Ottawa Declares Climate Emergency

[Gat-Train]

Thought I would start a thread here on this. What effects do you think this will have? Personally, I think it's a step in the right direction, and it's good that at least they have symbolically made a commitment to reducing pollution, but of course a lot more is required for there to be meaningful action.

Ottawa city council has declared climate change an emergency, joining other Canadian municipalities in making the declaration.

Council members who voted for the declaration, including the mayor, say it's no empty gesture. Wednesday's vote dedicates $250,000 from the city's annual Hydro Ottawa dividend to speed up studies aimed at moving the city to renewable energy and meeting greenhouse gas emission targets.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottaw...ency-1.5109378

[CityTech]

Ottawa can definitely do more.

More efficient heating in city properties, including OCH.

Electrification of city vehicles, including OC Transpo buses.

Increased stormwater capacity for adaptation.

[HighwayStar]

Complete abuse of the word "emergency". What about a Pothole emergency? A no painted lines on the road emergency? A homeless person on every streetcorner looking for handouts emergency?

Problem with "Climate Change" is there is no measurable goal... just keep taxing and spending with nothing at all to show for it. We have to keep cranking up the Carbon Tax (with most of the money going to Govt general revenues btw) to "do our part".

Why can't "More efficient heating" be driven on a cost savings basis alone.

Until the rest of the planet (or at least the big polluters) joins in... it's simply spending everyone's tax dollars to make some people "feel good" and doing nothing whatsoever to solve the root problem.

When our PM stands up and definitively states, "Flooding in Gatineau is directly linked to Climate Change"... I have a very hard time taking politicians seriously.

[CityTech]

Originally Posted by HighwayStar

Complete abuse of the word "emergency". What about a Pothole emergency? A no painted lines on the road emergency? A homeless person on every streetcorner looking for handouts emergency?

Problem with "Climate Change" is there is no measurable goal... just keep taxing and spending with nothing at all to show for it. We have to keep cranking up the Carbon Tax (with most of the money going to Govt general revenues btw) to "do our part".

Why can't "More efficient heating" be driven on a cost savings basis alone.

Until the rest of the planet (or at least the big polluters) joins in... it's simply spending everyone's tax dollars to make some people "feel good" and doing nothing whatsoever to solve the root problem.

When our PM stands up and definitively states, "Flooding in Gatineau is directly linked to Climate Change"... I have a very hard time taking politicians seriously.

Climate change is the greatest threat facing humanity and addressing it should be the #1 priority of every politician and leader in the world. Its a far bigger threat than lines on a road.

As for flooding, we've had two floods blowing past 25 year flood marks within 2 years of each other. You can't necessarily prove its caused by climate change (just like how you can't prove a specific case of cancer was caused by that person smoking), but its the kind of event that's only going to get more common.

Part of the climate emergency response should be taking steps to protect against flooding.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by HighwayStar

Problem with "Climate Change" is there is no measurable goal... just keep taxing and spending with nothing at all to show for it. We have to keep cranking up the Carbon Tax (with most of the money going to Govt general revenues btw) to "do our part".

Why can't "More efficient heating" be driven on a cost savings basis alone.

Until the rest of the planet (or at least the big polluters) joins in... it's simply spending everyone's tax dollars to make some people "feel good" and doing nothing whatsoever to solve the root problem.

But there are very measurable goals in the Paris Agreement.

The problem that I have with this line of thinking is that a) if everyone takes this approach, no progress will be made and b) it assumes that there is no value in Canada showing some leadership on the issue. I'm quite happy for Canada to be in front on this issue instead of simply following the "big polluters" (which we are on a per capita basis).

I also don't understand why people who put great faith in market solutions in other contexts suddenly reject a market-based response to this issue, simply because the word tax appears in it's name. A carbon tax is the most economically efficient way of reaching this goal - polluters pay for the externalities caused by their actions. Why is it a problem if the money goes to general revenues to pay for infrastructure, programs or other things that benefit society as a whole?

[daud]

Originally Posted by CityTech

Climate change is the greatest threat facing humanity and addressing it should be the #1 priority of every politician and leader in the world. Its a far bigger threat than lines on a road.

As for flooding, we've had two floods blowing past 25 year flood marks within 2 years of each other. You can't necessarily prove its caused by climate change (just like how you can't prove a specific case of cancer was caused by that person smoking), but its the kind of event that's only going to get more common.

Part of the climate emergency response should be taking steps to protect against flooding.

We face a crisis much bigger than climate change but nobody ever talks about it.

Overpopulation and population growth are the root cause of a number of fundamental crises on this planet. Climate change is just one of many symptoms (not root problems) of excessive human activity on this planet.

This article is a good read. Climate change in and of itself is really just a bit player in our high speed efforts to completely rupture this beautiful planet:

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/...b06ba6d3bb2d44

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by daud

We face a crisis much bigger than climate change but nobody ever talks about it.

Overpopulation and population growth are the root cause of a number of fundamental crises on this planet. Climate change is just one of many symptoms (not root problems) of excessive human activity on this planet.

