Canadian Federal Election 44 - Sep 2021

[LittleBlackDevil]

dare we ask others, including China to stop their emmision growth if we cannot do it ourselves? What kind of next level hypocrisy is that? Or to put it another way, how can we a first world nation with the technological and fiscal capacity to go more green ask the developing world in China, India, to some extent Russia, to cut their emmisions if we cannot with every advantage we have?

Conversely, I'd argue that it is "next level hypocrisy" to crush our own citizens while requiring China to do nothing. China's emissions continue to go up. Worse than that, we subsidize their increased carbon footprint by shipping raw materials over there, where they use their coal-burning energy to turn into things like solar panels, which are then shipped back and this is then somehow "green energy".

I am honestly on the fence whether the whole climate thing is a legitimate and immediate danger or not. The actions of our leaders makes me wonder whether they even believe what they are saying.

Personally my objection is less over whether climate change exists. It's about the fact that the measures taken do very little other than impoverish those citizens of our own least able to afford increased heating and fuel costs, while the rich and Chinese are not impacted in the least.

Will Canada save the world by itself? No, we never have, and likely never will. Should we do our part to collaboratively save the world? We always have and we always should.

I don't think the WW2 analogy is necessarily accurate though. It's more like a situation where Canada and other minor/middle powers are expected to fight and win the war on their own.

 

[Altair]

How much does one volcano emit?

But I see you subscribe to the "if I raise taxes I can change the earth's climate" group.

Carbon tax is like democracy.

It's the worst solution expect for all the other we have ever tried.

In the absence of any other good solution I will take the least bad solution.

What other solution would you have to reducing our emissions domestically?

Carbon capture plants? Those sound great. Except they need massive amount of power, which may not be green power, and it coats SIX HUNDRED dollars per TON. Who's paying for that? People are balking at a 50-170 dollar per ton carbon tax.

Emission caps? Probably not.

More green energy? Who's forcing provinces to do that?

What pan Canadian alternative is there to a carbon tax? Poo poo the carbon tax all you want, until someone provides a credible alternative, I will take the least bad option.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I am honestly on the fence whether the whole climate thing is a legitimate and immediate danger or not.

I admit surprise that anyone can be undecided. Several "irreversable doom" deadlines have elapsed in the past 20+ years. What gives the current crop any credibility? A question any person could pose: what number of failed predictions will it take before I stop heeding more of the same?

 

[Brad Sallows]

Carbon capture plants? Those sound great

On this, I agree with you. A new venture (CO2-to-fuel, meaning ethanol, I suppose) was recently announced in BC. My back-of-the-envelope calculations based on reported numbers lead me to conclude it's a boondoggle (inefficient use of available mostly-hydro electricity, which may be available in surplus now but will not if fossil fuels are deprecated and electrification accelerates; fiscally non-viable without subsidies). I predict the private money will stay in long enough to recoup its venture capital plus some profit. Government contributions will become a dead loss. The owners of the land will be stuck with a dead factory in a few years. My guess is they'll go after government for compensation and to do the inevitable cleanup and environmental mitigation.

 

[Altair]

Conversely, I'd argue that it is "next level hypocrisy" to crush our own citizens while requiring China to do nothing. China's emissions continue to go up. Worse than that, we subsidize their increased carbon footprint by shipping raw materials over there, where they use their coal-burning energy to turn into things like solar panels, which are then shipped back and this is then somehow "green energy".

China held a gun to the planets head and said let me catch up to you before I start reducing emmisions or else I just won't do it.

Hostage diplomacy works.

I am honestly on the fence whether the whole climate thing is a legitimate and immediate danger or not. The actions of our leaders makes me wonder whether they even believe what they are saying.

Our leaders are beholden to the electorate and citizens at large. Trudeau bought a pipeline because he though it would win him votes in Alberta.

He brought in a carbon tax to satisfy environmentalists. He pissed off both camps and both hate him, so he had to pick a side. If Alberta went red there would be a very different rethoric from the Feds right now, but but they didn't, so i suspect the Feds are going to be getting a lot tougher on the environmental front.

