laurels he has not earned.

He is (in addition to being a candidate and Deputy Leader of the BC Greens) a Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). And as far as I can tell, he sees no conflict of interest between the requirement that IPCC Authors be objective and his political affiliations and aspirations.

It was the IPCC that – along with Al Gore – was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (in 2007). And we all know how tarnished that award has become.

Voters in Oak Bay Gordon Head might also be interested in knowing that Weaver is not particularly open to, well, inconvenient questions and observations. In the virtual world, his response (via twitter) is to “block” those whose questions and observations he does not like.

Which suggests to me that, in “real life”, he just might slam the door in your face, if he doesn’t like your questions or views!

What a way to win friends and influence people, eh?!

http://hro001.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/ipccs-andrew-weaver-cant-stand-the-heat-in-his-tweet-kitchen/

Posted: 05/7/2013 10:16 AM PDT

And I waited for my comment – or at least a correction to the above article – to appear. Neither event had occurred by 3:00 PM PDT, although several other comments had certainly passed moderation. Consequently, I decided to repost with the following preface:

I wonder why it is that CBC’s “moderation” practice is so, well, untimely!

I had submitted a comment at 05/7/2013 10:16 AM PDT At that point, the timestamp on the Most Recent Comment (of approx 50 as I recall) was 10:05 AM ET.

Comment count is now up to 117, with the timestamp of the Most Recent Comment showing as 2:35 PM ET. So, I’m not sure why my [1:16 p.m. ET] comment is nowhere in sight! Oh, well, perhaps its just one of those inexplicable gremlin generated glitches. Hence, this repost:

For the record, my reposted text was the same as the above – except for the timestamp, and a slight reformatting of the last two paragraphs, in order to stay within their character-count:

Which suggests to me that, in “real life”, he just might slam the door in your face, if he doesn’t like your questions or views! What a way to win friends and influence people, eh?!

http://hro001.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/ipccs-andrew-weaver-cant-stand-the-heat-in-his-tweet-kitchen/

May 7, 3:15 PM PDT

And here I sit several hours later (and the Comment Count up to 134, and most recent timestamp is 2013/05/07
at 10:34 PM ET from “Meggy”) Now I’m sure that the ET moderator must be fast-asleep by now, so – according to the CBC’s Submission Guidelines – my guess would be that “Meggy” is a “Trusted” member whose comments can bypass moderation.

I read these Submission Guidelines, btw, and I didn’t see anything in there that I might have violated. So the continued non-appearance of my comment is somewhat of a mystery.

Oh, well … maybe tomorrow the moderator will release my comment. My past experience has been that whenever I decide to post on their practices, eventually my comments have appeared.

Of course, considering the timestamp – and depending on how many other comments are waiting in the moderation queue – it’s quite possible that few (if any!) will ever see it.

In the meantime, I was going to share the video they’d evidently uploaded at 7:19 PM PT, with a cameo of Weaver and a voice-over telling viewers that he is a “Nobel-winning climate scientist”. But WordPress doesn’t seem to like the CBC’s embed code. So I leave you with this screen capture from the video:

Is CBC censoring comments – or honking for Weaver?!

Stay tuned, folks!

UPDATE: 05/8/2013 12:18 PM

Comment count on CBC’s “false news” item is now 135, and (surprise, surprise) there’s no sign of either of my comment submissions, so I have just submitted the following:

Well, it seems that when an opportunity to wear its green heart on its sleeve presents itself, CBC has no shame about being remiss in its “duty to provide consistent, high-quality information upon which all citizens may rely”

Setting aside the fact that for some inexplicable reason (well, certainly none that I can see in their submission guidelines) my now twice attempted comment submission is nowhere in sight, how can we rely on the quality of CBC’s “information” when they choose to continue to perpetuate the meme that Andrew Weaver is a “Nobel-winning” scientist?

http://hro001.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/cbc-censoring-again-or-honking-for-ipccs-andrew-weaver/

Posted: 05/8/2013 12:17 PM PT

UPDATE 2: 05/11/2013 12:22 AM PDT So my third attempted comment has not appeared.

I wonder if I’ve made CBC’s “blacklist” for daring to question their sloppy (to be kind) “reporting” [see Morley Sutter's comment below for yet another instance of CBC's green heart on sleeve recycling of the "Nobel" meme]

And see also this SunTV video CBC IS WATCHING YOU :-)

The (un)sustainability of all climate all the time

[04/23/2013: Please note update, below -hro]

A few days ago, I was taking stock of the many framings of climate. I was also wondering about the various and sundry footprints with which enviro-activists are so concerned. Here, thanks to wordle, is an illustration of what I found:

I very quickly realized that I had forgotten “climate disruption”, so please imagine it included in the above; and I’ve no doubt that there are others I might have missed. But what I had never heard of until yesterday was “climate insecurity”.

There’s a chap by the name of John Ashton who recently delivered [h/t Tom Nelson] a rally the troops speech to the somewhat self-beleaguered of late, U.K. Meteorological Office (fondly known in climate concerned circles as the “Met Office”).

