Even though Saskatchewan appears afflicted by climate change, the main political parties may avoid the topic during the election campaign.
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Saskatchewan is often portrayed aptly as a climate laggard, so it might surprise some how much progress is being made on renewable energy.
The provincial Crown corporation that provides electricity, SaskPower, says on its website that 12 per cent of its power capacity comes from wind.
SaskPower is planning two 200-megawatt wind power projects in south central Saskatchewan, each of which is expected to produce enough energy to power 100,000 homes.
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The website promotes wind power, which has increased to nine active facilities, as “cost effective” and “environmentally friendly.”
But when asked about his plans to address climate change at the launch of the Saskatchewan Party election campaign in Saskatoon on Tuesday, party Leader Scott Moe launched into an attack on the federal carbon tax. Asked again, he pivoted to brag about the sustainable nature of the province’s resource industry.
But he stayed silent on his government’s renewable energy advances. That seems odd in a province that choked its way through another summer filled with air quality warnings caused by smoke from wildfires.
Most of the province renowned for agriculture remained either abnormally dry or in moderate drought with pockets of severe drought as of the end of August.
So climate change appears to be severely afflicting this province called Saskatchewan that just entered an election campaign. Yet few should be surprised if neither the governing party nor the NDP want to talk much about it.
Moe has made his party’s brand as much about opposing federal climate action from Justin Trudeau’s Liberals as it is about promoting growth and the economy.
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And NDP Leader Carla Beck wants to put as much distance as she can between her party and the federal NDP, which recently dissolved a partnership to keep Trudeau’s unpopular government in power.
The platforms of the two major parties might fail to even mention climate change. That likely stems from the perception, buttressed by opinion polls, that climate science skepticism runs far higher in Saskatchewan than elsewhere in Canada.
That skepticism is generally considered to be centred in the smaller cities and rural areas of the province, where Moe claims his base and where Beck badly needs a breakthrough.
John Hromek, leader of the upstart Saskatchewan United Party, has declared himself a climate science skeptic by championing the burning of fossil fuels and dismissing carbon emissions’ role in the planet’s warming.
Hromek serves as chairman and CEO of Adonai Resources Corporation, a Regina-based oil and gas company that contributed $200,000 to United last year.
Science has established that large amounts of carbon released into the atmosphere has created a greenhouse effect and is warming the planet, but Hromek likely sees opportunity.
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His specific language, that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, mirrors that of delegates to the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities convention earlier this year, who backed a resolution that also denied CO2 is a pollutant and further said policies that “vilify CO2 are illogical and unpredictable.”
Carbon dioxide is indeed necessary to sustain life on earth. Climate science does not deny that. Water is also necessary for life, but as a colleague pointed out, swallowing too much at once can be fatal.
Ninety-five per cent of SARM delegates backed the CO2 resolution, suggesting climate change denial runs rampant in rural Saskatchewan.
But SARM delegates are overwhelmingly acclaimed, not elected, so they do not necessarily reflect the views of the 176,501 people (by the 2021 census) living in the province’s 296 RMs.
Yet that resolution, which also asked the provincial government to remove itself from agreements that reference “net zero,” has likely resonated with all political parties.
SaskPower, meanwhile, has posted a list of misconceptions about renewable energy that include addressing claims that wind turbines pose a threat to human health and birds — misinformation promoted by former American president Donald Trump.
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Saskatchewan is deemed to have great potential for wind and solar power, but the need to address baseless claims suggests it’s also serving as fertile territory for the spread of nonsense.
Phil Tank is the digital opinion editor at the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
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