RANGEfire! | A grassroots model for fighting climate hysteria in politics

Originally found on RANGEfire!.

Climate Realism in Action!

by RANGE contributor Tom Harris

PJ Media

Killing the unscientific climate scare before it destroys our prosperity and robs us of our health, security, and freedom is one of the most important challenges facing conservatives in 2023. To do this will require employing all the methods used by the radical left to create climate panic in the first place.

Many of the strategies so successfully employed by “progressives,” including climate alarmists, are well laid out in Rules for Radicals, the 1971 book by community activist Saul Alinsky. All conservatives would do well to re-read Alinsky’s classic to better appreciate how the left so effectively highjacked most of our institutions.

An even more urgent reason to study the book is to learn how to successfully fight back and win.

When Alinsky wrote the book, the left was mostly on the outside looking at a conservative-dominated establishment. Now, the situation is reversed and, while Alinsky would be rolling over in his grave if he knew this, we at International Climate Science Coalition — Canada (ICSC — Canada) effectively employed his “rules” to triumph over climate alarmism in last October’s municipal election in the City of Ottawa, Canada’s national capital. Because many of our activities and the ultimate victory for a more realistic approach to climate change are transferable to other jurisdictions across Canada and the U.S., let’s discuss what we did and the results.

This past July, city councillor and climate activist Catherine McKenney had what appeared to be an insurmountable lead in the race for mayor of Ottawa.

This was a big problem since not only was McKenney primarily responsible for the city’s endorsement of the Fossil Fuel Non-proliferation Treaty that has infected 74 cities and subnational governments across the world, including five in California (Los Angeles, Hayward, Richmond, Santa Ana, and Sebastopol), but McKenney also supported the City of Ottawa’s $57.4 billion climate and energy plans, which included a phase-out of all uses of oil and natural gas. Instead, the city would supposedly be powered by so-called green energy, including 14 square miles of solar panels, a 161,485% increase over today’s levels, and an incredible 710 industrial wind turbines each at least as tall as the Statue of Liberty. Power storage would be provided by 122 large shipping containers of lithium batteries.

In contrast to Ottawa’s overarching vision, as defined in its Climate Change Master Plan, to transition “Ottawa to a clean, renewable and resilient city by 2050,” its plans would instead transform the capital into a polluted, fragile and bankrupt city suffering from regular blackouts and business failures. Few people would voluntarily choose to live here.

ICSC — Canada responded by publicizing, via articles, Zoom presentations, podcasts, radio, and TV, the serious flaws in Ottawa’s plans. Earlier in the year, we had written an eighty-three-page report about the city’s plans titled, “A CAUTIONARY TALE FOR GOVERNMENTS AROUND THE WORLD — The City of Ottawa’s Climate Change Master Plan: Infeasible and Damaging to Ottawans, the Environment and Human Rights.”

When it was announced that the first four mayoral candidate debates would be chaired by climate activists and would focus on “climate justice,” we intensified our publicizing of the report. ICSC — Canada did not support or oppose any candidate directly. Instead, we trusted the intelligence of Ottawa voters to come to their own conclusions about what electing mayor someone who supported such extreme climate plans would mean for the city.

Employing Alinsky’s “rules,” we also coordinated volunteers to forcefully speak out at the mayoral debates about the infeasibility and threat posed by Ottawa’s plans. So, where did ICSC — Canada find the brave, knowledgeable and motivated volunteers to do this? It was primarily through the Ottawa Chapter of the seven-and-a-half-year-old freedom activist group Action4Canada, which is setting up chapters in towns and cities across Canada. Its goal is to educate, equip, empower, and mobilize citizens who then meet with their local elected officials to discuss issues of concern, apply pressure, and effectively create change. This impressive volunteer-run organization explains on its website: “Action4Canada is a grassroots movement reaching out to millions of Canadians and UNITING our voices in opposition to the destructive policies tearing at the fabric of this nation.”