[Fighting Banana Slug]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

Several ways the carbon tax works/is effective:

1) a perceived increase in the price of things, like say gasoline, incentivize people to use less, like say take transit (I'll grant this doesn't work for home heating, but if people turn the thermostat down 1 degree because their bill is high that still helps, inches make miles and all that). Most households get their money back, and in some cases even more, so they've made choices to reduce GHG emissions without actually paying for them.

2) revenue from the carbon tax is used for grants to pay for projects that will reduce GHGs. For example the company I work for is spending ~$1.5MM for upgrades to compressor engines that will reduce methane slip, and improve fuel efficiency, thus reducing both our GHG emissions and our carbon tax bill. Most of that $1.5 MM is being paid for by grants to do these sorts of things, and that is $ that is coming from carbon tax revenue. So the carbon tax is going directly to projects that will reduce GHG emissions.


But of course you already knew those things. Surely you wouldn't complain about a program that you didn't understand the general workings of.

Originally Posted by StickMan

The emissions problem isn't Joe Blow driving to work everyday or heating his house. The problem is dirty fuel like coal, the problem is shipping things across the ocean, the problem is flying to Vancouver for a retreat when you could do it in Ottawa, or flying to Europe instead of a phonecall. It is lifestyle changes that make the biggest difference. But it is easier to pay a useless carbon tax and say "there, we did our part".

Why so binary? Why not do both/all to reduce emissions? As to the bolded, it seems to me that is the exact argument of Fuzz and Shantz (should be a band name).