Brisk business of climate change policy slows down as the UN drags and Australia burns
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Summary
The UN Madrid climate talks are being dubbed a disaster by the environmentalist global warmest activists of the world. My guest on the show today is Tom Harris from the International Climate Science Coalition and he's going to offer some counterpoints and facts to the overheated environmentalist rhetoric.
Transcript
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Hello Rebels, I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and you're listening to a free audio-only recording of my
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Wednesday night show, The Gunn Show. Tonight my guest is Tom Harris from the International Climate
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Environmentalists and so-called human rights activists around the world are lamenting the
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failure of the Madrid climate change talks and I couldn't be happier. I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed and
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The UN Madrid climate talks are being dubbed a disaster by the environmentalist global warmest
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activists of the world which is I suppose great for the progress of humanity especially in the
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developing world when the people who live there are so often denied access to cheap reliable fossil
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fuels based on decisions made by first world environmentalists and in other narrative busting
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disappointments to environmentalists it appears arson is one of the major causes of the Australian
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bushfires but that hasn't stopped Hollywood and far left-wing activists from shifting the blame from
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the arsonists over to your SUV. My guest on the show today is Tom Harris from the International Climate
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Science Coalition and he's going to offer some counterpoints and facts to the overheated
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environmentalist rhetoric polluting the mainstream media right now. Tom joins me now in an interview
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we recorded yesterday afternoon. Joining me now is Executive Director of the International Climate
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Science Coalition, Tom Harris. Tom, thank you so much for joining me. I haven't seen you since we were both
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shivering our way through Madrid which was ironically cold for the climate change conference. I wanted to
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have you back on because there's so much happening in climate science news and everybody's claiming to be a
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climate scientist right now hijacking the fires in Australia for their own agenda but I thought I'd start
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our conversation a little closer to home. I wanted to talk to you about the carbon tax because
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the federal imposition of the carbon tax on provinces like mine that don't want a carbon tax that elected
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a leader to get rid of a carbon tax happened on January 1st and I know you look at the science side
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of it and I look at the economic side of it. The carbon tax isn't working even if you concede the science of
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the carbon tax. The emissions aren't going down. The federal reporting to the UN, they actually pulled
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their reporting back. Black Lock's reporter had an article about this because it showed that emissions
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had gone up during the time that Alberta had had a carbon tax before we repealed it and BC's emissions
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go up every single year and they have the highest carbon tax in the country. This is nothing more than a tax
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grab. What do you say? Well and also when we were in Europe you noticed the gasoline prices were much
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higher than North America, double or triple in parts of Europe and of course people are driving their cars
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just as much. I mean I think the bottom line is that even if it did have an impact and even if we did
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reduce our driving, Canada's impact on world greenhouse gas emissions is negligible, 1.6 percent and so you know
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from all sorts of points of view the carbon tax is nothing more than virtue signaling where in fact the
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government are signaling to the world and to the media and environmental groups oh we're doing our
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part to stop climate change but in reality it's not reducing greenhouse gases and it's not going to have
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any impact on world climate anyways. Yeah and you know that that brings me to another point again
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closer to home. You and I are having this discussion and we're having a discussion that is a fact-based
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discussion. You can measure you know the I don't even know how they do it but it's calculable
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the amount of CO2 emissions and how they increase year over year in British Columbia and federally
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but there are journalists in this country who would love to shut you and I up and you know you sent me this
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article earlier this week it's in the Winnipeg free press the free press of all you know the
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ironically named Winnipeg free press and it's an editorial um an unsigned editorial by the way
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that says it's time to silence the voices of denial and then they show a scary picture of a burning tree
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um I think this is the way the conversation's going as the science doesn't play out um the way
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um the alarmists would like they just want us to shut up. Yeah exactly because I mean all the alarmists
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all you know what they're really afraid of is that the public realize that all we have to do is lift
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the the lid off the Pandora's box of real science because real science is all over the map. I mean
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there are many thousands of scientists who think this is completely ridiculous. You probably heard of the
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world climate declaration it was originally the European climate declaration they had 600 signatures
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of leading experts in the field they wrote to the UN and and they actually said there is no climate
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emergency and those are the first words in this now world climate declaration. The last I saw there
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were 800 signatures of leading experts across the world. Now of course people don't hear about that
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because the Winnipeg free press and the rest of the media don't tell us and when I show people this
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you know they're very surprised they say oh geez we never heard of that and that's the problem. This is all
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a strategy right out of 1984 where in fact the government and their allies in the media actually shape
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the news. They don't report the news they actually create the news to get across uh the kind of points of view
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that they want people to think and I wrote an article about this recently in America Out Loud and you
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remember we talked about newspeak and duck speak. In 1984 they created a new language and a new vocabulary
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and certain thoughts and certain words like dissent or debate or things like that they didn't exist.
