Peter Kent: Let's do Nothing!

Our Environment minister wants Kyoto to die and wait until 2015 to make a new accord. Why not just start a new accord now why wait three years? Our Environment minister is playing in the past were it would be just enough just to say that we should talk about making an accord. While almost the rest of the world wants to do something now. The talk is over! action must be done now, and with the Conservatives doing nothing to help create a global accord we have no credibility when it comes to the environment. Why should the world listen to us if we are doing nothing? If we wait till 2015 we will be one of the only countries in the developed world to not have a carbon tax. Even China and India have a carbon tax. Kyoto isn't something from the past it is our environment minister and government.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, who is also in Durban, says Canada's involvement in the negotiations has been overshadowed by reports it plans to withdraw from Kyoto a year before it officially ends.

 "I've heard some people suggest that given how badly Canada has performed, and how negative and obstructionist our delegation has been in meeting after meeting, it will be easier if Canada is not in the room."

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Canada Moving Years Back!

With The Kyoto deadline at the end of the month Canada is in no way going to reach it's target of 6% below 1990 levels. In fact in 2008 the only provinces who actually reduced their emissions below 1990 levels is Quebec and PEI. All the other provinces increased. I think it would be a complete miracle if Harper is going to have a strong new target. With Harper it is business as usual allow companies to continue to pollute the air we breath, The water we drink and the environment that allows us to live. It ecology 101 we need a sustainable planet on order for us to survive. The biggest polluting increase for the next decade will be coming from Transportation and Energy. Ways to fix that have been proposed for years. A carbon tax to reduce the consumption of CO2, Invest heavily like Ontario in changing the energy grid, Invest in high speed rail and mandate more energy efficient cars. Even though Harper isn't doing anything. BC, Quebec and Ontario are. In BC they have a 25$ carbon tax, 15$ in Quebec and The Liberal green energy plan in Ontario. The cost of doing nothing is mounting. The economic effects of Climate change will hurt Canada. From unpredictable weather that will effect the prairies, to more stronger storms and pollution increasing asthma rates and increasing health care cost will cost billions.

Arcand noted that the price of not acting on the climate crisis would be much higher than the cost of these emissions reduction programs.

“In Canada, the costs (of inaction) could go from $5 billion per year in 2020, to between $21 billion and $43 billion by the 2050s,” he said, noting leaving this bill for future generations to pay would be wrong.

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Let's get Real On Climate Change!

Many people like to point to the oil companies for the blame of Climate change, but households contribute to 45% of all emissions. That means if we wish to achieve the goal most climate scientist say will help us avoid disaster we need to reduce household emissions. We must reduce our emissions by 80% by 2050. So even if all industries close there doors today we would still need to cut household emissions by more than half. An easy way to start reducing emissions considering the energy sector is responsible for 82% of emissions is a shift to cleaner sources of energy such as wind and hydro instead of oil and gas for heating and for industry.  Since motor fuel use is increasing it's share of emission promoting public transit will curve that. Products that we buy which contribute heavily to emission as in order to make and distribute a product CO2 a byproduct is released. In order to make it easier for consumer for consumers to by more Eco friendly product without hurting their bottom line. I have urge this forever a Carbon Tax that gives consumers a rebate so that the more Eco friendly product is actually the more cheaper product and can actually save you money. All of these proposals will make a big scratch, but all Canadians as citizens of the world must act together to conserve energy and the planet for generations to come. We must get real on climate change.

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The Carbon Tax Re-Explained (Libertarian Edition) Part 2

                      Now to continue to refute another point that my friend has brought out which is that he believes that there is no way to monitor how much CO2 was used to make a product in a foreign country when it comes in, But it isn't hard to monitor something that is already monitored. First China is going to have a carbon tax in 2012, and many countries already have a carbon tax including some U.S states. Next when a carbon tax will be introduced it will have to clearly state that shops that distribute a product that was made overseas will have to now report how much Co2 they emitted over seas and tax it when in comes in the border. Another false statement is the ideology that oil will last for another 120 years. Under current consumption which is rising dramatically every year as the world becomes more urbanized and developing countries start to need more resources Oil will be needed. The most oil can last for will be another 47 years. Even with more oil reserves found oil can't last much longer these oil reserves are predicted to be in remote places were no country has right over and even if they do the extraction cost would be very high. This just proves oil is unsubstantial. My Libertarians solution to it is allow the free markets to handle it. His theory is that Oil will gradually rise in prices and eventually it will be to expensive to use it so we will move to another source of energy. Thing is if our economy is dependent on fossil fuels now and will be unless something is done if we let the free markets work oil will rise so high that economy would crash, and we wouldn't have the time to shift to cleaner resources, because we waited to long. Canada has to institute a carbon tax now!
                      
