Tag: Alex Tsakumis

By Alex G. Tsakumis, 24 Hours Vancouver
In last week’s offering, I dissected the disreputable arguments against global warming skepticism of public relations consultant and David Suzuki acolyte, Jim Hoggan.To repeat, Hoggan has co-authored a book attacking global warming doubters as generally being tied to Big Oil.He even appeared on The Bill Good Show, and with the complicity of the shows producers and host, Hoggan basked in the balminess of his own CKNW-endorsed infomercial.It was a pathetic segment.Thus, I was critical of Hoggan’s on-air shenanigans and the refusal of The Bill Good Show to mollify such nonsense.Well, you’d think I had advocated for the choking of puppies. Within hours, Hoggan had penned an misleading letter to the editor of this august publication and, within days, two other alarmists had written equally deceptive screeds.I’m a “hyper-conservative”, screamed one lad. Really? I strongly support gay rights, including marriage; advocate for funding child care, health care and education, first; know the Olympics are being delivered on the backs of the poor and believe the HST is a hurtful policy that will take food from the table of many a needy family.But I am a terrible chap, no?My column was “breathtaking” in its pretense, according to another fellow, because I was attacking Hoggan for “talking about climate change without expertise”.Manifestly, this same fellow has a reading comprehension problem. My issue with Hoggan remains that he wrote a book about how (in his words) “almost all deniers are connected to big oil.”Quite apart from the offensive term “denier”, which should be reserved for those insufferable bastards that deny the Holocaust, Hoggan’s broad sweeping statement is untrue. I am, simply put, offended that Hoggan, without a scintilla of climate credentials, criticizes genuine researchers as being bought and paid for.There are hundreds of legitimate scientists, worldwide, suggesting that our planet may have even cooled in the last eight years and that previous climate models are wrong.Nevertheless, it was Hoggan’s letter that tells you everything you need to know about global-warming alarmists and their ilk. He tried desperately to defend Green guru Al Gore, and his discredited drama, which, I submit should be renamed A Profitable Lie, from the significant criticisms delivered in October 2007, by Mr. Justice Burton of the British High Court. He contorted the decision: The plaintiff was a “failed right-wing politician,” according to Hoggan.And here are Hoggan’s words from his appearance on The Bill Good Show, not one week earlier. “Most critics try to paint this issue (global warming) as a political issue, a right versus left issue … and it’s not.”Do you see the weeping craftiness?It is a political issue only when it suits the alarmists.My friends, the reality is that global warming alarmism is being revealed, with greater momentum, on each day that passes, because the predictions of planetary apocalypse are summarily not true.Hoggan, whose limitless capacity for overstatement, is just another apologist for a movement that costs young families extra at the check-out counter, in “green” products that might facilitate eco-fantasies, while China sells 25,000 cars per week and builds a coal-burning plant every six days. You never hear Hoggan or any of his left-wing counterparts criticizing their own, even though the Clinton Administration (with Al Gore as Vice-President) sat on the Kyoto Protocol for two terms.They rail against Stephen Harper, even though, Jean Chretien and Paul Martin twiddled their thumbs for years, after the Liberals stupidly ratified such a sham initiative that would ravage the Canadian economy.The end game is that global warming alarmists need you to be afraid; to buy themselves time, in the flawed aspiration that their decade-old fairy stories about man-made climate ruin will finally emerge.They are required to excuse failing predictions as being impervious to reasonable query and to attack people like me, when, frankly, I have only one interest in all of this: Protecting you and your families from the relentless tales that line the pockets of giddy hucksters and dancing gremlins.agtsakumis@shaw.ca

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By Alex G. Tsakumis, 24 Hours Vancouver
I have a confession to make – and a somewhat grand one, as you might expect. I’ve abandoned any hope, whatsoever, that the pandemic known as “The Green Movement” is much more than dancing charlatans and shrill harridans, all taking advantage of a slumbering mainstream media, and our rather contemptible embrace of political correctness.There can be no other explanation: Hundreds of respected scientists, world-wide, question currently trumpeted global warming causes – nary a word in the press. Progressively weaker evidence supporting the alarmism you’d hear from the propagandists – near silence from the media.When it was discovered that ex-Vice-President Al Gore’s Tennessee mansion was one mammoth carbon hog, with tens of thousands of dollars going towards his energy bills each month, it was like pulling teeth to have a generally non-compliant media cover the story.Though, convenient lies, such as this, aren’t confined to green “titans,” because for as long as Vancouver Silly Hall, and its two-wheeled zombies promote the tale, I view the Burrard Bridge bike lane trial with an appropriately jaundiced eye.The citizen promoters of this radical folly, largely blogosphere/Internet trolls, who have little or no respect for any of you in your cars, are extremists. The sophistry they spout is almost entirely based on their mistaken belief that cars will kill us and that those who drive them must be punished out of their driver seats.It’s an altogether frightening, obsessive mentality. I once referred to it as cycling fascism, and the militant, pious venom from many of them was astounding. Even though, the very definition of the word, describes their mindset to a letter: Authoritarianism (theirs) over democracy (yours).Oh, don’t get me wrong, I own a mountain bike and thoroughly enjoy it at least three times a week. And many friends are cycling advocates, but they perfectly understand why I demand a large, safe SUV that will protect the occupants of two baby seats and a booster chair. Somehow, I just can’t bring myself to buy a Smart car or a Prius, considering they seem smaller than a cigar box.But the fanaticism of the cycling lobby in this town is no better addressed than looking at the possible reasons Mayor Robertson and Vision Vancouver imposed their personal philosophies on the rest of us.According to the mayor’s own numbers, average commute times (vehicles) have increased by six minutes from Georgia Street to West 12th going south bound, although, he didn’t included any counts of vehicles going this complete distance.So, to the math: 60,000 vehicles, on average, use the bridge daily. This has not changed from before the trial, a fact admitted to by the city.It is reasonable to assume, then, 80% of vehicles use the bridge in the defined rush hour periods, which means 48,000 vehicles may go north once and south once. At six minutes of increased time, going north and then south (24,000 vehicles each way), this is 144,000 extra minutes of carbon monoxide into our atmosphere.Based on the cycling lobby’s own average of carbon emitted per minute of vehicle use, at 0.048 kilograms, Vancouver, potentially, has an extra 6,912 kgs of daily carbon shot skyward, thanks to the Burrard Bridge bike trials.On 35 business days during the July 13 to Aug. 31 period, that represents a possible 241,920 kgs of extra carbon in our air due to Vision’s policy – excluding weekends and holidays and those motorists now using the Granville and Cambie bridges as alternate routes to and from work or school.And don’t forget the mayor’s numbers are based on the light traffic of the summer months on “most” Tuesdays and Thursdays – not Mondays and Fridays when traffic is heavier.As a green initiative the Burrard Bridge bike trial is already a MASSIVE failure.I suspect it was done as a favour to the cycling extremists (new votes), of which Robertson is a charter member (he rode in Critical Mass in 2008 and even addressed them).And interesting, too, that the mayor’s (and Vision’s) largest donor during the election was an American, who has invested significantly in a local bicycle manufacturing company.Starting to see through the smog?agtsakumis@shaw.caVia Email