City of Hamilton General Discussion Thread

[atnor]

Originally Posted by TheRitsman

A) Heat pumps are a realistic affordable alternative. I'm actually looking into getting one to replace our gas heating as a result of gas prices.

B) Carbon tax is so hilariously low, that you probably wouldn't even notice it's removal.

C) As mentioned above, carbon tax is a market based climate plan, that was only criticized by conservatives in Canada once the Liberal party took the policy from the Conservative party that had been pushing it as a solution. Get off the team train and actually review the real world politics, history, and effectiveness of various strategies.

A) Depends if you consider at minimum $10k as being affordable.

B) if it’s so hilariously low that I wouldn’t notice it’s removal how come I can see a measurable increase in my gas bill year over year when I consumed less gas? The only thing that’s changed is the increase in tax. Also, if it’s so hilariously low that we don’t notice it, then what’s the point of levying the tax and issuing rebate cheques?

C) conversely, because it was a conservative idea you think it’s a slam dunk to call out people that are critical of the tax as being partisan because the liberals enacted it — sounds like you’re on the team train.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by atnor

Sure, if there was realistic affordable alternatives for home heating than natural gas or alternatives for getting goods to market then the carbon tax may be beneficial for getting people to reduce their consumption. However, due to the lack of availability and affordability of alternative means to carbon consumption, the end user gets screwed as they don’t have the means to adopt ecofriendly alternatives. The rebate does not offset the increase in everyday costs.

heat pumps are a thing, and lifetime costs are likely lower than a traditional furnace already. So are things like hybrid cars or EVs, or even just smaller cars. There are plenty of ways to reduce your carbon consumption and reduce your carbon tax bills. Yea, heat pumps cost money.. so do natural gas furnaces. Perhaps heat pumps cost more, even - but the whole point of the carbon tax is to make the costs work in non-carbon intensive products favours.

Besides, the point of the carbon tax isn't to eliminate carbon use, it's to reduce it. Perhaps you'll buy a more fuel efficient car to save on increased gas costs. Perhaps you'll get your attic reinsulated to reduce your heating costs. We aren't going to get off carbon based fuels without making changes.

And the rebate definitely offset costs unless you live a particularly high carbon lifestyle. Yea, you'll be out of cash if you live in an old, poorly insulated, 3,000sf house heated by natural gas and drive an F-150 Raptor 100km round trip to work each day. But if you drive a Honda Civic 20km round trip, and live in a smaller, more efficient home heated by a heat pump? Congrats, you are rolling in the cash from the rebates and saving money and the planet at the same time. That's the whole point of it - to reduce people's carbon footprint.


I feel like conservatives are all about the free market until suddenly it feels like it impacts them. Carbon taxes, acknowledging that climate change is real and needs to be addressed, are simply the best way of fixing it from a non-interventionist, market-driven approach. People just don't like it because, surprise surprise, carbon intensive items go up in cost. Saying we need to cut carbon emissions but personally wanting to be able to continue to consume huge amounts of carbon defeats the entire purpose.

[TheRitsman]

Originally Posted by atnor

A) Depends if you consider at minimum $10k as being affordable.

B) if it’s so hilariously low that I wouldn’t notice it’s removal how come I can see a measurable increase in my gas bill year over year when I consumed less gas? The only thing that’s changed is the increase in tax. Also, if it’s so hilariously low that we don’t notice it, then what’s the point of levying the tax and issuing rebate cheques?

C) conversely, because it was a conservative idea you think it’s a slam dunk to call out people that are critical of the tax as being partisan because the liberals enacted it — sounds like you’re on the team train.

1) They do not cost that unless you are getting an entirely new furnace. If you are, then the cost is going to be the difference between a new furnace on gas and a new furnace with a heat pump, and the difference will be much smaller. You don't need to replace your furnace if you get a heat pump.

