JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: GRETA THUNBERG WORKING HER MAGIC IN VANCOUVER - HER THIRD TIME DOING A 1933-STYLE RANT TO A STREET CROWD IN A CANADIAN CITY - I WISH SHE'D SHARE A BIT MORE WITH OTHERS AND PARTICULARLY IN THE COUNTRIES WHERE WHAT SHE IS RANTING ABOUT IS AN INCOMPARABLY LARGER PHENOMENON THAN IT IS IN CANADA - WE HAVE NO SCIENTIFIC CERTAINTY ABOUT THE CAUSE OF CURRENT CLIMATE CHANGE - AND RANTING HELPS NOTHING

John Chuckman


COMMENTS POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN CBC NEWS



Greta Thunberg addresses thousands at Vancouver climate rally

Crowd estimated to be around 10,000, according to police”



'Together, we are unstoppable'



"Today Germany, tomorrow the world!"

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Does this Greta craze represent our Prime Minister's influence?

He can't manage our affairs with China.

He couldn't manage vote reform.

In the absence of vote reform, he got re-elected with fewer votes than his main opponent.

And there is a whole list of priorities for Canada he has mismanaged, including Alberta’s access to markets.

But I guess there's always room for this kind of public performance.

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It's saddening to see crowds of Canadians gathered for a performance of this nature. I know they mean well, but in these matters just meaning well is not good enough.

As we advance in science and technology, one expects traditional religion gradually to die out.

But, no, here we are, inventing a new religion, complete with crowds looking for miracles and pilgrimages by devotees and the appearance of a sainted figure.

Science has not – repeat, not - yet established that human activity is the cause of climate change.

After all, we've had a very large number of climate changes in the past, many different ones. Some quite devastating.

They are as much a part of earth's history as geology and evolution. And the overwhelming majority of such events happened before our species even came into being a mere couple of hundred thousand years ago.

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If, in fact, it were the case that carbon dioxide emissions cause climate change, Canada is responsible for the tiniest fraction of them. And our vast forests offset much or all of that.

Look to the United States. Look to Brazil. Look to China. And to many other industrial and emerging nations.

Canada can affect virtually nothing, no matter how hard it tries. No matter how much money it spends making itself less competitive in the world’s markets

Yet here we are again playing host, a third time, to this child’s ranting to crowds.

It makes no sense. None at all.

Ranting is ranting, no matter how convinced you are that yours is a worthy cause.

Hold speaking engagements for prominent experts, if you will. Hold public debates with experts.

Ranting to large crowds in the streets is unpleasant and suggestive of some very dark events in the past. The one thing that it certainly is not is informative.

After all, there are all kinds of people out there who rant, believing they are right, but whom we wouldn't dream of inviting to address rallies in this 1933 fashion.

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“Is population control the answer to fixing climate change?”

There is a role clearly for population reduction in many serious pollution problems.

Everything from the amount of mining and smelting to the amount of trash and to the volumes of industrial poisons used.

I am not so sure there's a role for climate change because the truth is that it has not been proven that human activity is what causes it.

There are new suggestions as to its cause being investigated.

An interesting piece of mathematical work recently by a physicist raised an issue. He claimed to show that carbon dioxide cannot be the cause of global warming, that the typical assumption of a blanket effect by carbon dioxide simply cannot be accurate, looking at the fundamental nature and properties of the gas.

I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. But I'm sure not one to jump on the Thunberg bandwagon.

By the way, a lot of people don't realize how underpopulated much of our earth really is. We give over vast tracts of land to agriculture, and in a few decades a good deal of that won't be needed with hi-tech, hi-rise growing facilities producing perfect crops near consumers several times a year.

Also, I'm sure it won't be too long before good food in some useful forms can be directly manufactured with no growing at all. Perhaps meat or meat substitutes.

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A last note, an estimated crowd of ten thousand in Vancouver represents about one per cent of the city’s population. Hardly impressive, and even a little reassuring.