Party Leaders are lying about energy taxes and the environment

[Argus]

A column in the Globe today kind of summed up what I've been thinking, and to some extent saying for some time about the cabon pricing initiatives, or carbon taxing schemes the Left is so in love with, and which both Trudeau and Mulciair are pushing. Neither of them will explain how their schemes work, or what the impact will be on the price of gasoline, power or home heating fuels, to say nothing of industry.

Last night the CBC did a show on all the Canadian companies opening up in Mexico. One of them was Magna, whose CEO warned Ontario two years ago that high and rising energy prices would prevent Magna from expanding any further in Ontario. Sure enough, one of the big new plants in Mexico was a Magna plant. Lots of auto plans are opening there, including a gigantic Kia motors facility. Meanwhile, Canadians are lamenting the disappearance of our manufacturing industry.

Now we have the NDP's Linda McQuaig basically saying that the oil industry will have to be sacrificed to lower emissions, and Mulciar not exactly contradicting her so much as saying the word 'sustainable' a lot.

Both Mr. Mulcair and Mr. Trudeau have vague plans for carbon taxes, which Conservative Leader Stephen Harper describes as “job-killing.” Both say Mr. Harper is fundamentally unserious about greenhouse gas reductions (which is correct). But they haven’t said what their targets would be or how we’d get there. Both are blaming Mr. Harper for the crummy economy, which has been hammered by the global collapse in oil and gas prices, even though that’s not his fault. Mr. Mulcair would hit the oil industry with tough new regulations, while also creating lots and lots of new jobs (in some other industry, I guess).

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/will-voters-get-the-oil-sands-debate-they-deserve/article25908348/

[PIK]

We do not produce enough for anybody to worry about and harper understands that. But the influx of foreign money (mainly from our competitors) has turned Canadians (the left) against our own country and economy. And if the world got rid of all gases, it would still take 100+ yrs to see a change. So lets learn to live with it and technology will eventually find a solution.

[waldo]

yet another piece of tripe from Wente! Argus... you're really scraping the barrel bottom if she's your go-to. What NDP's Linda McQuaig said has been said by leading scientists for years now... none more esteemed than Jim Hansen: Game Over for the Climate

If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.

Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.

That is the long-term outlook. But near-term, things will be bad enough. Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding. Economic losses would be incalculable. More and more of the Midwest would be a dust bowl. California’s Central Valley could no longer be irrigated. Food prices would rise to unprecedented levels.

If this sounds apocalyptic, it is. This is why we need to reduce emissions dramatically.

[waldo]

We do not produce enough for anybody to worry about and harper understands that.

educate yourself on tarsands development pursuits - current, ongoing and planned/projected... where do you think BigOil targets the pipeline exports to, hey?

[Black Dog]

Cheap shale oil will kill the tarsands long before any politician does. Worry about that instead.

[kimmy]

A column in the Globe today kind of summed up what I've been thinking, and to some extent saying for some time about the cabon pricing initiatives, or carbon taxing schemes the Left is so in love with, and which both Trudeau and Mulciair are pushing. Neither of them will explain how their schemes work, or what the impact will be on the price of gasoline, power or home heating fuels, to say nothing of industry.

Last night the CBC did a show on all the Canadian companies opening up in Mexico. One of them was Magna, whose CEO warned Ontario two years ago that high and rising energy prices would prevent Magna from expanding any further in Ontario. Sure enough, one of the big new plants in Mexico was a Magna plant. Lots of auto plans are opening there, including a gigantic Kia motors facility. Meanwhile, Canadians are lamenting the disappearance of our manufacturing industry.

Really think those plants would have ended up in Ontario if the electricity bills were a little lower?

Give corporations cheap electricity, and they'll complain about property taxes. Give them property tax breaks, they'll complain about environmental regulations. Relax environmental regulations, and they'll complain about the cost of labor. Until such time as Canadian workers are willing to work for $3/hr, corporations will have a powerful incentive to locate their plants in Mexico instead of here. And ultimately, if the way to get manufacturing jobs in Canada is to pay manufacturing workers $3/hr, then these jobs aren't the well-paying manufacturing careers that previous generations had. What's the point of jumping through hoops to create $3/hr jobs?

-k

[poochy]

Really think those plants would have ended up in Ontario if the electricity bills were a little lower?

