Expat Texan

Real or fake?

Garbage in = Garbage out.

It seems to have become somewhat of a game to see who can add in the most creative feedback mechanisms to produce the scariest warming scenarios from their models, but there remains no evidence that the planet behaves in such a manner. Not only is it highly debatable as to whether water vapour acts as a positive or negative feed-back, but what has been observed in laboratories is that CO2 actually has a logarithmic relationship with temperature [i.e. it takes a big increase in of CO2 to produce a small rise in temperature].

First we had the firearms registry boondoggle.

Canada’s controversial gun registry is costing taxpayers far more than previously reported, CBC News has learned.

Nearly $2 billion has either been spent on or committed to the federal program since it was introduced in the mid-1990s, according to documents obtained by Zone Libre of CBC’s French news service.

The figure is roughly twice as much as an official government estimate that caused an uproar across the country.

The gun registry was originally supposed to cost less than $2 million. In December 2002, Auditor General Sheila Fraser revealed that the program would run up bills of at least $1 billion by 2005.

Now, get ready for a personal and business carbon tax.

The findings of The Canadian Press Harris-Decima survey suggest the politically risky move of putting a price on carbon holds a potential payoff.

The federal Liberals are weighing a plank in their platform that would put a price on pollution — and Environment Minister John Baird ridiculed them yesterday for considering what he calls a tax grab.

But when asked whether they supported the idea of a carbon tax on businesses and people based on the carbon emissions they generate, 61% of poll respondents said yes and 32% said no.

I predict this will be another cost vs. benefit analysis debacle once it actually becomes law.  Ask people - “Do you support the use of Solar Panels to decrease dependence on foreign oil and benefit the environment” - and I bet a majority will respond with a hearty and enthusiastic  “Of Course!”.  Try and force them to actually pay for that conversion, especially once they figure out that it may take them 20+ years to recoup their expenses (much less see a monetary benefit) - and the enthusiastic support evidenced in a hypothetical poll question suddenly vanishes.

Here’s the most comforting part:

He (poll representative - ed) says one thing is clear: The idea of a green-friendly tax system holds considerable support, and politicians who speak only of ‘carbon taxes’ are barely tapping into it.

“This central idea of taxing particularly harmful behaviour (as defined by whom? - ed), and rewarding the opposite, is a potential political game-changer for the party that can get it right and describe it clearly,” Anderson said.

Ohhhhh, that’s gonna hurt.  Let’s start with the “carbon tax”, and then do other things to tap into a “green friendly tax system”.  In other words, tax the hell out of people who don’t subscribe to government mandated changes in lifestyle decreed by their response to global warming climate change.  Ask California how that’s working out for them.

The latest Census Bureau data indicate that, in 2005, 239,416 more native-born Americans left the state than moved in. California is also on pace to lose domestic population (not counting immigrants) this year. The outmigration is such that the cost to rent a U-Haul trailer to move from Los Angeles to Boise, Idaho, is $2,090–or some eight times more than the cost of moving in the opposite direction.

What’s gone wrong? A big part of the story is a tax and regulatory culture that treats the most productive businesses and workers as if they were ATMs. The cost to businesses of complying with California’s rules, regulations and paperwork is more than twice as high as in other Western states.

Scariest words in the English language?  “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help”.