Photo: (not part of original article) bread lines of the great depression – coming again?
Climate change: Less CO2, less jobs. It’s that simple.
03-16-2009 NIGEL HANNAFORD
If you want to know what an economy that pumps out less carbon dioxide is like, look at Ontario, Quebec and Alberta. Factories closed, growing numbers of jobless, people driving less because they have nowhere to go, government deficits.
As it happens, it’s the U.S. debt crisis that’s done it to us. When the air comes out of the tires of your biggest trading, look out.
However, it’s also what a well-meaning climate-change lobby felt was pain worth risking for the sake of the planet, when it recommended a regimen of emission caps and/or carbon taxes to reduce C02 emissions in Canada.
How do you like it so far?
Not so much, at this desk.
This is not the whole story as it doesn’t include coal and natural gas, but there are some provocative specifics in a recent Statistics Canada document. The Supply and Disposition of Refined Petroleum Products in Canada, was published in November 2008, coincidentally a good month to review because it’s both the latest month for which figures are available and also the month when Canadians watching the American meltdown first noticed they might have a problem of their own. For, it was in November 2008 that retail fell off a cliff – especially car sales – joblessness started to climb, and the federal government was forced to revisit its economic forecasts. No more chat about balanced budgets, and so forth.
So, what do these numbers show?
Well, in Canada as a whole, domestic sales of all refined petroleum products were down five per cent in November 2008, over November 2007.
Refined petroleum products is a statistical category that includes gasoline, diesel, butane, petro-chemical feedstocks, asphalt, av-gas and a number of other things too numerous to detail. It’s not a perfect marker for industrial activity, because some industry runs off nuclear and hydro power, especially in central Canada. However, it’s good enough to indicate a trend: If there is less diesel being used, for example, there are probably less trucks on the road, because there is less reason for them to be there.
So, for Ontario and Quebec, it’s not good news that its fuel use is down slightly more than the national average in November, at 5.5 and 5.6 per cent reductions year over year respectively.
And it is especially not good news for Alberta, which is down more than seven per cent.
Ontario and Quebec are down because their manufacturing industries are in trouble.
But, what’s Alberta’s excuse? In some ways it would be a relief to spot some dramatic decline in a line item, thereby isolating the problem. Unfortunately though, the decline is across the board, suggesting a general slowing of the Alberta economy. Ouch.
All this is good news however, if you are part of the super-active climate-change lobby promoting the idea that human activity is generating so much carbon dioxide that the atmosphere is warming. (With the likely consequence of polar melting, rising sea levels and the widespread distress caused by human dislocation, etc.) A rough and dirty calculation of Canada using 445,000 cubic metres of various refined petroleum products less in November 2008, over 2007, is a reduction in CO2 emissions of 1.6 million tonnes. Annualize that kind of a reduction in fuel use and you’re looking at something like 20 million tonnes less C02 in 2009, if the recession doesn’t turn.
However, don’t cheer too quickly. In 2006, (Environment Canada’s most recent published figures,) Canadian emissions were 721 million tonnes of greenhouse gas equivalent. Take this hard-won 20 million tonnes of CO2 off the total, and it’s still just over 700 million tonnes. Meanwhile Al Gore’s true believers want to take it all the way down to Canada’s Kyoto target of 558.4 Mt.
We have a long way to go, then.
Point: If this is what an economy producing 20 million tonnes less of CO2 looks like, how prosperous will one be that contracts enough to shed a further 141.6 Mt.?
Happily governments of both parties have quietly acknowledged the suicidal nature of CO2 restrictions that actually produce significantly less CO2, (as opposed to simply making business pay carbon levies for the privilege of carrying on business-as-usual.) They have also acknowledged in their budgetary allocations, that so-called green industries are no compensation. One has to manufacture an awful lot of windmills to nudge the gross domestic product.
For that at least we can be thankful. The pity of it all however, is that when the history books of 2109 are published, their writers will express amazement that men ever thought their capacity to initiate climate change was greater than the natural forces that in the last 30,000 years first covered this continent with ice two kilometres thick, saw it recede, and allowed sea levels to fluctuate 100 metres.
If this recession does nothing else, it should bring home to all Canadians the supreme importance of not letting alarmists have their way with the economy.
This is what it would be like.
But, worse.
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Any job openings in the green lobby. I wonder what their average pay is at the organizer level and above?
I had a discussion about this subject with a few Canadian friends who had the ‘we’re superior to you because we don’t emit as much CO2 and how can you (US) be so bad to emit sso much CO2’ attitude. I pointed out that their stance was hypocritical as long as they profited from the sale of petroleum products to the US that enabled the emission of the CO2 to make products that they then buy from us.
If they REALLY want to take a stand about CO2 they should leave the oil/tar sand in the ground and refuse to sell it anymore. But that would cripple the Canadian economy and government revenue streams so I suspect they most likely won’t. My Canadian friends said as much.
