Federal Election Called for Oct 19, 2015

[SebC]

Originally Posted by #-3

Really the first thing we all need to do is stop saying my impact is negligible, and someone else has to be responsible first.

My impact is negligible - that's scientific fact.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by Slava

To be honest I have no idea how people can look at the whole Duffy trial and still vote for the CPC. Specifically when they voted against Paul Martin not all that long ago due to the sponsorship scandal and needing to clean house. To me there isn't a lot of difference here; the numbers are bigger perhaps, but the idea is the same and fraud is fraud.

Boggles the mind for sure. I don't understand how people can choose to believe at this point that the PM had no inkling about the shady dealings going on in his own office, while totally ignoring the continuous trial of bodies leading right up to the PMO doors from this scandal especially given how tightly we know Harper to control messaging, communications and the like within his party during his time in office.

Accountability is one of the biggest factors when electing a politician. If you can't trust them to execute on basic accountability to their constituents and adhere to laws/democratic processes, how can you reasonably expect them to fulfill any of their campaign promises?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

Boggles the mind for sure. I don't understand how people can choose to believe at this point that the PM had no inkling about the shady dealings going on in his own office, while totally ignoring the continuous trial of bodies leading right up to the PMO doors from this scandal and given how tightly we know Harper to control messaging, communications and the like within his party during his time in office.

Accountability is one of the biggest factors when electing a politician. If you can't trust them to execute on basic accountability to their constituents and adhere to laws/democratic processes, how can you reasonably expect them to fulfill any of their campaign promises?

Well the other important factor to me is that despite his attempt to spin things, he didn't "deal with the problem". First of all, Wright resigned and all of the sycophants in the party were disappointed that he had done so. Second, everyone else involved in the scandal/cover-up/cover-up of the cover-up is still involved and still working for the PM. Maybe what he considers a resolution to the problem and what I consider a resolution to these kinds of problems are two different things though.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by Regorium

I'm saying that our impact is understandable, not negligble. We are a gigantic country, which is intrinsically inefficient. We are a frigid climate, requiring an extreme amount of heating. Our main industries are dirty - manufacturing, oil and gas, mining and forestry. It is completely expected that our per capita emissions are higher.

On a personal level, I guarantee that I have a smaller footprint than most people. I live in a highrise, walk to work, and drive about 3000km a year. I care a lot personally and have adjusted my lifestyle to minimize my carbon. The oil and gas industry (and the other dirty industries), from what I've seen, also work extremely hard from both a regulatory and mandated from pmanagement to minimize emissions. We are intrinsically inefficient on the emissions front and I don't think we should have to sacrifice even more.

This is the point I was trying to get across. Canada is a frozen-ass country. It takes a ton of energy to keep Canadians from dying. It takes a ton more to provide a certain comfort level.

As I said in my original post with the chart, we should all be concerned with the environment, and heavy industry should be held to very high standards to keep our wilderness as clean as possible. We should all be doing our part individually as well, since we have the collective knowledge of environmental stewardship.

However, I think some politicians and voters think we should keep the 'tar' sands in the ground, and just not develop them, and I think that is wrong. Again, in the grand scheme of things, the greenhouse gas problem isn't going to be solved in Canada, or in Northern Alberta. We need to keep perspective.

Why should Canada sign a G7 mandate, a one-size-fits-all piece of law that would punish Canada, but reward others? Canada I would argue already does a lot solving worlds issues, and it's time others did the same. Yes, the per capita emissions are high, but Canada doesn't exactly have a sub-tropic climate.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by SebC

My impact is negligible - that's scientific fact.

Negligible is not a fact it's an opinion, at what level does an impact become relevant? The odds are your household contributes about 0.0000002% of the worldwide problem. It's a measurable number. It's probably allot bigger than you thought.

Your impact contributes. That's a fact.

Nobody doing anything will insure nothing gets done, That's a fact.

[killer_carlson]

Originally Posted by #-3

Negligible is not a fact it's an opinion, at what level does an impact become relevant? The odds are your household contributes about 0.0000002% of the worldwide problem. It's a measurable number. It's probably allot bigger than you thought.

Your impact contributes. That's a fact.

Nobody doing anything will insure nothing gets done, That's a fact.

No, that is an opinion.

Not taking steps leaves it to chance and nature, which is something more than nothing.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

[/B]

No, that is an opinion.

Not taking steps leaves it to chance and nature, which is something more than nothing.

Nope, the science is clear. maintaining our current direction will create a specific result, the scale of human caused climate change is what's open to opinion.

[karl262]

Originally Posted by Slava

To be honest I have no idea how people can look at the whole Duffy trial and still vote for the CPC. Specifically when they voted against Paul Martin not all that long ago due to the sponsorship scandal and needing to clean house. To me there isn't a lot of difference here; the numbers are bigger perhaps, but the idea is the same and fraud is fraud.

Perhaps the numbers are bigger? The sponsorship scandal was $355 million dollars of taxpayer money going to dubious projects run by Liberal friendly organizations who then donated generously to the party.

The Duffy thing is over the chief of staff in the PMO writing a $90,000 dollar cheque from the CPC to a senator who felt his expenses were justified, for which a trial is now underway to seek out any wrongdoing.

Yes, fraud is fraud 100% of the time much as the trinity and the czar bomb are both nuclear tests, just on a different scale. (In this example the Liberal sponsorship scandal is the czar bomb)

[FLAMESRULE]

Originally Posted by karl262

Perhaps the numbers are bigger? The sponsorship scandal was $355 million dollars of taxpayer money going to dubious projects run by Liberal friendly organizations who then donated generously to the party.

The Duffy thing is over the chief of staff in the PMO writing a $90,000 dollar cheque from the CPC to a senator who felt his expenses were justified, for which a trial is now underway to seek out any wrongdoing.

