Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon – According to Guardian Climate Change Columnist Dana Nuccitelli, the Guardian has decided to “discontinue” its science and environment blogging networks, a policy shift which seems to involve a significant cut to their climate change blogging (see the bottom of the quote for the Guardian announcement).
Canada passed a carbon tax that will give most Canadians more money
Dana Nuccitelli
Fri 26 Oct 2018 18.15 AEDTBy rebating the revenue to households, disposable income rises, which can be a boon for the Canadian economy
Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that under the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, Canada will implement a revenue-neutral carbon tax starting in 2019, fulfilling a campaign pledge he made in 2015.
Starting next spring, it’ll no longer be free to pollute in Canada. We’re putting a price on pollution in provinces that don’t yet have a plan to fight climate change. More on our plan to cut pollution, grow the economy & create jobs: https://t.co/VjCNOOKLVB
#EnvironmentEconomy pic.twitter.com/b4wFc17Qte— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) October 23, 2018
The federal carbon pollution price will start low at $20 per ton in 2019, rising at $10 per ton per year until reaching $50 per ton in 2022. The carbon tax will stay at that level unless the legislation is revisited and revised.
This is a somewhat modest carbon tax – after all, the social cost of carbon is many times higher – but it’s a higher carbon price than has been implemented in most countries. Moreover, a carbon tax doesn’t necessarily have to reflect the social cost of carbon. The question is whether it will be sufficiently high to meet the country’s climate targets.
…
Energy prices will rise
A $20/ton carbon tax translates into a 16.6 cent per gallon surcharge on gasoline. So, in 2022, the $50/ton carbon tax will increase Canadian gasoline prices by about 42 cents per gallon (11 cents per liter). For comparison, the average price of gasoline in Canada is $1.43 per liter, so that would be about an 8% gasoline price increase in 2022.
…
Note: this will be our final entry on Climate Consensus – the 97%. The Guardian has decided to discontinue its Science and Environment blogging networks. We would like to thank this great paper for hosting us over the past five years, and to our readers for making it a worthwhile and rewarding endeavor.
Dana Nuccitelli has provided us with lots of entertainment over the years, balancing his big oil career with radical environmentalism.
Whenever I was short of ideas for what to write, I could usually look up Dana’s whacky green opinion pieces for inspiration.
Obviously at this stage it is difficult to know where The Guardian will go next with its climate change reporting. I find it hard to believe the Guardian have decided to entirely quit the environment / climate change reporting space.
On the other hand, a few formerly prolific climate action advocacy blogs have been going dark lately, as their authors run out of things to say, or lose interest in talking about climate change. Perhaps even the Guardian has gotten fed up with flogging a dead horse. Or maybe they are just running out of money.
Update (EW): Fixed a typo (h/t Canman)
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Anthony, If you are quick you could hire all the Guardian’s skilled climate staff!!
If $50 a ton CO2 tax is going to be a boon for the economy and the people… Gee why not just increase it to $50,000 a ton. The money rebated to all the people will make everyone insani rich!
The Daily Telegraph used to employ Louise Gray, “Ms cut’n’Paste” (http://www.louisebgray.com/) and Geoffrey Lean “Just tell me what lies to write” (https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/adam-ramsay/why-did-telegraph-push-out-britains-most-experienced-environmental-journalist-on-eve-) …but gave them both their notice. Why? The Telegraph was unashamed ‘no one is willing to pay for green editorial any more’.
The way it works is this: a company like Dung Energy, lets say, needs to get some planning permission to erect some turbines…so a press release detailing how great renewable energy is goes out to the usual suspects, and at the same time advertising space is booked in the newspaper in question.
And the ‘advertorial’ gets written by the hopeless hacks and hackettes. In general it is almost completely cut ‘n’ paste, as teh company -= or an arms length lobbying one like Renewable UK – will have assembled all. the data, done all the ‘research’ and supported it with references to Learned Papers and so on.
