Elizabeth May probably doesn't get paid as much as our environment minister, but she sure does deliver a good plan!
The new Green party environmental plan (GP^2) was released today. I've read it (of course during my break ;) and was very impressed.
According to May et al., Kyoto targets can be met (not that I ever doubted it). For global warming deniers, why shouldn't such measures take place even if global warming isn't happening? They are all preventative, and if any such cataclysmic event should occur in the future, we will be prepared from years of being weaned off that stinky, dirty oil they are mining in Northern Alberta. Not only that, but it would mean protecting our natural resources for future generations-whether or not global warming will cause the apocalypse....c'mon, everyone wins! Furthermore, cutting corporate subsidies to a booming energy industry (including both oil and nuclear)and any industry in my opinion, will save the government tonnes of money, so they can re-fund those poor little museums that apparently don't do anything for Canadians or Canadian culture and spend it on useless in-house votes against gay marriage to appease the uber-conservative consituents.
Basically, the plan addresses how we can undo some of the damage done by the last government, and current damage the present government refuses to acknowledge (acknowledging you have a problem is the first step, isn't it Dr. Phil?). The best thing about the plan, I think, is that the GPoC WANTS other parties to steal their plans. They HOPE that the current government uses some of their ideas. Its obvious that voluntary measures will not be enough and any such plan including only voluntary measures will be grossly inadequate. If not harming the environment and pillaging natural resources was a choice (and it currently is), and it could actually work, don't you think more big business would be doing it? The only way to curb it is to regulate it. I think the GPoC "smart tax" is a good start. Make them pay.
Let's hope Rona reads this plan and steals from it-there's still time since no one's seen an environmental plan yet from the current government. I wouldn't begrudge her one bit, in fact, I would celebrate.
Before anyone attacks my point of view, I urge you to read the report yourself. I am open to debate on the issue.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
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Ok, so I haven't even read your blog, but I saw your name on princessingaloshes blog, and thought--shit! That's an awesome name! And now I think you are the alter-me...The last Unicorn? no one else even knows that movie! Everything But the Girl? Oh YES!
So now I will have to read all about you, except not when I'm at work and my boss is breathing fire down my neck becasuse he can't get his Rolex UPSed.
haha.....thanks. Hopefully you find it mildly entertaining;)
It's really a revolution to tax mostly just things that are bad, and leave income/employment alone. It seems like a fair and workable way to reshape an economy from one that focuses on bigger bottom lines, into one that focuses on healthier bottoms.
I'll put good odds that Rona Ambrose won't read this report, or lift from it. She just spent most of today in meetings with various oil barons in Calgary - I think you can see where CPoC "environment policy" is headed...
(Oh - do I need to include the fact that she's avoiding interviews and media like the plague - even here in Calgary?)
Oh, right.....Vol-unt-ary measures.
Because we know Big business has OUR best interests at heart.
Grog, Ambrose was on the Rutherford phone in show yesterday,Sept. 29, for over a half hour. You computer wizzes may be able to "track back" and pick it up somehow. I'l read the policies before I comment.
Sorry, by clicking on to your highlighted reference, all I was able to come up with was a home-made apple pie and ice cream (and mother's milk) political statement with the hint of a back-hand at the U.S. As an Albertan that witnessed hundreds of drilling rigs leaving Alberta for the U.S. after the NEP and having one of my patients commit suicide (and many others laid off their jobs, etc.), I was hoping to see some projected cash flows with alotted taxes, projected employment figures, etc. Can you refer me to the site that I can look over these things?
You should pop over to my blog. I have fundies crawling the walls over there at the moment. It couldn't have been something I said, surely? ;)
Thanks Beep Beep. I will check it out.
Al, I don’t really see how this is a backhanded insult to Americans, unless you mean all of natural resources being available for free to anyone and everyone willing to access them. I think it is important to have complete control of our water, and that isn’t meant to be anti-American.
You make a good point though…..I don’t think that they address those issues anywhere……yet. They need to work more on the actual implementation for this plan. I think that a gradual implementation (over 10-20 years) would give corporations and Canadians alike a chance to adapt to some of these proposed policies. In the meantime, lean federal subsidies towards renewable energy development instead of giving tax breaks to these highly profitable companies. If these big oil companies participate in more research, development and commercialization of sustainable fuels (and they presently do somewhat), then they will get tax breaks that way (I believe the term is “carbon neutral”).
Basically, its time to address these issues. The Liberal government pretended to, and the Conservative government isn’t even bothering to pretend. When is action going to be taken? I don’t see how voluntary measures (which I think will be a big part of the Conservative plan) will do a thing. Why would a corporation whose first and foremost responsibility is to their shareholders do something that might cost them some profit? I think that it is inevitable that there will be hard economic times ahead of us. Personally, I would rather the hard economic times be due to our change in lifestyle which we can control rather than energy prices and fuel shortages that we can't control.
"made-in Houston scam" is a back-hand. The U.S has done better than we have re controling green-house gasses. WHY REFER TO THEIR EFFORTS AS A "SCAM?"
I don't think it was a back-handed jab at the americans moreso than the oil industry in general. Its no secret that the oil industry in the US is very cozy with the government. I think she was referring to an an oil industry-friendly green plan. There is a big risk of that happening here too.
I guess we will see where the official GP2 coming out from the conservatives will take us. Somehow I think it will be a bunch of band-aid solutions (targeting air pollution and car emmissions-basically the end-product users of oil instead of the producers-which is better than nothing) without addressing the underlying issues, such as where most of the CO2 emmissions are coming from, and that is from oil production. I think one reason we produce so much more CO2 per capita is becuase of the expansion of the oilsands and other energy production. We are lucky in that we have that but unlucky because we have to live with the consequences of it as well. So, without any kind of control on their expansion, our CO2 production as a country will never go down, and we will never meet kyoto targets, Ambrose is right about that.
Al, I have posed your questions in the member's area of the Green party website, so hopefully I get some answers for you from that.
Oh, and I wanted to add that should consumer demand for energy go down, I don't think it would lead to less oil being produced since consumer demand will be increasing exponentially in developing countries like China.
I think education is very important... Because more so than government control of industry, the consumer controls corporate decisions with where to spend their almighty dollars.
Ran across this lately:
http://www.cspinet.org/EatingGreen/
... very interesting, and perhaps also educational.
Very true. There is a website called www.buyblue.org and it goes through all the major corporations so you can make educated decisions where you spend your money. It posts stuff like articles showing if they have had any environmental issues, human rights violations, and which political parties they donate money to. Its interesting.
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