King Rex; Subsidizing Tesla; & the Climate Language Police

Enemies of the People: Greta Thunberg

---

Deputy Editor Tom Finnerty wrote about the passing of a Canadian legend.

Rex Murphy, R.I.P.

Sad news out of Canada this week -- Rex Murphy, the country's top right-of-center columnist and for years the only Canadian journalist consistently worth reading, has died after a battle with cancer. He was 77.

This is a major loss, both for our friends north of the border and for journalism writ large. Murphy was in many ways a throwback to an older, better era of journalism. Just one anecdote to illustrate this -- in his obituary at the National Post, his longtime employer, editor-in-chief Rob Roberts says “Rex could not be held back.... He filed what turned out to be his last column on Monday" and his last E-Mail to Roberts came on Tuesday, saying "Did the piece make the online edition?" Murphy died one day later.

He was a great wit, a man of principle, a fierce defender of the truth, and a passionate lover of Canada. As Kevin Libin, his longtime editor, put it, “Rex was a Rhodes scholar who could match wits with any intellectual, but he always seemed more comfortable and far happier being around regular Canadians, wherever they were."

All that, and he was one hell of a writer. For a sense of this, take some time to peruse his many National Post columns, including his final column, a critique of Justin Trudeau's see-no-evil, hear-no-evil approach to antisemitism after the attack on Israel on October 7th. That piece included this denunciation of the whole Trudeaupian project, which could have been written any time over the past several years:

After [Trudeau's] clumsy, incompetent and amateur eight-year holiday as prime minister, our country, Canada, is diminished on the world stage, and worrisomely scattered and incohesive on the home front. Canada has “no core values” according to the one person most responsible for nursing the “core values” of the nation. And so, the world has no sense of where Canada really stands because we really don’t have a stand; and by Trudeau’s lights, our “postnationalist” Canada of “no core values,” just by definition alone, has nothing to say. (Query: Should a post-nationalist state have a seat at the UN — the United Nations? Are Pride parades and an infatuation with global warming enough to fuse a great country into one magnificent union? Don’t think so, but that’s really all we’ve seen from Trudeau.)

….

Murphy was also known across Canada as a broadcaster, hosting the CBC radio call-in show Cross Country Checkup for more than two decades, and appearing on various other CBC programs. Though Canadian broadcasting is even more monolithically liberal than its print media, Murphy's trademark Newfoundland accent and his downhome way of speaking made it hard to keep him off the air. As Tony Burman, longtime producer of The National, put it, "Very few Canadians turn off the set when Rex Murphy is on."

With that in mind, we heartily recommend one of his later projects to you, a YouTube channel called RexTV, on which Murphy interviewed the type of guests whose views put them outside the tired elite consensus in Canada. Beyond memorable discussions with Jordan Peterson; economist and "climate change" skeptic Ross McKitrick; and his fellow dissident columnist Conrad Black; all of which are self-recommending, Rex spoke to a few writers with connections to The Pipeline, including occasional contributors Janice Fiamengo and David Solway, as well as our Founding Editor John O'Sullivan.

---

Keeping with the Canadian theme, Finnerty also wrote about Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre.

'What Are You Going to Do About It?'

More significant is a recent op-ed Poilievre published in the National Post in which he targets an unusual group for a conservative politician -- the country's business leaders. Entitled, "Memo to corporate Canada - fire your lobbyists. Ignore politicians. Go to the people," the piece makes one point very clear, which is that Canadian businesses can't just play both sides of the fence while quietly fretting about the Trudeau Liberals' assault on business and the country's economy. They need to stand up for themselves if they want the Conservative Party to stand up for them. Here's Poilievre:

The Trudeau government’s tax hike on capital gains has investors and business leaders blowing up my phone. They yelp: “What are you going to do about this?” My answer: “No. What are you going to do about it?” Most are stunned silent by the question. They had been planning to do nothing except complain and hope their useless and overpaid lobbyists meet Chrystia Freeland or Justin Trudeau to talk some sense into them while the opposition hounds the government to reverse course.

Sorry. That won’t cut it. Businesses and entrepreneurs are under attack again because Trudeau has learned that they won’t do anything about it. Why would Trudeau listen to business? He knows he has raised payroll and energy taxes on businesses, attacked the resource sector with unconstitutional laws, and faced no consequences from the business community.