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They only fell under the category of thought crime okay and that's what's happening in the climate debate.
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We have of course the newspeak and duck speak of carbon pollution when it's not pollution and it's
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not carbon. We also then have thought crime which is climate change denial and of course the Winnipeg
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free press our editorial was ridiculous because they said people who are denying climate change must be
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silenced you know that's the kind of thing they said but nobody's denying climate change. Obviously if we
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had no climate change we'd still be stuck in the last ice age. So the whole point of it is ridiculous
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and very much opposed to the whole idea of free speech. Now one of the things here's the thing that's a
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great segue because Amnesty International uh this human rights organization or they paint themselves as a
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human rights organization has said nothing about you know these ideas about silencing critical journalists
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yet they have penned articles lamenting the failure of the Madrid climate talks. I don't even know how
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that is on Amnesty International's radar. Has China released all their political prisoners or something
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and I just missed it because it seems to me that Amnesty International is way out of their lane worrying
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about the Madrid climate talks. You know what they're saying is that it's a social justice issue that in fact
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the poor around the world will be most impacted by man-made climate change and how this is just
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completely unfair. But you know the point is they're actually missing the boat totally on this
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because the real social justice issue is the impact of climate policies on the poor. The very fact that
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in Ontario for example our electricity rates since 2002 at peak time of day have gone up something like
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200 percent. I mean that's a social justice issue and that was driven largely by Dalton McGinty saying
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we're going to lead the world on climate change and get rid of our coal-fired stations. So yeah there are
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social justice issues. That's one of them. The fact that indeed you know electricity prices go through
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the roof because of climate policy and they should be concerned about that. The other one is that the
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developed world are trying to stop developing countries from using their own fossil fuels coal
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oil and gas to develop and pull their people out of poverty. And you know I've given this example before
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the Madhupi power station in South Africa you know they applied to the World Bank to get a loan to pull
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their people out of poverty by generating electricity a social justice issue. But the United States and four
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European countries abstained from voting because of their concerns about climate change. Okay now it did
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pass. That was because developing countries ganged up and voted in favor of the loan because they
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understand what real social justice issues are giving people electricity so they can do refrigeration and
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all the other things needed to help improve life for the poor. So unfortunately Amnesty International has it
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backwards. It's climate policies that are a threat to social justice not the Madrid conference or
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whatever. You know that that is again you're really good at this Tom that's a great segue into your next
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article because you wrote an article in America Out Loud titled Time to Fan the Flames of Civil War
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Between Climate Alarmists and Their Influential Allies. And you know at what point are anti-poverty activists
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going to turn on the climate alarmists and the deep-pocketed climate alarmists for exactly how you
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explain how climate policies are affecting the poor. I think you know it'd be great to drive a wedge
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right in the middle of the social justice left because as you know as you point out it is the poor
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who pay the highest cost for climate policies right down to medicine and electricity in hospitals
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in the developing world. Where are the feminists speaking out for the girls who can't go to school
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because they don't have fossil fuels on the farm in Africa and they have to do labor on their own
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or the lighting just lighting on the streets that keeps vulnerable women safe. Where are the feminists?
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I'd love to just hammer a wedge right into the middle of the left and say look you guys have to
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pick a side. Are you against fossil fuels or are you for the betterment of humanity? Well that's right
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and also it applies to environmental controls and the environment that are truly concerned about nature.
