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Canada Federal Carbon Dioxide CO2 Tax


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The government would pay for it, and then collect the money back through a gas tax.

Would they collect the money used to build transit back from its users? If not, why should rural dwellers have to subsidize transit systems they will never have? You make the point that transit is for the poor, (something I dispute in any city with a decent system) will you also subsidize their food and everything else they consume because it costs more due to increased fuel taxes. City dwellers who use transit depend on roads just as much as anyone else. In fact, without roads, most couldn't survive for much more than a few weeks.

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Would they collect the money used to build transit back from its users?

From those who could afford it, yes. Right now transit is subsidized, which in a way is like a carbon tax (giving to one group is essentially the same as taking from another group...except that the people who walk, ride their bike, carpool etc. are still paying more even though they are not polluting).

If not, why should rural dwellers have to subsidize transit systems they will never have?

Rural dwellers receive enough subsidies from the government, see this thread . Of course, if rural dwellers can't afford transportation, then they could receive subsidies as well.

You make the point that transit is for the poor, (something I dispute in any city with a decent system) will you also subsidize their food and everything else they consume because it costs more due to increased fuel taxes.

Of course. Anyone who can't afford to buy food should have it subsidized. This is why we have foodbanks.

City dwellers who use transit depend on roads just as much as anyone else. In fact, without roads, most couldn't survive for much more than a few weeks.

And since buses also require fuel, transit riders would be paying for them as well. Since taking the bus takes less fuel, they will be paying less than those who drive - which makes sense because buses not only require less roads but they also give off less pollution.

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One minute you are advocating user pay for road users and in the next breath you are subsidizing the crap out of half the country. Where will all this subsidy money be coming from? You say you will be looking forward to lower income taxes because road users will be paying higher fuel taxes, so I assume you think it won't be coming from you. Your answer to taxes so high that even more of the poor can't afford to eat is more food banks. Ain't that progress. You remind me of the kids who think milk comes from grocery stores. Perhaps you should think this through.

You don't seem to get it. Your very survival depends on roads. Everything you eat and consume depends on roads. The energy you use to heat and light your city and the materials to keep its business and industry functioning depend on roads. Not just the roads to and in your city but every road to every farm, well head, refinery, mine, factory, power source, water source or anything else you use plus the roads required by people living in the communities who provide all those things. The biggest reason for Canada's recent economic boom and our dollar's returning to respectability has been demand for commodities. Commodities don't come from big cities. You make the point that everyone should pay for schooling because they themselves were educated. I happen to agree with that but you abandon the principle when it comes to other things that are just as essential to your life and standard of living. In fact many of todays children could not even get to their schools without roads. Our society cannot function without adequate roads and other forms of transportation yet you think you should only have to pay for the ones you physically use.

Suppliers will also take transportation costs into consideration when they sell their goods. For example, if a Fraser Valley farmer finds it is too expensive to ship his goods 80 to 100 KM to Vancouver because of a distorted tax base, the US border is less than 20 KM away. Not only do they have better roads but they don't tax the crap out of people to use them.

There are many rural communities which could be self sufficient but at a drastically reduced standard of living. There has never been a city that was self sufficient or wouldn't go dark and starve without the resources of the surrounding country.

Heaven help us from those who think the world will be a perfect place if we could just give the government more money or tax someone else more. If we really want to have a chance of dealing with this issue we will have to be far more creative than that.

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Can anyone explain to me the logic of a carbon tax?

Well, it's a TAX, like a GASOLINE Tax, and it is something that you pay. And then for those who can afford it, they have the funds to continue to pollute CO2 emmissions. You tax manufacturers here, so they will go overseas, continue to pollute there, and sell there consumer goods here. Usually with all that extra plastic wrapping that has become the standard of the New Green Yuppies and their Ipods, Cell Phones and other high tech, cheap, not easy to dispose of communication devices.

It is really a warm and fuzzy thing that makes us think something is being done.... but lets read the rest of your post...

If that means added revenues to the Government, you are just giving the Government a vested interest in maintaining high levels of carbon emissions and a disencentive to reduce carbon emissions.

