Category: Climate Change Scam

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CCS #6: Controlled Opposition “Conservatives” Take Act To Supreme Court

(Originally featured in Maclean’s as “The Resistance”)

(Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe. Read between the lines.)

1. Debunking The Climate Change Scam

CLICK HERE, for #1: major lies that the climate frauds tell.
CLICK HERE, for #2: review of the Paris Accord.
CLICK HERE, for #3: Bill C-97, the GHG Pollution Pricing Act.
CLICK HERE, for #4: in 3-2 decision, Sask. COA allows carbon tax.
CLICK HERE, for #5: controlled opposition to carbon tax.

2. Important Links

Supreme Court Of Canada To Hear Challenge
SCC Attorney General Of Ontario
SCC Attorney General Of Canada
SCC Attorney General Of Saskatchewan
SCC Attorney General Of Alberta
SCC Attorney General Of Quebec
SCC Attorney General Of New Brunswick
SCC Attorney General Of Manitoba
SCC Attorney General Of British Columbia
SCC Amnesty International
SCC Canadian Labour Congress
SCC David Suzuki Foundation
SCC Intergenerational Climate Committee
SCC International Emissions Trading Association
SCC Smart Prosperity Institute
SCC Attorney General Of Ontario Reply
SCC Attorney General Of Canada Reply

CLICK HERE, for Saskatchewan Court of Appeal ruling.
CLICK HERE, for Ontario Court of Appeal ruling.
CLICK HERE, for Alberta Court of Appeal ruling.
CLICK HERE, for Supreme Court of Canada constitutional challenge.

Alberta Situation
CLICK HERE, for Jason Kenney Repeals Carbon Tax.
CLICK HERE, for Kenney Supports New Carbon Tax.
CLICK HERE, for Kenney To Hike New Carbon Tax.

CLICK HERE, for New Brunswick creating its own Carbon tax.

3. Reading Between The Lines

Throughout this interview, and any interview, Scott Moe never tells anyone that Carbon Dioxide is not pollution, and that it is used in photosynthesis. He never tells his interviewers that removing CO2 from the atmosphere will kill off plant-life, and by extension, ourselves. Moe never goes into any of the bogus junk science.

Why does this matter? Because Scott Moe, like Doug Ford in Ontario, Jason Kenney in Alberta, Blaine Higgs in New Brunswick, and Brian Pallister in Manitoba all claim to oppose the Carbon tax, but endorse the climate change scam itself.

Read through the filings throughout this article. These so-called “conservatives” thoroughly and completely endorse the UN IPCC warnings that catastrophe is imminent. They all agree that climate change will cause damage long term. They don’t (really) even oppose a Carbon tax. The issue is over who shall implement a “solution”, the Federal Government of the Provinces.

They cannot effectively oppose an agenda that they support in principle. All of these self-identified “conservative” Premiers are on board with the climate change scam.

4. Supreme Court Of Canada Filings

Let’s start with the pleadings filed by the Ontario Government, currently under the rule of Doug Ford. What does Ontario have to say about this?

The Ontario challenge previously, and this subsequent appeal, are limited to 2 very narrow and technical questions over taxation. There is nothing in either the ONCA challenge, nor this appeal, that suggest the Government takes any issue with the climate change agenda.

In fact, in the Court of Appeal challenge, the Ontario Government fully accepted the UNIPCC claims about climate change, and the need to act urgently on it. So, really, what is the point of doing these challenges in the first place?

Now let’s turn to Saskatchewan, which has joined as an intervenor in this case. Essentially, they are supporting Ontario’s challenge. What do they have to say about all of this.

Similar to Ontario, Saskatchewan does not challenge the climate change agenda in any way, shape or form. Instead, there are 2 extremely limited and technical questions put forward for the court to consider.

This is the state of opposition to Trudeau in Canada. Admit all of the major facts. Instead, argue over minor details, and insist this is a Provincial matter. Very petty.

(from the Ontario submissions)

1. This case is not about whether action needs to be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or the relative effectiveness of particular policy alternatives. It is about (1) whether the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (the “Act”) can be supported under the national concern branch of the POGG power; and (2) whether the “charges” imposed by the Act
are valid as regulatory charges or as taxes. The answer to both questions should be no.

(from the Saskatchewan submissions)

2. This appeal does not concern whether global climate change is real and concerning or if the provinces are taking sufficient action to reduce GHG emissions. All parties agree that global climate change is a significant societal problem and all provinces have and continue to take action to reduce GHG emissions. In the Courts below, many submissions, including those of the Attorney General of Canada, focused on the nature of climate change and the importance of carbon pricing as an effective method of reducing GHG emissions. However, the efficacy of carbon pricing is not relevant to the constitutionality of the GGPPA, which must be derived from whether it is within the legislative competence of the federal government.

This entire façade is limited to technical questions over taxation. Nothing about the fake science behind these dire predictions.

And no, this is not limited to the Supreme Court of Canada. These players pulled the exact same stunt in their respective Provincial challenges.

5. Ontario Court Of Appeal Ruling

At the ONCA, the Province lost in a split decision to the Federal Government. The arguments were very similar to what happened in the Saskatchewan case. So what went wrong? Well, admitting that climate change is a threat to the world might not have helped.

Yes, in their own court challenge, Ontario agreed that climate change is a serious problem, and that real action has to be taken to prevent it from getting worse. So from that perspective, the court essentially had a case where the facts were all agreed to.

Don’t worry. It’s about to get much worse. Ontario was joined by several “intervenors” who were essentially there to reinforce their case. And they did just that.

Ontario was joined by New Brunswick. Not only did they endorse Ontario’s view that climate change is real and a threat, they said that this court forum should not be used by anyone who would deny climate change. So much for allowing different perspectives.

British Columbia also joins as an intervenor in the case. BC reiterates that climate change is real, and greenhouse gases are to blame. But instead of rejecting a Carbon tax, it touts its own as a model to emulate.

However, it is not just other Provincial or local Governments that were allowed to enter submissions for this hearing. Other groups were as well. Let’s take a look at a few.

The United Conservative Association entered the case, claiming that they agreed with the Attorney General of Ontario’s submissions. Thing is, the AG submitted that climate change was a threat to everyone and that action had to be taken. In essence, all of the facts were admitted once again. The only opposition was to prevent backlash and a unity crisis over the taxation.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation also joined in the Ontario matter. They argued that given their agenda, not wasting the money of taxpayers was a real concern. While true, they never addressed the elephant in the room: namely that the whole Carbon tax was predicated on lies.

Now, with every one of these parties saying that climate change is real and that human are responsible (or at least ignoring the issue), it should be no surprise how the court ruled. The ONCA said that yes, the Federal Government had the right to levy this tax.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Climate Change
[6] Climate change was described in the Paris Agreement of 2015 as “an urgent and potentially irreversible threat to human societies and the planet”. It added that this “requires the widest possible cooperation by all countries, and their participation in an effective and appropriate international response”.

[7] There is no dispute that global climate change is taking place and that human activities are the primary cause. The combustion of fossil fuels, like coal, natural gas and oil and its derivatives, releases GHGs into the atmosphere. When incoming radiation from the Sun reaches Earth’s surface, it is absorbed and converted into heat. GHGs act like the glass roof of a greenhouse, trapping some of this heat as it radiates back into the atmosphere, causing surface temperatures to increase. Carbon dioxide (“CO2”) is the most prevalent GHG emitted by human activities. This is why pricing for GHG emissions is referred to as carbon pricing, and why GHG emissions are typically referred to on a CO2 equivalent basis. Other common GHGs include methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, sulfur hexafluoride, and nitrogen trifluoride.

[8] At appropriate levels, GHGs are beneficial. They surround the planet like a blanket, keeping temperatures within limits at which humans, animals, plants and marine life can live in balance. The level of GHGs in the atmosphere was relatively stable for several million years. However, since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 18th century, and more particularly since the 1950s, the level of GHGs in the atmosphere has been increasing at an alarming rate. Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are now more than 400 parts per million, a level not reached since the mid-Pliocene epoch, approximately 3-5 million years ago. Concentrations of other GHGs have also increased dramatically.

Quite predictably, Ontario lost their challenge at the Court of Appeals. Pretty hard to win when you admit all of the other side’s “facts” regardless of how absurd they are.

