Reference no: EM133316692

Question: What is the logical fallacies or red herrings in the article below. Does the author have enough evidence for their claims or they relying on hasty generalization, appeals to the majority, appeals to emotion, etc. Have they fallen victim to confirmation bias.

Kelly McParland: Now it's a climate 'emergency' - and don't you forget it

Environmental activists are again swaying opinion by force of terminology. If something's an emergency, it's harder to object or point out untruths

By Kelly McParland, National Post 3 June 2019

Great angst has been expressed by some of Canada's more serious-minded journalists over the Liberals' creation of a slush fund to help the newspaper industry over its financial troubles.

Their concern is that a pot of dough being handed over by the government will undermine public faith in the industry's independence and objectivity. That would be quite a feat, given that we currently rank right up there with manufacturers of opioids and purveyors of Chinese telecom equipment in terms of public admiration.

It might also be a bit unnecessary. Canada's media already shows a disconcerting willingness to parrot politicians blessed with access to a microphone. As Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna recently observed, in a video clip she uploaded herself, "We've learned in the House of Commons, if you repeat it, if you say it louder, if that is your talking point, people will totally believe it."

A current example is an effort by environmental activists to once again influence opinion by force of terminology. Some years back, when American conservatives succeeded in turning "liberal" into a dirty word, liberals and left-wingers successfully rechristened themselves "progressives," a term now almost universally adopted in whatever publication you care to read. It was an astonishingly rapid and effective move - like one of those bird flocks that magically and collectively shift direction in unison as they course across the sky. Any view now in vogue on the left becomes the "progressive" view, simultaneously patting themselves on the back while labelling the rest of the world as opponents of progress. A better term for non-progressives might be "realists," but the right has never been as good at mass hypnosis as the left.

Having declared themselves superior to others, progressives now want to alter the debate on carbon emissions by changing the language in use. "Climate change" is falling into disrepute. The new and approved term is "climate emergency." If you search that phrase you will find a steady stream on local councils debating whether to declare their own particular geographic location a victim of the "emergency."

Wolfville, N.S. - population 4,195 - agreed it was "time to put their foot down" and acknowledge an emergency, hiring a "climate change mitigation co-ordinator" in the process. Council members in Sudbury, Ont., passed an emergency motion to the same effect, ordering up a report that "describes an approach for creating a Climate Change Adaptation & Mitigation Plan." Why this couldn't be done without it being an officially approved emergency isn't clear, but maybe they thought it would be easier to sell to the local population if they made things sound bad enough.

Across the province in Guelph, city council agreed to recognize "the climate crisis" but refused to call it an emergency, having curiously concluded that an emergency has more negative connotations than a crisis. Colwood, a "fast growing, family-friendly waterfront community" near Victoria, B.C., went with emergency over crisis, opposed only by two councillors who felt it meant little since the city wasn't actually going to do anything different.

On a broader front, the federal Liberals and New Democrats are backing competing motions to formally declare the entire country in the grip of an emergency situation. Both parties say the other party's emergency is inadequate, but it gives MPs a chance to chatter about it again.

Since politicians great and small are devoting so much talk to the issue (while not really changing what they're doing about it), they want everyone else to talk the same way. "Dear Journalists of Canada: Start Reporting Climate Change as an Emergency," advised The Tyee, a B.C. news site. This followed a decision by Britain's biggest "progressive" newspaper, The Guardian, to use "climate emergency, crisis or breakdown" instead of "climate change" in news coverage. This, it reported, prompted the standards editor at the CBC to inform staff they could now routinely refer to a "climate crisis" or "climate emergency" in place of climate change. Good to know Canada's national broadcaster takes its lead from left-wing British newspaper management.

The Toronto Star, of course, is already marching loyally in line, reporting breathlessly that "an intense sense of emergency" is behind a plan "to shift Canada's entire economy to battle climate change," launched by no less an evangelist than David Suzuki, who presumably hopes his attempt will fare better than former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion's failed crusade to do likewise. Even Maclean's, usually a bit more skeptical than the pack, advised that tasks remaining before Parliament goes home for the summer include "efforts to tackle the climate emergency and to address the ongoing colonial relationship between the state and Indigenous peoples," thereby killing two terminological buzzards with one stone.

The motive for the change is obvious: if something's an emergency, it's easier to argue for a big disruption in how people live their lives and how much money the government devotes to it. It's also harder to raise objections or point out flaws, discrepancies or untruths. The issue becomes "settled," and only ignoramuses are deemed to raise it any more. It's a ploy long known to despots, dictators and autocrats: declare a national emergency and you can get away with almost anything in response. Just ask Donald Trump about the "emergency" on the Mexican border.

This isn't the first time the climate camp has used this trick. "Global warming" was jettisoned for "climate change" when the warming trend appeared to be slowing. Rather than try to explain the anomaly, it was easier to just change the phrase. And eco warriors from McKenna on down now commonly refer to emissions as "pollution," which they categorically are not. Carbon dioxide is a gas people exhale and plants need to live. Deliberate distortion may pollute arguments, but breathing doesn't.

Expect to hear more about the "emergency" as the fall election approaches. As McKenna noted, if they say it often enough and loud enough, people start to believe it.