[DrCaleb]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

andyt andyt:

Sad this has to be 'splained to folks.

Where did I say we shouldn't do anything or not cut the lawn?

I asked, how much extra would he pay to cut his lawn? Something he does already and has been doing for 30 years is now going to cost him more in the hopes that he can influence his neighbor to cut his lawn.

I already pay extra to mow my lawn. To bring the metaphor to reality, I'd rather have a meadow than a lawn, and stop maintaining it. But the county mandates that I keep my 'lawn' maintained, so out of personal pride I do a good job at it. At an additional $30/tonne of carbon, I don't see it adding a great deal to the 10 or 12 gallons of fuel I use yearly to run my maintenance equipment.

As far as the environment overall goes, I also don't have a problem with the $500 estimated price annually to reduce the number of deaths due to burning coal or the pollution we add to our air, rivers, lakes, and oceans.

I've also been saying for years that we should force companies to return the natural resources back to the environment in the same condition they took them, or we'd have the inevitable chore of cleaning it up with costs coming out of our own pocket. Now is the time to pay that bill.

[OnTheIce]

andyt andyt:

You really want to keep torturing this metaphor?

OK. If he doesn't pay to cut his lawn, his property value will decline which will cost him more than the lawn cutting. He will find his neighbors won't invite him to parties anymore, or be willing to help out when he needs a hand. Or, worse, all the people in the neighborhood decide not to bother cutting their lawn, letting the whole neighborhood go and really dropping property values. Nobody can find buyers for their houses anymore, and all the equity they thought they were sitting on disappears.

I guess we have to because you don't get it.

Caleb already cuts his lawn. His neighbour doesn't. Nobody is asking Caleb to stop cutting his lawn as he's been doing so for the last 30 years.

Now, Caleb is being asked to pay a fee everytime he cuts his lawn; a job he's been doing all along with minimal costs with the hopes that his neighbour will start to cut his lawn.

Despite setting a good example for the last 30 years and making his lawn fantastic, his neighbour never bothered to follow suit. Now, Caleb is being asked to pay in the hopes that his neighbour will follow his example; ignoring of course that the neighbour doesn't care and won't start cutting their lawn regardless.

We hope that our schemes will cause the big polluters like China and the US to follow suit when in fact, Canada is that little Country that China and the US could care less about.

[DrCaleb]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

We hope that our schemes will cause the big polluters like China and the US to follow suit when in fact, Canada is that little Country that China and the US could care less about.

Your metaphor would work, except that China and the US are far ahead of us when it comes to clean energy and pollution mitigation. Some cities in the US already operate at 100% renewable levels of energy. Some in Texas!

We are the bad neighbour who doesn't groom our yard, and it's time we got our act together. It's costing us business opportunities, not to mention lives.

[OnTheIce]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Your metaphor would work, except that China and the US are far ahead of us when it comes to clean energy and pollution mitigation. Some cities in the US already operate at 100% renewable levels of energy. Some in Texas!

Really?

China is putting a coal fired power plant online every couple weeks.

The US, China and India have all seen continual growth in CO emissions.

[DrCaleb]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Your metaphor would work, except that China and the US are far ahead of us when it comes to clean energy and pollution mitigation. Some cities in the US already operate at 100% renewable levels of energy. Some in Texas!

Really?

China is putting a coal fired power plant online every couple weeks.

The US, China and India have all seen continual growth in CO emissions.

Yes, really!

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... ate-change

China is also putting more nuclear plants online than anyone, and making those coal fired plants obsolete.

$1:

China’s economic slowdown and the government’s pledges to use more renewable and nuclear energy make some of the country’s existing plants and most or all of the 155 new ones unnecessary, according to interviews with officials and scholars, a review of public statistics and a report released Wednesday about the “coal power bubble” by Greenpeace East Asia. There are already too many plants, as shown by a steady decline in the plants’ average operating hours since 2013.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/world ... olicy.html

China also leads the world in using pumped water as an energy storage medium for hydroelectricity.

