July 21, 2024 was a milestone day - the hottest day on Earth

By Ray Rivers

August 1st, 2024

BURLINGTON, ON

 

It seems only yesterday that we watched the town of Lytton B.C. get washed away by massive flooding.  This year’s Jasper wildfire is estimated to rack up  $700 million in insurance costs alone.  And don’t forget the really big $4 billion dollar burn at Fort McMurray, right smack dab in the heart of Alberta oil country.

It’s like someone upstairs, Gaia, Darwin or God, is sending us a message.  Canada is now one of almost 50 nations that have embraced carbon pricing as part of the solution.  But as the critics will tell you, Canada’s carbon tax and rebate is better at income redistribution, taking from the rich to give to the poor, than at fossil fuel phase out. Of course if some provincial premiers stopped cutting provincial gas taxes, the carbon tax would be more effective.

It is a catchy phrase – you have to give it that.

But Canada’s carbon tax will be gone next year if Canada’s poll leading official opposition party has its way.  And you can bet that will also be the fate of the environmental programs the Liberals had introduced to supplement the carbon tax.

Although the Americans don’t have a federal carbon tax, the Biden administration has introduced an extensive climate change mitigation program.  But the election of the popular Mr. Trump would bring that to a conclusion as well.

Given that political uncertainty, its little wonder that the city of Chicago has decided to take matters in its own hand.  It has filed a 185 page lawsuit charging 11 counts of fraud, nuisance, conspiracy and negligence against five big oil companies.  They claim that the fossil fuel industry fought the science around climate change and its causes, even as company scientists conceded the danger.  These companies misrepresented and withheld information for about 50 years.

It is the same playbook which successfully brought down the tobacco industry and exacted compensation for the health care costs associated with tobacco use.   Reliance on courts for justice is the American way, after all, especially when public policy is failing the people.   And the growing list of those going legal against big oil now includes Puerto Rico and the Philippines, one of the nations most at risk from climate change.

Carbon pricing is touted by academics as the most economically efficient way to get people to lower their carbon footprint.  There are other options, such as applying as a very high excise tax on gas/oil burning autos and appliances thereby making the choice of electric power more competitive.  And then there is the federal ban on new petroleum powered car sales after 2035.

The feds could pass legislation to establish liability for the damages wrought by our changing climate, adding costs to the company’s bottom line and increasing the price of all that black gold.  But that might too much to expect of a government which is still actively subsidizing the oil and gas giants.

Ottawa could assess oil and gas as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act as they did for single use plastics.  And that would provide a science based pathway for a phase out.   But they haven’t.

Some frustrated Canadians are also taking matters into their own hands and heading for the courts despite the odds.  In a precedent setting case, the Ford government was successfully sued in 2019 by seven young individuals for reducing the province’s GHG emission target.  The judge acknowledged their right to a healthy environment.

Sunday, July 21, 2024 was a milestone day – the hottest day on Earth since the start of the last Ice age more than 100,000 years ago.  What better a time to go to court?

Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking.  Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington.  He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject.   Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa.  Tweet @rayzrivers

 

 

Background links:

Insurance –    ChicagoPuerto Rico –   PhilippinesTorontoSubsidyFord Sued – 

 

 

 

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4 comments to July 21, 2024 was a milestone day – the hottest day on Earth

  • Ted Gamble

    I am one of the “Axe The Taxers” This tax or any tax do nothing to reduce carbon emissions. It is not a measure to mitigate global warming. With the total tax haul on the average Canadian at 43% society cannot and will not afford any of the current technical solutions.

    The EV rage is an abject colossal failure. Ford Canada will be building monster diesel trucks in Oakville. Umicore have shelved their Ontario battery plan. A Quebec battery plant is on the ropes. GM are bringing back hybrid models, Ford is losing about $20K on each Mustang Mach E, lets tax the cheap Chinese cars and on it goes.

    We have 30 representatives from a major auto company visiting our unique hydrogen plant in two weeks. Our patented fully green technology does not even use electricity to produce hydrogen, and yet we have to look outside of Canada for cash.

    The Japanese know ultimately the future transportation fuel will be hydrogen.

    There is no market or financing in Canada for hydrogen development despite the fact that Liberal politicians “hype” it up as the replacement for natural gas and the failed media gobble it up.

    Ray’s opinion piece simply regurgitates plagiarizes buzz words and themes politicians use in their separation to find votes. Ray is one of “them”.

    Ted G P.Eng.

  • Bob Zarichansky

    Mercury — no Carbon Tax — Zero population
    Venus — no Carbon Tax — Zero population
    Mars — no Carbon Tax — Zero population
    Jupiter — no Carbon Tax — Zero population
    Saturn — no Carbon Tax — Zero population
    Uranus — no Carbon Tax — Zero population
    Neptune — no Carbon Tax — Zero population
    Earth 2124 (forever Trumper/Poilievre version) — no Carbon Tax –Zero population

  • Joe Gaetan

    Unfortunately the Carbon Tax was not accompanied by programs to mitigate carbon emissions in a meaningful way. Instead it was pitched as a cash back program in the hope that giving us all or most of our taxed dollars back at some time in the future would cause us to buy carbon free or neutral products. The survey results make the case as over 40% of respondents surveyed do not believe the governments program is effective.
    This government had a chance to make a difference but failed when it came to practical help for taxpayers, failed to install nationwide EV charging infrastructure as did Tesla, opting instead to fund battery plants that while necessary at some point did nothing to reduce emissions today.

  • Carol Victor

    Thank you for this…..I wish it would reach the “Axe the Taxers”…. so many people care only for themselves and not for those who may not survive in the future….instead of demonizing measures to mitigate global warming, we should be grateful to those who have made the preservation of our environment a priority.