Western Standard - EXCLUSIVE： Tom Harris talks about Climate Change and Renewable Energy issues.

00:00:00.080 Since 2007 we have been working with the International Climate Science Coalition

00:00:05.120 which was founded in New Zealand because they wanted a more international voice at conferences

00:00:10.880 and we've been running as I say since 2007. I joined them in 2008 as their executive director

00:00:16.000 but we realized recently that there had to be a more Canadian focus for specific Canadian issues

00:00:21.840 so in January of 2021 we started the International Climate Science Coalition Canada which is a

00:00:27.680 non-profit organization dedicated to getting real scientists into the media and to the public so

00:00:34.320 they can hear what's really happening in the climate science field and also talk a lot about energy

00:00:39.840 because the greatest threat to Canadian oil and gas for example and coal is the climate scare I mean

00:00:46.480 one of the troubles is the Conservative Party many of them candidates especially except for Roman Baber

00:00:51.840 who hasn't really expressed himself on the issue they all support the climate scare but they also

00:00:56.880 support Canadian energy and yet the thing that's most risk most threatening Canadian energy is the

00:01:02.800 climate scare so it's kind of like saying I'm left right like which are they yeah yeah now what is your

00:01:09.760 uh overall message here today you seem to acknowledge that climate change is happening although you're

00:01:13.840 saying that it's not a human-made phenomenon it's actually the sun that is causing it what what's the

00:01:18.720 main message here yeah sure well my main message is that climate change is naturally climate change

00:01:24.240 occurs all the time and if it weren't for climate change here in Ottawa we'd be under two kilometers

00:01:28.560 of ice still stuck in the last glacial period so yes of course climate changes all the time and we do

00:01:34.320 have to adapt if we look at uh societies that did not properly adapt uh they're no longer with us I mean

00:01:40.480 the Greenland Vikings for example they they did not take up the methods of living that the Inuit had

00:01:46.720 and they were wiped out because the little ice age was just too miserable for them to survive we do think

00:01:52.560 that humans caused some climate change we know that for example we cause the urban heat island effect

00:01:58.320 where the city is warmer than the country so there's no question that we cause that we're probably causing

00:02:03.760 some co2 induced climate change but the point we make is that the amount of change has to be very very

00:02:10.480 dangerous and very significant to be worth spending literally trillions of dollars uh trying to actually

00:02:17.280 stop it and we simply don't think that's the case what are your thoughts on uh carbon

00:02:22.400 capture technology do you think that it has merits and it can be useful or do you think it's sort of

00:02:27.040 a waste of time yeah I think it's a waste of money and it's interesting that even people like Elizabeth

00:02:31.600 May oppose carbon capture and what she says well it's kind of like putting something bad under your

00:02:36.640 pillow and it's going to escape eventually and of course that's the point is that carbon dioxide is

00:02:41.280 heavier than air so if you live near a carbon dioxide sequestration location where they actually put it

00:02:47.200 underground they compress it into a liquid and try and store it underground it can leak and of course

00:02:53.520 no geologic formation has no fractures in it I mean they worry about the possible leakage of

00:02:59.920 radioactive water near radioactive sites that are buried underground but in the case of co2 which is

00:03:06.640 a gas it's going to escape a lot easier so a couple of things one is that it's extremely expensive to

00:03:13.600 collect the carbon dioxide to compress it into a liquid to pump it long distances put it underground

00:03:19.360 that's going to add a lot to electricity prices and of course we don't think the co2 is a problem

00:03:25.200 because carbon dioxide is not a pollutant first of all okay they keep calling it carbon pollution

00:03:30.240 but in fact it's actually the stuff of life I mean in since 1940 we've seen a massive increase in crop

00:03:37.520 yield across the world and 40 percent of the crop yields since 1940 has been because of increasing

00:03:44.560 carbon dioxide levels in our atmosphere so there's really nothing bad about carbon dioxide

00:03:50.320 we interviewed a physicist from Princeton University who works with us off and on that's

00:03:55.760 that's William Happer who's one of the top radiation experts in the world he looks at how much

00:04:02.400 energy could carbon dioxide absorb you know and what would be the worst possible effect

00:04:07.520 of a doubling of co2 to from today's level if we went from 420 to 840 that would be a massive increase

00:04:15.920 what would be the effect on the greenhouse effect and what he says is that it would change the

00:04:21.280 outgoing radiation it would reduce slightly by about one percent one percent with a doubling of co2

00:04:28.400 so I asked him because we were interviewing it's on the icsc-climate.com website right now