I think I’ll get into the business of selling carbon offsets. My business model will be to charge well-meaning enviomental-nuts to pay me to plant trees and shrubs. This will create employment, save the planet, make the greenies feel good about all the electricity they use, and make my yard will look GREAT!
Worldwide recession has probably already done what years of carbon trading couldn’t hope to do. Now I’m waiting for SOMEONE in the US to add up all that fuel that isn’t being burned and report on it.
The Canadians have a serious problem.
Their Prime Minister Harper was elected because he opposed CO2 mitigation taxes.
After a meeting with Obama stated that he was committed to a “Green Pact”, based on the USA policies.
Another case of broken promises?
The way politics usually works is that once a bad idea is entrenched (as CO2 reduction is), there will be backdoor loopholes for the politically connected while the rest of the population is diverted from the true cause of their problems. This will happen because opposition politicians will be fearful of challenging the paradigm that is reinforced by an ignorant or complicit media. The public at large won’t understand who’s at fault and how to fix it.
It’s why real political change comes by revolution rather than progression – just the opposite of what is taught, of course. People are weird.
It is great to finally see someone put a true “cost” on CO2 reduction. Unfortunately, most people don’t take a serious look at an issue or their habits until their wallet is involved.
The end product of all of this nonsense is further economic crisis with dramatic price increases for the “middle class” folk who politicians always claim they are helping in the end.
How much CO2 would be produced making the resins to fabricate enough composite windmill blades to replace the energy loss from the annual reduction in fossile fuel energy needed to cut some 180 Mt of CO2 emmisions needed to meet our Kyoto targets?
This has nothing to do with the post, but it should be noted that the photograph above is not of a depression-related breadline, but, rather, of a breadline in the aftermath of a catastrophic flood.
Lines of prosperity. The green paradise.!!
It reminds me of Aldous Huxley’ s “Brave New World”, we the “Gammas” have nothing to do but submit under the great great Al-pha.
I am afraid that the false claims that CO2 causes GW, espoused by the Environmental Movement, have done irreversible damage to the US economy. Not even the thundering sound of freedom of ten thousand Harleys will suffice to reverse the harm that has been done.
The false claims that CO2 cause GW can only be dispelled by educating people. CO2 does not cause GW or any kind of warming for that matter. CO2 causes cooling. When you hold a can of soda in your hand you feel the cooling coming from the can into your hand. This is happening because the CO2 used in carbonation lowers the temperature of the liquid inside the can.
Reply: This post was approved because, content non-withstanding, it did not violate any blog rules. Yet I still felt this caveat needed to be added. ~ charles the moderator
Less CO2 will mean less jobs.
Right now there is simply no steady altenative supply of energy. Wind and solar are sporadic, expesnive and require natural gas backup 1 to 1. Biodiesel and ethanol are pie in the sky.
If you try to elimnate coal, oil and gas, you’re left with a flickering power grid. Certainly nothing you can maintain an industrial society with.
The whole thing would be as successful as the experiment in communism. It’s utter lunacy.
The whole experiment reminds of an old STAR TREK episode where the Enterprise picked up some lazy space hippies who were on the way to a paradise planet of some sort. When they got there, it turned out to be completely poisonous, and they all died.
I fully agree with Gary at 07:41.
The likely result of any proposed carbon reduction scheme would be the disproportionate application of the law to those who were not politically connected enough or powerful enough to ignore it. Laws like this are simply a power-grabbing mechanism for those who lack the personal qualities to win legitimate recognition for themselves, or the good taste to content themselves with a modest and respectable life.
In order to see this clearly, we need only examine the issue from the environmentalist’s own perspective; provided that he is a committed, true-believing environmentalist who reasons with courage and ironclad logic from his premises, not the politicized variety. I do not agree with such people of course, but let us at least admire, for the puproses of discussion, their ideological purity. Would any sort of carbon-trading scheme satisfy such a one as this? What does he care whether or not the carbon dioxide still belched into the atmosphere has been offset by validly purchased credits, according to the laws of Caesar? He wants the carbon dioxide to stop. He can do “back of the envelope” calculations as well as anyone else, and a CO2 molecule in the atmosphere is a CO2 molecule in the atmosphere, whether it has been purchased or not. The empty formalisms of carbon trading availeth nothing to expiate the sin; it must be repented, halted, and undone. He would see carbon-trading as just another example of politicians playing games; dutifully and forthwith he would overturn their tables and throw them out of the temple.
Let us be clear about this: such schemes will soon draw criticism from both the Left and the Right. From the Right, because they are manifestly ridiculous and suicidal; from the Left, because they are impure, insufficient, and mingled with stench of “this world.” It is a positive development, for this at least will be a world worthy of men. The participants on all sides will have the sack to say what they believe and why, and the politicians looking to triangulate positions and articulate wedge issues will be out of luck. It is a braver and harsher world, but it is also a much-needed clearing of the air.
