http://network.nationalpost.com/np/b...te-change.aspx

January 29, 2010, 16:35:00 | NP Editor
As far as I know, no Canadian university has ever had a formal debate on climate change

By Lawrence Solomon

'Climate change is natural. Spending time and money on the issue is largely a waste," posited Steve
Paikin, host of TV Ontario's The Agenda, to his live studio audience at the University of Toronto's
Munk Centre for International Studies Thursday evening. Paikin's statement to the students came in
the middle of an hour-long debate on climate change in which I participated, along with four other
panelists.

The statement, the first of three that Paikin posed to the university students, came from an
earlier Leger public opinion poll, but unlike the results that Leger found (16% agreed with the
statement), not a single student among the 80 in attendance raised a hand in agreement. Are these
students so accepting of the prevailing orthodoxy that none believes that climate change is
natural, I thought, scanning their faces from my perch on the stage. Or are these students too
intimidated by their peers or by the presence of the Munk Centre's director - Janice Stein, also on
the stage with me - to dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy on climate change?
I found the students' silence disquieting. The majority of the public in the English speaking world
no longer gives credence to the view that humans are responsible for climate change. In the U.S.
where the abandonment is most pronounced, only 36% blame humans, according a recent Pew poll. In
the U.K., the figure is 41%. The abandonment is across the board, involving members of all major
political parties, and all age groups, youths included. In the U.S., 45% of those under 30 blame
humans, in the UK, 42%.

So why would no student in the room - either out of youthful brashness or defiance of authority or
conviction based on knowledge - utter a peep? If any of them had done their homework on this issue,
they would have found that the Arctic ice is expanding, not shrinking; that the Antarctic, too, is
gaining ice, not melting; that polar bear populations are not in decline, that global temperatures
have been dropping over the last decade, not warming as the computer models had predicted; and
that, in any event, none of the computer models on which claims of climate change rest - not one -
has been made to work.

The answer to the students' reticence to speak up is surely a consequence of Canada's educational
system. At our high schools, climate change is taught as dogma, with Al Gore's film, An
Inconvenient Truth, a staple (in the U.K., after a high-profile case before the High Court found
that An Inconvenient Truth is an error-filled work of propaganda, Gore's film can no longer be
presented as scientifically valid). At our universities, no school dares encourage debate on global
warming among its faculty, for fear of repercussions in research funding. By the time students have
gone through high school and experienced a year or two of Canadian university, as would have been
the case with many in the Munk audience, they almost surely would never have been exposed to the
scientific controversy over climate change by their schools, except dismissively. One recent
graduate of an Ontario university whom I know, who only discovered the controversy over climate
change after receiving her master's in environmental engineering, feels outrage at being kept in
the dark by her school in the area she chose for her career.

To my knowledge, no Canadian university has ever sponsored a formal debate on climate change
involving a skeptic. Last March, to my delight, the Queen's University Business School asked me to
participate in its annual Commerce Engineering Environmental Conference. When an opportunity arose
to participate in a global warming debate with Elizabeth May, the head of the Green Party, I leapt
at it. When Elizabeth withdrew from the debate, I readily accepted the alternative debater that the
organizers proposed. Then after a period of apparent hemming and hawing, the school disinvited me
without explanation, other than saying it was "no longer an option" for me to appear in a global
warming debate.

Until a few months ago, I was expecting to participate in a debate at this year's conference at
Queen's. Following my disinvite last year, I wrote a column describing my disinvitation, which led
members of Queen's alumni to contact the school, demanding an explanation. The Dean of Queen's
School of Business then became involved, leading the conference co-chair to invite me to the 2010
conference, with assurances that every effort would be made to stage the debate. As a sign of
goodwill, the university even agreed to approach a list of at least six prominent global warming
experts to take me on. Alas, a few months later, Queen's decided to rescind the commitment.
On Thursday, the Munk Centre did host a debate of sorts on climate change, and for that it deserves
kudos. I was pleased to participate, even though I was the only one of five panelists who disagreed
with the global warming orthodoxy, even though the other four preferred to ignore rather than
confront my arguments, and even though the spokesman for the David Suzuki Foundation, one of the
four, attacked me personally after I told the students in the audience that they could see how the
Arctic ice has been changing by visiting the website of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency -
their satellites track continuously the ice expansions and contractions, and compare them to
previous years.