Climate insecurity (whatever this is supposed to mean) is obviously very much on Ashton’s mind, as he mentioned it no less than three times during the course of his 4,986-word peroration, which he had entitled, “Climate Change and Politics: Surviving the Collision”. Oh, and his total “climate” count was no less than 42, and included such memorable turns of phrase as “climate-exposed business sectors” (perhaps he had the UNEP’s B4E in mind?) and “climate diplomacy”.

The latter is something about which, presumably, Ashton knows a fair bit, because his previous day-job (2006-2012) was that of “Special Representative for Climate Change for three successive UK Foreign Secretaries”.

Along with the requisite alarmism, there’s an awful lot of ponderous, pompous and/or presumptuous propaganda in Ashton’s speech; for example:

[...] here is a challenge that is Promethean. We have stolen the secret of fire for our own use, unleashing punitive forces inherent in the system of which we are ourselves part. Dealing with this is imperative, because if we don’t the consequences could soon become unmanageable, perhaps even jeopardizing the system conditions within which civilization itself can flourish.

And as we look more deeply into the picture, it urges us to summon a response that is transformational, because the entire modern economy is organized around the energy system. Making that system carbon neutral will reconfigure the economy, and the power relations embedded within it. Furthermore we must accomplish this urgently, in little more than a generation, while building resilience to the climate insecurity we can no longer avoid.

Promethean, imperative, transformational, urgent. [emphasis added -hro]

Not unlike the UNEP, Ashton is obviously very big on “transformative/transformational” (eight mentions in his speech at the Met Office). But what is curiously and conspicuously absent is any mention of “sustainable” … as in “sustainable development”.

Ashton is one of three founding directors of a group called E3G, and served as the first Chief Executive of E3G in 2005-06. Ever heard of this group before? No? Neither had I! So here’s the scoop:

E3G is an independent not-for-profit organisation, established in 2004, that works in the public interest to accelerate the global transition to sustainable development.

We build coalitions to achieve carefully defined outcomes, chosen for their capacity to leverage change. E3G founders had been working together and developing their shared thinking for several years before the organisation was constituted in 2004.

[...]

E3G makes things happen. We work to deliver outcomes with strategic significance for the transition to sustainable development. [emphasis added -hro]

UPDATE: Alex Cull notes in a very enlightening comment below, there’s at least one, no doubt, “carefully defined outcome” that Ashton – presumably on E3G’s behalf – was not able to “make happen”. Alex concludes:

Whatever the cause, it looks very much as though Ashton and the Qataris had an irreconcilable difference of opinion and that on this occasion, British “climate diplomacy” did not “catalyse transformational change” but hit the buffers of geopolitical reality instead.

In 2004, Ashton made an appearance in the Climategate (CG2 2428.txt) emails. In response to an E-mail, about “getting the idea into [then Prime Minister] Blair’s mind”, Ashton had opined:

cc: “Mike Hulme” , “John SCHELLNHUBER”
date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 10:47:57 +010 ???
from: “John Ashton”
subject: Re: Moving this forward
to: “Peter Read” , “John Shepherd”

John, John and Mike heard much of my argument at the Tyndall Assembly. But I should clarify it a little in the light of Peter’s message.

The problem at present is not the absence of propositions that offer stabilisation and that are scientifically, technologically and economically, credible. Two such broad propositions are biomass energy and capture and storage: both deserve attention within a portfolio of possible responses.

[...]

That is, I am sure, why [Blair's] recent speech concentrated on putting across, more starkly than he has done before, the scale and urgency of the challenge. Abrupt climate change is a crucial piece of that jigsaw – and you can make more impact with it at present by simply highlighting the danger without going too far into any particular set of responses.
[...] [emphasis added -hro]

His E3G bio indicates that Ashton has a long history of having moved virtually effortlessly through the NGO/Government revolving door:

John is one of a new generation of diplomats equally at home in the worlds of foreign policy and green politics. Before moving outside government to establish E3G in 2005, John had a distinguished career in the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, including founding and leading its Environment Policy Department.

A major theme of John’s career has been China. He speaks Chinese. He was an adviser to Governor Chris Patten in Hong Kong from 1993-7. His first diplomatic assignment, from 1981-4, was as Science Attaché in the British Embassy in Beijing. He also has experience at high level on a wide range of European and global issues, including as a political officer in the British Embassy in Rome from 1988-93.

John was the first Chief Executive of E3G in 2005-06, before returning to the UK Foreign Office as the Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Climate Change. His role supported Ministers in building a stronger foundation for an effective response to climate change. He had the personal title of Ambassador with direct access to the Foreign Secretary. John played a key role in designing the FCO’s climate change network and strategy, with its focus on climate stability as a precondition for security, prosperity and equity, and on strategic political engagement with the emerging and other major economies. [emphasis added -hro]

One of the other “founding directors” – and the current Chief Executive – is Nick Mabey. If that name rings a bell, it probably should. Mabey hails from the WWF – and he even had a role in promoting Mike Hulme and Joseph Alcamo’s pre-Kyoto “Statement”.

Like Ashton (and many others in this “gently” grown E3G crop of propagandists), Mabey’s bio indicates that he, too, has passed through the NGO/Government “revolving door”:

Nick was previously a senior advisor in the UK Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit leading work on national and international policy areas, including: energy, climate change, countries at risk of instability, organised crime and fisheries. Nick was employed in the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Environment Policy Department, and was the FCO lead for the Johannesburg Summit in 2002 [...]