This article is a good read. Climate change in and of itself is really just a bit player in our high speed efforts to completely rupture this beautiful planet:

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/...b06ba6d3bb2d44

Solving climate change is easier (I guess?) than controlling the population. If you start "controlling" the population, you get into genocide, eugenics and taking people's rights.

Climate change can be tackled with green energy, re-forestation, greener transportation options (electric rail and cars), reduced packaging/waste... We can all make relatively minor changes to our lives in order to contribute.

[silvergate]

Originally Posted by daud

We face a crisis much bigger than climate change but nobody ever talks about it.

Overpopulation and population growth are the root cause of a number of fundamental crises on this planet. Climate change is just one of many symptoms (not root problems) of excessive human activity on this planet.

This article is a good read. Climate change in and of itself is really just a bit player in our high speed efforts to completely rupture this beautiful planet:

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/...b06ba6d3bb2d44

The problem is definitely not overpopulation. It's inefficiencies. The planet could comfortably sustain a lot more people if we lived in denser cities, recycled more, and used more sustainable sources of energy.

Not saying that overpopulation does not have serious consequences, but these are very localized compared to climate change. These are very acute in developing countries, especially in rural areas where most income comes from agriculture. In more developed countries like Japan, Germany or Canada, larger populations are supported in increasingly dense environments. The actual hard part is going to be finding a way to make our system more sustainable.

[daud]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Solving climate change is easier (I guess?) than controlling the population. If you start "controlling" the population, you get into genocide, eugenics and taking people's rights.

Climate change can be tackled with green energy, re-forestation, greener transportation options (electric rail and cars), reduced packaging/waste... We can all make relatively minor changes to our lives in order to contribute.

I don't disagree but our initiatives will sadly be more than offset by the extra billion people coming in the next 30 years coupled with the challenges of feeding, housing and fueling them.

We don't see it here in Canada too much, but I've spent a week in the northern suburbs of Mumbai and you quickly realize the size and scope of the many problems we as humans are creating. As well as how irrelevant our well intentioned efforts are on a global scale.

The human economic model is rooted in growth and has been impacting the planet for some time. It is now beginning to affect us. It is in many ways a broken model if we are to thrive long term on this planet. I applaud climate change initiatives but its like buried on page 6 of a 100 page manual on things we need to fix and frankly, it isn't the biggest issue we face; merely a symptom of far greater ones that we in Canada are sometimes sheltered from.

[Oyster Ditch]

I don’t know enough about climate change to take a position one way or the other and neither do any of you. The first step should be to de-politicize the issue. Left wing scientists say one thing and right wing scientists say another. Ideologically possessed sheep align with the axioms of their political masters. Sad and not helpful

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by HighwayStar

When our PM stands up and definitively states, "Flooding in Gatineau is directly linked to Climate Change"... I have a very hard time taking politicians seriously.

1) When you start getting "once in a century" weather events every decade or even bi-annually, they are most certainly linked to climate change.

2) Whether you personally take it seriously or not is really not important. Insurers have already begun pricing in climate change and are either refusing to insure or cancelling insurance for areas that are flood or fire prone. Or they will sell you a policy....at a substantial premium:

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...-people-report

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/for...ates-1.3573895

I hope nobody thinks they won't have a personal financial impact from any of this. From higher taxes to pay for all the disaster relief to higher insurance rates across the board, we'll all be paying. The only question is whether we will spend on mitigation and avoidance now or devote chunks of GDP in disaster cleanup annually decades from now.

[HighwayStar]

Originally Posted by phil235

But there are very measurable goals in the Paris Agreement.

The "measurable goals" in the Paris agreement focus on emissions reductions. How many HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of $$ have been spent worldwide to date on Carbon Taxes, Capping and Trading, etc? What is necessary is to see (for example) that each $200B consumers spend on Carbon Taxes, the global temperature is reduced by 0.1 degree C. After 20+ years of this, there must almost certainly be some datapoints to work with... but I have yet to see any sort of correlation. We just blindly give governments more free money and hope things will be ok.

Originally Posted by phil235

The problem that I have with this line of thinking is that a) if everyone takes this approach, no progress will be made and b) it assumes that there is no value in Canada showing some leadership on the issue. I'm quite happy for Canada to be in front on this issue instead of simply following the "big polluters" (which we are on a per capita basis).

So Canada pollutes more per capita than Costa Rica.. Kinda difficult when we live in a climate that requires lots of heating... followed almost immediately by lots of Air Conditioning... followed by more heating... not to mention the huge transport distances.

Since very little of the Carbon Tax is going into "green initiatives", I struggle with how Canada is "showing leadership".... unless showing leadership means taxing so little that behavior will not be affected, yet my disposable income is decreased?

Originally Posted by phil235

I also don't understand why people who put great faith in market solutions in other contexts suddenly reject a market-based response to this issue, simply because the word tax appears in it's name. A carbon tax is the most economically efficient way of reaching this goal - polluters pay for the externalities caused by their actions. Why is it a problem if the money goes to general revenues to pay for infrastructure, programs or other things that benefit society as a whole?

