Thanks to my lovely wife for bringing this article to my attention.
I’ve really got nothing to add. George Monbiot makes the case quite well, and it amounts to this:
If you think Climate Change is questionable; if you think it is some distant crisis; or if you think that a swift and dramatic response is optional for a species that wants a future, WAKE UP and THINK AGAIN!
The scientists at MIT have come up with a new game! You can play now and your children pay later!
The Main Stream Media [MSM] these days is full of discussions about carbon pricing. We have the provincial election in full swing in British Columbia in which the Liberal Carbon Tax is on trial, US president Obama and the US Congress moving away from the Bush denial era to the adoption of some form of climate change policy (exactly what policy remains to be seen), and countries everywhere preparing and positioning for the upcoming international climate change conference in Copenhagen.
Most of this discussion centers around the difference between a Carbon Tax vs a Cap & Trade system. Mostly it’s an argument as to which is the best system for reducing emissions It’s clear that very many people don’t understand the difference between the two, the pros and cons, the impact each would have on emissions and the impact each would have on consumer pricing.
In the 2008 federal election, for example, most people’s understanding of the two systems was built around the Conservative’s BS misinformation campaign about the “Tax on Everything”, the NDP’s BS misinformation that Cap & Trade punishes industry and not the average Joe and the Liberal’s mishandling of the whole thing.
The difference between the two systems is simple, as is the similarity.
A Carbon Tax is a mile wide and an inch deep, applies (or should) to everything and everyone in the economy and provides certainty of pricing with no certainty of emission reductions. It only works if the tax rate is set high enough to modify behavior and the best proposals for this are within a Tax Shift scenario. (See previous Liberal and ongoing Green platforms.) The downside is that it’s fairly easy for opponents to criticize a new tax because of the word “tax” and also because the public don’t trust government to actually return the money on other taxes.
A Cap & Trade system is an inch wide and a mile foot deep, applies only to specific industries and/or companies, and provides known emission reductions with totally unpredictable pricing. (It is a market, after all.) It only works if the number of available credits on the market is set correctly so that emissions actually carry a significant cost and if there is enough of a reduction rate in total available credits so that emissions come down at the intended pace. On the downside, the setting of emission credits and application of them to certain industries is ripe for political manipulation.
The similarities are that ideally the price would end up the same for the same emissions reductions, that all carbon pricing will be passed on to the consumer in the end (whether politicians admit this or not), and that neither is adequate all on it’s own as a climate change response.
I’ve written about this several times before, here, here, here, here, here, and here and I think I’ve been abundantly clear in my position. These are merely two tools in the toolbelt, as it were, and we have dilly-dallied long enough that we no longer have the luxury of time to choose among these tools!!!
We don’t need any more Carbon Tax vs Cap & Trade discussion. It’s too late for that. We need both.
Anyone who argues otherwise either does not grasp the seriousness of the problem, or for some reason has an agenda where other priorities are higher. I, for one, do not fall into either category. How about you?
President Barack Obama laid out a sweeping vision for high-speed rail in the United States this past week. Obama has already secured $8 billion in funding in the stimulus bill and plans to pursue another $5 billion over the next 5 years.
Joe Romm at Climate Progress provided an excellent summary of the announcement.
In the meantime, Canada’s [non existent] national transportation strategy looks like this:
Yeah, I know, they’ve been really busy planning for our future, haven’t they?
Once the global recession ends, oil prices will resume their inevitable march to record levels which will be heralded with great fanfare in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland, but will serve to continue to hamper the economies of all other regions. Airlines will switch from fighting off bankruptcy due to the recession to fighting off bankruptcy due to rising fuel costs.
In the age of Peak Oil and Climate Change, High Speed Rail must be a national priority in Canada as a means of minimizing short haul flights and large numbers of cars. We need to outline this vision now and put the systems in place before it’s too late. Government economic stimulus would be well placed to be working toward that vision.
I fear, however, that what we will see first is >$200 per barrel oil, airlines asking for bailouts, a public clamouring for alternate transportation plans, and a government who says, “Well, you can’t blame us because no one saw this coming.”
There’s been a lot of hype about nuclear power, and the “nuclear renaissance.” Some would have us believe that it’s the only solution to climate change, the cheapest power on earth, the creator of recession proof jobs, and the magic bullet needed to maintain our lifestyle while leaving all the birds, butterflies and bunnies twittering about.
Bull.
The Ontario Clean Air Alliance has a new web site (well, new to me as I’ve just found it via Chris Tindal) called Ontario’s Green Future that specifically talks about nuclear power in Ontario. Check it out.
In their argument, they argue that nuclear gets a free ride that greener sources of power do not get that skews the economics.
But there are plenty of additional arguments against the economics of nuclear as well.
For the Canadian / Ontario case:
On a world scale, Joseph Romm at Climate Progress has a great deal to say about the possibility of carrying off this nuclear vision, including one of my favourites, “Exclusive analysis, Part 1: The staggering cost of new nuclear power.”
