[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[crazy canuck]

Viper, forget the political axes to grind.  It is becoming too late for that.  We have about a decade, maybe less given the recent data about warming occurring in the arctic faster than anticipated. 

edit: actually Valmy said it better

Look there will always be extremist people saying ridiculous things and radical people are typically going to be drawn into political activism. So if we must silence all fanatics in order for the sane people to be listened to then sanity will never prevail.

[crazy canuck]

Well I certainly agree that environmentalists ironically make very fickle friends for those of us pushing to change energy generation sources. They make the perfect the enemy of the good constantly. But many (most?) Leftists don't give that many shits about the environment.

But the Right are typically just outright our opponents rather than just really nutty people we have to put up with. I had a hope there for a minute that as solar and wind became profitable they would come over fully to our side and damn that seemed like it was happening but now a full on reactionary rightwing backlash is underway. I can only hope it will be short-lived.

Too bring it back to Canadian politics, one of the things that doomed Notley's NDP here in Alberta was their concept called "social licence".

They felt that if energy-producing Alberta voluntarily enacted some measures like a carbon tax, and an overall cap on carbon output from the oilsands, that would ease acceptance of our energy industry and ease the building of pipelines.  It failed completely.  The environmentalists saw it only as a first step, and made it clear they just want to shut down oil and gas production entirely.

Shutting down gas production is really stupid short term. It is that kind of nonsense that pisses me off so much. Until battery storage is a regular feature of an energy grid (and we are very close) we need gas for a low emissions baseload. This is a good example of the environmentalists not thinking about the next step but trying to achieve perfection.

fyi, the NDP was not advocating shutting down the industry.  This goes to the advice you gave Viper 

[viper37]

a) champion is too strong. They are advocates really. Their environmental track record with regards to the atmosphere is not strong enough. But it is better than we have had before.

That is where we differ.  I prefer action instead of speeches.

b) putting a price on carbpn and actually implementing it, which is significant.

It's just a tax like any other.  It needs to increase at least 10x from now before we start seeing any significan effect, and that is if the provinces do not win their legal fight.

c) they are hoping that by pricing pollution, the market (including businesses and consumers) will respond rationally.

We've had that for a while in Quebec.  While CO2 emissions are going down, they ain't going down fast enough for us to reach our objectives, unless something changes.

A tax, a carbon price in itself serves nothing if you don't develop alternatives.  You may call car drivers scums, cut tires of SUVs, but it achieves nothing until you can offer them real public transit alternatives.  Densification of cities means nothing if you forget there are suburbs that wish to grow to, if you forget that even inside a city there are people paying taxes but not getting the same standards of services those closer to the core get. 

Preventing bus lines from expanding correctly where their services is needed because you want to force densification is silly.  It only pushes people to use their cars instead of a less polluting alternative.

But do you see the left promoting that idea?  Nope.  All I see is some stupid commie MNA buying a new, shining SUV once she got elected.  Do as I say, not as I do.  And of all the MNA, she's the one living the closest to her work (<10km).

You need roads for buses, and well maintained roads.  You need reserved lanes, you need trains to get people from further away to the city, you need bridges to cross rivers, you need to promote less polluting alternatives to transport where you can (some shipping companies apparently use sail as well as their engine to increase fuel economy- that's something worth looking at), we need to force provinces to shut down their thermal plant by offering them an alternative.  We need carbon capture for polluting industries. We need to promote rail transport for long distance hauls instead of big trucks.  We need to promote R&D for clean technology, like electric trucks instead of diesel.

I see none of that from the Federal govt.  All I see are magic thoughts.

[crazy canuck]

As a tangent, Viper, there is no chance the Provincial challenges to the carbon tax will succeed in the SCC.

[Barrister]

Well I certainly agree that environmentalists ironically make very fickle friends for those of us pushing to change energy generation sources. They make the perfect the enemy of the good constantly. But many (most?) Leftists don't give that many shits about the environment.