But as novel as Munk was to allow me to participate, it could serve its students better still by
exposing them to varying viewpoints, and encouraging them to think for themselves. If Janice Stein
and the Munk faculty are confident that man is precipitating dangerous climate change, and if they
trust their students to discern good science and good policy from bad, they should debate the other
side rather than pretending it doesn't exist.

Financial Post

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and Urban Renaissance Institute and author
of The Deniers: The world-renowned scientists who stood up against global warming hysteria,
political persecution, and fraud

On Jan 29, 10:06*pm, "Eric Gisin" wrote:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/b...chive/2010/01/...

January 29, 2010, 16:35:00 | NP Editor
As far as I know, no Canadian university has ever had a formal debate on climate change



As far as I know, Larry Solomon is a journalist. Who wouldn't cut it
in a climate debate with a climate scientist; but writes bull ****.

And that goes for his National Post buddy Terry Corcoran and Lorne
Gunther as well.

On Jan 29, 10:17*pm, Colin Jones wrote:
On Jan 29, 10:06*pm, "Eric Gisin" wrote:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/b...chive/2010/01/...

January 29, 2010, 16:35:00 | NP Editor
As far as I know, no Canadian university has ever had a formal debate on climate change

As far as I know, Larry Solomon is a journalist. *Who wouldn't cut it
in a climate debate with a climate scientist; but writes bull ****.

And that goes for his National Post buddy Terry Corcoran and Lorne
Gunther as well.

Same question.

On Jan 29, 10:17*pm, Colin Jones wrote:
On Jan 29, 10:06*pm, "Eric Gisin" wrote:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/b...chive/2010/01/...

January 29, 2010, 16:35:00 | NP Editor
As far as I know, no Canadian university has ever had a formal debate on climate change

As far as I know, Larry Solomon is a journalist. *Who wouldn't cut it
in a climate debate with a climate scientist; but writes bull ****.

And that goes for his National Post buddy Terry Corcoran and Lorne
Gunther as well.

And James "Fudgin'" Hansen is an astronomer, David Suzuki is a
zoologist, and Al Gore is a politician who produces propaganda films.

On Jan 29, 10:17*pm, Colin Jones wrote:
On Jan 29, 10:06*pm, "Eric Gisin" wrote:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/b...chive/2010/01/...

January 29, 2010, 16:35:00 | NP Editor
As far as I know, no Canadian university has ever had a formal debate on climate change

As far as I know, Larry Solomon is a journalist. *Who wouldn't cut it
in a climate debate with a climate scientist; but writes bull ****.


And you are being really very polite and deferential when you calll
"journalist" someone who is paid to write for The Nazionist Post.

VV


And that goes for his National Post buddy Terry Corcoran and Lorne
Gunther as well.

On Jan 29, 10:06*pm, "Eric Gisin" wrote:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/b...chive/2010/01/...

January 29, 2010, 16:35:00 | NP Editor
As far as I know, no Canadian university has ever had a formal debate on climate change

By Lawrence Solomon

'Climate change is natural. Spending time and money on the issue is largely a waste," posited Steve
Paikin, host of TV Ontario's The Agenda, to his live studio audience at the University of Toronto's
Munk Centre for International Studies Thursday evening. Paikin's statement to the students came in
the middle of an hour-long debate on climate change in which I participated, along with four other
panelists.

The statement, the first of three that Paikin posed to the university students, came from an
earlier Leger public opinion poll, but unlike the results that Leger found (16% agreed with the
statement), not a single student among the 80 in attendance raised a hand in agreement. Are these
students so accepting of the prevailing orthodoxy that none believes that climate change is



Next time, instead of university students, get illiterate Reform Party
followers, and you will get 70 of the 80 raising their hands in
agreement. It is just a question of constituency.

VV

Catoni wrote
And James "Fudgin'" Hansen is an astronomer, David Suzuki is a
zoologist, and Al Gore is a politician who produces propaganda films.


Many of you are also outraged that Hitler isn't positioned as a hero when our
students are taught about him in school, how the sun revolves around the
earth, how the jury is out over whether cigarettes cause cancer along with
teaching creationism in science class and how pollution is good for the
economy; not to forget to teach them how that there global warmin is all a big
conspiracy by Al Gore and "The Cabal" or how unqualified buffoon Lord Monckton
is an authority on science.

Lawerence Solomon rants about it constantly. He says we should be giving
time to all the crackpots.

The Meteorologist