Carbon Feet of Clay

I must be feeling a bit better, as my outrage at patent stupidity is returning to near-normal levels, restoring the sense of purpose which led to me start this blog in the first place. I have had a lot of stuff on here about the Global Warming hoax/panic, and the political set are jockeying to punish us financially just as many (myself included) predicted.

The Honourable Mr. Dion is currently staking all of his political marbles on this "Green Shift" taxation scheme. I'll get more to the nuts and bolts of that in a minute, but an aside first.

There is mounting evidence that whatever warming there was was a) minor and b) over several years ago. I have documented that elsewhere so I won't re-hash it here, but I wanted to point out what I find worrisome about the recent rash of Cap-and-Trade, Carbon Tax, etc. initiatives from various governments. It's pretty simple: their very existence under the current circumstances.

We just had one of the longest, snowiest winters in living memory, temperatures were below average over much of the Northern Hemisphere (at least), evidence is abundant that all of Al Gore's eyewash is exactly that, AND oil prices are at an all-time high. This is the time politicians choose to try to hammer us with a Carbon Tax?

That this seems contra-indicated by economic factors alone is the most obvious point, and one which is not lost on the population, currently being punished on every level by ridiculous prices for oil. A tax on "Carbon" (does this include BBQ charcoal? My exhalations?) is a Tax on EVERYTHING, because it doesn't walk to get to you.

I linked this from a particular CTV article, and the comments section is revealing in the preponderance of comments hostile to this as a plan. There are of course many ways to explain that, but I will invoke Occam's Razor on this one; people are taxed enough, are paying punishingly high prices for gas, seeing the price of everything else go relentlessly up, and foresee even more of all the above if a carbon tax is added to the mix.

I think that such a thing should be voluntary; if you really believe that the whole thing will be "revenue neutral" for you, you sign up for it. The 90% of the population not stupid or Utopian enough to fall for it will happily let you, as long as they don't have to as well. Should tell you all you need to know about how good an idea it is...

The PM, in my opinion, had the pulse of the country in response to this idea when he said:

"(The carbon tax plan) is like the national energy program in the sense that the national energy program was designed to screw the West and really damage the energy sector -- and this will do those things. ... This is different in that this will actually screw everybody across the country."

Those of more delicate disposition have proffessed to have taken exception to his language, but personally I think he nailed it on the head.

Oh perish the use of the four-letter words
Whose meanings are never obscure;
The Angles and Saxons, those bawdy old birds,
Were vulgar obscene and impure.
But cherish the use of the weaseling phrase
That never quite says what you mean.
You had better be known for your hypocrite ways
Than as vulgar, impure and obscene.
Let your morals be loose as an Alderman's vest
If your language is always obscure.
Today, not the act, but the word is the test
Of vulgar obscene and impure.

Old (and anonymous, so no apologies if I've not the right version exactly) but a spade is still a small shovel and I will always respect someone more for being straight with me than for their oratorical skills in dancing around something.

"Shift out of luck" is as close as the government could actually come to telling us what we'd be if this "Green Shift" is implemented. The only "Green Shift" I see out of this is the shift of more of my "green" (and red, and brownish, and blue, etc) to the taxman and to businesses for our necessities and luxuries alike.