[Good News Bad News] Carbon Tax

Some semi-good news for once: The British Colombia government passed what in this day and age should be seen as very progressive legislation to combat carbon emissions. The main idea of it is this: start taxing carbon emissions - any fuel that pumps carbon into the atmosphere is going to be taxed at a rate of $10 for every tonne of CO2 that it puts into the atmosphere, starting this summer. That rate goes up $5 per year until it reaches $30 per tonne in 4 years. Although the revenue generated for the province is going to be massive and could be used to fund new green technology, research and infrastructure... the BC government is going to give tax cuts to its citizens to help compensate for the extra expense. I'm not sure what I think about this latter part of the deal. It has received criticism for particularly targeting average families instead of the big polluters - a criticism I agree with. However, such critics need to understand that lower income families usually consume less energy and hopefully won't be as hard hit as the typical upper middle class family who wastes tonnes (pun intended) on heating over-sized homes that are miles away from where they work. On the other hand, the whole idea is that the extra expense for using carbon is supposed to make using carbon less affordable, but if you're just putting the money back in people's pockets in the form of income redistribution then it sort of counteracts the purpose of a tax in the first place. Either way, it's a start, and only proves that we need to work on this much more. READ ABOUT THIS HERE.

In other news, Alberta's Tory government is still destroying our planet, despite a very strong letter it received recently (which was signed by a number of oil sands companies!) which asks the government to put a moratorium on granting access to mine for oil in the Fort Mac area. The letter's signatories (amongst whom surprisingly includes Petro Canada, Suncor & Shell Canada - along with the Pembina Institute and Environment Canada) are asking the provincial government to "freeze land lease licences until 2011 in three areas around Fort McMurray that have not yet been developed." Is that too much to ask? Consider how the mere extraction process up there already accounts for more than a third of the province's carbon emissions (and Alberta is already one of the most - if not the most - culpable CO2 emitters)! READ ABOUT THIS HERE.

Finally, in what is likely to become a news story of yet another example of our federal (Conservative) government ignoring good advice, the upcoming federal budget will likely not include a carbon tax, let alone a nationally sanctioned cap and trade system, despite a recent press conference by one of Canada's most renowned environmentalists - David Suzuki. Suzuki suggested that the time is nigh for the federal government to get green legislation down on paper. If only they could pass legislation similar to that in BC, Suzuki says that the Feds could earn up to an extra $100 billion by 2020, which could then be "used to lower personal income tax for Canadians [or]... be put into renewable energy, home energy efficiency improvements, and public transportation." Most likely, however, Suzuki's plea will fall on deaf ears. READ ABOUT THIS HERE.

[Shaming] The stats are in...

Well, the stats are in folks. A study published by Martin Turcotte at Statistics Canada revealed that, after comparing all major cities in the country, Edmonton has the highest percentage of people who use a car to get around the city. Congratulations, Edmonton. You must be so proud to have this fact distinguish your city.

Read about the study here.

Now, even though I bike everywhere (followed by walking, then public transit as my preferred methods of getting around), I too am one of the Edmontonians who should accept part of the blame. The key thing to note here is the unsustainable layout of our cities. And as a citizen of Edmonton, I have played a role in allowing the growth of urban sprawl backed by an incredibly deficient public transit infrastructure. When are we going to realize that it is just plain stupid to build rows upon rows of suburban houses that are miles away from the city core where most of these homeowners work, let along miles away from the grocery store!?

Zoning laws should incorporate a clause that requires housing developers to PROVE that easy and accessible public transit will be available to connect people's homes to the places they work and shop and entertain themselves.

Instead of double-door garages and driveways marking the front view of new homes, we should be seeing garden plots and transit stops.

Instead of columns of large individualized houses that require tons of energy to heat, we should build low-rise townhouses which make use of communal heating systems as well as photovoltaic and wind power generators to lower power usage from the grid.

With peak oil either just around the corner or even potentially already behind us, the only way to interpret these new stats is this: The Canadian polity, as a whole, is either totally apathetic and ignorant about climate change OR we are totally incapable of transforming our intentions for change into action. Considering the amount of dialogue regarding global warming, I don't think the it is the former. In other words, we need to work on ACTION.

ACTION, ACTION, ACTION! We need to take on the "suck it up" attitude and stop driving. I did it, and I've been surprised at the multitude of factors that have come into play - all of which have me feeling better about my individual impact on the environment. According to Statscan, transportation accounts for 30.1% of our Greenhouse Gas emissions (see the chart below). With this in mind, driving less CAN HAVE A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON CLIMATE CHANGE. So pickup a bike, or take out those old walking shoes, or take a pair of scissors to your driver's license after buying a bus pas... do something to start ACTING on global warming!