Canada Federal Carbon Dioxide CO2 Tax

[bush_cheney2004]

Because America takes away their money.

Here is an example how America did that:

Does not explain lack of "Americatowns" in China...but many "Chinatowns" in America. Takes money to make money.

[eyeball]

I have made this point in every one of these climate change threads and none of the fanatics who want us to go back to horse and buggy days seems to have addressed it.

Even if we all reduce carbon emissions there is nobody - NOBODY - who can say what affect, IF ANY, that will have on warming, or when it will have an affect (many decades down the line supposedly).

It's enough to know that lots of scientists think reducing our emissions now and in the future will slow the pace at which our past emissions have already altered the climate. It seems you're hung up on anyone's inability to say anything with exact certainty. Maybe you should go bone up on Heisenberg's principle.

So they THINK that our carbon emissions are CONTRIBUTING to warming, but they don't know by how much, and if we spend trillions and trillions of dollars and destroy whole industries, we can reduce those emissions and that MIGHT have some positive effect - some day, perhaps, but we don't know how much.

Idiocy.

No, I think its just that uncertainty, however small it may be, is chafing at you like the pea did the princess.

A far better use for the money would be adaptive technologies and research into new and more efficient and less polluting energy.

It seems you're more willing to waste quadrillions and quadrillions on trying to square pi to squash a pea.

[maple_leafs182]

Does not explain lack of "Americatowns" in China...but many "Chinatowns" in America. Takes money to make money.

Na, haven't you been paying attention around the world with the bailouts, all it take is a printing press to make money.

[bush_cheney2004]

Na, haven't you been paying attention around the world with the bailouts, all it take is a printing press to make money.

Haven't you been paying attention....printing presses also make work visas, student visas, and the most valued thing of all...green cards for permanent residency in the evil US of A.

[Guest TrueMetis]

If you like to say so then invention in America can also be invented in other place according to your logic.

Well duh, but that really wasn't my point. Work on your reading comprehension.

Edited December 12, 2009 by TrueMetis

[whowhere]

I was pointing out that there was a writing medium before paper was ever invented. Making you claim that without paper knowledge would be hard to spread foolish. Had paper never been invented America, France, England, and everywere else for that matter would have gotten along fine. Papyrus was invented by the Egyptians. Parchment was used in many places and its exact orgin is hard to find. Though it was in common use in Europe in the middle ages.

The US dollar is actually printed on a cotton fabric, is it still paper?

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/math/money/bills/one/

What's the definiton of paper. Over the centuries information has been printed, written, scribed on alot of things. Anyone laying claim to inventing something to write on is as retarded as someone saying they invented the cup to hold something to drink. A cup can be made of anything, not just glass. As the concept of a cup so is the concept of paper.

[Guest TrueMetis]

The US dollar is actually printed on a cotton fabric, is it still paper?

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/math/money/bills/one/

What's the definiton of paper. Over the centuries information has been printed, written, scribed on alot of things. Anyone laying claim to inventing something to write on is as retarded as someone saying they invented the cup to hold something to drink. A cup can be made of anything, not just glass. As the concept of a cup so is the concept of paper.

Paper: a material made of cellulose pulp derived mainly from wood or rags or certain grasses. Invented by the Chinese sometime around the 2nd century. It was procceded by Parchment in 500 BC and Papyrus in 3000 BC.

Edited December 13, 2009 by TrueMetis

[Argus]

It's enough to know that lots of scientists think reducing our emissions now and in the future will slow the pace at which our past emissions have already altered the climate

No, actually it isn't. They can't say how much it will be "slowed" by, or even when, though probably not for at least forty years. And they say global warming will continue anyway, regardless of what we do. So why are we wasting time and money on this nonsense when we could be doing something to ameliorate the certain affects of global warming?

It seems you're hung up on anyone's inability to say anything with exact certainty.

They cannot say anything with ANY degree of certainty. They can't even say for a certainty that we are contributing substantially to global warming, and even if they strongly suspect we are they don't know how much, and even if we follow their prescription they can't say with ANY certainty what that will do, but they doubt it will do very much.

No, I think its just that uncertainty, however small it may be

,

A small uncertainty is "we're ninety percent sure that if we do this it will cut global warming in half."

As far as I can see their statements contain NO suggestions about what the probabilities will be of anything. If we follow their prescription they think it might slow global warming some day but they have no idea by how much. Only a fool would commit the entire world to something like that.

[Jerry J. Fortin]

We need a carbon tax as much as we need a second anal orifice.

[Argus]

We need a carbon tax as much as we need a second anal orifice.