Before he joined government Nick was Head of Economics and Development at WWF-UK. He came to WWF from research at London Business School on the economics of climate change, which he published as the book “Argument in the Greenhouse”.
[...]
Among other appointments Nick is currently on the advisory board of Infrastructure UK, the independent commission reporting to the UK Conservative Party on the design of a Green Investment Bank, and the Advisory Council of the European Technology Platform for Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power. [emphasis added -hro]

So, it should come as no surprise that movers and shakers at E3G (which evidently stands for Third Generation Environmentalism Ltd) receive funding from WWF as well as from the U.K.’s Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and Department for International Development. Big Oil (represented by Shell) is also on E3G’s funding roster.

Readers who have been following the various interwoven threads of this ongoing saga will have noted the (coincidental, I’m sure) inclusion of John [aka Hans Joachim] Schellnhuber in the recipient list of Ashton’s E-mail, above. It was thanks to Germany’s Schellnhuber that the “dangerous” 2°C first entered the propaganda scene. As he told Der Speigel‘s Marco Evers, Olaf Stampf and Gerald Traufetter in April 2010:

a group of German scientists, yielding to political pressure, invented an easily digestible message in the mid-1990s: the two-degree target. To avoid even greater damage to human beings and nature, the scientists warned, the temperature on Earth could not be more than two degrees Celsius higher than it was before the beginning of industrialization.

[...]

Rarely has a scientific idea had such a strong impact on world politics. Most countries have now recognized the two-degree target. If the two-degree limit were exceeded, German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen announced ahead of the failed Copenhagen summit, “life on our planet, as we know it today, would no longer be possible.“

But this is scientific nonsense. “Two degrees is not a magical limit — it’s clearly a political goal,” says Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). “The world will not come to an end right away in the event of stronger warming, nor are we definitely saved if warming is not as significant. The reality, of course, is much more complicated.”

Schellnhuber ought to know. He is the father of the two-degree target.

“Yes, I plead guilty,” he says, smiling. [emphasis added -hro]

More recently, Schellnhuber has declared [h/t dennisA]:

04/17/2013 – The preparations for the next climate agreement that is supposed to be reached in 2015 are already taking shape – and civil society [aka NGOs -hro] is being asked to accompany and support the EU’s development/decision process.

On invitation by Connie Hedegaard, the EU´s Commissioner for Climate Action, a number of experts and decision makers meet at a stakeholder´s conference in Brussels today.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, has been asked to hold a keynote on the state of play in climate science.

The conference in Brussels was organized to shape the EU’s input into negotiations on a new international agreement to protect the global climate system.

“This is the starting signal for the hardest stage on the path to the world climate agreement 2015,” Schellnhuber says. “When it comes to the facts of climate change, there has been a lot of confusion in the public debates recently, which interested circles seek to exploit and deepen.

“Now it is up to science to bring light into this darkness and to draw a realistic picture of the challenges ahead for the public in Europe. On this basis citizens can make informed decisions.” [emphasis added -hro

Seems to me that those in the Ashton/Mabey/Schellnhuber circles of influence (not unlike BC's Andrew Weaver) have no qualms about putting the enviro-advocacy cart ahead of any evidentiary horses.

Do they care - or even realize - that the graphic images and icons (polar bears and hockey-sticks) based on flimsy "science" they have constructed to support them are being unravelled almost as fast as they come off the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)'s just-in-time assembly-line?

It was these flimsy "science" constructions, reconstructions (and rapid deconstructions, thanks to people such as Climate Audit's Steve McIntyre, Bishop Hill's Andrew Montford and Polar Bear Science's Susan Crockford) that were running through my mind when I came across the following video [h/t Digging In The Clay's Verity Jones]. The music isn’t exactly what I would have chosen (so you may want to turn down your speakers), but the images are quite compelling, wouldn’t you agree? ;-)

Alternatively, from a (turn up your speakers) musical perspective, the following [h/t my Dad] offers an equally amusing depiction of “footprints” and these inter-related enviro-activists’ endeavours. Enjoy :-)

IPCC-nik Andrew Weaver riding waves of suspect Tides?

As readers of this blog will know, Andrew Weaver is the Deputy Leader of the BC Green Party – and also a candidate in the forthcoming Provincial election. He’s also very much a green-heart-on-sleeve activist, and supposedly an “objective” Lead Author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s forthcoming 5th Assessment Report.

In my previous post I had observed that he was, in effect, a “midwife” at the birth of BC’s over-hyped and under-performing carbon offsets scheme.

Before he slammed the virtual door to his twitter-feed, I had posed some questions that he declined to answer (for example, here, here and here).

And now it seems that he and his party have the (not surprising) support of (at least) one of the tentacles of the Tides Foundation [h/t Tom Nelson]:

Green Party Leads the Way to Effective Climate Policy

Clean Energy Canada at Tides Canada today released a B.C. Climate Leadership Position Summary indicating where the major political parties planning to run candidates in the British Columbia May 14 provincial election stand on the carbon tax. Of the major parties in BC, the Green Party was noted as the only one fully committed both improving and expanding the carbon tax program.