Personally my objection is less over whether climate change exists. It's about the fact that the measures taken do very little other than impoverish those citizens of our own least able to afford increased heating and fuel costs, while the rich and Chinese are not impacted in the least.

Quebec and BC had cap and trade and carbon taxes in place before the federal backstop went into place. The federal backstop only went into place in jurisdictions that didn't have their own price on carbon.

And citizens of Quebec and BC don't get a check come tax time giving them a break on their carbon tax either. This complaining is really something else when you think about it that way.

Citizens of Quebec and BC pay their carbon tax, don't go running off to court to stop it, and get on with life.

Citizens of Alberta and Ontario pay their carbon tax, get a rebate, and complain about how life is so darn expensive.

I don't think the WW2 analogy is necessarily accurate though. It's more like a situation where Canada and other minor/middle powers are expected to fight and win the war on their own.

The EU is stepping up.

The Americans are back on board.

We need to push China, Russia, India and Australia to get their asses in gear, but that's still the bulk of the global economy right there.

 

[LittleBlackDevil]

Oh, the beauty of focusing on the miniscule amount of emissions from world leaders flying to a climate summit to deal with the far more troubling 99.999 percent of emissions humanity creates.

I guess if they didn't fly to the climate summit climate change would be solved overnight.

Just asinine.

Whoa, wait a minute, didn't you just quote Edmund Burke as saying "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.”

In your own words, should not our leaders do their part to collaboratively save the world?

Furthermore, I think the jet setting of our leaders rather underscores that they don't actually believe in climate change themselves. Or at best, they expect everyone else to make the sacrifices to "save the world" while they are unwilling to do anything which is not exactly the leadership needed to win people over to "do their part to collaboratively save the world".

The thing is Canadians could go back to the Stone Age and it wouldn't solve climate change. So either everyone needs to do a small part or not. I don't understand why you completely absolve the leadership. I'd think that a person concerned about the climate would be outraged by the blatant hypocrisy at minimum.

 

[LittleBlackDevil]

I admit surprise that anyone can be undecided. Several "irreversable doom" deadlines have elapsed in the past 20+ years. What gives the current crop any credibility? A question any person could pose: what number of failed predictions will it take before I stop heeding more of the same?

I completely ignore the media because they can't be trusted on anything.

But there are reasonable and intelligent people who accept climate change is a thing. I honestly haven't researched it enough and don't know much about climatology so while it all sounds like a bunch of rubbish to me, I'm not going to decide definitively.

That said I do remember well the dire prognostications about an ice age when I was a teenager, not that many years ago. And then we had global warming which didn't quite pan out so now it's "climate change". I'm highly skeptical but for the aforementioned reasons don't feel I can be fully decided.

 

[Altair]

On this, I agree with you. A new venture (CO2-to-fuel, meaning ethanol, I suppose) was recently announced in BC. My back-of-the-envelope calculations based on reported numbers lead me to conclude it's a boondoggle (inefficient use of available mostly-hydro electricity, which may be available in surplus now but will not if fossil fuels are deprecated and electrification accelerates; fiscally non-viable without subsidies). I predict the private money will stay in long enough to recoup its venture capital plus some profit. Government contributions will become a dead loss. The owners of the land will be stuck with a dead factory in a few years. My guess is they'll go after government for compensation and to do the inevitable cleanup and environmental mitigation.

After the electricity costs, plant construction, and the cost of just running the place, 600 dollars a ton may be the floor. It could easily reach 1000 a ton.

And if we are talking about the high capacity ones taking out 1 megatons (megaton being 1 million tons) of carbon from the air a year, and canada needing to drop about 200-300 megatons, we need about 200 of these across the country at the cost of about 120billion a year at the low price of 600 dollars a ton.

 

[LittleBlackDevil]

And citizens of Quebec and BC don't get a check come tax time giving them a break on their carbon tax either. This complaining is really something else when you think about it that way.

I'm not complaining for myself. I make enough money that honestly the carbon taxes, while I don't like them, don't impact me much. I make enough money that I can absorb the increased cost of living.

My concern is for the segments of our population least able to bear the financial burden, the people barely getting by who may have to decide between groceries and heating their home very soon as these prices go up and up. I have a good friend who had to go to the food bank for the first time this Thanksgiving because of how much more expensive it is to heat his house and car which are the same house and car he's had for years.

