As Canada Burns, Danielle Smith Does Event with Activist Who Says Climate ‘Not a Crisis’

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is headlining an oil and gas industry event this week alongside a U.S. “fossil fuels advocate” named Alex Epstein who says that human-caused climate change is “not a crisis” and that rising global temperatures are only “a minor variable” in out-of-control wildfires.

Epstein and Smith are both speaking at the Energy Business Forum, part of a conference hosted by the Canadian Energy Executive Association. It is being held in the mountain resort town of Banff, Alberta, only several hundred kilometres from Kelowna, where thousands of people recently fled their homes due to severe wildfires that scientists say are being intensified by climate change.

The conference, which includes an “Oilmen’s Golf Tournament,” as well as a “a fun Mardi Gras-themed costume party,” is touted by organizers as “bringing together industry leaders and their partners, government, academia and Indigenous partners to meet and discuss important topics affecting our industry and its future.”

“I’m deeply concerned that this conference, and the organizers of this conference, have decided to double down on denialism at a time when the evidence of climate change is staring at us right in the face,” Sean Holman, a professor of climate and environmental journalism at the University of Victoria, told DeSmog. |Read more https://www.desmog.com/2023/08/24/premier-danielle-smith-does-event-with-denier-who-says-climate-not-a-crisis-wildfires/|

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