Mr. Speaker, I have been identifying for Canadians nine myths about climate change which have been brought forward by climate change specialists.
I would like to continue with myth 4 which states that if the earth warms, it will be disastrous for the environment and human society. That is a myth according to climate change specialists. Climate historians say that during warm periods civilization flourished while in cold periods there was more drought, famine, wars and disease.
Myth 5 is that extreme weather events are expected to be more common if the earth warms. This has already started. More droughts, floods, forest fires, et cetera, are on the rise as a result of our greenhouse gas emissions.
Dr. Madhav Khandekar, a meteorologist with 25 years experience with Environment Canada, showed in a study about to be published that extreme weather events are not currently increasing anywhere in Canada. He says, “Extreme weather events are definitely on the decline over the last 40 years”.
Myth 6 is that sea level is rising quickly and will get worse if the polar ice caps melt due to global warming. Coastal settlements and low lying islands will be submerged. That is a myth according to climate change experts. They say sea level has been rising naturally since the end of the last ice age and this has not accelerated recently.
Myth 7 is that humanity is causing earth's polar regions to warm quickly resulting in unusual rates of ice melting. That is a myth according to the climate change specialists. In fact, Mr. Winsor, of Göteborg University in Sweden, used detailed measurements to conclude in a report published just last year, and I guess the Minister of the Environment may not have seen it, which stated:
“...there was no trend towards a thinning ice cover during the 1990s. Data from the North Pole shows a slight increase in mean ice thickness, whereas the Beaufort Sea shows a small decrease, none of which are significant”.
Myth 8 is that Kyoto will save thousands of lives by cutting air pollution. The fact is, according to these climate change experts, Kyoto is not a pollution treaty. Carbon dioxide is in no way a pollutant. We breathe it in and out every day. Plants use it for photosynthesis. Real pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides, can be reduced with far less expensive methods than a greenhouse gas treaty.
Myth 9 is that solar and wind power can soon be significant contributors to the base load energy needs of Canada. The experts say that both solar and wind power are far too diffuse and intermittent to ever provide more than a small fraction of the energy needs of any major industrialized nation, let alone a vast northern country like Canada.
This is what climate change experts say about the kinds of arguments we are hearing from the Liberal government. Nine myths that they say are completely without scientific basis. Who are these experts? They are: Dr. Tim Patterson, a professor of paleoclimatology; Dr. Morgan, a climate consultant and Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia; and Dr. Madhav Khandekar, an environmental consultant who has 25 years experience with Environment Canada as a research scientist. Dr. Khandekar states:
Climate change is the most complex issue humanity has ever handled. To pretend that the science is sufficiently mature to substantiate rushing forward with ratifying Kyoto is ridiculous in the extreme.
On hearing about the environment minister's confident predictions of the dire effects of not ratifying Kyoto, the professor of meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says Dr. Khandekar, and one of the lead authors of the report on which the Kyoto protocol was based, laughed, and said, “There is a certain charm when politicians are so certain of the science when the scientists are not.” That is what Dr. Khandekar, a former research scientist with Environment Canada, who holds a Ph.D. in meteorology, and has worked in the fields of climatology, meteorology and oceanography for over 45 years had to say.
To continue the list of experts, they are: Dr. de Freitas, professor at the School of Geography and Environmental Science at the University of Auckland in New Zealand; Dr. David Wojick, Canadian climate specialist and President of climatechangedebate.org; Dr. Kenneth Green, expert reviewer for the UN report on which Kyoto was based; Dr. Tim Ball, professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg; Dr. Petr Chylek, professor of physics and atmospheric science at Dalhousie University; Dr. Michel, professor with the Department of Earth Sciences and an Arctic regions specialist in Ottawa; David Nowell, past chairman of the NATO Meteorological Group; Dr. Sallie Baliunas, specialist in sun/earth climate interactions; Dr. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Virginia; Dr. Fred Seitz, climate specialist and past president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences; Dr. Art Robinson, founder of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine which focuses on climate change and CO
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; Dr. Hans Jelbring, wind and climate specialist from Stockholm, Sweden; Dr. Hans Erren, geophysicist and climate specialist from the Netherlands; and Peter Dietze, energy and climate specialist, and official scientific reviewer from Germany who reviewed the report on which Kyoto was based.
I wish I could name all of these people who are renowned experts in their field of climate change, and who are saying that the whole argument that somehow Kyoto has to be signed to protect us from climate change is nonsense.
If the science is solid then why is the government so afraid of including scientists who challenge the government's stance on Kyoto into the debate? When some of these leading scientists, who I have just quoted, asked to be part of the debate, they were not allowed to be heard. The government said they were not stakeholders.
The government does not want to hear the truth because this is not about science. It is not about climate change. It is not about what is best for Canadians. It is not about what is best for the environment. It is about what is best for the Prime Minister who desperately needs a legacy to hold up as he is leaving office. That is the sad truth of the matter.
It is so clear that Kyoto does not address the environment. It does not address pollution and it does not clean up the environment. It is clear that Canada produces only 2% of global CO
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even if it was a problem. Less than 10% of carbon dioxide is man made. In fact, some estimates are only 2% and Canada produces only 2% of that. Yet the government is acting like ratifying the accord is a matter of life or death when we have minuscule, fractional measurements of carbon dioxide. The accord is not dealing with a pollutant.
Even the government's own figures say that Kyoto would result in a loss of GDP of $16.5 billion a year. That is before it figured out it had better hide the numbers. Estimates by other more objective groups are a lot higher. We must remember that the government has a track record of lowballing program costs to sell its initiatives. It is difficult to have any faith in the government numbers. Even if their lowball figures are correct, it is $16.5 billion a year that this deal would cost and most other objective estimates are far higher than that.
If we have an extra $16.5 billion to spend, would Canadians not want it to be spent on reducing carbon dioxide for a fractional amount when it is not even a pollutant? Would they not rather spend $16.5 billion on cleaning up the smog over our cities and helping out the hundreds of communities in this first world country, many of them aboriginal communities, that are under boil water orders because they do not have clean water? Would they not rather clean up the toxic waste sites that the Auditor General has just said the government has done nothing about?
Yet the government, which has done nothing about toxic waste, smog and the clean water needs of hundreds of communities in the country, has the nerve to get up and say that we have to sign Kyoto to reduce our 2% production of man-made CO
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. This is where the real priorities of the government are. It is not in the environment. It is not in common sense. It is not in science. It is in making political hay for the Prime Minister.
Canada should mandate a decrease in the emission of real pollutants. It should invest in environmental clean up. It should support research and development into alternative fuel sources and energy conservation measures and products. It should offer possible tax credits to award innovation, energy conservation and environmentally friendly practices. However this Kyoto accord completely misses all those important initiatives and must be rejected. I urge the House to do so.