 

[Altair]

Whoa, wait a minute, didn't you just quote Edmund Burke as saying "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.”

Firefighters use fire to fight fires.

I view this the same way.

In your own words, should not our leaders do their part to collaboratively save the world?

Furthermore, I think the jet setting of our leaders rather underscores that they don't actually believe in climate change themselves. Or at best, they expect everyone else to make the sacrifices to "save the world" while they are unwilling to do anything which is not exactly the leadership needed to win people over to "do their part to collaboratively save the world".

The thing is Canadians could go back to the Stone Age and it wouldn't solve climate change. So either everyone needs to do a small part or not. I don't understand why you completely absolve the leadership. I'd think that a person concerned about the climate would be outraged by the blatant hypocrisy at minimum.

I'm a pragmatist.

I really don't care how world leaders find a path to net zero so long as they do find a path to net zero.

 

[Altair]

I'm not complaining for myself. I make enough money that honestly the carbon taxes, while I don't like them, don't impact me much. I make enough money that I can absorb the increased cost of living.

My concern is for the segments of our population least able to bear the financial burden, the people barely getting by who may have to decide between groceries and heating their home very soon as these prices go up and up. I have a good friend who had to go to the food bank for the first time this Thanksgiving because of how much more expensive it is to heat his house and car which are the same house and car he's had for years.

Federal Carbon Charge | Ontario | Enbridge Gas

As part of the federal government’s carbon pricing program, a carbon charge applies to fossil fuels sold in Ontario, including natural gas.

www.enbridgegas.com

The federal carbon charge has been included on customers' bills since August 2019 and shows as a separate line item. It's forecasted that for the average Ontario household, the federal carbon charge will add about $172-$188 to your annual natural gas bill between April 2021 and March 2022 (depending on your location).

If 200 bucks is enough to make them go to a food bank, while sympathetic I think it might have happened anyways.

 

[LittleBlackDevil]

Federal Carbon Charge | Ontario | Enbridge Gas

As part of the federal government’s carbon pricing program, a carbon charge applies to fossil fuels sold in Ontario, including natural gas.

www.enbridgegas.com

If 200 bucks is enough to make them go to a food bank, while sympathetic I think it might have happened anyways.

That's just heating though.

Carbon tax also impacts fuel, which in turn impacts everything we buy since so much is imported or at least transported by a truck from somewhere to the stores nowadays. Therefore the Carbon Tax has increased the cost of living in all aspects of life. I'm sure someone somewhere has crunched the numbers on the total impact. Of course people drive themselves also.

 

[LittleBlackDevil]

I'm a pragmatist.

I really don't care how world leaders find a path to net zero so long as they do find a path to net zero.

I guess I'm an idealist because I find this free pass for the elite and different rules for different people odious.

On a practical level, I think that such blatant hypocrisy and the enabling of such hypocrisy by the true believers in climate change will backfire. People don't like hypocrisy and it will be much harder to get them onboard when they see their leaders living large while only they are expected to sacrifice.

 

[Altair]

I guess I'm an idealist because I find this free pass for the elite and different rules for different people odious.

If they all got together and decided that if they all dumped a bag of coal each into a brand new coal fired power plant once a year but as a result china, American, Australia closed 20 each year as a result I call that progress.

On a practical level, I think that such blatant hypocrisy and the enabling of such hypocrisy by the true believers in climate change will backfire. People don't like hypocrisy and it will be much harder to get them onboard when they see their leaders living large while only they are expected to sacrifice.

The good thing about top down climate change implementation is that it matters little if people are onboard or not.

And every party in the Canadian parliament supports a carbon tax in one form or another and everyone who doesn't can go vote PPC.

 

[Weinie]

If they all got together and decided that if they all dumped a bag of coal each into a brand new coal fired power plant once a year but as a result china, American, Australia closed 20 each year as a result I call that progress.

The good thing about top down climate change implementation is that it matters little if people are onboard or not.

And every party in the Canadian parliament supports a carbon tax in one form or another and everyone who doesn't can go vote PPC.

