Dear Editor:
RE: Simple policy, Jan. 17.
The letter from Peter van Vloten has quoted several sources to support his promotion of carbon taxes. Here are a few more relevant quotes from NASA scientist Roy Spencer’s book Global Warming Skepticism for Busy People:
“The core conclusion of the U.N. IPCC (about warming since 1950 being mostly human caused) can be entirely accurate, and yet the global warming threat can be virtually non-existent.
“The IPCC has become a master at instilling maximum alarm without supplying convincing reason for alarm. Alarm is instead based upon very speculative science which so far has little to no observational support.
“The (climate) models are designed with the assumption that the climate system was in natural balance before the Industrial Revolution, despite historical evidence to the contrary. They only produce human-caused climate change because that is the way they are designed. This is in spite of past warm episodes, such as 1,000- to 2,000-year-old tree stumps being uncovered by receding glaciers…”
We have already had our version of carbon taxes in the form of huge increases to hydro bills and provincial taxes on heating fuel, in order to subsidize “clean” wind and solar energy, producing astronomical provincial government debt, thanks to McGuinty and Wynne. Where are the economic benefits from that?
Carbon taxes will increase the cost of almost everything, and will be especially hard on those at the bottom of the economic scale.
Instead of debating pros and cons of carbon taxes, we need to debate whether it is even necessary to take drastic action to reduce carbon dioxide (which by the way is not a pollutant and provides benefits such as life and increased crop yields).
I am thankful that this publication allows such a debate, because most of the now Liberal government-funded mainstream media will not.
Henry Brunsveld,
Puslinch