... not as i do

In January of this year former Green Party leader and current University of Victoria Professor, Andrew Weaver, was featured in a Vancouver Sun story: Ex-B.C. Green leader Andrew Weaver disturbed by climate fear-mongering. He chastised fellow scientists, saying:

It has long been known that fear-based messaging does not work in terms of motivating personal climate action.

He also attacked scientist activism:

I am not sure how activist scientists help advance the necessary solutions, and I believe that the time for such activism has long passed

Further, Weaver criticized climate-expert travel:

Many look to the climate science community for leadership on greenhouse gas mitigation, and do so with dismay when they see these same scientists jetting off to various conferences at exotic locations.
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Now, in a July 23, 2023 Province opinion piece, Weaver sets out that reaching net-zero emissions is not good enough: Andrew Weaver: Much more than net zero needed, now, to prevent overheating our planet. His air-sucking solution is:

We now need an immediate transition towards the decarbonization of global energy systems and the widespread introduction of negative emission technology, such as direct air carbon capture and deep underground carbon sequestration.

This is the only hope humanity has for a long-term solution to global warming.

… the only hope humanity has – this likely would have increased angst levels in Sunday paper readers, especially if you go back to Weaver’s January statement: Meeting the 1.5 degrees C target requires an immediate global scale up of negative emissions using technologies that have yet to be developed.

So, we are being told by this prominent scientist with high level political experience that the only hope for mankind is immediate implementation of a technology that is yet to be developed. Frightening for sure. An article in The Tyee explains how impossible negative emissions implementation is:

For negative emissions to keep climate change within 1.5 degrees, humanity would have to build out a carbon-capture infrastructure that is equivalent to the entire global fossil fuel industry in the next 20 (maybe 30) years, with no profit motive, using technology that is currently in the pilot-plant stage. We would have to construct this planetary industry while simultaneously building out a renewable-energy infrastructure of identical scale.

If negative emission technology is our only hope, then there is no hope.

Also, Weaver’s position that climate scientists should not embrace activism seems at odds with his former position as leader of the BC Green party and his response to the school strikes led by Greta Thunberg in 2019. In support of Thunberg’s Skolstrejk för Klimatet, Weaver authorized a March 15, 2019 Media Release, B.C. Green Caucus statement on the School Strike for Climate, that included:

“Our children are telling us that it is time to treat this crisis as a crisis, and they are right,” said Andrew Weaver, leader of the B.C. Greens. “I am humbled and honoured to stand with the world’s children and youth as they demand political action on climate change.”

Given that Weaver was standing with Thunberg, and noting his recent criticism of fellow scientists trapsing off to remote conferences, you would think that the Victoria-based MLA might have avoided air travel during that time. However, a snippet of travel expense claims shows that Weaver attended meetings and conferences well outside the scope and area of his Gordon Head / Oak Bay constituency:

April 16, 2019 – Return flight to attend Vancouver Economic Commission presentation.

May 10, 2019 – Return flight to Ft. St. John via Vancouver to present at BC Wildlife Federation AGM.

May 24, 2019 – Return flight to Vancouver to present at a Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences workshop.

June 4, 2019 – Return flight to Vancouver to attend the Clean Energy BC conference.

Beyond aspersions against his scientific peer group, Remarkable Cognitive Dissonance is how Weaver describes the actions of ordinary people currently on vacation in southern Europe; getaways that likely were planned and paid for before long before any hot temperatures arrived. Is there such a thing as Remarkable Elitist Dissonance?

For all his scientific knowledge and political experience, Andrew Weaver offers little in the way of solutions for the so-called crisis. Although going nowhere, he apparently gets a free pass to assert the fear, activism and hypocrisy he denounces.