He follows this with a list of charges against Canadian businesses that have chosen to publicly roll over and die rather than speak out against the Trudeaupian policies that are killing them. He specifically calls out the "gutless executives" at TransCanada and Teck Resources which not only let their massive new investments in Canadian infrastructure be quashed by the Liberals, but refuse to counter Trudeau's spurious claims that killing those projects was a massive win for the environment. He goes on to advise businesses on how to deal with the government when he is Prime Minister:

If you do have a policy proposal, don’t tell me about it. Convince Canadians that it’s good for them. Communicate your policy’s benefits directly to workers, consumers and retirees. When they start telling me about your ideas on the doorstep in Windsor, St. John’s, Trois-Rivières, and Port Alberni, then I’ll think about enacting it. To be clear, that will not happen because you testify at a Parliamentary committee, host a “Hill Day” to meet MPs and Senators, hold a luncheon 15 minutes from downtown Toronto/Ottawa, or do media no one sees. Your communications must reach truckers, waitresses, nurses, carpenters — all the people who are too productive to tune into the above-mentioned platforms.

What can you say except that this is exactly how a conservative should approach business, on both sides of the border. Giving Big Business whatever they want while executives cozy up to the Left has worked out terribly for conservative parties for a long time now. And as Trudeau's tax hikes have demonstrated, the business community's obsession with feeding the tiger in the hope that he eats them last has been nearly fatal for them as well.

---

Buck Throckmorton wrote about Tesla’s reliance on government subsidies.

How Government Subsidies Put Money in Tesla's Coffers

There is a strange paradox right now in which Elon Musk has become the “good oligarch” fighting on behalf of free speech and western values against the evil oligarchs trying to impose censorship and global eco-communism. It’s a paradox because Musk is the founder and CEO of Tesla, the flagship product for those engaged in virtuously “green” conspicuous consumption. The left has come to despise Musk for allowing free speech to thrive on the X (Twitter) platform, yet their religious fanaticism against internal combustion (“ICE”) vehicles compels them to continue to subsidize Tesla’s electric vehicles with market-distorting carbon credits and tax credits, which make Musk even richer and more influential.

Meanwhile those of us who reject electric vehicle mandates, and who understand that the purpose of “the EV transition” is ultimately about restricting freedom, find ourselves grateful to Musk for being the lone plutocrat challenging a global leftist cabal that is hostile to freedom.

There is a middle ground, however, where both left and right have the opportunity to pursue their various goals regarding Musk and EVs. Let’s stop subsidizing Tesla with taxpayer money and government-created “carbon credits,” and then both sides win. If Tesla’s impressive customer loyalty and market share in metro areas could be achieved without mandates or tax incentives, some of the conservative criticism of EVs would evaporate. And the left must certainly want to stop subsidizing their political enemy, which they are doing with the generous government incentives that flow into Tesla’s income statement.

---

Rich Trzupek explained why he thinks an apparently innocuous piece of legislation might have a more sinister motive behind it.

Is 'PROVE IT' Just an Act?

If you’re employed in industry, one of the most frightening letters you can receive from the Environmental Protection Agency is an official Information Collection Request, known in the business as an “ICR.” The name sounds benign enough, but it’s not. Like most every government agency you can think of, the EPA does not ask for information because they are interested in increasing their general fund of knowledge. They ask for information because they intend to use that information.

That purpose might be to help develop new regulations, or it might be a fishing expedition intended to find evidence of bad behavior that will later be used to develop an enforcement action and, if everything goes their way, lead to juicy cash penalties. With that in mind, people should be more than a little concerned about the “Prove It Act” currently under Congressional consideration. Here’s how the bill’s supporters describe the legislation:

The Providing Reliable, Objective, Verifiable Emissions Intensity and Transparency (PROVE IT) Act. This bipartisan legislation would direct the Department of Energy (DOE) to conduct a comprehensive study comparing the emissions intensity of certain goods produced in the United States to the emissions of those same goods produced in the other countries. Comprehensive data on product emissions intensity is an important step to addressing climate through trade policy and leveling the playing field for domestic producers and manufacturers who are forced to compete against rivals with little to no standards.

If that’s all this study would be used for, that would be fine. Some Republicans and some industry lobbyists seem to believe it. Sponsors say the United States Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Iron and Steel Institute are supporters.

There is no doubt that American industry produces products far more cleanly, in terms of air pollution, water pollution and carbon emissions, than big competitors in China, India and many other nations. Seems kind of silly to have a study to “prove it,” but government wastes money on far worse causes.

The problem with this bit of chicanery, for chicanery it is in my view, is that it is the logical first step in implementing a carbon tax, the dream of the "climate change" crowd. You can’t tax it, unless you know who has it and how much of it they have.

---

Lisa Schiffren looked at the Associated Press’s new, heavily lefty-influenced stylebook.