Problem is, governments are not overly efficient at spending... JT said we'd run $20B deficits to fund "infrastructure". We're now $80B into that... where's the infrastructure?
Government(s) need to take a hard look at their expenditures and ballooning Pension deficits, rather than find creative new ways to extract money from non-government people. And just to be clear: TAX=money taken from citizen and given to government. This is a TAX... plain and simple.

The fundamental problem I have with all the Climate Change talk.. is the hyperbole is so overblown, it's hard to take leadership of the issue seriously. To use my previous example "Gatineau flood is caused by Climate Change" is such a nonsensical correlation to state definitively... but as long as we just keep upping taxes and all will be ok

[HighwayStar]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

1) When you start getting "once in a century" weather events every decade or even bi-annually, they are most certainly linked to climate change.

2) Whether you personally take it seriously or not is really not important. Insurers have already begun pricing in climate change and are either refusing to insure or cancelling insurance for areas that are flood or fire prone. Or they will sell you a policy....at a substantial premium:
.

Probably a good thing to discourage people from building on a Floodplain or in a new settlement in a tinder dry forest.

[rocketphish]

Originally Posted by Oyster Ditch

I don’t know enough about climate change to take a position one way or the other and neither do any of you. The first step should be to de-politicize the issue. Left wing scientists say one thing and right wing scientists say another. Ideologically possessed sheep align with the axioms of their political masters. Sad and not helpful

Bold statement. Are you absolutely sure that none of us are involved in climate-related sciences?

[JayBuoy]

Originally Posted by Oyster Ditch

I don’t know enough about climate change to take a position one way or the other and neither do any of you. The first step should be to de-politicize the issue. Left wing scientists say one thing and right wing scientists say another. Ideologically possessed sheep align with the axioms of their political masters. Sad and not helpful

The science is very clear on this issue, and has been since at least the 1970s.

[phil235]

Originally Posted by HighwayStar

The "measurable goals" in the Paris agreement focus on emissions reductions. How many HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of $$ have been spent worldwide to date on Carbon Taxes, Capping and Trading, etc? What is necessary is to see (for example) that each $200B consumers spend on Carbon Taxes, the global temperature is reduced by 0.1 degree C. After 20+ years of this, there must almost certainly be some datapoints to work with... but I have yet to see any sort of correlation.

While you may have yet to see any correlation, there is all sorts of research on exactly that topic. The effectiveness of taxes in various jurisdictions has depended on the level of tax and the types of exemptions that are permitted.

https://aceee.org/files/proceedings/...apers/9_49.pdf

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...uce-emissions/ : The United Kingdom’s adoption of a carbon tax in the power sector produced a 58 percent drop in emissions from 2012 to 2016.

So Canada pollutes more per capita than Costa Rica.. Kinda difficult when we live in a climate that requires lots of heating... followed almost immediately by lots of Air Conditioning... followed by more heating... not to mention the huge transport distances.

Not sure why you picked Costa Rica. We also pollute more than most European countries with similar climates Just to say that there is room for us to improve.

Since very little of the Carbon Tax is going into "green initiatives", I struggle with how Canada is "showing leadership".... unless showing leadership means taxing so little that behavior will not be affected, yet my disposable income is decreased?

Leadership in the sense that we are taking measures that will have a real effect. Yes, the tax has to be significant enough to influence behaviours, as noted in the second article.

Problem is, governments are not overly efficient at spending... JT said we'd run $20B deficits to fund "infrastructure". We're now $80B into that... where's the infrastructure?
Government(s) need to take a hard look at their expenditures and ballooning Pension deficits, rather than find creative new ways to extract money from non-government people. And just to be clear: TAX=money taken from citizen and given to government. This is a TAX... plain and simple.

I guess it depends how you measure efficiency. Governments are quite efficient in some respects, and very good at acting where the market does not (like on environmental matters). It's not a binary equation - money going from people to the government. For issues like this, government action is the only realistic way to address the problem.

[Oyster Ditch]

Originally Posted by JayBuoy

The science is very clear on this issue, and has been since at least the 1970s.

That’s a ridiculous statement. It’s a massively contentious issue. Do you live under a rock?

[Oyster Ditch]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

Bold statement. Are you absolutely sure that none of us are involved in climate-related sciences?

There’s disagreement between climate scientists. Who’s right? You probably can’t answer without revealing your political leaning.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by Oyster Ditch

There’s disagreement between climate scientists. Who’s right? You probably can’t answer without revealing your political leaning.

Sorry, if I have to choose between someone with 35 posts on this forum and the IPCC, I'm going with the IPCC.

[JayBuoy]

Originally Posted by Oyster Ditch

There’s disagreement between climate scientists. Who’s right? You probably can’t answer without revealing your political leaning.

That's absurd. The scientific community is overwhelmingly in agreement about climate change. There exists a similar level of agreement on climate change among scientists (97%) as there is about evolution. I can't link at the moment but all it takes is a simple google search to find peer-reviewed studies demonstrating this. I encourage you to find one and read it.