The first carbon tax in Canada starts tomorrow. The amount it adds to the cost of fuel is not much, only a bit more then 2 cents per litre, though eventually rising to about 8 cents a litre. The idea being to put a cost on the carbon dioxide being produced.
While I think that this is a good way to go, I wonder if it is enough to make a difference? Will a cost of $30 a tonne of CO2 be effective? Is the intent to use the money to get rid of the CO2 or is it to get people to drive less? What happens if a fuel company can legitimately show they are carbon neutral, does the tax come off of their product?
I have a lot of questions about the carbon tax.
Ultimately I see the tax being successful if it causes industry to change its behaviors, it if it makes it economically worthwhile for an oil company to capture and store CO2. But for that to happen, the tax has to be applied based on the CO2 footprint of the fuel producer and not be the same across the board.
I am still stunned that the NDP is opposed to taking action on greenhouse gases. Carole James has made herself the leader of the brown movement in BC and only highlighted how much of a green leader Gordon Campbell is.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
If people realy believe in Global Warming.....
There are some easy and quick steps people can take if they want to have an impact on their carbon footprint.
1) Drive slower - drive 5 km under the speed limit. On the highway most people are still driving 10 to 20 km over the speed limit.
2) Reduce the temperature in your house - set the heating in the house to about 18 degrees unless you heat with electricity and therefore already have no carbon impact.
When I see people driving slower and driving in such a way to reduce their use of gas, then I will believe that people take global warming seriously.
1) Drive slower - drive 5 km under the speed limit. On the highway most people are still driving 10 to 20 km over the speed limit.
2) Reduce the temperature in your house - set the heating in the house to about 18 degrees unless you heat with electricity and therefore already have no carbon impact.
When I see people driving slower and driving in such a way to reduce their use of gas, then I will believe that people take global warming seriously.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
It is all so complex.....
Cut your carbon footprint … take the car
NEIL REYNOLDS
Globe and Mail Update
E-mail Neil Reynolds
Read Bio
Latest Columns
May 7, 2008 at 6:00 AM EDT
British environmentalist Chris Goodall asserted last year, in his provocative book How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, that driving your car to the supermarket could be better for the environment than walking there.
It all depended, he said, on the food you use to supply the energy for the stroll. He cited a 1.5-mile (2.4-kilometre) jaunt as an example. Consume 100 grams of beef and your car – “a typical car” – would be four times better for the environment. Drink a pint of milk and it would still be better. Eat a potato, though, and you could walk with a clear conscience – assuming you cooked the potato efficiently.
For Mr. Goodall, this calculation was simple science.
“It makes more sense to drive than to walk if walking means that you need to eat more to replace the energy you have lost,” he said. “Walking is not zero-emission. We need food energy to move ourselves from place to place. Food production creates carbon emissions.”
Some people found the proposition absurd. (University of Michigan economist Mark Perry proposed that all exercise be considered eligible for trade in carbon offsets.) Yet the Goodall heresy continues to garner support.
University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt, co-author of the best-selling and contrarian Freakonomics, has written sympathetically of Mr. Goodall's argument. (“When it comes to saving the environment, things are often not as simple as they seem at first blush.”) And New York Times science columnist John Tierney, on his blog, has described Mr. Goodall's argument as “an interesting challenge” to conventional wisdom. (“Mr. Goodall takes into account something that a lot of environmentalists don't,” Mr. Tierney says, “[such as] the human energy expended in averting fossil-fuel use.”)
Now the Pacific Institute, an international consulting company based in Seattle, has published a scholarly critique of the Goodall hypothesis, which concludes that, in the end, it all depends.
The institute found that there are too many variables, requiring too many arbitrary assumptions, to conclude that driving is environmentally superior to walking – but found that, in some instances, it can be.
Researchers Michael Cohen and Matthew Heberger, authors of the report, calculated that walking 1.5 miles at a moderate pace (three miles an hour) requires 123 calories – equivalent to the calories in 67 grams (2.4 ounces) of sirloin steak. They calculate further that the calories burned by walking this distance would be equivalent to 1.9 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions.
The real problem arises with assumptions adopted – a particular feed, a specific fertilizer. On balance, however, the researchers concluded that between 1.3 kg and 2.4 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent emissions are produced “to raise, process, store and transport the sirloin that powers a 1.5-mile walk.”