Give corporations cheap electricity, and they'll complain about property taxes. Give them property tax breaks, they'll complain about environmental regulations. Relax environmental regulations, and they'll complain about the cost of labor. Until such time as Canadian workers are willing to work for $3/hr, corporations will have a powerful incentive to locate their plants in Mexico instead of here. And ultimately, if the way to get manufacturing jobs in Canada is to pay manufacturing workers $3/hr, then these jobs aren't the well-paying manufacturing careers that previous generations had. What's the point of jumping through hoops to create $3/hr jobs?

-k

That sounds like a strong argument against blaming the current government for the losses of manufacturing jobs.

[waldo]

Cheap shale oil will kill the tarsands long before any politician does. Worry about that instead.

ceptin' the shale bubble... that 'first-year' sweet spot is readily depleted; typical 2nd year returns from a shale well will shrink by 70-75% of the first year output. Some forecasts have the peak output just 4 years or so away (2020).

[On Guard for Thee]

yet another piece of tripe from Wente! Argus... you're really scraping the barrel bottom if she's your go-to. What NDP's Linda McQuaig said has been said by leading scientists for years now... none more esteemed than Jim Hansen: Game Over for the Climate

Is that the same Margaret Wente, the plagiarist, that we are all supposed to trust?

[kimmy]

That sounds like a strong argument against blaming the current government for the losses of manufacturing jobs.

Sure. I don't think it's realistic to pin that on government policy, and I'd also be very skeptical of any politician who says he's got some policy that can just make these jobs reappear. It's a result of economic factors that are bigger than our government can control. The inflated Canadian "petro-dollar" might have sped along the demise of Canadian manufacturing jobs, but the plunge in the dollar isn't going to just make those jobs appear out of nowhere.

-k

[Argus]

yet another piece of tripe from Wente! Argus... you're really scraping the barrel bottom if she's your go-to.

This is again more of your 'attack the messenger' style even though what she said is plainly true. Neither Trudeau nor Mulcair are telling us what this cap and trade stuff would cost, not even a hint. In fact, to listen to them it won't cost us a thing.. I bet you don't complain when she said Harper isn't serious about Co2 reductions, do you? Nope! She's great if she agrees with you!

As for your quotes none of them deal with the cost either. Nor do they deal with the fact that we only produce 1.6% of the world's Co2 emissions, and that other nations are increasing their emissions by more than that every single year!

Edited August 11, 2015 by Argus

[Argus]

Really think those plants would have ended up in Ontario if the electricity bills were a little lower?

By itself, power costs are not necessarily a deciding factor. But they add into the other reasons to move production offshore, like cheaper labour and less expensive government bureaucracy. Corporations make decisions based on minute profit margin changes. If the cost of power is twice as high in Ontario as it is in Michigan (which it now is) that's a very big factor in their operating costs.

I've said before, and no one has contradicted it, that the oil industry is the main reason why we didn't get hammered by the big recession like most of Europe and the US did. And now the opposition wants to slap major new costs on them just as their coping with this drastic reduction in oil prices.

And on us. Don't forget that. I know people, especially rural people, struggling with the high cost of power now thanks to the Liberals pursuit of green energy, and the cost is likely to double in the coming years with the addition of cap and trade, and the continuing and escalating costs of Ontario's green energy schemes.

[Argus]

Is that the same Margaret Wente, the plagiarist, that we are all supposed to trust?

Blame the messenger when you can't argue against the message, right?

[-1=e^ipi]

Really think those plants would have ended up in Ontario if the electricity bills were a little lower?

A little? Ontario energy prices are twice as expensive as the rest of North America and rising. Compared to some regions, they are 3 times as expensive.

Manufacturing is very energy intensive. A few years ago people were blaming Dutch disease and the high dollar. The dollar is low now, so what's the excuse?

What Ontario is doing is committing economic suicide.

[-1=e^ipi]

Neither Trudeau nor Mulcair are telling us what this cap and trade stuff would cost, not even a hint. In fact, to listen to them it won't cost us a thing..

Nope. These politicians can't deal with trade-offs so they pretend that trade-offs don't exist. So obviously that means that cutting CO2 will save Canada money and generate all these green jobs.

[Ash74]

How is cap and trade anything more than a tax grab?

Government charges the companies and the companies dump the cost onto the people. It does nothing to curb emissions but looks pretty for the environmentalists

[-1=e^ipi]

Congrats, Ontario has doubled energy prices and only 3% of energy produced is wind or solar.

Data is a bit outdated but http://www.ewi.uni-koeln.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Publikationen/Working_Paper/EWI_WP_08-04_Cointegration-of-Output.pdf

suggests that economic output is roughly proportional to Energy^0.25. So doubling energy prices means ~16% reduction in GDP in the long run.

