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 (h/t to Sharon) B.C. [British Columbia] is about to be hit with new taxes to achieve the government’s
greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goal of 33% below current levels by
2020. But the BC Liberals were elected to reduce taxes and burdensome
regulations, not increase them.
So just how did the premier come up with this goal and what is the outlook for B.C.?
While
in Hawaii for his Christmas 2006 vacation, the premier is said to have
read a couple of books on catastrophic climate change, including Al
Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Tellingly, the British High Court ruled
showing the movie version of that book, and misleading students into
believing it accurately represented climate science, was in violation
of the political indoctrination section of the country’s Education Act.
The experience in Europe goes beyond propaganda, however. The
experience in Europe is one of job losses with little, if any, GHG
reduction.
European governments have imposed a garden
variety of GHG reduction measures since the early 1990s. Nevertheless,
GHGs went up in Europe by 5% between 1991 and 2005.
What
did go down in that same period were manufacturing jobs. Norway, Sweden
and Germany, for example, saw manufacturing jobs fall by 5.6%, 18.5%
and 30% respectively.
Did emissions fall as well? GHG
emissions increased a whopping 62% in Norway and 11.3% in Sweden but
fell by 8.6% in Germany. It appears the drop in manufacturing jobs must
be massive to get much of a fall in GHG emissions.
Given
how GHG reduction policies in Europe haven’t done much to reduce GHGs —
but plenty to reduce the number of jobs — surely plenty of analysis
went into B.C.’s moves to ensure the same thing wouldn’t happen here.
Maybe not.
The
results of freedom of information (FOI) requests and the premier’s own
statements indicate that little, if any, analysis took place.
A
response to an NDP FOI request showed “no records” of correspondence to
and/or from the minister of the environment and/or deputy minister on
the GHG reduction goal before it was announced in the throne speech. In
other words, it seems the minister and his deputy had no documented
discussion with anyone on how or what to develop as a target.
Another
FOI request for the studies that went into the development of the GHG
reduction goal was denied by the premier’s office. Too complex for the
little people to see, it seems.
Even more damning was
the level of scientific input the premier had on the GHG reduction
goal. In November 2007, in a conversation televised on Vaughn Palmer’s
Voice of BC television program, Premier Campbell said, “I don’t want to
pretend this was some... that I asked a scientific panel about how to
get there. I didn’t.” Premier Campbell went on to say, “We felt that
10% below 1990 was a reasonable and achievable target for us to reach.
That was 33% below 2007 and that makes sense to me.”
So now “feelings” determine important policies in British Columbia, not science or evidence?
It’s time to face facts: The global warming Pharisees do not have our best interests in mind.
The
premier has an obligation to cast an eye to the experience of other
jurisdictions (as he did for health care) and balance his perspective
with the ever-increasing volume of scientific data suggesting man-made
global warming is a hoax — another Y2K panic — that will do more to
bilk taxpayers than save the planet. Source
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