But opposing the federal carbon tax is also a relatively easy thing to do — particularly when you’re not responsible for explaining how Canada will do its part to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
Important actions at the provincial level in years past — British Columbia’s adoption of a carbon tax in 2008, Quebec’s move to a cap-and-trade system in 2013, the phaseout of coal-fired electricity generation in Ontario and Alberta — have helped to stabilize emissions in Canada.
But because climate policy is viewed largely as a federal issue in Canada, provincial politicians can point in Ottawa’s direction whenever they want to assign blame or responsibility elsewhere.
But Poilievre has returned the party to its previous position of simply opposing the federal carbon tax — while also rejecting the government’s clean fuel regulations.
The Conservative leader has said simply that he would subsidize clean energy and emissions-reducing technology, while making it easier for such projects to get regulatory approval.
The only thing really standing in the way of a fuller debate on climate policy in Canada is political convenience — opposition parties like to withhold their own proposals until an election has been called.
The original article contains 1,015 words, the summary contains 189 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Yes, fine the shit out of them with penalties that will actually impact or potentially even destroy corporations who choose to continue destroying our planet instead of these tiny bullshit slap on the wrist fines that companies just laugh off
If a company exists at the expense of humanity’s survival then it does not deserve to exist.
The difficult part is it’s tough to actually measure pollution emitted by an entity accurately and fine accordingly.
You can guess how much CO2 output there is from a refinery, sure, and fine them for it, but they will just raise the prices of end products to compensate for it.
In the end gas goes up the same amount but the less affluent people dependant on it won’t get rebates. They’re money just goes to the corporations anyways in order to pay for the fines.
but they will just raise the prices of end products to compensate for it.
Not if you slap that bullshit down with regulations: Prevent them from pulling that kind of shit and when they find a way around it (because they will) you put a stop to that shit too.
Yeah I can see the argument that implementing the regulatory framework necessary to monitor emissions would be more in our long term interests (and possibly cheaper in the long run) and better than hoping a broad tax will cause bad actors to act better.
how much CO2 output there is from a refinery, sure, and fine them for it, but they will just raise the prices of end products to compensate for it.
If their polluting activities ultimately lead to fewer people buying their products because of that increased cost, maybe that’s the financial incentive they need to clean up their act?
Though I don’t hold my breath that big corporations are willing (or able) to think beyond next month’s profit and instead look a year or 5 into the future sustainability of their enterprise (let alone their negative impacts on the society that they exist in)
That’s why we elected officials, to come up with ideas. Taxing food is not an idea, it’s a cheap shot at the working class. Tax from the top down, beginning with luxury goods, private planes, expensive non essentials. But for fucks sake stop taxing food!!
Yes. 8 out of 10, according to Trudeau. It might be more like 7.
The only mistake they made was not sending out the rebates on paper checks inside a pretty envelope covered in windmills. They would have called it “self-promotion” and “an unnecessary expense”, and they would have been right, but apparently we’re not good enough to be treated as intelligent adults who can see our own finances.
That’s why we elected officials[:] to come up with ideas.
Nope. We elect officials to manage our shared resources in the way we say. We could get them to consult experts and do what they say, but half the time it’s a climate-denying bunch of politicians masquerading under an affordability lie mask, and they don’t consult for advice they would ignore anyway.
When we did consult experts, the best idea from economists and climate types with a chance of success was … (drum roll) … Carbon Tax.
Taxing food is not an idea[:] it’s a cheap shot at the working class.
So that’s what the “tax nothing and provide nothing” party wants you to believe. Their rich friends get hit a lot with taxes and it’s getting hard to avoid them.
Remember that taxing the transport method doesn’t tax the cargo except indirectly. The goal is to provide massive opportunities for a better transport option to grow because conveyance isn’t firmly linked to cargo: there’s options. Evolution takes time, and we’re starting Very Late, but the proceeds from the tax is a fast-forward button.
If your politicians are demonizing the carbon tax, despite non-rich people getting far more back on average, find out why they’re doing that. There’s a rich guy behind it.
Tax from the top down, beginning with luxury goods, private planes, expensive non essentials.
Good ideas, all of them. Add in higher taxes for second homes, any rental income, or just make it any income above 300k/year or some number to firmly hit the rich bitches and not the 99.999% rest of us.
You sound like one of those people that believes in trickle down economics and thinks that taxing a company won’t cause them to pass the cost to consumers.
If company A uses gas, they have to pay a little more carbon tax, and that extra costs end up in the final product.
But lucky for you! Company B also exists, they crunched the numbers and found that over the life of their vehicle it is actually cheaper to use EVs, in their case their end product is a little cheaper than what Company A could provide.
Then you go to the store and you see option A and B, you see B is cheaper and you buy it.
The carbon pricing model has now worked exactly as economists have been saying for decades.
That’s not what they said at all. That’s not even an uncharitable read of it. Indignant, impotent anger does in no way change the fact that costs are a deterrant, even to those who can pass the costs along, and that making certain business choices more expensive than others disincentivises those choices.
The simple fact is, we pay for the sins of those who come before us. We pay for the sins of those who voted for lax governance of business, reduction of environmental protections, the breakdown of antitrust protections, and the weakening of labour laws.
Yes there’s been a much better idea for a long time now that lots of smart people are pushing for. Don’t tax the co2 emitted when it’s burned. Tax is when it comes out of the ground. Put the price there and let it trickle down the supply lines.