6. Saskatchewan Court Of Appeal

II. OVERVIEW
[4] The factual record presented to the Court confirms that climate change caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas [GHG] emissions is one of the great existential issues of our time. The pressing importance of limiting such emissions is accepted by all of the participants in these proceedings.

[5] The Act seeks to ensure there is a minimum national price on GHG emissions in order to encourage their mitigation. Part 1 of the Act imposes a charge on GHG-producing fuels and combustible waste. Part 2 puts in place an output-based performance system for large industrial facilities. Such facilities are obliged to pay compensation if their GHG emissions exceed applicable limits. Significantly, the Act operates as no more than a backstop. It applies only in those provinces or areas where the Governor in Council concludes GHG emissions are not priced at an appropriate level.

[6] The sole issue before the Court is whether Parliament has the constitutional authority to enact the Act. The issue is not whether GHG pricing should or should not be adopted or whether the Act is effective or fair. Those are questions to be answered by Parliament and by provincial legislatures, not by courts.

[7] The Constitution Act, 1867 distributes legislative authority between Parliament and the provincial legislatures. Broadly speaking, a statute is valid if its essential character falls within a subject matter allocated to the legislative body that put the statute in place. Neither level of government has exclusive authority over the environment. As a result, Parliament can legislate in relation to issues such as GHGs so long as it stays within the four corners of its prescribed subject matters and the provinces can do the same so long as they stay within their prescribed areas of authority.

Quite inexplicably, Saskatchewan admitted, that climate change was a serious problem, and that real action had to be taken. Basically, they admitted that all of the Federal Government’s claims were true. All that the SKCOA had to do was answer some technical questions about whether this taxation format was legal.

Like Doug Ford, Scott Moe sabotaged his Provincial Reference Question by ceding to the pseudo-science that the UNIPCC puts out. Had he challenged it, it is quite likely that the Carbon taxes would have been gone by now.

7. Capitulation By “The Resistance”

The industry tax is being set at a higher level per tonne than Mr. Kenney promised during the spring election, $30 instead of $20, in a move to ensure that the provincial government’s plan is in compliance with the federal climate law. Due to the size of Alberta’s industrial base, especially the province’s large oil and gas industry, the expected reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from the plan will contribute significantly to meeting national targets.

Speaking with reporters on Tuesday before he tabled the legislation, Environment Minister Jason Nixon said industries across Alberta were close to unanimous that they wanted the province to set the tax at a level where the federal government would not take over and regulate their emissions.

The minister added that he will consult on future increases to the provincial tax. The federal carbon price for industry is set to increase by $10 annually until it reaches $50-per-tonne in 2022. If Alberta’s tax were to fall below the federal threshold, Ottawa would likely impose a higher tax under a provision in the federal law known as the backstop.

This is a strange version of fighting for your constituents: surrender and gouge them yourselves, so that Ottawa won’t be the one doing the gouging.

8. Federal Conservatives Not Any Better


The CPC policy declaration, Article 28 does explicitly state no Carbon tax. That said, it tacitly endorses the climate change scam by suggesting that Provinces should develop their own plan. In other words, the CPC supports it, but would not impose this one specific measure.

9. Elephant In The Room: Junk Science

Carbon Dioxide, CO2, is touted as a “greenhouse gas” which contributes to all kinds of environmental disasters.

”Global warming” is a term not used as much anymore, since “climate change” is more vague, and can be more easily adapted.

However, carbon dioxide occurs naturally, just from breathing.

The human body converts carbohydrates, fatty acids, and proteins into smaller “waste products” such as water and carbon dioxide in order to extract energy from them.

Carbon dioxide is not a “waste product” to be eliminated. It is a necessary resource plants use for photosynthesis

6 CO2 (carbon dioxide) + 6 H20 (water) + sunlight ===> C6H1206 (sugar) + 6 02 (oxygen)

While only plants engage in photosynthesis, both plants and animals respire

C6H1206 (sugar) + 6 02 (oxygen) ===> 6 CO2 (carbon dioxide) + 6 H20 (water) + usable energy

The photosynthesis and respiration cycles are not some big mystery. They have been taught in grade schools for many years.

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CCS #8: Fraser Institute’s Joel Wood And The Carbon Tax “Options”

(For an audio of the talk)

(Also try this)

(Joel Wood is a member of the Koch funded Fraser Institute)

(He is also a professor at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC)

(At the library talk)

2. Debunking The Climate Change Scam

The entire climate change industry, (and yes, it is an industry) is a hoax perpetrated by the people in power, run by international bankers. Plenty has also been covered on the climate scam, the propaganda machine in action, and some of the court documents in Canada. Carbon taxes are just a small part of the picture, and conservatives are intentionally sabotaging their court cases.

2. Important Links

(1) https://www.kamloopscity.com/event-list/deans-lecture-series-the-pros-cons-of-carbon-taxes-and-cap-and-trade-systems-with-dr-joel-wood/
(2) https://www.fraserinstitute.org/profile/joel-wood
(3) http://kamino.tru.ca/experts/home/main/bio.html?id=jwood.
(4) http://www.joelwood.ca/home
(5) Paper Wood co-authored on co-fluctuation patterns.
(6) https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxqb2Vsd3dvb2R8Z3g6M2E3YWZmNmEwZGZjMmNmMw
(7) “https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxqb2Vsd3dvb2R8Z3g6MmExNWYwMDlmMTNiYjkwMA

3. Publications Listed On TRU Biography

McKitrick,R. & Wood, J. (in press). An examination of the relationship between air quality and income in Canada. Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics.

Tsigaris, P. & Wood, J. (2016). A Simple Climate-Solow Model for Introducing the Economics of Climate Change to Undergraduate Students. International Review of Economics Education, 23: 65-81.

Wood, J. (2015). Is it time to raise the gas tax? Optimal gasoline taxes for Ontario and Toronto. Canadian Public Policy, 43(3): 179-190.

Wood, J. (2015). When a ban is not a ban: The case of British Columbia’s log export restrictions. Economics Bulletin 35(2): 1071-1075.

Mckitrick, R.& Wood, J. (2013). Co-fluctuation patterns of per capita carbon dioxide emissions: The role of energy markets. Energy Economics, 39: 1-12.

Wood, J. (2013). The effects of bailouts and soft-budget constraints on the environment. Environmental & Resource Economics, 54(1): 127-137.

Recent Newspaper Commentaries:

Wood,J. (2016, Mar 2). Keep the carbon tax, but make sure it is revenue neutral. Vancouver Sun.

Wood,J. (2015, Sep 21). Raise the Gas Tax. National Post.

Wood,J. (2014, Jun 24). BC would gain from streamlined log export policies. Vancouver Sun.

4. Bogus “Science” At Core Of Scam

6CO2 + 6H2O + light ==> C6H12O6 + 6O2 (Photosynthesis)

C6H12O6 + 6O2 ==> 6CO2 + 6H2O + energy (Respiration)

Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is a necessary part in both photosynthesis and respiration. The idea that we must remove it from the atmosphere is moronic. Without an abundant supply of CO2, plants will die off.

Since “success” will mean the death of us all, it seems that “failure” will result in ever growing carbon taxes to combat this so-called existential threat to humanity.

Let’s take a look at some of the other publications that Joel Wood has released in recent years. What else has he been up to?

5. Paper On Co-Fluctuation Patterns On CO2

Our hypothesis is that energy prices transmit information across borders in such a way as to increase coordination of emission fluctuations. This is tested by examining the effect of energy prices on the index of homogeneity. We find evidence in support of the hypothesis; however, the pattern of emission fluctuations differs between developing and developed countries until the most recent time period (1984-2000). We then examine the effects of openness to trade and government intervention, and find that neither of these factors have an identifiable coordinating effect on emission fluctuations between countries. Overall the evidence suggests that emissions are strongly linked between countries, and we discuss what this may imply about future emission growth and global agreements to address climate change.

By finding out how pricing impacts energy usage, we will be able to manipulate and control behaviour to suit our agenda. After all, people can’t “pollute” if they can’t afford to do it. Never mind the bogus science behind all of this.

In the subsequent section we empirically investigate the co-fluctuation patterns of per capita CO2 emissions across countries, in particular looking at world energy prices as a coordinating mechanism for emission changes across countries. We then add in other indicators of openness to markets to examine the effect they play in coordinating emission variations.

