Probably something like this. Some guy named Edwards did a clear-cut and built it.
Posted on 05/13/2007 8:29:12 AM PDT by rickmichaels
Say this much for Green Party Leader Elizabeth May. She knows what a "carbon tax" is.
And that's good because a carbon tax -- a consumption tax on the use of carbon dioxide -- is the main way Canadians are going to be financially impacted by global warming.
David Suzuki claims we're ready to pay carbon taxes.
But that doesn't tell us what they are.
Conservative Environment Minister John Baird says a carbon tax of $195 per tonne would send us into a recession, but he appears to have pulled that number out of his ... uh ... head.
Liberal Leader Stephane Dion favours charging Canada's 700 top industrial greenhouse gas emitters, which produce half our carbon emissions, $20 per tonne (growing to $30 by 2011) if they exceed government targets. But he says it's not a tax but a "deposit," since they'll be able to get it back by going green.
Again, that doesn't tell us what a carbon tax is.
Besides, mainstream politicians are only talking about carbon charges (as well as ending subsidies) for industry. What about us?
Here's how May described it in a meeting with the Sun last week. In explaining the Greens' fiscal policy, which includes carbon taxes, she noted: "We want to reduce taxes on things we claim we want in society, like income, jobs and profits, and shift taxes to things we say we don't want, like pollution and toxic chemicals."
Bingo! A carbon tax is social engineering. It's an attempt to change human behaviour through the tax system, based on how our decisions impact on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions we produce by burning fossil fuels, the main one being carbon dioxide. Hence a "carbon" tax.
A carbon tax isn't a tax on income. Over time, it would replace income taxes.
Here's some examples -- and this is me talking, not May. (The Greens' fiscal policy is still in the works.)
Broadly speaking, a real carbon tax would:
Financially reward you for eating vegetables, punish you for eating meat.
Reward you for eating domestically-produced food, punish you for eating imported food.
Reward you for living in a condo/apartment, punish you for living in a monster home.
Reward you for vacationing close to home, punish you for flying to exotic locales.
Reward you for taking public transit, punish you for driving a car.
Reward you for driving a hybrid, punish you for driving an SUV.
And so on. It's more complicated for utilities because consumer choice, regulated by government, is limited. But you get the idea. And that's just the first step. After carbon taxes would come the carbon economy.
Our finances, and lives, would eventually be built around budgeting our annual carbon allotment (set by government), selling what we don't need, buying what we do.
Say I'm a vegetarian, transit-riding, apartment dweller, who vacations in Wasaga Beach and who has underspent his annual carbon allotment, while you're a meat-eating, SUV-driving, monster-home owner, who wants to summer in France and has already blown his carbon allotment for the year.
Okay, make me an offer for my unused carbon credits.
Far-fetched? Not at all. That's what the Kyoto accord is about at a goverment-to-government level.
It's also the idea behind the Emissions Trading Scheme for Europe's biggest carbon emitters that our politicians want to copy. (The ETS has been something of a fiasco, but that's another story.)
Are we ready for real carbon taxes? Hard to tell.
When people tell pollsters by a margin of two-to-one they favour trying to comply with Kyoto, what they're saying, indirectly, is they favour carbon taxes. But when asked directly whether they're willing to pay a whole lot more for gasoline -- one example of a carbon tax -- they're against it, also by two-to-one.
May appreciates this contradiction, which is why she talks about "tax shifting" rather than "tax hiking" when it comes to carbon taxes.
But how much social engineering will people accept to fight global warming? On that, the jury's out.
Are we ready for real carbon taxes? NO!
Now all they need to do is start issuing carbon credit ration cards—so we can start forging them and stimulating a profitable black market in the best greatest Generation style.
“Vote for carbon credits, Tony Soprano needs to put his kids through college.”
“Do you really need to take that drive?”
C’mon roustabouts! Lets have some input.
Like I have said before.....carbon taxes, more taxes, is a method that controls the people. Take more of their money away from the average citizen, and you have more control. It’s all about control. The very rich won’t care because they can write off the taxes and they have the money to pay the taxes. The average person is the one they want control of. Forcing people to live in cities, apartments, using public transportation....takes away their freedom to live the way they want. People living on ranches, farms, in the country, are pretty independent people and those in control don’t like that. People living in cities are controlable.
It simply amazes me that some people will actually support this government theft.
“taxing excess”
And “excess” would be determined by whom? I imagine it will be someone like hitlary who now thinks the definition of “rich” is that of someone making only three times the poverty level.
I’m curious what constitutes a “monster” home.
So the Greens “all” agree they want more taxes and carbon trading, are all set to write bill about it, .... But they can’t quite agree on how much and how to do it. (Except raise taxes on somebody that is.)
Strange, the writer - while encouraging and demanding the new taxes - acknowledges that they haven’t worked elsewhere:; “May appreciates this contradiction, which is why she talks about “tax shifting” rather than “tax hiking” when it comes to carbon taxes. “
But somehow the politicians and chosen rich entertainers will be exempt. Happens every time.
And there you have what I fear most about the so-called “fair tax.” The current income tax system with all its flaws is a relatively blunt instrument. But once a national sales tax infrastructure is set up, it can turn into a finely honed instrument of social engineering when the rate becomes based on the UPC and not the sum of the purchases. “Ah, that item gets the carbon adder, that one the trans-fat penalty, and oh my, your bmi scan says those twinkies are subject to the triple whammy tax.” To think that Congress would abdicate the power of the tax code is absurd. Without Constitutional protection to prohibit variable rates by purchase type, we will have handed complete micromanagement authority to Congress.
