“This is an Alberta Emergency Alert issued by the Alberta Emergency Management Agency.
Extreme cold resulting in high power demand has placed the Alberta grid at a high risk of rotating power outages this evening.”
The Government of Alberta, January 13, 2024
On January 13, 2024, at 6:44pm every phone in Alberta buzzed and chimed with an emergency alert. We had all experienced a warmer than usual winter, but we had recently descended into a cold snap not atypical of Canadian winters. It bears repeating that cold temperatures in January are not unusual. What is unusual is when our government asks Albertans to limit electricity—including minimizing the use of space heaters, ovens, and block heaters for our vehicles.[1] You can’t get more basic than heating your home, cooking your meals, and starting your car so you can go to work or get other needed supplies. Energy prices were already soaring and now energy access is limited—right when we need it the most.
What is going on? Was a plant down? Was it weather related? No. It was public policy that did us in. We’ve shot ourselves in the foot.
Cheap Energy and Prosperity
It should not be a novel revelation that low energy prices lead to prosperity. I understand that people have gone crazy over emissions—as if CO2 emissions are the only indicator of good energy policy. Today’s messaging is clear that emissions will poison the air, pollute our water, spoil our food supply, and will eventually scorch the planet and end life as we know it. What you don’t hear is that cheap and plenteous energy leads to cleaner air, clean water, and a burgeoning food supply. Consider a Western hospital compared to one in a third-world country. What’s the biggest difference? Available and affordable energy. Air purification systems, unlimited clean water, climate controls, life-saving equipment, nutrition, and medicine require incredible amounts of reliable energy. The reason why we take it for granted that clean water comes out of our taps is because we have energy to make it all work. If a philanthropist wanted to aid malnourished people in Africa, he would set out to see energy become abundant and affordable. It must be acknowledged that our lives are comfortable because of affordable energy.
But that is changing.
With higher energy prices, our family started to use our wood-burning fireplace this year. This brought its own set of headaches from smells, dust, and extra work—but we need to stay warm in a Canadian winter. As more Canadians look for cheaper ways to stay warm, turning to less efficient methods will bring with it respiratory problems with more air pollutants in the home and less time being productive in other areas of life.
The ruling class wants us to use less energy by raising prices through taxation. But this energy tax will only lead to a lower standard of living. Higher energy prices will negatively affect access to clean air, water, and food—the necessities of life.
There is an unwarranted assumption that people are wasteful. As if we just love to leave all the lights on and be careless. As if we like to have the furnace going with the windows open when it’s negative 30 degrees. Who does that?
The ruling class believes that higher prices will move people from wastefulness to efficiency. But what if that isn’t true? What if we don’t leave all the lights on or waste power? What if we are home all day with 8 children? What if we need to drive to work because we live in Canada and can’t ride our bikes 40 kilometers in the winter snow? Why forgo the convenience of cars and switch to public transport which can be unreliable, slow, expensive, and even dangerous?[2] Are poor people with heavy tax burdens the model of efficiency and productivity? To ask the question is to answer it.
If we cannot tax our way into efficiency and productivity, what is driving this policy that is driving up energy prices and making Canada a worse place to live in? Is it wasteful Canadians? No. These climate policies are religiously motivated.
The Climate Cult is the Problem
We’re being told that human-caused climate change is the problem. That is a lie. It should be acknowledged by everyone that humanity has a negligible impact on earth’s climate. (Possible exceptions to this rule include the hair-brained ideas of blocking the sun from space or using aerosols to create clouds.)
How did the ice age start and end? Do scientists understand this? Was humanity a significant factor? What about the Little Ice Age? What about the Medieval Warm Period? These major periods of warming and cooling were before fossil fuels gave us cheap energy and dramatically improved our quality of life.
If earth’s climate has been warming and cooling apart from human influence, why are we punishing ourselves to “save the environment”? Of course, the ruling elites are not impacted by their austerity measures foisted upon the commoners. Can we not say it is unfair that those who make life altering decisions do not have their lives altered?[3]
People who think “science” is going to win the day don’t realize the battle we are in. The science of male and female is clear, isn’t it? What’s complicated about biology or genetics? Today’s science is about as settled as jello. The issue is not science at all. We don’t know what a woman is today because our society has embraced a sexuality cult. Religion informs science. Today, religious ideas of emancipation from creational normativity into a new utopian vision of self-actualized identity trumps the chromosomes of XX or XY. The new secular gospel is a promise of salvation through recreation where we become gods manipulating the external world to bend to our internal desires. Fortunately, this new religion is untrue. It cannot deliver. It is a fable. It is hocus pocus—words without real power. But it is still dangerous and is ruining lives.
Christianity is the Answer
The climate debate won’t be settled with white papers published in academic journals. It won’t be settled with more evidence—we have enough already. The climate debate is downstream from religious convictions. The Climate Cult, with its false prophets making their doomsday prophecies, is built upon religious principles that ape the gospel but pervert, corrupt, and twist the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It must be the truth—Christ himself—that will set us free (John 14:6; 8:32).
It must be Christ, or it will be the Climate Cult. Common sense is downstream of humility and submission to the precepts of our Creator. We live in a religious world—that much is inescapable. Only the true religion, one that honors the Son and pays homage to the King of kings and Lord of lords can bring sense and clarity to a world in chaos. Salvation is from the Lord.
In Christ, fear of the future is allayed. Genesis 8:22, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
In Christ, creation is not worshiped but reveals the glory of God. Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.”
In Christ, we are stewards of creation and are called to cultivate and be fruitful to his glory. Genesis 1:28, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
In Christ, this world will be purged of sin and death. Christ will reverse the curse and usher in the new heavens and new earth where his will is done on earth as it is in heaven. Revelation 21:5, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
Don’t be taken by the Climate Cult, see Christ as the rightful heir and ruler of the earth. The principles of his word will bring salvation and salvation forevermore.
—Tim Stephens
[1] The alert specifically mentioned these uses of electricity. See https://www.alberta.ca/aea/cap/2024/01/13/2024-01-13T18_44_42-07_00=AlbertaEmergencyManagementAgency=1489313F-98D9-4737-8FA1-E84EB73520EC.htm
[2] “Calgary Police Service experienced a considerable increase in calls for service at LRT stations since the end of 2021. Between Jan. 1 and May 31, calls for service increased from about 3,800 in 2022 to more than 5,700 in 2023. While calls from the public increased slightly, 70 per cent of the calls are from officers” (https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/why-did-this-happen-to-me-calgarians-caught-up-in-transit-violence-1.6466549).
[3] It must be noted at this point that in God’s economy, responsibility and accountability go together. But not according to the new religion.