Alberta Election Poll (new poll added)

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

This is also a bad analagy, if Canada had child labour and wanted to ban it, we could actually accomplish that by banning child labour. The goal is acheivable based on actions of Canada.

Except there would still be millions of children around the world forced into child labour, so we wouldn't be making a dent into the child labour problem, we would just be hurting our own economy!

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by Izzle

What it boils down to is, do you want future generations to deal with an economic burden or an environmental burden.

If it is the former, then likely you're going to vote for left leaning policies and if it is the latter, you're probably going to go for right leaning policies. Future generations will pay one way or another, IMO.

The difference certainly being the enviromental burden will be there regardless of which way you vote.

So its either Environmental burden + Economic burden vs Environmental Burden. Unless you think somehow a carbon tax and industry hurting policies in Canada is going to affect the world climate.

Lots of generalities there of course on the Economic burden as is.

[puckedoff]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Except there would still be millions of children around the world forced into child labour, so we wouldn't be making a dent into the child labour problem, we would just be hurting our own economy!

Reduce Canadian child labor -> Less children labouring
Reduce Canadian GHG to ZERO -> No change to global warming

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

Reduce Canadian child labor -> Less children labouring
Reduce Canadian GHG to ZERO -> No change to global warming

Reduce Canadian child labor -> Negligible change to children labouring
Reduce Canadian GHG to ZERO -> Negligible change to global warming

I think you underestimate how many child labourers there are. We're talking hundreds of millions. So it wouldn't make a single difference if Canada did or did not have child labour protection laws. And yet we do. Hmmm.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Reduce Canadian child labor -> Negligible change to children labouring
Reduce Canadian GHG to ZERO -> Negligible change to global warming

I think you underestimate how many child labourers there are. We're talking hundreds of millions. So it wouldn't make a single difference if Canada did or did not have child labour protection laws. And yet we do. Hmmm.

It’s ok to admit you made a terrible comparison. Doubling down doesn’t help you.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Just because people have a hard grasp at trying to understand analogies and looking at it at face value. It doesn't matter if Canada does or doesn't have child labours, there's still hundreds of millions of them out there. It doesn't matter if Canada does or doesn't reduce emissions, there's still hundreds of tons being produced. On a global scale, nothing Canada does matters - following that ####ty mindset.

The point is simple, if you're not making policies that are good simply because other countries aren't, you're a pretty ####ty country. I hope Canada is a leader, whether it's environmental, humanitarian or other policies that would make it and/or the world a better place.

And how do you think we can get any sort of pressure on those high, dirty producers if we're not doing anything ourselves? Are you just conceding that the world will be near uninhabitable for many countries in a 100 years and do nothing? Great attitude to have.

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Just because people have a hard grasp at trying to understand analogies and looking at it at face value. It doesn't matter if Canada does or doesn't have child labours, there's still hundreds of millions of them out there. It doesn't matter if Canada does or doesn't reduce emissions, there's still hundreds of tons being produced. On a global scale, nothing Canada does matters - following that ####ty mindset.

The point is simple, if you're not making policies that are good simply because other countries aren't, you're a pretty ####ty country. I hope Canada is a leader, whether it's environmental, humanitarian or other policies that would make it and/or the world a better place.

And how do you think we can get any sort of pressure on those high, dirty producers if we're not doing anything ourselves? Are you just conceding that the world will be near uninhabitable for many countries in a 100 years and do nothing? Great attitude to have.

Well the difference being of course if you stopped child labor in Canada those children are no longer working. But ok keep doubling (tripling?) down.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Weitz

It’s ok to admit you made a terrible comparison. Doubling down doesn’t help you.

There's nothing wrong with his hypothetical. You guys don't want to see it because of your own self-interest in the energy industry (which is shared by everyone in Alberta).

