NDP needs a leader who will take action on the climate
By Lethbridge Herald on March 27, 2024.
Editor:
The Alberta NDP have moved away from climate action in the last two elections, running on a platform of increasing Alberta’s carbon emissions. Scientists tell us this is a policy of planetary destruction. Shannon Phillips, a former Environment Minister, likes to point out that while she oversaw an expansion in oil production, we’ve been able to produce less pollution per barrel, so the damage is marginally less as we roll out more barrels. In this portfolio, the NDP is matching the UCP pro-destruction agenda stride for stride.
It’s possible the NDP adopted this stance to try to win votes. If that’s the case, it didn’t work. We believe they understand the seriousness of the climate crisis, which is far from clear with the UCP. Perhaps it’s fear that stops them from taking action. A great timidity to do the right thing in the face of political pressure.
We’re now in the middle of a race to pick a new leader for the New Democratic Party. Hope rears its head that a candidate will emerge with a vision to take significant and immediate climate action. Done well, a platform of sustainability will provide both a more livable future and a better economic future for Alberta.
It remains to be seen if such a candidate exists, but this is a rare moment of opportunity. As Jonas Salk said: “Hope lies in … the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality.” I urge the New Democrats to choose a leader with courage.
Tom Moffatt
Lethbridge
8-7
Today’s jobs are coming from the green energy revolution. Cheaper and cleaner energy is in the midst of a game-changing, once in a century boom. The longer Alberta continues to reject those jobs, the worse off the provincial economy will be.
totally disagree based on math
While in Alberta we lost 24,000 jobs in the renewables industry, mostly in the south, the U.S. has been promoting participation in the new energy boom, to the tune of adding 170,000 direct jobs in a little over a year.
They forecast “as many as 1.5 million new jobs in clean energy can be expected by 2030.”
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/03/05/this-biden-era-law-has-spurred-240-billion-in-clean-energy-investment-and-170000-jobs/
Apparently you haven’t been to Europe and seen what’s being done there and seen how far Canadians are behind what is being accomplished. It’s the number one creation of jobs.
You dreamers really need to stop flogging this dog. It isn’t going to happen.
https://joannenova.com.au/2024/03/unpermitted-documentaries-you-can-send-to-friends/
I dunno Buckwheat… citing a well known climate science denier, with no discernible climate science background and spokesman for Shell funded programming and FoxTel is your go to evidence for your own climate change denial? Surley you have better, more sources for your argument ? This is a woman who authored reports that temperatures are not rising… explain that to the millions of species currently facing extinction as a result of not just habitat destruction and pollution, but also rapid climate change. I am not arguing that the climate change effects we are witnessing are solely induced by humankind, but the rapid rate of the change is unprecedented extremely well documented and agreed upon globally.
Can tell you couldn’t be bothered watching the link. Here is another one. Just know you’ll like this as well. Enlighten yourself.
https://youtu.be/k3Ut3cjENZg?si=cfS6wzerEUb12nZu
I think as long as Climate Activists continue to exaggerate our contribution and make statements like “stop the Carbon Tax” and forget about walks along side rivers, or forget about a stroll in the woods, you will see people objecting to the tax!
Canada contributes 1.407% GHG as of the end of Dec 2022. So unless Activists can convince Albertans/Canadians that if we stopped producing GHGs today that we would be able to walk in the forest or beside a stream/river, my suggestion is you stop saying it.
Since the fiasco of Net Zero started the biggest emitters have exceeded our total contribution to GHGs. So had we been at Net Zero in 2020, The net result of GHGs in the atmosphere with us being at ZERO would be EXACTLY the same as it is tofay!
So is this about bragging rights and holier than thou righteousness or are we going to talk about real values and real emission numbers?
Before you say it, I am not a Climate Denier, I just like to work with real numbers. Have you ever heard ANYONE tell you how much we emit in percentage? No! Why? Because if you use Tons GHG and you do not know or are not told total tonnes GHG the world emits, you will never know ours is 1.407% of the total.
So is our forests buring because of our 1.407 or the other 98.6ish%
So the question is, do you kill your economy during a recession by creatng Inflation for 1.407% ?
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions
“Have you ever heard ANYONE tell you how much we emit in percentage?”
This is, by far, the most common argument made against action in Canada. If you’ve never heard anyone say it, this must be the first time you’re talking about this. As with many major problems, Canada can’t solve it on our own, however we are among the worst emitters per capita (and Albertans are the worst in Canada by far) – it’s impossible to honestly answer the question “who should go first?” without putting us very close to the top of the list.
