Premier Gordon Campbell's conversion to global warming dogma reportedly came during his annual vacation in Hawaii. Less than two months later, the government announced its greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goal of 33% below current levels by 2020. B.C. is about to be hit with new taxes to achieve that goal. But the Liberal government was elected to reduce taxes and burdensome regulations, not increase them. So just how did the premier come up with this goal and what is the outlook for B.C.

While in Hawaii for his Christmas 2006 vacation, the premier is said to have read a couple of books on catastrophic climate change, including Al Gore's "Inconvenient Truth." Tellingly, the British High Court ruled showing the movie version of that book, and misleading students into believing it accurately represented climate science, was in violation of the political indoctrination section of the country's Education Act of 1996. The experience in Europe goes beyond propaganda, however. The experience in Europe is one of job losses with little, if any, GHG reduction.

European governments have imposed a garden variety of GHG reduction measures since the early 1990's. Nevertheless, GHGs went up in Europe by 5% between 1991 and 2005. What did go down in that same period, though, were manufacturing jobs. Norway, Sweden and Germany, for example, saw manufacturing jobs fall by 5.6%, 18.5% and 30% respectively. Did emissions fall then as well GHG emissions increased a whopping 62% in Norway and 11.3% in Sweden, but fell by 8.6% in Germany. It appears the drop in manufacturing jobs must be massive to get much of a fall in GHG emissions.

Given how GHG reduction policies in Europe haven't done much to reduce GHGs - but have reduced jobs - surely plenty of analysis went into B.C.'s GHG reduction goal to ensure the same thing wouldn't happen here. Well, maybe not. The results from Freedom of Information (FOI) requests and the premier's own statements indicate that little, if any, analysis took place.

A response to an NDP FOI request showed "no records" of correspondence to and/or from the Minister of the Environment and/or deputy minister on the GHG reduction goal before it was announced in the Throne Speech. In other words, it seems the minister and his deputy had no documented discussion with anyone on how or what to develop as a target.

Another FOI request for the studies that went into the development of the GHG reduction goal was denied by the premier's office. Too complex for the little people to see, it seems.

Even more damning was the level of scientific input the premier had on the GHG reduction goal. In November 2007, in a conversation televised on Vaughn Palmer's Voice of BC program, Premier Campbell said, "I don't want to pretend this was some - that I asked a scientific panel about how to get there. I didn't." Premier Campbell went on to say, "We felt that 10 percent below 1990 was a reasonable and achievable target for us to reach. That was 33 percent below 2007, and that makes sense to me."

So now "feelings" determine important policies in British Columbia, not science or evidence. In fact, if the premier wants to see where all this is leading, maybe he should read some of the books his climate change advisor Mark Jaccard has written. Mr. Jaccard damns clean and low cost energy and the people who would use them. "Indeed," Mr Jaccard writes, "clean and low cost energy would free people to live and travel where they want, and consume as much as they want, which could intensify the pressure on valued ecosystems and the depletion of other non-renewable resources." Could the premier's next holiday in Hawaii see us all living in grass huts Suddenly the premier's driving record in Hawaii seems safer than his reading record.

Premier Campbell's climate change conversion was an unanalyzed decision based on feelings and supported by an advisor who seems to think the human presence on this planet is a bad thing. It's time to face facts - the global warming Pharisees do not have our best interests in mind. The premier has an obligation to cast an eye to the experience of other jurisdictions (as he did for health care) and balance his perspective with the ever increasing volume of scientific data suggesting man-made global warming is a hoax - another Y2K panic - that will do more to bilk taxpayers than save the planet.