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You know in Spain for example and we talked about this in Madrid there are 18,000 industrial wind
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turbines which are of course supposedly trying to stop climate change which won't happen and they
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estimate that 200 birds per year per turbine are being killed and 400 bats per year per turbine because
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the bats don't even have to be hit by a blade to be killed by the turbines even if they just fly into
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the low pressure zone behind the blade it turns out that their lungs burst and they die. So what you
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end up with is and you know the estimates are pretty approximate but they say anywhere from 6 to 18
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million birds and bats are killed by Spain's wind turbines alone. Now it's interesting because I have
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some friends that are at a bird sanctuary they're they're looking after birds of prey and they hate
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wind turbines totally because you know people will say well cats kill more birds than wind turbines. Yes but
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cats don't kill hawks and eagles and and golden eagles and things like that. Condors yeah. Yeah exactly.
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So I mean that's another wedge we have to drive between the uh environmentalists who are focused
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on climate change and those who are focused on real conservation issues. I mean just take one wind
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farm in California the Altamont Pass for example they estimate that 3,000 golden eagles have been killed
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in that wind farm since it opened in the 80s. 3,000 golden eagles. So I mean anyone who cares about
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nature should abhor the wind turbines that's for sure. Yeah I'm old enough to remember when a bunch
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of ducks landed in a tailings pond in Fort McMurray during an uh a freak spring snowstorm and millions
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of dollars in fines were handed out to the oil company. Imagine if green energy had to follow the
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same rules as fossil fuels when it comes to um endangering wildlife and you know as far as I know
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ducks aren't endangered but wind turbines are blending up all kinds of endangered species
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all the time and it gets to retain the green label just because it doesn't use fossil fuels. Now I
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wanted to um well I wanted to pat you on the back a little bit because um as I was saying off the air
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you and Dr. Tim Ball are more accurate in your predictions than any climate model I've ever
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looked at. In 2018 you guys wrote an article saying that extreme wildfires are caused by extreme
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stupidity and not global warming and as it turns out um a year and a half two years later that's exactly
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what's happening in Australia isn't it? Oh yeah in fact two-thirds of the wildfires are apparently
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caused by human intervention and in particular deliberate intervention. I mean a lot of it is
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arson and you know the whole concept that rising CO2 and rising temperature will lead to more wildfires
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is entirely backwards and here's the logic that we used in that article. As CO2 rises the stomata on
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plants which absorb CO2 don't have to be as big so they shrink so you actually lose less water from
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the plants through the stomata because the holes are smaller these are the small pores on plants
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so more water is left in the plant and in the soil. Similarly when temperature rises you have more
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evaporation you have more rainfall and again the soil is moister so the risk of fire is actually less.
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You know they say that the droughts are being caused we'll see how what they say exactly they were saying
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that the um high temperature was causing the droughts well in fact it's actually backwards if you have a
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drought in a particular region you're not going to have very much water to evaporate so you're not
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removing from the surface the energy of evaporation and so in fact the temperature goes up so you know what
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you're finding is that their arguments are entirely backwards if you go back in history what you find
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is that the droughts in the 30s and the 40s in Australia would last for decades much longer you
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know and they also give an example on what's up with that in the article I sent you of a far worse
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period of fires in the 1800s I believe it was called Black Thursday and that was during a cold period
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because we're still in the end of the little ice age so once again like in so many of the climate
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issues they actually have it entirely backwards if they want to stop fires they have to stop people
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setting fires and also of course they have to clean up the underbrush which which is a tinderbox just
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waiting to be ignited when you do have arsonists so they have to maintain their forests better and
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that's a major factor that in fact the liberal MP that was being interviewed by the BBC brought up and
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of course he was attacked for it as being a climate denier but he's completely right I mean part of
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you know reducing wildfires is forest maintenance yeah and that's another environmental policy or lack
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thereof that hurts people who are on the ground dealing with environmental policy when you have
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an aging forest or underbrush you the forest becomes a tinderbox you know and and and fire suppression
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practices sometimes the forest needs to burn to renew itself so that it is not all old all at once causing
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these huge blazes but you know 100 years of fire suppression has turned our uh forests and it here in Alberta
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for example it at sometimes it really is a tinderbox and it's funny to see environmentalists completely
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glaze over arson to blame my SUV the same thing happened in British Columbia uh the massive fire
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forest fires a couple years back were determined by the RCMP to be arson yeah and yet you know these
