Global Warming/Climate Change Super Thread

[Quirky]

I am currently in Spain and some of the rules here make the Canadian ones look like child’s play lol.

low emission zones, car bans and extra taxes on anything not electric a moped/scooter or bus. They also have target dates to stop selling combustible engine vehicles but have gone further with a target date that will outright ban them.

What works for one country won’t work for another. Spain is tiny compared to Canada and applying the same policies won’t work.
How did those electric buses do in Edmonton? That’s right….

 

[Furniture]

I am currently in Spain and some of the rules here make the Canadian ones look like child’s play lol.

low emission zones, car bans and extra taxes on anything not electric a moped/scooter or bus. They also have target dates to stop selling combustible engine vehicles but have gone further with a target date that will outright ban them.

If major cities want to ban ICE vehicles, go right ahead... I'm sure those mayor's would have long political careers.

Our cities aren't built to be walkable, and we have terrible transit infrastructure in most of them. The same voters who want to save the planet also tend to live in suburbs that are exactly the sort of place that leads to cities that aren't walkable, and fight all transit expansion.... Canadians want to feel like they are accomplishing something, while making zero changes that matter.

 

[Remius]

What works for one country won’t work for another. Spain is tiny compared to Canada and applying the same policies won’t work.
How did those electric buses do in Edmonton? That’s right….

Sure. My point is to highlight measures in other places that are far more than what is happening here.

Mind you, Spain has been dealing with their own realities and effects of climate change for much longer than us here in the Americas. It’s no longer a nice to have or do, they litterally have no choice. Water rationing is a thing in southern Spain. Reaching a point of limits on showers, talking about using sea water for pools and toilets etc.

They had a week of rain finally last week which was needed but by some accounts only filled 24% of their reservoirs. This a drought event that has been on for 8 years or so.

They are in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. Agriculture is a massive water sponge here but because of that drought they need even more water and it’s causing friction with the farmers and everyone else.

 

[QV]

They're predicting a drought in Alberta.... water levels so low that hasn't been seen since..... 2001. It's called a cycle and will rinse/repeat over time.

But as long as we shovel more money to Trudeau the earth's weather cycle will cease.

 

[ArmyRick]

Funny. People freak out about internal combustion engines. Thats a hoot. Canadians FEAR the word nuclear (I don't know why).

Ever stop to ask what does a 50,000 Acre forest fire do for carbon emmissions (Its a massive dump of CO2 in the atmosphere)

How about a Volcano? Nothing we can do to mitigate tectonic plates shifting

Rick's quick list for carbon emmissions reduction
-Replace as many trains and large freighter/tanker ships with nuclear power (we have 60 years of nuclear powered subs and Aircraft carrier technology to learn from)
-Bring back INTELLIGENT logging practices with frequent fire stops/breaks. Not only can we have more lumber ($$$) but its a great preventive measure for future wild fires
-Encourage public transit where it works
-Encourage or enable intercity transit/train systems
-BUILD pipelines (Less transport trucks and trains hauling oil/gas and its $$$)
-Encourage regenerative agriculture (See ArmyRick's farm pages for more WHY it works)
-Build more nuclear plants across the nation
-Put SMALL scale solar and bladeless turbines on as many buildings as possible to boost local power generation (ease up on the grid)

Just a few quick ideas, but it doesn't seem any of these make it into Steven Guibeault's activist brain

 

[FSTO]

^^
Also re-establish wetland and build new ones where possible to retain water and mitigate flooding

Pay farmers to put aside 5 acres per 1/4 section to establish a marsh or slough for habitat and water retention. That would result in a lot more ROI than building more bloody electric cars to sit in grid-lock!!

 

[Quirky]

Sure. My point is to highlight measures in other places that are far more than what is happening here.

Yup, they see the need and make changes as required for their regions. Canadian climate zealots and activists, mainly in our government, are implementing unrealistic and frankly criminal policies that can have life threatening consequences for many Canadians. The 2035 EV mandate is an absolute joke for a country like Canada.

But as long as we shovel more money to Trudeau the earth's weather cycle will cease.

I heard if you vote for Trudeau he will guarantee a white christmas from coast to coast to coast.

 

[ArmyRick]

^^
Also re-establish wetland and build new ones where possible to retain water and mitigate flooding

Pay farmers to put aside 5 acres per 1/4 section to establish a marsh or slough for habitat and water retention. That would result in a lot more ROI than building more bloody electric cars to sit in grid-lock!!

Don't always do this. The Savory institute has done a ton of good work on wetlands re-establishment/maintenance HOWEVER there places where its not appropriate at all and simply doing it as a blanket one size fits all is going to cause problems.
I am lucky, I have a 4-6 acre natural wetlands on my farm. I know a few of my neighbours would have disasters if they did this. Its same idea as establishing a forest, where appropriate, right diversity of species, etc.

