Climate Wars

In a bit of coincidence, I happened to find Gwynne Dyer's book Climate Wars in the library a few days ago. The coincidence is finding this book and the recent issue about carbon taxes that I discussed in a recent post as well as the election of a US President who just might reverse 8 years of climate change denial and put America on the road to action in dealing with this impending crisis.

Gwynne Dyer is a well-known author and journalist with a long experience in world events who is now turning his writing skills on the growing climate change crisis. In a series of hypothetical scenarios set some decades into the future, various outcomes for us and our world are examined, based on the science as we know it now and as we think it will be at that future time.

The book was only just finished, containing many interviews with noted scientists and policy-makers done only a few months ago.

It's a pretty compelling story as it sets out the situation we find ourselves in and what our (increasingly limited) options are.

A Taxing Situation

I will admit to being generally left of center politically but a recent position taken by the BC NDP has me reconsidering my options, especially with a provincial election coming up in a few months.

The background starts earlier this year when the BC Liberal government (note - the BC Liberals are more "conservative" than their name would lead you to believe) brought in a carbon tax - the first in Canada. It was small, but generated a good deal of discussion (whining might be a better word).

The provincial NDP, taking the tired but true position of attacking anything the government does, no matter what it is, has come out swinging, denouncing the carbon tax as useless, an attack on ordinary taxpayers and leaving big polluters off the hook. If I wasn't so cynical about politics, I'd be puzzled by this stance. Seems to me that it's perfectly logical to tax things you want to discourage and reduce taxes on things to want to encourage. I can't see why this principle shouldn't be applied to everyone, including the "ordinary taxpayer", especially as we all contribute to the problem of CO2 emissions.

I don't know much about the relative merits of carbon taxes vs the "cap and trade" system, but I get the impression that a carbon tax is supported by many economists. It certainly looks simple to me, especially given that a "cap and trade" system doesn't seem to be as easy (ie: likely) to set up. My annoyance is with political parties that seem determined to use anything as a political football, even when it's something we obviously need to do and even if the solution isn't perfect.

On the Road to Nowhere

Nothing like believing in Free Markets and less Government intervention, unless, of course, you're in financial trouble. The Big 3 automakers are now seeing the looming recession and high fuel prices cutting into their business in a big way. I like watching BNN's Squeeze Play even though I tend to disagree with some of Kevin O'Leary's attitudes. On the automakers, though, he's right on - let the market decide. GM, Ford and Chrysler have kept engines and vehicles excessively large and inefficient and continue to brag about Hummers and performance. The writing has been on the wall for years and the CEOs of these companies have managed to ignore the message. If they can't compete, let them die, or merge, or whatever.

No Flush of Success Yet

CBC Radio's Spark, one of my favourite programs, carried an interesting segment the other day on water-efficient toilets. Out here in the Kootenays, where we "appear" to have lots of water, we're still fighting the all-too-prevalent-attitude that "the Lake has lots of water in it", that we don't need to meter water use, that water meters only penalize poor people (apparently because only rich people will have the money to waste metered water, I think....) and so on. These conversations and comments remind me of similar assertions tossed my way years ago when I was teaching school students about acid rain, pollution, over-population, recycling, and climate change. We all need to be reminded that many people will resist ANY change in their lifestyle, even if, it appears, it will save them money or conserve natural resources. The concept of trying to find more efficient ways of using these resources is still being portrayed as undemocratic and foolish in some wierd way. Hard to believe in this day and age.

Jan 20, 2009 - End of an Error

It was the caption on a bumper sticker we saw in northern California last winter. At the time, I credited my hours of watching The West Wing with giving me the ability to "get it". Tonight, we saw the beginnings of that change. Neighbours organized an "Election Results Party" and included several ex-pat Americans who were pretty excited by the results. I hope expectations get past the unreasonably high stage painlessly, but a new attitude in Washington has got to help. Over the past couple of winters we've met many Americans on our travels. They deserve better than what has been inflicted on them in the past 8 years. It was time for a change and now it looks like they'll get it.

Weighing in on the Financial Crisis

I don't think there's been nearly enough careful analysis of the probable causes of the current financial crisis. Lots of finger-pointing, but not enough analysis. One pundit I follow has admitted that he doesn't know what the cause might be. Being somewhat of a government interventionist supporter (albeit with small "g" and small "i"), I'm going with minimalist (read: non-existent) regulatory oversight as the root cause, but what do I know?

So, in case you haven't read enough of other's opinions, here is another, courtesy of CBC's Search Engine.

Exploring the Koots 1019 - Nice Lake by a Dam Site

Another bluebird sky day in the Koots, so we did something we almost never do - we went for a drive, simply to see the scenery. Just north of the end of Kootenay Lake is Duncan Dam, built a few decades ago as part of the Columbia Basin Treaty (to maintain water levels for flood control and power generation), which created a much larger Duncan Lake, now 40 km long rather than its original 14 km. We'd never seen the dam, or the Lake, really, and discovered, once again, great scenery, a nice lake and a beautiful campground (BC Forest Service, by the way) near the settlement of Howser.

We extended the drive to go west along Highway 31 to Trout Lake, mostly just to look at the Lardeau River and to see if any Kokanee Salmon were still around, to watch the Bald Eagles, check out the various FSRs that might be useful for skiing or hiking into the Goat Range Wilderness.... We had planned to have a closer look at the campground on Trout Lake at Gerrard, but a grizzly was feeding on some sort of carcass, so we viewed the scene from the truck and moved on.

On the way back home we had a look at the Meadow Creek Spawning Channel, created during the construction of the Duncan Dam, partly to remediate the disruption caused by the dam. It wasn't all the dam's fault, as it turns out: some time during glacial retreat thousands of years ago, impassable falls were created on the Kootenay River, making it impossible for salmon to migrate upstream. This created a species of salmon that became landlocked, but since they still needed a place to lay their eggs, the spawning channel was created. At the right time of year (early fall), literally hundreds of thousands of salmon arrive here in the process of living out their biological destiny.

The day was brought to a satisfying conclusion at a belated Thanksgiving dinner at neighbours - the first of at least 2 such belated epicurean delights, I hope. The resident pie expert here produced 2 masterpeices created from orphan apples collected a few weeks ago before the bears managed to get them. Ahhhhhh.