It has been almost three decades since delegates from 172 countries met at the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and adopted the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show that since then, the Earth’s atmospheric temperature has risen by an average of 0.03° Celsius per year. At that rate, the planet’s climate will warm by 2.4° by 2100. That’s a sizable amount over 80 years, but even if the planet warms exactly as forecast, it’s certainly not the “climate emergency” needed to galvanize people into making life-altering sacrifices such as giving up cars or air travel, moving en masse into “tiny homes” or switching to “eco-friendly” food. 

The answer to every climate activist’s prayer came in the form of Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg. Her transformation into the world’s pre-eminent climate-change warrior began in 2018 at the age of 15, with Fridays spent demonstrating outside the Swedish Parliament while gaining the attention of financially capable fellow warriors. Her carefully choreographed journey last year to New York by “zero-carbon” sailboat (in fact a rakish and well-equipped ultra-modern racing yacht, built largely out of petroleum products, with an expert crew who all had to be transported back home again) was timed to coincide with the UN Climate Action Summit, where she passionately delivered her apocalyptic “How dare you!” tirade heard around the world.

Here in Canada Thunberg’s performance inspired radicalized groups including “Extinction Rebellion,” which enraged drivers by blocking roads and bridges during busy rush hours, generating uncounted tonnes of needless greenhouse gas emissions. A one-day climate strike shut down school classes across the country as pupils joined climate emergency rallies. In a scant few days, the angry scowling Swede evoked existential climate-change anxiety in teenagers everywhere. Unfortunately, her words had an even greater effect on younger kids, striking terror into pre-teens. In one elementary class, a child yelled out, “I don’t wanna die.” Another went home and said, “Mommy, they say that we’re going to die in eight years.” Traumatizing young children by telling them the world is about to end crosses the line from eco-activism to emotional eco-terrorism.

After New York, Thunberg journeyed to Alberta where she held an anti-oilsands rally. This was a puzzling choice given that Canada produces just 1.6 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, with the oilsands contributing just one-tenth of that. China or India’s emissions make Canada’s just a rounding error. Indeed, in some years the increase in China’s emissions approximately equals Canada’s entire annual total. Why didn’t Thunberg travel there? While she was in Edmonton, the ever-determined reporters at Rebel Media asked her that question. Her answer? She “hadn’t been invited.” No doubt that’s true. If she or Extinction Rebellion tried their stunts in the Communist-run police state, they would likely be “invited” to a forced-labour camp. Just ask the Hong Kong protesters, who are risking their lives merely to preserve their most basic legal rights. 

Either way, Thunberg’s disparaging visit to Canada’s oilsands again illustrates activists’ fixation on Western countries even though virtually all emissions growth is elsewhere. China, India, South Africa, South Korea, the Philippines and Japan, all signatories to the Paris climate accord, are in various stages of constructing a total of 1,800 coal-fired electric power plants. If Canada disappeared from the face of the Earth, those new plants would replace our emissions in a few short months.

There’s little doubt Thunberg’s visit also influenced Canada’s federal election. Massive media coverage of her climate emergency claims increased support for prime minister Justin Trudeau’s national carbon tax. Trudeau’s task was made easier by Conservative leader Andrew Scheer’s failure to explain clearly why his party’s environmental policy would more effectively reduce global emissions than the Liberal carbon tax. 

Scheer’s mission shouldn’t have been all that difficult to accomplish. Virtually all experts agree the carbon tax would have to be several times higher than planned to have any perceptible impact on Canada’s  emissions (and as we’ve seen, Canada’s total emissions have negligible impact on global emissions). By contrast, the cornerstone of the Conservative environmental platform was the recognition that exporting Canadian natural gas on a large scale would have a real impact globally. The evidence for this is compelling, for the large-scale switching from coal to natural gas in the United States has largely accounted for that country’s dramatic decline in greenhouse gas emissions, despite the fact the U.S. has spurned various global climate accords.