Thursday, October 29, 2009

NEP II - Hammer Alberta and Saskatchewan to meet climate goals

Bolstering the hype leading up to the December Copenhagen Conference, the Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute today released a report recommending that Alberta's and Saskatchewan's growth be curbed:

Ottawa will have to lead a massive restructuring of the Canadian economy, with wealth flowing from the West to the rest of the country, if it is to meet its climate-change targets, a landmark report has concluded.

The Conservative government's goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 can be achieved, but only by limiting growth in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Environment Minister Jim Prentice ain't happy:

“The conclusions [the report] draws are irresponsible,” said Mr. Prentice
Still, the fact that the federal government appears to believe the ever more clearly dubious AGW hypothesis and continues making plans to waste huge gobs of money chasing that hypothesis is disturbing enough. And so is the fact that the "landmark" idiot report was funded by the TD Bank.

A Globe poll today is somewhat encouraging:

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And, coincidentally, here's Mark Steyn's timely column in Maclean's today: "Gullible eager-beaver planet savers". It's brilliant in it's exposé of statist Big Brotherism in the name of environmentalism. And good for Maclean's for publishing it. The TD Bank could use some of the same kind of intelligence and moxie.

Updates: Kevin Libin's "Carbon report’s bloody portent" [h/t Wilson in the comments].

Also see Peter Foster's "Muddled models":

... [the Pemina-Suzuki] report was leaked to The Globe and Mail, and ... the thrust of coverage appeared to contradict the smiley-faced conclusions of the report, which was titled “Climate leadership, economic prosperity.” Or, please hobble us so that we can run faster!

Under reasons for draconian action, the report quotes the widely discredited report from British economist and climate extremist Nicholas Stern....

Lord Stern is increasingly becoming a figure of ridicule. This week, he suggested that vegetarianism might save the world, and projected that attitudes towards meat eating might become like those towards drunk driving. He has also predicted climate change would turn Europe into a desert and turn the world back in time by 30-million years....

... The TD’s Mr. Drummond apparently doesn’t “endorse” the report. He told me he just wanted people to have “something to shoot at.”

But such a study, while an inviting target, should hardly be the starting point for rational analysis of the greatest policy threat to freedom and prosperity in living memory.

What it does confirm is how far the policy “debate” has been taken over by activists, supported by Big Corporate money.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Aw, c'mon. Hopefully the three opposition parties will get behind this and force those upstart western provinces to heel at their eastern master's command.
Iggy, Jackie, Gilley, you've got to back this to the limit. After all, you've been screaming for a radical green shift. Do it! Please, please, please. I dare you.

Mr. Lorne said...

Perhaps it's time to consider putting the "Alberta Separatist Party" on speed-dial.

Anonymous said...

As of about noon today two of my accounts were moved to ATB from the TD. Rob C

wilson said...

That's about the only control we have here isn't it Rob C..!
Money talks.

Good read from kevin Libin:

'...In a committee hearing on C-311, one MP asked the Pembina Institute’s representative which countries, anywhere on Earth, faced as steep a cost for climate compliance as Canada.

The answer, we learned, was none and so, any opposition party backing C-311 now winds up endorsing the economic equivalent of a whack to the face...'

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2009/10/30/kevin-libin-carbon-report-s-bloody-portent.aspx

Anonymous said...

The NEP Part 6! Not much has changed in the last hundred years, eh?

Zookeeper said...

You would think that sooner or later, amidst all the rhetoric and arm-waving, someone would ask "what will be the actual benefit? What impact will we have on temperature?" and will not stop asking until the question is answered.

And when the answer finally emerges as "well, actually, no benefit that anyone can measure" the game will be over.

Let's just keep asking the question. Non-tangible benefits deserve only non-tangible gestures.

Zookeeper said...

I have now read the "report".

Highlights: 18% of our power generation from wind by 2020. No use of concrete (as it has a high carbon footprint). Investment that would have gone to Oil Sands goes instead to Ontario and Quebec for undefined purposes. $32Billion in taxes goes as income tax reductions, but of course that would have to go to the lower income cohort first for political purposes. Metal smelters receive tax money to offset their energy costs. People leave the energy producing provinces.

Not a whisper about what effect it would all have on temperatures. I suppose that is immaterial, as long as "we" are "doing" something about "climate change".

I want to puke. Is this pompous crap what informs policy these days?

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