Sustainable centre
The article you posted outlining Nova Scotia’s signing of the Nova Centre’s lease is very quantitive (“Province finally signs lease for new convention centre,” Reality Bites story by Jacob Boon, posted at thecoast.ca March 5). Although the financing behind the building itself is an important topic that deserves public attention, I believe that the public also needs to be informed more on the qualitative aspects of the building. As an environmental science and sustainability student at Acadia University, I believe that environmental education is an important aspect of our society.
Your story says Nova Scotia and HRM are required to pay $10.76 million annually, over the next 25 years at a 4.25 percent interest rate. However, it’s not mentioned that with these payments, government investment in sustainable building is occurring. The convention centre itself is over 12,000 square feet of space that is LEED certified. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design regulations certify this building as a gold standard. Not only is the city of Halifax implementing urban design, it’s also financing sustainability. This will impact future generations and help to innovate new development within the city.
I have had the opportunity to tour the new building and saw natural lighting implemented through the majority of the facility. This is influential as it not only looks pretty but decreases the need for artificial lighting. This will have a large impact on the energy costs for the building. This may have cost the government more money initially but the payback that the community will see on energy revenue in comparison to the old convention centre is guaranteed to be substantial. Money we save on energy use within the building due to implementing LEED standards will eventually pay off the building itself.
Educating the general public on the qualitative features of the new convention centre gives environmental awareness, showing that the public that the city of Halifax is looking out for future generations by implementing sustainability, and providing a logical response to financial complaints. There is no doubt that the building itself is a large investment. However, if the general public understands more about the qualitative aspects of the governments’
investments in the building, then they will be more likely to support financing these types of projects. —Jennifer Sexton, Bedford
C0² conundrum
David Suzuki is mistaken to say that my position that “CO2 is harmless plant food,” is “anti-climate-science.” It is, in fact, solid science.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the stuff of life, an essential reactant in plant photosynthesis on which all life on earth depends. That’s why commercial greenhouse operators routinely run their internal atmospheres at very high CO2 concentrations. Plants inside grow far more efficiently than those in the outside atmosphere. Clearly, CO2 is not pollution.
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts, a report from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, cites over 1,000 peer-reviewed studies that noted rising productivity of forests and grasslands as CO2 levels have increased, not just in recent decades, but in past centuries.
Increasing CO2 levels pose no direct hazard to human health. Suzuki is also wrong to write that I doubt “the existence of human-caused climate change altogether.” Humans obviously have an impact on climate when we replacing a forest with a parking lot and other ‘land use changes.’ And, yes, we probably do impact climate to some extent due to our CO2 emissions. However, no one knows the degree to which this occurs, let alone if it is dangerous. This is why the group I lead, the International Climate Science Coalition, advocates dedicating most climate finance to helping vulnerable people adapt to climate change, no matter the cause.
Suzuki asserts that misinformation muddying the waters of the climate debate is “unconscionable.” Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. —Tom Harris, Executive Director,
International Climate Science Coalition
Correction
In last week’s cover story—”Citizen Gus” by Jacob Boon—we misspelled Vicki Gabereau’s name as Vicky. The Coast regrets the error.
This article appears in Mar 15-21, 2018.
Tom Harris misquotes David Suzuki. Dr. Suzuki wrote that Mr. Harris, “…promoted almost every debunked anti-climate-science position available, from claiming CO2 is harmless plant food to doubting the existence of human-caused climate change altogether.”
CO2 is not harmless but the chief culprit of climate change. The gas, which traps heat in Earths atmosphere, has been increasing since the industrial age due to the burning of oil, gas, coal and wood for energy and is continuing to reach concentrations not seen in at least 500,000 years. The impacts of climate change include global warming, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and sea ice as well as more severe weather events as shown by the 4th National Climate Assement.
Dr. Tim Ball & Mr. Tom Harris called the science regarding human made climate change a plot and a hoax. In a series of op-eds, Dr. Ball & Mr. Harris wrote, from the outset the entire claim of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) was built on falsehoods and spread with fake news. (Source “Global warming: Fake news from the start Senator Tim Wirth, scientist James Hansen and others manufactured the climate crisis” by Tom Harris & Tim Ball, CFACT 12/20/2017)
Dr. Ball & Mr. Harris reject over a hundred years of climate science by promoting a conspiracy theory that this “plot to deceive the world” came in to being in a senate hearing in 1988. According to Dr. Ball & Mr. Harris, More than any other event, that single hearing before the Energy and Natural Resources Committee publicly initiated the climate scare, the biggest deception in history. It created an unholy alliance between a bureaucrat and a politician, which was bolstered by the UN and the popular press leading to the hoax being accepted in governments, industry boardrooms, schools, and churches all across the world.
