{"id":315146,"date":"2024-03-30T20:26:52","date_gmt":"2024-03-30T19:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=315146"},"modified":"2024-03-30T20:26:54","modified_gmt":"2024-03-30T19:26:54","slug":"how-the-carbon-cult-subverts-political-discourse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=315146","title":{"rendered":"How the Carbon Cult Subverts Political\u00a0Discourse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Science Matters <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Ron Clutz<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Trudeau Turns the Carbon Tax Screws on Canadians April 1<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Ross Mckitrick explains the smoke and mirrors in Trudeau\u2019s justifications for his racheting carbon tax in a National Post article Wanted: A leader who is honest about climate policy. <\/strong><\/a> Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pierre Poilievre is leading anti-carbon tax rallies<\/strong> around the country, ginning up support for an old-fashioned tax revolt. In response, Justin Trudeau<\/strong> went to Calgary and trumpeted \u2014 believe it or not! \u2014 his love of free markets<\/strong>. After explaining the economic logic of using a carbon tax to reduce greenhouse gases<\/strong>, the prime minister slammed regulatory approaches<\/strong>, which, he said, \u201call involve the heavy hand of government. I prefer a cleaner solution, a market-based solution<\/strong> and that is, if you\u2019re behaving in a way that causes pollution, you should pay.\u201d<\/strong> He added that the Conservatives would instead rely on the \u201cheavy hand of government through regulation and subsidies to pick winners and losers in the economy as opposed to trusting the market.\u201d  Amen to all that!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But someone should tell Trudeau that his own government\u2019s
Emission Reduction Plan mainly consists of heavy-handed
regulations, subsidies, mandates and winner-picking grants.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within its 240 pages one does find a carbon tax. But also 139 additional policies,<\/strong> including:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2666  Clean Fuels Regulations,<\/em>
\u2666  An electric vehicle mandate that will ban gasoline cars by 2035,<\/em>
\u2666  Aggressive fuel economy standards that will hike such cars\u2019 cost in the meantime,<\/em>
\u2666  Costly new emission targets specifically for oil & gas, agriculture, heavy industry and waste management,<\/em>
\u2666  Onerous new energy efficiency requirements both for new buildings and renovations of existing buildings, New electricity grid requirements, and page upon page of<\/em>
\u2666  Subsidy funds for \u201cclean technology\u201d firms and other would-be winners in the sunlit uplands of the new green economy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does Trudeau oppose any of that? Hardly. But the economic logic of a carbon tax only applies when it is used on its own.<\/strong> He doesn\u2019t get to boast about the elegance of market mechanisms on behalf of a policy package that starts with a price signal then destroys it with a massive regulatory apparatus.<\/strong> Trudeau also tried to warm his Alberta audience to the carbon tax by invoking the menace of mild weather and forest fires<\/strong>. In fairness it was an unusual February in Calgary.<\/strong> The month began with a week of above-zero temperatures<\/strong>, hitting five degrees Celsius at one point, then there was a brief cold snap<\/strong> before Valentine\u2019s Day, then the daytime highs soared<\/strong> to the low teens for nine days and the month ended with soupy above-zero conditions. Weird.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oops, that was 1981.<\/strong> This year was weirder<\/strong>: February highs were above zero for 25 out of 28 days, eight of which were even above 10 degrees C.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oops again, that was 1991. Granted, February 2024 also had
its mild patches, but not like the old days.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, back then warm weather was just weather. Now it\u2019s a climate emergency and Canadians demand action. Except they don\u2019t want to pay for it,<\/strong> which is the main problem for politicians when trying to come up with a climate policy that\u2019s both effective and affordable. In fact, you can only have one of those two. Take your pick: effective or affordable, affordable or effective.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In practice, of course we typically end up zero for two,
with policies that are both ineffective and unaffordable.<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can claim<\/strong> your policy will yield deep decarbonization while boosting the economy,<\/strong> which almost all politicians in every western country have spent decades doing. But it\u2019s not true<\/strong>. With current technology, affordable policies yield only small temporary emission reductions.<\/strong> Population and economic growth swamp their effects over time, which is why mainstream economists have long argued<\/strong> that while we can eliminate some lowvalue emissions, for the most part we will just have to live with climate change. Trying to stop it would cost far more than it\u2019s worth.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile the policy pantomime continues<\/strong>. Poilievre\u2019s anti-carbon tax rallies are popular, but what happens after we axe the tax?<\/strong> If he plans to replace it with regulatory measures<\/strong> aimed at achieving the same emission cuts, he really should tell his rallygoers that what he has in mind will hit them even harder than the tax they\u2019re so keen to scrap.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or does he have the courage to do the sensible thing
and follow the mainstream economics advice?<\/mark><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If he wants to be honest<\/strong> with Canadians, he must explain that the affordable options will not get us to the Paris target, let alone to net-zero<\/strong>, and even if they did, what Canada does will have no effect on the global climate because we\u2019re such small players.<\/strong> Maybe new technologies will appear over the next decade that change the economics, but until that day we\u2019re better off fixing our growth problems, getting the cost of living down and continuing to be resilient to all the weather variations Canadians have always faced.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addendum<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Notice that Trudeau asserts that his carbon tax is needed so that \u201cpolluters pay.\u201d  Millions of Canadian taxpayers\u2019 dollars<\/strong> have been spent on prime time TV ads<\/strong> reminding viewers that we have to do something to stop \u201ccarbon pollution\u201d, by which they mean CO2 emissions. <\/strong> No matter that CO2, far from being an unnatural contaminant, is plant food without which (less than 150 ppm) plants and animals die.  No mention of thousands of scientists proclaiming that \u201cThere is No Climate Emergency,\u201d and that global warming and rising CO2 since the Little Ice Age have led to unprecedented human flourishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So essential CO2 is labeled as a pollutant in order to insist that emissions from burning hydrocarbons must be reduced to avert a crisis:<\/strong> heat waves, forest fires, floods, droughts, etc. etc.  The premise is \u201cWe have to do something to stop emitting CO2.\u201d  Politicians of all stripes dare not question it.  And a video interview below demonstrates how that premise prevents any reasonable discussion of energy policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\u00a0Parliamentary Budget Officer<\/strong>\u00a0released a\u00a0report<\/strong>\u00a0looking into\u00a0how much the carbon tax is actually costing Canadian households.<\/strong>\u00a0In the\u00a0CBC interview<\/strong>, Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux breaks down the report. And, Dale Beugin, executive vice-president of the Canadian Climate Institute discusses the analysis his organization has conducted on the government\u2019s emissions reduction plan. Note the\u00a0PBO role is non-partisan, while the CCI agenda is open and obviously Gung Ho against CO2.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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