THE HORROR, THE HORROR, it's the Liberal Tire Tax Part 2....... Why turn down the revenue indeed, especially if people think the tax is saving planet earth.

If any carbon tax isn't revenue neutral to the government, it will do more damage than good in the long term.

Actually, if the Carbon Tax is Revenue Neutral and the Rich are getting greater tax breaks elsewhere, they will be able to spend more money on CO2 Emitting devices, and emit more CO2s and be ahead in the tax scheme.

It is one reason why some Conservative Leaning Environmentalists in BC like the Carbon Tax. They are going to get big tax breaks elsewhere to not even have to worry about the Carbon Tax.

The government can never be trusted to 'do the right thing' - their track record shows they never do 'the right thing' unless it is in thier material interest to do so.

There's a mad in your name isn't there ;)

I do not trust the government particularly a Liberal Government to do the right thing, but to spin anything they do as doing everything possible while accomplishing very little. That said, the Conservatives have blown the Environment file, haven't done anything themselves, and lack credibility that they would do anything. THis is very far removed from Previous Conservative Governments. I believe that this is because Harper Represents more of an American Influence, and US Conservative Environmental Policy of the Federal Level is abysmal.

Harper could have etched his own ground, a Canadian footprint on the Environment and done something (Unlike the Liberals) instead of live in a state of denial.

Regardless, there are a number of countries with a Carbon Tax. It is a Tax. It will cost you more money and there is nothing I can find that will allow for rebates to poor people. Especially if Rich are getting tax breaks, and poor get rebates, where does this leave the environment....

Governments are lame.... People do want to see some action, physical action, yet all they can come up with is a tax.

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No we really don't. A carbon tax would be akin to throwing a monkey wrench into the economy - which in fact is the desire of the green movement, which is really an anti-capitalist facade. There is no proven link between carbon and increases in global temperature, despite the fact that billions have been spent trying to find one, so I think we should hold off on destroying our economy before we can find proof that there is a point to destroying our economy. Note even if this was the right solution, whether Canada does it or not is completely unimportant relative to global warming, since we are nothing compared to China, India and the United States, which makes the "OMG WE MIGHT ALL DIE IF WE DON'T DO THIS" argument particularly useless and the "OMG YOURE GONNA PUT EVERYONE OUT OF WORK YOU IDIOT LEFTARDS" argument particularly compelling.

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Madmax, you pay for your bread, meat and chicken. What do you pay? Well, you pay the price but you might just as well call it the "tax". What's the difference? The money comes out of your pocket.

I call bread chicken and meat food. I do not pay tax on this food. I do not call it a tax. It is not a tax.

I pay tax. Tax is money collected by the government. The Government already collects huge amounts of tax and has been reducing services. The government has lots of money, they are giving lots back to the oil companies and banks.

Why don't they keep that money, and use it to fund environmentally friendly endeavours?

Or they could fund the services they have collected the taxes for.

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Should non-drivers pay for streetlights?Common sense says that both drivers and pedestrians should pay for streetlights.

Maybe we don't need streetlights in the 21st century?

I grew up in the country without it. Got along ok. Later I lived in the city on a high traffic road. There weren't streetlights there in the 24 years of occupancy. Then the city decided to put them in for the people who wanted to use the new Bicycle trail at night.

Really is the environment the first thing on peoples minds? Or luxury.

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But if you do, you can't ignore the taxes they already pay that others don't. They have to be part of the equation.

Even if you don't drive yourself, just about everything you use gets to you over a road.

Exactly! People who do not use the roads, receive all the services and benefits of the road. People pay taxes, and then there are all sorts of extra taxes people already pay to drive. The gas taxes. License Plates etc.

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  • 1 year later...

It is not that carbon that changes the climate, the solar activity changes it, which men are not able to do anything on that yet.

Climate change driven by carbon is not based on science, it is a lie for political reason only.

The Great Global Warming Swindle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TqqWJugXzs

Errors in IPCC climate science / A Critical Examination of Climate Change

http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?page_id=11

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It is not that carbon that changes the climate, the solar activity changes it, which men are not able to do anything on that yet.