Problem is, if we put a tax that represents the damage to our planet caused by CO2 on the carbon that comes out of the ground, all coal mining and oil extraction would cease nearly overnight, since it would no longer be profitable. Which says a lot.
The problem with that is that Canada has international competitors that don’t have an extra tax, and our oil is already expensive. Otherwise, I actually think this would work out about the same way. I suppose you could add tariffs to try and simulate it on American shale oil or whatever, but that would piss off trading partners and still be pretty complicated.
It’s means that Canada should just stop trading oil. Everyone should. Like I said in my comment, everyone who puts the price of the damage into the carbon as it comes out will stop pulling it out immediately because it’s no longer profitable. Everyone extracting carbon is externalizing the cost against our future.
Well, you might be in your remote off-grid cabin, and willing to disconnect from the gas-powered internet backbone and grow your own food organically tomorrow, but imma level with you, I’m not. I’m going to keep burning gas until I have an alternative that I can at least survive. That means I need more of a plan than “just stop”.
Literally almost all people in Canada aren’t in an off-grid cabin. If you seriously are, I commend you. Sending these messages might be your only carbon footprint today.
I personally could not afford a cabin or land, and I doubt I’m medically fit to be a sustenance farmer. I do activism, mostly, since that seems to be the main way for me to help. If I save up enough to put up panels I will.
Regulate. You know, we have done so for decades. Remember leaded gasoline? No credits involved. New rules instituted, companies adjust, victory.
It’s so disingenuous to ask the question, when environmental problems and solutions predate the carbon tax idea by decades, or even centuries, depending how you define things.
That’s easy to just say, but what would the regulation be? No more fossil fuels starting tomorrow? Civilisation grinds to a halt, or more likely people just ignore the law. Corporations have to be responsible? They interpret “responsible” as a $5 donation quarterly to panda conservation. You could go through every technology that uses fossil fuels and tighten up efficiencies, but that’s slow to start with, and then it turns out it causes a big problem in some niche application. Think about plastic straws and disabled people. It’s far better just to add a tax and let it work out in the wash.
We can test your argument by asking what has been done historically, and we can successfully point to dozens of examples of environmental regulation that didn’t involve a tax. There can’t be any serious debate about the fact that we’ve done this in the past, and it worked in the past.
You could be right, maybe adding a tax is more effective on average, but I’m apprehensive. When you make the system complex and allow people to trade their credits, you’ve just created a system that’s designed to be abused, and of course it will be.
Actually, I would debate that we’ve done this sort of thing in the past. We phased out CFCs pretty fast, but that was just one sort of chemical with comparable alternatives available for it’s reasonably narrow uses. Some of the alternatives did turn out to be problematic as well, IIRC, and then had to be phased out or restricted in turn.
The equivalent policy would be saying oil will be banned by 2035, figure it out investors. That’s actually less interventionist than a carbon tax, and really seems like it would be ignored until 2033, when everyone goes “oops, extension please”.
When you make the system complex and allow people to trade their credits, you’ve just created a system that’s designed to be abused, and of course it will be.
I mean, a complex, opaque system that works anyway do to clever structure is kind of the principle of our whole civilisation.
CFCs are a good reminder that we can successfully ban dangerous things, if we carefully follow up to see what the workarounds are, and if they are harmful, too.
Or consider a simple car example. SUVs and trucks in the US have led to a massive increase in deaths. And they pollute heavily. And they fill up roads making traffic worse. And there’s less room for parking. Why not simply ban trucks over a certain size or weight for personal use? Obviously people are driving vehicles far larger than they need, and it’s killing others. So ban new sales starting in five years. Why not? The manufacturers know what they’re doing is unethical, and they don’t care, so nobody would feel bad for them.
I don’t understand what you mean about opaqueness being the principle of our civilization. Democratic government has the express opposite goal.
I don’t understand what you mean about opaqueness being the principle of our civilization. Democratic government has the express opposite goal.
Oh yeah? Without looking it up, what was the name or number of the last motion parliament passed? I’m not sure, and I pay more attention than most.
I know, you said goal, but then why bother with a rigid constitution and giant complex legal system? A lot of vague goals were mentioned on the way, and implemented in sometimes weird ways (peine forte et dure, looking at you), but in 2024 checks and balances are the clear winning design concept. Our system is a system, it’s not dependent on the actions or intentions of any one person. It’s complex as a result, and therefore opaque to anyone who’s not near-omniscient. Ditto for markets.
Why not simply ban trucks over a certain size or weight for personal use?
Well, what about remote areas? I guarantee there’s at least one dude on a farm that can’t be accessed without a bit of ground clearance. That was the original use-case of SUVs. Funny enough, they became popular generally because of US regulations introduced around 2000 or so, which made small vehicles more expensive to produce, and prompted companies to hard-sell larger models.
How do you define personal, too? I know plenty of people who have a truck that they use for work, but also personally. I don’t know how they’ve structured the ownership of their vehicle, or how you would distinguish between “my tax shelter owns it” and an actual business. You’d have to figure that out, and then enforce it, administrate it, and build in carveouts for whatever exceptions that turns up.
This derisively gets called the “why don’t you just” school of public policy. There’s a reason actual regulations tend to be many, many pages long, and usually still have tons of gaps.