Further, substituting ground beef for sirloin, they calculated that between 0.79 kg and 1.5 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent emissions would be produced to power the 1.5-mile walk. Substituting eight ounces of 2-per-cent milk, they calculated that between 0.23 kg and 0.66 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent emissions would be produced. Substituting a large apple (237 grams), they calculated that between 0.07 and 0.17 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent emissions would be produced.
“Under these assumptions,” the researchers concluded, “[Mr.] Goodall's numbers pan out. Using Japanese agricultural statistics, a person who eats sirloin would generate double the greenhouse gases by walking compared with driving the 1.5 miles. A person who eats ground beef would generate 30-per-cent more emissions by walking rather than driving. Even using lower British [statistics], the sirloin eater generates 16-per-cent more GHG emissions by walking rather than by driving.”
How do cars compare? Mr. Goodall based his conclusions on the assumption, officially used by the British government, that “a typical car” produces 0.29 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent emissions a mile – roughly comparable to the consumption of two or three apples. The Pacific Institute researchers based their conclusions on the quite different assumption that “a typical car” emits more than 1 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent, roughly the equivalent of the sirloin steak. (They also assumed that all cars get 17.4 miles a gallon.)
Environmentalists have accused Mr. Goodall of ignoring the “life-cycle” costs of driving a car. Mr. Goodall insists that his calculations fully incorporate these costs. Life-cycle costs of cars and gasoline, he says, are not enough to affect even remotely the conclusion “that car travel is less carbon intensive than walking [in all cases in which] the walker replaces lost energy with animal products.”
These calculations miss an important point. Cars are rapidly getting more efficient. Within a few years, “a typical car” will average 35 mpg, or more, on greener energy. You won't dare walk to the supermarket – unless you have bought carbon offsets from your virtuous vegan neighbours. The fuel in your own tank will be as environmentally important as the fuel in your car.
NEIL REYNOLDS
Globe and Mail Update
E-mail Neil Reynolds
Read Bio
Latest Columns
May 7, 2008 at 6:00 AM EDT
British environmentalist Chris Goodall asserted last year, in his provocative book How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, that driving your car to the supermarket could be better for the environment than walking there.
It all depended, he said, on the food you use to supply the energy for the stroll. He cited a 1.5-mile (2.4-kilometre) jaunt as an example. Consume 100 grams of beef and your car – “a typical car” – would be four times better for the environment. Drink a pint of milk and it would still be better. Eat a potato, though, and you could walk with a clear conscience – assuming you cooked the potato efficiently.
For Mr. Goodall, this calculation was simple science.
“It makes more sense to drive than to walk if walking means that you need to eat more to replace the energy you have lost,” he said. “Walking is not zero-emission. We need food energy to move ourselves from place to place. Food production creates carbon emissions.”
Some people found the proposition absurd. (University of Michigan economist Mark Perry proposed that all exercise be considered eligible for trade in carbon offsets.) Yet the Goodall heresy continues to garner support.
University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt, co-author of the best-selling and contrarian Freakonomics, has written sympathetically of Mr. Goodall's argument. (“When it comes to saving the environment, things are often not as simple as they seem at first blush.”) And New York Times science columnist John Tierney, on his blog, has described Mr. Goodall's argument as “an interesting challenge” to conventional wisdom. (“Mr. Goodall takes into account something that a lot of environmentalists don't,” Mr. Tierney says, “[such as] the human energy expended in averting fossil-fuel use.”)
Now the Pacific Institute, an international consulting company based in Seattle, has published a scholarly critique of the Goodall hypothesis, which concludes that, in the end, it all depends.
The institute found that there are too many variables, requiring too many arbitrary assumptions, to conclude that driving is environmentally superior to walking – but found that, in some instances, it can be.
Researchers Michael Cohen and Matthew Heberger, authors of the report, calculated that walking 1.5 miles at a moderate pace (three miles an hour) requires 123 calories – equivalent to the calories in 67 grams (2.4 ounces) of sirloin steak. They calculate further that the calories burned by walking this distance would be equivalent to 1.9 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions.
The real problem arises with assumptions adopted – a particular feed, a specific fertilizer. On balance, however, the researchers concluded that between 1.3 kg and 2.4 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent emissions are produced “to raise, process, store and transport the sirloin that powers a 1.5-mile walk.”
