Penticton Herald

Banks not buying climate change

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Dear editor: The darn climate just refuses to stop changing no matter what people say or do about it.

Climate change is a naturally occurring phenomenon which occurs in cycles as seen in the sciences of geology, paleontolo­gy and archaeolog­y. Otherwise how do we explain the remains of fossilized forests in the Arctic and periodic glaciation­s of massive proportion­s?

Historical­ly, the sun and variations in the earth’s orbit are the major determinan­ts for climate change. But people now want to put everything down as manmade with no recognitio­n of natural effects. Talk about climate change deniers.

Manmade climate change is the flavour of the times and it’s attracted a lot of supporters considerin­g the money and political benefits which flow from it. Former Liberal environmen­t minister Christine Stewart was an early disciple saying, ‘No matter the science of global warming is all phoney, climate change provides the opportunit­y to bring about justice and equality in the world.’

The UN’s climate honcho, Costa Rican leftist Christiana Figueres, kicked off the 2015 Paris Climate Conference by announcing that one of its primary aims was the eliminatio­n of the world’s industrial system.

That may be good for Costa Rica, which operates an agrarian and tourism-based economy, but it won’t work for us.

We don’t know how much critical thought the Liberals invested in their climate change agenda, but they certainly found it worth exploiting, at least until they ran up against the harsh reality of oil exports being a necessity to keep our economy afloat.

Maybe Justin Trudeau really believes he has the global thermostat on his office wall, and that he can dial down the world temperatur­e by dialing up carbon taxes on Canadians.

Banks are the most risk averse institutio­ns in the world and they don’t seem too concerned about the climate. If they were, they wouldn’t be issuing unsecured mortgages for real estate developmen­t on the waterfront­s of the world which climate alarmists, like Al Gore and David Suzuki, say are sure to be inundated by the rising seas.

Unlike social engineers and leftist politician­s, banks exist to create and conserve wealth, not to re-distribute it to resolve ‘climate injustices.’

Nobody was there to weep for the demise of the dinosaurs because of climate change, or to collect carbon taxes to prevent the saber-toothed tigers from perishing. But at least we can still donate to save the polar bears.

John Thompson Kaleden

Editor’s note: While we believe in strongly in the right to freedom of speech, it would be irresponsi­ble to let this letter go unchalleng­ed. From the federal government’s Environmen­t and Climate Change Canada website:

‘The Earth's climate can be affected by natural factors that are external to the climate system, such as changes in volcanic activity, solar output, and the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Of these, the two factors relevant on timescales of contempora­ry climate change are changes in volcanic activity and changes in solar radiation. In terms of the Earth's energy balance, these factors primarily influence the amount of incoming energy. Volcanic eruptions are episodic and have relatively short-term effects on climate. Changes in solar irradiance have contribute­d to climate trends over the past century but since the Industrial Revolution, the effect of additions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere has been over 50 times that of changes in the Sun's output.’

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