When all of the wordiness is stripped down, it is one simple idea: manipulating energy prices in order to reduce “emissions” which means reduce usage of vehicles and equipment. In short, this is research into deliberately pricing machinery out of the reach of most people.

Source is here.

6. Paper On Raising Gas Taxes

This paper uses a representative agent model and Canadian data to calculate the
optimal gasoline taxes for Ontario and the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area (GTHA) in
a second-best setting with pre-existing distortionary income taxes. The results suggest
a second-best optimal gasoline tax of 40.57 cents per litre in 2006 Canadian dollars
for the GTHA that is much higher than the current tax rate of 24.7 cents per litre,
and also higher than recently proposed increases. The resulting value is insensitive to
whether the additional revenue is used to reduce taxes on income or to incrementally
fund increased public transit infrastructure (The Big Move plan). However, in the
absence of a regional tax, the second-best optimal gasoline tax for Ontario as a whole
of 28.51 cents per litre in 2006 Canadian dollars is slightly higher than the current tax
rate and in-line with proposed increases.

Gasoline taxes to be jacked up, and one option is to use to fund more public transit. In short, make driving more and more unaffordable, so you have no choice but to take transit. Source is here.

7. Paper On Brainwashing University Students

In this paper we develop the simplest integrated assessment model in order to illustrate to
undergraduate students the economic issues associated with climate change. The growth model
developed in this paper is an extension of the Solow model and includes a simple climate model.
Even though the model is very simple it is very powerful in its predictions. Students explore
various scenarios illustrating how economic activity today will inflict damages on future
generations. But students also observe that future generations will be richer than today’s
generation due to productivity growth and population stabilization. Hence, the richer future
generations will not be as rich as they would be without climate change. Since the cost of action
is absorbed by the current generation and the benefits of action accrue to future generations
students can conduct a cost-benefit analysis and explore the importance of the discount rate.

Due to the persistence of GHGs in the atmosphere, the climate change problem is
characterized by the issue of inter-generational equity: The current generation is imposing
external costs on future generations and would have to forego some economic growth to limit
those costs. But at the same time, it is also characterized by issues of intra-generational equity, for example, rich nations which are relatively GHG intensive are located in temperate climates
and have the funds and strong institutions to more easily adapt to climate change; whereas,
poorer nations, say in sub-Saharan Africa, are expected to be hit relatively harder by the negative
impacts of higher temperatures.

Source is here.

As was shown in the Paris Accord (read Article 9 in particular), this climate change scam is all about a massive wealth redistribution. It was little, if anything to do with protecting the environment, and is just a way to levy global taxes.

8. Thoughts On The Kamloops Presentation

While a number of different “solutions” were proposed, they all came down to the same thing: paying huge sums of money to the government (and by extension the U.N.) for something that won’t make air quality better.

Interesting, Joel never once discussed the science behind the climate change agenda, only different patterns to implement tariffs and taxes. But then, that’s what it was always about.

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Max Boykoff’s Revenge On Science: Creative Climate Communications, Part I

1. Important Links

CLICK HERE, for the Climate Change Scam Part I.
CLICK HERE, for Part II, the Paris Accord.
CLICK HERE, for Part III, Saskatchewan Appeals Court Reference.
CLICK HERE, for Part IV, Controlled Opposition to Carbon Tax.
CLICK HERE, for Part V, UN New Development Funding.
CLICK HERE, for Part VI, Disruptive Innovation Framework.
CLICK HERE, for Part VII, Blaming Arson On Climate Change.
CLICK HERE, for Part VIII, Review Of Green New Deal.
CLICK HERE, for Part VIII(II), Sunrise Movement & Green New Deal.
CLICK HERE, for Part IX, Propaganda Techniques, Max Boykoff.
CLICK HERE, for Part X, GG Pollution Pricing Act & Bill C-97.
CLICK HERE, for part XI, Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai Explains Paris Accord

2. US & Canadian Copyright Laws

Disclaimer #1: The Canadian Copyright Act has a “fair dealing” provision, which allows for copyrighted material to at times be used for specific purposes: research, private study, education, parody, satire, criticism, review and news reporting. Click Here and also Click Here for more information.

Disclaimer #2: The U.S. Copyright Act has a “fair use” provision, which states that the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. Click Here to read the text.

This should be obvious, but just to clarify, this article is about criticizing, commenting on, teaching and researching purposes.

3. About The Author, Maxwell Boykoff

His professional biography is available here.

Max’s research and creative work has developed primarily in two arenas:
(1) cultural politics of science, climate change and environmental issues = this refers to ways that attitudes, intentions, beliefs and behaviors of individuals and groups shape (and are shaped by) the perceived spectrum of possible action in the context of science-policy, climate change and environmental issues.
.
(2) transformations of carbon-based economies and societies (with emphasis on the interface of science and practical action) = this refers to decarbonization politics, policies and decision-making, with particular interest in how these activities find meaning in people’s everyday lives, as well as how they, in turn, feed back into science-policy decision-making.

Feel free to check into his other works.
Now for the book itself.

4. Table Of Contents

(1) Here And Now
(2) How We Know What We Know
(3) Do The Right Thing
(4) Ways Of Learning, Ways Of Knowing
(5) It’s Not You, It’s Me…. Actually It’s Us
(6) Academic Climate Advocacy & Activism
(7) Silver Buckshot
(8) Search For Meaning

5. Quoting Creative Climate Communications

(From back cover) Conversations about climate change at the science-policy interface and in our lives have been stuck for some time. This handbook integrates lessons from the social sciences and humanities to more effectively make connections through issues, people and things that everyday citizens care about. Readers will come away with an enhanced understanding that there is no “silver bullet” to communications about climate change; instead a “silver buckshot” approach is needed where strategies effectively reach different audiences in different contexts.

One thing that will be clear right away: this is not about using scientific methods to PROVE that climate change is a serious threat. Rather, it is about using scientific methods to CONVINCE people that climate change is a serious threat. Very different things.

We live in remarkable times. Amidst high-quality and well-funded research into the causes and consequences of climate change, conversations in our lives — and climate communications — are stuck. Consciously or unconsciously, a feeling of complacency has often weighed on our collective and our individual selves.

Another point made early on, Boykoff expresses no doubt whatsoever in the “scientific findings” of the climate change movement. The entire focus of the book is about using social science and humanities research to persuade people this is a problem.

(Page 2) Responding to these emergent needs, in recent years has been a blossoming of valuable research in the peer-review literature addressing various elements of this larger challenge. More research groups, organizations, institutions and practitioners around the world have increasingly explored creative spaces of climate communication to better understand what works where, with whom (what audiences), when and why.

Boykoff makes an important note here. He is not by any means a revolutionary here. “Climate communications” is a growing field, with people all over the world trying to determine better methods for “selling” the climate change claims. In short, this is research about marketing. Not science.

(Page 2) Creative approaches involve the deployment of multimodal communications. A mode is a system of choices used to communicate meaning. What might count as a mode is an open-ended set, ranging cross a number of systems, including but not limited to language, image, color, typography, music, voice, quality, dress, posture, gestures, special resources, perfume and cuisine.

What superficial points are listed?

  • language
  • image
  • colour
  • typography
  • music
  • voice
  • quality
  • dress
  • posture
  • gestures
  • special resources
  • perfume
  • cuisine

We are still just on the second page, and already getting an introduction into the very superficial traits which can subtly be used to convince people of our arguments.

Forget facts, research, data, and logic. This is all about presenting a good sales pitch.

(Page 3) Among many elements seeping into the environments, I consider the dynamics that shape creative and potentially effective messages as well as messengers of those climate change communications. Over time, broad references to communications through media platforms have generally pointed to television, films, books, fliers, magazines, radio and internet for pathways for largescale communications.

Additional modes and manifestations of communications also include (analyses of) documentary films about dystopian futures, stand-up comedy about climate and cultures, podcasts about climate science and policy interactions.

Boykoff notes the traditional forms of media, but laments that they are not enough by themselves to do the job. The job of course, is “pitching” the climate change agenda.

(Page 4) Meeting people where they are takes carefully planned and methodical work. It does not mean “dumbing things down” for different audiences. Through this process of assessment of research and practice in these areas, conversations can more capably seek answers to a provocative question Mike Hulme posted in 2009, “How does the idea of climate change the way we arrive at and achieve our personal aspirations and our collective social goals?”

