Climate change and human responsibility

[Azure]

Far as I'm concerned, until we get serious about using cross laminated timber as a main building construction material nothing will change.

It isn't a sexy approach so nobody brings it up but it has the potential to change the world.

Canada should be leading the world in this regard.

[4X4]

Originally Posted by Azure

Far as I'm concerned, until we get serious about using cross laminated timber as a main building construction material nothing will change.

It isn't a sexy approach so nobody brings it up but it has the potential to change the world.

Canada should be leading the world in this regard.

Silly, naive Azure. It may be stronger, require less actual trees, and make good use of remnants, but you can bet that the presence of glue will make it the next thing on the protest list. Just like pipelines, it won't matter that it's better for the overall cause, because it's all about the protest, not the logic or the actual environment.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by Azure

Far as I'm concerned, until we get serious about using cross laminated timber as a main building construction material nothing will change.

It isn't a sexy approach so nobody brings it up but it has the potential to change the world.

Canada should be leading the world in this regard.

Yeah but Canada sucks and we are determined to keep sucking, so. That will never happen.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Silly, naive Azure. It may be stronger, require less actual trees, and make good use of remnants, but you can bet that the presence of glue will make it the next thing on the protest list. Just like pipelines, it won't matter that it's better for the overall cause, because it's all about the protest, not the logic or the actual environment.

Bingo. There's no logic left. Even looking on this board, you've got people like Ducay wanting to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at eliminating pine beetles, comparing them to the third reich, wanting to take out an entire species because "the trees are banff will look ugly and affect tourism." When what's the actual solution? Let the forests burn and regenerate, which naturally curbs the pine beetle population.

But no, instead of doing things that are logical, natural, and forward thinking, let's blow billions of dollars frantically trying to hold on to our way of life and current comfort level, because God forbid something may not be perfect or align with our precious ideology. Glue? Pipelines? Sorry, those are chemicals, they're the devil, but we'll go ahead and promote 1000 other "unnatural" ways to kill ourselves.

People are intent on destroying themselves. People are idiots.

[Ark2]

Originally Posted by peter12

Well, country living in a large home with several cars is a brutally unsustainable lifestyle. One that is incredibly subsidized by taxpayers. At the very least, let's remove those subsidies and make people who choose that lifestyle pay the full cost.

Let's also pay a carbon tax.

And, if I was in charge, let's create a national energy corridor and get as many of our hydrocarbon products to market.

And yes, let's dump a lot of money into R&D for potential mitigation solutions.

Please forgive my ignorance, but subsidized how exactly?

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Azure

Far as I'm concerned, until we get serious about using cross laminated timber as a main building construction material nothing will change.

It isn't a sexy approach so nobody brings it up but it has the potential to change the world.

Canada should be leading the world in this regard.

You mean like Brock Commons? The 18 storey CLT building at UBC? Which was the tallest in the world until recently. We’re on our way there.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

You mean like Brock Commons? The 18 storey CLT building at UBC? Which was the tallest in the world until recently. We’re on our way there.

Yes.

We are on our way there, but it is moving far too slow compared to the rising carbon levels in the atmosphere.

[81MC]

Originally Posted by Ark2

Please forgive my ignorance, but subsidized how exactly?

The cost of supplying and maintain infrastructure to suburban developments is no where near recovered from the developers and home owners.
I’m not sure if it’s been rectified, but there was a time when services would be put in to these neighbourhoods, without having any tax coming in because the developers paid tax on the land value before work, infrastructure and people were moved in. I really hope this has changed, hopefully someone in the biz can school me?

[4X4]

Oh, I'm sure SebC can answer that question.

[Ark2]

Originally Posted by 81MC

The cost of supplying and maintain infrastructure to suburban developments is no where near recovered from the developers and home owners.
I’m not sure if it’s been rectified, but there was a time when services would be put in to these neighbourhoods, without having any tax coming in because the developers paid tax on the land value before work, infrastructure and people were moved in. I really hope this has changed, hopefully someone in the biz can school me?

Well, until someone provides some actual evidence of this, I will remain skeptical. I bought a lot out in the country and will be building a house there this summer. Regarding subsidized services, there are roads leading to the lot, there is electricity, there are ditches on either side of the road, there is trash and recycling pick-up. That's it as far as I am aware of. What other infrastructure is there that isn't being recovered?

[Fuzz]

I think you guys are talking 2 different things. Subruban, meaning the new suburbs still within Calgary, and living outside the city entirely.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by 81MC

The cost of supplying and maintain infrastructure to suburban developments is no where near recovered from the developers and home owners.
I’m not sure if it’s been rectified, but there was a time when services would be put in to these neighbourhoods, without having any tax coming in because the developers paid tax on the land value before work, infrastructure and people were moved in. I really hope this has changed, hopefully someone in the biz can school me?