Further, substituting ground beef for sirloin, they calculated that between 0.79 kg and 1.5 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent emissions would be produced to power the 1.5-mile walk. Substituting eight ounces of 2-per-cent milk, they calculated that between 0.23 kg and 0.66 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent emissions would be produced. Substituting a large apple (237 grams), they calculated that between 0.07 and 0.17 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent emissions would be produced.
“Under these assumptions,” the researchers concluded, “[Mr.] Goodall's numbers pan out. Using Japanese agricultural statistics, a person who eats sirloin would generate double the greenhouse gases by walking compared with driving the 1.5 miles. A person who eats ground beef would generate 30-per-cent more emissions by walking rather than driving. Even using lower British [statistics], the sirloin eater generates 16-per-cent more GHG emissions by walking rather than by driving.”
How do cars compare? Mr. Goodall based his conclusions on the assumption, officially used by the British government, that “a typical car” produces 0.29 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent emissions a mile – roughly comparable to the consumption of two or three apples. The Pacific Institute researchers based their conclusions on the quite different assumption that “a typical car” emits more than 1 kg of CO{-2}-equivalent, roughly the equivalent of the sirloin steak. (They also assumed that all cars get 17.4 miles a gallon.)
Environmentalists have accused Mr. Goodall of ignoring the “life-cycle” costs of driving a car. Mr. Goodall insists that his calculations fully incorporate these costs. Life-cycle costs of cars and gasoline, he says, are not enough to affect even remotely the conclusion “that car travel is less carbon intensive than walking [in all cases in which] the walker replaces lost energy with animal products.”
These calculations miss an important point. Cars are rapidly getting more efficient. Within a few years, “a typical car” will average 35 mpg, or more, on greener energy. You won't dare walk to the supermarket – unless you have bought carbon offsets from your virtuous vegan neighbours. The fuel in your own tank will be as environmentally important as the fuel in your car.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Creating Solutions - Working with People
In all the talk about green house gases and the potential they have for changing the climate, the core of the idea for solutions all seem to be based on a radical shift in the lifestyle of people. This is unrealistic and a waste of time and energy.
To effect change you need to work with people's own desires for their lives. Most people like to drive their own car, to have it available for them to use when they want it. Trying to get rid of cars is not going happen. Any solution has to recognize that every family on earth would like to have one car. With that as a starting point, how do you deal with it?
First off you can improve the emissions of the car. This can be done by educating people how to use less fuel in their car. It can also be done by rewarding the purchase of cars that use less fuel. You can also shift more of the costs to fuel and away from the car itself.
Secondly you can offer the public chances to get out of their cars and do other things for getting around. As it stands, in a city like Victoria BC, the cost of using the bus for a month is typically more expensive than paying for parking at an office. Transit needs to have more advantages over cars to get people to park the car at home for the week.
Third you need to work on ways to remove the carbon from the atmosphere. If there a carbon tax used to pay for the removal of the carbon from the atmosphere, then there is no reason to stop driving or having cars.
The reality is that the car is here to stay.
Much the same can be said of air travel, most of us want to be able to fly to somewhere for a vacation if we can afford it. Luckily the airlines are very motivated at reducing their fuel use and thereby their carbon emissions. They are doing better than car manufacturers and on a single person basis are better than the best cars now. In fact the newest planes will be able to transport 3 people for the same carbon emissions as a car would over a long distance.
If there were a carbon fee on an airline ticket that was based on the real efficiency of the plane and the actual load and this money was used for capturing carbon, air travel could be carbon neutral. But since no one know how full the flight would be, there would have to be a charge for the ticket higher than needed and then a rebate if the flight was full. This charge would also have to be spread out to some extent over the weight of the people and their luggage - everyone shares the weight of the plane equally but differ on their personal weight.
Airlines with new planes and full loads would have to charge the least. This would mean an increased demand for the newest and most fuel efficient planes and flood of old planes leaving the market.
We have to work with the global desire for a middle class lifestyle and not against it.
To effect change you need to work with people's own desires for their lives. Most people like to drive their own car, to have it available for them to use when they want it. Trying to get rid of cars is not going happen. Any solution has to recognize that every family on earth would like to have one car. With that as a starting point, how do you deal with it?
First off you can improve the emissions of the car. This can be done by educating people how to use less fuel in their car. It can also be done by rewarding the purchase of cars that use less fuel. You can also shift more of the costs to fuel and away from the car itself.
