A sudden outbreak of sanity seems to have taken hold Canada. Firstly the idea of a carbon tax appears to have been killed off for good:
Conservatives kill carbon tax
Conservatives have kiboshed a carbon tax, Environment Minister Peter Kent confirmed Thursday.
“It’s off the table,” he told reporters Thursday after accepting an award from World Wildlife Fund International on behalf of Parks Canada.
“There’s no expectation of cap-and-trade continentally in the near or medium future.”
…and then this:
Government delays pulling plug on old-fashioned light bulbs
Tories propose pushing deadline to 2014 over lack of alternatives to incandescents
The Conservative government wants to postpone pulling the plug on incandescent light bulbs, saying it needs more time to allow for technological innovations and to deal with concerns about compact fluorescent lamps.
(H/T to Ross McKitrick, who offers to send a real estate guide, and to Bishop-Hill, where this post was pinched from, but good news needs sharing)
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Thank goodness for alternative media such as WUWT, because there is almost no coverage of this in the MSM. Before Canadians get uppity about “sanity”, just remember that almost all of you have to smuggle in 2,4-D and hide your use of it from neighborhood eco-informers.
I always thought Sgt Preston was a stand up guy.
The same for Dudley DoRight.
Well, this is as good a place as any for an update on New Hampshire’s get out of RGGI bill.
Unfortunately, Governor Lynch will veto the bill as introduced, and our senate was able to pass the bill, but one vote shy of a veto-proof majority.
Sen Jeb Bradley introduced an amendment that completely replaced the original bill. It keeps us in RGGI (there is an escape clause, but it requires other New England states making up 10% of the regional load to withdraw too. Than means Massachusetts or Connecticut, and that’s not going to happen. Maine is just barely big enough, but see below.
The amendment passed with a veto-proof majority, but the house is committed to getting us out altogether and likely will not go along with the amendment. The amendment does direct all but $1 per allowance to got back to ratepayers, the $1 goes to a conservation/improvement plan for power producers.
We shall see.
In other news, Delaware and Maine have rejected their get out of RGGI bills, leaving just New Jersey. The Ocean Spray bottling company in New Jersey is leaving for non-RGGI Pennsylvania, and has said costs like RGGI are reasons for leaving. That should encourage New Jersey to pass their bill.
No other states are working on withdrawal legislation as far as I know.
More information is at http://wermenh.com/rggiwatch/index.html
Once the fate of NH’s bill is finalized I’ll write a full post about it.
In Canada we have all the stuff; the iron ore, coal, wood, oil, gas, water, bauxite, uranium, food, low corporate taxes, freedom, infrastructure, year round ice free deep water harbors, universal health care, free trade agreement with the United States, etc, etc, etc; and the will to use them all to attract the best and the brightest, grow the economy, pay our debits and secure our future. That is the plan.
What we need are more industries and more skilled people that actually do useful work. If you speak English or French and are a journeyman in a trade, have a useful degree or money for investment, you will be welcomed into Canada.
If your or your company is being wrecked by the politics of global warming, Canada is open for business. Take a look.
(Telephone Sanitizers need not apply)
“As economic policy, the Kyoto Accord is a disaster. As environmental policy it is a fraud”: Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada.
A fraud, I could not have put it better myself.
That is very good news indeed but I just wish that some of this sanity would rub off on the moonbats in power in the province of BC. We have a progressive carbon tax which is going to get interesting if there is global cooling. Also, BC Hydro is planning on installing completely useless “smart” meters and jacking up power rates to pay for them. The same company continues to install bird blenders in the north of the province. So, while there may be some rare good climate news from Ottawa, here on the left coast of Canada it’s enviro-lunacy as usual.
Lady Life Grows says: “I had a sober wake-up call yesterday on the importance of smashing this carbon hysteria. I had a heart attack.” (May 19, 2011 at 6:09 pm )
So sorry to ear that, and very glad that you’re at least well enough complain about your medical oxygen cocktail 🙂
Be well; wishing you many years of good health, LLG!
to Ross McKitrick, who offers to send a real estate guide,
Okay, and would you also include regulations regarding trapping.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/12/potential-agricultural-impact-of-the-eddy-minimum/
“It therefore follows that Canadian agriculture will be back to trapping beavers by the end of this decade, as it was in the 17th century.
