Housing crisis....Coming to Canada soon?

Maybe. But this video proves that one man's castle is another man's dump. Some dump! I wish I lived in one of those dumps.

HomeSchooling? Real competition for government run schools

The graphic below is from an American homeschooling organization. It seems to be a direct response to the perceived inadequacies of American State and local government school systems. I'm not aware of any Canadian analogues, but if you know of one please post in the comments below.

Created by: College At Home

The real and painful effects of Climate Change on Ontario Part 2

In my last posting I discussed the erroneous prediction made by a consensus of weather forecasters from across North America for the winter of 2011 - 12.

Suppose you were a retailer in Ontario this past winter and you actually took seriously the prediction that the winter was going to be brutal, cold, and snowy. You acted on that prediction and pre-ordered extra snow blowers, shovels, snow-boots and other wintry paraphernalia. The erroneous predictions were based on computer models used by forecasters. Now your decision has left your business with a surfeit of winter stock and a cash flow problem. Too much cash is tied up in too much stock, and not enough cash is on hand to restock for the new season.

That very situation may have played out for retailers recently. Should they liquidate the excess stock at fire-sale prices and accept losses, or hold it until next winter while borrowing money for the new season? What to do?

This problem of course is mostly confined to the retailers, wholesalers and their employees. It is a risk of doing business. The general public may be advantaged by the potential fire-sale prices, but presumably they will not be affected by the problem because those businesses operate mostly in a free and voluntary market.

Unfortunately that is not the case with regard to the production of electricity in Ontario. The government of Ontario operates Ontario Power Generation (OPG) as a near monopoly for the production of electricity in Ontario.

When the McGuinty Liberals became the government in 2003, they completely accepted the United Nations IPCC forecasts for future catastrophic global warming (AGW) due to "excessive" carbon dioxide gas (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels. These forecasts were determined by a consensus of researchers using long range computer models and data that was collected.

Despite our normally cold winters and comparatively meagre population, Premier McGuinty's government ordered the shut down of most of the coal burning power generation stations in the Ontario. The purpose was to replace these low cost electricity producers with alternative high cost wind, and solar generators that do not produce CO2 (that was key). The McGuinty Liberals even offered inducements (FIT and MicroFIT) to landowners to construct these generators on their properties across the province. It worked, OPG now produces less and less electricity though the price of production continues to increase because of the high cost producers. Check out this recent column which details what is happening.

So, much like my hypothetical retail story above, and based on long range climate predictions that may or may not be correct,  the McGuinty Liberals have made a decision that affects all Ontario consumers now, and into the foreseeable future. It wouldn't be so bad if we had the choice today of opting out, but that's not the way things work in Ontario. Unless you are self-sufficient in electricity production, you are paying more and more because of McGuinty's actions and that trend will continue.

Interestingly the IPCC's predictions of five years ago can now be compared to reality. That is what the graph below shows.

The graph is taken from here. The graph's author contends that while the climate is currently warming slightly, there are other cycles unrelated to CO2 that cause variability. The blue area denotes the range of the variable cycles, the red and blue line denotes actual data, and the green area shows the IPCC 2007 projections for temperature. The yellow line shows the author's projections based on his theory (which is more in agreement with the real data).
It's a bit more complicated than that, but that is the gist of the graph. There is now a divergence between the real data and the IPCC projection that may increase with time. If it does, it just confirms my case that the McGuinty Liberals have acted prematurely and rashly. Ontario will suffer real economic pain from global warming, whether AGW is real or not. And because there is no free market in electricity production, we have all been coerced into this situation.

You might be asking how can I be certain that the McGuinty Liberals are assuming that CO2 is the cause of climate change? Watch this short video:    

Is there any doubt now? The Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, the Provinces' INDEPENDENT watchdog for environmental issues, has no doubt! Did he sound independent? Can you imagine a more bullshit job than this in government?

If you want more information about how your Ontario government is wasting tax revenues and borrowed money go here.    

The real and painful effects of Climate Change on Ontario Part 1

The snowdrops and crocuses are blooming in my yard, weeks earlier than I've ever seen them. It has been a strange winter. Normally, the park abutting my yard is covered in snow from December through to March, even longer some years. This year it has been winter green, punctuated by brief periods of whiteness that melt in just days. There were no extended cold spells, I mean really cold spells, where it hurts just to be outside for too long. The local pond near my house, never did freeze up for skating.

Predictions for the winter of 2011-12 were way off (see picture above). Most weather offices predicted this winter was to be colder and snowier than usual, they predicted a winter of yesteryear. It didn't happen. So much for long range predictions.

This may be the mildest winter in my memory, I know we're not done yet, but how bad can it get at this point?

Apparently winter was absent from much of the country according to the latest issue of MacLean's (The year that winter died, March 26/12). They viewed it as a concern. What if there are no more backyard hockey rinks? Where will we nurture our future Gretzky's and Crosby's? Oh woe is Canada, what will happen to our national identity, hockey? Despite that, no one around here is complaining, quite the contrary.

Why was everyone so wrong? Weather people are blaming (thanking?) something called the Arctic Oscillation for this anomalous winter behaviour. Indeed winter was brutal in some places, ask the Europeans. Much of Europe and Asia was gripped in the kind of weather we expect here.  

Of course one winter, does not a trend make, so I'm not selling my snow shovels or snow tires yet. But I am convinced that winters around here are getting milder, and have been for some time. How do I know? It's not that I keep meticulous records and can recall past winters, its that I can see evidence in the plants and animals of southern Ontario. I have seen changes, subtle changes in the indigenous wildlife, for example: Turkey Vultures were once rare visitors this far north. No longer, they now range into Central Ontario (that video link is a clue as to how rare they were) each summer, they regularly soar over my town near Toronto, and have done for years now. Opossums, once rarely seen in the Toronto area, are now becoming a nuisance and can be found north into Central Ontario. Robins are found year-round in Central Ontario, and this year tree pollen was detected in Pittsburg in February, earliest ever. Yes, these are subtle changes, and the truth is change has always occurred. This area was once covered by a continental ice sheet, and my house is just south of a large moraine leftover by the glacier's retreat.

There is nothing painful about these changes, they are easy to adapt to. Even the temperature changes are on average minor. Next year is libel to be as cold, snowy and as bad, as the winter of 2008 - 09.

What I found remarkable this winter were the lack of claims by the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) crowd that our strange weather is a direct result of what they call "carbon pollution." They have been strangely quite. It may be because they have been embarrased, like here. Or because the theory of AGW caused by greenhouse gas emissions is falling into disrepute, as more and more scientists support the theory less and less like here. Its clear that the dire predictions of the IPCC are not in line with reality (see graphic below).

This graphic comes from an article published in Forbes magazine, where Warren Meyer compares the AGW theory with observations, and finds the theory to be alarmist and unrealistic. Meyer does not dispute the warming or even the possible insignificant impact of CO2, he just argues that the predictive models are hyped far in excess of the actual observed data. That alone should be enough to sink any theoretical model, but this theory, like a zombie seems to cling to life.

Here is where the problem occurs. Belief in that theory and the actions taken as a direct result of it, has caused and will continue to cause the people of Ontario unnecessary grief and expense. The real and painful effects of an erroneous theory are right now taking their toll on the economic freedom of all Ontarian's.