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climate alarmists really are an arsonist's best friend well that's right and I gotta write about the
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fact that the uh fires are mostly being found in parts of Australia that are actually cooler than normal
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because you know if you actually look at the map of where all these fires are occurring they're occurring
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mostly in regions that are cooler not warmer so the idea that an average global temperature or sorry an average
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continental temperature in the case of Australia is somehow contributing to the fires is also completely wrong
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so you know I really have to write about this because we wrote about it as you say a year and a half ago
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it's time for a new uh wildfires article yeah and that's the thing too in in the modern age there's so
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much data and so much historical data that you can dig up that you're not going to hear about um if you get
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all your climate science from a celebrity lecturing you at the Golden Globes yeah exactly and and you know I
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think it's one thing that is happening though that's good is you probably heard of Naomi's site
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and she is actually now working closer and closer with Heartland we're going to hear a lot more from
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her and that's going to be a nice breath of fresh air after this ridiculous Greta Thunberg stuff
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and uh so I encourage people to look up Naomi's site we I have an interview with her that I did on
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my podcast uh just a few days ago I'll be putting it up on our web page uh by the way our web page is
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climate science international dot o-r-g and people can listen to the new um she doesn't like to be
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called an anti-Greta because no she doesn't no she's not a puppet she thinks for herself so if people
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want to hear a refreshing perspective from a person a lot younger than me just go to our website I'd say
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tomorrow and we'll have it up there yeah she's just a tiny little thing we interviewed her in Madrid
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also and uh you know she's she's a free thinker nobody tells her what to think you know she digs
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deep into the issue um and I think actually she's indicative probably of the vast majority of young
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people but young people like her don't get on the mainstream media and they don't get to tour around
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the world with a BBC reality crew like Greta Thunberg is um are there any other places Tom that people
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can can uh find your work get a hold of you or support what you do because you um you know if the
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Winnipeg Free Press had their way you'd be shut right up yeah exactly well actually what I always
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recommend people do since I've contributed to it and I think it's uh an extremely good set of documents
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is the uh climate change reconsidered series I was one of the editors of some of those documents
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and you can get to that web page by going to climate reconsidered dot o-r-g these are the
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reports of the non-governmental international panel on climate change and if they're too voluminous at
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thousand pages each to go through just read the summaries because at the beginning of them
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they've done an extremely good job of summarizing a lot of these things just one quick point I'm
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really disappointed that young people are not more questioning I know in my generation it was normal
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and we wanted to question the status quo we didn't want to follow political correctness
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um and I'm surprised that young people are not doing what Naomi Seif is doing a lot more and that
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is questioning their teachers I used to speak in high schools and it was interesting because the
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students were intrigued they like questioning authority it was yeah isn't the principals that
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wanted to shut me up you know Tom maybe it's a regional thing um because uh or maybe it's just my
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own kids and their friends but um they are pretty uh prickly when it comes to authority um and I think
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maybe as um skeptics and myself within you know the non-partisan conservative movement maybe we need to
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do a better job communicating to young people that you know that feeling of not liking being told what to
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do and not believing that adult filling you with bs that's conservatism and hang on to that exactly
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and I encourage people to go to the heartland.org website because now working they're working with
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Naomi now and we're going to see videos from her I think pretty well every week uh so you know we got
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130,000 views on her little five minute speech in Madrid uh which is far more than any of the scientists
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at our conference but we're going to hear more from her and that's that's a good thing that's
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fantastic Tom uh thanks for being so generous with your time and we shouldn't leave it this long until
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you're back on the show next time okay that's great great thank you Tom thank you
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it's so great to hear the other side of the story especially when we can't turn on the tv or open up any
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social media site without some so-called news agency or Hollywood halfwit telling you that it's
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your carbon footprint causing problems actually created by arsonists in Australia now just a quick
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point of clarification these things happen when you're unscripted the way my conversations are with
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my guests Tom mentioned a website and he said climatereconsidered.org however it's actually
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climatereconsidered.org that's climatereconsidered.org I don't want to send you to a dead-end place when
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you're out there desperately searching for some facts well everybody that's the show for tonight
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thank you so much as always for tuning in I'll see everybody back here in the same time in the same
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place next week and remember don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think