David Archibald
Makes me proud to be a Canadian! – and I was born a Kiwi
John F. Hultquist says:
May 19, 2011 at 9:17 pm
Okay, and would you also include regulations regarding trapping.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/12/potential-agricultural-impact-of-the-eddy-minimum/
“It therefore follows that Canadian agriculture will be back to trapping beavers by the end of this decade, as it was in the 17th century.
————————————————————————————————-
And that had to be about the dumbest article I have read in a long time. The wheat growing areas were wrongly or poorly delineated (see comments); the information was erroneous (another MODEL); actual agricultural production from Agriculture Canada shows a steady increase in Yield; and as for the beavers that were once claimed to be going extinct, we are in a constant fight with their recovered numbers as they are damn good dam builders and they flood crop land with regularity, chomp up park trees and shrubbery., plug up culverts and flood highways … they are by no means on the extinction list.
Come on up to the GWN (Great White North) and take all the beaver tail you want. Almost every county in Alberta has a “pest control program” to manage the land flooding little flat tailed rats. I have had to manage beavers on my farm land forever.
Check out this site for management of these cute little pests(US regs but same here in Alberta): http://dnr.wi.gov/waterways/factsheets/beaverdamage.pdf
To those critics of Suzuki don’t forget Andrew Weaver, he has the ear of the BC government.
I love beavers
This was expected.
In Canada we have all the stuff; the iron ore, coal, wood, oil, gas, water, bauxite, nickel, uranium, food, low corporate taxes, freedom, infrastructure, year round ice free harbors, universal health care, etc, etc, etc; and the will to use them all to attract the best and the brightest, grow the economy, pay our debits and secure our future. That is the plan.
What we need are more industries and more skilled people that actually do useful work. If you speak English or French and are a journeyman in a trade, have a useful degree or money for investment, you will be welcomed into Canada.
If your or your company is being wrecked by the politics of ‘Global Warming’, Canada is open for business. Take a look.
(Climate Alarmists and Telephone Sanitizers need not apply)
“As economic policy, the Kyoto Accord is a disaster. As environmental policy it is a fraud”: Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada.
“A fraud”, I could not have said it better myself.
Grant says:
May 19, 2011 at 4:23 pm
“polar bears dining on chilled snorkelers.”
LOL.
I can’t believe I missed this!!!! Oh well, the one time I didn’t watch the news (did CTV cover this??? – stopped watching CBC a long time ago..lol)
Just for a little more detail on the state of political the political climate in canada, you should also take a look at the canadian senate.
For years it was stacked with stone walling liberal senators, but after 5 years of Conservative minority government, there is almost a tie (Senators in canada are appointed by the PM instead of being elected – harper wants to change that but some provinces could loose their unfair advantage in terms of number of seats so he has so far failed to address this). Needless to say, he won’t be appointing more liberals to the senate during his majority term in office so once both upper and lower chambers are stacked with tories there is little the socialist on the opposition benches can do to stop him except shriek and piss themselves (in other words, nothing new there)
It gets better. The supreme court is also up for a few replacements and more can be expected in the future. Not likely to have liberal activist judges there either.
There’s more. In canada, political parties get money for every vote cast in their favour. This means that even nut cases like the green part leader get money and a soap box to cry from. However harper wants to axe this but couldn’t until now. The Liberals, NDP and Bloc (separatist party which is also now decimated!!!!) all relied on this funding far more than the conservatives – who could easily break even on private and membership donations alone.
And since harper is only in his mid 50s, he might be around for a very long time. Its been a interesting to see how he rebuilt the right wing movement almost from scratch over the last decade.
I’m not holding my breath on the carbon tax here in bc getting axed but I can still dream.
On days like this I can almost feel pride in my country again. Almost – we still have a long way to go.
‘Lady Life Grows’, I wish you well and a speedy journey back to good health.
Congratulations to Canadian voters – it’s heartening to see an outbreak of good sense.