But the Right are typically just outright our opponents rather than just really nutty people we have to put up with. I had a hope there for a minute that as solar and wind became profitable they would come over fully to our side and damn that seemed like it was happening but now a full on reactionary rightwing backlash is underway. I can only hope it will be short-lived.

Too bring it back to Canadian politics, one of the things that doomed Notley's NDP here in Alberta was their concept called "social licence".

They felt that if energy-producing Alberta voluntarily enacted some measures like a carbon tax, and an overall cap on carbon output from the oilsands, that would ease acceptance of our energy industry and ease the building of pipelines.  It failed completely.  The environmentalists saw it only as a first step, and made it clear they just want to shut down oil and gas production entirely.

And here we have a very good example of a right winger being the enemy of the good.  BB has children who are going to suffer the consequences when warming increases more than 1.5 C but all he can focus on is what might affect oil and gas production.

Said it before, will say it again.  You could shut down all oil and gas production in Alberta, it will make no difference to global warming.  Unless you change the demand for petroleum, people will just import it from the US and overseas.

[crazy canuck]

Said it before, will say it again.  You could shut down all oil and gas production in Alberta, it will make no difference to global warming.  Unless you change the demand for petroleum, people will just import it from the US and overseas.

first, nobody is talking about shutting it down. What is needed is putting alternative energy production into place to phase it out.

Second, you have to stop drinking the cool aid* that preaches reducing carbon emissions will not change global warming.  By definition reducing carbon emissions will reduce global warming.  You are buying into the logic that creates the tragedy of the commons.

* the cool aid analogy is used because it is that belief that is going to kill off millions if not billions. 

[Barrister]

Said it before, will say it again.  You could shut down all oil and gas production in Alberta, it will make no difference to global warming.  Unless you change the demand for petroleum, people will just import it from the US and overseas.

first, nobody is talking about shutting it down. What is needed is putting alternative energy production into place to phase it out.

Second, you have to stop drinking the cool aid* that preaches reducing carbon emissions will not change global warming.  By definition reducing carbon emissions will reduce global warming.  You are buying into the logic that creates the tragedy of the commons.

* the cool aid analogy is used because it is that belief that is going to kill of millions if not billions.

First. it's Kool-Aid!!!
https://www.koolaid.com/

Second, when did I ever state or imply we shouldn't reduce carbon emissions?  Obviously that's what we need to do.  That's why I support a carbon tax, for one.

[crazy canuck]

Said it before, will say it again.  You could shut down all oil and gas production in Alberta, it will make no difference to global warming.  Unless you change the demand for petroleum, people will just import it from the US and overseas.

first, nobody is talking about shutting it down. What is needed is putting alternative energy production into place to phase it out.

Second, you have to stop drinking the cool aid* that preaches reducing carbon emissions will not change global warming.  By definition reducing carbon emissions will reduce global warming.  You are buying into the logic that creates the tragedy of the commons.

* the cool aid analogy is used because it is that belief that is going to kill of millions if not billions.

First. it's Kool-Aid!!!
https://www.koolaid.com/

Second, when did I ever state or imply we shouldn't reduce carbon emissions?  Obviously that's what we need to do.  That's why I support a carbon tax, for one.

  kool aid it is.

Second, you implied it in your statements above 

Why would you support a party who's economic plan relies on fossil fuel exploitation into the future?  If you really believe carbon emissions must be reduced, and if you accept the science that it must be done soon, then your level of cognitive dissonance must be off the charts atm.

[viper37]

But the Right are typically just outright our opponents rather than just really nutty people we have to put up with.

The most vocal rightwingers are certainly anti-environment.  Libertarians and ultra-conservatives like Scheer.  Harper wasn't so much anti-environment as ultra-realist.  He didn't do much, but at least our CO2 emissions were curbed a little (thanks to the 2008 recession, mostly, but also some carbon capture projects).

However, we are dealing with complex governmental issues.

You have the Federal government, the Provincial government and the Cities.

If Quebec city wanted to build a tramway, they would need approval by the Provincial government and financing by both the Federal and Provincial governments.