(Page 5) KNOW THY AUDIENCE
These creative (climate) communication endeavors must start with consideration of the audience. These may be imagined, (un)intended or actual audiences. Researchers and practitioners have increasingly paid attention to differentiated audiences as key components to deliberate development of effective communication.

Knowing who your audience is actually a useful piece of advice, regardless of circumstances. However, in context of this book, it comes across as manipulation.

(Page 6) Audience segmentation and consequent message alteration has been a part of marketing and associated communications strategies since the 1950s (Smith 1956, Slater 1996). Audience segmentation endeavours as they relate to climate change communications, have proliferated over the last decade (Leal Finho 2019).

This book is about marketing strategies of climate change “communications”. Nothing more. It is about manipulative techniques designed to persuade by non-factual means.

6. Where Things Go From Here

The book is 300 pages, the last 60 of which are references. No doubt that an awful lot of work has gone into this. Yes, the intro article is relatively short, but it is setting the stage for later. Sequels will be longer and quote much more.

As alluded to earlier, this is really a book about marketing. It’s not about research done to prove that humans are causing climate change, but rather research to CONVINCE people that they are.

Rather than going into environmental research, the book delves in sociological and social psychological research methods. It looks at work previously done in the fields of persuasion, and applies those principles to “climate communications”.

Boykoff appears to have no doubts about humans causing climate change. Nor does he seem to have any reservations about using these social studies techniques to pursue what is essentially a political goal. He straightforwardly admits that it’s a growing field, and many have contributed to this area of research.

Boykoff admits that this area is “selling” or “pitching” the climate change narrative. While acknowledging it is a start, he has no problems with it. Seems the scientists have given up on the research area of climate science, and are throwing their resources into the marketing aspect.

It’s both nefarious and creepy.

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CCS #16: Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai On How The Carbon Tax Works

(Shiva Ayyadurai, Republican and former Senate Candidate explains how the Carbon tax work.)

(Alternative explanation: Cosmic rays and the sun contribute far greater to climate change than does Carbon Dioxide)

(“Conservative” Garnett Genuis defends Paris Accord)

(UN Green Climate Fund)

(Getting rich off Carbon credits)

The first video explains plainly in the first video how the UN IPCC system works. It is all about generating revenue in order to use in creating climate bonds. The money is acquired through underhanded and deceptive means.

The second video offers a much more plausible explanation for variations in temperature: Cosmic rays and the sun. This half hour video gets into it.

Although Dr. Ayyadurai explains this from an American perspective, the issues are much the same in Canada. As such, it is very related to our situation.

It’s a shame that he ended up losing to Elizabeth Warren in the Senate race. Dr. Ayyadurai would have made a fine Senator. But Pocahontis (or Faux-cahontis) has name recognition and is able to run on that alone.

1. Debunking The Climate Change Scam

CLICK HERE, for #1: major lies that the climate frauds tell.
CLICK HERE, for #2: review of the Paris Accord.
CLICK HERE, for #3: Bill C-97, the GHG Pollution Pricing Act.
CLICK HERE, for #4: in 3-2 decision, Sask. COA allows carbon tax.
CLICK HERE, for #5: controlled opposition to carbon tax.
CLICK HERE, for #6: controlled opposition Cons ==> Supreme Court.
CLICK HERE, for #7: climate bonds pitched as $100T industry.
CLICK HERE, for #8: Joel Wood pitching various pricing options.
CLICK HERE, for #9: Mark Carney and UN climate finance.
CLICK HERE, for #10: Goldman Sachs, Obama, Clinton, Chicago CX.
CLICK HERE, for #11: Coronavirus, Pirbright Inst, Gates, Depopulation.
CLICK HERE, for #12: AOC and the “Green New Deal”.
CLICK HERE, for #13: UN seeks new development financing.
CLICK HERE, for #14: New Development Fund, bait-and-switch.
CLICK HERE, for #15: UN exploring global taxation ideas.

CLICK HERE, for BOLD Like A Leopard Guest Posting.

2. Important Links

CLICK HERE, for the Paris Accord, full text.
CLICK HERE, for the UN Green Climate Fund.
CLICK HERE, for WEF explaining carbon credits and trading.
CLICK HERE, for a Forbes article explaining the carbon credit scheme..

3. Dr. Ayyadurai Video In Point Form

 

  1. (Pre-Carbon tax) Products are made
  2. (Post-Carbon tax) Products are still made. Now taxes charged.
  3. Carbon taxes are paid to UN IPCC, others
  4. UN IPCC issues “Carbon credits”. In essence, this is permission to “pollute”. Never mind that Carbon Dioxide isn’t pollution, but a natural byproduct of combustion, or even breathing. But anyway….
  5. So called “Carbon credits” actually go into the bond market, and allow the UN (and approved others) to use it as an investment vehicle. This is a trillion dollar industry.
  6. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore once monopolized the market.
  7. UN IPCC used their PR branch (or propaganda arm) to pressure the US into playing ball with the Paris Accord, despite the obvious fraud.
  8. US pressured to create $100B “Green Fund”
  9. “Green Fund” used to bribe 190 other nations into joining Paris Accord, and thus legitimizing the UN scam. Odd wording here
  10. Advisors and NGOs who used US Green Fund money to influence joining of Paris Accord ended up enriching themselves in the process
  11. Scientists “alter” findings to make situation seem worse.
  12. Developing countries allowed to make situation worse. As an example, China puts out 11B tons/year now, and will be able to emit 22B tons in 2030.
  13. After 2030, China will be able to buy “Carbon credits”.
  14. UN paid “influencers” convince their nations to join Paris Accord
  15. Paying $100B to the influencers is pocket change, as the Carbon credit commodities market will generate trillions in the end. A great investment.
  16. This is really about virtue signalling.
  17. Environmental data manipulated to generate support.
  18. No conclusive evidence of temperature rise.
  19. 1st world nations will pay more for everything.
  20. 3rd world will (for years) be exempt.
  21. UN IPCC and allies are only ones who will benefit.
  22. Trump made right decision to pull out of Paris Accord.

Just 12 minutes in this video and Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai completely and thoroughly explained it. These Carbon taxes would end up in the UN, and go into the commodities market, generating trillions of dollars in revenue. The “Green Fund” is just a fund to bribe corrupt officials into playing along. And none of this would do anything to cut pollution.

One small criticism: it would have been nice to point out that Carbon Dioxide is not pollution. It is a naturally occurring compound. If it was reduced to zero, life would stop altogether.

However, in the other video provided, a sound and plausible explanation is offered. It is cosmic rays and solar activity that leads to significant variations in temperatures.

4. The Paris Accord: Articles 2, 4, 9

(Article 2)

1. This Agreement, in enhancing the implementation of the Convention, including its objective, aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty, including by:

(c) Making finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate-resilient development.

(Article 4)

3. Each Party’s successive nationally determined contribution will represent a progression beyond the Party’s then current nationally determined contribution and reflect its highest possible ambition, reflecting its common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances.

4. Developed country Parties should continue taking the lead by undertaking economy-wide absolute emission reduction targets. Developing country Parties should continue enhancing their mitigation efforts, and are encouraged to move over time towards economy-wide emission reduction or limitation targets in the light of different national circumstances.

5. Support shall be provided to developing country Parties for the implementation of this Article, in accordance with Articles 9, 10 and 11, recognizing that enhanced support for developing country Parties will allow for higher ambition in their actions.

6. The least developed countries and small island developing States may prepare and communicate strategies, plans and actions for low greenhouse gas emissions development reflecting their special circumstances.

(Article 9)

1. Developed country Parties shall provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention.

2. Other Parties are encouraged to provide or continue to provide such support voluntarily.

3. As part of a global effort, developed country Parties should continue to take the lead in mobilizing climate finance from a wide variety of sources, instruments and channels, noting the significant role of public funds, through a variety of actions, including supporting country-driven strategies, and taking into account the needs and priorities of developing country Parties. Such mobilization of climate finance should represent a progression beyond previous efforts.

4. The provision of scaled-up financial resources should aim to achieve a balance between adaptation and mitigation, taking into account country-driven strategies, and the priorities and needs of developing country Parties, especially those that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change and have significant capacity constraints, such as the least developed countries and small island developing States, considering the need for public and grant-based resources for adaptation.