$1:

Pumped storage hydro is growing fastest in China, according to Chi-Jen Yang, a research scientist at the Center on Global Change at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. "A new pumped hydro station comes online every several months," he says, adding that "there are 10 or 15 under construction right now and each one is really huge, like 1 gigawatt or bigger."

China's 22 gigawatts of installed pumped storage hydro capacity recently surpassed the United States' 21 gigawatts and will overtake world leader Japan's 27 gigawatts in 2018, according to Yang. The 3.6-gigawatt Fengning Pumped Storage Power Station under construction in Hebei Province will be the world's largest when it comes online around 2022.

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/for_storin ... ydro/2934/

And Canada has . . .the Oilsands.

[BRAH]

Let's Go Justin is Ready!

[OnTheIce]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Your metaphor would work, except that China and the US are far ahead of us when it comes to clean energy and pollution mitigation. Some cities in the US already operate at 100% renewable levels of energy. Some in Texas!

Really?

China is putting a coal fired power plant online every couple weeks.

The US, China and India have all seen continual growth in CO emissions.

Yes, really!

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... ate-change

China is also putting more nuclear plants online than anyone, and making those coal fired plants obsolete.

$1:

China’s economic slowdown and the government’s pledges to use more renewable and nuclear energy make some of the country’s existing plants and most or all of the 155 new ones unnecessary, according to interviews with officials and scholars, a review of public statistics and a report released Wednesday about the “coal power bubble” by Greenpeace East Asia. There are already too many plants, as shown by a steady decline in the plants’ average operating hours since 2013.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/world ... olicy.html

China also leads the world in using pumped water as an energy storage medium for hydroelectricity.

$1:

Pumped storage hydro is growing fastest in China, according to Chi-Jen Yang, a research scientist at the Center on Global Change at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. "A new pumped hydro station comes online every several months," he says, adding that "there are 10 or 15 under construction right now and each one is really huge, like 1 gigawatt or bigger."

China's 22 gigawatts of installed pumped storage hydro capacity recently surpassed the United States' 21 gigawatts and will overtake world leader Japan's 27 gigawatts in 2018, according to Yang. The 3.6-gigawatt Fengning Pumped Storage Power Station under construction in Hebei Province will be the world's largest when it comes online around 2022.

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/for_storin ... ydro/2934/

And Canada has . . .the Oilsands.

That's great!

The US and China have managed to start doing better at protecting the environment without a scheme from Canada on carbon credits.

We don't need a multi-billion dollar program to suck more money from taxpayers for symbolic purposes.

[andyt]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

andyt andyt:

You really want to keep torturing this metaphor?

OK. If he doesn't pay to cut his lawn, his property value will decline which will cost him more than the lawn cutting. He will find his neighbors won't invite him to parties anymore, or be willing to help out when he needs a hand. Or, worse, all the people in the neighborhood decide not to bother cutting their lawn, letting the whole neighborhood go and really dropping property values. Nobody can find buyers for their houses anymore, and all the equity they thought they were sitting on disappears.

I guess we have to because you don't get it.

Caleb already cuts his lawn. His neighbour doesn't. Nobody is asking Caleb to stop cutting his lawn as he's been doing so for the last 30 years.

Now, Caleb is being asked to pay a fee everytime he cuts his lawn; a job he's been doing all along with minimal costs with the hopes that his neighbour will start to cut his lawn.

Despite setting a good example for the last 30 years and making his lawn fantastic, his neighbour never bothered to follow suit. Now, Caleb is being asked to pay in the hopes that his neighbour will follow his example; ignoring of course that the neighbour doesn't care and won't start cutting their lawn regardless.

We hope that our schemes will cause the big polluters like China and the US to follow suit when in fact, Canada is that little Country that China and the US could care less about.

Ok, I get your point now. Well, that extra cost in energy that Caleb has to pay is pretty minuscule. How much will the carbon tax add to the cost of his gasoline to power his lawnmower? And, it will provide an incentive for Caleb to be more efficient in what he uses to mow his lawn, maybe using an electric mower, which also makes less noise and stink and keeps the neighbors happy.