Secondly you can offer the public chances to get out of their cars and do other things for getting around. As it stands, in a city like Victoria BC, the cost of using the bus for a month is typically more expensive than paying for parking at an office. Transit needs to have more advantages over cars to get people to park the car at home for the week.
Third you need to work on ways to remove the carbon from the atmosphere. If there a carbon tax used to pay for the removal of the carbon from the atmosphere, then there is no reason to stop driving or having cars.
The reality is that the car is here to stay.
Much the same can be said of air travel, most of us want to be able to fly to somewhere for a vacation if we can afford it. Luckily the airlines are very motivated at reducing their fuel use and thereby their carbon emissions. They are doing better than car manufacturers and on a single person basis are better than the best cars now. In fact the newest planes will be able to transport 3 people for the same carbon emissions as a car would over a long distance.
If there were a carbon fee on an airline ticket that was based on the real efficiency of the plane and the actual load and this money was used for capturing carbon, air travel could be carbon neutral. But since no one know how full the flight would be, there would have to be a charge for the ticket higher than needed and then a rebate if the flight was full. This charge would also have to be spread out to some extent over the weight of the people and their luggage - everyone shares the weight of the plane equally but differ on their personal weight.
Airlines with new planes and full loads would have to charge the least. This would mean an increased demand for the newest and most fuel efficient planes and flood of old planes leaving the market.
We have to work with the global desire for a middle class lifestyle and not against it.
Friday, February 29, 2008
How do you make Buses Cool?
It is amazing that the most cost effective and efficient form of local transit is seen as the 'loser cruiser'.
The public loves to own their own cars and seems to have an instinctive love for trains, but the bus is ugly duckling.
Vancouver, the city about to have Canada's longest rail rapid transit system, is still moving a lot more people on buses than on the SkyTrain.
How do we make buses cool? How do we get people to love buses?
Maybe it can not be done and that all we can work with is the fact that the buses can operate cheaply and can offer flexibility.
The fact that you can get a bus from a small 12 person unit up to one that carries over 80 people means that you can offer regular service in low use areas and upgrade the bus used as the demand requires. The use of the double decker buses means you can move more people in one space than a regular bus and get more use out of the roads. Routes can be changed as demand changes. This flexibility should make people love buses, but they do not.
People argue that no one will leave their car to ride a bus, but they will leave their car to ride a train. But this simply not true. People will go from their cars to buses if their transit times are reasonable and the cost is also reasonable. With the new single zone for Greater Victoria, I would expect a lot more people in the out lying areas to switch to buses.
One thing that could be done to make people prefer buses is to make the bus shelters are stops beautiful. Have them always clean and comfortable, have a display with the time till the next bus, have the cities make them part of their street beautification. Connect them to coffee shops is some manner so to integrate the people waiting into their community. Make people think they are beautiful and an addition to their community.
The public loves to own their own cars and seems to have an instinctive love for trains, but the bus is ugly duckling.
Vancouver, the city about to have Canada's longest rail rapid transit system, is still moving a lot more people on buses than on the SkyTrain.
How do we make buses cool? How do we get people to love buses?
Maybe it can not be done and that all we can work with is the fact that the buses can operate cheaply and can offer flexibility.
The fact that you can get a bus from a small 12 person unit up to one that carries over 80 people means that you can offer regular service in low use areas and upgrade the bus used as the demand requires. The use of the double decker buses means you can move more people in one space than a regular bus and get more use out of the roads. Routes can be changed as demand changes. This flexibility should make people love buses, but they do not.
People argue that no one will leave their car to ride a bus, but they will leave their car to ride a train. But this simply not true. People will go from their cars to buses if their transit times are reasonable and the cost is also reasonable. With the new single zone for Greater Victoria, I would expect a lot more people in the out lying areas to switch to buses.
One thing that could be done to make people prefer buses is to make the bus shelters are stops beautiful. Have them always clean and comfortable, have a display with the time till the next bus, have the cities make them part of their street beautification. Connect them to coffee shops is some manner so to integrate the people waiting into their community. Make people think they are beautiful and an addition to their community.
Gardening as a way to save the world?
I made a total hash of the garden last year, I really did not try, but that was because I knew I was moving. This year I want to get a good garden underway for veggies and fruit.
