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Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Global Warming Predictions of Doom Are Dubious

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Ian Madsen

What if the scariest climate predictions are more fiction than fact?

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) aims to highlight the urgent threats climate change poses. It projects severe consequences, including longer and more intense urban heat waves, as the World Resources Institute noted, along with increased storms, floods, and crop failures. IPCC claims that our current path leads to a temperature increase of at least three degrees Celsius above pre-industrial (circa 1750-1850) levels if the world does not drastically reduce carbon dioxide or just carbon emissions. However, this assessment and the attendant predictions are dubious.

The first uncertainty is the pre-industrial global temperatures. There were no precise thermometers at random sites or in major towns until late in the 19th century. Therefore, researchers use ice cores and lake and sea sediments as proxies. The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration admits that pre-1880 data are limited. It provides many examples showing how even modern temperatures can be incomparable from region to region and from past to present and consequently are adjusted to approximate comparability.

What cannot be explained away is the Medieval Warm Period, which lasted from about 800 AD to around 1300 AD, and the subsequent cooling period that ‘bottomed’ about 1700 AD called the Little Ice Age. Human activity did not cause either one, and they were not merely regional phenomena confined to the North Atlantic and Western Europe. In the Middle Ages, Vikings settled in Greenland and were able to grow crops. The weather cooled dramatically, and they abandoned their colonies in the 15th century. During the Little Ice Age, there were many crop failures and famines in Europe, and the river Thames reliably froze over, with ice thick enough to hold winter fairs on.

Temperatures did not rise significantly until well into the 19th century. Suppose the recent temperature increase between one and one and one-half degrees Celsius is correct. This is only a third of the way toward a more tolerable  (i.e., more livable, with less disease and fewer cold-related deaths) climate and cannot be termed “global boiling,” as the Secretary-General of the United Nations called it in 2023.

At three or more degrees of warming, IPCC researchers (“Climate Change 2023 Synthesis Report:  Summary for Policymakers Sixth Assessment Report,” “AR6” pp. 15-16) have “high confidence” in more severe hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones; large floods; deadlier heatwaves and droughts; lower glacier-fed river flow; and lower crop yields.

Yet, their predictions are vague and generalized. So far, there are few signs that these calamities are increasing in frequency or intensity – hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons are not. Indeed, humanity is coping well: The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization observed that 2024 grain production was the second-highest on record.

Here are a few erroneous predictions the New American found: the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP)’s 2005 warning of 50 million climate refugees by 2010; the University of East Anglia’s 2000 prediction that the United Kingdom would rarely have snow in winter; and several early-2000s prognostications of the Arctic Ocean being ice-free in summer by 2016 – none has happened. A critique from May of 2020 of the thirty-eight models used to predict futures observed that the predictions of the amalgamated model used by the IPCC consistently and substantially overestimated actual warming.

Longer and hotter heat waves in cities are not the end of the world. They are unpleasant but manageable. Practical methods of urban cooling are spreading globally. Heat-related deaths are still far fewer than those from cold (by a ten-to-one ratio). If it gets hotter occasionally, humanity can and will survive.

Ian Madsen is the Senior Policy Analyst at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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Education

Our Kids Are Struggling To Read. Phonics Is The Easy Fix

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Michael Zwaagstra

One Manitoba school division is proving phonics works

If students don’t learn how to read in school, not much else that happens there is going to matter.

This might be a harsh way of putting it, but it’s the truth. Being unable to read makes it nearly impossible to function in society. Reading is foundational to everything, even mathematics.

That’s why Canadians across the country should be paying attention to what’s happening in Manitoba’s Evergreen School Division. Located in the Interlake region, including communities like Gimli, Arborg and Winnipeg Beach, Evergreen has completely overhauled its approach to reading instruction—and the early results are promising.

Instead of continuing with costly and ineffective methods like Reading Recovery and balanced literacy, Evergreen has adopted a structured literacy approach, putting phonics back at the centre of reading instruction.

Direct and explicit phonics instruction teaches students how to sound out the letters in words. Rather than guessing words from pictures or context, children are taught to decode the language itself. It’s simple, evidence-based, and long overdue.

In just one year, Evergreen schools saw measurable gains. A research firm evaluating the program found that five per cent more kindergarten to Grade 6 students were reading at grade level than the previous year. For a single year of change, that’s a significant improvement.

This should not be surprising. The science behind phonics instruction has been clear for decades. In the 1960s, Dr. Jeanne Chall, director of the Harvard Reading Laboratory, conducted extensive research into reading methods and concluded that systematic phonics instruction produces the strongest results.

