Whistler Mayor’s ill-advised climate change letter lays bare the cult of ignorance that has hypnotized climate debate

Have you ever had that childhood experience, where you repeat a word so often it eventually loses its meaning in your mind and sounds like gibberish? We now see grown adults partaking of the game in reverse, where pure gibberish is repeated so often that it sounds like real thoughts.

Of course this is a fundamental building block of mob rule, so not a surprise, but the tide has been so strong and relentless it has caught everyone off guard. We now have reached a point where otherwise intelligent citizens have dropped whatever they were doing and run off to join the cult, even though the baby is still strapped in the high chair waiting for dinner.

Sometimes the lunacy is so extreme that the spell is broken, however. This happened in Whistler, BC a few weeks ago. The mayor of the town sent a letter to Canadian Natural Resources Ltd, holding the company accountable for climate change and demanding some form of compensation. The letter was apparently based on a form letter by a group coordinating these efforts, the “West Coast Environmental Law” group. The group provides templates and form letters that include comments like: “Since then, however, your company has continued marketing your harmful products and many within your industry have worked, directly or indirectly, to delay or prevent the transition to a carbon free economy.  While we recognize that individual consumers do play a small (although individually insignificant) role in the fossil fuel economy, your company has had the power to lead the transition away from that economy, but has instead profited to the tune of many billions of dollars from products that use our global atmosphere as a garbage dump, at the expense of our communities.”

It takes an enormous amount of self-deception to actually believe this stuff, and far more to actually think anyone will believe it. “While we recognize that individual consumers do pay a small (although individually insignificant) role in the fossil fuel economy…” – does that statement stand up to the most basic scrutiny? The poor mayor fell right into the quagmire by noting in his letter that Whistler attracts three million visitors annually; he unfortunately chose to brag about that rather than see the environmental problem that three million travellers cause (air travel is a staggering example of the self-deception; no one needs to fly, ever, yet no one will give up flying for the environment).

The form letter has it dead wrong – individuals have a complete and total and utter role in the fossil fuel economy, because they are the ones that consume everything. The group accuses producers of relentlessly “marketing their dangerous product” – it is the other way around. Nations eagerly sought out sources of petroleum around the world to feed hungry populations, and propel them and keep them warm.

COP24, the most recent global climate gathering in Poland, is being regarded as a failure in the environmental world, and this is a microcosm of why. The great global mass that is desperately trying to prevent climate change – often for the right reason, reducing emissions is always a good thing – has gone so far overboard that no one believes the messages anymore. Riots are spreading across Europe, and populist governments are being elected to sweep away this madness. People are fed up with watching tens of thousands of climate activists jet around the world to gather and tell everyone to stop using fossil fuels.

Ironically, the fight to reduce emissions is the big loser in all this. The sheer hypocrisy of the zealots, who demand outrageous things like having oil producers accept responsibility for climate change while they climb on an airplane or drive whenever they feel like it, has created a situation where the activists have cried wolf one too many times.

A new chapter is about to begin in the climate wars as this fiasco grinds to a halt. Small town mayors, save yourself some embarrassment and do not get caught up in these campaigns.