How worried should we as Canadians be about climate change?

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by whatnext

And what's the classic Econ 101 method for cutting demand? Raise the Price, ergo a carbon tax. Simple really, even milomilo should be able to comprehend that.

Did you even read the article? in order to be effective, the tax would be in the area of 8000% ($240 on gas that sells for about $3/gallon) and would any government even seriously consider that? it would be political suicide and would be immediately repealed by the following government. How is that not completely useless? Any tax that the population would be willing to pay would be far too small to have any effect.

The effective way to do it would be to have alternatives that are equivalent or better at an equivalent or better price. So the only way we are going to significantly reduce the consumption of oil is to have electric cars be comparable to conventional, not through a useless tax.

Originally Posted by CityTech

Significant reductions in carbon footprints can be made by eliminating coal power and shifting to electric vehicles, two things that aren't particularly difficult with present technology.

Eliminating coal should be happening already, however too many naysayers are voting in people like Trump who is trying to expand the US coal industry. It's quite frustrating!

As for electric vehicles, that's starting, but it's going to be a while before they are comparable. Most people acknowledge climate change but aren't prepared to sacrifice convenience to solve it. 99% of vehicle trips most of us do would be easily achieved by an electric car, but nobody wants to pay extra for a car that goes half as far.

[acottawa]

I guess it depends on what your definition of difficult is. There were about 10,000 electric vehicles sold last year, compared to overall sales of about 2 million. I have yet to see anything resembling a viable plan to scale that up.

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I guess it depends on what your definition of difficult is. There were about 10,000 electric vehicles sold last year, compared to overall sales of about 2 million. I have yet to see anything resembling a viable plan to scale that up.

Not to mention the fact that there isn't enough lithium to have electric cars replace conventional, not with the current battery technology. Whoever finds the next level in battery tech is going to be very wealthy!

[Mikemike]

^^ in 80 years.

I'm going to have to read the actual study because it doesn't make much sense. I've read elsewhere that a carbon tax of $200/ton =50c/L would make a big difference, and it would, over time...and gas would still be cheaper than what people pay in Europe. Middle-of-the-road Croatia has a fuel price equal to $2 Canadian so I think we can handle it.

We can start with our relatively ineffective and inexpensive $50/ton and go on from there.... I don't know what the report imagined for possible technological solutions but I bet a lot of cool innovation takes place over 80 years of increasing fuel prices long before we get close to $60/L.

[Calgarian]

A carbon tax will only give you a slight reduction in fuel consumption though, not sure it will be enough to actually achieve any significant reduction. The article is all doom and gloom and is basically taking things to the extreme, so that's where their carbon price of $240/gallon comes in.

If we are going to make a tangible difference I think electric cars have to get a lot better so that the majority of people will buy one, and we need to find a way to take carbon out of the atmosphere.

[Mikemike]

And the best way to encourage electric and carbon sequestration is a carbon tax.
$50/ton is about as high as is wise while it's not more widely adopted but someone has to be first.

With a $50/ton carbon tax I don't doubt that our national fleet of vehicles would have more cars and smaller crossovers and fewer big SUVs - though it would take 15 years to change over the fleet. a few people would drive less. Home PV systems would be economic in more places. and we would be more prepared for the next move.

[acottawa]

Carbon taxes are political suicide in most of the country. They are ultra regressive and piss off the lower middle class. There was a good reason why Trudeau was hoping to hide behind the provinces. In a context where the major emitters are doing nothing, it comes across as a money grab that has nothing to do with climate change.

[Gresto]

Canadians profess to care gravely about climate change, but once it hits them in the pocketbook, most quickly find an excuse to banish real, costly action and vote in DoFo and other Neanderthals.

[333609543]

Instead of electric vehicles we should really be looking into the possibility of mass produced hydrogen powered cars, hydrogen is by far the most abundant element in the universe and is present in water, the single most abundant resource on the planet (incl. saltwater). Batteries are very expensive to produce and at the moment without any revolutionary technological breakthrough will continue to cap off at certain ranges. Hydrogen can revolutionize the way we fuel things and if petrol and auto companies are perhaps pushed in that direction we could curb a large amount of emissions by automobiles in short term with a general replacement maybe by 2040-2050. Several European and Asian cities are expanding infrastructure for hydrogen powered vehicles and energy, I think we should try to see what commercial benefits it may have here.

[Jets4Life]

Originally Posted by misher

I really wonder at what point does climate change become so bad that we can't go back. As Canadians can we sit back and watch the rest of the world suffer as our own climate improves? Will we suddenly gain some nice beaches and will our weather become much better? Or will a warmer climate hurt us too?

A warmer climate would be very bad for Canada, if global warming makes it catastrophic for more populated countries. One reason: war.

People who do not see this coming are naive. If massively populated regions of America become uninhabitable, there will be a huge push to find areas of the World that have not suffered as much. I can see hundreds of millions of people wanting to enter our borders.

Canada will be powerless to stop this. With only 36 million people, we will be powerless to defend a desperate, more powerful nation from invading us for the sole purpose of their own survival. The chances of massive genocides all over the World will be a given.