It sounds like you’re suggesting that because our system of government is complex, increasing the complexity even more is generally a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If that’s what you mean, I disagree with you.
It also sounds like you’re repeating basic facts about crafting legislation that we all know. I’m not a lawmaker and I’m not trying to write a law here in the comment section, so I don’t particularly care to prepare a several page document. Certainly one could do so if one were so inclined…
Not everybody knows that. If you do, cool, good to know, and I’m surprised you’re still so certain anyone could write this thing successfully.
On complexity, that we got off on a bit of a tangent, but I guess what I’m saying is that it’s unavoidable. You said… just a moment, I need to look back and repost because I’m forgetting…
When you make the system complex and allow people to trade their credits, you’ve just created a system that’s designed to be abused, and of course it will be.
Right. There’s not more complexity to a carbon tax. In fact, the point of it is that it’s really simple for legislators to implement, for industry to follow and adapt around, and we still have a strong theory that says it should work to reduce emissions, regardless of any (legal) attempts at “abuse”. The way it actually works itself out will be complex, but that’s because our technology and supply chains are intrinsically complex.
The carbon tax, along or instead of cap-and-trade, was the conservative alternative to straight-up regulation. “We need a market based approach!” they said, “We need something that’s responsive!” they said, “We need something that’s cost-neutral!” they said. Regulation was too hard, too strict, too ornerous, too old-school for our modern, fast-moving, market-based world.
“Trust us!” the capitalists said.
And now it’s too hard because even a weaksauce carbon tax is too much for their precious profit margins. There’s money that someone else is making that is rightfully theirs! It was their idea and now they can’t even.
So you know what? You don’t like the carbon tax? The we go back to good old-fashioned, ball-busting regulation. Because it fucking works.
So, echoing my response to the other guy saying this, how well did that work for plastics? Everyone knows paper straws are worse and unnecessary, and it just makes them want to go back to the old way, microplastics be damned. It’s easy to say “regulate”, but when it’s as complex a problem as the energy source for our whole technological civilisation there’s not a clear way to actually write such a legislation.
The issue with the carbon tax isn’t that it doesn’t work, it’s that it’s unpopular.
Okay, sure. So my favored policy on that is EPR. You could still get straws made out of uber-indestructible wonder materials, but you’d have to pay for the cost of disposing of it permanently somehow, as well as just the manufacturing cost. As a result, we probably would still see less disposable plastics in stores, because they don’t like burning money, but you could still get them for a bit extra if you have a specific need, like a quadriplegic that needs one that can bend.
Stop emissions. There’s a lot of negative effects to society for doing that, but that’s the only real answer at this point. It also isn’t going to avoid decades of worsening conditions, but there isn’t a solution for that. All we can really do is stop continuing the damage we’re still doing, even after decades of knowing we were doing it.
Geoengineering will have its own issues that may make things worse in the long run, but the worst effect will be it leveraged as a reason to continue business as usual. That’s why I simply said we have to stop emissions. If we can’t do that, then there’s only one direction we can go (and are going, faster each year).
But as you said, stopping emissions won’t avoid decades of worsening conditions. I think actually stopping those decades of worsening conditions is more important than a hypothetical “moral hazard” concern.
Frankly, this argument always bothered me. When someone is sick you try to treat both the underlying cause and the symptoms. It would be morally bankrupt and downright ridiculous to say “let the patient suffer, it’s the only way he’ll learn.” Especially if the symptoms themselves could be fatal. And especially when the people suffering aren’t the ones who actually “need to learn.” When millions of people are starving to death in third-world nations or drowning when their overloaded refugee ships are turned away from wealthy ports, will you look them in the eye and tell them it’s necessary because otherwise oil company executives might not be as motivated to reduce emissions?
Using your metaphor the thing you’re proposing to “treat the symptoms” has side effects which worsen the disease thus causing more real damage and worsening symptoms.
The only reason you would willingly pursue that course of treatment is if a treatment for the initial disease was ongoing (in this metaphor it’s not, ghg emissions continue to increase dramatically) or if a patient was on palliative/EoLC.
You aren’t saving “millions of people from starving to death”, you’re gambling that it will hold a bit longer before tens-hundreds of millions of people starve to death, and the evidence that these “treat the symptoms” is minimal at best thus leading to both outcomes (millions soon, more later).
Using your metaphor the thing you’re proposing to “treat the symptoms” has side effects which worsen the disease thus causing more real damage and worsening symptoms.
What side effects, specifically? Some approaches to geoengineering may have negative side effects, but others don’t appear to. There’s no guarantee that an approach without side effects won’t be found.
You aren’t saving “millions of people from starving to death”
Yes, you are. Climate change would cause famine, ameliorating the effects of climate change would prevent that famine.
This whole comment is exactly the kind of argument that I’m objecting to. You’ve got some sort of a priori conviction that “no, geoengineering must make the situation work somehow” and therefore it’s not worth studying. If it’s not studied how can you possibly know?
It’s worth pointing out that the IPCC no longer uses the term “geoengineering” or “climate engineering” for the exact reason that we may be talking past each other here. They are problematicly vague and can describe things with very different characteristics. Are you talking about CDR, CCS, CCU, SRM, other vague “offset the impacts of climate change” (IE ocean liming/fertilization, glacier stabilization, etc.), or all of the above?
Some approaches to geoengineering may have negative side effects, but others don’t appear to.
Be specific. Which ones?
