Lawyers for the federal government claim that climate change is the “Greatest Existential Threat of Our Time”. I think they’re looking in the mirror. Get my take on it in this week’s edition of “Isn’t That Ironic?”.
Today’s headlines, “Greatest Existential Risk of Our Time” (https://globalnews.ca/news/6308806/alberta-court-of-appeal-federal-carbon-tax-2/), were blazoned all over the newswires. The federal government is defending its latest tax grab and intrusion into provincial jurisdiction with claims so outlandish and bizarre it challenges the imagination.
To top it off, they claim the right to do this under the constitution, in the name of “peace, order, and good government.” Obviously, they are oblivious to the irony. There are so many ironies, I don’t even have the space to develop all of them. Let me touch on a few.
Existential Threat? To who’s existence?
It reminded me of something I read recently about what makes for success. In an individual or a nation, at the root of success lie two fundamentals:
1. Character—qualities of thinking and acting, like truth, honesty, compassion, courage, creativity, etc.
2. Economic Productivity—the creation of wealth, not its dissipation.
If we look at our federal government through this lens, it fails dismally. Our whole society seems to be based more and more on lies rather than truth, and no one of consequence has the courage to challenge the lies. Anyone who tries is squashed.
The statement that “climate change is the greatest existential risk of our time” is patently ridiculous and a blatant lie. Whatever your personal misunderstanding of climatology, dear reader, my personal experience of climate defies that statement. I have not observed any change in climate during my lifetime. My grandchildren are growing up in exactly the same Alberta climate in which I grew up a half-century ago.
Were it not for delicate scientific instruments, no one would even notice the extremely slight change in average temperatures over the 20th century. That century, which saw a roughly 1-degree increase in average global temperatures (mostly in the northern hemisphere, mostly in the winter, and mostly in urban areas), also saw the greatest flowering of food production, human population, wealth, and human well-being that the world has ever seen. The 21st century is starting out on the same course—at least as far as human development is concerned. Global temperatures, on the other hand, have not increased at all in this century. And with the coming grand solar minimum, global average temperatures are more likely to decline in the next 30 years rather than increase.
We live in a country where nearly 50 cents of every dollar earned is stolen by governments in the name of “peace, order, and good government”. If that’s not enough to bring us peace order and good government, then it’s nonsensical to think that another tax will do the trick.
And this tax is supposed to change the climate—of the whole world! Common sense should be enough to tell us that taxes cannot change the climate. It isn’t rocket science. As an economist, I can assure you that, at whatever level of complexity you choose to examine the issue, the same truth will emerge. Taxes raise money for governments and there’s little hard evidence to show they do much else. The only thing carbon taxes accomplish, besides raising money for governments, is to waste money—to dissipate wealth rather than create it.
There is no existential threat to humans from a slightly warmer climate. But an existential threat does exist—to Canada. It comes from the federal government itself. It is precisely these idiotic and self-destructive policies that are tearing this country apart. Regardless of what the supreme court eventually decides, Canada will cease to exist in its present form long before the average world temperature rises another degree.
Climate nonsense is the lightning rod, but so much of what the federal government does is based on lies that this nation cannot survive. History demonstrates that what is built on lies, collapses, whether it is personal or national. The destruction of our industries and the proliferation of wasteful taxes and uneconomic technologies ensure our demise.
The greatest irony here is that the existential threat to Canada is its own federal government. Sadly, it’s not only ironic. It’s tragic.
I think it’s already too late for our country but it’s never too late for you. As an individual, make sure you build your own life on character (truth, honesty, courage, compassion) and economic productivity (create and husband wealth). Then your life here on earth will be spiritually and materially successful, regardless of which way the winds blow.
God Bless You!
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