Retiring Conservative MP Colin Mayes, speaking about the Sept. 20 climate change march, has vigorously – but inaccurately, and sometimes in very misleading ways – defended the environmental record of Stephen Harper.
Here are three examples of how his facts are wrong.
1. He notes that the phrase “climate change” is now more common than “global warming,” saying this is proof that global warming advocates were wrong.
The two phrases have different meanings. “Global warming” describes a strong overall climatic trend, now accepted by all reputable climate scientists around the world. “Climate change” refers to the many shifts in patterns of climate around the world – some of them very abrupt – at different latitudes and longitudes.
Climate change is caused by global warming.
It was actually Frank Luntz, a Republican US strategist and close advisor to both George Bush and to Stephen Harper, who in a 2002 memo strongly recommended substituting “climate change” for “global warming” because, he said, it’s “less frightening.”
2. Mr. Mayes says that polar bears are not disappearing, but flourishing.
This is utterly misleading. Polar bear numbers, since the 1970s, have increased considerably in some Arctic areas – because laws stopping the hunting of polar bears were passed back then, in several countries.
But back then, ice cover was thick and strong, and so the polar bear population rebounded. Now, global warming is softening and destroying Arctic ice cover, and the bear population is beginning to really decline.
3. Mr. Mayes is quoted as saying that Canada is doing well with respect to global carbon emissions, because we produce only two per cent of the world’s total.
But Canada’s population is only 0.5 per cent of the global total.
In other words, we are producing carbon pollution at four times the global average – not something to boast about.
Evidence speaks louder than ideology.
Warren Bell
