Climate Change Denialism Still Lurks in the Heart of New Dems

Many thanks for veteran New Democrat Cam Holstrom's acknowledgement that NDP doctrine is to do just as little as possible even on existential threats such as climate change.

Holstrom reveals all in a scathing critique of NDP leader Jagmeet Singh's suspect and entirely self-serving ephiphany on climate change and the carbon economy.  Holstrom is particularly incensed at Singh's demand that Canada meet the UN call for a 50 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Yesterdays announcement came off to me as an abandon of any pretense of what the NDP has been traditionally; a balance between urban lefties/environmental movement and rural, unionized, resource sector and industrial workers. For as long as I can remember, the NDP has walked that line, trying to balance two important constituencies in a way that benefits both. That is never easy, and if you’re all about ideological purity, it’s not emotionally satisfying. But it gets better results, results that the vast majority of people can sign onto and bring people along.

I don't know what part of the 12 year window to thwart catastrophic climate change Holmstrom doesn't get but he obviously doesn't. And exactly what "better results" can he point to? Would it be the fact that little old Canada is in the Top Ten nations on total emissions or how Canada has managed to rank in the Top Three for per capita emissions?

'Slow and easy' is the New Dem path, says Holstrom.

The fact is that the vast majority of New Democrats, including folks like Rachel Notley, Ryan Meili and John Horgan, support a transition to clean energy. The key word there is “transition”, because a transition takes many steps and takes time. It’s not a simply “A to B” proposition. That means having to work with everyone to help make that transition happen and yes, that even includes energy companies that have oil and gas holdings.

Ignore those annoying climate scientists with their fancy knowledge and research and facts. What do they know? What does climate change have to do with science when it's plainly a political matter?

This recalls a post from Sunday on truth and the modern tendency of political thought to be belief-based in preference to fact or knowledge-based truth.

But Mr. Holstrom isn't against taking action. For example he suggests the federal government should start pouring money into the cleanup of Alberta's orphan wells, the bastard children of Conservative and New Democrat governments promiscuously cavorting with "cut and run" oil producers, because, if Alberta won't make polluters pay, Ottawa should cough up the money. That's Dipper thinking for you.

Money desperately needed for climate change mitigation and adaptation should instead be funneled into continuing fossil fuel subsidies and cleaning up the environmental catastrophe those companies leave when they bolt. That'll change things, won't it? They've got a quarter-trillion dollar (Alberta government figures) clean up disaster in Athabasca. A federal whip-round for that too, Cam?

My impression is that Mr. Holmstrom doesn't recognize how close to the edge we are. We, as in Canada and every other nation. Science tells us - oh, so dispassionately - that human civilization is in peril. That's not belief. That's the result of scientific observation, testing, analysis and review - the 'scientific method' for which New Dems plainly have little appetite, preferring instead their beliefs.