Front page news today in Holland’s arguably most left newspaper De Volkskrant: “Scientists shocked by attack from minister Cramer” after Holland’s environment minister Cramer said she would not accept “any more mistakes” in the IPCC Fouth Assessment Report.

After freaking out at the glacier mistake last week (“Politicians Furious After Yet Another Blunder in the IPCC Report“) , the minister could not accept the IPCC report made such a huge mistake by reporting that 55% of The Netherlands is below sea level, when in fact it is 26%. (The additional 29% is at risk of flooding from rivers). Of course, the leftist newspaper quotes a number of scientists that claim it is merely an honest mistake.

The newspaper adds:

Climate sceptics see this mistake (on one of the three thousand pages in the report) as proof that the IPCC is operating unscientifically.

Minister Cramer is calling for a thorough enquiry. Her fellow party MP Samdon is going further in calling for a resignation of IPCC boss Pachauri.

It is heartening to see that even leftist politicians in Europe are starting to question the IPCC report, even though we’ll have to wait longer for the media to follow suit.

FEB 5 UPDATE: The Dutch government has now officially asked the IPCC to explain their numbers.

Ms. May, perhaps in search of a seat somewhere in Denmark where she may be elected (since she can’t get elected anywhere in this country), popped up, once again, on the radar at an ‘environmental’ conference at Hopenhagen, the world’s Schmooze-fest on Global Warming (even though there is no warming).

Unfortunately, I have already called her every name in the book in my many post before this one, so I have none to give you. I apologise.

Granted she hasn’t mentioned her book just jet, but has already told Canada to ‘shut up’ and has been seen rubbing shoulders with such great human beings as Al Gore. Wonder if he showed her his Oscar… Oh Al, are you happy to see me, or is that a statue in your pocket? Al Gore and Elizabeth May, now there’s a couple I wouldn’t mind reading about in National Enquirer!

She says Canada is embarrassing itself every time we open our mouths, so we should shut up. I think she got her facts mixed up just slightly, there. All this globe-trotting to each and every conference flappin’ her gums off with crazy-talk may have gotten her off the track a little bit and she substituted ‘Canada’ for ‘Me’. That’s just what I think. I think she may have lost a few of her marbles (provided she had some to start off with) and is starting to excrete even more garbage than usual.

How did you get to Denmark, by the way, Ms. May? Did you swim? Row your boat?

Oh, you flew…

Hypocrite.

Now, go away. Again.

Researchers at the NOAA (US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), after careful re-analysis of our entire array of climate data (50 years’ worth of adjusted, converted and re-adjusted pristine data), came up with a stunning conclusion: the Earth’s climate is mostly influenced by nature! Turns out, mankind isn’t “just” responsible for climate change, in the past 50 years it has mostly been shifting ocean currents.

Some of us have been saying this since the nineties, when the IPCC came out with  their first false report. And some of us have been trying to say this since Al Gore came out with his fictional movie and have been chastised for it as ignorant fools.

Imagine that… Mother Nature is responsible for weather patterns. WOW. That just blew my mind.

Al Gore, isn’t time to hand over that Nobel Prize?

The once-a-year, feel-fuzzy-in-your-tummy Happy Hour is coming up again. Yes, let everyone in the world join hands and do our part in saving the world in this annual, all-out love-fest: Earth Hour is here! Turning off some lights for 60 minutes once a year is going to save our planet. Mayors of major cities across the world are happily jumping onto the bandwagon and turning off all city lights for an hour on March 28 (and leave all the lights on all night for the other 364.96 days a year).

So what are “we” doing all this for? “To Save The Earth”. To save the Earth? From what? Too much light? Turning off your lights for one hour really doesn’t do anything, except to highlight (or: lowlight)  the level of stupidity of people across the globe. Hey everybody, look at the 1 billion idiots! No, apparently, this hour long sit-in-the-dark thing is nothing more than a symbolic gesture. Whoop-de-do. That’ll teach all them energy wasters: we’ll sit here in the dark, while they are basking in the wasteful light. And that somehow convinces the energy-wasters to better their ways. This endeavor must be the worst idea since someone said ‘yeah, let’s take this suspiciously large wooden horse into Troy, statues are all the rage this season’. h/t

I’ve got news for you: I paid for the energy I use, it belongs to me, and I can do with it as I please: I can use it running my vacuum, I can waste it, throw it out the window, whatever. It’s mine. You’re gonna tell me how to wisely use my energy? Get lost! Go punch holes into walls with David Suzuki: I gotta say, I’ll tell you where I’d like to stick that caulking gun…