The AP Leans Left on 'Climate Change'

Most American newsrooms rely on the guidance of the Associated Press Stylebook, for rules on grammar, usage, and spelling. It has a near monopoly on how American journalism provides information for readers as conveyed through language. Consequently, the choices that the authors of the AP Stylebook make have wide consequences. They determine how we see, hear, and interpret certain stories.

And, as it happens some of their choices are deeply political, and therefore color national reporting on stories that influence how Americans perceive significant issues, and how policy is influenced from the ground up. The latest round of stylistic updates, released April 5th, includes a lot of guidance on the proper way to discuss people who are “nonbinary” or transgender. For instance, the Stylebook advocates using “pregnant people,” instead of “pregnant women.” Why? As the guild helpfully explains,

Phrasing like pregnant people or people who seek an abortion seeks to include people who have those experiences but who do not identify as women, such as some transgender men and some nonbinary people. Such phrasing should be confined to stories that specifically address the experiences of people who do not identify as women.

That is a highly loaded way of insisting that everyone indulge pregnant women who wish to pretend that they are not women. You might wonder why a news service grammar guide gets to be the final arbiter of one of our current major social delusions. It just does, as it happens. Sex, is of course, a particularly bedeviling topic for those interested in the right use of grammar. But the woke project has other branches as well.

Take an issue central to our mission, here at The Pipeline -- "climate change." The new AP Styleguide is all over that. The guide's "climate change" entry opens by noting:

The terms global warming and climate change are often used interchangeably. But climate change is the more accurate scientific term to describe the various effects of increasing levels of greenhouse gases on the world because it includes extreme weather; storms; and changes in rainfall patterns, ocean acidification and sea level. Global warming, the increase of average temperature around the world is one aspect of global climate change.

It adds, helpfully, that “The terms climate crisis, and climate emergency are used by some scientists, policymakers and others, and are acceptable.” This seems to imply that while "global warming" and "climate change" are not interchangeable, "climate change" and "climate crisis/emergency" are. So no need to encourage your sources, be they scientist, policymakers, or scribblers, from using the more anodyne term for the sake of viewpoint neutrality.

---

And Peter Smith contributed a piece about toxic Green politics.

Matches Made in Hell

Of political matches made in Hell, Marx and Engels would surely qualify albeit less viscerally than Hitler and Goebbels. Mao Zedong and Jiang Qing (Madame Mao) would certainly make the cut. Don’t want to be unkind but as inept as they are Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would not nearly make the cut. On the other hand, general Mark Milley and admiral Rachel Levine is a hellishly woke coupling to conjure up in one’s hallucinogenic imaginings. But, really, I am not thinking of these kinds of matches. I am thinking of Scotland still, which I mentioned in my previous Pipeline piece.

If you recall, and why should you, the Scottish government, dependent on the English taxpayer for its supper, recently declared that it was abandoning its climate goal of reducing emissions by 75 percent by 2030. Getting in, as it were, before inconvenient reality trumped aspirations. Such backsliding made the Scottish Greens Party, a junior partner to the Scottish National Party (SNP) in government, really mad. It came to a head. As the BBC put it:

The first minister has ended the SNP's power-sharing deal with the Scottish Green Party. The move follows the government's decision to scrap climate targets and a pause on the prescription of puberty blockers for under-18s.

Humza Yousaf, the then-First Minister, had taken time off from yearning for independence from the perfidious English to kick the Greens out of government. That is before Mr. Yousaf was in turn deposed for deposing the Greens. Like praying mantises, eating their own is a specialty of the Left.

I saw the co-leaders of the Greens Party, Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie, giving several interviews after the breakup. Here and here are a couple. Their basic claim is that the SNP will now be at the beck and call of “reactionary” elements within their party. Apparently progressive ideals will now be on the chopping block. The truth is rather different. Only wholesale alien body snatching could transform the bunch of collectivists who overwhelmingly populate the SNP into moderates, never mind reactionaries. According to Ms. Slater, backsliding on climate action apart, other calamities to be visited on the Scottish people by the “reactionary” SNP include the abandonment of rent controls and of puberty blockers. Rent control and puberty blockers?

You really have to give it to Green parties wherever they exist. They clothe themselves in virtue when they are the most wretched of people imaginable. Rent controls end up producing misery for those in need of cheap housing. Puberty blockers end up producing damaged people, as laid bare by pediatrician Dr. Hilary Cass in her final report to England’s National Health Service. As you would expect, Slater and Harvie peremptorily dismissed the evidence in the Cass report. It simply does not accord with their aim to create the despair upon which they can ply their victimhood trade.

The last thing Green parties want is people pursuing happiness.

---

That’s all for this week, but keep a look out for all of our articles over at The Pipeline!