I was very interested in two articles in the Oct. 4, 2022 edition of the Albertan.
Innisfail pushes ahead to build municipal solar farm is a two-fold opportunity: using municipal land that has limited possibilities and the potential to generate half a million dollars annual revenue.
Cost and return on investment are important factors. However, I have a few questions/concerns:
• Where are solar panels made?
• What elements/compounds are used in manufacturing solar panels?
• What is the source of these compounds? What countries?
• Are these countries providing safe working conditions?
• Are they using child labour?
• What is the life expectancy of solar panels?
• How are they disposed?
• Will they break down and possibly produce CO2?
There is also a mistaken belief that solar and wind must replace fossil fuels; the sooner the better.
Brian Lee Crowley, managing director of the MacDonald-Laurier Institute, has recently commented in a National Post op-ed: “To combat climate change, we simply unilaterally declared that global energy use would be radically reduced, despite the fact that billions of people depend on cheap and abundant energy, which renewables are far from being able to provide.
"We thus plunged countries like Germany into crisis and gave Russia the whip hand in its invasion of Ukraine and its goal of disrupting the unity of liberal democracies.”
As the Town of Innisfail considers these concerns, will council and mayor begin educating the public?
As for the second, an opinion piece headlined “Champion of truth” by News Media Canada, how open is our local newspaper to debating the issue of CO2?
Allow me to quote: “Local newspapers are also champions for democracy, providing Canadians with essential information to spark meaningful conversations about their community and country at large. The work of newspaper journalists, editors and fact checkers, and more provides readers with the tools they need to make informed decisions, empowering them to advocate for what they believe in.”
I pose the question, do newspapers provide all the information required to assist the reading public in deciding what is true and what is false, and is there a balanced middle road?
For instance, I believe the climate change movement is destroying our world not saving it. In my opinion, this movement is based on mistruths about CO2.
Unfortunately, too many credible scientists are forced from their organizations/universities for speaking clearly from a position of knowledge.
Several months ago, I came across a YouTube presentation by Dr. William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton University. His topic: The myth that underlies global warming alarmists (2014). Professor Happer made several important points and here are a few:
• CO2 has been demonized. It is not a pollutant
• What is the ideal CO2 level? It is pre-industrial level of 400 parts per million (ppm). In a crowded room, it can be as high as 1,700 ppm.
• Plants starve to death at 150 ppm. Plants prefer 1,000 – 2,000 ppm.
• John Muir, one of the founders of the Sierra Club, took a special trip to Alaska in 1879 to inspect Glacier Bay where ice was rapidly melting. This had nothing to do with the Industrial Revolution.
• How does the earth’s atmosphere work? The earth has about 10 kilometres of troposphere where there is great churning of air up and down, forming of rain, and most of the heat is transferred from the surface upward, not be radiation, but by the motion of air.
• Hurricanes are driven by the rotations of the earth.
• The climate is always changing; it has never been stable.
There is so much that the citizens of Innisfail and Central Alberta are unaware simply because we are not allowed to discuss and debate, openly in public forums.
All levels of government seem determined to destroy a beautiful way of life developed over the past 100 years by the discovery of the amazing benefits of carbon, including our local newspaper.
Mary Flemming,
Innisfail