 

[Brad Sallows]

If we were the only country doing it, maybe that would give pause. But I guess those countries are also all wrong.

They might be, but it depends on how the discussion is framed.

Measurements suggest climate warming over the past couple of hundred years. What fraction of that is anthropogenic is just guesswork. Models are neither theories nor evidence; model-supported policy when the models are several orders of magnitude less complex than the system modelled is basically GIGO. Whether a higher atmospheric concentration of CO2 is net favourable is guesswork. Whether a slightly warmer planet is net favourable is guesswork. We could adopt the principle that, not knowing the true answers to those two questions, we'd rather stick with the devil we know and mitigate emissions to reach steady state. To do so requires expenditure of resources. We ought not simply proceed because we think there will be "some benefit". Rationally, we first must ask if there are other problems we should preferentially solve that would yield greater benefits.

Thus a list of some things all those countries could be wrong about: the anthropogenic contribution; the reliability of primitive models as a decision tool; the favourability of higher CO2 concentration; the favourability of higher temperature; the optimal use of resources to improve human welfare.

 

[Brad Sallows]

I am currently in Spain and some of the rules here make the Canadian ones look like child’s play lol.

low emission zones, car bans and extra taxes on anything not electric a moped/scooter or bus. They also have target dates to stop selling combustible engine vehicles but have gone further with a target date that will outright ban them.

I always prefer someone else to be the early adopter on the bleeding edge, so that I can figure out whether they're a good example or a horrible warning.

 

[FSTO]

Don't always do this. The Savory institute has done a ton of good work on wetlands re-establishment/maintenance HOWEVER there places where its not appropriate at all and simply doing it as a blanket one size fits all is going to cause problems.
I am lucky, I have a 4-6 acre natural wetlands on my farm. I know a few of my neighbours would have disasters if they did this. Its same idea as establishing a forest, where appropriate, right diversity of species, etc.

Yes, you have to be judicious about this. Ducks Unlimited have purchased thousands of acres of land to retain wetlands on the prairies, but I still see a lot of wetlands being filled in for the farmer to maximize the amount of productive acres. The land owner pays taxes on the entire acreage and therefore is incentivized to fill in wetlands vice being encouraged to retain them.
I see both sides of the arguments.

 

[ArmyRick]

Yes, you have to be judicious about this. Ducks Unlimited have purchased thousands of acres of land to retain wetlands on the prairies, but I still see a lot of wetlands being filled in for the farmer to maximize the amount of productive acres. The land owner pays taxes on the entire acreage and therefore is incentivized to fill in wetlands vice being encouraged to retain them.
I see both sides of the arguments.

To sum it up, using regnerative ag with a holistic framework, every piece of farmland is looked for what it can do, what makes biological sense and the farmers ability to mange it with resources (money/time/labour/equipment)

Municipalities and Provinces would be responsible foe developing a larger ecosystem picture thats makes biological sense.

Avoiding blanket statements is a must. It gets us into trouble. Even with good intentions, that road to hell can be built.

 

[Furniture]

The Line (as usual) has an interesting piece on this that came out today.

Clarke Ries: The pain is the point

The inconvenient reality of the carbon tax...

So the question remains, who uses a lot of carbon but doesn’t make a lot of money doing it? Who lives in drafty old single-family houses? Who uses archaic methods of keeping those houses warm, like furnaces that run on heating oil? Who has to drive halfway around the world to reach the nearest grocery store and halfway to the moon for the nearest medical clinic? Who’s making that drive in a battered old ride with terrible fuel economy?

The rural poor.

Not the farmers or the ranchers, who mostly make plenty of dough and often know their way around America’s higher-end resort towns, but the rural poor. The kind of people you disproportionately find in Newfoundland outports, eking out a tenuous living as they wait for the cod to return. You know, reliable Liberal voters.

Beneath all the aspirational language, what an effective carbon tax actually does is throw the government into a cage match with Canada’s working class. The truth behind the Liberals’ woes on this file is that as long as they’re committed to the carbon tax as a tool for fighting climate change, their only real choice is which part of the working class they land on when they come off the top rope.

 

[OldSolduer]

But but but solar eclipse!! Climate Change!! Emergency!!