Killing our economy is hyperbole to the extreme – only a tiny amount of the current inflation is caused by the carbon tax. Roughly 0.15 percentage points.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/carbon-pricing-accounts-for-0-15-percentage-points-of-inflation-boc-governor-says-1.6554273
If you’re worried about inflation or the economy in general – the carbon tax isn’t what you should be worried about, it’s climate change.
https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-global-warming-extreme-heat-inflation-global-economy-impact-2024-3
Most of the “math” associated with inflation has always been useless. If you have a pension which has an inflationary clause in it you would realize that inflation and the cause of it is cherrypicked. So if inflation rises 3.5% year on year, your pension rises $14.00 on $2000, figure that out.
When they calculate inflation numbers, they once again cherry pick what they need to get the right number.
As proof of that, I would like you to consider an experiment. If Trudeau announced that any Semi truck hauling goods back and forth from/to Canada would receive Diesel at a flat rate of $1.00 what do you think would happen to inflation, what do you think would happen to growth, what do you think would happen to food prices and the prices of everything else?
The oil sands could go out tomorrow and buy all the offsets needed to reduce their emissions to zero! Trudeau could prance around like a firefly on Crack and spill righteous sayings for his legacy. Trouble is, the planet would not be one iota better and Gas would be $4.00 a liter.
So on one hand we preach the need to reduce, then hand anyone with a big enough wallet the opportunity to be green while spewing black…..just atypical woke logic and hence our problems continue.
So if they continue, which they will, I have faith in “Wokeness” then at least give people a break on food! If we can spend money to give a drug addict a free home, free food, free drugs, free clothes, free access to everyones property to steal as needed to support his/her habit, I think we should be able to give daddy/mommy and his 5 kids a break on a head of lettuce.Or is that too radical for you?
But I am an old sookie/settler who has no heart!
Here is a great example of “stop this chemical, hug a tree” and then realizing golly gee……..what next?
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/shortage-of-wooden-hydro-poles-threatens-reliability-of-grid-say-electricity-producers/ar-BB1kA3gU
Those in the oil industry certainly understand it and want to try to do something about it yet every time they try to do something they have these idiot Reformers and their supporters to contend with. While they try to pretend they are Conservatives there is nothing Conservative about them, we know Lougheed wasn’t this ignorant, was he?
This is SO MUCH MORE than an expectation of immediately stopping GHG emissions affects immediately Dennis. Your remarks to that effect are oddly exactly that… exaggeration, drama queen hyperbole. This is the belief that sapiens needs to respond to the impact we are having on the planet and now taking whatever responsibility and action we can to correct our marked negative impact. Again, a reality check on your exaggeration: we will not kill the economy by caring enough to REDUCE our GHG. The patch will be just fine for many decades to come as non-renewable resources will be part and parcel of the resources required to affect the development and production of new technology; likely will long be a part. REALITY CHECK Dennis. Your misdirection of the matter is simply cowflop. Canada is NOT in a recession. Indeed a slump relative to productivity, but that has very little to do directly with natural resource extraction and much more to do with a paradigm shift in global consumption and manufacturing and supply dynamics. Do the math on that complicated topic Dennis. But heh… we were well on our way to diversifying our Albertan economy when Smith and Neudorf decided that we couldn’t allow that threat to their ideological narrow viewpoints. Kiss goodbye to many of those investors and the jobs their initiatives created.
And of course your responses are all looking out for others where mine are just self centered, meanwhile back at the ranch, lettuce is added to the upscale food menu
I made a huge career shift decades back to address the thought of my children asking me the question regarding pollution and ‘global warming’ in their future, “What did you do dad ?” Beyond that return for more education (took me nine years to pay off my student loans) and decades of pursuing that career direction, each and every day I engage in many small, but practical and effective actions to give back to the planet. I do this because I am GRATEFUL for the incredible gift of living on this planet. I have long grown fatigued with the cowflop of political and personal agendas that sapiens engage in (apparently by genetic default), so I simply ACT to make a difference. My visiting granddaughter (she had recently received some academic awards) recently gave me the highest praise I have ever received… she pointed out that she was motivated by my leadership, my example. Looking out for others? — I spent thousands of hours both developing environmental/ecological and historical geological programming and delivering same to children and adults. I was passionate about that and enjoyed every minute of it. So YES, self-centred if you wish to describe it as that.
very nicely shared – thank you for looking out well beyond wants.
We were called conservationist then not environmentally sensitive. Was kicked out the shower many times as a kid. We need more of conservation and less tax.
