Anyone out there who thinks a pipeline is going to be cancelled in this economic and political climate raise their hand.
Strange that I can't feel a cooling breeze from all the hands going up. Or not strange, if you're as pessimistic as I am.
A pipeline to Texas refineries from Alberta tar sands has passed one more step. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/plan-for-canada-to-texas-oil-pipeline-moves-forward-after-environmental-review/2011/08/26/gIQA3iaJgJ_story.html
Not a done deal yet, but with only one Republican presidential hopeful admitting to the possibility of anthropogenic climate change, it's not surprising that there is not a hope in hell that anyone in power will take concrete steps to block it.
Canada is not going to stop the pipeline. Our Prime Minister is from Alberta and is only recently admitting to AGW. He would probably be shot by his own caucus if he tried to pull the plug on this pipeline. Not that he has any inclination to do so. Our best opposition leader just died, leaving behind a caucus mostly composed of wet-behind-the-ears rookie MPs. There is no organized political party able to mount any kind of significant challenge to the Conservatives.
Perhaps Hurricane Irene will remind Americans that oil security is not as crucial as climate security. On the other hand, because climate scientists are stuck with telling the truth, such as we can't link one storm or weather event with climate change, it's not likely that anyone is going to become willing to make the kind of changes in priority that will result in significant changes to our economics resulting in diminished human effects on the climate.
I truly believe we will suck every last drop of oil out of the ground and push the climate past every pessimistic forecast. After all, look at New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina. The rich were inconvenienced. Poor people died. Poor people are dying in Africa. Rich people around the world are able to make changes to adapt. And they want their oil. They are not going to give up their lifestyles easily.
So pump up that SUV. It's business as usual.
Some say, "Think positive." But a rational perspective on the state of the world can only come to one conclusion: We're doomed!
Friday, 26 August 2011
Thursday, 11 August 2011
Raise Taxes Now!
Looking south of the border at the debt ceiling crisis in the US, I might have a feeling of smugness as a Canadian, but I don't. We tend to follow US trends closely, and with our current Conservative administration, the constant pressure to lower taxes is just as strongly felt here as in the US.
The problem is that for a balanced budget, you have two options, raise income or cut spending. We've been cutting spending for the last two decades and we are at the point where public services are suffering. In the US we've seen a bridge collapse, schools are failing, and prisoners have been let go free because of overcrowding (I'll save a piece on the stupidity of mandatory minimum sentences and three strike laws for another blog).
I know about non-balanced budgets. I had to declare personal bankruptcy once. After I got that over with, I went back to school, got a better job, and thought I was safe. I found myself in debt again. So this time I cut spending. But at some point you can't cut any more. I had no car, I spent the minimum on food, and I wore my shoes until people commented on the holes in them. I was just barely keeping my head above water. So I found a way to make some extra income. It has made all the difference. Just a few hundred dollars a month in my budget has made paying off debt a breeze. Governments need to do the same.
Last year, I earned about $59000 in my job plus a net of about $1000 for my extra income. I paid about $8200 on an income just over $60,000. That's an effective rate under 14%. And that's provincial and federal tax combined! I can hardly claim to be burdened with excessive taxation. But when I go to the passport office, twenty of thirty wickets are closed. When I visited the taxation office for a friend's audit, there wasn't even a receptionist and some poor delivery guy was trying to get our auditor to accept a package for some unknown person in the building. Come on! Raise taxes and let's hire some civil servants!
In this province there are wildlife protection officers who have thousands of miles of territory to cover. Does that protect us from poachers? Instead they put up signs in the bush asking us to "observe, and report suspicious activity."
So instead of taxing us up front, so those with higher incomes pay more, the government institutes "user fees" for public amenities. User fees are the same thing as taxes, except rich people can afford them more than poor people. So I can afford to take my kid camping at a public park for $25 a night, but someone with less money can't. Democracy is supposed to be about the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Without a good progressive taxation system, we're doomed. When will some political leaders have the guts to stand up and say that they want to deliver effective government and we need to pay for it?
Look around. People are lining up to pay $5 for some fancy Starbucks coffee. When I was a kid, I remember seeing a Cadillac for the first time. Today you can barely cross the street without being run down by people driving Audis, BMWs, Infinitis, and other luxury cars. I see Rolls Royces regularly. Ferraris are a daily sight. Don't tell me we can't afford to pay more taxes!
This is a selfish, self-centred society. We want services from our government that we don't want to pay for. Suck it up Canada (and my friends in the US). Pay more taxes now!