If it’s just a gesture, then don’t bother: gestures don’t do anything. Actions do. You can gesture all you want, until you actually do something nothing will change. First off, I don’t understand what exactly you’re even trying to change. We’re supposed to use less energy? Why? Einstein said there’s an infinite amount of energy in the universe, so there hardly seems to be a reason to conserve it. That’s almost, like, trying to conserve water, one of the most common elements on this planet. Why are we not conserving dirt? Or grass? There’s lots of that… And the best thing is, we’ll probably get a nice satellite picture showing us how many people participated in this nonsense, with nobody realizing that manufacturing and shooting up this satellite and taking pictures and sending them back to earth probably used up more energy than this whole stupidity is trying to save.

Here’s a thought for all you participants:

If you are so concerned about saving the planet, why would you wait until a once a year gimmick and turn off the lights for one hour, and not turn off your lights right now and leave them off? Oh, I see, you’re willing to give up something to save the Earth, but only for one hour. Not for any longer than that. After the hour, the lights go back on. We’ve got to be comfortable, after all. Oh, and we want to watch Survivor.

YOU’RE ALL HYPOCRITES! ALL OF YOU!

My favourite <insert expletive here> Lizzy May was interviewed by Kate Heartfield of the Ottawa Citizen this morning. Of course, she was peddling her new book, Global Warming By For Dummies, co-written by a student (!). In between the own horn tooting, she mentions this little tidbit:

I’ve already gotten in trouble for suggesting giving a copy of the book to Stephen Harper! Conservative bloggers thought this was an insult.

And there you go. Once again, we made a difference!

So where’s this “climate crisis” everyone keeps talking about?

The last time we heard from Lizzy May, we hoped it would be the last time. But, she’s back. As Joanne over at Blue Like You reports, Lizzy May has been recorded as saying she plans to give a copy of her book “Global Warming By Dummies”, er, “Global Warming For Dummies” to PM Harper when parliament resumes.

So, not only does she think that the Canadian Electorate is stupid, she also thinks our PM is a dummy.

Not only is the title old news (it’s called “Climate Change” now, DUMMY!), it is written by two non-scientists, and has been “fact” checked by several members of the IPCC panel. Great! They couldn’t even find the facts in their own publications!

But it’s not a book to convince the Deniers, no, no, it’s not, honestly!

Give me a break. Lizzy, go away, again, please. I’m begging you. Just…. go away.

This is going to be my last post until after The Holidays. We’ve got the Holiday Tree up, and on Holiday’s Eve and Holiday-Day I’ll be spending my time with family (my wife, because my kids are still in Nepal) and friends (Jack Daniels).

In -32 degree weather, and another foot of snow on the way, my Winter Lights can hardly be seen, but will still give some Holiday Cheer to the poor souls braving the deep freeze and thigh high snow and walk by my house. They can also view our display of illuminated Happy Trees and PC Nativity Scene. We’ll be snug inside roasting chestnuts on an environmentally friendly fuel source and watching such holiday movies as Four Holidays and the various Holiday Specials. Outside, carollers sing such wonderful Holiday hymns as “O come in adoration” and “I’m Dreaming of a White Winterval“.

As for the new year, I wish everybody living in the prairies a sustained and hefty dose of Global Warming. Bring it on!

Oh, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Obama has teamed up with Nobel Peace Prize and Oscar winner Al Gore to, once and for all, change the climate back to where it once was, damn it! Changing the Earth’s climate? Sounds like a bad James Bond plot to me. Gore, for all his help, does not want a cabinet post, though Obama is rumoured to have offered him Secretary of Propaganda. “The Time for Denial Is Over” they proclaimed. So is the Time for Common Sense, apparently.

Holland (or: The Netherlands) have come up with a “brilliant” new strategy to spend their climate change fighting $15 Billion/yr budget: they are now going to pay companies in Brazil to not cut down trees. And you thought our politicians were wacky.

Elizabeth May, yes that one, has been spotted in Poland on the UN Climate Change conference, officially titled “14th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and Fourth Meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol” – sheesh, I guess that’s one way of weeding out those pesky climate change deniers. She says in her blog:

Everyone with whom I speak is heart-broken that Canada’s government has been so unhelpful

and

I hear that the youth delegates burst into tears – from many countries around the world – when news reached them that the Canadian Prime Minister was hanging on to power by shutting down the Parliament. 