Lettuce can be grown in your back yard, in a kitchen window. If you are so obtuse as to be suffering because you are too lazy, too busy watching TiKTok, to respond to that fact, then perhaps you create your own dilemma ? When I was young mandarin oranges were only available in a canned form. As for the rest of the exotic fruits and vegetables being flown to our grocery counters, and the mind-boggling selections of highly processed and nutrition void foodstuffs being too expensive to purchase… our brainwashed population simply needs to wake up to their entitled attitudes, confront the reality of their corporate greed indoctrinated “needs”, and change their habits. There is no free lunch. Period. That idea extends to businesses that refuse to pay a living wage. Your greed has caused your staffing problems. Period.
tik tok – the sound a clock makes as one’s life passes.
Albertans contribute more greenhouse gas emissions per capita than most any people on the planet. This is principally because we are wealthier – we consume more, travel more, live in bigger houses, and are reliant on a high-emission industry to bankrole our standard of living. Hiding behind misleading percentages does not address our culpability, nor the planetary crisis related to global heating. It is denialism, plain and simple.
As to Mr. Moffat’s point, to participate in securing a livable future, we need a government that is serious about addressing our emissions.
hey, my truck, with lift kit and massive tires are because i am a king on a throne. i gots the coin, and i spends and splashes it on what i likes. because i drive mostly WITHOUT passengers and WITHOUT a workload – i don’t need it for actual work – actually saves gas, so i actually keeps the planet safe and green. indeed, those louts that use a truck’s large seating space for a work crew, and who use a truck to carry loads because their job requires it, are worse polluters.
olus, i needs my truck so’s i can haul snowmobiles and dirt bikes and jet skis, and pull power boats so as to show i am as good as any at doing my share of taming nature – and we agree that nature is out of control, right? so, i am doing my share, at no small cost, toward controlling our nasty our of control natural world.
May the winds of libertarian freedom always blow through their ears – science-free, values-free, responsibility-free. Freedom! Honkhonk.
One would have to understand the origins of a lifted truck. Access to oil wells, new oil wells, NG wells etc etc created the need for lifted trucks because ordinary 4x4s got stuck in the mud roads.
Most lifted trucks, before they bacame a thing came from Fort Mac Grand Prairie area out of necessity
I am wondering how I, or all those ancestors, ever survived with our two wheel drive trucks when we were out there working on the prairies pre eight inch lifts? I once drove a mountain pass with my six cylinder, three-on-the-tree rwd pickup that my buddy riding along with me had never been able to accomplish without problems in his heftier V8 4×4 pickups. He was astonished. He agreed that he had come to rely upon the 4×4 for any skill set he might have developed with more basic machinery.
Then you obviously forget the roots of the front mounted winch, if you want to go this route, we can, but I know you are just pretending to be dumb, you know better
I never once used a front mounted winch. A good ole come-along was always sufficient for the rare time I have needed that sort of torque. Oh wait, I did use a small Suzuki 4×4 once to pull a tractor and rototiller out of a market garden field. 1200 cc tops ?
So biff, you are starting to show your true colors. It appears its “okay” to work people 8 hours a day 5 days a week and be on call for the other 2.
It would appear that any money earned should be donated to mother Theresa foundation and everyone should live in a one room house?
Our society was developed over 70 years spurred on by the end of World War 2 and after the depression. The idea was work hard and reap the rewards of that hard work Trucks lifted or not were needed to haul the ever growing in size RVs.
Diesel, believe it or not was supported by Governments as a great idea to the pending thought Gas reserves would be scarce due to growth.
I enjoy watching the comments roll out that the Boomers were bad people.That they worked hard day to day to provide for their families and followed an unamended Bible or Quran. That somehow while driving propeller driven planes and Steam Locomotives we should have known Climate Change would be the pet for the woke
The woke now get on Youtube and other media and start crying that they have no time to enjoy their life, that 8 hours a day is foolish and why can’t they just get a livable wage staying at home doing the things they want to do lol
Love this new “Planet”
dennis, first we agree on a number of things. not sure we are entirely off sides on this one.
to clarfiy, i am expressing frustration that people choose to overlook how their choices affect others, the big picture. using lifted trucks and the like is just one of a good number of examples. i am all for individuality, and have far too many entries in this forum to that effect. i am entirely supportive of individuality, and unwavering with regard to what must be an inalienable right for each to their body – no govt/third party interference in that domain. i will spare further repetition here.
bottom line: money/opportunity cannot be the basis of whether or not we act responsibly to the whole. and trucks for recreation, lifted or not, and all the dumb, ignorance based, planet ruining/nature killing recreational motorised toys that folk use, because their money says they can, demonstrates an utter lack of respect and care for the welfare of the whole.