In fact one could often see the joins in the cut’n’paste where the hapless hacks had attempted to actually write something themselves and betrayed total ignorance in the process. Typically MW instead of MWh or some such.
Essentially money is drying up in renewables. The UK government has not directly challenged climate change, nor publicly dissed renewables, but it has cut back on subsidies. Because that’s good for people, thereby calling the Green Bluff that ‘renewables are cheaper than fossil’ etc etc.
This is sensible devious politics. Don’t challenge the orthodoxy, simply stop feeding it and let it wither and die.
Frankly with Brexit now the main battleground between Liberal Useful Idiots and those who prefer a more accessible, accountable and indeed smaller government, everyone’s forgotten about carbon dioxide.
It’s not yet time to shut up shop Anthony, but the time may be near. I hope however this blog continues and simply broadens its scope into a blog that addresses all of science and perhaps even philosophy .
Let’s face it, the media that purports to cover this are themselves owned by those to whom science is simply another marketing tool. As is Liberal politics and ideology.
The ideal population for these people are brainwashed useful idiots, whose votes can be relied upon, whose consumption is dominated by what is advertised to them, and whose behaviour is utterly controlled by a specious moral code they are inculcated with in their public schools, where ‘social justice’ ensures that everyone gets full Marx…
” but it has cut back on subsidies. Because that’s good for people, …..”
No.
It’s because as a country we cant afford it.
Not noticed at your local A&E.
State of the roads.
Police.
PCSO’s
etc.
Money has to be prioritised.
Isn’t ‘we can’t afford it’ the same as ‘good for the people’?
The business model for The Guardian was never strong enough to maintain its existence.
Relying on hits and advertisement it had to attract a body of readers ready and able to spend money on the products advertised.
The demographic was not deep enough or sufficiently wealthy to support them.
In Australia the ‘mating of the dinosaurs’, Fairfax and Chanel 9, a free to air TV station with national reach, is an attempt to prop up a similar broadsheet empire, Fairfax.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/unbelievably-sad-fears-for-fairfax-legacy-as-183yearold-firm-bought-by-nine-entertainment/news-story/fe7db7b5f5d1ef1940e2cd10ac93cf93
The most revenue rich part is the right wing Macquarie network, dominated by 2GB in Sydney and network into Queensland and rural NSW.
The news bulletin is still left biased but the commentators interview people who actually disagree with the Fairfax line, ensuring listeners stay tuned.
The jewel in the Fairfax crown, Domain, a real estate site, has been hit with the current collapse of the market in the Eastern States of Australia.
Its not clear the merger between the dinosaurs will go ahead.
‘Gay Alcorn, a journalist at Guardian Australia, expressed the concerns of many Fairfax veterans in a tweet on Thursday: “The name Fairfax has stood for so much over more than 150 years: quality, independent, fierce journalism, proud staff and loyal readers. Now it’s to disappear — the symbol is the loss of the name, but it’s far more than that.”
But it was the Australian’s Rick Morton who summed it up most succinctly, referring to the SMH and Age’s slogan, “independent. Always”.
“Independent. Once,” he wrote.’
I stopped reading the Fairfax Press years ago.
It failed to give the facts and let the reader make up his own mind.
The letters were groupthink.
The Guardian is going the same way.
It is readers they are running out of.
From The Press Gazette 30 July 2018…
Guardian science and environment networks to close but paper says it remains ‘firmly committed’ to wide-ranging coverage on topics
https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/guardian-science-and-environment-networks-to-close-but-papers-says-it-remains-firmly-committed-to-wide-ranging-coverage-on-topics/
Oh dear 😂 I am trying not to laugh but it’s not easy 😁 Now he as lost his platform, I wonder if the ‘money man’ will keep paying out or will he now have to get a job, if anyone will take him.