“We are delighted that Clean Energy Canada has recognized our strong leadership position on climate change and our commitment to working to make the carbon levy an effective solution for carbon emissions reduction,” said Dr. Andrew Weaver, Deputy Green Party Leader and candidate for Oak Bay-Gordon Head.

“It is exciting that we’re starting to see a recommitment to climate leadership,“ said Merran Smith, director of Clean Energy Canada at Tides Canada.

Considering the many questions about this organization’s foreign funding and activities, if I were a candidate for election, I doubt that I’d be touting an endorsement from such a tainted source.

But then, I’m from a different generation: I learned how to use critical thinking skills and exercise sound judgment. Qualities that have not been in evidence from the utterances of alarmist-activist Andrew <don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater> Weaver. Or Andrew <barrage of intergalactic ballistic missiles> Weaver if you prefer.

But on a somewhat related – and far more realistic – note, here’s an interview with Ross McKitrick speaking about his recent report on Ontario’s Green Energy Act – and the follies contained therein.

Ross McKitrick on his recent report on renewables

You can read his report here

And you can also read an amusingly predictable “response” from the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CANWEA) here. One of CANWEA’S complaints:

The report relies excessively on the widely criticized 2011 Annual Report by the Auditor General of Ontario [emphasis added -hro]

I guess CANWEA wasn’t too happy with the Ontario AG’s findings which included (p. 97 of this pdf)

• no independent, objective, expert investigation had been done to examine the potential effects of renewable-energy policies on prices, job creation, and greenhouse gas emissions; and
• no thorough and professional cost/benefit analysis had been conducted to identify potentially cleaner, more economically productive, and cost-effective alternatives to renewable energy, such as energy imports and increased conservation.

Sounds like yet another environmental advocacy cart way ahead of any evidential horses with not a qualified “driver” in sight.

So what is it with these green dreamers and their assumption that they know better than Auditors General, eh?!

One can hardly wait for the wrath of the green dreamers to descend on The Economist. How dare they publish an article (as they did on April 6) in which they concluded:

Environmental lunacy in Europe

A fuel and your money

Over the past few years, scientists have concluded that the original idea—carbon in managed forests offsets carbon in power stations—was an oversimplification. In reality, carbon neutrality depends on the type of forest used, how fast the trees grow, whether you use woodchips or whole trees and so on. As another bit of the EU, the European Environment Agency, said in 2011, the assumption “that biomass combustion would be inherently carbon neutral…is not correct…as it ignores the fact that using land to produce plants for energy typically means that this land is not producing plants for other purposes, including carbon otherwise sequestered.”

Tim Searchinger of Princeton University calculates that if whole trees are used to produce energy, as they sometimes are, they increase carbon emissions compared with coal (the dirtiest fuel) by 79% over 20 years and 49% over 40 years; there is no carbon reduction until 100 years have passed, when the replacement trees have grown up. But as Tom Brookes of the European Climate Foundation points out, “we’re trying to cut carbon now; not in 100 years’ time.”

In short, the EU has created a subsidy which costs a packet, probably does not reduce carbon emissions, does not encourage new energy technologies—and is set to grow like a leylandii hedge.

Green dreamers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose! Well, nothing but the respect and blind obeisance of those who choose to investigate and think for themselves.

Of advocacy carts, evidence horses and Andrew Weaver’s carbon “baby”

British Columbia’s Climate Action Team was established in November 2007 to help the government reduce provincial greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent by 2020. It was made up of some of the province’s best minds, including nine world leaders in the climate sciences.

The team’s mandate was threefold:

• to offer expert advice to the province’s Cabinet Committee on Climate Action on the most credible, aggressive and economically viable targets possible for 2012 and 2016;
• to identify further actions in the short and medium term to reduce emissions and meet the 2020 target; and
• to provide advice on the provincial government’s commitment to become carbon neutral by 2010.

Source

And you’ll never guess who one of the Climate Action Team members just happened to be: Yep! None other than the illustrious Andrew <climate change is a barrage of intergalactic ballistic missiles> Weaver; he who remains silent when it is falsely claimed that he “shared the Nobel Peace Prize”; an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Lead Author who also remains silent when asked how his BC Green Party Deputy Leadership (and Oak Bay Gordon Head candidacy) could be squared with the “objectivity” required of an IPCC Lead Author.

The very same Andrew Weaver who has, in effect, acted as a PR agent for Greenpeace – and who can’t stand the heat in his twitter kitchen!

Here’s how Weaver is billed on the Climate Action Team:

Dr. Andrew Weaver is a professor and Canada research chair in atmospheric science in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at UVic. His contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change jointly won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with Al Gore. He joined UVic in 1992, having spent three years as a natural sciences and engineering research council university research fellow in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at McGill University. He has written over 120 peer reviewed papers in climate, meteorology, oceanography, earth science, policy and education journals. He was involved as a lead author in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change second and third scientific assessments of climate change. Weaver presently serves on the United Nations World Climate Research Program Working Group on Coupled Modelling, and the United States National Academy of Sciences Climate Research Committee as well as the NAS Panel on Climate Feedbacks. He is co-chair of the UN WCRP CLIVAR-PAGES Intersection Panel and is an editor of the Journal of Climate.