                    One last point My Libertarian friend mentioned that Canada only emits 0.00000244666% this is a lie. Canada actually emits 2.3% of the worlds emissions although that is relatively small, but Canada is the 8th largest emitter and every other country of the world must reduce their CO2 emissions accordingly we can't just keep pointing at the biggest polluters which includes technically Canada for being responsible to reduce Co2 Emissions.

The Carbon Tax Re-Explained (Libertarian Edition) Part 1

                   In this post I will re-explain why a carbon tax is a good idea, but this time I will refute the arguments of my Libertarian friend. First my friend said that a carbon tax only worked in Sweden, because  Sweden is has a very capitalist economy. That isn't completely true. First Sweden has the second largest tax burden in the world, and over 80% of it's workers are unionized. The Government of Sweden doesn't allow the free market to go anywhere without intervention. My Blogger friend also said that Sweden had lower growth then other Scandinavian countries. This isn't true again. When a Carbon tax came in place in Sweden in 1991 the Swedish economy was valued at 258 billion and right before the recession the economy was worth 458 billion the growth of Sweden during these years was 78%! Other Scandinavian countries like Norway grew  during the same time period grew by 276%, but Norway was the first country in the 1990's to instate a carbon tax. That only leaves Finland which doesn't have a carbon tax and who's economy at the same time as Sweden and Norway grew  about 116%. So clearly even with a carbon tax an economy can still grow.
                  