You have misread my previous comment.
Climate change would cause famine, ameliorating the effects of climate change would prevent that famine.You have misread
This statement is correct, but you are bringing it up against the point being made about how taking a “treating the symptoms” of climate change might improve things a bit in the short term, but leads to worse long term outcomes.
Nowhere did I say it’s not worth studying.
You’ve got some sort of a priori conviction that “no, geoengineering must make the situation worse somehow” and therefore it’s not worth studying. If it’s not studied how can you possibly know?
I have stated that the current status of said studies do not have sufficient evidence to merit the claims you are making. If you think otherwise please provide some evidence/papers/links etc. otherwise we’re in a Russell’s teapot situation here.
Unless your definition of “studying” is the argument that because the situation is bad enough it’s worth trying, at scale, whatever approach in the hope it improves things somewhat… Because that’s the argument that many use in order to sell dangerous and unethical grifts which seem promising and ‘harmless’. (I’m linking that article specifically because it’s “neutral journalism” at it’s worst and I’m curious at what you take away from it…)
No. You are the one who said “Using your metaphor the thing you’re proposing to “treat the symptoms” has side effects which worsen the disease thus causing more real damage and worsening symptoms.”
I then asked you to be specific. You tell me which ones have side effects that “worsen the disease.” You don’t get to Uno-reverse at me until you answer the question first.
The carbon pricing plan from the federal level applies to every province. Each province has the option to create whatever program they wish to put a price on carbon, if they don’t WANT to create their own program they can choose to use the default carbon rebate program managed by the federal government.
Any province using the carbon rebate program is doing so by choice. And if you don’t like it you should be talking to your provincial politicians and encouraging them to setup whatever system you prefer.
You can’t blame the federal government because your conservative provincial government is unable to actually solve any of it’s own problems (but that seems to be the conservative strategy these days)
Do you have anything to actually prove any of that is lies?
I’ve given you substantial evidence that what you’re saying isn’t true. And you’re just responding with “lies” as if that somehow invalidates the factual evidence I’ve given you.
You need to either read this new information, learn something new and admit that what you were saying before isn’t true. Or you need to provide proof that what you’re saying is backed up by reputable sources.
So, “no” then? Your answer is “no”. Being a cranky fuckwad in your non-answer doesn’t make it noy a non-answer.
What is your better idea for combating climate change? Because, from what I’ve seen, critics of the carbon tax are acting in bad faith even if they believe it’s ineffectual, because they all choose to ignore the associated rebate, while also refusing to address climate change in any way.
my answer was clearly yes. The Liberals don’t even believe in this plan, it only applies in 3 or 4 provinces. As for a plan, mine is not raping people for tax money in a country that isn’t the fucking problem anyways.
Every province have a carbon pricing model, how did you miss that?
Provinces had the option to build their own system, or use one provided by the feds.
Judging from your other comments you have some very large fundamental misunderstandings of how the system works. I think you need to take a good hard look at where you’ve been getting your information, someone is lying to you and you’re falling for it.
There are also links at the bottom of the page to more details.
If you don’t trust it because it’s a Canada.ca address, then I think your best bet is to go read the actual bill, I’m not going to find that for you, but you’re going to have to but in some effort, you’ve been mislead (which is fine it happens) but then you’ve decided to start spreading that same misinformation, that isn’t ok. It isn’t that hard to be an informed citizen today, but a big part of that is not trusting everything you hear on the news.
Yes yes, i’ve been mislead, surely, it can’t be that i actually pay the tax and a bunch of people who rent or whatever keep saying “nuh uh”. Entire provinces are pissed for no reason at all.
Yes there is a carbon pricing program, that was never up for debate. I pay it too (and get more back than I pay in).
And yes portions of provinces have been mislead because they seem to have no ability to actually validate what they hear on the news. You’re a perfect example of that. You’re clearly really angry, but the things you’re angry about aren’t actually true.
I’m assuming you’ve heard things said by the media, or conservative polititions and you just accepted it as fact and it made you angry. Which was their plan. The whole conservative strategy these days is to mislead their base, create division and make people angry. They don’t have any substantial solutions for anything, but that’s also ok because their base have been trained to not question anything they hear.
I highly highly encourage you question everything you hear in the media. Official sources (like canada.ca) are trustworthy, but you can also go even deeper and find actual bills. You can work yourself out of the hole you’re in, it’ll just take time, and you’ll have to put in effort. I the current conservative controlled media landscape it takes constant effort to get real facts about things.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !canada@lemmy.ca
'We suggest: not paying"
This is the best summary I could come up with:
But opposing the federal carbon tax is also a relatively easy thing to do — particularly when you’re not responsible for explaining how Canada will do its part to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
Important actions at the provincial level in years past — British Columbia’s adoption of a carbon tax in 2008, Quebec’s move to a cap-and-trade system in 2013, the phaseout of coal-fired electricity generation in Ontario and Alberta — have helped to stabilize emissions in Canada.
But because climate policy is viewed largely as a federal issue in Canada, provincial politicians can point in Ottawa’s direction whenever they want to assign blame or responsibility elsewhere.
But Poilievre has returned the party to its previous position of simply opposing the federal carbon tax — while also rejecting the government’s clean fuel regulations.
The Conservative leader has said simply that he would subsidize clean energy and emissions-reducing technology, while making it easier for such projects to get regulatory approval.
