Are we still doing this nonsense in 2011? Are we still counting silly things like carbon footprints and measuring every theoretical cloud of carbon and methane created by existing and breathing on this planet?
Well, yes and yes and yes and yes and no. There are four parties all paying for carbon offsets for their campaign tour across the country, and one who doesn’t give a damn because it’s ridiculous and stupid.
Nothing exemplifies what this election is about better than the fact all four opposition parties are all doing something meaningless yet symbolic. Each of the four parties provides something a little different from the others, but they’re all pretty much the same kind of leftwing choice, with the same kind of block-voting penchant for policies that provide good optics.
But one can’t help but feel that a party that chooses empty symbolism for one thing is likely to choose it for others as well. Something doesn’t necessarily have to make any sense, so long as a majority of Canadians think it makes sense. Earth Hour is the perfect metaphor for the green movement: an hour of darkness.
Carbon credits are about as useful as carbon taxes. They don’t actually offset anything but liberal guilt, and even that seems to be an impossible task given there are so many things to feel guilty about. Such as turning on lights and running washing machines. It’s an inconvenient truth we live in a cold and dark climate.
I can think of a more useful offset market. Every time a politician makes a wild and ridiculous promise he knows he has no intention of keeping or living up to, that politician will contribute to a fund that will pay people to live up to their promises and make sensible, lucid statements. I think this would be a great boon to our economy.
The funny thing about carbon credits is that you’d think the principle would offend the left, since it allows wealth to be used to shirk a social responsibility. Conversely, the carbon tax that so many of them favour only eliminates the lower income drivers from the road, freeing up highway space for those who can afford it.
There are few things so pretentious and hypocritical as the carbon offset. That we have created a society so prosperous and free from hardship that dire calamities need to be invented in order to spend our money on placebos is symptomatic of the perils of too much pacifism.
Because let’s face it, the idea that paying some company to plant trees that may or may not capture carbon dioxide emissions 30 years from the time they’re being emitted is just about as useless as the proverbial screendoor on a submarine.
Carbon credits. as useful as the Aztecs making a human sacrifice each day so that the Sun would rise the next day !
Or the Catholic church in the Middle Ages selling indulgences so that one wouldn’t go to hell or stay for a shorter time in purgatory. At times it amounted to pre-paying forgiveness for murder: Poison a rival at court confident that the capital sin won’t be counted when meeting Saint Peter at the Pearly gates … LOL.
The MSM taking manipulating the message to a whole new level. WOW
As Chucker Canuck once said…”The new rebel is a conservative”…or some such thing.
I think Jean’s description is about the best: that carbon taxes and carbon credits in 2011 are equivalent to the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages selling indulgences. They are a great money maker for those behind the idea while those paying are the suckers in that they get nothing in return.
How I would welcome politicians, and better yet a political party, expose this sham for what it is. At the same time I also recognise that it would most likely spell the end of the politicians or the political party due to the MSM.
All I can wonder is if those offsets qualify for the expense rebate. If they don’t then by all means – let them purchase offsets – purchase all they want.
I agree. But we should really be worried about the Liberal Red Book 2011, in total. Tons of uncosted initiatives abound in the document, plus further campaign promises … all adding up to (at least) hundreds of billions of dollars.
I wrote something up; quick read at:
http://burpnrun.blogspot.com/2011/04/deathstar-2011-liberal-red-book-fantasy.html
One suggestion for Harper and the Conservative team would be to ask pointed questions about the Liberal Red Book II Costing and possibly calling it the Green Shift II.
Now since the media seems rather selective about reporting anything positive about the Conservatives and seems to be acting as the cheer leaders for the Liberals this may need to be done as paid for commercials the media won’t have a choice about showing.
Maybe a commercial with the title ” What the media isn’t asking Ignatieff or telling you ” ? Obviously someone with the competence to judge if this would be effective, or counter productive, or at what point in the campaign these commercials should be shown ? ( That’s what competent media specialists should be doing and where the Conservative should maybe be spending some money on i.e. competent advice ! ).
Yeah!
When one looks at keeping government coffers overflowing Carbon taxes make perfect sense. Under what other scenario can you tax people on absolutely nothing. BC and Ontario have already tasted the extra billions and will be reluctant to admit the whole thing is a scam. This is every politicians wet dream and the brainwashed greenies are yelling for more. The taxation power is unlimited and NOTHING is now a cash cow endorsed by millions. It just does’nt get any better than that.
The CPC should buy 5 minutes of national TV time on voting day eve during supper time news. During said 5 minutes explain the fraud that man made global warming is. Tell everyone that they plan to shut down all government programs associated with it and how much money that will save us and how it will stimulate the economy. When the poles open in the morn voters will flock to them to vote CPC and we will have a majority government. And the MSM will not have had time to get their propaganda wing against it in play.
@Bob Devine
Not sure it would change much. Voters with even a hint of logic already know it’s a scam. The rest will see it as PC propoganda in a last desperate attempt to sway their votes. Much like second hand smoke, or that we are a bi-lingual country, if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth.
Becoming “Carbon Neutral” simply requires writing a big cheque.
So if these parties are truly concerned about C02, why aren’t they writing bigger cheques and going Carbon NEGATIVE?
Glad they do’nt. After all , the money behind those cheques is our money. The day we can move transport trucks, planes and other essential modes of transportation with windmills and solar panels at a reasonable price I might see some logic in the billions being spent to cut back on a harmless gas and the chicken little science that goes with it. We are 34 million in the second largest and one of the coldest countries in the world. China….1.4 billion. India …1.2 billion. Indonesia ….600 million and on and on. They all strive for the same standard of living we have. Our global contribution to co2 is less than 1 %.
Ask me if I care whether or not we are carbon neutral.