2) The difference in your gas bill is largely not a result of the carbon tax, but other costs. If you do research into the causes of Enbridge price increases, you'll find that the carbon tax is a miniscule portion. The small tax is meant to nudge people in the right direction by slowly increasing carbon emitting activities, and reducing the cost of alternatives as the wealthy buy expensive electric cars, and heat pumps until their cost decreases as a result of technology and economies of scale. This is why the carbon tax increases over time. It's plays both sides, making carbon activities more expensive, and alternatives cheaper until they hit parity or the alternatives are actually cheaper.

Further to InsertNameHere's point. The carbon tax and rebate program is designed so that if you live the average Canadians lifestyle, you will be tax neutral. If you take action to reduce your carbon footprint, you will actually be getting more back from the Climate Acton program each quarter than you pay in carbon tax, and if you live a particularly high carbon lifestyle then you will pay a small fee for that.

3) I am not on any team. I'm simply pointing out the political history of the policy. The carbon tax is an effective market-based conservative policy. I am typically left-leaning, but favour many conservative based policies that I believe work when held under scrutiny. The carbon tax is an agreed upon policy that works.

I've also not seen the current Conservative party suggest a realistic or legitimate climate policy, so that's why I support their old policy of a carbon tax. I'm curious what your suggestion is for climate policy that has a proven track record. I'm legitimately curious, because I've yet to see a climate policy more conservative than the carbon tax that would actually do something. Most typically suggest that other countries are worse, so Canada should do nothing. Canada not only has the highest carbon emissions per Capita in the world, but also, your neighbour not cleaning up their property so you won't clean yours either is a really bad policy.

Study of British Columbia's carbon tax: https://link.springer.com/article/10.100...effect%20of%20the,%25%20(se%20%3D%203%25).

Good video discussing the carbon tax: https://youtu.be/aznOL753eiQ

[TheHonestMaple]

Lefties desperately trying to come up with reasons why the carbon tax benefits the environment, when in reality it's nothing more than a blatant tax grab. I'll be voting Poilievre next election as his first order of business is to scrap the carbon tax. It's a scam.

[Chronamut]

*wakes up to the bomb he dropped and its political impact*

*goes back to sleep*

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by atnor

Sure, if there was realistic affordable alternatives for home heating than natural gas or alternatives for getting goods to market then the carbon tax may be beneficial for getting people to reduce their consumption. However, due to the lack of availability and affordability of alternative means to carbon consumption, the end user gets screwed as they don’t have the means to adopt ecofriendly alternatives. The rebate does not offset the increase in everyday costs.

It takes time for the market to adjust. We have to start somewhere.

Whether the rebates many of us receive are 1:1 offsets is a good question; government has to apply things based on averages though. But the cost of fuels has been affected by other "short term influences" (and probably companies taking advantage of them too, but how to police that in the moment is also a good question)

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by Chronamut

Meanwhile china belches coal like crazy and noone says anything because theyre a "developing" nation..

If you know of a way to control what China does, the world is all ears.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by TheHonestMaple

Lefties desperately trying to come up with reasons why the carbon tax benefits the environment, when in reality it's nothing more than a blatant tax grab. I'll be voting Poilievre next election as his first order of business is to scrap the carbon tax. It's a scam.

I guess he'll get at least one vote then.

What is a better solution to adjusting a pattern of use-behaviour (which now goes back more than a century) that has had massive impacts on us all? Or is climate change a manufactured issue?

[TheHonestMaple]

Guess you're not paying attention but conservatives are trending 10% higher than Libs in almost all polling.

What do we do about climate change? I'm not sure I have the answer, but policies like the carbon tax do absolutely zero to curb emissions. All it does is takes money out of hard working people's pockets. Taxation has no impact on inelastic demand. That's econ 101 stuff. That's the problem with lefties, economics is not exactly their strong suit. We need adults to run the country again, conservatives are the only option.

If you genuinely believe Trudeau and the corrupt Liberals that the carbon tax will save the world, then you are truly naive. It is nothing more than another tax to fund their ridiculously bloated government programs.

[Fruitloops]

pls do your DD.

Climate change is real. Our response is unreal. If all of Canada stopped using fossil fuels it would not move the meter on climate change. Im glad all lot of people feel good and virtuous because we are told we are making a difference.

The current response is simply a cash grab to fund the great reset.