I’m no lover of the republicans. but if they can produce an actual candidate maybe we will see some adult discussion on energy distribution in North America. Us goofy Canadians are perched atop endless fossil fuels that we really should expose to the Chinese market.
Richard says:
May 19, 2011 at 2:14 pm
“Julia Gillard is singing the praises of UK for going ahead with the Carbon Tax”
Truth be known Richard, Julia is singing to the wrong people! It is well know that Chris Huhne, the minister, is a busted flush in his own department and generally ignored by the civil servants under him and now the UK papers and police are after him for “allegedly” having his ex wife take the rap for a speeding offence he committed.
Huhne had a press thing the other day but it would appear any action the UK government takes is dependent on the rest of Europe taking action. Greece, Spain, Portugal etc are, in reality, bankrupt with other countries shivering under the cloud of debt they have built up. Other Euro countries are pulling back on the sly.
The proposed “Green Bank” will start up with insufficient capitalisation and no borrowing capacity, due to the Treasury having some sensible civil servants whose long term employment relies on the country staying on its feet despite the best efforts of idiot politicians.
All in all, the financial cracks are getting wider for the Greens and I wish you well in your efforts to crush lying Gillard, who I believe, promised no carbon tax before she took over! Funny world we live in, where, whatever country you come from, you can rely on politicians to lie out of their back teeth!
Well done Canada, way to go!!!
Nice to see that many countries in the world has just rediscovered the importance of price elasticity. Raising energy prices through a cap-and-trade scheme or introducing a carbon tax will not necessarily decrease energy consumption, because energy demand is almost insensitive to current prices. If the goverment decides to impose direct or indirect taxes on energy consumption, macroeconomic price level will increase and real incomes will begin to fall. As a result, living standards will worsen as household consumption decreases, but the fall in consumption does not necessarily cause any change in overall energy usage or CO2 emissions. AGW theory-based government intervention has considerable costs with 100% certainty, while the benefits are speculative at least. I would call these ideas ‘money for nothing’.
Thank God, the situation is improving even in my home country. Our previous government wanted to pass a global warming law with a 40 percent emissions cut until 2020 (sic!). That goal would have been unreachable without destroying the economy. In contrast, the climate issue was never mentioned by the conservatives who are in power nowadays. Hungarian AGW proponents (including our national met. service) are parroting the well-known IPCC claims and they are scaring the scientifically illiterate citizens with desertification in the Carpathian Basin. This statement (like many others) is completely based on GCM output and not supported by observational data, annual precipitation in Hungary has increased significantly in the last 40 years, while a considerable decrease occured between 1930 and 1970.
OY Paul, as a refugee from socialist england Im pleased that they do it right here!!
Eyes Wide Open says:
May 19, 2011 at 2:40 pm
“but how long will this government last?”
It’s a freshly minted majority – good for at lest four years. The usual opposition, the Liberals, were decimated in the election and are in total disarray. If the Conseratives govern well and sustain a healthy economy, they’re a slam dunk for another four after that at least!
++++++++++++++++
Rightly so, and if the current opposition again proposes some version of an EPA and other stupidies, then it will surely keep on occupying the opposition seats.
And: in a few yers time CAGW would be dead on a global basis anyway, so why bother?
Lady Life Grows, get well soon and keep posting 🙂
Ray said
“Then it would be time for British-Columbia to dump this stupid carbon tax too”
What did we wake up to on the front page of the paper?
“Light bulb Ban Will Stay in BC.”
I don’t think that carbon tax is going anytime soon. They will continue to pilfer our property taxes, intended for education, to go into Encana’s coffers.
We have one wacked out province. Everyday, I try to convince my wife to move. The mountains are gorgeous, but not worth. Just how much money do the enviro profiteers give to political parties?
This is actually quite upsetting for me. Canada is showing more sanity than California on light bulbs.
Canada leading the world in the Sanity dept.
well done!
Aus as mentioned has JuLiar and bob brownnose to contend with but we’re hoping, they eventually wake up before the riots happen..and if this crap keeps happening here there will be riots. people already cant run heaters or have even a low standard Normal life, carbon Tax will kill our economy.