Vincent J. Curtis
24 June 2019
A few years ago, Dr. Ross McKitrick,
Professor of Economics at the University of Guelph, published a work which has
interesting implications both on measures to reduce CO2 output and, indirectly,
on immigration.
Dr. McKitrick said that the
world output of CO2 is 1.15 tons per person per year, and that this figure has
been nearly constant since 1970, over forty years ago. Based on the standard deviation, and taking a
five-sigma wide confidence range, Dr. McKitrick concluded that between now and
the year 2050 the world output of CO2 emissions will range between 1.0 and 1.3
tons per capita per year.
The implication for Canada is that output
depends upon population more than anything else. Taxes on
carbon, cap-and-trade, or any other form of CO2 control will have negligible
impact on total national CO2, but population will have significant impact. More people, more CO2. Hence,
between now and 2050, controlling Canada’s population will be the most effective means of
controlling Canada's CO2 emissions.
It is therefore contrary to the goal of
controlling Canadian CO2 emissions to have large scale immigration - particularly from countries that lie between 30 degrees North and South
latitudes. This has nothing to do with
race, but on the fact that people in tropical latitudes put out less CO2 than
those in high latitudes. And more people
living in cold Canada are going to increase Canada’s contribution to world CO2
emissions. The overall situation is
worse if we take in immigrants from the tropical climes.
Canada can’t reduce its CO2 emissions and
have high immigration. Let's see how that plays among progressvies in the next Federal election.
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Vincent J. Curtis
19 June 2019
Since hate
speech is moving to the front burner of public debate, let’s talk about
officially sanctioned and approved hate speech. I refer to the MMIWG
report that concluded white society was responsible for and engaged in a
genocide of aboriginal women and girls.
This is
hate speech. Not by the wildest stretches of the imagination can the
disappearance and murder of some 1200 people over a span of twenty years,
however regrettable these henious crimes are, be classed as a “genocide.” The murder of six
million Jews in four years is a genocide. The murder of 400,000 Tutsi
tribesman in a few weeks is a genocide. Genocide is the deliberate
killing of a large number of people, especially of a particular ethnic group or
nation.
The use of
the term genocide was not a technical inaccuracy or a mild hyperbole. It
was gross slander. It was an expression of hatred and anger. It had
no place in a responsible commission report sponsored by the government of
Canada. It was used because the commissioners couldn’t bear to look into
the mirror, lest the Medusa of Aboriginal Culture be looking back at them.
I don’t
care that the Prime Minister agrees with the use of the term. It only
shows how shameless he is. (And maybe, if he is presiding, as PM, of a genocide, he should be taken to the International Criminal Court.)
I don’t care if polls show that people tend to
agree with the term. It only shows how detached they are from the
ugliness aimed at them.
Banning
hate speech starts with banning the report of the MMIWG.
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Vincent J. Curtis
17 June 2019
Hamilton held a gay pride event at the enormous Gage Park. People opposed to gay pride also attended and carried signs some of which read, " The wicked shall be cast into hell." and "Liberal commies and homo fascists are
destroying Canada and our children." In addition to bitter words, some push and shoving went on. All to the displeasure of Hamilton's mayor, Fred Eisenberger, who said that hate speech and violence have no place in Hamilton.
When Mayor
Eisenberger says that hate speech and violence have no place in Hamilton, he is
only half right. The Charter protects hate speech.
Hate speech
is in the ear of the beholder. What constitutes hate speech is a matter
of opinion. The Spectator reported word for word in quotes the alleged
hate speech, but nobody is accusing the Spectator of engaging in hate speech by
reporting it. And if the words themselves don’t constitute hate speech,
then what does? The flair with which they are spoken?
It is
regrettable that the city is caught in the middle of violence that occurred at
the gay pride event, but it is a case of reaping what you sow. Over the
strenuous objections of then-Mayor Bob Morrow the city caved to the pressure of
the gay lobby and consented to supporting officially the normalization of gay
pride. The lesson taught is that violence and the threat of violence work
politically. If the gay pride event is the product of political pressure,
then putting an end to it will require pressure and violence. The city
should have followed Mayor Morrow’s instincts and stayed out of it.
Gay pride
will always be controversial because it amounts to an effort to normalize the
un-normalizable. You don’t celebrate the normal, you celebrate something
that’s different. Gay pride events are proof that gays admit to
themselves that they are not normal. Thrusting a lie into the faces of
people is inviting trouble.