Meanwhile, his non-mowing neighbor faces all the problems I described above, in terms of his relations with all the other lawn mowing neighbors (who also have various carbon reduction schemes put on them), as he finds the value of his house dropping, and the city actually putting sanctions on him for not mowing. That's what was happening to Canada. We were seen as a non-mowing country and the mowing countries started to consider putting penalties on us.

As Thanos wrote, face the new reality, this is happening. Might as well get on board and make the best of it, instead of grumbling.

And, Caleb and his fellow Canadians haven't been very good at mowing that lawn at all. Per capita, their "lawn neglect" (ie carbon output) is horrendous. So patting ourselves on the back here is just delusional. Your metaphor is trying to claim that we're the good lawn mowers and point the finger at others, just because our lawn is smaller than theirs. It's still looking pretty weedy.

[DrCaleb]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

We don't need a multi-billion dollar program to suck more money from taxpayers for symbolic purposes.

The damage being done to the environment isn't symbolic.

[OnTheIce]

andyt andyt:

Ok, I get your point now. Well, that extra cost in energy that Caleb has to pay is pretty minuscule. How much will the carbon tax add to the cost of his gasoline to power his lawnmower? And, it will provide an incentive for Caleb to be more efficient in what he uses to mow his lawn, maybe using an electric mower, which also makes less noise and stink and keeps the neighbors happy.

That cost will be relative to the overall increase in energy...while it may be only a couple of dollars, it may be a 25-30% increase in gas or energy for an electric mower.

andyt andyt:

Meanwhile, his non-mowing neighbor faces all the problems I described above, in terms of his relations with all the other lawn mowing neighbors (who also have various carbon reduction schemes put on them), as he finds the value of his house dropping, and the city actually putting sanctions on him for not mowing. That's what was happening to Canada. We were seen as a non-mowing country and the mowing countries started to consider putting penalties on us.

And the likes of China and India have been rewarded even with their poor record on the environment with companies in Canada setting up shop there to make their products.

andyt andyt:

As Thanos wrote, face the new reality, this is happening. Might as well get on board and make the best of it, instead of grumbling.

I'll continue to grumble until we have a solution beyond symbolic cash grab.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with bringing in laws and other measures like we have done with light bulbs, toilets, CFC's, etc. However, this is a fancy wealth distribution scheme to bring more money in for the governments.

[andyt]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

And the likes of China and India have been rewarded even with their poor record on the environment with companies in Canada setting up shop there to make their products.

Yes, they did it to reward India and China for the GHG emissions, not to make a profit selling crap to our increasingly low wage economy, which you support. Certainly Harper would never have penalized those companies, the only hope would be from a green govt that takes the carbon foot print of all those exports into account and adds a charge to them. Which would have you screaming blue murder.

[andyt]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

There's absolutely nothing wrong with bringing in laws and other measures like we have done with light bulbs, toilets, CFC's, etc. However, this is a fancy wealth distribution scheme to bring more money in for the governments.

What do toilets and CFC's have to do with AGW? But sure, lets make symbolic little gestures like bringing your own coffee cup and thinking you are saving the planet, but keep on sucking in and spewing out.

[Lemmy]

BRAH BRAH:

Let's Go Justin is Ready!

Dr. C, andy and OTI are having an intelligent discussion on the thread topic and you toss in a random dig at Trudeau. Talk about the kiddy table? Irony.

[herbie]

WTF is with this "mowing the lawn" bullshit? It isn'tt about looking pretty its a closed system.
>>> PEEING IN THE POOL <<<
We all swim in it.
So the "China pollutes more..." argument is like a five year old's. "Why should I stop peeing in the pool when Mikey won't?"

[DrCaleb]

herbie herbie:

WTF is with this "mowing the lawn" bullshit? It isn'tt about looking pretty its a closed system.

Your neighbour's lawn doesn't stay confined to their yard, just as one countries pollution doesn't remain in that country.

The fight to stop acid rain would have failed if it were confined to Canada only.