"Climate change" today is like the McCarthyism of the 1950's, it seized a voluble minority, and generated discussions and headlines but ultimately was proved to be sheer nonsense.

If we are not all completely submerged by the melting of the ice caps in 30 years, based on your predictions, you can humbly seek some sort of groveling re-admittance to this forum.

 

[Altair]

"Climate change" today is like the McCarthyism of the 1950's, it seized a voluble minority, and generated discussions and headlines but ultimately was proved to be sheer nonsense.

If we are not all completely submerged by the melting of the ice caps in 30 years, based on your predictions, you can humbly seek some sort of groveling re-admittance to this forum.

Ah yes, the strawman shows up.

Unless you can point to where I said we are all going to be submerged in 30 years unless humanity did something.


I'll wait.

 

[QV]

Carbon tax is like democracy.

It's the worst solution expect for all the other we have ever tried.

In the absence of any other good solution I will take the least bad solution.

What other solution would you have to reducing our emissions domestically?

Carbon capture plants? Those sound great. Except they need massive amount of power, which may not be green power, and it coats SIX HUNDRED dollars per TON. Who's paying for that? People are balking at a 50-170 dollar per ton carbon tax.

Emission caps? Probably not.

More green energy? Who's forcing provinces to do that?

What pan Canadian alternative is there to a carbon tax? Poo poo the carbon tax all you want, until someone provides a credible alternative, I will take the least bad option.

One pan Canadian alternative would be Energy East, where ethically sourced resources are sent across the country in a safe pipe rather than shipping it in rusty tankers across the ocean from the ME where they DGAF about the environment.

This one example tells me this government doesn't actually give a hoot about the environment at all.

 

[Altair]

One pan Canadian alternative would be Energy East, where ethically sourced resources are sent across the country in a safe pipe rather than shipping it in rusty tankers across the ocean from the ME where they DGAF about the environment.

This one example tells me this government doesn't actually give a hoot about the environment at all.

Okay, please elaborate, how much would emissions drop nationally if that was done?

10 percent?

20 percent?

30 percent, the Paris target?

40 percent, the new Trudeau target?

Or would they drop at all?

Would they rise since there is no more disincentive to emit pollution?

Does it go up 10 percent?

20 percent?

Very cute plan there QV, very little substance to it, but very cute.

 

[Good2Golf]

I guess I'm an idealist because I find this free pass for the elite and different rules for different people odious.

On a practical level, I think that such blatant hypocrisy and the enabling of such hypocrisy by the true believers in climate change will backfire. People don't like hypocrisy and it will be much harder to get them onboard when they see their leaders living large while only they are expected to sacrifice.

Now now…I’m sure the PM and his entourage’s cold showers more than made up for the 222,780 kg*…heck, let’s just call it 223 TONNES of CO2 that CANFORCE 1 will have spewed into the atmosphere going from Ottawa to Glasgow for COP26, and back.

Congratulations Mr. Environmentally Conscientious PM, you just created almost 1/4 MILLION KG of CO2 when you could have vTC’d your wokeness to Glasgow.



* 4,700kg kerosene/flight hour of a CC-150/A310 x 7.5 hours each way YOW-GLA x 2 ways out and back YOW-GLA-YOW x 3.16 kg CO2/kg kerosene burned = 222,780 kg

 

[Altair]

Now now…I’m sure the PM and his entourage’s cold showers more than made up for the 222,780 kg*…heck, let’s just call it 223 TONNES of CO2 that CANFORCE 1 will have spewed into the atmosphere going from Ottawa to Glasgow for COP26, and back.

Congratulations Mr. Environmentally Conscientious PM, you just created almost 1/4 MILLION KG of CO2 when you could have vTC’d your wokeness to Glasgow.



* 4,700kg kerosene/flight hour of a CC-150/A310 x 7.5 hours each way YOW-GLA x 2 ways out and back YOW-GLA-YOW x 3.16 kg CO2/kg kerosene burned = 222,780 kg

I'm sure the 0.00005575 percent of pollution the PM contributed over the 2 days he flew to Canadian emissions might be offset if he made even the slightest bit of headway in the fight against global emissions.