Please talk the talk and grab Greta and go lecture the Chinese and Indians.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by Fruitloops

pls do your DD.

Climate change is real. Our response is unreal. If all of Canada stopped using fossil fuels it would not move the meter on climate change. Im glad all lot of people feel good and virtuous because we are told we are making a difference.

The current response is simply a cash grab to fund the great reset.

Please talk the talk and grab Greta and go lecture the Chinese and Indians.

i guess nobody should do anything about carbon change then cuz nothing matters. We can just watch the world burn and smile

regarding carbon taxes working, they are actually by far the most economically efficient ways to cut carbon emissions. They absolutely work, this is supported by many studies. They work very efficiently as well they let the market decide where "excess" and less valuable carbon emissions lay. Haphazard subsidies like the Conservatives are proposing can achieve similar results but at a much higher economic cost and involve a whole lot more government involvement.. which is why it's so funny to see conservatives proposing them.

I'm far from a "leftist" too - I voted PC in the provincial election last year. Carbon taxes are simply the most market friendly way of addressing climate change.

[TheHonestMaple]

I guess we'll just rewrite all the economic textbooks and papers about how price increases have no impact on inelastic demand.

It's a cash grab plain and simple.

[spaghettisam]

Originally Posted by TheHonestMaple

I guess we'll just rewrite all the economic textbooks and papers about how price increases have no impact on inelastic demand.

It's a cash grab plain and simple.

Agreed. No alternative exists that competes with the relative cheapness and freedom of the internal combustion engine vehicle, yet. Gas is one of the closest examples of a good with inelastic demand. Any manmade increase of the price is a cost to the consumer.

[downtown_eddie_brown]

Isn't the carbon tax on industry? Industry then pushes the cost onto the consumer, who receives a rebate. The point is to price environmental consequences into the market, which the market notoriously doesn't do well.

Shrugging your shoulders and saying "we might as well not do anything" and voting for the party that continues to deny manmade climate change is even real is terminal dog brain.

[TheHonestMaple]

The government, especially the current Liberal government, does not have your best interest at heart. The Carbon Tax is a cash grab, masquerading as a climate change policy. Don't be fooled.

[Chronamut]

Originally Posted by ScreamingViking

If you know of a way to control what China does, the world is all ears.

Sanctions..?

Other than nuking them or destabilizing them from within that's all I got lol.. still it seems silly to be picking away at countries who are already doing a ton to try to reduce their carbon footprint while countries like china do whatever - like recycling beside a volcano.

[Fruitloops]

KEY POINTS
About 90% of the global population in 2022 experienced unhealthy air quality, according to a new report from Swiss air quality technology company IQAir.
IQAir measured air quality levels based on the concentration of lung-damaging airborne particles known as PM 2.5.
The report found that the top five most polluted countries in 2022 were Chad, Iraq, Pakistan, Bahrain and Bangladesh.

[Fruitloops]

The previous post was from CNBC today.

Not saying we should quit making it better but I think we can take our foot off the gas and quit subsidizing the worst offenders.

[TheHonestMaple]

Originally Posted by Fruitloops

The previous post was from CNBC today.

Not saying we should quit making it better but I think we can take our foot off the gas and quit subsidizing the worst offenders.

Definitely agree. It's a joke. The west's environmental record is leaps and bounds better than the developing world, but for some reason it's on us?

Also, apparently saving a few trees in downtown Hamilton is a climate change solution?

[Beedok]

The reason China has so many coal power plants is because they need electricity to build hospitals and schools and provide people with a decent standard of living and coal is the cheapest option.
Now, why is coal the cheapest option? Because we in the West spent 50 years pretending we didn’t know full well that climate change was real and continued to invest in making fossil fuel technology cheap while not investing in renewables.
Thankfully it’s not too late to still invest. To pay the money to make renewables cheaper than coal or gas before India starts having enough money to build hospitals for its people and needs power plants to run them…

Also, worth remember that per capita emissions in China are still a fraction of what we pump out. And that they’re the world’s leading investors in several renewable technologies (they want breathable air… they just also want hospitals and refrigerators… not like we can blame them for that).