Proving once and for all that she’s a certified nut-case.

She’s peddling her book “Global Warming for Dummies“. I guess she thinks that, besides the Canadian electorate, Poles (what do you call people from Poland?), the UN and indeed the world, are stupid as well.

Bob Rae, one time Liberal Party Leadership Racer and bankrupter of the Province of Ontario, was very un-democratically pushed out of the top lines of the party this week. After claiming the country could be taken over by another PM without a vote, and then claiming the opposite when it came to his own job, the Liberal caucus decided that Rae was a liability, and they’ve had enough liabilities over the past two years. Out he goes.

And Stephane Dion, after being fired from the Liberal Leadership position (is there any other word?), has decided to launch a new series of books in the “For Dummies” style, called “Do You Think It’s Easy?”, in order to generate enough revenue to pay off his extensive leadership race debt. The first in the series is titled “Do you Think It’s Easy? – Making Priorities”. A second one is in the works called “Do You Think It’s Easy - Home Videos – Part One: Focusing on your subject”.

Yes, Canadian Tire has been running a new series of ads: buy a blue planet CFL light bulb and “save the world”.

From every sale of these $6 light bulbs, CT donates $2 “towards planting a tree” (only for the first 125000 sold). As I’ve said before, it costs about 7 cts to plant a tree in Ontario (the program is in collaboration with Trees Ontario), so someone either at blue planet, TreeCanada or Trees Ontario is making a profit of $1.93 somewhere (I’m guessing the only commercial one of the bunch: blue planet. I guess the name “green planet” was already taken. What “blue” has to do with “trees”, I don’t know).

Incandescent light bulbs are mostly made right here in North America and contain no toxic materials. On the other hand, these blue planet CFLs are made in China, no doubt in a dirty, Kyoto-exempt coal-powered plant, using such nice materials as circuit boards containing plastic, and the extremely toxic mercury. It is filled with argon gas mixed with a low pressure mercury vapour. Then it’s shipped across the ocean in coal-powered ocean liners. Then, when it has finished its lifespan, it will have to be driven to a hazardous materials depot or, like most people do, dumped in regular household garbage where it ends leeching lead and mercury into the groundwater somewhere in a landfill.

For all this, CT will “pay towards” planting ONE TREE. This somehow “saves the world”.

We still don’t know HOW they save the world, or from WHAT.

Just replace “Climate Change” with “The Economy” and you can just reuse your speeches!

I have found a new way to save some money for the LPC: you can just reuse old speeches by replacing the words “Climate Change (formerly: Global Warming)” with “The Economy”:

You can change:

“In times of the climate change crisis, it is imperative that a government offers a plan to Canadians and takes action,” Mr. Dion told the Montreal Chamber of Commerce. “The risks from inaction are too great. Doing nothing is not an option.”

To:

“In times of economic crisis, it is imperative that a government offers a plan to Canadians and takes action,” Mr. Dion told the Montreal Chamber of Commerce. “The risks from inaction are too great. Doing nothing is not an option.”

You can also change the words “Climate Change” to:

1) Health Care
2) Manufacturing
3) Whatever the current crisis is.

You can fire those writers, you don’t need them anymore.

Since the LPC seems to be a bit short on cash, as well as their leader (paid back that $4300000 yet, Mr. Dion? — Thank you Dr. Roy for keeping us informed) I thought it was time for some action and come up with some frugal ideas to help them out.

Hmm… wonder if that $4,000,000 sponsorship scandal money has been paid back yet…

I made a button for you to put on your blogs/websites to link to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation nocarbontaxes.com website.

Just copy and paste the following code:


<a href='http://www.nocarbontaxes.com'><img src='http://www.erwingerrits.com/nocarbontaxes.png' border=0></a>


Last year I sent an angry email to the NDP explaining to them that Global Warming, as it was then called, is not man-made, and that they were wrong in their environmental policy. I promptly got a reply thanking me, and that they too were concerned that human-induced global warming is destroying the planet (?), and then they added me to their email list calling me “friend”. So I sent another email asking them if they even read the email that comes in, to which I got no reply.

And so, this evening I received another email from my NEW Democratic “friends” begging me for money because they want to put a new ad on TV but they don’t have the money, so if I could please send them some.