So, I doubt that many will be surprised to learn that this marvellous 2008 Climate Action Plan (132 page pdf which contains the seeds of BC’s legislated lunacy and which appears to have been authored by the Climate Action Team) describes “The Challenge” (p. 11) as follows:

We’ve all seen signs that our climate is changing – from devastating storms, to longer summer droughts, to the warmer winters linked to the mountain pine beetle epidemic threatening Interior forests. Some people argue that these changes are natural; that the earth’s climactic patterns have always varied from year to year and decade to decade. However, in November 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – representing the most respected climate experts worldwide – issued a report with the most decisive evidence yet to support three key conclusions:

• the earth’s climate is changing
• the change is being caused by human activities, and
• its effects will worsen if no action is taken.

The Problem Is Real

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the world’s foremost authority on the subject, drawing on the expertise of more than 2,500 scientists from 130 countries. [emphases added -hro]

As anyone who has conducted her/his own due diligence will know, the above is Chapter and Verse straight from the pages of the PR version of the Climate Bible – which had earned no less than 21 F’s on a citizen audit Report Card issued three years ago.

Furthermore, as Donna Laframboise has meticulously documented, in her exposé, the IPCC has a long history of acting more like a delinquent teenager than a body whose “expertise” and pronouncements are deserving of public trust.

Considering that much ado has been made of the need for “mechanisms” that will lead us to the promised land of “The Future We [don't need or] Want” – and in particular those “mechanisms” upon which “climate finance” (their phrasing, not mine) depends – I found a recent “bulletin” from the IPCC & UNFCCC’s “parent”, the UNEP’s Global Environmental Alert Service (GEAP) to be somewhat amusing – albeit quite pathetically so. Some excerpts (all emphases mine -hro):

Thematic focus: Environmental governance, Climate change

The impact of corruption on climate change: threatening emissions trading mechanisms?

This bulletin provides an overview of recent discussions about the impact of corruption on environmental governance, with a focus on emissions trading. It reviews new definitions and the latest corruption assessment methodologies in order to illuminate the broader challenges faced by GHG trading mechanisms and climate finance.

Why is this issue important?

The trading of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has recently emerged as one of the most dynamic and promising areas of global environmental governance. According to the latest assessment by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007), global GHG emissions must peak, if not decline, by 2015 in order to limit global mean temperature increases to 2°C above pre-industrial levels. The Panel predicted that without a reduction of GHG emissions, the globe would experience an overall temperature rise of 6.4°C by the end of this century, which is a catastrophic scenario.

[...]

Emissions trading systems are often hailed as a powerful and cost-efficient approach to dealing with the multi-faceted challenges posed by climate change (Kossoy and Guignon, 2012). The UNFCCC estimates that these systems will contribute a significant portion of the funds necessary for climate change mitigation (UNFCCC, 2007).

Well, there you have it folks … Emissions trading systems are the great panacea for all that ails our planet because, well, because the UNEP said so. But alas, there are a few flies in this “powerful and cost-efficient” ointment:

Corruption impacts the success of emissions trading schemes by reducing the overall reliability and effectiveness of GHG markets. The implementation of cap-and-trade systems in both developed and developing countries has been recurrently tainted by cases of fraud and bribery, abuses of power, and other conventional forms of corruption. Corruption in this sector has also taken more original forms, such as the strategic exploitation of ‘bad science’ and scientific uncertainties for profit, the manipulation of GHG market prices, and anti-systemic speculation (Lohmann, 2007; TI, 2012a; Wara, 2007). The challenge that corruption poses to climate finance also contributes to broader debates about the impact of corruption in environmental governance. Over the past two decades, domestic and international anti-corruption initiatives have proliferated, with the process being largely driven by the increasing recognition of the impact of corruption on the quality of environmental governance.

Although he did not call it such, one might consider that the recent findings of the BC Auditor General on the fruits of Weaver and the Climate Action Team’s 2007 labours, i.e. the disgraceful actions of the Pacific Carbon Trust – and its “partners” – are tantamount to corruption.

In his Report, An Audit of Carbon Neutral Government, the Auditor General had noted:

This audit examined two projects which accounted for nearly 70 percent of the offsets purchased by government to achieve their claim of carbon neutrality: the Darkwoods Forest Carbon project in southeastern B.C. and the Encana Underbalanced Drilling project near Fort Nelson. However, this claim of carbon neutrality is not accurate, as neither project provided credible offsets.

The credibility of carbon offsets is the crux of the entire concept. [emphasis added - hro]

Candidate Weaver’s carefully considered response:

Media Release
April 2, 2013 | Victoria, British Columbia

South Island Green Candidates Support A New Path to Carbon Neutrality

Provincial Green candidates Dr. Andrew Weaver, Deputy Leader, and Adam Olsen [another Greeen Party Candidate -hro] announced today that they support the concept of Pacific Carbon Trust (PCT) despite the criticism by the Auditor General, and will be purchasing PCT offset credits for their own carbon neutral campaigns. The candidates want to see public sector offset revenues fund public sector projects, to begin the gradual transitioning from fossil fuels to a low carbon economy.