5. Developed country Parties shall biennially communicate indicative quantitative and qualitative information related to paragraphs 1 and 3 of this Article, as applicable, including, as available, projected levels of public financial resources to be provided to developing country Parties. Other Parties providing resources are encouraged to communicate biennially such information on a voluntary basis.

6. The global stock take referred to in Article 14 shall take into account the relevant information provided by developed country Parties and/or Agreement bodies on efforts related to climate finance.

7. Developed country Parties shall provide transparent and consistent information on support for developing country Parties provided and mobilized through public interventions biennially in accordance with the modalities, procedures and guidelines to be adopted by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to this Agreement, at its first session, as stipulated in Article 13, paragraph 13. Other Parties are encouraged to do so.

8. The Financial Mechanism of the Convention, including its operating entities, shall serve as the financial mechanism of this Agreement.

9. The institutions serving this Agreement, including the operating entities of the Financial Mechanism of the Convention, shall aim to ensure efficient access to financial resources through simplified approval procedures and enhanced readiness support for developing country Parties, in particular for the least developed countries and small island developing States, in the context of their national climate strategies and plans.

These are quotes directly from the Paris Accord. In particular, Article 9 makes it abundantly clear that this is all about “financial flow” and a transfer of wealth from the developed world to the developing world.

Actual environmental changes seem almost to be an afterthought. This is a giant wealth transfer scheme.

5. The Green Climate Fund

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is a new global fund created to support the efforts of developing countries to respond to the challenge of climate change. GCF helps developing countries limit or reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to climate change. It seeks to promote a paradigm shift to low-emission and climate-resilient development, taking into account the needs of nations that are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts.

It was set up by the 194 countries who are parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2010, as part of the Convention’s financial mechanism. It aims to deliver equal amounts of funding to mitigation and adaptation, while being guided by the Convention’s principles and provisions.

When the Paris Agreement was reached in 2015, the Green Climate Fund was given an important role in serving the agreement and supporting the goal of keeping climate change well below 2 degrees Celsius.

Responding to the climate challenge requires collective action from all countries, including by both public and private sectors. Among these concerted efforts, advanced economies have agreed to jointly mobilize significant financial resources. Coming from a variety of sources, these resources address the pressing mitigation and adaptation needs of developing countries.

GCF launched its initial resource mobilization in 2014, and rapidly gathered pledges worth USD 10.3 billion. These funds come mainly from developed countries, but also from some developing countries, regions, and one city (Paris).

GCF’s activities are aligned with the priorities of developing countries through the principle of country ownership, and the Fund has established a direct access modality so that national and sub-national organisations can receive funding directly, rather than only via international intermediaries.

Source is right here.

To reiterate from before: the Paris Agreement isn’t really about reducing greenhouse gases. It is a way of extracting large sums of money from “polluters” in order to finance the UN’s various agendas.

While the website sounds well meaning enough, an important detail is left out: namely the huge profit that will be derived from using these funds. As such, the conflict of interest isn’t being disclosed.

6. A $100 Trillion Industry

This was addressed in a previous article. While the public is roped into supporting the agenda on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, the truth is quite different.

Climate bonds is an industry. It’s an industry that has potential for explosive growth, as long as governments keep pouring money into it.

The climate change agenda has nothing to do with protecting the environment. It is all about the “illusion” of protecting the environment. And money.

7. Carbon Credit Profiteering

Gore and Blood, the former chief of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM), co-founded London-based GIM in 2004. Between 2008 and 2011 the company had raised profits of nearly $218 million from institutions and wealthy investors. By 2008 Gore was able to put $35 million into hedge funds and private partnerships through the Capricorn Investment Group, a Palo Alto company founded by his Canadian billionaire buddy Jeffrey Skoll, the first president of EBay Inc. It was Skoll’s Participant Media that produced Gore’s feverishly frightening 2006 horror film, “An Inconvenient Truth”.

Still, the U.S. Government Accounting Office can’t figure out what benefits taxpayers are getting from those many billions of dollars spent each year on policies that are purportedly aimed at addressing climate change. A May 2011 GAO report noted that while annual federal funding for such activities has been increasing substantially, there is a lack of shared understanding of strategic priorities among the various responsible agency officials. This assessment agrees with the conclusions of a 2008 Congressional Research Service analysis which found no “overarching policy goal for climate change that guides the programs funded or the priorities among programs.“

As noted in the Forbes article, Al Gore has been able to become extremely wealthy with this scheme. Huge sums of money are taken as “Carbon taxes” and then plowed into the climate bonds industry.

While this hunger for Carbon taxes is spun as necessary for the planet, too little attention is paid to the profiteering that goes on behind it. It is difficult to take these pleas seriously when there is such a compelling profit motive.

And as the Government has noted, it’s very unclear what — if anything — taxpayers are actually getting in return for their money. It also isn’t obvious what goals or direction these programs are actually working towards.

The answer is very simple: the people running the scam want it to stay operational as long as possible. The goal is money, not ideology.

This is just one article. A quick internet search will reveal more details and examples of cashing in on this “environmental” agenda.

Either we tax countries for continuing to “pollute”, or we force them to shut down significant parts of their economy. Since the latter can’t happen without dropping the standard of living, it becomes necessary to pay up.

It’s like the mafia, except disguised as environmentalism.

8. Various UN Taxation Schemes

(A) New Development Financing: Carbon Tax Alone Could Generate $250/year, 2012
(B) UN: “Int’l Tax” To Raise $400B, 2012
(C) Paris Accord “Financial Flows”, 2015
(D) Addis Ababa, Financing Devel’t, 2015
(E) Green Financing, Sust Develop, 2016
(F) Leverage African Pension Plans, 2017
(G) Finance 2030 SDG, $5-7T Needed, 2018
(H) From Billions To Trillions, 2018
(I) Sustainable Financing Report, 2019
(J) UN Enviro Program, Finance Initiative
(K) Capital Development Finance

A few of these have been addressed in other articles. Please visit the “Climate Change Scam” section on the righthand toolbar.

This should alarm people. The UN is regularly coming up with new and innovative taxation methods. This is only a handful of them.

The Paris Accord is hardly an isolated cause.

9. Closing Thoughts On Subject

Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai is right regarding his explanation of the Paris Accord. It is an elaborate scam. While billions are pumped into climate funds, that is not the whole story. Those billions are then used to entice other nations to join the Paris Accord, thus giving it more legitimacy. The final goal is the trillions that can be gained later.

Furthermore, his explanation that cosmic radiation and solar activity play a greater role in fluctuating temperatures seems to make sense.

The Paris Accord has nothing to do with improving the environment either. All of its “mitigation” strategies are just talk. The Agreement is about generating large transfers of wealth on a continuous basis. Read the Agreement, in particular Article #9. The text leaves no doubt that money is the driving force behind it.

Climate bonds, and related “investments” are a huge industry, worth perhaps $100 trillion. This is the reason behind it all. So much opportunity. But the Carbon taxes (and other related fees), are entirely based on false pretenses.

The real losers are consumers and taxpayers, particularly from the developed world. These Carbon taxes (or “price on pollution” as claimed in Canada) will be used to funding for the UN IPCC and select allies to enrich themselves.

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Creative (Climate) Communications — Effectively Marketing Psuedo-Science

No joke. There actually is a book out on how to “effectively communicate” on climate change. Loads of logical fallacies and emotional manipulation.

1. Important Links


(Other articles on climate change scam)
https://canucklaw.ca/the-climate-change-scam-part-1/

CLICK HERE, for the article in the ironically named “Scientific American” journal, authored by Max Boykoff, to promote his book.

CLICK HERE, for link to book sale.

2. Site Promoting Book

Conversations about climate change at the science-policy interface and in our lives have been stuck for some time. This handbook integrates lessons from the social sciences and humanities to more effectively make connections through issues, people, and things that everyday citizens care about. Readers will come away with an enhanced understanding that there is no ‘silver bullet’ to communications about climate change; instead, a ‘silver buckshot’ approach is needed, where strategies effectively reach different audiences in different contexts. This tactic can then significantly improve efforts that seek meaningful, substantive, and sustained responses to contemporary climate challenges. It can also help to effectively recapture a common or middle ground on climate change in the public arena. Readers will come away with ideas on how to harness creativity to better understand what kinds of communications work where, when, why, and under what conditions in the twenty-first century.