Here’s the link if you want a preview of the new ad:

https://secure.ndp.ca/campaign/index.php?campaign=08EOD6&amp;language=e

He now seems to be complaining the Conservatives are promising too little! He calls them “token tax cuts”. I suppose he’s never heard of a ‘recession’. He also complains that the Conservatives are helping their coporate friends, and not your kitchen table… or something. Ya gotta mention the friggin’ kitchen table again, eh? He himself, Jackie, will “protect people by training them for jobs in the future” (yes, he’s a psychic now), and “reward companies to keep jobs here”. Wait a minute, “reward companies”… isn’t that the same as “helping corporate friends”? Nah, can’t be…

Price tag of NDP promised so far from ctv.ca:

• A moratorium on expansion of Alberta’s tarsands and requiring oil companies to reclaim land strip mined for petroleum production. No cost provided.
• $8.2 billion over four years to create, protect and foster growth of “green-collar” jobs and manufacturing.
• A “cap-and-trade” system to create incentives for big business to reduce their emissions. No cost provided.
• Slash greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. No cost provided.
• A price-monitoring agency to investigate price spikes and consult with provinces about regulations. No cost provided.
• Cap credit-card interest rates at five per cent over prime.
• Outlaw automated banking machine fees, saving consumers at least $104 per year.
• $120 million a year in additional funding for women’s groups.
• $1 billion over five years to expand medical and nursing schools, increasing the number of student spaces by 50 per cent.
• $125 million a year to forgive student loans for medical-school grads who spend 10 years as family physicians.
• $100 million for skills training and job creation.
• Comprehensive review of Canadian banking regulations. No cost provided.
• A national daycare program, enshrined in law, with 150,000 spaces in the first year. $1.4 billion a year at first, growing to estimated $2.2 billion.
• Home-care program for seniors. $250 million in the first year growing to $1 billion a year by Year 4.

I like the “Slash greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. No cost provided.”. The biggest plan of all, 80% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the one that will bankrupt the country, has “no cost provided”. That’s probably because the cost will be more than the Gross National Product.

Please send Jackie some cash. I’m tired of getting his begging emails.

And we’re spending like drunken sailors!

I complained before Harper is only rolling out small announcements. I am beginning to understand his reasons. These are hard economic times, whether the electorate realises it or not. The recession in the States WILL drag us down, the question is how far. And reckless spending will not help this situation in any way. A measured, controlled spending will be the best thing to do economically. Canadians should realise we’re on the brink of a recession. This is not the time to go spending like drunken sailors.

My only problem is this: does the average Canadian realise that this is the time to be frugal, and we can’t afford to be spending money left and right, or does the average Canadian just want, want, want? Harper is a brilliant economist, but I doubt the average Canadian is.

The Liberals announced $70B for infrastructure that we’re not going to be using after the carbon tax will make everything so expensive we won’t be able to drive on it.

While Harper announced a small but real $150/yr tax credit for seniors, Layton trumped him with a $1B/yr promise to allow more home care. His “As Prime Minister I will…” speech was amusing. Dream on, Jackie. I wonder, though, if this is how one wins elections: just promise in the vicinity of $1B for EVERY GROUP you encounter on the campaign trail. You’re with students: promise $1B for education. You’re with nurses: promise $1B to hire more of them. You’re with auto-workers: promise them $1B to save the plants. You’re with seniors: promise them $1B to allow home care. He has no chance in becoming PM, so he can promise all he wants. That’s his prerogative. What I don’t understand is the people voting for him thinking that he means all of this.

The Green Party rolled out her election platform. What do you know, new taxes, raise taxes. This is not the time to raise taxes, Global Warming or not. People can’t pay their bills as it is. And not just the low income bracket. I’d say most of the middle bracket income earners fear the coming winter, with over $1.10 for a litre of heating oil, that’s $1000 per fill-up. In February, we usually have two fill ups.  Over the winter, from October to April, we usually have 6-7 fill-ups. You do the math.

With apologies to all drunken sailors out there.

How does buying ‘offsets’ save the environment?

The press is complaining that the Conservatives are the only national party that didn’t buy any offsets for the flying around they are going to do during this election campaign. That makes them an environmentally unfriendly party.