Climate change driven by carbon is not based on science, it is a lie for political reason only.

The Great Global Warming Swindle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TqqWJugXzs

Errors in IPCC climate science / A Critical Examination of Climate Change

http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?page_id=11

The science takes solar activity into account.

There's too much misinformation, and chasing down all the false blogs and youtubes is like trying to kill cockroaches one at a time. Post something that refers to a publication, not a blog from a guy who has a degree in mechanical engineering from somwhere.

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Based on the current consensus view. Competing theories argue that the consensus view understimates the solar effect and therefore it is false to claim that 'The science takes solar activity into account'.

There are some competing theories that were discussed in the literature and accounted for. There are other competing theories in the blogosphere that will necessarily remain unacknowledged.

So when I spoke of consensus here, I referred to climate science. There is no public consensus that global warming is man made.

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There are some competing theories that were discussed in the literature and accounted for. There are other competing theories in the blogosphere that will necessarily remain unacknowledged.
The competing theories in the peer reviewed literature were simply dismissed by the scientists writing the IPCC reports because they they found them inconvenient - they were not accounted for. There is a huge difference. By claiming they were 'accounted for' implies that there is some absolute test that allows one to determine whether they have merit. There is no such test - there is only opinion. Edited by Riverwind
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The competing theories in the peer reviewed literature were simply dismissed by the scientists writing the IPCC reports because they they found them inconvenient - they were not accounted for. There is a huge difference. By claiming they were 'accounted for' implies that there is some absolute test that allows one to determine whether they have merit. There is no such test - there is only opinion.

That's not true. I don't have my link here, but the paper on cosmic rays and global warming was discussed in the journals and accounted for.

"Dismissed" means that someone just rejected the hypothesis without rationale. How could that be done in a scientific journal ? Why would they publish a straight-up dismissal when it would be so obvious that that was an abrogation of their responsibilities ? Do you have an example ?

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That's not true. I don't have my link here, but the paper on cosmic rays and global warming was discussed in the journals and accounted for.

"Dismissed" means that someone just rejected the hypothesis without rationale. How could that be done in a scientific journal ? Why would they publish a straight-up dismissal when it would be so obvious that that was an abrogation of their responsibilities ? Do you have an example ?

Scientific journals publish many things but it is up to the IPCC authors to decide what is important and what is not. The authors of the IPCC reports dismissed the solar papers because, in their opinion, they were not worth considering. Obviously the people who wrote those papers disagree and they would not have written those papers if they did not believe they had a strong scientific basis. So the question becomes why is the opinion of the IPCC report authors more important than the opinion of the scientists publishing papers that show a solar effect? Before answering remember that the emails now tell us that the IPCC authors made these kinds of decisions for political rather than scientific reasons so cannot blindly assume that there was a good scientific reason.

The bottom line is it is false to say the solar effect is 'accounted for'. It is simply ignored.

Edited by Riverwind
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This doesn't address the legitimacy of either side of the argument but it DOES point to the impracticality of the entire carbon credit system:

http://news.sympatico.cbc.ca/World/ContentPosting.aspx?feedname=CBC-WORLD-V3&showbyline=True&date=true&newsitemid=eu-carbon-credit-trading-fraud

"CBC News

Fraud within Europe's carbon credit trading system has cost taxpayers more than $7 billion in the last 18 months, European police say.

Officials at Europol, the body in charge of co-ordinating police forces inside the European Union, say fraudulent activity on the EU's Emission Trading System was first suspected in late 2008 when police noticed the volume of trades in certain countries would mysteriously spike.

"It is estimated that in some countries, up to 90 per cent of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities," Europol said.

Since late 2008, the total value of fraudulent activity is believed to be in excess of five billion euros ($7.7 billion Cdn) from bogus trades in European unit allowances, or EUAs, the credits that companies in some countries buy to offset their greenhouse gas output."

Gee, who woulda' thunk it? What a surprise!