“We should be investigating every opportunity for PCT revenues to directly benefit British Columbians by investing in locally-based public projects—if we adhere to international carbon offset accounting standards, we will reduce our GHG emissions,” says Andrew Weaver.

[...]

“Carbon offset project assessment is a highly sophisticated process, and while I acknowledge there are bound to be difficulties with a new organization, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater,” says Weaver.

Does Weaver acknowledge that he was – in effect – a “midwife” at the birth of this precious little “baby”?! Not bloomin’ likely. Weaver’s glasses are so dark green that he failed to notice that no suggestion was made by the Auditor General – or anyone else with any influence, as far as I know – that this “baby” (or its bathwater … unless one considers the PCT Board to be “bathwater”) be thrown out!

Does Weaver have any comment on the atrocious behaviours of those who participated in the campaign to discredit the AG’s report?! Not bloomin’ likely.

Two of these campaigners are quite, well, interesting: Stewart Elgie is a carbon crusader with a long history of green-heart-on-sleeve advocacy. James Tansey is described as the “chief executive officer of Vancouver-based Offsetters Climate Solutions” – which (although not mentioned, surprise surprise, just happens to be a partner of Pacific Carbon Trust.

Both Elgie and Tansey have claimed that they were part of some “expert” advisory group to the Auditor General. Considering that the AG made no mention in his report of any “expert” advisory group – as is customary in such reports if, in fact, such a group had contributed – I’m more inclined to think that Elgie and Tansey (and who knows how many other advocacy-tainted and/or interest-conflicted “experts”) have perhaps “revisionized” the following from p. 16 of the AG’s report:

The audit focused on the actions of the Climate Action Secretariat and the Pacific Carbon Trust. In confirming the credibility of offsets purchased by the Pacific Carbon Trust, we also extended our work, as necessary, to obtain evidence from agencies outside of government involved with the offset projects development and approval.

We carried out our work between January and August 2012. Subsequently, we went through an extensive clearance process with a number of organizations involved in these projects. We conducted the audit in accordance with section 11(8) of the Auditor General Act and the standards for assurance engagements established by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Tansey has shown himself to be a whining smear-artist who could rival Michael Mann, as evidenced by a recent “reporter” facilitated irrelevant and diversionary screed in the Georgia Straight.

But I digress … Here’s how one BC reporter described this campaign:

Greenhouse gas leaks from trust

By Tom Fletcher

VICTORIA – The Pacific Carbon Trust orchestrated a months-long campaign of calls and letters to discredit a report from B.C.’s Auditor General on its first two big carbon offset projects, before it could be released.

Just as the audit report was about to be made public, the trust, a Crown corporation created at taxpayer expense, participated in the leaking of selected critical letters to media outlets.

As Donna Laframboise has recently concluded:

The government of BC needs to make it clear that greens will be held to the same standard as everyone else. It needs to send a clear message that there is a proper way to respond to an Auditor General’s report – and that the Pacific Carbon Trust failed that test. Spectacularly.

Public confidence needs to be restored. This entire board of directors must be replaced.

In a subsequent post, Laframboise highlighted the most damning parts of the AG’s report, including:

…Pacific Carbon Trust has not purchased credible offsets. [pp. 5, 6, 16, 19]

The report says the Trust paid well above market rates when it purchased the 2010 offsets – and that it agreed to conditions that, in the view of the Auditor General, “raises questions” about the Trust’s “ability to be objective” (pp. 6 and 30).

And as Fletcher had noted in his article:

Here’s the next Pacific Carbon Trust project that should be audited. In a complicated transaction, the trust bought offsets from something called the Great Bear Carbon Credit Limited Partnership. Yes, this is the world-famous forest on B.C.’s North Coast that was subject to a preservation deal hammered out between the Coastal First Nations, the B.C. government and three U.S.-backed environmental groups.

That was in 2006. The offset purchases were in 2009 and 2010, years after detailed preservation areas were mapped and codified in law.

Again, the trust paid for forest that was already preserved.

The Globe and Mail‘s Gary Mason has also weighed in on this shameful story:

After smoke clears, taxpayer-funded boondoggle revealed

[...]
There is much about this story the public should be concerned about, not the least of which is the dubious efficacy of carbon offsets themselves. The idea that we have struggling schools paying $25 a tonne for the carbon dioxide they emit while having to forgo the hiring of teachers and the purchasing of books is preposterous. Especially given that in many cases this money is going to highly profitable private-sector companies.

[...]

It all has a certain smell of desperation about it, the embedded worry that the report might expose carbon offsets as a taxpayer-funded boondoggle.

[...]

I believe the carbon-offset program was conceived with the best of intentions. But I also think it quickly attracted a potpourri of consultants and entrepreneurs and savvy corporations that smelled easy money. While the endeavour allowed the government to feel righteous and moral, the truth about what it was really accomplishing seems to be something else.

YMMV, but it seems to me that Weaver’s carbon “baby” was obviously ill-conceived and that what Weaver and his over-eager allies like to call a “highly sophisticated process” is more likely an instance of putting an environmental advocacy cart way ahead of any evidential horses with no qualified “drivers” in sight.