00:04:34.800 we asked him what would be the impact on temperature of a doubling of co2 which is much more than people

00:04:40.800 are forecasting and he said it wouldn't even be one degree so what we're saying is if that's the case

00:04:46.960 and he's literally one of the absolute leaders in the world on the impact of increasing carbon dioxide and

00:04:54.240 methane and other things if that's the worst that can happen one degree celsius it's simply not worth

00:05:00.320 trillions of dollars trying to stop i see so tom why is it that um we always hear that the science

00:05:06.320 is settled on climate change and 97 percent of oh yeah uh you know scientists say that it's a human

00:05:12.080 made phenomena why is that uh that your message is not uh more mainstream or not accepted well it's

00:05:17.200 interesting when i first started writing in the field with professor patterson tim patterson from

00:05:21.360 carlton university who's a climate realist as we call him he says climate change is all the time the

00:05:26.640 only constant about climate is change i mean it changes all the time and so you know um when i

00:05:32.640 started writing with him in 1999 we were published literally from coast to coast you know halifax herald

00:05:38.880 montreal gazette vancouver sun right across canada but what's happened is they've closed ranks behind

00:05:45.360 david suzuki and behind the climate scare and and you know i i've asked various well we asked the cbc we said

00:05:52.480 okay show us that there's a consensus in the climate science community that there's a dangerous

00:05:57.520 climate change happening and of course they tried to ignore us so i wrote to the president he eventually

00:06:02.320 assigned the omswoodsmen for the cbc this was back in 2000 they uh assigned him the job of showing me

00:06:09.040 that there was a consensus and so a few weeks later i got 10 pages from the cbc omswoodsmen and he went

00:06:15.120 through all his details showing this great consensus in the climate science community the trouble was he

00:06:20.320 didn't interview a single scientist or a single scientific organization he quoted other media

00:06:28.160 so he quoted the new york times he quoted the la times and the guardian and all the different media

00:06:32.880 sources saying there was a consensus in the climate and who are they quoting well that's the coin i was

00:06:38.560 saying well show us the original sources i mean i don't care what the new york times says so i wrote to

00:06:43.440 the uh back to the president of the cbc and i said well he certainly has showed there's a consensus in

00:06:49.360 the media that there's a consensus in the climate science community but he hasn't actually shown any

00:06:54.400 consensus in the climate science community and the president said i'm very satisfied with mr bazay's

00:07:00.160 answer the case is closed and at that time i got a job as the legislative assistant for bob mills who

00:07:06.400 was the opposition senior environment critic and bob said oh no no don't go after the cbc because of

00:07:11.120 course he didn't want negative coverage but since then to give you an idea how varied the opinion is in

00:07:17.840 the real scientific community i have here a document which is one of several that's put out by the

00:07:23.920 non-governmental international panel on climate change you know it's not the ipcc it's the nipcc

00:07:30.960 and this includes literally thousands of references i mean thousands look at the end of any chapter

00:07:36.240 you can see you know many many references from peer-reviewed journals from scientists all over the world

00:07:42.160 talking about temperature records or talking about forcings and feedbacks that's the big one i'll tell you

00:07:47.520 something about that in a second and what they show is there simply is no climate emergency and in

00:07:53.680 fact it's interesting we were interviewing pat michaels who's one of the leading uh climate modelers

00:07:59.120 in the world and this was last week it'll be on our website on monday and he said that within the

00:08:05.520 climate science community there are not a single scientist who says that we face a climate emergency

00:08:11.840 he said the big problem is that because they say that because the media says that then they get

00:08:17.680 more funding so he said he's angry that scientists don't stand up and say no we're not saying that

00:08:23.040 there is a range of possible outcomes some of which are more serious than others but not a single

00:08:28.720 scientist he said is actually saying that we're in a climate emergency and so that's why in our on our

00:08:34.560 um on our banner we say there is no climate emergency and and of course common sense would tell you that

00:08:40.080 there isn't because since 1880 even the un are saying that the so-called global average temperature

00:08:46.800 has gone up 1.2 degrees 1.1.2 degrees i mean it may have gotten that hot that much hotter in here

00:08:53.680 since we started talking you know i mean you just simply wouldn't notice it and in fact it's funny

00:08:58.080 because uh people like uh richard lindsen from mit who's also a climate realist as we call him he says

00:09:04.560 no there's no climate emergency he says the small change we've seen is so insignificant that if there

00:09:11.520 weren't climatologists and meteorologists telling people about it no one would notice in their entire

00:09:16.640 lifetime because the changes are so small and you know the idea that we could double co2 which is far