The only thing really standing in the way of a fuller debate on climate policy in Canada is political convenience — opposition parties like to withhold their own proposals until an election has been called.
The original article contains 1,015 words, the summary contains 189 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Yes, fine the shit out of them with penalties that will actually impact or potentially even destroy corporations who choose to continue destroying our planet instead of these tiny bullshit slap on the wrist fines that companies just laugh off
If a company exists at the expense of humanity’s survival then it does not deserve to exist.
Seems that this idea can be done at the same time as we apply the economic bottom-up push.
The difficult part is it’s tough to actually measure pollution emitted by an entity accurately and fine accordingly.
You can guess how much CO2 output there is from a refinery, sure, and fine them for it, but they will just raise the prices of end products to compensate for it.
In the end gas goes up the same amount but the less affluent people dependant on it won’t get rebates. They’re money just goes to the corporations anyways in order to pay for the fines.
Not if you slap that bullshit down with regulations: Prevent them from pulling that kind of shit and when they find a way around it (because they will) you put a stop to that shit too.
Yeah I can see the argument that implementing the regulatory framework necessary to monitor emissions would be more in our long term interests (and possibly cheaper in the long run) and better than hoping a broad tax will cause bad actors to act better.
It needs to be comprehensive or it won’t work but there are too many rich assholes controlling greedy politicians
If their polluting activities ultimately lead to fewer people buying their products because of that increased cost, maybe that’s the financial incentive they need to clean up their act?
Though I don’t hold my breath that big corporations are willing (or able) to think beyond next month’s profit and instead look a year or 5 into the future sustainability of their enterprise (let alone their negative impacts on the society that they exist in)
Which ones are the good oil companies? Or do you think we don’t need any oil companies?
It feels like this suggestion relies on there only being a few people that are contributing to the problem, when in reality it’s pretty structural.
Reverse tax or massive credits for electric conversions.
They called it a rebate. It was thousands per car.
That’s why we elected officials, to come up with ideas. Taxing food is not an idea, it’s a cheap shot at the working class. Tax from the top down, beginning with luxury goods, private planes, expensive non essentials. But for fucks sake stop taxing food!!
Don’t most Canadians receive a bigger rebate for the carbon tax than the tax ends up costing them?
Yes, but the government hasn’t made that clear in short enough words for the average Conservative voter to understand.
Found another dummy never paid it.
deleted by creator
The last time Trudeau had a chance to clarify this at the house, he instead made a childish “I know you are but what am I” joke about it.
Yes. 8 out of 10, according to Trudeau. It might be more like 7.
The only mistake they made was not sending out the rebates on paper checks inside a pretty envelope covered in windmills. They would have called it “self-promotion” and “an unnecessary expense”, and they would have been right, but apparently we’re not good enough to be treated as intelligent adults who can see our own finances.
Yes, because most Canadians don’t pay it.
If you’re taxing my food supply at every step on its way to me, you were indeed taxing me
The ignorance required to make that statement is fucking shocking.
Calling people ignorant without educating them is why people end up despising liberals. Bunch of elitist, racist fucks
And before you assume like moron, I’m not a conservative. Cause I know you fucks say that to anyone who dares criticize prince Justin
Nope. We elect officials to manage our shared resources in the way we say. We could get them to consult experts and do what they say, but half the time it’s a climate-denying bunch of politicians masquerading under an affordability lie mask, and they don’t consult for advice they would ignore anyway.
When we did consult experts, the best idea from economists and climate types with a chance of success was … (drum roll) … Carbon Tax.
So that’s what the “tax nothing and provide nothing” party wants you to believe. Their rich friends get hit a lot with taxes and it’s getting hard to avoid them.
Remember that taxing the transport method doesn’t tax the cargo except indirectly. The goal is to provide massive opportunities for a better transport option to grow because conveyance isn’t firmly linked to cargo: there’s options. Evolution takes time, and we’re starting Very Late, but the proceeds from the tax is a fast-forward button.
If your politicians are demonizing the carbon tax, despite non-rich people getting far more back on average, find out why they’re doing that. There’s a rich guy behind it.
Good ideas, all of them. Add in higher taxes for second homes, any rental income, or just make it any income above 300k/year or some number to firmly hit the rich bitches and not the 99.999% rest of us.
Stop eating gasoline.
You sound like one of those people that believes in trickle down economics and thinks that taxing a company won’t cause them to pass the cost to consumers.
You’re so close. So very close.
If company A uses gas, they have to pay a little more carbon tax, and that extra costs end up in the final product.
But lucky for you! Company B also exists, they crunched the numbers and found that over the life of their vehicle it is actually cheaper to use EVs, in their case their end product is a little cheaper than what Company A could provide.
Then you go to the store and you see option A and B, you see B is cheaper and you buy it.
The carbon pricing model has now worked exactly as economists have been saying for decades.
That’s not what they said at all. That’s not even an uncharitable read of it. Indignant, impotent anger does in no way change the fact that costs are a deterrant, even to those who can pass the costs along, and that making certain business choices more expensive than others disincentivises those choices.
The simple fact is, we pay for the sins of those who come before us. We pay for the sins of those who voted for lax governance of business, reduction of environmental protections, the breakdown of antitrust protections, and the weakening of labour laws.
We pay figuratively, and we pay literally.