Includes strategies that help people have productive conversations about climate change that involve listening and adapting rather than just trying to win an argument
-Bridges sectors and audiences, bringing together important material for undergraduate and graduate courses
-Shows the importance of being creative in communications about climate change in the twenty-first century – many businesses, institutions, and collectives can benefit from this, not just students and academics

Reading through this, you will notice that the topic of additional reading and research never comes up. There is no push to understand other perspectives or review scientific findings.

Instead, the focus is on using sociological and psychological techniques to convert normies to your position, without actually providing evidence. This is all about language and emotional manipulation.

Ironically, there is science involved here. But instead of science relating to researching “climate change”, the research focuses on how to change people’s minds. Seems that the priorities are all backwards.

Item #1: Strategies that help people have productive conversations. Presumably this is ways to insert climate change topics into otherwise normal talks.

Item #2: Cram more of the propaganda into university classes.

Item #3: Be innovative about #1 and #2.

3. The Scientific American Article

From synthesizing this work, I distill these lessons into some important “rules of the road.”
-Be authentic.
-Be aware.
-Be accurate.
-Be imaginative.
-Be bold.
From there, additional features on the road map help to navigate toward resonant and effective communications.
-Find common ground on climate change.
–Emphasize how climate change affects us here and now, in our everyday lives.
-strong>Focus on benefits of climate change engagement.
–Creatively empower people to take meaningful and purposeful action.
–“Smarten up” communications about climate change to match the demands of a 21st-century communications environment.

The first items on this list would only make sense if truth was actually a goal. Be aware and be accurate are good principles.

However, climate change advocates tend to be extremely dismissive of different ideas, opinions, facts and research. A commitment to being accurate would undermine the sense of superiority that many possess.

Find common ground and emphasizing the effects are attempts to emotionally manipulate people by inserting the topic in places where it really doesn’t belong. Indeed, the goal seems to be to make “everything” about climate change. Make it an omnipresent issue.

Lately, climate change has imposed itself on the public sphere. Through extreme events linked to changes in the climate, new scientific reports and studies, and rejuvenated youth movements (along with many other political, economic, scientific, ecological, meteorological and cultural events and issues) climate change has been increasingly difficult to ignore.
.
But you wouldn’t really have picked up on that in the first round of the U.S. Democratic party primary debates that took place in Miami, Florida. As 20 candidates made their case to the American people, it was striking how minimally and shallowly they discussed climate change.

To be fair, in a debate (10 people each over 2 days), there isn’t much chance to give long answers.

However, the author, Max Boykoff, makes the point — and will repeatedly make this point — that everything is connected to climate change. He takes the Anita Sarkessian approach, though not with gender.

Sadly, this illustrates a contradiction we have been living with for some time. That is this: amid extensive research into the causes and consequences of climate change, climate communications—and thus, conversations about climate change in our lives—have remained stuck.

There are many reasons. Among them:
-Climate change is still regularly treated as a single issue. This was clearly on display in the debates, and even during the paltry time devoted to surface-level discussions of climate change.
-There has continued to be inadequate funding provided to support sustained and coordinated social science and humanities research into what constitutes more effective climate communications.
-We have all been short on creativity, and we generally have stuck to ineffective climate communications approaches (e.g. merely scientific ways of knowing) as we muddle along.

Interesting take on the problem. Max Boykoff goes on about how the science is sound, but that we just aren’t making any headway in communicating the solutions.

Yes, climate change is still treated as a single issue (that part is true). The author’s goal is to make it an issue of everything. Again, the Anita Sarkeesian technique.

All the money that we pay in various carbon tax schemes apparently aren’t needed for climate change research. Rather, they are needed to SHARE THE RESULTS of the climate change research.

Boykoff seems to believe that it is the “strictly scientific” approach to sharing research that keeps people from seeing what is before their eyes. Seems condescending.

<

p style=”padding:2px 6px 4px 6px; color: #555555; background-color: #eeeeee; border: #dddddd 2px solid”>Yet climate change is a collective action problem that intersects with just about every other area of life. It traverses critical issues such as public health, jobs, education, inequality, poverty, violence, trade, infrastructure, energy, foreign policy and geopolitics. While everyday people clearly have the capacity to care, they reasonably often focus on immediate concerns, such as issues of job security, local school quality, crime and the economy. In recent years, however, it has become more and more clear that these issues are interlinked with climate change.

So, in making these connections, we can more effectively get to the heart of how we live, work, play, find happiness and relax in modern life, shaping our everyday lives, lifestyles, relationships and livelihoods.

Apparently we are too naïve to see the forest for the trees. Ordinary people have lives to live. We don’t spend every waking moment trying to connect aspects of our lives with climate change.

Again the author assumes, with no evidence, that every major aspect of your life is connected to climate change. It must all be pointed out.

Of course, Boykoff will never get into the conflict-if-interest that plagues climate change research. Most of it is funded with a certain outcome expected. Remember, if you aren’t concluding that climate change is a threat to humanity, then you likely won’t be funded anymore. Why keep financing climate research if it isn’t an emergency?

There has been an urgent need to improve communications about climate change at the intersections of science, policy and society. With that in mind, I wrote Creative (Climate) Communications. It is essentially a handbook that bridges sectors and audiences to meet people where they are on this critical 21st-century challenge. In the book I integrate research from the social sciences and humanities that has provided insights into better understanding what communications work, where, when, why and under what conditions.

I also examine how to harness creativity for more effective engagement. I integrate these lessons by assembling what I call features on a “road map” along with “rules of the road.” The guide is then meant to help as researchers and practitioners proceed with both ambition and caution into struggles to effectively address the many issues associated with climate change.

Although Boykoff doesn’t come right out an say it, book is about marketing techniques. What tactics are most persuasive and under what circumstances? People can’t straight up accept “facts and truth”, it needs to be pointed out again and again.

In short, most people are too stupid to see the big picture. Boykoff implies it, but doesn’t not actually state it.

Through this guidance, I seek to help maximize effectiveness and opportunities and minimize mistakes and dead ends in a resource-, energy- and time-constrained environment. In putting this together, I also emphasize that successful and creative climate communications strategies must be tailored to perceived and intended audiences and can be most effective when pursued through relations of trust. And I underscore that context is critical; cultural, political, social, environmental, economic, ideological and psychological conditions matter.

Move away from hard data and facts. Use “soft techniques” to sell it. To once more point out the obvious, everything is connected to climate change.

I also argue that an expanded approach involves processes of listening and adapting rather than winning and argument or talking people into something. Authentically considering other points of view fosters meaningful exchanges and enhances possibilities for finding common ground. Facts established through scientific ways of knowing about climate change are important, but they are not enough. We therefore need to enlarge considerations of how knowledge influences actions, through experiential, emotional, visceral, tactile, tangible, affective and aesthetic ways of learning and knowing about climate change.

Facts aren’t enough. Tell people again and again, that climate change impacts everything. Look for more subtle ways to get your message across.

4. Reflection On This Article


To address the elephant in the room: it is darkly amusing to post in “Scientific American” about scientific methods to convince people to accept pseudo-science about climate change.

Boykoff mentions several times about considering other peoples’ perspectives. But this is hypocritical considering the amount of times “skeptics” or “deniers” are ridiculed or scorned for trying to find out the truth.

Boykoff also neglects any mention or idea that any of the “climate change” findings might be exaggerated or flat out wrong.

It seems the climate-change industry has given up on science, and instead focuses its efforts on trying to market their agenda.

Might be worth buying the book just to do a thorough debunking of it. Understand your enemy after all.

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Guest Post: Sunrise Movement and the Green New Deal

1. Guest Posting Here

This article is not mine, but the creation of a YouTuber and writer who goes by the handle “BOLD Like a Leopard”. Feel free to check out the channel, there is some interesting content on it.

2. Important Links

CLICK HERE, for message from Mark Ruffalo and Bill McKibbons.
CLICK HERE, for Bill Nye suggests jailing climate deniers.
CLICK HERE, for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders wanting to declare “climate emergency”.
CLICK HERE, for the climate emergency declaration.
CLICK HERE, for manifesto “Lead Public Into Emergency Mode”.