Why I am against a Carbon Tax

//For the sake of argument, we will assume that CO2 and other GHGs are bad This will be a rebutal to what vanillaman posted earlier. Firstly, the small point: 1) at no point did I make any reference or allusion to unions. I support the unions' right to exist. I believe that unions are a way that workers can get what they want, them not always having highly desired skills the same way, say, a programmer might. While a highly skilled programmer threatening to go to a competitor might be a strong argument, a waiter doing the same might not have the same power. That said, I don't stand for forced participation, or laws saying that a union must be respected, or any other laws protecting unions from consequences of their actions (like not being able to give raises not negotiated for by unions, or not being able to hire outside the union). 2)Sweden is a poor example. Sweden has a hodgepodge of different regulations. I can use Sweden to prove my point too: Sweden has one of the most open capitalist policies anywhere, they have embraced globalization, and they have one of the lowest inflation rates. Thus proving that an open-capitalist economy, provided it stays that way, is able to support much more than a socialist economy (we do have marketing boards). On top of that, Sweden's growth is mediocre compared to the other countries in Scandinavia, and especially when compared to other countries. 3) citing someone from the federal reserve scares me. The Federal Reserve (hereafter referenced as the FED) is responsible for just about all the recessions and depressions since it was founded. Here is a good video explaining how, in rap battle format. Essentially, the FED sets bond interest rates low, which encourages lending (because more money can be made by lending it out than keeping it in bonds). The problem is that much of this lending should never have happened because the client's business model never made sense (whether it simply didn't, or didn't fit the role or time it was in. See the junk bonds; they have a use, but it was not all over the market.). Now that the small points have been dealt with, I will move on to the larger points, going from easiest to hardest. The last point made was about how regulations were what kept Canada's economy from going the way of that of the US. Firstly, the United States mandated that banks not turn down loans for virtually anybody. This was born out of the thought that everyone had the right to own a home. Because there was this regulation (see, I told you there was regulation) banks had to lend out to people who could never afford to pay back the mortgage. Now more than a few banks saw this as a highly profitable sector, provided it didn't implode. Perhaps it was some greedy people who did much of the spearheading, but it was also the FED (another instance of government fiddling with the economy) that allowed the housing boom in the first place. When it crashed, it was not an all too unforeseeable event. Also, if regulations are the way to go, and should be indiscriminately adopted (as is hinted in the article), then Greece should be the leading player after the economy, along with the other STUPID and PIIGS (and the other acronyms) countries. But wait; those countries are either still on those lists, or are swirling around the toilet bowl, waiting until they get sucked down it. On to the next point. vanillaman suggests that it is better to do it now than when our society is addicted to oil. While the thought is nice, and the logic seems all pristine, it is wrong. The basic logic of his claim is that we should leave a margin. First, society is addicted to oil. I recently saw a bumper sticker on a truck that read, "If you have it, a truck brought it". How true. To prove it, look at whatever you buy. Then see if all the materials came from within your neighborhood, or at least within biking distance. My point exactly. I will now argue that a margin is not necessary, because one is already present. Firstly, oil isn't running out, environmentalists are getting in the way. My evidence: the Bituminous Sands, Shale Gas. All are nearing the point where their technologies reach the point where it is almost completely safe to extract. (And if we removed the, oh yes, regulations that protect companies from people suing them for property damage, companies would have accountability for their actions.) Shale gas will soon be safe within acceptable limits (like the rate at which planes, in good maintenance, crash due to factors other than the pilot. That is to say about never). This will, on top of the remaining oil-fields being pumped, get us through at least 40 years (especially with the world population reaching the top of the S-curve population growth, where growth slows down). Then we can start pumping through the currently untapped but proven oil reserves, for another 10 to 30 years. By that time, we will have confirmed at least some of the unproven oil fields, guesstimated at being 40 to 50 years of oil. This adds up to a 90 to 120 year margin, all on the assumption that we find no other fields not included in the unproven category. I personally feel that this is an acceptable margin to perfect the existing bacteria that synthesize oil out of CO2, as well as all the other horribly less efficient technologies, like solar power and other fuel cells, as well as a good form of alternate, renewable fuel. One of the problems with a carbon tax is that it will raise the price of goods and services. Because of this, companies will take their setups to other places, where there isn't a tax. The foreign countries will also have a competitive edge since they don't have a tax. So the proposed solution would be to add a tax on to the products as they come in. Problem: how would you find that out? Would you just go, "A cabbage head cost X cents in carbon, so we'll charge X cents per cabbage head"? Or would you go, "You imported this from a country that is less efficient than us in carbon output. Therefore we will assume that your cabbage head used more carbon, and tax it more"? How on Earth would you find that out? Also, If you were to take either course of action you would negate the stated benefit, namely that it would incentivise "Green" production. So there is no satisfactory solution to imports, and every developed country is far from self sufficient 100% of the time. Another problem with the proposed solution is associating the cost of the carbon inside the product with the tax credit that is given. Will the tax credits be given according to taxes paid? So if a person pays $100 in taxes, they might only get $1, but if someone pays $100,000 in taxes, they will get $1,000. Or will it be a flat distribution, so everyone gets X dollars? In the current form, the plan is little more than a dream, because it has no idea how it will do any of its components. As if that weren't enough, the system is ready to be exploited. After all, aren't some products worse than others? If someone buys a Hummer, and someone else buys a hybrid, why should they both still have to pay some of the tax? Why not tax the Hummer into oblivion, and then use that money for the good of society? Isn't that the whole reason for the carbon tax, a way of paying off the social price of the carbon emissions? The possibility for this to be exploited by special interests who would normally not be competitive enough to survive is huge. After all, who wouldn't want their product to be subsidized to a point where the competition has no way of competing? Or even have their product mandated to be bought, even when one buys from the competitor? Oh, wait. It's called ethanol. Who doubts that ethanol will get special treatment because it is a "Green" product. I hope that, by demonstrating that the stated premise for the carbon tax was flawed, and by explaining how the whole plan is unrefined and the key mechanics left up to the imagination, I have offered at least reasonable doubt that a carbon tax is not a good solution. As further proof, let me introduce the futility of it: Canada's GHG output was about 734 Mt; China's was 6,100,000,000 Mt. China is opening a new coal-fired power plant every week until 2018. Canada emits 0.00000244666% of the world's GHGs.

Carbon Tax Explained!

