It appears the Church of the Climate Change Cult is losing some of its Flock Part 2

This post will add to those of the first of this series and point out additional issues facing the Church of the Climate Change Cult. Those issues are resulting in further worshipers losing their faith as the forecasts from the CCCC apostles such as Al gore and Greta Thunberg fail to materialize. The 20-foot sea level rise predicted by Gore is falling well short of his forecast and PM Trudeau’s promise to Greta to plant 2 billion trees by 2030 also appears to be in jeopardy as just two examples. Let’s have a look at other factors that may well be causing the CCCC to lose its luster and followers.

EV, Autos, Trucks and Buses

While the prior article had much in it related to EV the focus was principally on electric automobiles and their falling attractiveness to those on the planet who want “reliable and affordable” vehicles. 

Unfortunately those we frequently elect to run our municipalities, provinces/states, and countries in the developed world are overtaken by the CCCC and due to that fact, spend our tax dollars by misappropriating them.  Some recent examples come to mind so let’s look at just a couple of them!

Electric Buses: The City of Edmonton with a bus fleet of 1000 were enticed by taxpayer handouts from the Federal ($21.5 million) and Provincial governments ($10.8million) back in 2018 to replace 40 of their buses with electric buses manufactured by Proterra Inc., a US company.  The city kicked in $10.8 million and appear to have ordered another 20 buses at some point presumably with more government handouts. The original Federal press release indicated they had signed a bilateral agreement with the province to provide a total of $3.3 billion with the City of Edmonton slotted to receive $877,984,551 under its public transit stream.  Needless to say the press release claimed the handouts would “improve commute times, reduce emissions and lay the foundation for economic growth and job creation.“

Well over five years have passed since those elected politicians got together to pat each other on the back about their decision to hand out our tax dollars so how has it worked out? Was it a success or a failure?

As noted in a prior article Proterra Inc. has filed for “bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 and in their press release announcing the filing stated: “We have faced various market and macroeconomic headwinds, that have impacted our ability to efficiently scale all of our opportunities simultaneously”. Their filing for bankruptcy protection also affected several other companies in Europe who had been handed taxpayer dollars, so the cascading affect has wasted a lot of tax dollars. Going further; we should wonder, how are those 60 buses in Edmonton performing?

Things are not looking good based on a recent article which stated “those buses have been plagued with issues and more than half are already out of service. Three years in and it hasn’t been a smooth ride.“  The article also noted: “The transit union said they faced numerous mechanical issues, battery problems and dealt with missing parts. Many of the drivers couldn’t even get behind the wheel.“

So, a mere three years after the buses were delivered it is apparent those politicians back in 2018 appear to have tossed our tax dollars out the door!

Electric Trucks and School Buses:

Three years after those elected politicians handed out our tax dollars in Alberta for electric transit buses the Federal ones popped up again in Montreal at Lion Electric, a manufacturer of electric trucks and electric school buses. This time it was PM Trudeau himself and Quebec Premier, Legault in March 2021 announcing a $100 million “investment/loan” to  Lion Electric with $30 million of it “forgivable” if, Lion keeps jobs in Quebec. Later on in 2021 the Feds quietly handed Lion Electric another $50 million of our tax dollars which was not announced and could only be found in the 69 page 2021-22 Departmental Results Report for “Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada“ as an example of their investments.  The following is the full text from the foregoing: “$50 million towards The Lion Electric Co.’s $184.3 million project for the establishment of a highly automated battery-pack assembly plant in Saint Jérôme, Quebec“.  We should all wonder, how its going and did our tax dollars help to create a flourishing company and create jobs?

 Well, lets travel to Joliet, Illinois where back on July 21, 2023 Lion Electric inaugurated the opening of its 900,000-square-foot plant that will reputedly manufacture as many as 2,500 all-electric school buses by the end of 2023 and employ as many as 1,400 skilled workers. Based on an article in Newsweek just over a month later the author stated U.S. school buses are the largest public transportation fleet with 480,000 operating.  The article went on describing emissions from the existing fleet of fossil fuel powered buses and also noted; “Lion Electric’s buses are reported to cost US$375,000 each, about US$150,000 more than a traditionally powered school bus.“ If one does the quick math on replacing the fleet with all-electric school buses it comes to a mind-blowing extra US $72 billion dollars!

So financially how is Lion Electric doing?

Apparently even though Lion Electric’s school buses are almost 67% more expensive then fossil fueled buses they are still losing money as their September 30, 2023 quarterly report noted. Revenues jumped almost 100% from the comparable 2022 quarter but their losses increased from US $17.2 million to US $19.9 million or 15.7%! The fallout from the results was not only a drop in their share price (down 37% over the past 12 months) but also an announcement they would cut 10% of their workforce in both Canada and the US estimated at 150 jobs.

Based on the results since the purported 2021 “investments” by our federal government it appears obvious we should never trust elected politicians to pick industrial winners.

EV are the “Bright Spot” and “EV are Less Reliable”:

As mankind travels down the road of what is labelled as the catastrophes of manmade “climate change” the CCCC push is that we must electrify all transportation. At the same time we also hear from others that EV create emissions during the manufacturing process and later via their disposal. An amusing article recently appeared claiming EV are the only bright spot in the fight against climate change. The claim was out of a report from the Bezos Earth Fund founded and supported by Jeff Bezos the richest man in the world whose company (Amazon) delivers packages to your door using ICE powered vehicles.  At the same time another article from Consumer Reports released the results of a survey which found: “EVs from the 2021 through 2023 model years encountered nearly 80 per cent more problems than did vehicles propelled by internal combustion engines.“

The “facts” about EV to anyone with commonsense suggests that “bright spot” is looking very much like a blackout or brownout in the electrification push by the CCCC!

Conclusion:                                                                          

We need to put an end to politicians believing they have the right to disperse our tax dollars as the above examples clearly point out.  It is readily apparent they don’t have the skill sets to distinguish what the future will hold so they should not pretend or act as it they were experts from Wall Street or Bay Street.  Stop gambling with our money!

It seems apparent the first two segments associated with the review of the CCCC have only scratched the surface so stay tuned for Part 3.