My congratulations to the photography club for the fantastic pictures shown in the paper (Gazette, Jan. 4). The high Island picture has a great composition, the lighting is pretty darn good but its impact is superb. Good to see that some still have an eye for beauty and tranquility.
Going from the sublime to the more mundane: Mr. Mike Dutcher (Gazette, Jan. 4) and his challenge to the columnist. It seems that a lot of these people need an education in basics.
The definition of climate change, according to Wiki, NASA as well as the IPPC: Climate change is a change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns when that change lasts for an extended period of time (i.e., decades to millions of years). Climate change may refer to a change in average weather conditions, or in the time variation of weather around longer-term average conditions. (WiKi) The IPPC and the WMO use a 30-year period to determine any statistical change. Thus, to be statistically valid, one needs at least 10 years of these 30 to be able to determine any change at the 95 per cent confidence level to rule out natural variation.
The first couple of questions I have therefore for Mr. Dutcher: After 10 years of payments to the climate change and emissions management fund, how much has the weather changed? Have these payments improved our Alberta weather at all? Has the weather improved? Regionally, yes, humans can change the climate. Globally? One has to have an incredible hang-up to presume that mere humans have the power to change the main climate drivers on this earth: the sun, the oceans, volcanoes, continental drift, albedo and changes in land use.
To keep this short, the carbon tax is nothing more than a provincial sales tax. And I hate to say this, but it is an astute political move as long as we get the pipelines built. After the Notley government has been kicked out in a few years, the provincial sales tax (sorry, carbon tax) will remain and the coal fired power plants will restart.
Just do not give me the idea that humans can change the weather. Witchcraft went out after the Middle Ages.
Joe Prins, St. Albert
