When "climate science" ceased being a science

One thing I don't like about running as a candidate during an election is how it cuts me off from the daily "real" world news. As I try to focus on issues that affect my local riding, and the country in general, everything else goes out of focus. Opportunities to comment on issues like nuclear power, the environment, the banking industry and everything else that interests me, are lost. Fortunately I seem to suffer from some degree of ADHD and this allows me moments to quickly switch my attention to something else.
An article in the Financial Post yesterday literally begged me to share. The article by David Evans, an Australian scientist with impressive climate science credentials, agrees that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but its effects on global temperature are miniscule. Dr. Evans points to other bits of evidence that many climate scientists choose to ignore for reasons he makes clear in this excerpt:

"At this point, official "climate science" stopped being a science. In science, empirical evidence always trumps theory, no matter how much you are in love with the theory. If theory and evidence disagree, real scientists scrap the theory. But official climate science ignored the crucial weather balloon evidence, and other subsequent evidence that backs it up, and instead clung to their carbon dioxide theory that just happens to keep them in well-paying jobs with lavish research grants, and gives great political power to their government masters."

It is a very good article, and it puts the issue in perspective again, pointing to one of the motivating factors behind the political support of global warming, the idea of world government. Here is where many climate alarmists or warmists (like the Gore's and the Suzuki's) fail to see danger. Their background and "education" has driven them to the idea that coercive collective action is required to stop impending doom. That idea has spawned in Canada a political party, the Greens, whose original purpose was to defend the environment and the planet. The Greens have morphed into yet another statist organization that assumes the other political parties have the goal of befouling our home. Now I'm getting political again, because as Dr. Evans shows clearly, global warming has nothing much to do with science, its all politics.

Election Day minus 24 - Nominated

Day 14 - two weeks in: There I am signing my nomination papers after having sworn an oath. My returning officer is strictly by-the-book, quite formal but courteous. All the papers required are in (except I need to deliver an original of a fax on Monday) and she has time stamped my documents, like I was punching in for work.

 Looks like I am the fifth candidate: there is a red incumbent, a blue challenger, an orange, a green and me, a Libertarian, much like the last time.

This time I've ordered some signs as well (thanks to money from the party). The incumbent Liberal has already posted many of his signs, but I've seen just a few Conservative signs. My riding is quite "ethnic," loaded with newly arrived immigrants and recently minted citizens. To break through the Liberal headlock on the immigrant vote will be daunting for anyone. The Liberal incumbent doesn't even live in my riding, he lives in Oakville at least an hours drive away - in good traffic. He is so entrenched here, that he just has to "mail it in" so-to-speak. It is difficult to understand how he knows what's really going on here in my riding where I have lived for 36 years.

I mentioned signs. Well, you would think that is fairly straight forward, and you would be wrong. My town has a booklet that contains the "Election Campaign Sign Regulations." Yesterday I ordered 100 lawn signs and today I discovered that they are too small to place on roadways, I need bigger signs or the Town will cash in my $250 sign permit deposit. I quickly cancelled the first order and substituted big signs for a much bigger price.

So far it has been like a race with hurdles, I never really liked hurdles.

Election Day minus 25 - Done the 100+

Day 13 - I'm done, 120 signatures should be enough to satisfy the Returning Officer in my riding district.

At this point I've already spoken to hundreds of people, most have accepted my pamphlet, but many refused to sign their consent to my nomination. After trial and error, I might have developed the elusive 30 second elevator speech (in rough) answering: "What is a libertarian?" How do you summarize a political concept that involves principles and ideas that are really foreign to most of the electorate? Nearly 100% of the people I spoke to, never heard of the Libertarian Party, and had no idea what it stood for. In fact, many refused their consent on that basis alone, which is understandable, I too may have refused. Eventually I realized that people need a reference point in order to understand who and what we are. I started telling them that we were far more fiscally conservative than Mr. Harper (Conservative Party) (then I added: we think he is in fact a big spender) AND we are more socially liberal that Mr. Layton (NDP - Socialists). I used that line on many of the people I thought might understand and be aware of the current Canadian political scene. I also elaborated on it with examples. Many did understand, in fact a few suggested that we were "off" the right-left political spectrum, so I knew they were getting it. They were even surprised that a party like that existed, it was very heartening to me.

My 120th and last signature was the best, a bright young man, recently graduated from the University of Toronto in business but was unemployed. He told me he assists his family during elections in deciding how to cast their ballots and he has been for a while. We started talking about the war(s) and how pointless and ineffective they seemed, and he was surprised that we were against them (there goes my comparison with Harper above), he was against them too. Our talk ranged all the way to how we would "create jobs." "We wouldn't" I said, and explained just how jobs are created and how governments get in the way, he actually liked that explanation. It was a great way to end the day.

The times they are a changin'

With any luck Canadian television NEWS will never be the same again. Starting April 18, in the middle of a Federal Election campaign, the SUN NEWS Network will start broadcasting across Canada.
I hope that it is better than the pap that passes for NEWS that we get now on the major and minor networks, it couldn't be worse. It's no wonder that the most popular NEWS channel in Canada is CNN, and that is pap with drug commercials. Sickening!
Bring it on, here's a peek: