Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Cowering before carbon
![](https://www.todayville.com/edmonton/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/07/tvrd-fcpp-world-without-energy-carbon-capture-image-2024-07-24.jpg)
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Despite turning this back this spring, South Dakota continues to be under attack by a freshly born green corporation, Summit Carbon Solutions, funded by China’s Belt and Road initiative, and you, through the Green New Deal provisions buried in the last debt ceiling deal, to pipe “carbon,” from the oil fields to some obscure part of the Dakotas and bury it. The “people” may “rise up” and demand it be shuttered, and all they do is crawl away and try again.
There can be no more stupid waste of money than this. But even some of our bravest politicians, including Kristi Noem, Pierre Poilivere and Danielle Smith in Canada cower before the almighty (anti-)carbon lobby and rabbit on about sequestering it. It is an industry into which thieves flood because it means you loot the public purse at the beginning through Green New Deal giveaways, and then for all perpetuity because of the tax advantage. People have been so scarified by the word, they do not know what it means anymore, they nod enthusiastically.
So let’s refresh: carbon = carbon dioxide. Plant food. Your outbreath. The thing that makes life on earth habitable. The thing they are trying to introduce into Mars to make it habitable. In order to terraform Mars, you need carbon dioxide.
A policy researcher friend tried to track down the annual billions, trillions over the last thirty years, that the U.N. and its various satellites have given of your money to “climate change” mitigation outfits in the Global South. The money vanishes, nothing happens, it’s stolen. She google-earthed one heavily PR’ed outfit, only to discover that it didn’t exist, just a pile of sand. These projects are payoffs to an army of activists placed at every weak point in the system. If the projects exist, they don’t work. Both the Guardian and Harper’s have done extensive work on the fraud of “climate mitigation.” Carbon sequestration is a scam meant to steal public money.
Yeah, this oughta work.
This time, Kristi Noem is facing down an activated people who are fit to be tied, protesting and signing petitions. This is generally taken as “the people’s voice” in the enviro business and must be obeyed. But not, apparently, when you are fighting “green.” This time, Summit Corporation is barreling through people’s farms, breaking into their barns, threatening ranchers with armed guards, and generally behaving like the WEFer army Trudeau sent to brutalize the truckers. This is a new iteration from the One World Government, anonymous Kevlar-coated mercenaries in the heartland.
So it is that the carbon dioxide pipeline in North Dakota is receiving rapid approvals and aggressive eminent domain clearing overturning the years, even decades it takes to clear a pipeline. The first thing Biden did was cancel the Keystone XL pipeline. It was protested by the activist army that moves into any hot spot, the leaders of which are paid well to lead the chaos. But in this instance, the carbon pipeline is being protested by actual residents fearing actual harm. Co2 is an unstable gas, unlike oil and natural gas. Co2 pipelines explode and kill people. They blow up in part because the technology is not sorted out, unlike petroleum engineering. But never mind! It’s virtuous. It’s fabulous, it must be done, whether you like it or not.
I know! Let’s overturn democracy. Writes Pipeline contributor Steven F. Hayward in the Claremont Review of Books:
The most overwrought, assertive climate change activists have a “transformative” agenda to halt and reverse global warming. The problem is that there’s no evidence voting majorities in any modern democracy are willing to be transformed by Green New Deals or other, even wilder schemes. And if the people reject the climate agenda? There must be ways to enact it despite them. There may even be ways to insist that this thwarting of the popular will is, in fact, a more noble rendering of democracy than mere government by consent of the governed.
He quotes Ross Mittiga, the author of “Political Legitimacy, Authoritarianism, and Climate Change,” asking whether we must sacrifice democracy to save the planet:
Satisfying this standard may entail elevating the status or power of experts in the political process by, for instance, affording them a salient consultatory role or even some kind of veto power over legislation…. One can imagine a “Supreme Court of Climate Experts,” tasked with evaluating, modifying, or striking down legislation to the extent it exacerbates the climate crisis or contributes to other grave forms of environmental destruction.
Observes Steve: “This hardly differs from the parade of authoritarian horrors offered elsewhere in the article.”
Oops.
Alas, all over the U.S., activists are attempting to override both political and judicial process placing their judgment above democratic process, and their pet judges agree. Usually local farmers, ranchers, rural businessmen and women are rolled flat by out-of-state lawyers and money from movie stars, but this time, the victims have constitutional lawyers. The South Dakota Freedom Caucus is fighting back and Gov. Noem is caught. Approving this pipeline will mean money for her coffers from Summit, jobs, albeit temporary; no doubt, federal funds will be held back until she approves it. You can read the Caucus’ extensive legal argument here.
Even the Sierra Club thinks carbon capture is fraudulent:
The fact that the 45Q tax break for carbon capture and sequestration specifically states that enhanced oil recovery [EOR] counts as sequestration means that these companies could get paid twice for the same carbon— first, via the tax break for capturing and shipping it, and again when they sell it for EOR. “The bottom line,” says [Richard] Kuprewicz, “is if you’re trying to get CO2 in the atmosphere to reduce global warming, but you’ve created this huge market incentive to drive and generate more oil recovery, that may be in conflict with getting rid of CO2 in the atmosphere… We’re getting ahead of ourselves on pipelines,” he says. “For billions of dollars you can make smart people do incredibly stupid things.”
Carbon capture is a gold rush, the gold being public money. Exxon Mobil just bought a carbon capture company. Certainly it knows of the dangers and inefficacy, but such virtue signaling makes them look good. Summit Corporation is another dishonest outfit prospecting for free public money.
Opposition mounts. The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission has announced it will hold hearings on their pipeline in September. Three days ago, Daniel Horowitz of The Blaze asked why Noem was dragging her heels about calling a special session of the legislature to deal with the “carbon-capture” threat.
This problem has been festering for quite some time, it’s just that the governor thought she’d be able to quietly skate by enabling Summit Carbon Solutions and Navigator CO2 to do the dirty work while not overtly endorsing their project. Noem’s reluctance to call a session comes on the heels of her refusal to support the existing bill in the regular session. The governor is pretending like this issue is just beginning and that lawmakers need to send some new legislation for her to review. But she is very familiar with House Bill 1133, introduced by Rep. Karla Lems. There’s nothing to review; it’s a one-paragraph bill. It simply makes it clear that eminent domain can only be used for a pipeline that actually produces a public good, not merely captures carbon. Done.
Can’t we just box it and ship it?
In Illinois, through which carbon pipelines are planned to flow, a state senator has proposed a moratorium on carbon capture pipelines to address safety concerns.
McClure said the pipeline issue was first brought to his attention by some of those who live along the path of Heartland Greenway. He said he was concerned about the potential for a pipeline rupture similar to one that happened in Satartia, Mississippi in early 2020, when 45 people were hospitalized and 200 were evacuated. The carbon dioxide sucked the air out of the surrounding area and caused gas-using vehicles to fail, according to reports.
“When you have a pipeline that’s that big [and] that will stretch across so much rural area, how on earth would emergency folks be able to get to a rupture in time to help people?,” McClure said.
We have to stop throwing our future into the great green maw.
Elizabeth Nickson is a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. Follow her on Substack here.
Frontier Centre for Public Policy
UBCIC Chiefs Commit A Grave Error In Labelling Authors As Racist Deniers
![](https://www.todayville.com/edmonton/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/tvrd-fcpp-aboriginal-protests-image-2024-09-06.jpg)
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
By Rodney A. Clifton
UBCIC Chiefs attempt to suppress open debate on residential schools.
Is anyone surprised that the Union of BC Indian Chiefs on Aug. 12 wrote to many provincial municipalities (Powell River, Kamloops, and Quesnel, for example) demanding they reject “Residential School Denialism”?
Their demand is in response to a book edited by C.P. Champion and Tom Flanagan, Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools). The authors of the 18 chapters include several well-known Canadian anthropologists, historians, political scientists, sociologists, and lawyers, many of whom have published extensively on Indigenous/non-Indigenous issues.
Even so, the organization of Chiefs call this book an “ardent dissemination of racist misinformation.”
Their letter to municipal leaders concludes with the following:
“The UBIC Chiefs Council stand with survivors and intergenerational survivors of Residential Schools and their families, as well as the children who never made it home and those who are harmed by the actions of those involved with the production and distribution of the book … and the deeply troubling trend of Residential School racist denialism and any unwillingness to accept facts and the work of experts.”
“We look forward to your response.”
As an author of a chapter in Grave Error, as co-author of two other chapters, and as a co-editor with Mark DeWolf of From Truth Comes Reconciliation: An Assessment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report, I am pleased to respond to the Chiefs.
My recommendation to municipal leaders, and other concerned Canadians, is that before you respond to the Chiefs, you should read Grave Error and make up your up your own minds.
On Amazon, Grave Error has over 800 reviews, with an average rating of 4.6 out of 5. In fact, this book is ranked first on three Amazon lists, and it has been a best seller for many months.
One of the top Amazon reviews begins, “A well-researched, non-partisan and balanced approach to the hysterical outpourings of recent years.” Another review says, “There is not one whiff of racism or hatred in this book.”
As a contributing author to Grave Error, I will add a little of my history.
I lived for four months during the Summer of 1966 in the teachers’ wing of Old Sun, the Anglican Residential School on the Siksika (Blackfoot) First Nation in Southern Alberta. At the time, students were still in residence, and I was a 21-year-old university student intern working at the Band Office, where about half the employees were Siksika members. Also, most of the employed in Old Sun, where I lived, were Siksika.
In the fall of 1966, I became the Senior Boys’ Supervisor in Stringer Hall, the Anglican residence in Inuvik, NWT, where I looked after 85 mostly Indigenous boys in three dorms. About half of the employees in this residence were Indigenous.
I returned to the University of Alberta for the 1967-68 academic year, and in the summer of 1968, I was employed as the Beach Supervisor and Swimming Instructor in Uranium City, Northern Saskatchewan, where I taught swimming to many Indigenous children in a local lake.
Finally, in September 1968, Elaine Ayoungman, a young Siksika woman I met in 1966, and I were married in the Anglican Church in Strathmore, Alberta. Elaine had been a student in Old Sun for 10 years, and this September, we will celebrate our 56th wedding anniversary. We are still married, and, no doubt, surprisingly to the BC Chiefs, we are still in love.
By now, readers will realize that I strongly reject the UBCI Chiefs’ claim that I, or any of the other authors with chapters in Grave Error, are “racist deniers” of the reality of Indian Residential Schools.
In short, my message to the BC municipal leaders is to resist echoing the opinion of the UBCIC, me, or the opinions of over 80 percent of the reviews on Amazon who awarded the book a 4 or 5. My message is simple: Read Grave Error and make up your own mind. Likewise, my message to Canadians who want to know more about Indian Residential Schools is to listen to the survivors and Chiefs but also read the Truth and Reconciliation Report and then read both Grave Error and From Truth Comes Reconciliation.
Rodney A. Clifton is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. His most recent book, with Mark DeWolf, is From Truth Comes Reconciliation: An Assessment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report (Sutherland House Press, 2024). The book can be preordered from the publisher.
Frontier Centre for Public Policy
A letter to five Canadian Churches
![](https://www.todayville.com/edmonton/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/09/tvrd-fcpp-kamloops-indian-residential-school-1930-image-2024-08-02.jpg)
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Two years ago, Eric Metaxas, the conservative Christian American author wrote a short, but important, book addressing the American Church. He was concerned the churches were forsaking their Christian principles in not speaking out against the anti-Christian ideologies and practices occurring throughout the U.S.
My letter is limited to admonishing the Canadian churches involved with Canada’s Indian Residential Schools. These churches have not spoken out in support of the missionaries they commissioned to work in these schools, people who poured their lives into their work, and who have been wrongly accused of abusing and murdering residential school children.
Obviously, those employees who are guilty should be condemned and punished, but those who are innocent should not be falsely accused of perpetrating horrific crimes.
Between 1883 and 1996, there were 143 Indian Residential Schools included in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, a complex agreement between various Indigenous groups, the federal government, and the churches that managed residential schools.
The Roman Catholic Church managed 62 (43.4%) of the schools, the Church of England (Anglican) managed 35 (24.5%), the United Church (including the denominations that joined together in 1925) managed 19 (13.3%), the Mennonite Church managed 3 (2.1%), and the Baptist Church managed 1 (0.6%) residential school. The federal and territorial governments managed the remaining 23 (16.1%) schools.
There are four historical points to be reviewed.
First, in May 2021, Rosanne Casimer, Chief of the Kamloops Band, announced that ground penetrating radar (GPR) had found 215 unmarked graves of children in the residential schoolyard.
Surprisingly, this was the first public report suggesting that children buried in residential schoolyards had been murdered. There is, however, no credible evidence of murdered residential school children in the 3,500-page Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Report which was published 6 years earlier.
Second, despite being absent from the TRC’s “Calls to Action,” the federal government has awarded almost $8 million to the Kamloops band to excavate part of the schoolyard, and set aside over $300 million for other bands to search for soil anomalies or presumed graves.
Third, as expected with such strong incentives, many other bands have claimed that they too have graves of missing and presumed murdered children buried in the schoolyards on their reserves.
Finally, in an impressive gesture of support, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau knelt beside a grave in a well-known cemetery with a teddy bear in his hand decrying the genocide perpetrated by the churches. Later, he had the Canadian flags at government buildings around the world flown at half-mast for 6 months so that both Canadians and citizens of the world would mourn this Canadian tragedy.
Since the spring of 2021, almost 100 Christian churches have been vandalized, desecrated, or set on fire, supposedly because of the “genocide” that had taken place at the sites of Indian Residential Schools. Sadly, some of these churches, the Lutheran and Orthodox churches, for example, did not manage any of the schools.
No doubt, most Canadians are thankful there is no forensic evidence that children have been murdered and buried in schoolyards. Of course, there are children’s bodies in parish cemeteries that are often close to the schools, but most of them died of communicable diseases like influenza and TB, and they have been given proper funerals.
My concern is that over the last three years, the five churches that managed Indian Residential Schools have said little or nothing to defend themselves or the staff they commissioned to work in the schools.
In a time of need, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Christians stepped forward to care for children living in residential schools. But the churches have not stepped forward to defend their staff in their time of need. These people are getting old, and they need support now. Instead, the churches have abandoned, or worse, condemned their faithful employees for abusing children.
Equally surprising, no church leader has supported the fundamental principle of Canadian law: individuals (and churches) are considered innocent until they are proven guilty.
It grieves me, and the few other living residential school employees, that our churches have not publically supported their innocent employees. Surely, they have a moral obligation to ensure that truth and justice prevail.
Eric Metaxas has tried to awaken American churches by pointing out where they have gone wrong. Should we not try to awaken Canadian churches to defend their involvement in Indian residential schools?
Is it too much to suggest that the church leaders think back to lessons learned from Martin Luther King Jr. and Dietrich Bonhoeffer who stood up for Christian principles against the evil practice of dehumanizing people—Blacks in the U.S. and Jews in Europe?
Not only will these churches be judged by the moral and ethical lessons they preach, but, more importantly, by the principles they live by. Canadians will see the true values of church leaders in their actions, especially concerning those they commissioned to work in their schools.
Rodney A. Clifton lived for 4 months in Old Sun, the Anglican residential school on the Siksika (Blackfoot) First Nation during the summer of 1966, and he was the Senior Boys’ Supervisor in Stringer Hall, the Anglican residential hostel in Inuvik during the 1966-67 school year. He is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. His most recent book, with Mark DeWolf, is From Truth Comes Reconciliation: An Assessment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report. The book will be out on November 5, and it can be preordered from the publisher.
Rodney A. Clifton is a professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba and a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He lived for four months in Old Sun, the Anglican Residential School on the Blackfoot (Siksika) First Nation, and was the Senior Boys’ Supervisor in Stringer Hall, the Anglican residence in Inuvik. Rodney Clifton and Mark DeWolf are the editors of From Truth Comes Reconciliation: An Assessment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report (Frontier Centre for Public Policy, 2021). A second and expanded edition of this book will be published in early 2024.
-
Crime2 days ago
Hunter Biden pleads guilty to tax charges, avoids public trial
-
Addictions1 day ago
B.C. addiction centre should not accept drug industry funds
-
National1 day ago
Four years, $10,000, one frog: Inside Parks Canada’s costly frog cull
-
Crime2 days ago
Officials Arrest Father Of Suspected Georgia School Shooter
-
National1 day ago
Unemployment Surges as Trudeau’s Policies Wreak Havoc on the Economy
-
Education1 day ago
Toronto-area Catholic school hid ‘trans’ identity of 10-year-old girl from her parents
-
Censorship Industrial Complex1 day ago
Canada wants to add DEI measures to globalist WHO pandemic treaty
-
Agriculture1 day ago
P&H Group building $241-million flour milling facility in Red Deer County.