Yes there’s been a much better idea for a long time now that lots of smart people are pushing for. Don’t tax the co2 emitted when it’s burned. Tax is when it comes out of the ground. Put the price there and let it trickle down the supply lines.
Problem is, if we put a tax that represents the damage to our planet caused by CO2 on the carbon that comes out of the ground, all coal mining and oil extraction would cease nearly overnight, since it would no longer be profitable. Which says a lot.
About time that trickle started trickle upwards
I like this, I’ve never had anyone come out with an actual suggestion that is better than what’s on the table. This could work.
It’s usually just the opposition whining for political points with no plan, and that I can not stand.
It’s not the ideas, we have the solutions, it’s getting everyone aboard.
The problem with that is that Canada has international competitors that don’t have an extra tax, and our oil is already expensive. Otherwise, I actually think this would work out about the same way. I suppose you could add tariffs to try and simulate it on American shale oil or whatever, but that would piss off trading partners and still be pretty complicated.
That’s not a problem. It’s a capitalist inconvenience.
Cool, I guess. Like, not trying to be rude, and I’d respond more fully, but I’m not sure that phrase means anything.
It’s means that Canada should just stop trading oil. Everyone should. Like I said in my comment, everyone who puts the price of the damage into the carbon as it comes out will stop pulling it out immediately because it’s no longer profitable. Everyone extracting carbon is externalizing the cost against our future.
Well, you might be in your remote off-grid cabin, and willing to disconnect from the gas-powered internet backbone and grow your own food organically tomorrow, but imma level with you, I’m not. I’m going to keep burning gas until I have an alternative that I can at least survive. That means I need more of a plan than “just stop”.
That’s the problem. People like you. Folks survived just be fine before we had coal and oil.
Literally almost all people in Canada aren’t in an off-grid cabin. If you seriously are, I commend you. Sending these messages might be your only carbon footprint today.
I personally could not afford a cabin or land, and I doubt I’m medically fit to be a sustenance farmer. I do activism, mostly, since that seems to be the main way for me to help. If I save up enough to put up panels I will.
Regulate. You know, we have done so for decades. Remember leaded gasoline? No credits involved. New rules instituted, companies adjust, victory.
It’s so disingenuous to ask the question, when environmental problems and solutions predate the carbon tax idea by decades, or even centuries, depending how you define things.
That’s easy to just say, but what would the regulation be? No more fossil fuels starting tomorrow? Civilisation grinds to a halt, or more likely people just ignore the law. Corporations have to be responsible? They interpret “responsible” as a $5 donation quarterly to panda conservation. You could go through every technology that uses fossil fuels and tighten up efficiencies, but that’s slow to start with, and then it turns out it causes a big problem in some niche application. Think about plastic straws and disabled people. It’s far better just to add a tax and let it work out in the wash.
We can test your argument by asking what has been done historically, and we can successfully point to dozens of examples of environmental regulation that didn’t involve a tax. There can’t be any serious debate about the fact that we’ve done this in the past, and it worked in the past.
You could be right, maybe adding a tax is more effective on average, but I’m apprehensive. When you make the system complex and allow people to trade their credits, you’ve just created a system that’s designed to be abused, and of course it will be.
Actually, I would debate that we’ve done this sort of thing in the past. We phased out CFCs pretty fast, but that was just one sort of chemical with comparable alternatives available for it’s reasonably narrow uses. Some of the alternatives did turn out to be problematic as well, IIRC, and then had to be phased out or restricted in turn.
The equivalent policy would be saying oil will be banned by 2035, figure it out investors. That’s actually less interventionist than a carbon tax, and really seems like it would be ignored until 2033, when everyone goes “oops, extension please”.
I mean, a complex, opaque system that works anyway do to clever structure is kind of the principle of our whole civilisation.
CFCs are a good reminder that we can successfully ban dangerous things, if we carefully follow up to see what the workarounds are, and if they are harmful, too.
Or consider a simple car example. SUVs and trucks in the US have led to a massive increase in deaths. And they pollute heavily. And they fill up roads making traffic worse. And there’s less room for parking. Why not simply ban trucks over a certain size or weight for personal use? Obviously people are driving vehicles far larger than they need, and it’s killing others. So ban new sales starting in five years. Why not? The manufacturers know what they’re doing is unethical, and they don’t care, so nobody would feel bad for them.
I don’t understand what you mean about opaqueness being the principle of our civilization. Democratic government has the express opposite goal.
Oh yeah? Without looking it up, what was the name or number of the last motion parliament passed? I’m not sure, and I pay more attention than most.
I know, you said goal, but then why bother with a rigid constitution and giant complex legal system? A lot of vague goals were mentioned on the way, and implemented in sometimes weird ways (peine forte et dure, looking at you), but in 2024 checks and balances are the clear winning design concept. Our system is a system, it’s not dependent on the actions or intentions of any one person. It’s complex as a result, and therefore opaque to anyone who’s not near-omniscient. Ditto for markets.
Well, what about remote areas? I guarantee there’s at least one dude on a farm that can’t be accessed without a bit of ground clearance. That was the original use-case of SUVs. Funny enough, they became popular generally because of US regulations introduced around 2000 or so, which made small vehicles more expensive to produce, and prompted companies to hard-sell larger models.
How do you define personal, too? I know plenty of people who have a truck that they use for work, but also personally. I don’t know how they’ve structured the ownership of their vehicle, or how you would distinguish between “my tax shelter owns it” and an actual business. You’d have to figure that out, and then enforce it, administrate it, and build in carveouts for whatever exceptions that turns up.
