Clean Air Act unveiled by Tories Oct 19 2006

Karlin

Council Member
Jun 27, 2004
1,275
2
38
There isn't any urgency to address global warming in the new legistlation. The focus for any immediate or near term action is only on smog, and not the general emissions that cause global warming. We waited and we stalled until global warming became evident [as it is now] and then the politicians say "we cannot possibly meet those targets" and then continue with business as usual. It is disasterous.

The Tory legistlation will focus on your cars emissions and let 'heavy industry' continue to emit the 45megatonnes of greenhouse gasses per year that they do now, and let that figure GROW as well.

Most Canadians see global warming as the biggest threat to our way of life, and the future we leave for our grandchildren. Terrorism is far less dangerous - global warming will directly affect all 7 Billion people of planet earth.

There is nothing in this farcical legistlation to address those concerns.

Pushing back targets as far as 2050 before reductions are mandated is ridiculous. We might as well do nothing at all by then , as the worst effects of climate change and extreme weather events WILL hit us before that date!!!

"More consultations with industry" is a large part of this announcement. That phrase really means "STALLING". Thats really what the Harper government is trying to do with this legistlation, and that should be very very obvious to all Canadians concerned with global warming.

And of course, since an election is widely expected next spring, any legistlation not passed before then will be scuttled, dead, gone. Heavy industry will not have to worry about cutting emissions for a long long time under the Harper government. And even when those far-away dates come to be, those industries will just break the rules and continue emitting the GGs. - BECAUSE THIS DOCUMENT HAS NO ENFORCEMENT GUIDELINES.

The Tories are also bringing up the oil industry's favorite farce, and thing called "Emissions intensity" measurements, which calculate the economic values of the industry that is producing the emissions and letting them emit more GGs on that basis, {i.e. -the more profits the more emissions are tolerated]

Its a farce, catering to the Elite corporate sector that has supported PM Harper so far. I just cannot believe that the Tories still have 33% of the our popular support when the Tories are doing so much for their Elites friends and nothing to address average Canadians concerns.
 

ottawabill

Electoral Member
May 27, 2005
909
8
18
Eastern Ontario
I am an average Canadian....why are you so sure you speak for my concerns???

Before you get me wrong...I do think the enviroment is an important issue and that we are not doing near enough about it However "Elite business interests"?? sounds rather Maxist to me!!



We all seem to want government to do more while we individually do nothing. Complain about air quality while driving around single in our cars. Throw everything in the garbage, recycle nothing...Buy a new TV throw the old one in landfill..I don't see you being furious at all these collective individuals or is a big moving target easier to hit?
 

Gonzo

Electoral Member
Dec 5, 2004
997
1
18
Was Victoria, now Ottawa
What a joke the Tories environmental plan is! 2050 is the target? The Conservatives should be thrown out of office. How stupid do they think Canadians are? Do they not care about the future of our planet? When will the right wing grow some balls and tackle this issue?
 

BitWhys

what green dots?
Apr 5, 2006
3,157
15
38
Here's the Liberal Record using the newly announced Conservative "Intensity Based" formula...

Intensity Based Targets Formula is:
Intensity = Emmissions/GDP

% Reduction of Intensity 1990 to 2005 = (1-(Intensity 2005)/(Intensity 1990))*100

GDP Implicit Chain Price Index (StatsCan 1997=100)
1990 = 88.9
2005 = 118.4

% Change Emmissions = 28% = 0.28 (Conservative claim)

% Reduction of Intensity = (1-(1.28/118.4)/(1/88.9))*100
% Reduction of Intensity 1990 to 2005 = 3.89%

that would be 3.89 to the good, of course.
congratulations, P5, your party didn't do so bad after all
 

Karlin

Council Member
Jun 27, 2004
1,275
2
38
I am an average Canadian....why are you so sure you speak for my concerns???

However "Elite business interests"?? sounds rather Maxist to me!!

.I don't see you being furious at all these collective individuals or is a big moving target easier to hit?

ottbill, I am not sure I understand what you said there, but one by one -
I feel secure in my estimate that a majority of Canadians are aware of Global Warming and that they want to address it even at some cost to them or government. I can speak for avg Canucks if that is true.

Elites Marxists?? - I don't know, you brought it up, maybe. Never mind Marx - what I say is that there is a very strong control/influence over government by the corporate sector - the Clean Air Act is an obvious bit of evidence of that relationship where corporations concerns are acted on by Harper's govt. while avg. canadians concerns are ignored.


AS for the 'collective individuals and big moving targets, I don't have a clue there. I am not so educated to know what that means. I have been shouting about corporate influence in government for 30 years, I am battling the old Military Industrial Complex - if thats the biog moving target, then ok I am after them. Yes.

