Friends of Science Society, which says the sun rather than carbon dioxide drives climate change, is challenging the reasoning behind Canada's plan to spend $1 trillion on an east-west 'clean energy' power grid as part of its net zero climate strategy. In a new video, "Change Climate Change: Stop Net Zero Nonsense," the group says more power generation is needed but argues net zero targets are the wrong reason to build it.
Physicist disputes climate rationale
Canadian physicist William van Wijngaarden, in a presentation for the International Climate Science Coalition, says there is no human-made climate crisis and that net zero goals will cause serious damage to society, according to Friends of Science Society.
Wildfire outages in British Columbia
The group points to footage of evacuees navigating downed power lines in British Columbia as evidence against "electrify everything" policies. Citing a CBC report from July 30, 2026, it says dozens of power poles, transmission lines and transformers went down and large sections of the province lost electricity, as wildfires also hit Ontario, Spokane, Oregon and Europe. Friends of Science Society says that without conventional gasoline vehicles, people in an all-electric-vehicle world would have been stranded.
Disputes over climate attribution
The group also criticizes journalists at the Associated Press and Grist, along with former Washington governor Jay Inslee, for what it calls wrongly linking the wildfires to human-caused climate change. It cites the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's finding, as explained by Roger Pielke Jr., that the panel has not attributed fire occurrence or area burned to human-caused climate change.
A disputed study, and other causes
Meteorologist Chris Martz criticized an Associated Press report on a World Weather Attribution study that found human-caused climate change doubled the likelihood of the weather conditions behind Canada's wildfires, a finding AP said angered President Donald Trump. Martz pointed to AP's own line that "the study, which was done so quickly it has not been peer reviewed yet," and cited an April 16, 2021, report in E&E that said attribution studies exist to support litigation against fossil fuel industries rather than for scientific purposes.
Friends of Science Society also points to non-climate causes: the Hot Shot Wake Up Substack reported that an arrested arson suspect in the Spokane fires admitted to setting 25 fires, and The Independent reported on July 14, 2026, that dozens of suspected arsonists had been arrested in France. Citing Pielke's analysis of the France fires, the group says cutting emissions will not stop wildfires. Separately, it cites an Aug. 5, 2026, CBC report that 85 of the wildfires burning in British Columbia were started by lightning.
Grid reliability concerns
In a three-part YouTube series, Friends of Science Society discusses the federal "Powering Canada Strong" report with retired engineer Randy Stubbings, who has 45 years of experience on Alberta's power grid. The group contrasts that with the Canadian Climate Institute's "Power Play" report, which proposes a mix of wind, solar and batteries; Stubbings' October 2024 presentation, "Net Zero and the Future Power Grid," argues that combination cannot deliver affordable, reliable power on its own. The American Enterprise Institute has also published a country-by-country dashboard on what the group calls the impossible scale of the net zero challenge.
Friends of Science Society cites a report from the New York Energy Alliance that the Champlain Hudson Power Express line, which carries power from Quebec to New York as part of the Hudson Valley climate plan, went down again, and says a similar problem hit the New England Clean Energy Connect hydro line from Quebec this past winter, when domestic demand in Quebec spiked during a storm as the province leans on electricity for home heating. The group says the episode highlights the blackout risk of relying on imported power during peak demand, calling it an inherent problem with Canada's east-west grid concept.