Actually, there are a lot of gay guys in Toronto - and in the Liberal Party and NDP who probably think that second idea is a real nifty one.

[Pliny]

We need a carbon tax as much as we need a second anal orifice.

Now that would double our GHG emissions but I agree both would be useless - well, politicians will capitalize on the former...for sure.

Edited December 15, 2009 by Pliny

[Jerry J. Fortin]

The wealth transfer will be huge. Make no mistake about this people, it WILL happen. The swing has begun, started from seemingly unattached reasons and causes. The rise of China is a reality. They are no longer the sleeping giant. Coming hard on the heals of China is India. The tide is turning folks and its time to adapt. Brace for the high waters people, its flood season.

[Michael Hardner]

The wealth transfer will be huge. Make no mistake about this people, it WILL happen. The swing has begun, started from seemingly unattached reasons and causes. The rise of China is a reality. They are no longer the sleeping giant. Coming hard on the heals of China is India. The tide is turning folks and its time to adapt. Brace for the high waters people, its flood season.

What does that mean ? Does it mean that because Asia does better, we will do worse ? That seems to follow the 'lump of labour' fallacy.

Edited December 15, 2009 by Michael Hardner

[Pliny]

What does that mean ? Does it mean that because Asia does better, we will do worse ? That seems to follow the 'lump of labour' fallacy.

It means that there will be a wealth transfer. Completely unrelated to labour.

[Jerry J. Fortin]

What does that mean ? Does it mean that because Asia does better, we will do worse ? That seems to follow the 'lump of labour' fallacy.

No, it means that China went to school on capitalism. They now have an integrated system of communism and capitalism that the western world has to deal with. The fact is that China is using a hybrid system that perpetuates the use of cheap feudal like labour. There is still 20 plus million migrant laborers wandering around. Now add to that modern mechanized production of everything from food products to high end electronics. They are building power plants by the week and factories by the day. China is an emerging economic super-power the likes of which the world has never seen before. Its all about the rise of Asian markets, it has nothing to do with Europe or North America.

[Michael Hardner]

It means that there will be a wealth transfer. Completely unrelated to labour.

It seems to encompass an idea that there is a lump of wealth that we divide, and pass around, though. And that is false. When Asia thrives economically, we also thrive in many ways.

[Michael Hardner]

No, it means that China went to school on capitalism. They now have an integrated system of communism and capitalism that the western world has to deal with. The fact is that China is using a hybrid system that perpetuates the use of cheap feudal like labour. There is still 20 plus million migrant laborers wandering around. Now add to that modern mechanized production of everything from food products to high end electronics. They are building power plants by the week and factories by the day. China is an emerging economic super-power the likes of which the world has never seen before. Its all about the rise of Asian markets, it has nothing to do with Europe or North America.

Presumably, Jerry, when you said "brace for high waters" you were speaking to us here in North America.

[Oleg Bach]

A tax on exhalation whether it be machine or living creature is putting the cart before the horse. Instead of an exhaling tax (carbon tax) ...there should be an inhalation tax...an oxyen tax...a tax on breathing..It's clear that if a creature or machine does not inhale..it's impossible to exhale the waste product that is Co2.. Why wait for the shit to arrive - cut off the supply of food to the industrial and human body and the problem ceases to exist. Tax what people injest not what they shit out! People of great power and riches who have a never ending supply of food (symbolically) speaking will tend to consume that food...and will continue to excrete waste in huge amounts. I know this might sound backwards to those who embrace never ending habitualist consumerism - BUT...we are more than bacteria the excrete and consume...and those that insist on inhaling more than they need suffocating others need an education - I don't care how rich or powerful they imagine themselves to be - The time has come for resonable consideration and a positive approach to waste management and over consumption.

[Jerry J. Fortin]

Presumably, Jerry, when you said "brace for high waters" you were speaking to us here in North America.

Yes, definitely. It is the North Americans that must deal with this issue. China trade will creep westward on their continent and end up competing with India for Europe. Over here in North America we will suffer the same issues as we did with Europe a few hundred years ago, they will want our resources not our production.

China is protectionist, and its working for them and against us. There is little that we can do about it. We, the westerners drew up the rules and they have simply learned how to play the game and circumvent those rules which do not meet their needs. In short they have gone to school on us.

Having said all this, we can still adapt and take advantage of an opportunity to get involved with the largest market economy in the world, Asia. This is not news or even news worthy. Yet the current system of things over here is not geared to identify and take maximum advantage of the situation. We need new ideas and methods of commerce to tackle this with any degree of success.

