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If this is the result of 1 C of warming over the last century, it simply doesn’t follow that catastrophe awaits humanity with an additional 1.5 degrees more. The record shows that humanity has proven remarkably resilient and adaptable to climate change. There’s no reason to believe that will stop.

Nonetheless, the prophets of doom declare in The Pact for a Green New Deal that the solution is not adaptation. Instead, they call for a wholesale change in our energy consumption to cut fossil fuel use in half by 2030 and ultimately eliminate it completely: “We have the ability to build a 100 per cent renewable economy based on public ownership and dignified, well-paying work.”

Never mind that our energy grid isn’t large enough to handle our entire population switching over to electric cars and electric home heating along with all the electricity needs we currently have. Never mind that wind and solar are intermittent power sources. Never mind that we don’t have a power storage solution and that Tesla, which currently only has a tiny fraction of the car market, is already warning about shortages in rare earth metals needed to make batteries.

If this was just some marginal movement backed by an extreme fringe, perhaps you could argue to just ignore it.

But it isn’t marginal or fringe. It is also not a foreign-funded campaign that seeks to landlock our oil to benefit foreign interests, as Vivien Krause has revealed in her work on the Tarsands Campaign.

No, this Green New Deal is being backed by the biggest and most powerful public sector unions in our province. Those who never saw job losses during the most recent downturn in the economy. Those who never faced a wage cut. Those who campaigned hard to get the NDP re-elected.

My only question for Premier Jason Kenney is where is that energy war room? We need it — now.

Danielle Smith is a radio host with 770 CHQR. She can be reached at danielle@770chqr.com.