[Ronald Pagan]

Originally Posted by Thunderball

The study is a little misleading, as it focuses on the energy sector, and not its spin-offs... this tends to lessen the likely effects. Even in Oil Country, Alberta... only something like 17% are directly employed in the Energy sector. This says nothing about likely losses in services, retail, manufacturing, transport, aerospace, and agriculture. Not to mention damage from inflation and a general decline in global competitiveness.

This is where we enter the grey zone, and this is where it can get downright disasterous. Yes, there are the income tax cuts, but that is not guaranteed to be of any help, especially with their desired re-upping of the GST.

I'm going to assume Jaccard and CIMS were acting professional, but I can't help but notice who paid for the study... and who likely wanted a certain outcome exemplified. Just like "Our Fair Share" was penned by professionals, but lets face it, they were professionals paid to arrive at a certain conclusion. Some involved have publicly admitted that.

The study is a little misleading, as it focuses on the energy sector, and not its spin-offs... this tends to lessen the likely effects. Even in Oil Country, Alberta... only something like 17% are directly employed in the Energy sector. This says nothing about likely losses in services, retail, manufacturing, transport, aerospace, and agriculture. Not to mention damage from inflation and a general decline in global competitiveness.

CIMS is a general equilibrium model meaning that it models the entire economy not just the energy sector. It does this by looking at input output tables for the Canadian economy and with the help of some linear programming can model the effects of reduced deman for one input (energy) to reduced (or increased) demand for all goods. So it's a good critique, it just doesn't stand in this situation, those effects should be captured in the model.

Don't get me wrong, all models are wrong, just some are more right. CIMS has a pretty good track record but no one knows what the exact effects of higher prices for fossil fuels will be.

This is where we enter the grey zone, and this is where it can get downright disasterous. Yes, there are the income tax cuts, but that is not guaranteed to be of any help, especially with their desired re-upping of the GST.

I agree things are getting downright disasterous, have you seen data from ice coverage of the arctic ice sheets this year? It's at levels of the most pessimistic outcomes from the most pessimistic climate models. Things are dire. I would like to reiterate that there is NO evidence to disprove anthropogenic climate change. Sunspots are a ruse, global cooling is a ruse, we are warming the planet.

And you say that a carbon tax would have a negative effect on Alberta, maybe... One thing is certain though, a warmer climate will have disastrous effects on Alberta and its water supply. Alberta, ironically, likely has the most to lose of any Canadian province from Climate change but it's people remain the most stubborn about doing anything about it.

More to the point, income tax and payroll tax cuts have demonstrated in countries that have implemented a carbon tax to have dulling effects on the economic costs. Germany, the UK, Sweden, Denmark have all implemented various types of income tax and payroll tax cuts to offset losses in employment. It has largely worked.

I guess my biggest beef is that people tend to myopically focus on the economic costs of a carbon tax. This is an important issue, I just think that many in this thread dont quite understand the breadth and depth of the likely environmental costs that come with climate change. If we can significantly reduce our emissions while only achieving a 1 to 4 percent reduction in BAU GDP growth wouldn't that be an appropriate risk to take?