K
 

ottawabill

Electoral Member
May 27, 2005
909
8
18
Eastern Ontario
What I am saying is that most individuals don't really want to look in their own back yards before they blame others.

We demand that coal fire generation of Hydro be stopped,then run our air conditioners at full rate and get mad that the power goes out...

We only buy the cheapest items not the greenest items, if a t.v can be produced at 200 bucks in China where enviromental controls and nul and void ..we don't care as long as the T,V is cheap.

What I am saying is that we can blame large corporations for all this but we have as much to do with their record.
 

Sassylassie

House Member
Jan 31, 2006
2,976
7
38
Caring for the Environment starts with each of us, gas barbeques emit a great deal of pollution, like Bill said Air Conditioners (try and take mine away and there will be blood, yours not mine) the list is endless. Canada has to stop being a "thow it in the trash nation" and start recycling as much as we can. I haul stuff out of the trash all the time, the chair I'm sitting in was a Dumpster Diver find-I redid it and it's good as new. I've refurbished tons of stuff out of the trash on "Garbage" day, I fix it up and give it to the needy. An old barbeque frame makes a great garden trolly or drinks cart. The list is endless, it breaks my heart to drive by good stuff and leave it to go to the land fill. Harper's plan doesn't sound very sound thou.
 

ottawabill

Electoral Member
May 27, 2005
909
8
18
Eastern Ontario
Bravo Sassie!!

have any or all of you ever looked at Freecycle, there is one for most communities on the web.

It's a trade and giveaway site. Instead of my old rowing machine going to landfill I posted it and gave it to a guy who was building a training room. (he would have bought a new one and mine would have been the garbage)

My daughter's desk came from a guy in town who was getting rid of it after he bought a computer desk for his kid....coat of paint and it's good!!

2050 is to far off for target dates with the gov. enviromental plan..global warming or not we continually ruin our own future
 

mabudon

Metal King
Mar 15, 2006
1,339
30
48
Golden Horseshoe, Ontario
And another important point of the "legislation" (tho it really had no meat on it whatsoever, just a loose point-form timeline and no actual substance) is that the first phase will be 4 years of consultation with industry- I was somehow forced to recall the Ontario smoking ban and all the years of consultation that- wait... no, there really wasn't any...

And it is one of them weird double-edged situations- with the smoking ban (and I realize this is not the best example, being provincial, but it is a similar thing) that the health of the people was paramount, and that bar and restaurant owners (and Binog operators) would have to "make their own plans to comply"... those that had been "smart" and "thought ahead" (read: folks with the cash to do so more than anything else) were praised for doing so...

Seems to me that this kind of logic should apply in all situations where the health of the public is in question... since the talk about greenhouse gasses has been in the news for what, a LOOONG time, anyone who hasn't seen the writing on the wall either is ignorant or didn't want to cut into their bottom lines (I would argue the latter, realistically) and to quote star wars "will pay the price for their lack of vision"

But no, the Government doesn't want to watch shareholders having to make do with lowered profits, so I guess the best plan we can hope for is to allow for this consultation period, wherein (and YES I am damn cynical about this whole scam) a special commision can negotiate with industry to figure out ways to shift the burden onto the consumer (the Canadian public) while leaving the corporate bottom line unchanged....

It would shock the HELL out of me if ANY industry (one of the major polluting ones, not some home business) came out with an announcement about lowering forecasted profits RIGHT NOW to get their operations cleaned up pronto cos the governments "plan" is not going to amount to a hill of beans,
.

It would also both please and shock me in the Government were to do something along those lines- set a real near-term date to either clean up or shut down operations that are killing our planet and us as well. The argument I can see arising is "lost jobs" but that is hooey, lost profits would be the only thing standing in their way.Does anyone really believe that a HUGE company, when faced with making half a years profits for a year or two or shutting down entirely, would choose the latter?? I can't see it personally

I suppose the only good thing about this plan is that it is SO piss-poor that almost nobody can see the "merit" in it, whatever that may be (tho I was honestly expecting a headline similar to "Government announces plans to cut emissions to 2012 levels by 2075" so I guess it isn't as lousy as it could have been- still a bad joke tho.. and what happened to the 5 points again??)
 

