Archive | Climate Change, Carbon Taxes and ENGOs

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Opinion: Australian Liberals kept their ‘blood oath’ to axe carbon taxes — and they are still on target for emissions reductions

Canada’s carbon pricing lobby has plenty of frantic arguments for why Ontario Premier Doug Ford should abandon his plan to repeal the province’s cap-and-trade carbon dioxide emissions trading scheme. But unclutch those pearls, folks.

This carbon tax can be scrapped without causing political chaos, financial ruin or environmental devastation. Given international experience, legislating away a price on carbon dioxide shouldn’t even be considered a ground-breaking event. (Unless you consider Canadian politicians keeping their word to be a ground-breaking event.)

Premier Ford says his first piece of business when the Ontario legislature reconvenes will be to get rid of cap-and-trade. This won’t be a problem. Cap-and-trade was created by legislation and it can be eliminated in precisely the same way. Continue Reading →

https://nationalpost.com/

It’s hard to keep the flock under control if the high priests can’t be trusted

Jerry Brown was castigating the current resident of the White House the other day for his attitude towards climate change. “I don’t think President Trump has a fear of the Lord, the fear of the wrath of God, which leads one to more humility,” scolded Brown, who is in his final months as governor of California due to term limits. “And this is such a reckless disregard for the truth and for the existential consequences that can be unleashed.”

Brown famously trained as a Jesuit priest, so his theological hyperbole is entirely in character. But it also underlines an aspect of climate doctrine that threatens the very message he hopes to deliver.

Environmentalists long ago turned to faith as a recruitment tool. It was far easier and more effective than trying to explain the science, which was neither simple nor straightforward, is troubled by inconsistencies and challenged by dissidents in any case. Continue Reading →

https://nationalpost.com/

Every sane person is opposed to the pollution of the environment but there is no justification for the self-punitive nonsense of the Paris climate accord

It is 30 years this past week that Dr. James Hansen, then well into the first of more than three decades as head of the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)-Goddard Institute for Space Studies, testified to a U.S. Senate committee that the then-current heat wave in Washington was caused by the relationship between “the greenhouse effect and observed warming.”

This was the starting gun of a mighty debate about the existence, cause and consequences of global warming.

Hansen was embraced by the environmental movement, from authentic scientists like David Suzuki to well-meaning faddists like the Prince of Wales, to cynical interlopers from the defeated international left grasping at anything to debunk and confound capitalism, like Naomi Klein, to complete charlatans like former U.S. vice-president Al Gore. Continue Reading →

http://torontosun.com/

As polling across Canada shows support for carbon pricing plummeting now that it’s a reality as opposed to an idea, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must be wondering what went wrong? Ditto Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne.

Last year, with great, self-congratulatory fanfare, she imposed a cap and trade scheme, another name for a carbon tax, on Ontarians. That’s one reason she’s poised to lose her job in the province’s June 7 election, her Liberal government trailing both the Progressive Conservatives and NDP in the polls.

An Ipsos/Global poll released Monday found more than seven in 10 eligible Ontario voters — 72% — believe carbon taxes are just an excuse by government to grab more money from them, with 68% calling them mere symbolism. Continue Reading →

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Canada’s charitable regime is in need of comprehensive review and reform

For more than a decade Vivian Krause, a Vancouver researcher and writer with more determination than the Winnipeg Jets, has been following and documenting the activities of charities that fund opposition to Canada’s oil industry.

Krause has dug into the corners of the so-called charitable activities of a collection of powerful political organizations, funded by U.S. foundations, whose objectives include, among other things, “shutting down” Canada’s oilsands.

Readers of this page will be familiar with Krause’s work. The Girl Who Played with Tax Data lists more than a dozen of her FP Comment reports going back to 2010. Others followed. Continue Reading →

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to replace fossil fuels with ethanol and other low-carbon fuels through a “clean fuel standard” — expected to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 30 million tonnes a year by 2030 — faces mounting opposition, especially from a powerful lobby south of the border.

No, not from U.S. President Donald Trump or the Republicans. At least, not yet — officially they’re pretty much in sync with Trudeau on this one, largely because the U.S. is a big exporter of ethanol to Canada.

The fierce opposition comes chiefly from the U.S. environmental lobby, which has awakened to one of the most colossal environmental mistakes in its history: the ethanol mandate, part of America’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which effectively mandates that 10 per cent of gasoline at the pump consists of ethanol. Continue Reading →

http://nationalpost.com/

The federal government seems to be saying even less than they know about carbon taxes. Which can’t be easy.

It’s a signature policy they insist will work. But they are exploiting a hard-won reputation for cluelessness on key promises from electoral reform to marijuana legalization to convince us they have no idea how this one would function either.

For instance, on April 30, Finance Minister Bill Morneau flatly refused to tell the Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women whether the government had even done a gender-based analysis on the carbon tax. Or, more precisely, he flatly refused to acknowledge that Conservative MP Michelle Rempel kept asking him that question. Continue Reading →