Yes, fraud is fraud 100% of the time much as the trinity and the czar bomb are both nuclear tests, just on a different scale. (In this example the Liberal sponsorship scandal is the czar bomb)

They made a good point about this last night on "At Point" and that was that the one big difference was that AdScam was Liberals but that Martin had no control over them...DuffyGate is the polar opposite. Every single person involved was picked out or appointed directly by Harper. He has had a say in the entire matter. Not only is he lying when he says people have been punished but a large majority, if not all of them, have received more promotions/bonuses etc after the fact.

To even consider for 1 second that Harper had no idea what was going on is laughable. His Accountability Act is a rather ironic now.

I'm paraphrasing and going off memory from last night...but that was my interpretation.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by FLAMESRULE

They made a good point about this last night on "At Point" and that was that the one big difference was that AdScam was Liberals but that Martin had no control over them...DuffyGate is the polar opposite. Every single person involved was picked out or appointed directly by Harper. He has had a say in the entire matter. Not only is he lying when he says people have been punished but a large majority, if not all of them, have received more promotions/bonuses etc after the fact.

To even consider for 1 second that Harper had no idea what was going on is laughable. His Accountability Act is a rather ironic now.

I'm paraphrasing and going off memory from last night...but that was my interpretation.

There seems to be more ruffled feathers over Duffy than over what Redford did.

[John Doe]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

There seems to be more ruffled feathers over Duffy than over what Redford did.

You don't really believe this is about Duffy, do you?

[Harry Lime]

Any global stat that is taken 'per capita' is nothing but a wasted, politically driven, exercise. The biggest problem facing the world today is overpopulation, and this is just a way to circumvent that fact.

If the residents of Easter Island really set their minds to it, they could be the biggest per capita polluters on the planet, with very little effort.

Pollution, and carbon emission, isn't an important issue in this election. At all.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by John Doe

You don't really believe this is about Duffy, do you?

Obviously the circumstances around Duffy and the involvement of the PMO. But it's not like it was Harper making frivolous expense claims.

Redford was the one actually doing the bad things.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Regorium

I'm saying that our impact is understandable, not negligble. We are a gigantic country, which is intrinsically inefficient. We are a frigid climate, requiring an extreme amount of heating. Our main industries are dirty - manufacturing, oil and gas, mining and forestry. It is completely expected that our per capita emissions are higher.

On a personal level, I guarantee that I have a smaller footprint than most people. I live in a highrise, walk to work, and drive about 3000km a year. I care a lot personally and have adjusted my lifestyle to minimize my carbon. The oil and gas industry (and the other dirty industries), from what I've seen, also work extremely hard from both a regulatory and mandated from pmanagement to minimize emissions. We are intrinsically inefficient on the emissions front and I don't think we should have to sacrifice even more.

Russia, which has many similarities in climate, size and resources has only about 66% of Canada's per capita emissions, probably with much less strict regulation of industry.

Also the weather does not account for Canada's per capita emissions. Your example of heating Canadian homes in winter is actually a good example of the impact of lifestyle. While temperature extremes may necessitate more energy use for home heating, average home size and occupancy in Canada should be taken into account. Heating large homes with empty rooms throughout the winter is not efficient. Also, huge suburban cities made up of large, separate and sparsely occupied homes putting pressure on people for individual car ownership and driving everywhere is not efficient. Neither of these is a necessity of the Canadian environment.

Housing and transportation in Canada provide examples of very comfortable lifestyles lived in inefficient infrastructure which has been able to develop while requiring high consumption because there have not been pressures to become more efficient.

Consider the following:
Home size and square footage per capita

Spoiler!

In 1975, the average size of a house in Canada was 1,050 square feet. Fast forward to 2010 and new homes being built almost doubled to an average of 1,950 square feet. This increase in house size is accompanied by a decrease in the average number of people living in a household. In 1971, it was 3.5; by 2006, that number fell by a full person to 2.5.

link

Map of per capita car ownership. Darker being more cars per capita.

Spoiler!

High carbon emissions are tied to personal lifestyle and lifestyles in Canada are contributing to Canada having high per capita emissions. On the plus side, a high quality of life does not require high emissions and there are many quality of life improvements to be made through living more efficient lifestyles in more efficient cities and developing more efficient infrastructure.

[Regorium]

Love the stats. Thanks.

For that matter, I'm totally in tune with charging a hefty carbon tax on natural gas that people burn to heat their homes, and even higher carbon taxes on car ownership and fuel. Maybe even just an overall environmental tax based on /sq ft of your home. Add additional carbon/pollution tax on industry too - including manufacturing, O&G, forestry, mining.

I totally agree that we all need to contribute.

Whichever party wants to tackle this politically (hah, good luck) has my vote. It's much easier to just beat the "I hate Alberta and O&G" drum, and attack one industry that's only really worth ~25 seats than to look in the mirror.

[Swift]

Power & Politics put together a little fact check regarding what Harper has said re: the Duffy affair vs. what actually happened - http://t.co/okoZsW4OBB

[SebC]

Originally Posted by #-3

Negligible is not a fact it's an opinion, at what level does an impact become relevant? The odds are your household contributes about 0.0000002% of the worldwide problem. It's a measurable number. It's probably allot bigger than you thought.

0.0000002% is negligible.

[FlamesAllTheWay]

[SebC]

A single raindrop in a flood is negligible.

[John Doe]

Originally Posted by CroFlames

Obviously the circumstances around Duffy and the involvement of the PMO. But it's not like it was Harper making frivolous expense claims.

Redford was the one actually doing the bad things.

If Harper was/is lying about or involved in the coverup then he was/is doing bad things too.

But why are you talking about Redford? How is she relevant to the federal election as anything but a diversion as to what is emerging from the Duffy trial?