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Vincent J. Curtis
16 June 2019
At the NDP
party conference this weekend, leader Andrea Horwath gave the impression she running
for class president. Playing the ever-popular socialism card, she promised to cut the school’s carbon dioxide emissions by fifty percent!
The applause was so prolonged that she forget to promise ice-cream for all.
Horwath has
no idea where this fifty percent cut will come from. She admits to having
no idea how much it’s going to cost. She has no inkling of the economic
dislocation achieving that goal will create. And she has no concept of
the utter futility of the attempt.
It will
certainly require a massive increase in government power to direct the economy,
and, ironically, “tailored support” for those massive, capital-intensive
industries that generate a lot of carbon dioxide.
The utter
futility of it all, other than as an electioneering gambit, is that Ontario
only contributes about one half of one percent of the world’s emissions of CO2, while
China contributes thirty percent, and India seven percent. Forty percent
of the world’s population doesn’t believe in this peculiar western fixation
with CO2, and they’re going to be adding scores of gigawatts of thermal coal
generated electric power to their grids before 2030.
An Ontario
reduction from one half to one quarter of one percent will be swamped by the
next Chinese or Indian power plant.
Sackcloth-and-ashes
environmentalism won’t save Ontario, and it won’t even save Andrea’s immortal
soul.
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Vincent J. Curtis
15 June 2019
How many
philosophy drop-outs are there? It’s pretty much “settled science” in
philosophy that a single cause produces a single effect. All the laws of
science rely on it, and a good number of them are restatements of this
principle in disguise.
Within a
week, the Hamilton Spectator, my hometown newspaper, published an article in which an "expert" asserted that the
wildfires in Alberta earlier this spring was “climate change in action.”
An unusually hot and dry winter apparently caused by high CO2 levels left Alberta forests
tinder dry, and those fires were a consequence of CO2 induced climate
change. Then comes the report today that an unusually cool and wet winter and
spring are making the planting of crops a real problem for Hamilton
farmers. Indeed, this is a problem across most of farm country in North
America.
So which is
it? Hot and dry produces dry forests or cold and wet making crop planting
difficult?
Different effects are produced by different causes.
Rising CO2 levels can cause one or the other but not both. Climate
“change” cannot be both hotter and colder and drier and wetter at the same
time. To say otherwise is either to admit the existence of other causes
or to deny a fundamental principle of logic and science.
When
someone claims that this or that is due to climate change, you know you are in
the presence of a philosophy drop-out.
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Vincent J. Curtis
14 June 2019
Andrew
Dreschel reports that NDP leader Andrea Horwath is “excited about building
‘resistance’ to the Ford government’s agenda.” The rest of us ought to
find her excitement disappointing and even alarming.
It comes as
no surprise than an NDP leader would espouse a typically Marxian approach to
politics. And so long as they are far from power, that’s no real
harm. But this tedious aping of American style of politics also imports
the worst of American politics.
Horwath is
the leader of the “loyal opposition,’ not a resistance leader. The duty
of the opposition is to oppose, but the loyal part means that she recognizes
the right of the government to govern. “Resistance” involves a denial of
the legitimate right of the government to govern. Opposition means
criticism and perhaps the offering of constructive alternatives.
“Resistance” means the encouragement of disorder. Disorder for thee, but
the New Order for me is what “resistance” by one side amounts to.
“Resistance”
is a policy that can’t work if both sides engage in it. If both sides
regard each other as morally illegitimate without a right to govern despite an
electoral mandate, there can’t be reasonable government or civil peace.
“Resistance”
ultimately is a policy that is contrary to peaceful democracy. But, of
course, Marxism itself is contrary to democracy and believes in revolution.
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Vincent J. Curtis
11 June 2019
At first
blush, the banning of plastic straws, Styrofoam cups, and plastic grocery bags
seems like a bagatelle. But on second thought, you have to wonder what is
going on?
How does
municipal waste from Canada end up in the ocean off China?
The answer
is that Canada relies on the corrupt practices of third world countries to deal
with a problem we ought to solve ourselves. By banning certain plastic
items, Trudeau is confirming us in the practice of dumping our garbage in the
third world.
Single use
plastics are used for reasons of public health, and so Trudeau picked one of
the dumbest ways of addressing the problem of our waste off China’s
coast. He should ban or heavily tax the export of our municipal waste.
Canada has
the wealth, space, and technology to dispose of our own waste, but we lack the
will to do so. Rather than confront Canadians with the problem we have to
solve honorably ourselves, Trudeau takes an easy and unhealthy way out.
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