The problem is that for a balanced budget, you have two options, raise income or cut spending. We've been cutting spending for the last two decades and we are at the point where public services are suffering. In the US we've seen a bridge collapse, schools are failing, and prisoners have been let go free because of overcrowding (I'll save a piece on the stupidity of mandatory minimum sentences and three strike laws for another blog).
I know about non-balanced budgets. I had to declare personal bankruptcy once. After I got that over with, I went back to school, got a better job, and thought I was safe. I found myself in debt again. So this time I cut spending. But at some point you can't cut any more. I had no car, I spent the minimum on food, and I wore my shoes until people commented on the holes in them. I was just barely keeping my head above water. So I found a way to make some extra income. It has made all the difference. Just a few hundred dollars a month in my budget has made paying off debt a breeze. Governments need to do the same.
Last year, I earned about $59000 in my job plus a net of about $1000 for my extra income. I paid about $8200 on an income just over $60,000. That's an effective rate under 14%. And that's provincial and federal tax combined! I can hardly claim to be burdened with excessive taxation. But when I go to the passport office, twenty of thirty wickets are closed. When I visited the taxation office for a friend's audit, there wasn't even a receptionist and some poor delivery guy was trying to get our auditor to accept a package for some unknown person in the building. Come on! Raise taxes and let's hire some civil servants!
In this province there are wildlife protection officers who have thousands of miles of territory to cover. Does that protect us from poachers? Instead they put up signs in the bush asking us to "observe, and report suspicious activity."
So instead of taxing us up front, so those with higher incomes pay more, the government institutes "user fees" for public amenities. User fees are the same thing as taxes, except rich people can afford them more than poor people. So I can afford to take my kid camping at a public park for $25 a night, but someone with less money can't. Democracy is supposed to be about the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Without a good progressive taxation system, we're doomed. When will some political leaders have the guts to stand up and say that they want to deliver effective government and we need to pay for it?
Look around. People are lining up to pay $5 for some fancy Starbucks coffee. When I was a kid, I remember seeing a Cadillac for the first time. Today you can barely cross the street without being run down by people driving Audis, BMWs, Infinitis, and other luxury cars. I see Rolls Royces regularly. Ferraris are a daily sight. Don't tell me we can't afford to pay more taxes!
This is a selfish, self-centred society. We want services from our government that we don't want to pay for. Suck it up Canada (and my friends in the US). Pay more taxes now!
Monday, 8 August 2011
A hopeful sign? I think not!
Some scientists have determined that loss of Arctic ice might not lead to a tipping point leading to runaway climate change. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14408930 This is good news, and I'm glad to hear some from a credible source for once.
The complexity of the climate is one of the main planks in the skeptics' platform. I'm sure they will happily leap on this news as a sign that we don't understand the systems well enough to predict what will happen in a few decades. But to my the-cup-is-half-full-and-rapidly-leaking mind there are probably just as many ways that the climate models fail to predict serious consequences.
I think the mind plays a great role in how we take in information and assimilate it into our worldview. It takes a huge blow to make a paradigm shift. Skeptics are so invested in their point of view that they will make any mental leap to preserve it. I've been waiting for the end of the world news since the 1970s when I was fighting against the expansion of the use of nuclear power for electricity generation. If I were a Chernobyl resident, I would have already had my told-you-so moment. But even now I see that the threat from nuclear power plants is relatively limited and local. The disaster posed by greenhouse gasses is so much more widespread, yet innocuous appearing. As T.S. Eliot said "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang, but a whimper."
The complexity of the climate is one of the main planks in the skeptics' platform. I'm sure they will happily leap on this news as a sign that we don't understand the systems well enough to predict what will happen in a few decades. But to my the-cup-is-half-full-and-rapidly-leaking mind there are probably just as many ways that the climate models fail to predict serious consequences.
I think the mind plays a great role in how we take in information and assimilate it into our worldview. It takes a huge blow to make a paradigm shift. Skeptics are so invested in their point of view that they will make any mental leap to preserve it. I've been waiting for the end of the world news since the 1970s when I was fighting against the expansion of the use of nuclear power for electricity generation. If I were a Chernobyl resident, I would have already had my told-you-so moment. But even now I see that the threat from nuclear power plants is relatively limited and local. The disaster posed by greenhouse gasses is so much more widespread, yet innocuous appearing. As T.S. Eliot said "This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang, but a whimper."
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