I figure I will have about 300 to 400 sq feet to work with. What can I do with this space? A fair bit.
I would like to get some lettuce and spinach into the ground soon. I am trying to sprout some lettuce plants indoors at the moment. I figure I direct seed the spinach in a few weeks. If I can stay on top of it, we should have fresh greens from mid April through to November of this year.
I also want to get in a large number of strawberry plants and some rhubarb. Blackberries I can pick wild enough spots and I should have another large crop of figs - the tree is still huge after I pruned back a lot of it.
I figure I will go back to the square foot garden method I have used in the past. This means making the beds into 4x4 boxes with about 18 inches between them. This is a very effective way to use a small amount of space. Each box is fully accessible for all sides and the shape allows very dense plantings. The space needed to get around is much more limited than what you need with rows.
So what is the point of all this? I simply go back to the observation that most people living in the city have the space to grow some of their own food needs. The space needed is not that much and in return you produce some of your food.
Between everything I am proposing, I suspect I will produce 500 pounds of food. This means that 500 pounds of food will not be needed commercially. What is the impact of this? Commercially there is a higher use of chemicals and a lower production per unit of land - on a mass scale you simply can not pay as much attention to plants as you would in your own garden. There is also no use of any fossil fuels to bring the food here, though the amount of green house gases produced by the production of 500 pounds of vegetables is not that much at all.
What I find interesting is that I will do my part to make the world a better place but no one will reward me for it. There are so many other areas in which I can get some sort of reward for doing the right thing, but not for growing my own food.
There is no reason why the average Canadian could not produce 100 pounds of their own food each year. Certainly in rural areas this still goes on.
I remember in Lillooet the local grocery store manager could tell when the first frost came, people would finally come back and buy their produce from him. Many households grew their own produce and virtually everyone had their own fruit trees. In Lillooet people managed to produce a significant portion of their produce each year.
In Lillooet there was also a lot of hunting and fishing. On average, there is about 5 salmon caught per person - about 30 pounds of protein. To a lesser extent there is also deer and moose.
Here in Victoria we have an ocean at our doorstep with a bounty of crab, shrimp, fish and shellfish but very few people take part in harvesting any of it.
What it comes down to is that we have the resources in our urban areas to provide for a large amount of our food but we choose to give over the land to lawns and ignore out wild bounty.
I figure I will have about 300 to 400 sq feet to work with. What can I do with this space? A fair bit.
I would like to get some lettuce and spinach into the ground soon. I am trying to sprout some lettuce plants indoors at the moment. I figure I direct seed the spinach in a few weeks. If I can stay on top of it, we should have fresh greens from mid April through to November of this year.
I also want to get in a large number of strawberry plants and some rhubarb. Blackberries I can pick wild enough spots and I should have another large crop of figs - the tree is still huge after I pruned back a lot of it.
I figure I will go back to the square foot garden method I have used in the past. This means making the beds into 4x4 boxes with about 18 inches between them. This is a very effective way to use a small amount of space. Each box is fully accessible for all sides and the shape allows very dense plantings. The space needed to get around is much more limited than what you need with rows.
So what is the point of all this? I simply go back to the observation that most people living in the city have the space to grow some of their own food needs. The space needed is not that much and in return you produce some of your food.
Between everything I am proposing, I suspect I will produce 500 pounds of food. This means that 500 pounds of food will not be needed commercially. What is the impact of this? Commercially there is a higher use of chemicals and a lower production per unit of land - on a mass scale you simply can not pay as much attention to plants as you would in your own garden. There is also no use of any fossil fuels to bring the food here, though the amount of green house gases produced by the production of 500 pounds of vegetables is not that much at all.
What I find interesting is that I will do my part to make the world a better place but no one will reward me for it. There are so many other areas in which I can get some sort of reward for doing the right thing, but not for growing my own food.
There is no reason why the average Canadian could not produce 100 pounds of their own food each year. Certainly in rural areas this still goes on.
I remember in Lillooet the local grocery store manager could tell when the first frost came, people would finally come back and buy their produce from him. Many households grew their own produce and virtually everyone had their own fruit trees. In Lillooet people managed to produce a significant portion of their produce each year.
In Lillooet there was also a lot of hunting and fishing. On average, there is about 5 salmon caught per person - about 30 pounds of protein. To a lesser extent there is also deer and moose.