Mason had concluded:

Whoever forms government after the May 14 election should immediately halt the program until it can be properly assessed by a credible independent body. While carbon neutrality is a worthy goal, it can’t be achieved through smoke and mirrors or campaigns intent on intimidating those who dare question its validity.

Are you listening, Candidate Weaver?! The problems identified represent far more than mere “difficulties with a new organization”. In fact, if this is an example of your “assessment” skills in action, I shudder to think what we might expect from your Lead Authorship of the IPCC’s forthcoming AR5 WG1 Chapter 12.

Perhaps if the best pap your “passion for politics” is capable of mustering is of “babies and bathwater”, you would do well to step down from your ivory tower and reflect on what your green dreams have wrought.

CBC still censoring comments?

[Please note update below -hro]

Canada’s (taxpayer funded) CBC has a long history of unquestioningly promoting Big Green’s agenda. As I’ve noted previously, they seem to be following in the footsteps of Auntie Beeb (the U.K.’s BBC).

As I’ve also mentioned previously, I rarely watch (or listen to) CBC programs. But I do subscribe to their twice daily “News Digest”. Some days when an item catches my eye, I’ll take a look. And this sometimes leads me to a featured article (demonizing Israel or promoting the agenda of Big Green).

Yesterday was one of those days. Here’s what appeared as a “feature” on the March 25 10:00 p.m. National News:

Hidden cameras tell a tale of two lunchrooms

A group of students wanted to know whether nice digs mean better recycling habits

After dutifully watching this video, I posted the following in the comments (of which at the time of my posting there were none!):

Interesting story, but … what are the “demographics” of those who frequent the two cafeterias? How far apart are their physical locations? What are the most likely courses of study of those who frequent these cafeterias?

Could these non-attributed factors have had some influence on the recycling behaviours of the students studied?

Until we have these additional details, it seems to me that one should add this “study” to the ever-increasing list of papers that claim an influence of “climate change” – without acknowledging that even if this is the case, there is absolutely no empirical evidence that whatever “climate change” – formerly known as “global warming” – may or may not be occurring is primarily “caused by” human generated C02 (known to be a very small percentage of the total 3% of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere).

For those who mistakenly believe that the output generated by (the increasinngly ubiquitous) “computer models” = data, it isn’t. Furthermore, those who describe such exercises as “experiments’ [as such modellers, including Canada's green-heart-on-sleeve Andrew Weaver**, are inclined to do] can only do so if they have arbitrarily redefined “experiments”.

** see http://hro001.wordpress.com/2013/03/13/ipccs-andrew-weaver-cant-stand-the-heat-in-his-tweet-kitchen/

As I said, an interesting story.

But I do so miss Barbara Frum who would most certainly have questioned the “fudge” factors in this lightweight contribution to the sad, long history of CBC’s annals of promoting Big Green’s agenda.

[Posted 03/25/2013 11:24 PM PDT]

It’s most unfortunate that Peter Mansbridge, who introduced this particular piece of pap, seems to have forgotten what he wrote a few days earlier about Frum, from whom he could have learned much. Quoting Frum he wrote:

“I listen for something that sounds so authentically right and dead on, and so fresh, and so unpatterned and unlikely, that it’s got a ring of truth,” [Barbara Frum] once said. “That’s what I look for because there is so much fudge in this world today. Everybody is so polite, everybody says things that kind of throw you off the course.”

But it’s also interesting to note that in this particular “report”, climate change -formerly known as global warming – is not even mentioned. Could it be that CBC is signalling a shift of gears from “all climate change all the time” to “sustainable development”? The United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) seems to be making such a shift, one should not expect the CBC to be too far behind, eh?!

I’ll let you know if/when my comment passes the CBC’s antiquated “pre-moderation”.

UPDATE: 03/26/2013 11:50 AM PDT The “pre-moderator” appears to have approved my comment. One of the others who commented on this post has provided a link to the actual paper:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0053856

Why the CBC could not have provided this link in their original article is left as an exercise for the reader.

IPCC’s Andrew Weaver can’t stand the heat in his tweet kitchen

[Please see Update at the end of this post -hro]

Andrew <barrage of intergalactic ballistic missiles> Weaver is a longtime Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) whose “passion for politics” has led him to run for provincial office under the banner of the BC Green Party, of which he is the proud Deputy Leader.

His candidacy is, no doubt, greatly enhanced by the endorsement of Independent MLA Vicki Huntington. She speaks glowingly of his (falsely attributed) “Nobel Prize-winning scientific expertise”.

And fruit-fly expert, and drama queen, David Suzuki, has endorsed his candidacy, as well. This has led the oh-so-conservative and understated Weaver to remark:

I cannot describe in words what it means to me to have him provide a strong endorsement for my campaign.

At about the same time as he announced his candidacy, Weaver began tweeting. So I decided to follow him on twitter. I haven’t paid too much attention to most of his 1,000+ tweets to-date, but every once in a while something catches my interest. He’s such a busy and important man that he hasn’t found time to reply to my questions regarding the potential for conflict of interest that derives from the many hats he’s wearing these days. And he’s never acknowledged the few replies I’ve sent to his tweets.

Yesterday, though, one of his tweets caught my eye:

The “great news” to which he’d linked is an article in the Vancouver Province.