This derisively gets called the “why don’t you just” school of public policy. There’s a reason actual regulations tend to be many, many pages long, and usually still have tons of gaps.
It sounds like you’re suggesting that because our system of government is complex, increasing the complexity even more is generally a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If that’s what you mean, I disagree with you.
It also sounds like you’re repeating basic facts about crafting legislation that we all know. I’m not a lawmaker and I’m not trying to write a law here in the comment section, so I don’t particularly care to prepare a several page document. Certainly one could do so if one were so inclined…
Not everybody knows that. If you do, cool, good to know, and I’m surprised you’re still so certain anyone could write this thing successfully.
On complexity, that we got off on a bit of a tangent, but I guess what I’m saying is that it’s unavoidable. You said… just a moment, I need to look back and repost because I’m forgetting…
Right. There’s not more complexity to a carbon tax. In fact, the point of it is that it’s really simple for legislators to implement, for industry to follow and adapt around, and we still have a strong theory that says it should work to reduce emissions, regardless of any (legal) attempts at “abuse”. The way it actually works itself out will be complex, but that’s because our technology and supply chains are intrinsically complex.
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Regulation.
The carbon tax, along or instead of cap-and-trade, was the conservative alternative to straight-up regulation. “We need a market based approach!” they said, “We need something that’s responsive!” they said, “We need something that’s cost-neutral!” they said. Regulation was too hard, too strict, too ornerous, too old-school for our modern, fast-moving, market-based world.
“Trust us!” the capitalists said.
And now it’s too hard because even a weaksauce carbon tax is too much for their precious profit margins. There’s money that someone else is making that is rightfully theirs! It was their idea and now they can’t even.
So you know what? You don’t like the carbon tax? The we go back to good old-fashioned, ball-busting regulation. Because it fucking works.
So, echoing my response to the other guy saying this, how well did that work for plastics? Everyone knows paper straws are worse and unnecessary, and it just makes them want to go back to the old way, microplastics be damned. It’s easy to say “regulate”, but when it’s as complex a problem as the energy source for our whole technological civilisation there’s not a clear way to actually write such a legislation.
The issue with the carbon tax isn’t that it doesn’t work, it’s that it’s unpopular.
Are plastics use really regulated? I don’t mean at mcd’s, I mean plastics industry wide.
So, like, except for the regulations? That seems like an unfair question.
There’s probably ones other than the straw and bag ones we’re all familiar with. I don’t know how many, or how many you would consider enough, though.
Your complaints are the straws and bags don’t do enough. My point is that’s NOT strict industry-wide regulation. We agree!
Okay, sure. So my favored policy on that is EPR. You could still get straws made out of uber-indestructible wonder materials, but you’d have to pay for the cost of disposing of it permanently somehow, as well as just the manufacturing cost. As a result, we probably would still see less disposable plastics in stores, because they don’t like burning money, but you could still get them for a bit extra if you have a specific need, like a quadriplegic that needs one that can bend.
Stop emissions. There’s a lot of negative effects to society for doing that, but that’s the only real answer at this point. It also isn’t going to avoid decades of worsening conditions, but there isn’t a solution for that. All we can really do is stop continuing the damage we’re still doing, even after decades of knowing we were doing it.
A simple sounding answer that is almost impossible to put into practice in a short period of time.
You can’t simply go cold turkey.
Far too many people would suffer, and mostly the people who aren’t the worst causes of the problem.
And even if any government tried, the effort would be delayed and watered down by decades of lawsuits and attacks from basically everyone.
That’s a goal, not a plan.
You are too cute. Would you prefer this? … Regulate. It really is that simple.
Various geoengineering techniques are solutions for that. We should be studying those in greater detail.
Geoengineering will have its own issues that may make things worse in the long run, but the worst effect will be it leveraged as a reason to continue business as usual. That’s why I simply said we have to stop emissions. If we can’t do that, then there’s only one direction we can go (and are going, faster each year).
But as you said, stopping emissions won’t avoid decades of worsening conditions. I think actually stopping those decades of worsening conditions is more important than a hypothetical “moral hazard” concern.
Frankly, this argument always bothered me. When someone is sick you try to treat both the underlying cause and the symptoms. It would be morally bankrupt and downright ridiculous to say “let the patient suffer, it’s the only way he’ll learn.” Especially if the symptoms themselves could be fatal. And especially when the people suffering aren’t the ones who actually “need to learn.” When millions of people are starving to death in third-world nations or drowning when their overloaded refugee ships are turned away from wealthy ports, will you look them in the eye and tell them it’s necessary because otherwise oil company executives might not be as motivated to reduce emissions?
Because you don’t understand the argument…
Using your metaphor the thing you’re proposing to “treat the symptoms” has side effects which worsen the disease thus causing more real damage and worsening symptoms.
The only reason you would willingly pursue that course of treatment is if a treatment for the initial disease was ongoing (in this metaphor it’s not, ghg emissions continue to increase dramatically) or if a patient was on palliative/EoLC.
You aren’t saving “millions of people from starving to death”, you’re gambling that it will hold a bit longer before tens-hundreds of millions of people starve to death, and the evidence that these “treat the symptoms” is minimal at best thus leading to both outcomes (millions soon, more later).