Now, as it happens, Quebec city has such a project.  The Federal government under the Liberals, enacted rules that financing of public transit projects would be on the basis of total traffic.  Montreal gets the lion share, Quebec city gets only a fraction of the costs.  The Feds offer financing from another program than public infrastructure, but that means the Quebec government will not be able to use these funds for other modernizing projects that would potentially reduce our CO2 emissions.

Montreal has no plans to use the funds but does not want to let Quebec city use them.  The Federal is unwilling to move from its current offer.  The provincial government wants to use the public infrastructure funds to finance 45% of the costs, as was promised by the Liberal Party. Whose at fault now?  I'd say a little of the 3...  But that does not solve the problem.

Quebec city's current mayor has had 10 years to come up with a decent public transit solution.  Only now does he seem to wake up and he wants things done yesterday...  Montreal has dragged its feets for new solutions too.  Outside of downtown the bus service is wholly inadequate.  The metro system does not reach the eastern part of the city.  The new train that will be built will link the South shore with the West Island and will block access from the north shore train for the next 2 years...  You tell people to stop using their cars, but then, you don't offer any solution... 

Is there an emergency or not?  If there is, why is it that no friggin government, from left or right is unable to get its act together and why is it always the rightwing parties blamed for the failures of others plus others?

The entire business community of Quebec city has pushed for a solution to the problem over the last decade.  Meanwhile, the city come up with a plan that includes a weird curve to deserve a planned luxury appartment tower that will create huge traffic jams in the most jammed part of the city (the entrance at the bridges' head).  In Montreal, one subburb wants to build a new, huge commercial and residential project, despite not being in a place services by the actual metro and it would require new interconnexions for two highly used highways.

Where is the logic, where is the urgency and why should the entire province or country pay for things that are badly designed to begin with and only serve some commercial interest?  Why should the entire province and country pay for a metro extension that serves mostly commercial interests?

See, as a tax payer, I don't mind paying for part of public infrastructures.  Half a coliseum that could potentially be used 40 nights a year for NHL hockey and most other times for music shows, I really don't mind.  Paying for a tramway that serves only a small part of my capital city, I mind, but once the project is expanded to cover 80-85% of the population, I think there is something great there. 

But is it the place of a Federal government to think, to design a city's public infrastructure?  Should Donald Trump decide what New York needs because he lives there?  I think your (and mine) Federal government job is to help finance city projects.  But what happens if a city is against such projects?  What happens if a city and a provincial government prefers to build new highways?  What happens is the subburbs, whose only means of financing themselves is through property taxes want to expand and use agricultural or forested lands to build new houses/condominiums/appartements?  Do we cut services to these subburbs to force people into moving back to a crowded city centre?  Or do we plan in advance that citys will have other means of collecting money, that they don't have to grow tall to expand their own service offers (parks, aqueducts, decent local roads, etc). ?

So far, I have seen no plan from anyone.  Yet, all I hear is how wonderful a government is because they tax us even more.  They can't do anything with 40% of my wage, 15% of any goods&services I buy, all the city&school tax I pay, half of what it costs me to fill my car, but suddenly, they will tax me more than that and, poof!  just by magic, we will invent new technologies and curb our co2 emissions to a sufficient level?  Colour me skeptical.

Had the carbon tax come with a decent plan to back it up, how specifically the funds would be used, social acceptance would be much wider than that. But a (false) vague promise of having the funds returned just won't cut it.

I'm frustrated as you all are by the rightwing's blindness to the obvious issue: adaptation cost more than prevention.  But the left have no realistic solution and voting for them is only increasing our problems.

[viper37]

So if we must silence all fanatics in order for the sane people to be listened to then sanity will never prevail.

silence is impossible.  noise cancellation is.

[viper37]

first, nobody is talking about shutting it down.

If by nobody you mean "no political party in Alberta", then yes you are right.  Otherwise, you got it wrong.

Otherwise...

What is needed is putting alternative energy production into place to phase it out.