The burden of doing the right thing and banning child labour would be borne equally by all Canadians, who would pay slightly more for goods (the few profiting directly from child-labour would also feel it, though they could theoretically mitigate this by passing increased labour laws onto the consumers...though Canadians are more likely to continue purchasing cheaper goods that were produced abroad via child labour (thereby increasing demand on both goods and foreign child labour)...which is actually another reason that this comparison stands up - action is required on both the supply and demand sides to achieve relevant change. A Canadian demanding supply-side change is being hypocritical if their personal actions on the demand-side do not line up.


The burden of reducing emissions would be borne equally by most Canadians, but additionally by those directly and indirectly employed by the industry. The real reason you don't want to do anything is not because it "will do nothing", but because it "will do very little and impact me substantially". And there's nothing wrong with that (but we should be more honest).


The way to move forward is not by digging our heels in deeper, but offering compromise on the supply-side initiatives by demanding action on the demand-side, that will spread the costs more evenly across everyone, and incentivize personal actions. Which is to say that any emissions targets need to be contingent on correlated targets to reduce imports (increasing prices for everyone, and mitigating the targeted burden). At that point, everyone in the country can be fairly and honestly decide if the juice is worth the squeeze.

TLDR: the 'no-difference' argument is disingenuous bunk. The honest and valid argument is that we are being asked to take an unfair share of the burden for everyone's consumerism.

[Resolute 14]

How arrogant and narrow minded must one be to think "don't want to hamstring our economy and our livelihood for negligible benefit" equates to "don't want to do anything"? The industry has been working on reducing emissions for a very long time already. This isn't a debate about doing nothing or doing something. It's about doing something or needlessly hanging yourself.

Also, I hope you're saying the same thing about "the way to move forward is not by digging our heels in deeper" to anti-oil zealots. Because if you're not, then you aren't interested in compromise. You're instead arguing for appeasement, which frankly, never works.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

How arrogant and narrow minded must one be to think "don't want to hamstring our economy and our livelihood for negligible benefit" equates to "don't want to do anything"? The industry has been working on reducing emissions for a very long time already. This isn't a debate about doing nothing or doing something. It's about doing something or needlessly hanging yourself.

Except that's what the idiots are actually saying and this argument is about. Take a look at the chain, it starts off with "Haha as if any emissions in Canada matter."

It wasn't "We should work to reduce our carbon footprint while remaining economically viable." We're in Alberta, everyone would agree with that, it's just a matter of how much we should do.

But this was about people who think reducing our emissions don't matter at all, that's completely different argument.

[Resolute 14]

Frankly, our emissions levels don't matter. We could cut our emissions by 75% and it wouldn't do a damn thing. That's the point I offer about needlessly hanging ourselves.

On the other hand, advances we make in technology to reduce emissions can be applied elsewhere. Can be applied globally. Not that we'll ever get credit for any of that in the minds of zealots.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Frankly, our emissions levels don't matter. We could cut our emissions by 75% and it wouldn't do a damn thing. That's the point I offer about needlessly hanging ourselves.

If you truly believe that, why do anything at all for the emissions then?


(By the way, cutting down 75% of the 2% we contribute would not be negligible to the environment but 75% would be impossible)

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

If you truly believe that, why do anything at all for the emissions then?


(By the way, cutting down 75% of the 2% we contribute would not be negligible to the environment but 75% would be impossible)

Global emmisions grew by 1.7% last year, China grew by 2.5%. So 75% would be eaten up elsewhere in 1 year. So yes, it would be negligible.

[puckedoff]

Long image but worth checking out (I beleive I originally saw it posted on here in cool picture thread) - https://xkcd.com/1732/

If you reduce Canada's contribution to 0, and compound the rest of the line at a rate of 2% less, it just doesn't matter.

I think that it is important to reduce environmental impacts, to continue to R&D better products and processes that are better for the environment - but I can also do math, and it is obvious to see that climate change is not going away (unless we nuke 50% of the world's population, but that seems a little heartless).

The solutions to the problems that climate change will bring will cost huge amounts of money and capital, whether it is upgrading electrical grids to support EVs or retrofitting old buildings etc. and our country will need a strong economy in order to make those investments.