What side effects, specifically? Some approaches to geoengineering may have negative side effects, but others don’t appear to. There’s no guarantee that an approach without side effects won’t be found.
Yes, you are. Climate change would cause famine, ameliorating the effects of climate change would prevent that famine.
This whole comment is exactly the kind of argument that I’m objecting to. You’ve got some sort of a priori conviction that “no, geoengineering must make the situation work somehow” and therefore it’s not worth studying. If it’s not studied how can you possibly know?
As the saying goes, “don’t let perfect stand in the way of good”.
Be specific. Which ones?
This statement is correct, but you are bringing it up against the point being made about how taking a “treating the symptoms” of climate change might improve things a bit in the short term, but leads to worse long term outcomes.
I have stated that the current status of said studies do not have sufficient evidence to merit the claims you are making. If you think otherwise please provide some evidence/papers/links etc. otherwise we’re in a Russell’s teapot situation here.
Unless your definition of “studying” is the argument that because the situation is bad enough it’s worth trying, at scale, whatever approach in the hope it improves things somewhat… Because that’s the argument that many use in order to sell dangerous and unethical grifts which seem promising and ‘harmless’. (I’m linking that article specifically because it’s “neutral journalism” at it’s worst and I’m curious at what you take away from it…)
No. You are the one who said “Using your metaphor the thing you’re proposing to “treat the symptoms” has side effects which worsen the disease thus causing more real damage and worsening symptoms.”
I then asked you to be specific. You tell me which ones have side effects that “worsen the disease.” You don’t get to Uno-reverse at me until you answer the question first.
There’s only one solution to the carbon tax, really. “FUCK TRUDOPE!!!”
(No, I don’t subscribe to that belief.)
Yeah. Cancel the whole fucking thing, it only applies to provinces not historically Liberal voting anyways.
If only climate change could be cancelled.
What are you talking about?
The carbon pricing plan from the federal level applies to every province. Each province has the option to create whatever program they wish to put a price on carbon, if they don’t WANT to create their own program they can choose to use the default carbon rebate program managed by the federal government.
Any province using the carbon rebate program is doing so by choice. And if you don’t like it you should be talking to your provincial politicians and encouraging them to setup whatever system you prefer.
You can’t blame the federal government because your conservative provincial government is unable to actually solve any of it’s own problems (but that seems to be the conservative strategy these days)
No. It doesn’t
Give this a read.
https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/pricing-pollution-how-it-will-work.html
lies.
Do you have anything to actually prove any of that is lies?
I’ve given you substantial evidence that what you’re saying isn’t true. And you’re just responding with “lies” as if that somehow invalidates the factual evidence I’ve given you.
You need to either read this new information, learn something new and admit that what you were saying before isn’t true. Or you need to provide proof that what you’re saying is backed up by reputable sources.
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So, “no” then? Your answer is “no”. Being a cranky fuckwad in your non-answer doesn’t make it noy a non-answer.
What is your better idea for combating climate change? Because, from what I’ve seen, critics of the carbon tax are acting in bad faith even if they believe it’s ineffectual, because they all choose to ignore the associated rebate, while also refusing to address climate change in any way.
So, what’s your better plan?
my answer was clearly yes. The Liberals don’t even believe in this plan, it only applies in 3 or 4 provinces. As for a plan, mine is not raping people for tax money in a country that isn’t the fucking problem anyways.
Every province have a carbon pricing model, how did you miss that?
Provinces had the option to build their own system, or use one provided by the feds.
Judging from your other comments you have some very large fundamental misunderstandings of how the system works. I think you need to take a good hard look at where you’ve been getting your information, someone is lying to you and you’re falling for it.
You have literally no idea. I hear this all the time, almost like there’s been a disinformation campaign of some sort.
You hear it all the time because it’s how the system works.
This page has more details that will be useful for you:
https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/pricing-pollution-how-it-will-work.html
There are also links at the bottom of the page to more details.
If you don’t trust it because it’s a Canada.ca address, then I think your best bet is to go read the actual bill, I’m not going to find that for you, but you’re going to have to but in some effort, you’ve been mislead (which is fine it happens) but then you’ve decided to start spreading that same misinformation, that isn’t ok. It isn’t that hard to be an informed citizen today, but a big part of that is not trusting everything you hear on the news.
Yes yes, i’ve been mislead, surely, it can’t be that i actually pay the tax and a bunch of people who rent or whatever keep saying “nuh uh”. Entire provinces are pissed for no reason at all.
… Did you read what I posted?
Yes there is a carbon pricing program, that was never up for debate. I pay it too (and get more back than I pay in).
And yes portions of provinces have been mislead because they seem to have no ability to actually validate what they hear on the news. You’re a perfect example of that. You’re clearly really angry, but the things you’re angry about aren’t actually true.
I’m assuming you’ve heard things said by the media, or conservative polititions and you just accepted it as fact and it made you angry. Which was their plan. The whole conservative strategy these days is to mislead their base, create division and make people angry. They don’t have any substantial solutions for anything, but that’s also ok because their base have been trained to not question anything they hear.
I highly highly encourage you question everything you hear in the media. Official sources (like canada.ca) are trustworthy, but you can also go even deeper and find actual bills. You can work yourself out of the hole you’re in, it’ll just take time, and you’ll have to put in effort. I the current conservative controlled media landscape it takes constant effort to get real facts about things.