00:09:23.360 beyond what we have now and there wouldn't be anything except good things happening you know more

00:09:28.320 increase in crop yield a trivial increase in temperature this makes some of the people quite angry

00:09:34.240 you know it's interesting i posted on the chat for this conference the fact that william happer says

00:09:39.360 the worst that could happen with a 100 increase in co2 the worst that can happen is a one degree a

00:09:46.560 little less than a degree rise and i got immediately a response from a california conservative a young man

00:09:54.000 who actually said oh this is all complete bogus and so i said okay well what part do you disagree with

00:10:00.080 no answer so i'm still waiting for his answer so you know the trouble is right now many of the

00:10:06.240 conservatives and i know the grassroots would love it if their leaders would stand up to the climate scare

00:10:12.400 because they recognize that the greatest threat to canada's prosperity is the destruction of our oil

00:10:17.840 and gas industry and the greatest threat to that is the climate scare because these people want to

00:10:23.840 completely end all fossil fuel usage okay that's the outcome that will happen if we get to net zero

00:10:30.640 they want to go to literally zero and you know this will ruin canada because this is our major source

00:10:36.400 of revenue you know when it comes to income for the country at large so what we say to them is okay look

00:10:42.960 there were studies in the united states and canada which actually showed what would happen if the

00:10:49.280 leaders of the opposition party started to speak out against the climate scare and here's the result

00:10:54.640 it was a study that was done with mcgill university ohio state and drexel university they

00:11:00.800 found that when conservatives and liberals both said the same thing in the united states this case

00:11:05.200 it was democrats and republicans and they both supported the climate scare then the support in

00:11:10.080 the public was very high for taking strong action on climate change but when the republicans dissented

00:11:16.560 when they said well we're not so sure about this the science is out let's take a look at it again

00:11:21.520 you know that kind of thing the support in the public went way down so the conservatives are

00:11:26.480 constantly saying in this conference for example well we've lost the war we've lost the battle we have

00:11:32.000 to basically look for less expensive ways of reducing co2 so we have a market-based solution but you know

00:11:38.800 to me that's a little like somebody saying uh i'm being encouraged to commit suicide and i'd like your

00:11:44.720 help like what do you think i should do now if they're really serious and you know you might

00:11:51.120 suggest well taking an overdose of sleeping pills is less painful than cutting your wrists but you

00:11:55.840 don't want to encourage them to commit suicide you know so i mean to a large extent the conservatives

00:12:01.520 are encouraging it for example in the emissions debate in the last five minutes i started counting how

00:12:07.840 many times they called carbon dioxide which most people know is invisible and benign

00:12:13.600 they they called it carbon you know carbon footprint carbon tax carbon pollution and yet that is the

00:12:19.920 language of the climate alarmists they want you to think of it as carbon which is graphite or soot

00:12:26.000 you know that is dirty if you call it carbon dioxide and i say this for timid conservatives who don't want

00:12:31.520 to contest the climate scare at the very least stop using the language of people who want to kill

00:12:37.760 our oil and gas industry call it a carbon dioxide tax now it might sound trivial but you remember in

00:12:43.840 the book 1984 there was an appendix 10 pages at the very end all about newspeak newspeak and duck speak

00:12:51.520 and how they would change the language and get people to use words that would actually change the

00:12:57.120 thinking patterns of the population so what they've done the environment environmentalists are very smart on

00:13:02.160 this they've called it carbon pollution they've called it green energy now green energy does that

00:13:08.800 make any sense in other words we're reducing carbon dioxide which is plant food that's supposedly green

00:13:15.760 i mean anything that increases carbon dioxide is actually green because it's you know carbon dioxide

00:13:22.080 is plant food you know massive increase in crop yield you have people like patrick moore who was the

00:13:27.600 previous head of greenpeace and he now puts out presentations in which he says we should hope co2

00:13:33.360 continues to rise because we've seen a massive benefit across the planet with regards to crop yield

00:13:39.360 you know and in fact he shows a graph that shows co2 going down naturally from its high because of

00:13:44.800 course right now we're at one of the lowest levels in earth's history um people don't realize that but

00:13:49.920 we were as high as 5 000 parts per million you know in the past and right now it's about 420.