as for the 8 hours day…recall there was a time when we were sold on a far shorter work day/week thanks to all the tech that replaced workers and such. yet, here we are, full of tech and chemicals, the brunt of which has massively damaged our host, and AI ready to plunge the knife into what remains of much anything useful about humans.
next up, the emergence of hell: a planet nearing full digestion mode (chalk it up to the reality of homeostasis, much of the upset indeed caused by humans through massive damage to the systems that kept balance). but, rather than try and make some adjustments, each of them utterly first world things that are entirely wants based sacrifices, we still have fools sticking it to the many with lifestyle approaches based entirely on selfish wants based fulfillment.
so, however long/hard a person works, and whether or not they earn a ton of gold or are keen to bury themselves in debt, can no longer give any the right to be irresponsible to the rights of another.
Our generation tolerated the public policies, elected the governments complicit with the corporate greed that were employed to turn our children and grandchildren into sheep. There is that reality Dennis. Astounding how many seniors are griping about the UCP now, who ignored the reality before their eyes and elected them. Amazing how so many folks raged on in these pages about the NDP spending yet remain mute as the UCP announce one spending project after another and waste countless millions fattening the wallets of their political and corporate friends — this hypocrisy is freaking unbelievable.
If I thought for a moment that the NDP would do better, I would say so but the fact is, the NDP won’t nor the UCP.
Politicians did not earn a undeserved bad name of promise and no delivery through rumour or accident. They all over promise and under deliver. Our society will no longer elect people that tell the truth, so they have meetings, conferences, caucus meetings to figure out how they can “misspeak” there way into a lie without it being called a lie.
I find it interesting when you say “Astounding how many seniors are griping about the UCP now”, why? After the NDP were in for about 18 months there was “many seniors griping about the NDP”.
I find it more astounding that parties lie there way into office, then carry out the “real agenda” then when they do the real agenda, everyone dispises them.
Do you know that Notley did nothing for Solar/Wind? Solar and Wind projects were already planned and approved when Notley took over. She stood there and took credit for projects already rubber stamped. I quite realize she was all for them and the UCP is also “all for them” however, we still are a province that relies on tourists and having windmills propped up blocking the view of the “money makers” makes no sense. We had no rules preventing it, now we do. Are they the right rules, no idea.
Lastly, while speaking of amazement, I am amazed we cannot have a logical discussion on 1.407% over 10,000,000 square kilometers which is about 7% of the earths surface. A calculation that does not include the millions of square kilometers of trees that would get us to net zero.
When asked about our forestry offset, the response is, we cut them down (not manage) they get butned like every other country, and Trudeau wants to plant 5 billion more, why? So they can burn or is it “Trudeau trees will be the only trees allowed as offsets”?
Once again Dennis: your comments consistently demonstrate an incredibly narrow understanding of the ecological system and processes that the truly informed environmental advocates/activists do have the ability to fathom. Their knowledge relies upon far more than the comprehension of stats that the corp dollar crunchers, politicians, and super-logical numbers guys feel are the crux of any discussion. The math that the naturalists comprehend is simply beyond the intellect of those mindsets. Still, better informed economists have been warning us for quite some time now that the costs of ignoring, the costs of not responding to the impacts of climate change on our natural systems will collapse our society if we do not wake up. In order to respond we need more knowledgeable minds than the simple stats mentality can muster.
Sophie once again you speak without facts. There are two very good reasons why we emit as much as we do. We are a fossil fuel producer, we are also a steel, Iron, aluminum producer. That takes heat, furnaces and produces GHGs so we can supply other countries as well as our own needs.
The second reason is we are a “Northern territory so consume NG for heat. We send an amazing amoint of diesel to the North so they can run diesel generators to keep warm in the winter.
We supply oil, fuel, NG, chemicals to the rest of the world.
OilSands produces .7% of the GHGs and the rest of Canada the other .7%
What I find funny is a jacked up tuned diesel truck gets better mileage than one off the lot. A truck using 35 inch tires and “tuned can get 22mpg” where as no new truck even comes close with the same diesel.
A livable future
To believe in that one would have to believe that the rest of the countries are as obsessed as we are. They aren’t. Perhaps if we only produced the amount of NG we needed to heat our own homes, Gas and Diesel to do the same and cloister ourselves into a cocoon that economic growth was only our own, then perhaps we could reduce emissions, but for as long as we intend on “trading (Capitalism) where we trade another country for what they have because we do not have it….then get out the “brellies” cuz its gonna get hot!