Wildly Ot but why do I care, variety is the spice etc etc so we get:
Today’s puzzling picture:
Is it:
A new NASA success story..
or
Mosh switches on his new supercomputer
or
Danny’s head exploding…
or
Something to do with carbonoxide
decisions decisions eh
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/meteor-explosion-video-astronomy-space-clun-castle-shropshire-a8604236.html
How does a carbon tax work? Is it supposed to be a tax to try to stop people from using carbon?
I don’t see how taxing and taking money actually does anything positive, only negative.
Reanne,
“How does a carbon tax work?”
At first, as a few cents’ impost on every kg of graphite, coal, diamonds or carbon nanotubes sold. It doesn’t sound like much but it can be a game-changer for some industries, as the NY Times discovered.
The stupid takes your breath away, saving 45,000 ppm of C O 2 innit.
It will kill of the old geezers nicely, making way for nice families from hot countries to take their place.
Let’s not get too smug about the demise of the Guardian and Fairfax.
“The Australian” is in danger of going the same way.
I have been at war with the moderators of “The Australian’s” online edition for about six months. Few of my comments are published any more, so I have taken to entertaining myself by bating the moderators. The less PC my comment, the shorter its life expectancy.
This was not the case in the past when I could engage in robust debate online.
The point is, that PC and group think have been slowly infiltrating “The Australian”, and if it continues, the paper will go the way of Fairfax.
People will burn something to keep warm. You can’t live in Canada without heat. The carbon tax just adds excessive costs to everything.
Cleaner air? Hardly. An efficient steel mill produces higher quality and more steel with less pollution than a million backyard producers. You have efficient electric producing plants that produce way less pollution than a million fireplaces going off at the same time. Same with natural gas.
There should be incentives for efficiency rather than punitive and regressive taxes.
Supposing co2 was a problem, or carbon tax, just another bad idea whose time has come.
I just noticed Dana “Scooter” Nuccitelli’s scooter by the oil well in Josh’s cartoon.
Perfect.
Good morning to all.
Bob
Farewell to the Guardian’s science blog network
https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2018/aug/31/farewell-to-the-guardians-science-blog-network
Highlights include:
After eight brilliant years, the Guardian’s science blog network comes to a close today
An exploratory experiment, if you like, to see what would happen if excellent science blogging was cultivated at an international newspaper. Today, the experiment comes to an end.
Somehow, we have lost the ability to take a step back, to try and be objective about the information that is presented in front of us, especially if we are faced with something that we already hold a strong opinion about.
So, farewell, and.. Thanks for all the fish.
Good to hear they’re resecting the tumor of Nuccitelli et co.
With the money the Guardian no longer has to spend on buckets of raw fish, who knows? Maybe they can afford some science bloggers now.
Under Rushbridger the Guardian abandonned its former commitment to objective reporting and the separation of reportage and comment, and turned itself into the house organ of a group of activists.
The activist agenda contaminated the reporting and made it untrustworthy.
News and reporting became secondary to the campaigns. So we had ‘leave it in the ground’, which contaminated reporting on renewable energy projects. We had the campaign for divestment from fossil fuels, which made all reporting on the finances of renewables versus fossil fuels suspect. We had the campaign to influence the US Presidential Election by swinging Clark County – making, in passing, all coverage of the US election untrustworthy.
Then we had the campaign to remove Corbyn as Labour leader which made all reporting on him and the Labour Party untrustworthy. I agree about the disaster that is Corbyn, but the idea that its the Guardian’s role to try to get him kicked out?
Finally there is the Snowden affair. There, they actively participated in getting Snowden into Russia, and still endorse him, and thereby render useless all their reporting on privacy issues. Certainly government surveillance is an issue in our democracies. But is it really down to a news reporting organization to facilitate the flight of a traitor to Russia?
And there is more – there are also the stories the Guardian refused to cover or admit were important. The grooming scandals of Rochdale and elsewhere. The NHS scandals.
There has been an essentially unaccountable group of people who have taken over what used to be the Scott Trust, and who have used it to further their own hodgepodge of policies.