00:13:56.240 so he says that if humans hadn't come along and this is pretty controversial i agree but he said

00:14:02.160 if humans hadn't come along and boosted co2 by releasing it from you know the bedrock from

00:14:07.200 releasing it from coal and everything else that co2 was headed down to a level that would end all

00:14:12.960 life on earth so in his presentation he's saying well thank god that we've actually come along and

00:14:19.120 liberated co2 so yeah there's no consensus it's a media manufactured thing a government

00:14:25.600 manufactured thing to make people stop arguing oh my god there's a consensus you know they do

00:14:30.480 this on covet they do this on all kinds of things um you know scientists agree uh yeah well show me

00:14:36.720 them yeah yeah with a lot of aspects of science lately what do you think is behind this push for

00:14:41.760 the climate scare as you call it do you think um it's well-meaning do you think there's something

00:14:45.520 more sinister going on are they simply misinformed what's what's happening here well there's all kinds of

00:14:50.000 different motivations i mean i think that there are a lot of well-meaning people who truly believe

00:14:54.800 that we have a climate crisis and it's funny because the easiest way to defeat that is ask them

00:14:59.600 well you know how much has it warmed in the last century and they say oh it must be five degrees

00:15:04.160 eight degrees no no it's just about one degree oh they don't believe it you know when do you think

00:15:09.920 we had the most extreme weather uh well it's right now i said no no in the 1930s take a look at the

00:15:15.840 records how many polar bears do you think there are well actually there's more now than ever since

00:15:20.240 we started counting you know so i think that those people just simply don't understand and so our job

00:15:26.880 is to help educate them there are nefarious motives out there as well i mean if you control world energy

00:15:33.040 which is what you do if you control fossil fuel emissions you control the world you know we can see

00:15:38.720 that with russia i mean russia by supplying natural gas to a lot of the a lot of western europe they have a

00:15:45.040 huge influence you know i mean uh so i think there is a one world government government control

00:15:51.600 type aspect to this in fact it was david anderson i believe the previous environment minister under

00:15:57.120 jean christian who said that the kyoto protocol was the flagship of world governance and there are

00:16:02.880 people who believe that we would be better off with a un-directed world government and of course the

00:16:08.000 best way to do that in many cases is to control world energy so yeah that's a motivation too

00:16:14.160 there are even extreme groups who see humans as a cancer on the planet believe it or not there's a

00:16:20.560 group called the voluntary human extinction movement and they have thousands of members i mean they're not

00:16:26.160 just a fringe group well they are pretty fringe they think that humans are literally a cancer and that we

00:16:32.480 should not reproduce we should not have children and we should die out to return the earth to its natural

00:16:38.640 pristine condition which of course makes you wonder well then what are humans are we supernatural like

00:16:44.400 if we're not natural but yeah so there's all kinds of different motivations one of the biggest drivers

00:16:50.720 is the people who are making a fortune out of this i mean absolute fortune there is more than a billion dollars

00:16:56.960 us a day being spent on what's called climate finance and the main recipients of that are wind and solar power

00:17:04.240 manufacturers so yeah there's a huge benefit i think also china and russia they'd love to see us

00:17:10.480 do this eh because i mean they're they're actually funding russians especially um environmental craziness

00:17:17.360 in the west because if we destroy our fossil fuel industry we're more dependent on them and then they

00:17:22.800 can actually dictate what happens here so there's a lot of nefarious motives but i think the majority of the

00:17:28.640 public just don't know you're just misinformed interesting yeah uh do you think there are a

00:17:33.600 lot of other environmental issues such as soil degradation the pollution of our waterways you know

00:17:38.960 flora and fauna being destroyed across the world that are legitimate but don't get enough attention

00:17:43.520 because it's all focused on the climate crisis and carbon wow that's true in fact in earth day you

00:17:48.640 know i did an interesting search i did a search for earth day and different categories of environmental

00:17:54.480 protection i talked about air pollution water pollution land pollution species at risk and

00:17:59.120 climate change climate change was over 80 percent of the hits okay the same thing for earth hour the

00:18:05.840 same thing for um earth month which was uh you know in you know april and the same thing for environment

00:18:12.480 day which comes up on june 5th if you do a search for any of those categories you know by far the majority

00:18:18.080 of hits are all for climate change and i wrote an article the other day it's on the cfac.org website

00:18:24.000 cfac they're friends of ours committee for a constructive tomorrow and and i showed how the

00:18:28.720 environmental movement has been entirely hijacked by climate change and how this is a real problem

00:18:35.120 because climate change is a bogus concern i mean we should help people adapt to climate change you

00:18:39.760 know as it occurs but the idea that we control the climate i mean it's just silly and the fact is

00:18:46.480 when that collapses it'll disgrace the whole environmental movement because they have

00:18:50.960 really put all their eggs in that basket a friend of mine on the other side of the river here in