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Scientific journals publish many things but it is up to the IPCC authors to decide what is important and what is not. The authors of the IPCC reports dismissed the solar papers because, in their opinion, they were not worth considering. Obviously the people who wrote those papers disagree and they would not have written those papers if they did not believe they had a strong scientific basis. So the question becomes why is the opinion of the IPCC report authors more important than the opinion of the scientists publishing papers that show a solar effect? Before answering remember that the emails now tell us that the IPCC authors made these kinds of decisions for political rather than scientific reasons so cannot blindly assume that there was a good scientific reason.

The bottom line is it is false to say the solar effect is 'accounted for'. It is simply ignored.

I don't think the word "dismissed" is apt. Those theories were looked at, and considered. Why does the IPCC report authors more important than others ? It would seem that the answer is numbers. A 2004 search of scientific papers by geologist Naomi Oreskes showed that 700 papers out of 928 over the last ten years endorsed AGW and none of them disagreed with the consensus position. Wiki

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The competing theories in the peer reviewed literature were simply dismissed by the scientists writing the IPCC reports because they they found them inconvenient - they were not accounted for. There is a huge difference. By claiming they were 'accounted for' implies that there is some absolute test that allows one to determine whether they have merit. There is no such test - there is only opinion.

Henrik Svensmark is an example of a skeptic whose publications are taken seriously and debated in the journals.

If those papers don`t turn over the consensus, then that`s not the same as being dismissed.

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This doesn't address the legitimacy of either side of the argument but it DOES point to the impracticality of the entire carbon credit system:

http://news.sympatico.cbc.ca/World/ContentPosting.aspx?feedname=CBC-WORLD-V3&showbyline=True&date=true&newsitemid=eu-carbon-credit-trading-fraud

"CBC News

Fraud within Europe's carbon credit trading system has cost taxpayers more than $7 billion in the last 18 months, European police say.

Officials at Europol, the body in charge of co-ordinating police forces inside the European Union, say fraudulent activity on the EU's Emission Trading System was first suspected in late 2008 when police noticed the volume of trades in certain countries would mysteriously spike.

"It is estimated that in some countries, up to 90 per cent of the whole market volume was caused by fraudulent activities," Europol said.

Since late 2008, the total value of fraudulent activity is believed to be in excess of five billion euros ($7.7 billion Cdn) from bogus trades in European unit allowances, or EUAs, the credits that companies in some countries buy to offset their greenhouse gas output."

Gee, who woulda' thunk it? What a surprise!

Why? This sort of fraud and corruption is a significant component of the entire planet's economy. Without corruption to grease the wheels the economy as we know it would probably collapse.

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If those papers don`t turn over the consensus, then that`s not the same as being dismissed.
The consensus as far as our policy makers is concerned is what goes into the IPCC 'summary for policy makers'. This document was tightly controlled by a few authors and the primary objective was ensuring an unambiguous message for policy makers. What that means the IPCC lead authors dismissed any science that cast doubt on their desired message. IOW - the scientific consensus in climate science was driven by politics - not science. For that reason it is completely wrong to say that the science 'accounted for' solar effects. The solar effects are simply ignored because they are inconvenient. Edited by Riverwind
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The consensus as far as our policy makers is concerned is what goes into the IPCC 'summary for policy makers'. This document was tightly controlled by a few authors and the primary objective was ensuring an unambiguous message for policy makers. What that means the IPCC lead authors dismissed any science that cast doubt on their desired message. IOW - the scientific consensus in climate science was driven by politics - not science. For that reason it is completely wrong to say that the science 'accounted for' solar effects. The solar effects are simply ignored because they are inconvenient.

The summary for policy makers is a political document by definition. That doesn`t mean it was driven by politics. What about my point about the number of papers, the small number of objections to the current consensus and the absence of outright rejection of the current consensus ?

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The consensus as far as our policy makers is concerned is what goes into the IPCC 'summary for policy makers'. This document was tightly controlled by a few authors and the primary objective was ensuring an unambiguous message for policy makers. What that means the IPCC lead authors dismissed any science that cast doubt on their desired message. IOW - the scientific consensus in climate science was driven by politics - not science. For that reason it is completely wrong to say that the science 'accounted for' solar effects. The solar effects are simply ignored because they are inconvenient.

The solar effects were deemed insignificant, they weren't ignored.

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