I am concerned that ‘buying offsets’ is now seen as being “environmentally friendly”, and if you don’t buy them, you’re some sort of bastard who doesn’t care this planet is going to waste. Nobody has of yet been able to explain to me how buying offsets is cleaning up the environment. You’re still flying around the country. You’re still driving that car. You just feel better about it. I have written before in my blog, the majority of these carbon credit offset selling companies will plant a vague number of trees for this money. And that is only found out after prying: go visit any number of Carbon Credit companies, and you’ll be hard pressed to find what they are actually going to do with the money. They use vague terms like “We need to put back the trees that have been cut down” and “Change human behaviour” or “Offset: what you can’t reduce today with certified offsets “. After prying, for some companies it comes out to be about 20,000 trees per $1,000,000 worth of credits. It may sound like a large number of trees, but 20,000 trees is what one good tree planter can plant in about 10 days. And those trees would have been planted anyway (there are about 600,000,000 trees planted in Canada every year by the logging industry), but these 20,000 have found a sponsor other than the logging business: you. The cost of planting 20,000 trees is about $10,000. That makes a profit of $990,000. For the OFFSET SELLER. So now we have 20,000 trees planted, $990,000 profit for the offset seller, and a certificate in your hand that you may now fly across the country guilt-free. Where in this story did the air get cleaned up? Oh, people will say, the planted trees will absorb the CO2 and thereby offsetting your pollution. Well, 1) Those trees would have been planted anyway, and 2) When that tree dies, it’ll burn, or rot, releasing all its CO2 right back into the atmosphere. You haven’t eliminated your CO2, you paid to have it stored in a tree for about 80 years after which it’ll go right back where it came from.

And all this is assuming CO2 is a bad polluting gas. Which it isn’t.

There is no science behind these offsets: it is the brain child of Mr. Kyoto himself, Maurice Strong, in a scheme to funnel large bundles of cash to China, a country he and Jean Chretien (who signed on so eagerly to the Kyoto protocol) had heavily invested in just before all this started. All this influx of cash made the Chinese economy boom, instantly making all their investors filthy rich. Small town cheap became nouveau riche pretty quick, on the backs of us all.

I am happy the Conservatives aren’t falling for this offsetting carbon credit crap. Good for you. Don’t let anybody tell you different.

Still No Sun Spots: The Ice Age Cometh.

Jackie today was big on platitudes, small on substance. That seems to be the NDP’s matra. He’s going to “take on” big oil, and “watch your backs”. He’s also going to “oversee” gas prices. As usual, no talk on exactly HOW he’s going to bring down gas prices, HOW he’s going to stop big oil. Oh, but he’s going to MONITOR them. Thanks. That’ll save us. You know, Jackie, just wishing something doesn’t make it so. You gotta have a plan.

Dion, in the mean time, wants to reverse the new immigration rules he so readily abstained from defeating just this spring. It seems he now disagrees with the fact we’re fast tracking more skilled immigrants that can actually do some good work in this country. I guess he would rather see doctors drive taxi cabs than perform operations. He also said he would apologize in the House of Commons for some other thing our government did over a century ago. Don’t you think we’ve apologized enough already? We weren’t even alive when those things happened. We’re not responsible for them, so why must we apologize? Let’s just say this: we appologize for anything and everything we did up until now. Now, let’s go on with running the country.

As usual, Danny Williams of Newfoundland has to tell his constituents how to vote, as if they they don’t have a mind of their own. For some reason, he doesn’t like the Conservatives, even though the Conservatives plan is clearly the best for his province. How does he think a Liberal Carbon tax would work in his oil rich economy? The Green carbon tax is even worse, and Layton’s Cap and Trade scheme can’t be good news for oil money either. The Conservatives are the only national party that wouldn’t tax his oil income. Sure, you miss out on some equalization payments, but you get to keep all that big fat oil money! Maybe it’s time Newfoundland starts to give something back to this country.

Gilles was, once again, in Quebec, so who cares.

Where is Elizabeth May? Has anyone seen her? Elizabeth May has not been seen or heard from for two days. This is her big thank you to the people who voiced their opinions so loudly that two party leaders and a consortium of old men changed their minds. “Thanks for getting me in, folks! Now I’m going to disappear. See ya later!”

You know, I went to the CBC.ca website to pick up on some election news bits. I couldn’t find any. I wondered why that mouthpiece of the Liberal party has NOTHING on the election on its front page. Then it dawned on me: there is nothing good to report about the Liberal campaign. They’re way down in the polls. They are not coming out with new policies, although the Green Shaft plan is changing so much every day, you may call it a new plan every time it is mentioned. In order to get to the ‘election subsite’ you have to click on “Federal Election” in the “Recent Searches” box! I thought the election is the biggest story in this country, but the CBC website lists “Blue Jay Baseball” as its main headliner, followed closely by “Saturday Afternoon at the Opera”. Nice to see our tax dollars at work over there.