00:18:54.960 you know in gatineau he's an expert in water resources and he's very angry about the climate

00:19:00.400 scare because he says as the funding goes up up up for climate it's going down for water resources

00:19:06.080 because they only have so much money to spend you know gibault the environment minister for canada

00:19:10.960 you know the ex-greenpeacer he says he was being criticized on ctv news a few weeks ago only nine

00:19:17.760 billion went into i think it was nine billion went into climate change in the budget and so he

00:19:23.200 defended himself by saying well since 2015 when the liberals came in they've spent 110 billion 110

00:19:31.280 billion on the so-called energy transition to try to stop climate change so the amount of money is

00:19:37.120 just unbelievable and how much money has china and russia and india spent on that well you know in the case

00:19:43.040 in china that's a really good question because china puts out twice as much greenhouse gases as the

00:19:47.600 united states and so if they're not doing anything our little 1.6 percent doesn't really matter even if

00:19:53.200 you do believe the science and it's interesting because china essentially has an unlimited get out

00:19:58.480 of jail card free okay get out of jail free card and that's this uh people say well by 2030 china has to

00:20:06.400 stop stop increasing emissions so that doesn't sound too bad 10 more or eight more years of china

00:20:12.400 boosting emissions through the sight through the sky but in fact they don't even have to reduce

00:20:17.040 emissions then because what people don't realize is that under the paris agreement is something called

00:20:22.960 the framework convention on climate change it's the original rio treaty that was signed in rio de

00:20:28.560 janeiro in 1992 and it's what all the u.n treaties are based on it's called the fccc framework convention

00:20:34.960 on climate change and it treats developing and developing countries completely differently it says that

00:20:41.440 developing countries first and overriding priority and they still include china even today even today

00:20:47.680 in 1992 china had no billionaires i mean now they have i don't know maybe a hundred or something

00:20:53.520 they're pretty wealthy a lot of them and so china actually was asked at the un climate conference in

00:20:59.840 peru would they renegotiate the framework convention underlying the paris agreement the negotiator said

00:21:07.600 no no the purpose of the paris agreement is to enforce the framework convention not to change it

00:21:13.520 so they know they've got a sweetheart deal they can literally increase emissions forever and if anyone

00:21:19.040 ever contests them they say no no article 4 in the framework convention says that our first and

00:21:23.840 overriding priority is poverty alleviation and development and we can't do that if we have to shut

00:21:29.280 off our cheapest form of power which is coal so they're gonna it's crazy but we actually have to do it

00:21:36.080 even if it totally ruins our economy so yeah china and russia you know they think it's great you know

00:21:42.080 especially china absolutely uh before we wrap up here tom what would you like to see from the

00:21:47.760 conservatives in terms of their policies around uh the climates around the environment well step

00:21:53.200 number one is stop calling it carbon or carbon pollution carbon dioxide you know it's carbon dioxide

00:21:58.400 start calling it that don't use the enemy's language you know there's generals old chinese

00:22:03.760 generals said you never fight a battle on your company or your sorry your your opposition's terrain

00:22:09.200 or using their standards okay so stop calling it carbon it's not carbon it's carbon dioxide

00:22:14.720 and the second thing is start advocating for adaptation that's a sensible approach that will

00:22:20.560 actually give us benefits okay the idea that we are going to help stop climate change even if you

00:22:25.520 believe the science makes no sense at all because canada's uh commitment to kyoto and pro you know the

00:22:31.680 paris agreement they are literally trivial contributions to world greenhouse gas emissions so

00:22:37.360 focus on adaptation and that'll also help them kill the idea that they're climate deniers because

00:22:42.640 it's you know of course climate changes and we have to help people the other thing of course is to

00:22:47.360 increase our resilience and we do that by having our strongest cheapest and most reliable forms of energy

00:22:54.800 very strongly protected okay so we need to do that and whenever they say well do you think humans are

00:23:00.000 causing dangerous climate change you can say very clearly well the jury's still out and until it's

00:23:06.080 more solidly determined what is actually going on in the atmosphere we're advocating a no regrets approach

00:23:12.800 which is to reduce air pollution which may at times reduce co2 as well and to save energy and to have

00:23:20.000 adaptation but stop calling it carbon pollution very interesting well thank you tom harris from the

00:23:27.280 international climate science coalition of canada thank you for having me for being on the show yeah

00:23:31.760 thank you matthew

Western Standard - May 22, 2022

EXCLUSIVE： Tom Harris talks about Climate Change and Renewable Energy issues.

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