As an engineer I’m really not as worried about the nuclear waste problem as many others, although I don’t deny it’s a problem. To me it’s merely an engineering/logistics/long term storage problem which, while it can’t be “solved” per se, can be dealt with by the application of enough money over enough time. The problem is that this money * time equation is never included in the rosy picture presented by nuclear enthusiasts.
So if you want to talk nuclear I’m happy to. But the first step in that conversation should be agreement on honest economics.
As a bit of training on what to do and not do during all candidates debates, I have watched a few that were available to me online during this campaign, including watching Elizabeth in the leaders debate.
By far, the best debate I’ve witnessed is the one held in BC by the CBC which they called the X-challenge.
It can be viewed online here.
(WARNING!!! – This post is a spoiler, so if you would rather watch the debate without knowing who won, then you should read no further into this post!)
The setup of the debate was as follows:
Can politicians sell an audience of British Columbia polluters on their green platforms smack in the middle of an economic downturn?
Wednesday, Oct. 8 at 7:30 p.m. ET and 10:00 p.m. ET Mark Kelley moderated The X Challenge, a 90-minute debate between four representatives of the main national parties on issues related to the environment. The twist? The audience, made of 100 self-described polluters with different political leanings, voted in real time on who won the debate!
The four participants: Lorne Mayencourt of the Progressive Conservatives, Ujjal Dosanjh of the Liberals, Michael Byers of the New Democratic Party and Adriane Carr of the Green party.
Adriane Carr is, of course, a very able representative of the Green Party, and I watched the debate originally to see her in action.
The 100 person audience of decided voters was chosen based on the current polling in BC, with 40 Conservative voters, 26 NDP voters, 20 Liberal voters and 14 Green voters.
The challenge was to see whether the four party reps could sway enough voters to increase their numbers, and the topic of this debate was entirely on environmental platforms and of course, economic platforms since these are so interrelated.
There were 5 questions posed by audience members with the audience voting on the best response after each of the first 4, and then a final vote for the winner of the whole debate.
The results? An overwhelming victory for Adriane Carr, achieving a final vote of 47%
Way to go Adriane!!!
The Newmarket-Aurora Conservative candidate, Lois Brown, continued to spread the misinformation campaign of the Harper government at an all-candidates debate last week. This is no surprise, but I felt it necessary to make the point. Again…
The Harper government is misleading the Canadian public regarding Climate Change in two important ways:
-> Green Party = 30% below 1990 = 425 MT
-> NDP = 25% below 1990 = 456 MT
-> Liberal Party = 20% below 1990 = 486 MT
-> Conservative Party = 20% below 2006 = 3% below 1990 = 589 MT
And yet they make the claim to have the most aggressive targets? Huh?
Based on these two points, the Conservative Party is either willfully misleading the Canadian public, or they are really bad at math.
Take your pick.
If you choose the former, ask yourself about the honesty and integrity of our Prime Minister.
If you choose the latter, ask yourself about his supposed credentials as an economist.
While istening to a podcast from the National Post this morning about the upcoming leaders debates, I was curious about one of the comments from a political science professor Dr Brooke Jeffrey from Concordia University.
She stated that the Green Party is “not running candidates in, I think, over 50 seats.”
So, doing a bit of quick internet search, which the good Dr Jeffrey is obviously incapable of doing, reveals that the Green Party is in fact running in 303 of the 308 ridings in the country. It then took me about 5 minutes to get confirmation from the party.
Further, I found out that no party has a full slate, and I am referencing the CBC for that.
OK, technically the NDP have 308 but one resigned after the registration deadline over the controversy of skinny dipping with someone he shouldn’t. The Liberals have 307, deciding not to run against Elizabeth May in Central Nova and the Conservatives have 307, deciding not to run against André Arthur, an independent who is seeking re-election Quebec’s Portneuf-Jacques Cartier riding.
Interesting stuff. But my point here is that if this is the state of knowledge by a political science professor, a person expected to have in depth knowledge about the political choices available to Canadians, it is small wonder that explaining the necessarily complex policy to address an extremely complex issue like Climate Change, with it’s far reaching economic implications, is difficult. Especially so in the forced 30 second sound bytes demanded by our mainstream media.
Elizabeth May was greeted by an enthusiastic crowd of supporters at the Hockey Hall of Fame as her Green Train arrived in Toronto on Wednesday September 24.
The trip, plus the fact tha the via train was hours late, was made in part ot highlight one of the central theme’s of the Green Party’s campaign which is the dire need to invest in rail infrastructure in Canada.
Doing so would address both climate change / greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector, as well as provide a system for travel that is less dependant on depleting oil resources that our current method of moving ourselves and our products, cars and truck.
Here’s the speech in it’s entirety. Sorry, had to break into two parts due to YouTube limitations.
Canada Votes!, Climate Change, Elizabeth May, Green Policy, Proportional Representation, Strategic Voting, Transportation
It’s a bit of an odd name (in comparison to Richard Heinberg’s book, “PowerDown”), but let’s hope the idea catches on for the latter half of the election campaign. Help to spread this far and wide.
FYI, in this report you’ll note that one woman makes it clear that we don’t need cap & trade, we don’t need a carbon tax, we need BOTH.
And there is only one federal party with BOTH in the platform. Vote Green on October 14.
