It's Easy Being Green
I'm delighted to see the environment as Priority Number 2 in Canadian public opinion. Follow me, brothers and sisters! You have only your smog-related health concerns and catastrophic climate change to lose!
Thanks to Springer for this link on guesses as to the government's promised-for-autumn enviro legislation.
Am I nuts, or... isn't the "liberal" side supposed to be greener? Thirteen years of concern over climate change under Liberal rule, and - nothing. Get this - I just found out that our last big sweeping enviro legislation came from the last Conservative government. Crazy re: expectations, but hey, whoever can get it done best is my pony to back. Probably.
Thanks to Springer for this link on guesses as to the government's promised-for-autumn enviro legislation.
Am I nuts, or... isn't the "liberal" side supposed to be greener? Thirteen years of concern over climate change under Liberal rule, and - nothing. Get this - I just found out that our last big sweeping enviro legislation came from the last Conservative government. Crazy re: expectations, but hey, whoever can get it done best is my pony to back. Probably.
posted by Jacques Beau Vert at 9:08 PM
7 Comments:
The Liberals have talked big on the environment, but done very little. The Conservatives seem to get more done.
My problem with both of their approaches, is that they really just maintain the status quo. The tarted up press release that you point to underlines that fact: the Tories are considering more parks, and tightening of a few regulations, but no action on fossil fuel reduction, and no action on creating an economic system the discourages asocial activities (pollution, creating waste, using public resources without paying for them, paying workers poorly, marketing physically addictive products, etc).
One of the reasons that I support the Green Party is that they actually consider doing things differently. That party introduced me to the idea of tax shifting, which essentially means removing taxes on "good" things (such as employment), and adding taxes to "bad" things (such as pollution, and other irresponsible behaviour). So, for example, a Green government would lower taxes on income, while raising taxes on carbon use.
"Am I nuts, or... isn't the "liberal" side supposed to be greener? "
Yep you're nuts. In Alberta, the Liberal Party wants to LOWER gas taxes, not raise them.
I would agree with "e". Permanent environmental change involves modifying the economy by tax credits and tax shifting. If you realistically look at environmental change, it is occurring more quickly in the U.S. than in Canada.
"Gas taxes have nothing do to with pollution."
The U.S. Department of Energy differs with that view...thankfully.
"According to the U.S. Department
of Energy, a 50-cent gas tax increase could eventually reduce gasoline consumption by 10 to 15 percent, reduce oil imports by perhaps 500,000 barrels per day, and generate about $40 billion per year in revenue. Furthermore, this approach would be far more effective than ongoing proposals to increase the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards,which affect only new cars (not trucks or other vehicles) and lead to serious safety problems by encouraging automakers to produce lighter vehicles."
Whoa - I invented "tax shifting"! I had no idea that anyone besides me talked about such a thing!
Well, I think it's a good idea, I've long said we could drop income tax and replace revenue with "user fees", so to speak, on gas and hydro and such. (But to be complicated, nuclear powered electricity should cost much less than coal-generated electricity)
I think we need to move off of oil/gas if for no other reason than stopping sending money to crazy dictatorships... nuclear-plant-powered electric cars would be a great side benefit, too!
Cherniak, don't pretend I proved your point. Hold onto your horses, the key word in the article was "eventually". Calgary is already talking about fast tracking LRT plans due to higher demand caused by the high fuel prices. Calgary's LRT system is almost full to capacity. If prices remain high, we certainly will be choosing more fuel efficient vehicles.
"Without a money saving alternative, you will not see a shift in usage. "
That's what the tax shifting is about. It makes polluting options more expensive.
"Gas consumption is not an elastic good - You could tax it up to 100$/l and I still have to get to work."
You know that if gasoline was $100/L, almost noone would drive to work. Everyone would telecommute and our society would be entirely different. If I'm spending tens of thousands of dollars on gasoline, I'll move so that I could walk to work if I had to.
I love your website. It has a lot of great pictures and is very informative.
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Greets to the webmaster of this wonderful site. Keep working. Thank you.
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