“The very rich won’t care because they can write off the taxes’
They can? Against what? Their taxes??? LOL
“I didn’t pay any taxes this year. I deducted all the taxes I paid last year and no income was left.”
Of course the real problem here is that ‘tax-shifting’ won’t be just ‘shifting’ for long. I doubt they’ll pull funds from highway construction, for example, to offset penalties paid for living in a ‘monster home.’
“A carbon tax isn’t a tax on income. Over time, it would replace income taxes.”
“...Financially reward you for eating vegetables, punish you for eating meat.”
She of course doesn’t say how her first stupid utterence would happen. She probably wouldn’t even be able to find one example of how a new tax actually replaced an old tax in the real world. The real world has plenty of examples of new taxes being sold to us as a way to “eventually” replace old taxes, with the result being two taxes!
Also, yeah, I’d like the government to “reward” me or “punish” me based on what I eat, and how I live my life. Sorry, but I don’t need the government to not only be my master, but also my God.
The new John Edwards compound springs immediately to mind.
Sure, tax SUVs. That is the stupidest thing ever. Funny how my mom who drives her SUV about 30 miles a week is THE problem with the world, but somebody who drives their Honda Civic 400 miles a week is as good as gold.
What Canadians will find is that any carbon tax will affect ordinary citizens the most. Expect an increase in electricity and home heating costs not to mention more expensive gasoline and automobiles. The wealthy in their mansions will either pay these carbon taxes or use the carbon offset scam and not appreciably alter their lifestyles.
If you try to walk they’ll tax your feet.
Since the average human being produces about two pounds of Carbon Dioxide per day, or about 2/3 ton per year, the best way to be carbon neutral is to cease breathing.
I’m curious what constitutes a “monster” home.
I don’t know about Canada but Gore and Edwards will tell you that their homes aren’t.
I cannot believe that supposedly intelligent humans actually believe this utter nonsense. Who cares about carbon emissions? It’s solar activity that is responsible for climate fluctuations, not carbon dioxide. If we had a responsible and neutral media, this would be common knowledge.
My wife and I live in a 2400 sq ft house. To an ecofascist, that's a monster house. To a liberal Hollywood elitist, that's a guest cottage out in the back 40.
Tax Michael Moore for all his CO2 spew
Except, just like [U.S.] Social Security, no citizen will have a legal right to his "deposit." The Liberal is lying. But should we be surprised?
Take more of their money away from the average citizen, and you have more control. It’s all about control.
Isn't that the objective of the Marxists?
Any person who does not know that the climates on all the planets in our solar system are controlled by the sun is an idiot.
Either an idiot or so blinded by hubris that they believe their own delusions of grandeur and importance (e.g., controlling the weather)...or, worse: all of the above.
AE,#22: “It’s solar activity that is responsible for climate fluctuations”
To clarify/half-disagree with your statement:
The sun’s energy output has not changed to any extent that would affect the earth’s atmospheric heat retention. If you make this argument, you will get quickly shot down by anyone with a graph of solar flux.
However, the sun’s magnetic field is at its strongest in human recorded history, blocking the specific radiation type that drives low-altitude cloud formation.
(Low-altitude clouds reflect more of the sun’s energy than they trap under them, high level clouds trap more energy than they reflect.)
(The sun’s boosted magnetic field repels a higher-than-normal portion of cosmic-radiation (from outside our solar system) in the wavelengths/energy-state that triggers an atmospheric ionization cascade that drives the seeding and formation of low altitude clouds.)
For confirmation/proof, see the website of the Danish National Space Sciences Center at spacecenter.dk ... specifically, Dr. Henrik Svensmark, Head of the Center for Sun-Climate Research.
Note also that the Global Warming models currently in use do not factor in cloud effects on earth’s reflectivity (albedo) because the mechanism driving cloud formation was not understood until Dr. Svensmark’s experiments. As a result, the GW models used improvised increased-humidity variant calculations for changes in cloud reflectivity. The GW models also ignored that the earth’s warming/cooling cycles match well with the gross-scale changes in the sun’s magnetic field (at its lowest in the time of the little ice age, increasing (unsteadily, with other cycles) as earth came out of the little ice age and into the current fewer-clouds and higher-temperature stage.)
“The sun’s energy output has not changed to any extent that would affect the earth’s atmospheric heat retention. If you make this argument, you will get quickly shot down by anyone with a graph of solar flux.
However, the sun’s magnetic field is at its strongest in human recorded history, blocking the specific radiation type that drives low-altitude cloud formation.”
You just contradicted yourself. There is a lot of common sense flux going on these days - probably the highest in recorded history.
That’s why I used the term “solar activity” rather than heat or output.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
This is all a bunch of crap that is coming here real soon. Who is stopping Russia, China and all of the soviet block countries from spewing all of thier junk into the air? Just another way the liberal retards are in our pockets!
Stoled my name....lol. : )
has it dawned on tv-morons yet
that they’ll be paying more for driving their suv’s,
a/c, etc?
an article in the newspaper the other day disclosed that 60+% of the carbon taxes go to china.
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