Niagara pre-emptively declares a state of emergency in anticipation of massive solar eclipse crowds

A million people are anticipated to head to the Niagara Region to experience the total solar eclipse on April 8. Keeping large crowds of spectators safe may pose a challenge for the region.

theconversation.com

 

[RangerRay]

Even though I can intellectually get that it’s an efficient and market-friendly way to address an externality like CO2 emissions, it seems to me that it has a harder impact on lower income and rural folks than those who are financially comfortable. When the carbon tax is combined with a slew of subsidies and regulation, then its argument for market-friendly efficiency loses its salience. It’s basically a tax on poor people with beater vehicles and old furnaces.

 

[Quirky]

But but but solar eclipse!! Climate Change!! Emergency!!

Niagara pre-emptively declares a state of emergency in anticipation of massive solar eclipse crowds

A million people are anticipated to head to the Niagara Region to experience the total solar eclipse on April 8. Keeping large crowds of spectators safe may pose a challenge for the region.

theconversation.com

What are the carbon implications of a million people polluting their way to the Niagara region to be inside a shadow?

Is this something we can tax? - LPC.

 

[Furniture]

What are the carbon implications of a million people polluting their way to the Niagara region to be inside a shadow?

Is this something we can tax? - LPC.

Why tax when you can just freeze/seize bank accounts?

 

[YZT580]

Even though I can intellectually get that it’s an efficient and market-friendly way to address an externality like CO2 emissions, it seems to me that it has a harder impact on lower income and rural folks than those who are financially comfortable. When the carbon tax is combined with a slew of subsidies and regulation, then its argument for market-friendly efficiency loses its salience. It’s basically a tax on poor people with beater vehicles and old furnaces.

All climate charges has accomplished can be seen in the number of labels that read Made In (anywhere but Europe and N.A.) We are rapidly becoming a tourist destination as Europe has already done. Drive around and look at the shuttered businesses in either locale then drive to Niagara Falls, Brussels or Madrid and count the number of bus tours with Chinese lettering or the people with the flags leading groups of obviously not from our country tourists. But then again you can't go there because your fuel budget is used up commuting to work and there is no money for excursions

 

[daftandbarmy]

The Line (as usual) has an interesting piece on this that came out today.

Clarke Ries: The pain is the point

The inconvenient reality of the carbon tax...

And more on that, from the 'non-hysterical' side of the issue it seems:

Economists miss the point about the carbon tax revolt

There’s another big issue on which the letter was silent. Suppose we did clear all the regulatory boulders along with the carbon-pricing-costs-too-much twig. How high should the carbon tax be? A few of the signatories are former students of mine so I expect they remember the formula for an optimal emissions tax in the presence of an existing tax system. If not, they can take their copy of Economic Analysis of Environmental Policy by Prof. McKitrick off the shelf, blow off the thick layer of dust and look it up. Or they can consult any of the half-dozen or so journal articles published since the 1970s that derive it. But I suspect most of the other signatories have never seen the formula and don’t even know it exists.

Because if they did, they would know that a major obstacle to emission reductions in Canada is our tax burden. The costlier a tax system, the lower the marginal value of emission reductions and the lower the optimal carbon tax rate. Based on reasonable estimates of the social cost of carbon and the marginal costs of our tax system, our carbon price is already high enough, and probably too high. I say this as one of the only Canadian economists who has published on all aspects of the question. Believing in mainstream climate science and economics does not oblige you to dismiss public complaints that the carbon tax is too costly.

Economists miss the point about the carbon tax revolt: op-ed

 

[Kirkhill]

Electric car sales trending down in Britain

If you fancy a new petrol car, best buy it now, before it is too late. It surely won’t be long before car manufacturers start to admit that their UK sales operations are in serious trouble, leading some to start withdrawing from the UK market altogether. Why? Because since January car-makers have been under the zero emission vehicle mandate (ZEV), to make sure that at least 22 per cent of the vehicles they sell are pure battery models – a proportion that will rise steadily until it reaches 80 per cent by 2030. If they fail to reach the target they could be fined £15,000 for every extra non-compliant vehicle they sell.

The trouble is, the proportion of sales made up by electric vehicles in March was only 15.2 per cent, and it going in the wrong direction. In March 2023, it was 16.2 per cent. It isn’t hard to work out what is going to happen. Unless there is a sudden pick up in interest in electric cars, manufacturers are going to find themselves in an impossible situation. They will be left with masses of unsold electric cars, while the cars they can sell – petrol and hybrids – will be subject to huge penalties.

Electric cars are out and petrol is in, just as it should be

The proportion of sales made up by EVs has fallen. People simply don’t want to buy them

www.telegraph.co.uk

And that is in a country where inter-city golf carts can just about make sense.

As for the £15,000 fine....

That will be tacked on to vehicles that are already too expensive for people to buy off the lot. Commonly the vehicles are bought by companies, used for a year or two and then sold. That fine will disappear in the wind. It will be paid by corporations and written off as a tax deduction.