The last and in some ways worst episode of this sort was turning the environment pages over to Skeptical Science and the motley crew of the 97% nonsense.
The Guardian used to be an excellent paper, with a liberal left editorial approach, but with reporting integrity. Rushbridger not only brought it to its knees financially, with a mixture of self righteous arrogance and the feeling that they were there to save the world and that money didn’t matter, but he also destroyed its fine tradition of independent journalism.
That was a real tragedy. And one the new Editor has not repaired. So if you look at the front page of the site today, what is supposed to be news is all about me and my gynecology, transgender activism, anti-Trump activism. They have now seemingly cut back on global warming activism, but don’t worry, there are lots more oddball personal obsessions of the editorial team that they and their hand picked columnists can still focus on. And they will, they will. Though there are some glimmers of awakening.
This retaking of the environment pages is one. Another recently appeared in the form of a column where the author said she was not going to march for another vote on Brexit. It had finally dawned on her that the march was going to entirely consist of the urban middle classes in London and a couple of other cities talking to themselves. And that maybe this was not really going to help persuade the residents of Middlesborough….. So perhaps there is hope of them recognising the real world.
But recognising the need for journalistic integrity, once you have lost or forgotten it, well. That is going to be a much longer haul, and one they don’t even any more realize what it means. That ius a tragedy. They wrecked something of immense value, without even knowing what they had.
Excellent analysis. To understand the intellectual vacuity of editor Rusbridger, read my transcript of his chairmanship of a discussion to launch a Greenpeace climate blog at
https://sites.google.com/site/mytranscriptbox/home/20121002_bf
where he blathers on and on and leaves hardly any time for the panel to discuss. He is really an extremely stupid person, and I say it though I owe him a tremendous debt, since his earlier investigative journalism revealed that the British secret service had files on 3 million UK citizens, which no doubt explains why the French refused my demand for a resident’s permit, against all EU treaty laws, since I’m no doubt on MI5’s books as a dangerous lefty.
To understand the Guardian’s colossal failure, you have to understand that Rusbridger’s policy was to turn a British left of centre journal into a major international internet news source in order to attract the automatic ad revenue which comes from enhanced clicks, as opposed to readership. Hence the articles beginning “the government says..” where you don’t know whether they’re talking about the government of the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, or possibly some Pacific isle due to disappear under rising sea levels.
If US readers find all this a bit academic, I’d point out that the Graun, in its previous incarnation as the Manchester Guardian, was defending the abolition of slavery when the US consisted of 13 states and some territories. Institutions that old are not common, and are therefore worth preserving.
”They wrecked something of immense value, without even knowing what they had.”
You must have on medication at the time you wrote that.
For the record, the guardian has always been niche rancid far left, and not worth a carrot.
The Beano comic sell 4 x more copies.
The Guardian is so far from being “niche rancid far left” that when they published an article by Noam Chomsky (who you would probably consider as being off the rancidity scale) they apologised to their readers, pointing out that Chomsky’s views weren’t those of the Guardian. They’re nice nice ever so centre left, (except when it comes to Trump of course, when they line up with the far right CNN and NYT in holding their sensitive noses.)
The Beano comic is far right, as revealed in a famous article by George Orwell written in the thirties. But also popular. A bit like Trump really.
Wait… CNN and NYT are “far right”? Your news agencies and society must have slid so far left that you consider the rabid leftist communist-wannabe’s of CNN and NYT to be ‘far right’.
Of course, we ARE talking about Britain… where they burn aborted babies to heat their hospitals, they have more Big Brother cameras than they have people, and the government can force parents to let their children die rather than fly them to another country to save their lives.
{All the above are absolute fact… look them up if you don’t believe me.}
That’s about as “rancid far left” as you can get. I’m amazed the British don’t have the backbone to stand up against that sort of totalitarianism.
The Guardian in its fine days was not ‘rancid far left’.