Are you seriously giving up important space in your paper to a dangerous climate denier like Tom Harris?! Coast, I am surprised by and furious with you! The fact that his letter is cushioned in “reasonable” sounding but false arguments that could mislead your readers is even more infuriating. His organization, International Climate Science Coalition, is a known climate-denying organization. The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change is skillfully trying to disguise itself as the international authority on climate change, which is actually the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Such sly wording and PR that denies the science of climate change is harmful because it can slow down the implementation of real solutions and therefore further endanger the “vulnerable people” that he is saying we need to support. DO NOT GIVE AIR TIME TO THIS CYCLICAL, DISTRACTING RHETORIC. We have no time for this crud, Coast, and you should know better than to publish it.
Tom Harris is the climate denial industry’s version of NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre. His job is to stand up and lie to the public, and to contradict anyone who says different, no matter what their expertise.
Tom Harris promotes the Heartland Institute’s “Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change” report in the article without disclosing he is “Policy Advisor, Energy and Environment for the Heartland Institute.
Shill – shil
noun
1) A person who publicly gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a close relationship with the person or organization.
2) An accomplice of a confidence trickster or swindler who poses as a genuine customer to entice or encourage others.
Mr. Harris is not only being deceptive in his letter, but is contradicting his own previous claims and statements. Mr. Harris has a well-documented history of stating man-made climate change is not real. Mr. Harris is also being deceptive in his claims concerning CO2 as plant food. Raw sewage is also plant food. It is natural and has been used for millennia in some regions to fertilize crops. Clearly, this plant food is pollution. So is man-made CO2. What he also doesnt say is that studies have shown increases in temperature and CO2 lead to decreases in food production and nutritional value. And, plants we want are not the only ones that use CO2, so do weeds.
Incidentally, if you ever check the references in the NIPCC document youll find that they will find a reference that agrees with one statement and then cite it so they can inflate the number of references. The truth is that the NIPCC, in its entirety, has been completely debunked by the objective reviewers. There is no solid science to support Mr. Harris, so he makes it up.
Mr. Harris has repeatedly stated science is nothing more than an opinion. According to Mr. Harris, gravity is only an opinion, it is merely an opinion that planes fly, and its just someones opinion that we can do work with electricity. Be careful when you hit the brakes when youre driving. Its only an opinion that your car will slow down.
It should be no surprise to learn that Mr. Harris has a long and well documented history of association with the fossil fuel and tobacco industries. His statements have been endorsed by the repressive governments of North Korea and Uzbekistan and Mr. Harris has cited Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte as a role model to be followed.
And, by the way, everything Dr. Suzuki said in his article is true and accurate.
Christopher Keating, Ph.D., Mason, Texas
Dr. Keating is a professor of physics who does research in planetary geophysics, including climate change.
Shocked and frankly sickened that The Coast would publish Tom Harris for all the reasons above. “No one knows the degree to which this occurs, and the extent to which it is dangerous.” Actually, we know we are already facing dangerous climate change; it’s now a question of how far it gets.
Yikes, Coast. Why would you do this? These arguments are so dangerous; climate change is a threat to our whole species — and is already effecting those already marginalized and oppressed globally. For a paper which gives a lot of space for calls for justice I don’t understand how you can publish this letter.
This is so fucked up.
In response to Jennifer Sextons letter, I agree LEED certification is an element of the new conference centre worth lauding. But this is a case of forest for the trees. The city has invested this money into a building whose primary function is to encourage people from all around the world to travel here for business. This travel will generate a large amount of greenhouse gas emissions. Look at the opportunity cost: how many miles of cycling infrastructure could have been built? How many green retrofit grants for existing businesses or homeowners? Could the water treatment plant have been boosted to a higher standard? So yes, it is terrific that the building is LEED certified. If only there was an environmental certification process for budget allocation decisions.