Now it just so happens that a reader had alerted me to an article by Margaret Wente in yesterday’s Globe and Mail:

Carbon offsets: B.C.’s looniest green scheme yet?

Here’s a neat idea. Declare that you’ll help solve the climate crisis by making all your public institutions carbon-neutral. Schools, hospitals, the works. Now that’s leadership.

There’ll be some challenges, of course. Unfortunately, no matter how hard they try, your schools and hospitals can’t possibly eliminate all their greenhouse-gas emissions – they’re too old and drafty, the ambulances and buses still run on fossil fuel, and solar panels are still too darned expensive.

But you can fix that. Just force them to buy carbon offsets. In other words, make them pay for all the greenhouse gasses they emit by forking over millions of dollars to folks who have reduced their greenhouse emissions. Presto! If you can’t achieve carbon neutrality, you can buy it.

That’s what B.C. is doing. Every public institution is now required to pay $25 a tonne for the carbon dioxide it emits. That’s money that’s no longer available for textbooks, teachers and nursing care. Last year, Vancouver’s regional health system coughed up $3-million to buy carbon credits. The University of British Columbia forked over $1.5-million, and B.C.’s public schools paid $4.4-million. But never mind. B.C. is now the greenest government on Earth.

Does all this strike you as a bit loony? Wait – there’s more. Most of this money winds up in the pockets of large private companies, which are paid for not emitting greenhouse gasses they almost certainly wouldn’t have emitted anyway, according to investigations by The Vancouver Sun.

I had actually written about this legislated lunacy (and Weaver’s role in its formulation) almost two years ago when it first came into force. It is part and parcel of the bundle that included BC’s carbon tax. But I digress …

I decided to reply to Weaver’s “great news” by suggesting in a tweet:

Better news would be if BC backed off the legislated lunacy found in B.C.’s looniest green scheme yet

which I had linked to Wente’s article. And I did a subsequent tweet:

Carbon offsets: BC’s looniest green scheme yet? http://soa.li/M6mLxFm Thank [former BC premier] G[ordon]. Campbell & buddy @AJWVictoriaBC for this legislated lunacy

But when I decided to see what was new in the twitter-verse a few hours ago, I saw something I had never seen before:

Andrew Weaver “protects” himself from political heat in his kitchen!

What a way to win friends and influence people, eh?! Protect your twitter account, so that in effect, you stop your tweets from appearing in – and/or being “retweeted” by – people whose tweets are not exactly ringing endorsements of your green-heart-on-sleeve hypocrisy and mediocrity!

Come to think of it, this “protection” might be a “trick” he picked up from his buddy, Michael Mann, who had graced Victoria with his presence earlier this month.

At the beginning of last month, BC political commentator, Vaughn Palmer had written a short piece [h/t Andrew Weaver ... when he was still permitting me to follow him on twitter!] on

10 great fights shaping up for May 14 [Date of BC's provincial election]

February 1, 2013

Oak Bay-Gordon Head. The Greens, in an inspired move, are fielding Andrew Weaver, the internationally respected University of Victoria academic and climatologist in the seat now held by cabinet minister Ida Chong. But fed-up Liberals could get behind Weaver as a keep-them-honest check on an anticipated NDP government, giving the Greens their first presence in the provincial legislature.

Here’s my reply to Palmer:

Vaughan Palmer wrote, “But fed-up Liberals could get behind Weaver as a keep-them-honest check”
Surely one should expect that a candidate one hopes will keep others “honest” will have demonstrated honesty in his/her own interactions. That being the case, I have to ask:

Where’s the “honesty” in suggesting that “climate change” will be shown to be a “barrage of intergalactic ballistic missiles”?

Where’s the “honesty” in one who permits a student newspaper reporter to claim, “[Weaver] also won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize as part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], sharing the prize with Al Gore” when he and his booking agency now know full well that he has no right to rest on such laurels?

Where’s the “honesty” in one who chooses to elevate his computer-generated simulations to the status of scientific “experiments”?

Where’s the “honesty” in one who fails to respond to a question regarding the conflict of interest that derives from his Green Party affiliations and the “objectivity” required of an IPCC Lead Author?

Where’s the “honesty” in one who fails to acknowledge the further conflict of interest that derives from this same individual choosing to act, in effect, as a PR agent for Greenpeace?

Perhaps, as Palmer noted, it was an “inspired” move on the part of the BC Greens. But the view from here is that, while Weaver may be an “internationally respected … academic and climatologist”, those who hold him in such high esteem may have neglected to perform any due diligence prior to formulating such an opinion.

Voters of Oak Bay Gordon Head, do take note. If Andrew Weaver becomes your MLA and you happen to disagree with him – or ask him some inconvenient questions – he just might slam the door in your face.

Helpful hint from Hilary to Andrew Weaver: If you can’t stand the heat, I suggest you stay out of the political kitchen;-)

UPDATE 03/13/2013 10:01 PM PDT: My apologies, folks! Weaver did actually respond to one of my tweets (in fact he even made it a “favourite“); so I thought I’d capture it before he decides to “protect”/disappear the evidence:

Once upon a time, Weaver was responsive to questions!

But that was back in October, long before I became a person undeserving of receiving Weaver’s hot-off-the vine tweets.