Sunday, January 8, 2017

NUTTINESS IN CLIMATE CHANGE DISCUSSION

   Yesterday , in the local paper, a local columnist had a piece on climate change. The guy is very right winged and anti everything. He's also a very skillful writer.

   Of course I read his piece very carefully. He starts out by painting climate change people as people who use big words. He also twists a few things on science as science is to come up with things that are open ended so how could there be proof of climate change if the science is wrong. He skillfully asks questions and then provides the answers he wants. Of course, this guy has lots of followers here.

    One argument that plays well is that we produce a very small fraction of world greenhouse gases. If large green house gas producers don't make an effort to control greenhouse gases , why should we?

    Alberta Canada is an oil producing region. The first big gusher came in in 1948. Development continued rapidly after 1948. Many people made good money working in oilfields and others developed service businesses to look after the oil fields. Many of our people have made their living from oil so find it difficult to go along with climate change. Many of our people are very much to the right. They brag  about the value of private enterprise and they do not like any regulation that regulates what they do. They are an easy mark for someone trying to argue against climate change.

   Alberta has a large area of tar sands which are being developed. Billions have been spent on tar sands plants.

    We recently changed governments here and ended up with a left wing government. The right wingers have been foaming at the mouth ever since. They use Trump's call to lock her up as we have a very sharp female premier.

    Now the new government has brought in a carbon tax. Debate has been vigorous and ridiculous as facts seem to have become very scarce.

   Now if the people who are against carbon tax could stop and take a breath they might see that the purpose of a carbon tax is to cut use. Now if they controlled their use of carbon fuels maybe there wouldn't have to be a carbon tax. Maybe if they quit driving giant pick up trucks there would be less use of carbon fuels. 99% of the people do not need the big trucks so it would be easy to cut down.

    I'm afraid people want their toys no matter how much destruction  they may cause.

    A carbon tax is only one of the ways to deal with climate change. All of us can contribute to lessening greenhouse gases by just cutting our use.