Of course.  Thermal plants must be shut down, everywhere.

By definition reducing carbon emissions will reduce global warming.  You are buying into the logic that creates the tragedy of the commons.

We must do our part.  We must curb our emissions.  We must keep giving incentives to regular car users to change for electric/hybrid models as they become more&more available as that only means even more models being offered (there's a new hybrid Honda that looks a lot like my car... too bad I have no use for an hybrid - but the point is, as demand increase, so does variety in the offer), we must do everything we can.  But even if we do it all, we are not going to reduce global CO2 emissions if everyone else keeps pumping CO2 in the atmosphere. 

If I remove a spoon of water from a pool, there is less water in the pool than one minute before.  But is it really measurable?  If I empty the pool with a bucket while you are on the other side filling it with a water hose, is the volume of water going down or up?

That is the problem we face...  We must do our part, but as long as countries like China and India keep pumping CO2, we are doomed.

In the logic of many, we are fucked anyway, so why change anything?  If you got terminal lung cancer, why stop smoking?  You'll switch to marijuana to ease your pain, maybe, but you won't do any effort to stop smoking, you are dead... and you don't care about anyone else having to live with the smoke, just as you didn't care when you weren't doomed...

If you tell that person "you should stop smoking, else you'll develop a cancer", that likely won't work...  We have to find a way to communicate, to reach these people.

[viper37]

Why would you support a party who's economic plan relies on fossil fuel exploitation into the future?  If you really believe carbon emissions must be reduced, and if you accept the science that it must be done soon, then your level of cognitive dissonance must be off the charts atm.

You were angry when I said you voted for the Liberals because you hate French Canadians.  And rightly so, I am sorry.  But this party has an history of being anti-Quebec, anti-French Canadians, and anti-bilinguism in its actions, and Trudeau himself despise Quebecers, just like his fathers.  Yet, you voted for this party.  So did Malthus.

Yet, you do not hate all Quebecers, not even all French Quebecers, certainly not hate French Canadians.  But you voted for a party whose leader dislikes the seperate French & English school system of New Brunswick that has kept the Acadian culture alive.

Is it possible there were more than one issues from this party and that despite this, you liked the general platform it offered you (even if we told you it was mostly lies coming from an incompetent leader ) ?

You said you didn't vote Conservative because of the hate crimes hotline but you liked some other aspects of their platform.

Is it possible BB thinks the same about the UCP?  Is it possible he dislikes some issues about the UCP but dislike even more a lot of issues with the NDP?

[Barrister]

Problem with the NDP is outside of Notley and a couple of her ministers, they just weren't competent.  They never expected to win at the start of the 2015 campaign and largely did not have competent candidates.

[crazy canuck]

You were angry when I said you voted for the Liberals because you hate French Canadians.  And rightly so, I am sorry.  But this party has an history of being anti-Quebec, anti-French Canadians, and anti-bilinguism in its actions, and Trudeau himself despise Quebecers, just like his fathers.  Yet, you voted for this party.  So did Malthus.

Yet, you do not hate all Quebecers, not even all French Quebecers, certainly not hate French Canadians.  But you voted for a party whose leader dislikes the seperate French & English school system of New Brunswick that has kept the Acadian culture alive.

Is it possible there were more than one issues from this party and that despite this, you liked the general platform it offered you (even if we told you it was mostly lies coming from an incompetent leader ) ?

You said you didn't vote Conservative because of the hate crimes hotline but you liked some other aspects of their platform.

Is it possible BB thinks the same about the UCP?  Is it possible he dislikes some issues about the UCP but dislike even more a lot of issues with the NDP?

The difference is that we now know if warming gets over 1.5 C we are going to suffer significant adverse impacts.  Further we know we have very limited time to take action to avoid that happening.  I do not know how anyone can agree with those two facts and support political parties who actively pursue policies which make exceeding 1.5 likely.

[Monoriu]

Canada is unlikely to make a difference in terms of global warming.  The real deciders will be China, India, the US and Europe.