Carbon tax - revisited.

Are you one of the many people who bought into the carbon tax scare of the recent federal election?

Did Stephen Harper’s constant fear mongering about how a carbon tax would raise your taxes and ruin the economy convince you to vote for the Conservatives?

If it did, you may be upset to find out that he was lying to you.

In every country that has enacted a carbon tax, the economy has not suffered.

By the way, even though Haper said it ain’t so, isn’t our economy in trouble now?

If you don’t believe it just look at the loonie, it has dropped almost 9% since Election Day.

Was that caused by ruinous environmental protection policies?

No. It was caused by greedy bankers who found another way to scam hard working people out of their money.

These are some of the very same people who tell you that doing anything to help protect the environment will ruin the economy.

In Andrew Weaver’s book, “Keeping our cool”, he explains the principal behind carbon tax and how it will benefit the economy and the environment.

He explains:
“The carbon tax is simple. Governments assign a price to a tonne of carbon dioxide emissions and then add that to the price of the cost of energy that produced those emissions. To make the tax revenue neutral, other forms of taxation are reduced. Central to the carbon tax system is the belief that the atmosphere can no longer be treated as a free dumping ground.”

He further explains the additional benefits:
“As the carbon tax permeates throughout the economy, the cost of locally produced products goes down relative to the cost of those transported from faraway places. Cars built in Ontario wouldn’t have to be delivered as far as those built in Japan; and if they were more fuel efficient, or emissions-free, they would be even more desirable to the consumer. Locally grown food becomes more competitive with food produced on mega-farms thousands of kilometres away. We may even wean ourselves from our dependence on cheap labour in Asia, since a carbon tax would build transportation costs into the price of those goods.”

Like it or not, at some point a carbon tax is going to become a necessity.

Doing nothing isn’t an option.

Also, the cap and trade system is just another one of those money making scams that big polluters are eager to put in place. During the election campaign the cap and trade system was promoted as the system that big polluters and governments preferred. Of course they prefer it; they don’t have to change a thing. All they really need to do is “buy” carbon offsets from corporations that don’t need all of their allotted offsets. If you’re really smart you’ll just buy one of those corporations and then sell any extra offsets you don’t need for the parent company to some other company that needs them.

Learn more about carbon taxes at http://www.carbontax.org/

Oh Crap!

Well, it looks like we're stuck with Harper for another couple of years.
It's nice to see that a guy who told Canadians that he was ashamed to be a Canadian when he was the opposition, can not only get elected the first time as Prime Minister but, can then follow that up by being re-elected.

Stephen Harper's Canada is possibly the most secretive, close minded and irresponsible government Canada has ever had.

Thanks to Harper we are now viewed by the international community as occupiers instead of peace keepers and environmentally destructive and uncaring instead of environmental protection and innovation leaders. We are also viewed as international criminals thanks to Harper's disregard for international treaties and laws.

Harper's "stay the course" economic attitude is going to bite us in the ass. Like it or not you better start preparing for a downturn in the economy.

Over all I would say to those who believed the crap his campaign managers spewed out during this election, don't be surprised if he break these promises too. And don't cry to me, or anyone else who could see through his lies and fear mongering, because I only have one thing to say.

YOU WANTED HIM, YOU GOT HIM. STOP WHINING!

Just when you thought it couldn't any stupider.

Just when you thought you had heard it all, someone pops their head up and claims to be even stupider than the last guy.

This article, Anders takes heat for view of diplomacy's purpose, from the Calgary Herald is just one more example of the lunacy of the Conservative party.

Apparently this isn't the first stupid thing he has said and I'm sure it won't be the last.

I'm sure glad that I'm not in Mike Storeshaw's position. I bet he won't get any sleep until after the election is over.

HARPERNOMICS

Harpernomics, n. The methodology of Stephen Harper's application of the wealth and material of Canada.

A few examples are given below.

Harper, Howard, Bush and Iraq. What a mess!

Smoke and CO2: How to spin Global Warming.

Keeping our cool - a response to comments.

Yesterday and today I posted a comment to the Desmogblog, http://www.desmogblog.com/canadian-science-book-crosses-boldly-into-politics, in reply to an article about Andrew Weaver's book, Keeping Our Cool.
What follows below is a copy of these two posts.

Posted on September 30, 2008
Dogma: [Gr. dogma that which seems true, an opinion, from dokeo, to seem.] A settled opinion or belief; a tenet; an opinion or doctrine received on authority, as opposed to one obtained from experience or demonstration.

After reading the previous comments, a few often used words or ideas continually appeared to me.

First; the blame game.
No single individual or organisation is soley responsible for global warming. We are all responsible! The only question is how much responsibility is allocated to each individual and organisation.

Second; that we are too small and thus our measly amount of CO2 emissions makes no difference compared to others.
Richard Littlemore’s response more or less said it all.

Third; the environmental scientists are nothing more than dogma chasing zealots that are afraid to even hear the other side of the debate.
The real, as opposed to junk, climate science is very clear about the atmospheric effect that results from the introduction of CO2 into the Earth’s atmosphere. Simply put, if there was no CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere the mean global temperature would be around -15C. Therefore, if CO2 has helped warm the planet, than an increase in atmospheric CO2 will cause an increase in global mean temperature. No debate necessary. This is not dogmatic; it is fact, arrived at by using the scientific method.

Fourth; the IPCC is not a scientific body, it is a political one.
The IPCC is a scientific body that must report to a political body. Composed of thousands of climate scientists from around the world, the IPCC reviews and constructs a consensus from the leading peer reviewed scientific research available. Unfortunately, the scientific consensus is then diluted by the political body. The result of this is process is that the actual scientific data is somewhat less “accurate”. Anyone who has read reports or listened to interviews given by IPCC scientists would know about this frustrating aspect of the process.

Fifth; the very people who are telling you to make changes to save the planet are themselves jet setting about the world while living in huge mansions and spewing out CO2. They are nothing more than hypocrites.
This is a very difficult point to deal with. Most of them claim to be purchasing carbon offsets. I don’t like carbon offsets. As George Monbiot said, “carbon offsets are the equivalent of medieval indulgences, they are simply designed to remove the quilt while you continue to pollute”. Like anything else in this world, you must always accept the source of you information before you can accept what that source is imparting to you. I like George Monbiot because he practices what he preaches.

And finally; the criticism of the peer review system, as found on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is not the fountain of knowledge that some people think it is. In fact, due to its “anybody can submit their opinion” nature, it is very easy to manipulate a definition to create a favourable outcome for the author. It is a well known fact that many entries have been manipulated to remove negative or truthful information from certain entries. The majority of the manipulations have come from the vary organisations that have the most to lose if the truth was exposed. Don’t simply rely on one source for all of your information. Consult multiple sources and verify their affiliations. Organisations backed by corporate sponsors tend to slant their conclusions to support their benefactors.

In response to the the reply post submitted by Rick, he pointed out that since CO2 is only 1% of all greenhouse gases, it seemed unlikely that it alone could be responsible for such a huge temperature variation.

Posted on October 1, 2008
Here is what I have found so far.

You're definitely correct that CO2 alone is not responsible for a 30 degree temperature swing.

I haven't been able to relocate my original source of info, however; I have found many other sources that confirm that the greenhouse effect does produce a 30 degree swing form -15C to 15C.

It is truly a joy to take part in a productive discussion in which participants present their opinions, without insulting others, and work towards a better understanding of the issue at hand.

We all make mistakes.

Thank you Rick for helping me correct my mistake.

p.s. I'm going to continue this line of research. I'm interested to know just what the influence on temperature each gas has on the overall warming.