There is a difference between kneecapping your economy to try to stop the temperature from increasing, and investing in your economy for when the world gets hot, and I think the smart decision is the latter.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Global emmisions grew by 1.7% last year, China grew by 2.5%. So 75% would be eaten up elsewhere in 1 year. So yes, it would be negligible.

That's not negligible. If it was negligible we wouldn't care that emissions grew by 1.7% last year because it wouldn't matter. And yet we do...

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

...I hope Canada is a leader, whether it's environmental, humanitarian or other policies that would make it and/or the world a better place. ...

This is the type of Gore's and Suzuki's rhetoric that has nothing behind it. You can hope all you want, but realistically speaking, Canada is a huge but sparsely-populated country with a negligible (invisible) impact on the world. We have roughly the population of metro-Tokyo. Canada's expense to support its vast area economically and socially between the three oceans and a few bigger cities is already enormous and inefficient as it is. Adding unproven and un-affordable hurdles to stroke some politicians' ego and ambitions to say "look at us!" is nothing but irresponsible showmanship.

Smart countries and smart politicians know its place in the world pecking order and govern themselves accordingly, when it comes to making sacrifices affecting its own people. Canada has been sacrificing its people's economic interests in favour of that illusion of world leadership far too long.

[CaptainYooh]

On the topic of voting, for the first time in my life, I have no idea how to vote this time. I will not vote for NDP, they are a bunch of incompetent idiots and their platform is a joke. I do not like Kenney as a party leader – he is intelligent (so is Notley), but weird socially and, often, too close to some of the extreme ideological views that I hate so much. I know that Greg Clark and Mandel are good and sensible politicians, both economically and socially. But they have ZERO chances of winning, so voting for them will make no difference. Abstaining is an option, but that's wrong... I really don't know how I should vote and it bothers me a lot.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

On the topic of voting, for the first time in my life, I have no idea how to vote this time. I will not vote for NDP, they are a bunch of incompetent idiots and their platform is a joke. I do not like Kenney as a party leader – he is intelligent (so is Notley), but weird socially and, often, too close to some of the extreme ideological views that I hate so much. I know that Greg Clark and Mandel are good and sensible politicians, both economically and socially. But they have ZERO chances of winning, so voting for them will make no difference. Abstaining is an option, but that's wrong... I really don't know how I should vote and it bothers me a lot.

I would say if you like the Alberta Party on most issues, go ahead and vote for them.
Of course I would say that, I've been pretty clear from jump that I'm a big supporter of them.
But, the only way to get momentum is to get votes.

Just because you don't think they have a chance to win doesn't mean your vote for them doesn't have value.

If we only ever vote for parties that'll win, we end up with 2 parties and that's not good for anyone.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

I would say if you like the Alberta Party on most issues, go ahead and vote for them.
Of course I would say that, I've been pretty clear from jump that I'm a big supporter of them.
But, the only way to get momentum is to get votes.

Just because you don't think they have a chance to win doesn't mean your vote for them doesn't have value.

If we only ever vote for parties that'll win, we end up with 2 parties and that's not good for anyone.

That's my feeling as well (although I keep getting jumped all over on reddit for saying it)

Vote for whoever you agree with most. Even if they don't win if they get a decent showing of support maybe they try and raise more money to take a bigger run at it next time

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by btimbit

That's my feeling as well (although I keep getting jumped all over on reddit for saying it)

Vote for whoever you agree with most. Even if they don't win if they get a decent showing of support maybe they try and raise more money to take a bigger run at it next time

Exactly!

If no one votes for a party because they don't think they have a chance then they don't have a chance.

And next election when it comes time to raise funds people look at the vote numbers and say "I'm not going to contribute because these guys have no chance".

And then when it comes time to vote and they don't have the money to make a big showing...well, people don't vote for them because they don't have a chance.

Votes that aren't for the immediate winner still have value.