Here in Victoria we have an ocean at our doorstep with a bounty of crab, shrimp, fish and shellfish but very few people take part in harvesting any of it.
What it comes down to is that we have the resources in our urban areas to provide for a large amount of our food but we choose to give over the land to lawns and ignore out wild bounty.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Government Subsidies
The amazing thing in Canada is that there is an ongoing demand for public dollars to made available for businesses. The aerospace and automotive industries seem to be the biggest ones looking for public dollars.
Today the Globe and Mail had a column today by Konrad Yakabuski about Bombardier seeking money to develop the latest version of their commuter jets. The threat is that if the money is not forth coming, the company will move their manufacturing elsewhere. They are looking for something in the order of $1 000 000 000 from government. This is crazy. Why would we want to keep taxes higher to support a business that we are told is one of the biggest sources of green house gases? The threat is that Canada could lose 2500 jobs if the money is not forth coming. With the $1 000 000 000, the government could pay this work $50 000 a year for eight years. More than enough money to offer these workers the time and money to retrain, more than enough support to get dozens of entrepreneurs out the group of workers to start their own companies.
Meanwhile the auto industry is asking for large sums of money to keep the factories going. From 2003 to 2007 the industry has shed some 230 000 workers, but unemployment in Canada fell during that time. The economy added 1.4 million new jobs, half of those jobs are at least as well paying as the auto sector jobs. The reality is that we are in a transition away from making things like old style cars.
When government chooses to put money into some industries and not others, it skews capital investments to the 'winners' chosen by government. Government is always behind the times when it comes to what is the future. Small manufacturers making new and innovative products in the high tech field, green energy and other new emerging fields are having trouble competing with government supported old industries.
In 2004 some $19 000 000 000 was given by government to industry as subsidies. This means that the government had to raise an extra $6250 per family of five in taxes to support this.
Right now there is a huge global push to go green. In BC we can be the source of a huge amount of the greenest electrical power possible. We have businesses interested in coming up with innovative solutions on how to reduce green house gasses and how to capture them. We have more and more businesses that have a very small ecological footprint. All of these greener businesses are directly harmed by government over taxing us to offer more money to old industries.
The money government offers in business subsidies are also very inefficiently used. A billion dollars in subsidies cost close to $500 000 000 to offer - not counting damage it does to the nimble part of the economy.
Climate change issues will be best addressed through less government intervention in the economy and more use of the market to deal with public 'bads'
Today the Globe and Mail had a column today by Konrad Yakabuski about Bombardier seeking money to develop the latest version of their commuter jets. The threat is that if the money is not forth coming, the company will move their manufacturing elsewhere. They are looking for something in the order of $1 000 000 000 from government. This is crazy. Why would we want to keep taxes higher to support a business that we are told is one of the biggest sources of green house gases? The threat is that Canada could lose 2500 jobs if the money is not forth coming. With the $1 000 000 000, the government could pay this work $50 000 a year for eight years. More than enough money to offer these workers the time and money to retrain, more than enough support to get dozens of entrepreneurs out the group of workers to start their own companies.
Meanwhile the auto industry is asking for large sums of money to keep the factories going. From 2003 to 2007 the industry has shed some 230 000 workers, but unemployment in Canada fell during that time. The economy added 1.4 million new jobs, half of those jobs are at least as well paying as the auto sector jobs. The reality is that we are in a transition away from making things like old style cars.
When government chooses to put money into some industries and not others, it skews capital investments to the 'winners' chosen by government. Government is always behind the times when it comes to what is the future. Small manufacturers making new and innovative products in the high tech field, green energy and other new emerging fields are having trouble competing with government supported old industries.
In 2004 some $19 000 000 000 was given by government to industry as subsidies. This means that the government had to raise an extra $6250 per family of five in taxes to support this.
Right now there is a huge global push to go green. In BC we can be the source of a huge amount of the greenest electrical power possible. We have businesses interested in coming up with innovative solutions on how to reduce green house gasses and how to capture them. We have more and more businesses that have a very small ecological footprint. All of these greener businesses are directly harmed by government over taxing us to offer more money to old industries.
The money government offers in business subsidies are also very inefficiently used. A billion dollars in subsidies cost close to $500 000 000 to offer - not counting damage it does to the nimble part of the economy.
Climate change issues will be best addressed through less government intervention in the economy and more use of the market to deal with public 'bads'
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