Jay

Executive Branch Member
Jan 7, 2005
8,366
3
38
http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=e6902dfa-0def-4759-b57d-3545f25ba527&p=2

Opposition emitting a lot of hot air

The House of Commons was whipped into a froth of righteous indignation yesterday after the Conservatives released their Clean Air Act.
Pablo Rodriguez, the Liberal hair-apparent to Pierre Pettigrew, tossed his fringe around in such excitement he threatened to levitate above the Liberal benches as he blamed the Tory plan for "taking an axe to Kyoto."
"How can the Minister [Rona Ambrose] do this to our planet?" he demanded.
On the NDP benches, Libby Davies was in a similarly agitated state. "The big winner today is the pollution industry. The losers are Canadians ... who only get hot air," she said.
As with the election campaign trail, Question Period is not the place to look for facts. But this theme was repeated all across Parliament Hill yesterday as environmental groups fanned out to criticize the Tory plan for targets on greenhouse gas reduction as "weak, vague and delayed."
It has to be said that an initial read of the "notice of intent to regulate" produced a similar reaction. A decision on a regulatory regime for industry (the source of half of Canada's greenhouse gases) will not come until next spring, with no compliance required until 2010; no hard caps until 2020; and a 45%-65% reduction but not until 2050.
In this light, the government decision to include the regulatory regime in its amendment to the current Canadian Environmental Protection Act, rather than wrap it in the separate Clean Air Act, looks a wise move. This will mean it will proceed on track, rather being mired in committee by the opposition parties from now until the polar ice cap melts -- or until the Conservatives win a majority.
Worryingly for the government, the impression has already taken hold that the Conservatives are not serious on the environment, and when Ambrose says the Clean Air Act represents a "very ambitious agenda," people smirk.
But one wonders if any of the so-called climate experts flapping their gums about how industrial polluters have been let off the hook have actually taken a good, long look at the numbers.
Aldyen Donnelly, a Vancouver-based consultant who does precisely this sort of analysis for large industrial emitters, says the Conservative plan on greenhouse gases is much tougher than most people in industry had anticipated. "Industry should be shaking in their boots," she said. "This is about shutting plants down."
Regardless of the absence of a hard cap to reduce emissions absolutely until 2020, industry now knows it has to reduce its emissions by half by 2050. Working back from that date, Donnelly has modelled the legal emissions for one of Canada's top five emitters. The implications are much tougher than the regulatory targets that former Liberal environment minister Stephane Dion was telling industry it had to work toward when he was in power.
"Government's new commitment to reduce greenhouse gases by 45% to 65% by 2050, if translated into a schedule of regulated intensity and absolute targets, represents a 25% to 35% tougher overall emission reduction objective than an extrapolation of the Liberal government proposed rules," said Donnelly, a self-confessed Liberal. "A 50% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050 is really, really, really hard to achieve."

As long as the regulations being discussed provide bankable, tradeable credits to companies that comply with any target ahead of schedule, she said, they will fundamentally change short-term investment decision-making in Canada.
Much of the media comment yesterday revolved around "another four years of talking" with industry over regulations before they come into effect in 2010. Again, though, a closer look at the consultative and legislative schedule suggests the Conservatives are operating to the same time-scale as the Liberals. Compliance in 2010 means the regulation has to pass in 2008 and then requires public input before it can come into effect.
As Ambrose put it: "Industry has to be compliant by 2010 and if you think that happens the night before, it doesn't. They have to start making decisions today as to how they are going to make changes in their business."
Still, nothing Ambrose could say was good enough for Liberal critics, who lined up to pillory her plan. Michael Ignatieff called it "a failure of leadership" that offered "no action when action is needed."
In his eyes, the Clean Air Act is no match for his National Sustainable Development Strategy with its innovative call for a 50% reduction in greenhouse gases by ... er, 2050. Admittedly his base year is 1990, while the government's is 2003, but the point is: There is not as much difference between the environmental positions of the two major parties as the Liberals would have us believe. There are only so many ways you can skin a cat -- or capture and sequester carbon emissions.
 

mabudon

Metal King
Mar 15, 2006
1,339
30
48
Golden Horseshoe, Ontario
Still stand by the fact that the quote from Ambrose is tripe- "they have to start making decisions today" hell, most of the real big business types should have made them decisions 10 years ago, the malarkey about the iundustry regulating itself is ridiculous if no-one has ANY plans of how they might comply with guidelines they most certainly knew were coming.

The "plan" is just a sham and no amount of spin can change that
 

iARTthere4iam

Electoral Member
Jul 23, 2006
533
3
18
Pointy Rocks
I don't care one wit about global warming. I care much more about polution. I recycle, I don't have an air conditioner. I don't waste water on my lawn. What insanity makes people think the planet will stay exactly the same temperature forever? I never has been constant it never will be. Kyoto is a chance for Canada to abdicate decision-making about our own policies. However, the recent environmental announcement can only be described as weak.
Canadians need to embrace technology that will reduce our need for dirty energy like coal and replace it with wind, solar, nuclear etc.
Why is there such resistance to wind farms if people care so much? That's what I don't understand about us Canadians.