[Pliny]

It seems to encompass an idea that there is a lump of wealth that we divide, and pass around, though. And that is false. When Asia thrives economically, we also thrive in many ways.

The wealth in an economy is extracted by government through taxation. Taxes remove wealth from the citizenry. Where it goes is decided by government. They can only do this because they basically own all the wealth already because of their ability to create fiat paper currency.

If Asia thrives then we have to be innovative enough to provide them with the things they need and want. If we don't then we don't thrive in any ways.

We need new ideas and methods of commerce to tackle this with any degree of success.

This is what an economy is all about.

[Michael Hardner]

The wealth in an economy is extracted by government through taxation. Taxes remove wealth from the citizenry. Where it goes is decided by government. They can only do this because they basically own all the wealth already because of their ability to create fiat paper currency.

If Asia thrives then we have to be innovative enough to provide them with the things they need and want. If we don't then we don't thrive in any ways.

This is what an economy is all about.

Who is "Asia" though ? The owners or the workers ? Is Microsoft China considered "Asia" ?

[bjre]

This is one of the reasons why I'm sick hearing about China and India being the new super powers. America is a super power not simply because of its wealth and military capability, but because of the ingenuity that created it. China and India rely on technology created elsewhere and cheap labor. They are pseudo powers not super powers.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/15/china-superpower-status-leadership-citizenship-trends.html

The second trend that shows that China is an established superpower, not just a rising one, is its emergence as a hotbed of innovation. Many analysts believe that Chinese are good at copying but not at innovating. That's just not true anymore.

The country has become the main recipient of venture capital money in clean technology. The government is trying to address soaring health care costs by reducing pollution and is actively encouraging foreign investment to do so, as I wrote in "China Is Pulling Ahead On The Environment." It is spending $9 billion a month on clean energy research, and within five years it will become the world's largest producer of solar and wind energy. Most rural homes already heat water using solar panels on their roofs, and China is now exporting its wind power technology to the U.S. Its technology is being used to build a 36,000-acre wind farm in Texas.

At the same time, Chinese in the U.S. have been increasingly moving back to China, driven by the bad economy and visa hassles that arose from Bush administration policies. More than 1.5 million Chinese have studied abroad. Those who went to the U.S. in the 1980s and mid-1990s tended to stay, and they helped drive Silicon Valley's growth. Now most are moving back to China, and many are taking their companies public on NASDAQ. Robin Li, the founder of Baidu, and James Jianzhang Liang and Neil Shen, the co-founders of Ctrip, which is listed on NASDAQ, all studied abroad before returning to China.

[Jerry J. Fortin]

The impact of allowing a cap and trade or flat carbon tax on developed nations while not applying the same tax on developing nations will have a permanent and detrimental impact on western production. Investment capital will dry up over here.

[whowhere]

The wealth in an economy is extracted by government through taxation. Taxes remove wealth from the citizenry. Where it goes is decided by government. They can only do this because they basically own all the wealth already because of their ability to create fiat paper currency.

If Asia thrives then we have to be innovative enough to provide them with the things they need and want. If we don't then we don't thrive in any ways.

This is what an economy is all about.

What you are saying is quite accurate but your preaching to the demented. They are not about a prosperous Canada, they are on their own agendas, twisting the posts and threads to that ends. Beware of the mosquitoes.

[whowhere]

The impact of allowing a cap and trade or flat carbon tax on developed nations while not applying the same tax on developing nations will have a permanent and detrimental impact on western production. Investment capital will dry up over here.

A countries right to pollute should be based on Land Mass.

According this site There are 239 countries in the world and the worlds land mass is

510,072,000. Pollution has to take into account the Countries Land mass.

http://www.mongabay.com/igapo/world_statistics_by_area.htm

1 Russia Moscow 140,702,000 Jul-08 144,978,573 2002 -2.95% 17075200 8.2

2 Canada Ottawa 33,213,000 Jul-08 31,902,268 2002 4.11% 9976140 3.3

3 United States of America Washington DC 303,825,000 Jul-08 280,562,489 2002 8.29% 9629091 31.6

4 China Beijing 1,330,045,000 Jul-08 1,284,303,705 2002 3.56% 9596960 138.6

5 Brazil Brasilia 191,909,000 Jul-08 176,029,560 2002 9.02% 8511965 22.5

6 Australia Canberra 20,601,000 Jul-08 19,546,792 2002 5.39% 7686850 2.7

7 India New Delhi 1,147,996,000 Jul-08 1,045,845,226 2002 9.77% 3287590 349.2