[acottawa]

Nobody is predicting that massively populated regions of America will become uninhabitable. Even if some areas (South Florida or Arizona) become less desirable to live, it is unclear why these people would want to invade Canada rather than relocate within the U.S. When the dust bowl hit Oklahoma the people didn’t try to invade Canada.

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Carbon taxes are political suicide in most of the country. They are ultra regressive and piss off the lower middle class. There was a good reason why Trudeau was hoping to hide behind the provinces. In a context where the major emitters are doing nothing, it comes across as a money grab that has nothing to do with climate change.

This can be easily fixed with a proper use of the money to cut other taxes, like the rebate system in Alberta, or the never-came-to-pass idea of Patrick Brown to cut the lower two income tax brackets with carbon tax revenue. For the latter, it would have ended up with the vast majority of the population having more money in the end (as it was effectively a wealth transfer from corporations to citizens).

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I guess it depends on what your definition of difficult is. There were about 10,000 electric vehicles sold last year, compared to overall sales of about 2 million. I have yet to see anything resembling a viable plan to scale that up.

They're already scaling up. Last year we hit over 1.2 million globally. Most growth is in China, though, where its effectiveness is limited by the widespread use of coal power (although it is still a net positive for the climate even with all coal, and China is improving their electric supply mix).



Bloomberg estimates that EVs will hit 35% of all car sales worldwide by 2040.



IMO, this is a realistic projection. (The ones that predict majority market share for EVs in years like 2025 or 2030 are way off the mark).

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by CityTech

This can be easily fixed with a proper use of the money to cut other taxes, like the rebate system in Alberta, or the never-came-to-pass idea of Patrick Brown to cut the lower two income tax brackets with carbon tax revenue. For the latter, it would have ended up with the vast majority of the population having more money in the end (as it was effectively a wealth transfer from corporations to citizens).

That might work, although the temptation to for governments to just take the revenue is very high. I think you continue to run the risk it would perceived from a transfer from the lower middle class (who disproportionately pay carbon taxes) to the upper middle class (who disproportionately benefit from tax cuts).

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by acottawa

That might work, although the temptation to for governments to just take the revenue is very high. I think you continue to run the risk it would perceived from a transfer from the lower middle class (who disproportionately pay carbon taxes) to the upper middle class (who disproportionately benefit from tax cuts).

Hence why Brown's idea was so good; it only cut taxes on the lower brackets.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by CityTech

Hence why Brown's idea was so good; it only cut taxes on the lower brackets.

Somebody who makes 40k isn’t going to see much tax cut, somebody making 100k is going to see a lot of tax cut (and the 40k person would probably pay more carbon tax than the person making 100k).

[Calgarian]

Originally Posted by 333609543

Instead of electric vehicles we should really be looking into the possibility of mass produced hydrogen powered cars, hydrogen is by far the most abundant element in the universe and is present in water, the single most abundant resource on the planet (incl. saltwater). Batteries are very expensive to produce and at the moment without any revolutionary technological breakthrough will continue to cap off at certain ranges. Hydrogen can revolutionize the way we fuel things and if petrol and auto companies are perhaps pushed in that direction we could curb a large amount of emissions by automobiles in short term with a general replacement maybe by 2040-2050. Several European and Asian cities are expanding infrastructure for hydrogen powered vehicles and energy, I think we should try to see what commercial benefits it may have here.

I always figured internal combustion hydrogen engines would replace gasoline, but am surprised they never made it economical. I think at this point that Electric is going to be the future since it has such a large head-start.

[Jets4Life]

Originally Posted by acottawa

Nobody is predicting that massively populated regions of America will become uninhabitable.

Yes they are.

[Mikemike]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

I always figured internal combustion hydrogen engines would replace gasoline, but am surprised they never made it economical. I think at this point that Electric is going to be the future since it has such a large head-start.

Hydrogen is just an energy storage device like a battery, and burning it in and IC engine is just as inefficient as burning gas, if cleaner.

Even fuel cells are much less efficient than simply discharging a battery, not to mention the safety risks of driving around with a highly compressed highly explosive gas.

The benefit is that you don't have problems at low temperatures but for those of us in cold countries there will be other synthetic fuels without the safety complications.

[Me&You]

Originally Posted by Calgarian

I always figured internal combustion hydrogen engines would replace gasoline, but am surprised they never made it economical. I think at this point that Electric is going to be the future since it has such a large head-start.

Several large vehicle manufacturers, among them Toyota, have yet to fully embrace the concept of EVs due to current limitations on storage and hence, range. Instead their resources have been more focused on HFC, so the race is not over yet. The broad consensus at the manufacturer level is that EVs are currently the (technologically) low hanging fruit with the added benefit of relatively high public buy-in and the icing on the cake being government rebates. Many manufacturers are taking the lazy approach by releasing EVs that are (relatively) simple from an R&D stand point to a market that has generally embraced the concept, all with governments picking up part of the tab... Win / win / win, but not broadly seen as much of a solution.