Sustainable Development, which sprung fully-armed from the fretful socialist head of the UN’s Brundtland Commission, is indeed a religion, and it has a devil: capitalism. It thus seems suicidal for any company to accommodate it, let alone embrace it. It has no workable definition except for the feel good notion of “looking after the future.” It explicitly rejects free markets as leading to resource exhaustion and environmental destruction. As such it is not based on science, much less economics, but on primitive pre-market assumptions, which just happen to be very useful to prospective “global governors.”
Archive for the ‘Environment’ Category
Quote of the day – Peter Foster
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009Ouch! Dig deeper, Ontario
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009Today it became public that Hydro One has asked the Ontario Energy Board for permission to raise the cost of distribution to all Ontario customers an average of 9.5% in 2010 and 13.3% in 2011 to cover $266 million dollars in costs relating to their four year Green Energy Plan for 2010 to 2014. By 2011 the impact of this $266 million will be an average increase of 24.3% over two years on the delivery portion of every Ontarian’s hydro bill. Because each public utility is a customer of Hydro One, it doesn’t matter who sells you your electricity – this impacts you.
In February 2009, George Smitherman told Ontarians that the cost to implement the five billion dollars of investment Ontario is expected to make in renewable energy as part of the Green Energy Act would result in an annual increase of approximately 1% per year on the average hydro bill.
h/t to Kate.
The Hypocrisy File: David Suzuki
Friday, August 14th, 2009
“Education has failed in a very serious way to convey the most important lesson science can teach: skepticism”
– David Suzuki
But of course that virtuous “skepticism” should not be applied to to the debate raging over climate change – those who are skeptical aren’t skeptics – they are “deniers”.
The latest position is that ‘the science is settled’. In February Suzuki stormed out of an AM640 Toronto radio interview when interviewer, John Oakley, made the accurate observation that global warming science is not a “totally settled issue.”
And while I’m on the subject of Suzuki hypocrisy, let’s not forget this.
h/t to Kate.
“Government Motors” – Phase Two
Thursday, July 16th, 2009I was wondering how long it would be before Toyota and the other major automakers started to grumble about the anti-competitive nature of the government auto bailouts. And now we have a fairly targeted and expensive rebate program that favors the government-owned automaker:
“How long does this continue?” Mr. Beatty said. “We can’t set up a situation where the future of the industry depends on constant subsidies…. This suggests that [the government] is prepared to be interventionist beyond their aim to help the industry recover.”
Toyota, known for its hybrid technology, was not informed of the government’s intention to offer the rebates and was taken off guard that the announcement venue was a Chevrolet dealership, Mr. Beatty said.
“The question is: Is this a well-thought-out industry strategy? Or is it sort of the next stage in advancing a particular product and helping a particular company?”
Industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers echoed Mr. Beatty’s concern.
“A cynic would say this is just government subsidizing a product that is produced by a company they own. I think that is a bit too cynical. I just think it is bad policy from a variety of perspectives.”
Here’s an interesting take on the new rebate plan by Victor Wong.
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Update: Today’s National Post editorial has picked up on the anti-competitive theme:
The government can’t very well say it doesn’t want to pick winners in this race while it is riding one of the horses. In taking a chunk of the shares, it has effectively made a moral commitment to distort the marketplace, to reduce the economic efficiency of auto customers’ buying decisions, and to require Toyota to compete in Ontario with one hand tied behind its back.
Quote of the day
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009To reduce modern climate change to one variable, CO2, or a small proportion of one variable – human-induced CO2 – is not science. To try to predict the future based on just one variable (CO2) in extraordinarily complex natural systems is folly. Yet when astronomers have the temerity to show that climate is driven by solar activities rather than CO2 emissions, they are dismissed as dinosaurs undertaking the methods of old-fashioned science.
Quote of the day
Saturday, April 4th, 2009The whole climate change issue is about to fall apart. Heads will roll.
Well that’s just great.
Friday, October 24th, 2008My humble little blog gets picked up by the mother of all Canadian political blogs, and now my Analytics graph is all out of whack.
I hope you’re pleased with yourself Kate.
And if that’s not bad enough, did you have to make my graph look like a hockey stick?
“But it’s working in Europe”
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008To prevent a financial crisis from turning into an economic calamity, the European Union has pulled the emergency brake on green policies. At last week’s EU summit in Brussels, seven eastern and central European countries, together with Italy, threatened to veto the Union’s climate pact. The rebel governments claimed that the originally agreed goal of cutting the EU’s CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020 was too expensive; economic turmoil and rising unemployment meant that implementing the CO2 goal was no longer affordable.
But wait, didn’t the Liberals assure us during the election campaign that the carbon tax scheme was working in Europe?
If this approach to cleaning up the environment is not workable in Europe, which has a far more diverse economy and a population density that is much more conducive to green transportation initiatives, how on earth could this work here in the frozen north, where our economy is resource-based and our commuter lifestyle and transportation needs are tied to fossil fuels?
Just as this planet has learned that improvements to healthcare and education can only come about after improvements are made to our overall economic well-being and technological advances, significant improvements to the environment will require the same conditions if they are to be sustained.
Just ask China.
At what point in history would you rather live?
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008I have often discussed the question of whether or not things are improving on this small planet of ours, and I have often encountered the response “Things keep getting worse.” When I hear that response I will ask one simple question: “At what point in the history of this planet would you rather live?” After some back and forth debate on how we might measure “worse” we inevitably come to the conclusion that pretty much NOW is the best time to be alive on this planet. Which then makes me ask “Help me understand how things are getting worse for human kind? Life expectancy has increased dramatically, poverty levels and starvation levels continue to decline, and people have more freedom than ever before.” Of course I don’t mean to suggest there is not more work to be done, but the notion things are getting worse is simply not supported by the facts.
Historically, it is not through imposing limits but by transcending them that we have achieved truly remarkable progress. In the last century, although global population quadrupled, human wealth quintupled. Food production steadily outstripped population growth, and today we still produce enough to feed everyone on earth, and billions more. People starve because they can’t afford food – not because it doesn’t exist.
Human ingenuity has overcome resource shortages time and again, developing new technologies, using commodities more efficiently, overcoming scarcity and improving our living standards. The real question is why, given this historical record, we seem to have completely lost faith in our ability to keep doing this.
Source: March of the eco-imperialists
h/t to Kate (again)
Green Shift = Redistribution of wealth
Saturday, July 12th, 2008Not unlike the Kyoto accord, the Liberal “Green Shift” plan is much more about socialist-driven wealth redistribution than it is about any concern for the environment.
And this is not just me saying this, here are the latest words from Liberal MP Ken Boshcoff:
The Liberal Party’s Green Shift announced on June 19th marked the most aggressive anti-poverty program in 40 years. The ‘shift’ will transfer wealth from rich to poor, from the oil patch to the rest of the country, and from the coffers of big business to the pockets of low-income Canadians.
But of course the progressives/socialists will say “and what’s wrong with that?”
ht to Kate and Charles Adler.
If the Dion Green Shift does get through there is no doubt we will see some significant redistribution. As we saw in the late 70’s under the Liberal “National Energy Program” the oil patch will redistribute itself south and manufacturers will redistribute their capital to more tax-friendly jurisdictions.