Heartland Institute friend and policy advisor Tom Harris is a nice guy — one of the kindest, most-considerate men I’ve ever met. He’s also Canadian, which pretty much explains all the niceness.
Tom is also one of the most effective communicators of … let’s call it “non-alarmism” when it comes to the climate. If you haven’t seen the executive director of the International Climate Science Coalition in action, he’s become a bit of a regular on Canada’s Sun News. Here’s a post with a clip of Tom calmly and expertly laying out the facts of what is really happening to our climate. Tom has also presented twice at Heartland’s climate conferences.
Anyway, Tom is such a nice guy that he wrote a piece for PJ Media in which he stated:
Even though I was born, raised, and have always lived in Canada, I am staunchly pro-America to the point that I sometimes wonder if I am living in the wrong country.
My pro-U.S. sentiments started during childhood, when our family always spent summer holidays in Maine. To us, the U.S. was synonymous with good times, friendly people, magnificent scenery, and great shopping due to a (then-) favorable exchange rate. One summer, I even had an American girlfriend. The fact that America’s astronauts were walking on the Moon and my heroes, fellow Canadians Gordie Howe and William Shatner, were making it big in the U.S. made your country just that much more appealing. I would have spent my career as an aerospace engineer in the U.S. were your laws not so strict about hiring non-citizens for such jobs.
Sorry about that, Tom. And thanks for Shatner and Gordie. But you got a girlfriend out of it, so consider us even.
More from Tom, which gets to the quite-serious point to his effusive praise for the United States, and it has to do with his area of expertise:
I came to eventually appreciate the U.S. for many other reasons as well — most importantly, to quote Canada Free Press: “Because, without America, there is no Free World.” In particular, there would be no Canada.
Our country is far too large to keep to ourselves if we did not have the defense of a strong U.S. military. You are also our major customer for many of our most important products: oil, gas, electricity, uranium, car parts, maple syrup, hockey sticks (and hockey players), and hundreds of other items. America is still the world’s leader in science and technology, foreign aid, sports, music, and practically everything else that really matters to Canadians. If the U.S. goes down the tubes, Canada, indeed most of the developed world, is doomed.
And the U.S. will go down the tubes, Tom says, if we follow the advice of the eco-left and destroy our economy by rejecting our vast fossil fuel reserves for a “green energy” fantasy.
The only result of a radical change in U.S. energy policy would be one of mass unemployment and millions of Americans joining the billions of people throughout the world already mired in energy poverty. And severe tornadoes and other extreme weather will continue to occur as they always have, with the climatic effect of America’s sacrifice immeasurable in the real world.
Getting American energy policy right will not, by itself, stop the country’s decline. Many problems now weighing you down must be corrected. But following the dangerous approach to energy advocated by [Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)] and other climate propagandists would ensure that the U.S. fails.
For all our sakes, don’t let it happen!
I hope so, Tom. For our sake, and Canada’s. Be sure to read the whole thing.
Jim Lakely is the Vice President and Director of Communications of The Heartland Institute.