Today, this evidence-based method is often referred to as the “science of reading” because the evidence overwhelmingly supports its effectiveness. While debates continue in many areas of education, this one is largely settled. Students need to be explicitly taught how to read using phonics—and the earlier, the better.

Yet Evergreen stands nearly alone. Manitoba’s Department of Education does not mandate phonics in its public schools. In fact, it largely avoids taking a stance on the issue at all. This silence is a disservice to students—and it’s a missed opportunity for genuine reform.

At the recent Manitoba School Boards Association convention, Evergreen trustees succeeded in passing an emergency motion calling on the association to lobby education faculties to ensure that new teachers are trained in systematic phonics instruction. It’s a critical first step—and one that should be replicated in every province.

It’s a travesty that the most effective reading method isn’t even taught in many teacher education programs. If new teachers aren’t trained in phonics, they’ll struggle to teach their students how to read—and the cycle of failure will continue.

Imagine what could happen if every province implemented structured literacy from the start of Grade 1. Students would become strong readers earlier, be better equipped for all other subjects, and experience greater success throughout school. Early literacy is a foundation for lifelong learning.

Evergreen School Division deserves credit for following the evidence and prioritizing real results over educational trends. But it shouldn’t be alone in this.

If provinces across Canada want to raise literacy rates and give every child a fair shot at academic success, they need to follow Evergreen’s lead—and they need to do it now.

All students deserve to learn how to read.

Michael Zwaagstra is a public high school teacher and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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Economy

Support For National Pipelines And LNG Projects Gain Momentum, Even In Quebec

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Joseph Quesnel

Public opinion on pipelines has shifted. Will Ottawa seize the moment for energy security or let politics stall progress?

The ongoing threats posed by U.S. tariffs on the Canadian economy have caused many Canadians to reconsider the need for national oil pipelines and other major resource projects.

The United States is Canada’s most significant trading partner, and the two countries have enjoyed over a century of peaceful commerce and good relations. However, the onset of tariffs and increasingly hostile rhetoric has made Canadians realize they should not be taking these good relations for granted.

Traditional opposition to energy development has given way to a renewed focus on energy security and domestic self-reliance. Over the last decade, Canadian energy producers have sought to build pipelines to move oil from landlocked Alberta to tidewater, aiming to reduce reliance on U.S. markets and expand exports internationally. Canada’s dependence on the U.S. for energy exports has long affected the prices it can obtain.

One province where this shift is becoming evident is Quebec. Historically, Quebec politicians and environmental interests have vehemently opposed oil and gas development. With an abundance of hydroelectric power, imported oil and gas, and little fossil fuel production, the province has had fewer economic incentives to support the industry.

However, recent polling suggests attitudes are changing. A SOM-La Presse poll from late February found that about 60 per cent of Quebec residents support reviving the Energy East pipeline project, while 61 per cent favour restarting the GNL Quebec natural gas pipeline project, a proposed LNG facility near Saguenay that would export liquefied natural gas to global markets. While support for these projects remains stronger in other parts of the country, this represents a substantial shift in Quebec.

Yet, despite this change, Quebec politicians at both the provincial and federal levels remain out of step with public opinion. The Montreal Economic Institute, a non-partisan think tank, has documented this disconnect for years. There are two key reasons for it: Quebec politicians tend to reflect the perspectives of a Montreal-based Laurentian elite rather than broader provincial sentiment, and entrenched interests such as Hydro-Québec benefit from limiting competition under the guise of environmental concerns.

Not only have Quebec politicians misrepresented public opinion, but they have also claimed to speak for the entire province on energy issues. Premier François Legault and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet have argued that pipeline projects lack “social licence” from Quebecers.

However, the reality is that the federal government does not need any special license to build oil and gas infrastructure that crosses provincial borders. Under the Constitution, only the federal Parliament has jurisdiction over national pipeline and energy projects.

Despite this authority, no federal government has been willing to impose such a project on a province. Quebec’s history of resisting federal intervention makes this a politically delicate issue. There is also a broader electoral consideration: while it is possible to form a federal government without winning Quebec, its many seats make it a crucial battleground. In a bilingual country, a government that claims to speak for all Canadians benefits from having a presence in Quebec.

Ottawa could impose a national pipeline, but it doesn’t have to. New polling data from Quebec and across Canada suggest Canadians increasingly support projects that enhance energy security and reduce reliance on the United States. The federal government needs to stop speaking only to politicians—especially in Quebec—and take its case directly to the people.

With a federal election on the horizon, politicians of all parties should put national pipelines and natural gas projects on the ballot.

Joseph Quesnel is a senior research fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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