CLICK HERE, for AOC’s June 2018 primary.
CLICK HERE, for tweet claiming we can’t afford an economy that is based on use of fossil fuels.
CLICK HERE, for Sunrise Philadelphia calling for a demonstration.
CLICK HERE, for a live tweet.
CLICK HERE, for Malcolm Nance.
CLICK HERE, for Louise Mensch.
CLICK HERE, for Momentum Core Team.
CLICK HERE, for the Momentum trainers.
CLICK HERE, for efforts to establish a “climate debate”.
CLICK HERE, for Saikar Chakrabarti admitting the Green New Deal was about changing the economy, and the environment was just a pretext.

3. Sunrise Movement & Green New Deal

Once the domain of scientific debates and science fiction disaster movies, the subject of climate change and its influence on natural disasters has now become a major topic of contention among the Hollywood jet set, children’s cartoons, and naturally as a result public officials and policy makers. Much of the discussion over climate change has been shrouded in controversy largely due to acrimonious debate over who has the proper professional standing on how severe the crisis is, whether human activity is the main catalyst of current trends, and if or how government policy must be applied to address it. However, the organizing tactics, funding, and structure of the organizations pushing climate change legislation like the Paris Climate Accord and the Green New Deal suggests a larger goal in mind, one that involves a power grab far beyond environmental and industrial emissions policy. The Sunrise Movement is being cited as a fresh youth-infused answer to the fossil fuels industries, and it is being touted by climate change activism patriarch William McKibben as having “cracked the code of the American political system”. This statement is correct, and Sunrise is hacking into the mainframe of American politics, but if McKibben were truthful he would not be omitting his own role in their germination, as well as the intersection of the group with the Boston-based Ayni Institute and its Momentum Community program. The growing stake that these groups have in the political landscape are not a natural outgrowth of a changing public consciousness, but rather one more chess piece in a grand power grab.

We’ll see what happens. . .

In 2016 TV entertainer Bill Nye, host of the children’s show “Bill Nye the Science Guy” speculated that jailing “climate deniers” may be appropriate. “We’ll see what happens. Was it appropriate to jail people from the cigarette industry who insisted that this addictive product was not addictive, and so on?” Nye responded when asked.

Unfortunately, this high handed attitude toward the discussion shows that much of the climate change action side of the argument has despaired of properly making their case against their opponents, the “climate skeptics”. The activists scoff at accusations that they are “alarmists”, but their public statements show that they are ratcheting up statements consistently in order to create a sense of panic that climate trends are sloping toward an apocalyptic event:

  • On July 9 Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced a joint resolution that they wanted Congress to declare a national emergency over climate change.
  • As documented by the Climate Emergency Declaration, there are 740 jurisdictions that have declared a climate emergency including Scotland, Wales, the Republic of Ireland, as well as London and the Australian cities of Sydney and the Australian Capital Territory among others.
  • There is now a group across Europe dedicated to whipping up the public into a climate emergency frenzy known as “Extinction Rebellion”. The movement is led by clinical psychologist Dr. Margaret Klein Salamon (the “Climate Psychologist”) and she published a manifesto called Leading The Public Into Emergency Mode originally in 2016.

Salamon’s manifesto was endorsed by Bill McKibben on the Climate Mobilization website where he is described as the “Movement Leader”.

According to one of its grant donors, the Guerilla Foundation, Extinction Rebellion (XR) was given between $20 and $40 thousand in order to promote “a fundamental change of the UK’s political and economic system to one which maximises well-being and minimises harm”. In the grant description point number 9 figures prominently in their Theory of Change: “Create a distributed organising model based in ‘momentum’ organising and holocracy (training from the Ayni institute / Carlos Saavedra). This is basically a hybrid of mass protest and structure based organising. Much of this is explained in the book This is an Uprising”. The book in question was written by the brothers Mark and Paul Engler, both of them former Occupy Wall Street activists themselves deeply affiliated with the Ayni Institute.

The Shame Game

While at times climate activists engage in rhetorical threats like Nye or grandstanding like Sanders and the other emergency sponsors, the value that they appeal the most to is shame. This is why the United Nations, European Parliament, Swedish Parliament and numerous other bodies have hosted the 16 year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg to speak about climate justice. Speaking about when she will be 75 years old, she asked whether her children would “ask why you didn’t do anything while there was time to act. You say you love your children above all else, and yet you’re stealing their future in front of their very eyes.” Thunberg went on to tearfully decry the 6th mass extinction of species and the acidification of the oceans.

Another statement that Thunberg makes echoes Salamon verbatim:
“Imagine there is a fire in
your house.
What do you do?
What do you think about?”

The idea of using children to shame adults for their poor policy is an understandably ingenious strategy, but it typically yields nothing in terms of policy. In 1982 a ten year old named Samantha Smith wrote to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov to ask him if he was going to vote for a war. Smith’s letter was personally answered by Andropov, and compared her to Tom Sawyer’s friend Becky and invited her to the USSR, where she spent two months as Andropov’s guest on a tour, and she was a “goodwill ambassador” for peace before dying in a plane crash at age 13 in 1985. By then both Andropov and his successor Konstantin Chernenko had both died of old age. Tragic as her story was, Samantha Smith’s story is a footnote in history as there was no major movement behind her personal initiative.

The shame tactic has been mass-produced by the Sunrise Movement in its push to promote the issue of climate change as being an issue of primary concern in the minds of the next generation of youth voters. Sunrise was formed ostensibly by two activists, Varshini Prakash and Sara Blazevic. Both of them are former activists of the Fossil Fuel Student Divestment Network, a campaign by college students to get their colleges to withdraw investments in energy companies. Both of them were involved in student sit-ins at their colleges, Blazevic at Swarthmore in 2015, and Prakash at UMass-Amherst in 2016 where activists were arrested for civil disobedience.

Now they are trying to take the climate change movement to a broader, and younger, forum. But in comments to Energy & Environment News (E&E News) they make it very apparent that their movement is a response to failures of previous groups that they have been active in. In it, their fellow co-founder Evan Weber openly muses about how Sunrise is attempting to compensate for the same flaws that he encountered while he was an activist with Occupy Wall Street. It should be noted that while Prakash and Blazevic are the face of the movement, Weber is listed on its 2016 IRS Form 990 (when it was named US Climate Plan) as the President and Executive Director, and he was listed by the climate action website Grist.orgGrist.org as a former Occupy activist and founder of the US Climate Plan. Weber had also been an activist along with fellow Wesleyan University activist Michael Lichtash for US Climate Plan who traveled to the COP20 Climate Talks in Lima, Peru in 2014. At the time they were already claiming that delaying the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the US was “a step toward climate justice”. At the time all were in one way or another linked through McKibben’s 350.org organization.

The Guru of Green Activism

During the Obama Administration’s tenure, McKibben and 350.org fought doggedly to force the President and his cabinet not to let the pipeline proceed. In 2015 the Nebraska Supreme Court removed legal hurdles to building of the Keystone XL, meaning that it would need approval from several cabinet-level officials including Secretary of State John Kerry, himself a public advocate for climate change action by governments. Until then much of the process had been tied up as conservation and activism groups battled with TransCanada (the builder) in the courts. McKibben was asked if Kerry could salvage his reputation on climate change if he approved the pipeline. According to POLITICO he answered: “No. Keystone’s obviously a keystone,” he said in an email. “Approve that and the rest is happy talk — you can’t cut carbon without cutting carbon.” For months Kerry waffled over the decision while continuing to condemn fossil fuel producers, but in November 2015 he came through for McKibben and denied the pipeline’s permit application. However when Donald Trump was inaugurated as president he approved the Keystone XL pipeline within his first three days by executive order and continues to fight against challenges to it in court.

