Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
The environmentalists are winning this thread, I am feeling my radar move slightly leftward.
I do everyone of those things except 10 and I onw two cars but rarely drive them.
I think the problem is that the big ones tend to be less convienient or cost the most money. i.e. having a house closer to work, people don't like to choose to have a smaller house for the same money or the same house for more money.
Everyone wants someone else to foot the bill for the environment like the big bad boogeyman oil company, or government or their neighbor. THe best and I believe ONLY way to do it is to stick everyone right in their pocketbook for polluting.
Charge per pound for garbage pickup .....
Ahhh I already see a billion holes in my arguments, no use carrying on...
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Actually, you're right.
The only way to encourage large scale change is by making alternatives more viable economically, or, better yet, costly to continue at the same rate.
This is something I've never understood about alberta. Beautiful country with vast resources of wealth. Why people wouldn't put up solar panels for instance, a small, single expendiature, that would take care of some or all or more than the energy the use just doesn't make sense to me.
Why wouldn't albertans want to sell as much oil as possible elsewhere and use the money they get from it to make their lives better, instead of being some of the most inefficient users of energy in the country. Less resources used by albertans = more to sell elsewhere = more money. Calgary and Edmonton are two perfect environments to be testing and implementing lots alternative forms of energy that could be used throughout canada.
Why wouldn't people out in airdrie want to put in composting toilets and insulated electrical lines and not have to pay the fees to get that all hooked up? Why wouldn't the people in calgary proper want to implement the same thing in Airdrie, rather than see their property taxes skyrocket to pay for that urban sprawl?
It's this unbelievable thick-headedness about 'tree huggers' that's stifling huge, diverse growth in the province.
This is what Suzuki is saying. Government has to be serious about making these things available to Canadians. If green industry was as heavily subsidized as the energy industry, there would be no contest. Harper even removed the tax credit for putting in green technologies into your house. That's so backwards I had a hard time believing it.