Woke Minister Wilkinson needs to be woken up.

Vincent J. Curtis

22 July 21

RE: Extreme weather events a wake-up call. Hamilton Spectator news article 22 July 21.

It’s hard to tell if Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson is badly misinformed, poorly educated in Canadian history, or is simply another day-zero fanatic who thinks the world began when the Trudeau Liberals assumed power.

According to Minister Wilkinson, the heat wave and fires in B.C. and the drought conditions in Western Canada are sure signs of climate change, and only Canadians can do anything about it.  He was in Calgary to announce plans to mitigate the potential for flooding again in High River, AB.

Minister Wilkinson should know better than to equate certain weather events with climate change, because weather is not climate.  If it were, how would explain the extraordinary cold snap in February that saw some Texans freeze to death?

The extreme heat and drought experienced today is nothing compared to the heat and drought of the 1930s, when people were literally driven from the land.  Saskatchewan depopulated in the 1930s, and Alberta went bankrupt.  The burn acreage in B.C. is no worse than in previous years, and much less than the 1930s – the “Dirty 30s.”  No new heat record was set in the U.S. during the latest heat wave.  And, Minister Wilkinson, the Highwood River has flooded before 2013; property damage was extensive because the municipal government allowed building on known flood plain!

Wilkinson’s smug conceit that he is morally and intellectually superior to his opposition adds no weight to his argument that Canadians have to stop resisting madcap ways of addressing “climate change.”  He needs to reflect upon the fact that Canada’s emissions are only 1.5 percent of the world total, and China is hell-bent on building as much coal-fired electrical generations as she can before 2030.

That, and a history lesson of the Dirty ‘30s.

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