The issue at hand is not the activism itself, but the veneer of popular will. McKibben has made a long career out of claiming to be the underdog fighting against the corporate fossil fuel industry, and to be sure they are not exactly a sympathetic opponent. There’s also legitimate concern over carbon consumption and its effects on oceans and wetlands leading to extinction of species. He formed 350.org in 2007 based on the notion that 350ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be the acceptable level in order to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change. However, the standing that McKibben has within the movement is not a result of any professional knowledge or accomplishment, he is in fact a former New Yorker writer who majored in journalism at Harvard. He then wrote The End of Nature in 1989, the book that is considered to have started the climate change movement. However, as Reason observed when reviewing his 2010 follow-up Earth, humans have adapted to the rising sea levels warned about by climate alarmists like McKibben, using the example of Boston which has reclaimed land consistently since 1775 despite rising sea levels. At one point McKibben and others climate alarmists like Jim Hansen used the global warming trends to raise public consciousness about environmental issues. But according to him, that was during a period when they were “naïve”. However, the new tactic of his supporters is to mask the existing climate movement that he began with The End of Nature in 1989 and institutionalized in the 2000s with 350.org through a youth activist group like Sunrise whose events he frequently headlines. As many climate skeptics point out the ability of climate alarmists to excite public attention diminishes when their predictions are not fulfilled, such as when Gore predicted in 2006 that the glaciers of Mt. Kilimanjaro would melt within a decade. Another member of 350.org’s board of directors, Naoimi Klein, has evaded responsibility for advocating for the Green New Deal while also being a long-time apologist for the Chavez regime that made Venezuela’s entire economy dependent on oil exports.

McKibben was also a major activist during the lead-up to COP21, the 2015 climate change conference where the Paris Agreement on Climate Change was drafted. On November 30 he wrote an opinion in Foreign Policy called “The Paris Climate Talks Will Be a Historic Success. And a Historic Disaster. ” Paris He participated in the climate marches occurring during the event, and even headlined with Klein the Pathway to Paris live concert on December 4 along with Radiohead lead vocalist Thom Yorke, Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea and other rock superstars. But by December 13, as the conference had just wrapped up, he claimed that it had fallen short.

“The irony is, an agreement like this adopted at the first climate conference in 1995 might have worked. Even then it wouldn’t have completely stopped global warming, but it would have given us a chance of meeting the 1.5 degree Celsius target that the world notionally agreed on.”

Some on the political left were too jaded to take McKibben seriously, and began to characterize his activism as “greenwashing”. They noted that the agreement did much to boost the profile of the international NGO Avaaz that backed the climate march and other events, but little to accomplish anything. They also made it public that Dow Chemicals, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and even BP had been sponsors the Climate Group that had organized the conferences. What McKibben needed to do was inject some steroids into the movement so as to gain ground on those detractors.

Why “grassroots”?

In the same article claiming Paris had fallen short, McKibben made a statement that demonstrated his intentions going forward: “But what this means is that we need to build the movement even bigger in the coming years, so that the Paris agreement turns into a floor and not a ceiling for action.”

McKibben’s influence is felt deeply largely due to the usefulness of his cause to various statesmen and former politicians. In 2010 he wrote an opinion article for GristGrist claiming that Al Gore was “kicking butt” over climate change. In 2016 he became a backer of Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, and wound up on his five member delegation to the Democratic National Party’s platform writing committee for that year’s election. However this was a summit that led to nowhere as the party continued to accept contributions from the fossil fuel industry. Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton received $967,336 from them during that cycle, leading by far any other Democrat in any elected position. The crusade against fossil fuels had to enter a new phase, and the US Climate Plan (founded in 2014) went through a rebranding becoming Sunrise. Since then they have made several inroads in electoral politics including getting eleven state legislators elected throughout the US, including five in Pennsylvania.

Besides Sanders, the Green New Deal advocates can numerous other candidates for 2020 that have endorsed it or proposed their own versions of it:

  • New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in December 2018 a city-wide divestment from fossil fuel companies and a lawsuit against them, a measure cheered by McKibben’s 350.org. In March the Mayor named McKibben to the OneNYC Advisory Board. De Blasio’s new city-wide rules targeting energy usage by sky-scrapers were announced in May at Trump Tower.
  • Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has made climate change the centerpiece of his tenure in office and his presidential campaign vowing to commit to a 100% renewable energy system by 2035. This was praised by McKibben on May 3, and on May 30 another McKibben acolyte Elizabeth Kolbert of The New Yorker issued a raving review in Yale 360.
  • One candidate McKibben may be less bullish about is Tom Steyer, an erstwhile donor. In 2016 in the run-up to the election the two sat down for a joint interview on the need to make climate change a signature issue. Steyer’s TomKat Charitable Trust has given generously to 350.org, and at one point the former hedge fund manager and the environmentalist were joined at the hipjoined at the hip in their efforts to support fossil fuel divestment. Steyer’s public image has diminished since 2016 due to his sensationalist efforts to support the impeachment of Donald Trump including funding The Democracy Integrity Project (TDIP).

Not long after the 2018 midterm election Sunrise activists occupied the office of Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi, the incoming Speaker of the House. They also ambushed Sen Diane Feinstein (D-CA) in February. Within a day McKibben had written a response in the New Yorker saying he imagines that Feinstein “would like a do-over of her colloquy”. In the same opinion article, McKibben mentioned Ocasio-Cortez and Greta Thunberg, and claimed that the Green New Deal was hatched by the Sunrise Movement.

But this is untrue, and McKibben knows that. The original Green New Deal was written in 2008 by the New Economics Foundation when many of the Sunrise activists were not even in high school. The authors included Guardian editor Larry Elliott, Andrew Simms of the NEF, Caroline Lucas of the Green Party and others. Another version, the “Global Green New Deal” was adopted by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in 2008. The American version of the Green New Deal is HR 109 which was introduced by Ocasio-Cortez. No one from Sunrise was involved in drafting it, and if everyone was being above board it would be admitted that there was no coherent “Green New Deal” when it was supported during the 2018 election cycle; so the activists and politicians were endorsing a policy proposal prior to its existence.

Messaging the GND

Does anyone really believe that it was Sunrise activists that wrote the legislation? Even in her own office, Ocasio-Cortez has four staff members, none of whom are members of it. Corbin Trent and Saikat Chakrabarti, her press secretary and chief of staff respectively, are former members of Justice Democrats, but not of Sunrise. The nexus that drives them all together is one of the policy’s most effective and most successful activists, Justice Democrats’ communications director Waleed Shahid who is also a senior leader of the Working Families Party. Based in Philadelphia, Shahid was instrumental in campaigning for the legislative election success in Pennsylvania as well as propelling Ocasio-Cortez to power by focusing on her June 2018 primary.

While McKibben is an overall mastermind of the movement, Shahid is often a point man that issues day to day messages that are often picked up by Ocasio-Cortez and other elected officials regarding climate change, while also directing the defense to the inevitable backlash. A case in point was a June 21 tweet where Ocasio-Cortez claimed that an oil refinery explosion and fire was evidence of an “existential crisis” due to climate change. Up until then very few had made that observation about the accident. However, Shahid had issued a tweet earlier that day claiming that “we can’t afford an economy based on fossil fuels”. Sunrise Philadelphia called for a demonstration within five minutes of Shahid’s tweet. During the confrontation with Sen. Feinstein during the middle of the afternoon on a Friday Shahid was live tweet echoing Sunrise Bay Area’s account in order to hype the event. He issued a total of 23 tweets that day (Feb. 22) regarding the incident, including fighting with delusional mainstream anti-Trump activists Malcolm Nance and Louise Mensch who accused Justice Democrats of uploading the video and using Russian disinformation tactics.

Like the Engler brothers, Shahid was one of the earliest core team members of the Ayni Institute and Momentum Community. Blazevic is also an alumnus of the Ayni Institute, and is a Momentum Trainer along with fellow Sunrise co-founders Will Lawrence and Diyanna Jaye. The derivative of the Momentum training is to create nominally decentralized cells (called “hubs” by Sunrise) that organize on the local level to push a progressive agenda.

But the decentralized organizing is irrelevant when the ideology of Sunrise is not dependent on the membership. The leaders of the movement all come from 350.org, the agenda is set by the ideologues like McKibben and Klein, and the day-to-day messaging is directed by the powers behind the throne like Shahid. Ultimately a green economy is a secondary goal of the movement. So far during the Democratic 2020 primary season, the movement has somewhat successfully lobbied for a “climate debate” between candidates. However, in a moment of surprising candour, Chakrabarti let slip the real truth:

“The interesting thing about the Green New Deal,” he said, “is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all. Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Chakrabarti continued. “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

So that leads to a concluding question: If McKibben, Salamon, and Klein were portraying the climate crisis as a global emergency on the level of World War II, then why are they pushing a piece of legislation that according to its main legislative advocate was not originally about climate change?

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