In comparison to whom Sophie? You surely understand that Europe whom everyone likes to compare us to, is a different planet!. You can drive across three countries in a day in Europe. So comparing others to “us” in many cases is more workeness.
The reason Climate fanatics love “per capita” is because of two things.
1) We are an energy producer, so we do not produce just for our own needs but also for others. If we closed down shop, we likely would get invaded by a third world country because we gave all our bullets to Ukraine.
2) Canada has the Second largest Land Mass in the world by Country, We have 40million people. So infrastructure has to be 100 times more than any other Capitalist Country to achieve the same thing. We have the worst infrasructure in the world and people deem they have an inherent right to live where the hell they want. Soooo we fly food into these places or truck food for hundreds of miles, sometimes thousands to feed 400 people.
Now, because my experiemce with addicts is so “complete” I can assure you the woke have decided you cannot force anyone to live somewhere where you prefer, no matter how much it costs, to truck diesel, or how much it costs to provide food.
So to the woke, stop comparing us to some country in Europe that you can spit across if the wind is blowing in the right direction.
Woke. ? “Stay woke”… gotta love Lead Belly’s genius. Your use of “woke” as a slur is typical far right rhetoric that means something pretty much only to you … the first time it was flung at me I didn’t actually get the drift. I had to research its use. Subsequently i have recognized that it is a go to term for people who turn any attempt at a contemplative discussion into a murky argument; a tool for Gaslighting ninjas rather than thoughtful thinkers. “We have the worst infrastructure in the world” ??? — Say what ? You have a very limited knowledge of much of the other nations on our planet Dennis. Your statement regarding “addicts” is a tad incomprehensible, but again leads me to guffaw whenever you attempt to reduce the complexities of the ecological systems to mere numbers, because here again… addiction is a tremendously complex issue that has been around since mankind started sampling with foodstuffs, deserving more profound conversations.
Unfortunately, to deal effectively with the $billions/trillions in damages from climate change, not only do emissions from fossil fuels need to be addressed, but the ‘dirty words’: decreasing production of fossil fuels. To mention decrease in production is akin to implementing a provincial sales tax in Alberta. Trouble is, what will be the tipping point? What will it take?
Will all politics wait until it’s too late? Or, is it too late already. Again, climate change is driving drought, forest fires, etc. at an ever increasing rate. A drought in Alberta will negatively affect everything. And we have more and more folks coming to Alberta, all needing water?
So, simple question. Do you believe if we go to Zero emissions, the rivers won’t dry up? Or do you believe everyone has too ? If everyone, then how is that working so far? The largest emitters are fabricating there numbers with offsets. So if plant B does not pollute, then they can sell their credits to Plant A who is polluting badly, planet doesnt care if company A has credits!
I think some of us simply care enough to actually start the pendulum swinging in a more healthy arc for the planet’s sake. We love our children, grandchildren, and respect the rights of others species enough to give a damn. PERIOD. SIMPLE ENOUGH ANSWER ?
Actually, no, in pursuit of changing the planet, you will saddle your children with a burden of taxes so high to service the debt that your grandchildren will live as a third world country, or did you forget that part?
hmm, taxes (and only because we still buy into a loser system of uber feudalism called capitalism)…or a healthy planet built on sustainability that requires our future to pay taxes. tough call, eh? lol
Actually Dennis Canada became a third world nation quite some time ago based on the definition of a third world country earning most of its GDP through service industries. We sold the golden goose of our resources to foreign countries way back when; gave up our manufacturing companies to rely upon foreign low wages for cheaper products. As for taxes… I thought that you were a numbers man Dennis? Canadians have paid much higher taxes in the past and the economy, employment and productivity far excelled current levels. REALITY Dennis. Your comment is simply cowflop rhetoric. Our country can afford the initiatives enacted to restart our economy. We are not in the dire straits your hyperbole suggests. Taxes fund infrastructure and public services… unless you are willing to start paying tolls to drive to your destinations, fork over your life savings for a surgery, dismantle our fire and police services or pay as you need for same… taxes have been the solution to funding those services globally. Some nations pay much higher taxes, as we even used to do in N. America, and cite much better standards of services and public satisfaction with same.
right on, and yet still too many will not pull back. the curses of this planet are self service, selfishness, greed, ego/fame/power.
most simply put, we need to repair the damage to the natural order of the systems that have provided the health and balance the living planet requires. perhaps carbon emissions alone are not an exact science, but what has been done to the big picture should not be hard to acknowledge.