A PANORAMIC WINTER LANDSCAPE WITH A MULTITUDE OF FIGURES ON A FROZEN RIVER
oil on oak panel, 27 by 43 in., by Hendrick Avercamp, Amsterdam, 1610.
THE SCIENCE AND POLITICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Mike Priaro, P.Eng.
First uploaded July 16, 2017. Last updated July 24, 2017.
Weather is not climate! Those that take sensationalized reporting of extremes in local temperatures and weather as proof of climate change, let alone man-made climate change, are completely misinformed.
For example, Environment Canada reports that here in Calgary the record high for July 10 of 34.4 C was recorded in 1898 while the record low of 0.0 C (yes, freezing!) was recorded
in 1943.
If one concluded that Earth’s climate was cooling based on that evidence one would be wrong.
There is credible evidence that Earth has generally warmed over the last 150 years but what is never mentioned is that Earth was warmer than present during Roman times, ca. 100 AD, and during the Medieval Warm Period, ca. 1000 AD.
It wasn’t until the late 1800’s that Earth’s temperatures began to recover from the Little Ice Age, ca. 1300-1870, during which Europe and North America, at least, were subjected to much colder winters than during the 20th century.
Source: Virtual Museum, University of California, San Diego.
According to the NASA Earth Observatory, there were three particularly cold intervals during the Little Ice Age with the one beginning about 1600 the coldest.
The scientific jury is very much out on man-made climate change as the main cause of global warming over the last 150 years regardless of the contentious conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that human-produced greenhouse gases have caused much of the observed increase in Earth's temperatures over the past 50 years.
The scientific jury is also out on whether increases in carbon dioxide, CO2, precede and trigger, or accompany, or are a result of, natural global warming. In fact, there is evidence to suggest increases in CO2 are a result of global warming caused by external natural drivers such as Milankovitch cycles, solar cycles, and other cyclical and non-cyclical natural drivers.
Those supporting drastic action based on "catastrophic" man-made climate change are acting unethically and unscientifically out of fear, self-promotion, or insufficient knowledge – or self-serving political opportunism based on fear-mongering an uninformed public.
A stellar example of the latter is the Canadian federal New Democratic Party’s recent Leap Manifesto which warned us that “Climate scientists have told us that this is the decade to take decisive action to prevent catastrophic global warming.”
Canada’s Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who quit engineering studies at Montreal's Ecole Polytechnique and who did not finish a degree in Environmental Geography at McGill University, "bravely" stated in Peterborough, Ontario, far from Calgary, Edmonton, and Fort McMurray, Alberta; “We can’t shut down the oil sands tomorrow, we need to phase them out.”
Perhaps if Mr. Trudeau had finished his studies he might understand that Alberta’s oil sands account for a tiny fraction, namely 0.16 percent, of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Globally, coal supplies about 30 percent of energy use and is responsible for 44 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, as well as most air pollution, while agriculture, forestry and other land uses account for 24 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Environmentalists, and Mr. Trudeau, must explain why they are focusing their energies and funding on stopping Canadian pipelines, and shutting down Alberta’s oil sands, rather than working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution from coal and from agriculture, forestry and other land uses which together account for two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Unlike highly polluting emissions from coal, by far the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from the oil sands is the burning of clean natural gas for process heat and electric power co-generation.
Oil sands producers are working hard and succeeding in multiple ways at reducing greenhouse gas emissions per barrel of oil sands production to reduce costs and improve environmental performance.
Oil sands producers could provide all Canadians with energy security by eliminating crude oil imports from unstable, undemocratic, and environmentally irresponsible oil producing countries – many of which harbour and fund corrupt, despotic dictatorships, human rights violations, brutal civil wars, and fanatical religious and anti-Western terrorism aided by profits from the sale of crude oil to eastern Canada.
Mike Priaro, P.Eng.
Calgary, Alberta
403-281-2156
Author Bio
Mike Priaro, B.Eng.Sc. (Chem. Eng.), U.W.O. '76, P.Eng., Lifetime Member Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA), worked in facilities, production, operations and reservoir engineering, as engineering consultant, area superintendent, and engineering management in Alberta's oil patch for 25 years for companies such as Amoco and PetroCanada.
He increased oil production from the historic Turner Valley oilfield and brought in under-balanced drilling and completion technology to drill out, complete, and test several of the highest producing gas wells ever on mainland Canada at Ladyfern. He co-authored ‘Advanced Fracturing Fluids Improve Well Economics’ in Schlumberger's Oilfield Review and developed the course material for the ‘Advanced Production Engineering’ course at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.
Mike has presented his work to Canada’s House Committee on Natural Resources in Ottawa and to the Senate Committee on Transportation and Communications in Calgary. He has had work published in: Alberta Oil magazine on Oct. 20, 2016; World Pipelines magazine in September 2016; the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in the Mar. and Apr., 2014 and Feb., 2015 editions of Inside Policy magazine; U.S. energy industry websites such as RBN Energy; in the Jul. 17, 2014 edition of the Oil and Gas Journal; in Petroleum Technology Quarterly, Q3 2014; and in columns in the Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Halifax Chronicle Herald, and others.
Mike has no formal connection to any oil company, environmental organization, think tank, labour organization, lobbying or special interest group, academia, or to provincial or federal politics.
In 2015 Mike provided "A Preliminary Engineering, Economic, and Environmental Evaluation of ASRL's Partial Upgrading Process" to Alberta Sulphur Research Limited and presented it to 80 representatives of ASRL's member companies. ASRL partial upgrading subsequently obtained Alberta government funding and industry support. On Jan. 29, 2016, the Alberta Government made partial upgrading a priority based on its Royalty Review Panel’s recommendations. As of Nov. 2016, the ASRL partial upgrading flow test pilot was running at CANMET/NRCan’s research facility in Devon, AB.
In 2016 Mike was invited to be a Bowman Centre Volunteer Associate at the not-for-profit Bowman Centre for Sustainable Energy. Its mission is 'to catalyze big energy projects which drive Canada’s energy strategy and generate sustainable wealth and jobs'.
Mike’s work can be found on his LinkedIn pages:https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-priaro or Behance website:https://www.behance.net/Mike_Priaro