Ron de Haan (07:31:53) :
Not so.
Harper was elected because the opposition are a bunch of idiots… which, of course, is the usual way of the world. For the most part, canadians are sheep along for the whole cAGW ride.
The Harper government was almost brought down in December by the opposition when not enough attention was paid to the green agenda… oh, and Harper also was trying to stop an old canadian tradition of giving money to each party based on votes. In other words, even a lame, broken, unpopular party can gain serious financing just by getting a lot of votes, thus ensuring their continued presence in election after election.
To simplify this, there was no way Harper was going to avoid paying at least lip service to the green agenda, unfortunately.
Meanwhile, here in Alberta the gravy train that was absolutely CRUSHING everything has come to a screeching halt. An exceptionally vibrant economy, sparked by the oil industry and energized by oil prices high enough to spur oilsands development has been pretty much decimated. Environmentalists are trying to shut down $100 billion projects because a few birds drowned in a tailings pond, and self-righteous sanctimonious environmentalists ALL have to tour the sands so they can condemn them. A new premier who apparently has no clue about anything brought in a socialist agenda to give everyone a “fair share” (their name for it) of oil profits, which led most oil companies to just stop exploring here.
I will never have anything but derision for the forces that make Alberta into a boom-bust economy. There was no good reason for idiotic socialists to damage what was a good thing, and no excuse for opportunists to roll in, exploit what they could, and leave.
Government on several levels is responsible, and the best way to fix it is for them to just leave stuff alone. If it ain’t broke… etc.
The guy behind the wheel of that car in the picture sure looks a lot like Al Gore.
So I guess the banks responsible for the housing crisis and global recession get all of the carbon credits for the CO2 saved during the recession?
Jim Greig (07:23:38) :
I think I’ll get into the business of selling carbon offsets. My business model will be to charge well-meaning enviomental-nuts to pay me to plant trees and shrubs. This will create employment, save the planet, make the greenies feel good about all the electricity they use, and make my yard will look GREAT!
Jim;
It’s a better deal than you think. I’ve seen several stories on companies selling carbon offsets and essentially doing nothing for the money. Given the very limited exposure and rapid disappearance of these news items it seems fairly certain if you collect the money and just keep it there will be few negative consequences even if you get caught.
Respectfully, I disagree with part of Mr Hannaford’s analysis, taxes on carbon are going to have some of the same effect on the economy as actual limits on carbon production. Paying a carbon tax just means that the dead space in our economy will grow.
“And it is especially not good news for Alberta, which is down more than seven per cent”.
I’m not sure where the carbon went but it’s NOT because of major job losses. Alberta’s unemployment rate is 5.4% which is one of the LOWEST unemployment rates in North America and a full 1% of that was just last month. Alberta is still doing very well compared to the rest of the world.
John in L du B (07:54:22) :
How much CO2 would be produced making the resins to fabricate enough composite windmill blades to replace the energy loss from the annual reduction in fossile fuel energy needed to cut some 180 Mt of CO2 emmisions needed to meet our Kyoto targets?
Good question. Let’s break things down:
Carbon dioxide from SUVS = pollution = bad
Carbon dioxide from building windmills = good pollution
Birds killed by oil spills = bad
10x birds killed by wind turbines = good
Pollution from industry = bad
Toxic waste from producing solar panels = good
I hope that helps!
Most of my family lives in Canada and I spent many years there before settling in the US.
I visited for few weeks last summer and found that folks (at least in Ontario) were getting more than a little weary of the AGW nonsense.
My sister, who only a year earlier refused to even discuss the science of her party’s (Liberal party of Canada) stance on CO2, was by summer 2008 beginning to wonder where the warming had gone.
Canadians are often easily led by the likes of David Susuki and other green promoters, but they are not complete fools.
Canada, being further north, is much more sensitive to climate than is the case with their neighbors to the south. A few degrees warmer or colder makes a big difference to a farmer in Saskatchewan, or a forestry worker in Ontario or BC.
After two winters of much colder weather I expect to see a lot more Canadians turn around on AGW.
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/subjects-sujets/labour-travail/lfs-epa/lfs-epa-eng.htm
There is the link for reference on Canadian Jobless rates.
Ron de Haan (07:31:53) :
The Canadians have a serious problem.
Their Prime Minister Harper was elected because he opposed CO2 mitigation taxes.
After a meeting with Obama stated that he was committed to a “Green Pact”, based on the USA policies.
Another case of broken promises?
———-
BANG ON. I hate Harper but voted for him because he was the only one that wasn’t all about “Go Green Carbon Tax Green Shift” . Why the hell are 3 of our 4 federal parties such environmental extremists? How about some uniqueness and selection in the system?