[waldo]

But they haven’t said what their targets would be or how we’d get there.

if they haven't, as you stated, "said"... where's your claimed lying? Unlike the dictatorial Harper's approach to dealing with the provinces, a thought-out cooperative undertaking between a federal government and affected provinces would actually entail a future prime-minister with a federal carbon-tax initiative to meet with provincial premiers toward concept/design/implementation, particularly if some provinces already gave up on Harper and moved on their own initiatives.

.

Edited August 11, 2015 by waldo

[-1=e^ipi]

Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.

Way to purposely misinform people.

During the Pliocene era, Panama wasn't fully formed and water could pass between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, which resulted in a more uniform global temperature distribution. In addition, the Antarctic circumpolar current wasn't as strong, which meant that there was increased heat transfer between Antarctica and the rest of the world. This lead to a higher global temperature due to albedo feedbacks and since the Stefan-Boltzman law causes a more uniform temperature distribution to have a higher mean temperature. So even with 400 ppm of CO2, sea levels won't rise by 50 feet because Panama will still be there and the Antarctic circumpolar current will still be stronger.

For time scales of more than a million years, platetectonics starts to become relevant.

Edited August 11, 2015 by -1=e^ipi

[waldo]

A little? Ontario energy prices are twice as expensive as the rest of North America and rising. Compared to some regions, they are 3 times as expensive.

perhaps you can do what member Argus refuses to do... actually provide a legitimate cited accounting that speaks to the claimed "comparative double and triple energy prices/rates" continually being put forward... vis-a-vis "the rest of North America".

.

[waldo]

Way to purposely misinform people.

During the Pliocene era, Panama wasn't fully formed and water could pass between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, which resulted in a more uniform global temperature distribution. In addition, the Antarctic circumpolar current wasn't as strong, which meant that there was increased heat transfer between Antarctica and the rest of the world. This lead to a higher global temperature due to albedo feedbacks and since the Stefan-Boltzman law causes a more uniform temperature distribution to have a higher mean temperature. So even with 400 ppm of CO2, sea levels won't rise by 50 feet because Panama will still be there and the Antarctic circumpolar current will still be stronger.

For time scales of more than a million years, platetectonics starts to become relevant.

the misinforming starts with you quoting text as if I stated it directly... and you wildly spinning Hansen's words completely out of context... notwithstanding this is not the thread for yet another of your mega-distractions.

[-1=e^ipi]

Try using google. It isn't hard to find.

http://www.thestar.com/business/2014/02/26/ontarios_big_industries_plead_for_lower_hydro_rates.html

[waldo]

How is cap and trade anything more than a tax grab?

Government charges the companies and the companies dump the cost onto the people. It does nothing to curb emissions but looks pretty for the environmentalists

there is no single "flavour" of cap & trade... some deployments have resulted in emission reductions (as I've shown in past MLW threads), some distribute monies back to the population, and some have incentives for corporations to reduce emissions and to be able to sell rather than purchase pollution quotas... allowing the market to determine the price of quotas. Of course, what we have around MLW are the usual suspects (Harperites) who bleat on about the "nefarious cap & trade" plans of the NDP (potentially joining in with the WCI initiative that includes BC, Quebec and California)... all the while none of these usual suspects have any clue about what their talking points even mean!

now... as I've stated in the past, I'm not a proponent of the more traditional labeled cap-and-trade. What I have spoken in favour of is the "Tax and 100% Dividend" concept that scientist James Hansen regularly promotes:

[waldo]

Try using google. It isn't hard to find.

http://www.thestar.com/business/2014/02/26/ontarios_big_industries_plead_for_lower_hydro_rates.html

that's YOUR cite? Double and three times as expensive you said... still waiting for a legitimate comparative accounting. For now, why not digest the annual comparative effort put forward by Hydro Quebec: COMPARISON OF ELECTRICITY PRICES IN MAJOR NORTH AMERICAN CITIES - Rates in effect April 1, 2014 ... residential, small power, medium power and large power business:

[-1=e^ipi]

Cities != States/Provinces, but nice try.

What I have spoken in favour of is the "Tax and 100% Dividend" concept that scientist James Hansen regularly promotes:

A tax and 100% dividend approach when applied at the international level would have low bureaucratic costs and it would be basically impossible for countries to cheat by redirecting CO2 emission tax revenues to subsidies for CO2 emitting industries.