Its political loyalty was to the UK Liberal Party, the descendant of the Liberal Party of Gladstone and Asquith. The Liberal tradition in the Guardian was a long time dying, and it happened not as a result of a conscious decision so much as a series of incremental steps – many expressed by the nature of the columnists they hired and the change in makeup of the opinion points of view.
And of course the blurring of the line between fact and comment.
Its the Guardian of C P Scott that we have lost, and it has been a real loss.
Even mainstream liberals get tired of farce over time. It becomes demeaning and an area to avoid. That’s not good for a publishing business model based on eyeball count and consumer profile warehousing.
“…the social cost of carbon is many times higher”
Carbon is the 15th most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, and the 4th most abundant element in the universe by mass after hydrogen, helium, and oxygen. Carbon’s abundance, its unique diversity of organic compounds, and its unusual ability to form polymers at the temperatures commonly encountered on Earth enables this element to serve as a common element of all known life. It is the second most abundant element in the human body by mass (about 18.5%) after oxygen
It’s been years since I pasted this, so here it is again :
No pen can describe the turning of the leaves—the insurrection of the tree-people against the waning year. A little maple began it, flaming blood-red of a sudden where he stood against the dark green of a pine belt. Next morning there was an answering signal from the swamp where the sumacs grow. Three days later the hill-sides as far as the eye could range were afire, and the roads paved, with crimson and gold. Then a wet wind blew, and ruined all the uniforms of that gorgeous army; and the oaks, who had held themselves in reserve, buckled on their dull and bronzed cuirasses and stood it out stiffly to the last blown leaf, till nothing remained but pencil shading of bare boughs, and one could see into the most private heart of the woods.
Rudyard Kipling
Thank you
The problem with that picture is that it isn’t CO2 that’s causing the hazy skies so they are fighting the wrong thing.
Totally, Cameron. I don’t think any so-called greenhouse gas would cause haze.
Fighting actual pollution is a good idea, but this? I call it biting the hand that gives you life.
Poor Dana. Now he’ll have to go back to doing vaudeville with John Cook, dressing up as Nazis for our edification.
It is too bad, that Dana can’t even get the facts straight.
Here in Saskatchewan, those carbon values are imposed by the Federal government, every where we look… 60 cents additionally on a gallon of paint. Three cents additionally for grocery bags, that use to be free –some places charge more, and see this as a way to profit. I have seen places that charge a nickel.
“The federal carbon pollution price will start low at $20 per ton in 2019, rising at $10 per ton per year until reaching $50 per ton in 2022.”
It is not per “TON”, but per “TONNE”. One is an Imperial measurement of weight, and the other is a metric version of weight.
1 Ton = 2000 lbs
1 Tonne = 2204.6 lbs
In Canada, it is per TONNE. Which is 204.6 lbs heavier than a Ton.
Trudeau is a Liberal Zombie, a childlike, spokesperson for La La land.
Same story as other countries, just different actors.
Canada has the third largest oil reserve in the world and is currently losing $50 dollars a barrel, $110 million/day, due to lack of pipeline space to the west coast.
Canada has a large balance of trade issue and a never-ending deficit.
Ironically, Canada’s largest trade deficit is tourism, as Canadians who can afford it all take a winter holiday, to escape the cold Canadian winter.
Deficits do not matter in La La Land. Policies that kill business does not matter in La La Land.
The Carbon tax is a net loss to Canada.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-trade-deficit-1.4605982
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-402-x/2012000/chap/tt-ut/tt-ut02-eng.htm
“The social cost of carbon is a measure of the economic damages caused (via climate change) by each ton of carbon pollution that we produce today. It’s difficult to estimate because of physical, economic, and ethical uncertainties. For example, it’s difficult to predict exactly when various climate tipping points will be triggered, how much their damages will cost, and there’s also a question about how much we value the welfare of future generations (which is incorporated in the choice of ‘discount rate’).”
Science!!