My Libertarian friend is at it again. Saying that Government has no role to play in the economy. He says it's the unions and regulation that are holding the country back. His latest post attacked a carbon tax. Let me explain what my blogger friend may not understand. First a carbon tax isn't taxing the regular consumer. It taxes industries that pollute, and gives every cent in income tax reduction to regular Canadians. But a carbon tax isn't just taking money from you then gives it back to you no. Julia Gillard the Prime Minister of Australia best explains it here . As you can see a carbon tax will make products more expensive and the tax cuts from the carbon tax will make the net total 0. You lose no money! But companies that innovate and make there products using less Co2 will get taxed less and can reduce there prices to get an advantage when it comes to prices against there competitor. So you save consumers money and you sort of push companies to innovate so that they can remain competitive. In fact the OECD even recommended Canada to have a carbon tax and reduce income tax. In Sweden where they have a carbon tax of 150$ per ton saw there economy actually grow not diminish like my Libertarian friend thinks will happen. We shouldn't wait for oil prices to raise naturally so high that consumers will start to change there habits. We need to do it now so our economy isn't so addicted to oil when it runs out. Even Former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker suggested (February 6, 2007) that "it would be wiser to impose a tax on oil, for example, than to wait for the market to drive up oil prices." If we just allow the markets to solve our problems, and take off government regulations Canada's banks would have gone under like the U.S banks did. The Canadian government set regulations so that there wouldn't be a sub prime mortgage crisis.

My friends don't know anything about economics!

I have heard many crazy things, said seriously, by my friends. Most recently and scarily was the suggestion that, to curb inflation's primary driver (oil), we add a tax to it. Allow me to explain why that is wrong on so many levels. Tax, but pay back The idea was that a tax would be imposed on fuel, but it would go towards compensating people for the higher price. That is like mugging someone at a gas station for 20$, but giving them a 19$ gas card (some gets lost to taxation and bureaucracy). It doesn't matter that the mugger gives most of it back: they still stole from you. But even assuming that there is no inefficiency (and this tax is not taxed by the sales tax), it makes no sense. It would be like charging someone 20$ for service, but handing the bill back as an instant rebate. If a charge is paid back by the charger, does it even exist? But because of inefficiency, it will exist; the charged will be the loser. The rising price is enough Just by the very fact that the price is going up, and the market trend is that it will continue to rise, is incentive enough. It does not take a genius to figure out that one of the largest pillars of the world (it is responsible for just about all the food on the market, as well as the delivery of just about every product) is a large market, ready for a cheaper solution. The open market is more likely to get it right It is a simple probability thing: if one person (in the legal sense) roles a ten-sided die, one in ten times she will get a ten. But if one million people each role a die, 100,000 will get a ten. It is simply better to let the open market determine the actual correct price, purely statistically speaking. Then, once someone has the right price, all others will be forced to meet or exceed this number. Those who get it or better get business; those who don't get none (assuming that all other factors are controlled for. This means that oil will cost more on Ellesmere island than it would, say, right next to the oil refinery in Alberta). On top of that, the people in the market have two things that the governors of the market will never have: boots on the ground, and immediate consequences. These people's jobs are to judge the optimal price, and they suffer the consequences when they get it wrong (less right than the competition). Bureaucrats have no hope of ever acquiring that knowledge, and, because they are not dependant on getting it right for their jobs and income, no incentive to perform. It's not our job It really isn't the job of government to be encouraging and discouraging various practices that do not infringe on the rights of other. As explained above, a bureaucrat has no chance against the open market, and his efforts will only further mess up the economy (see the abnormally high price of dairy products, courtesy of the dairy marketing board. Also see the ethanol boondoggle in the US; even Al Gore admits he backed it to support his buddies in the farming business). Because of this, it just doesn't make sense to go around managing economies, and so it shouldn't be a role of government (the same way heavy-machinery operators don't work in chemistry labs: they could, and might even have the occasional success, but it would just be better to leave that job for chemists). I hope that I have provided a good case against increasing taxes on oil. The idea of a tax who's proceeds go to those who pay it to pay the tax is absurd an inefficient. The rising price is incentive enough to spur innovation, and, left on its own, the open market will get the right price better than a meddling bureaucrat. Because of this, it would be best to leave the free market to do its thing, and rectify the situation if it needs correcting, and determine that on its own. Remember, even if there is no demand, people will always fiddle and explore: gasoline was originally discarded because no-one could find anything to do with it, and then along came the internal combustion engine (an oversimplification, I know).