The capital costs for servicing are paid for by the developer per hectare. For a while they only recovered the cost of the extension of the lines but not things like the capital cost of increasing the capacity of things like water treatment.

This was fixed I believe in the last round of increases. Bunk would be the best person to explain this as he has worked on both sides. I believe what developers don’t contribute to is the increased road infrastructure costs for arterial roads and services where expenses increase by area services rather than by population using the service.

What one should remember is that the modern burb is as dense as Hilhurst. They achieve quite high densities compared to existing communities. Again the sprawl problem is the boomers fault. Pre density increases neighbourhoods like the Bonnevistas and the loop of not quite innercity where NIMBYs continually oppose density increases like Brentwood.

Sprawl is caused my the amount of land you occupy not where that land is located. Also when people do property tax calculations that show that a suburb over its lifecycle will never pay for its costs they fail to account for the land value increases of every home closer to the inner city as population goes up the value of the most desirable land up.

[Ark2]

Really interesting article in the Financial Post today. Could all of this be rhetoric pushed by left leaning politicians as a wedge issue?

Globally there’s no clear evidence of trends and patterns in extreme events such as droughts, hurricanes and floods. Some regions experience more, some less and some no trend. Limitations of data and inconsistencies in patterns prevent confident claims about global trends one way or another. There’s no trend in U.S. hurricane landfall frequency or intensity. If anything, the past 50 years has been relatively quiet. There’s no trend in hurricane-related flooding in the U.S. Nor is there evidence of an increase in floods globally. Since 1965, more parts of the U.S. have seen a decrease in flooding than have seen an increase. And from 1940 to today, flood damage as a percentage of GDP has fallen to less than 0.05 per cent per year from about 0.2 per cent.

And on it goes. There’s no trend in U.S. tornado damage (in fact, 2012 to 2017 was below average). There’s no trend in global droughts. Cold snaps in the U.S. are down but, unexpectedly, so are heatwaves.

https://business.financialpost.com/o...cians-attacked

[troutman]

I saw that article too, and was a bit skeptical.

https://skepticalscience.com/extreme...al-warming.htm

[needs updating and further study]

https://nca2014.globalchange.gov/hig...xtreme-weather

https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default...ate-Change.pdf

https://www.climate.gov/taxonomy/term/3453

[Fuzz]

Skeptical science is pretty dogmatic in their views. I wouldn't really look for them to have anything helpful to say on controversial studies that dispute their viewpoint, and I certainly don't hold them as the authority to look to when new information comes to light.


We should be listening to scientists who discuss these controversial points. That's what science is. Science is never settled.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Ark2

Well, until someone provides some actual evidence of this, I will remain skeptical. I bought a lot out in the country and will be building a house there this summer. Regarding subsidized services, there are roads leading to the lot, there is electricity, there are ditches on either side of the road, there is trash and recycling pick-up. That's it as far as I am aware of. What other infrastructure is there that isn't being recovered?

https://institute.smartprosperity.ca...20Business.pdf

Massively inefficient infrastructure, huge tax subsidies and credits, all at the expensive of cheaper, better, more efficient alternatives.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Skeptical science is pretty dogmatic in their views. I wouldn't really look for them to have anything helpful to say on controversial studies that dispute their viewpoint, and I certainly don't hold them as the authority to look to when new information comes to light.

We should be listening to scientists who discuss these controversial points. That's what science is. Science is never settled.

If we're going to question Skeptical Science's bias, then we should absolutely be questioning the Financial Post's. Not sure why the National Post's bastard offspring of neoliberal sycophants has been given so much legitimacy on CP.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by rubecube

If we're going to question Skeptical Science's bias, then we should absolutely be questioning the Financial Post's. Not sure why the National Post's bastard offspring of neoliberal sycophants has been given so much legitimacy on CP.

Alright. Take it easy.

You just have to look at the author to know that the column is most likely BS.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by peter12

Alright. Take it easy.

You just have to look at the author to know that the column is most likely BS.

Didn't even notice he's a Fraser Institute alum as well. Yeah, I'm going to take a big ol' pass on this guy's sincerity and scientific credentials.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by GGG

The capital costs for servicing are paid for by the developer per hectare. For a while they only recovered the cost of the extension of the lines but not things like the capital cost of increasing the capacity of things like water treatment.

This was fixed I believe in the last round of increases. Bunk would be the best person to explain this as he has worked on both sides. I believe what developers don’t contribute to is the increased road infrastructure costs for arterial roads and services where expenses increase by area services rather than by population using the service.

What one should remember is that the modern burb is as dense as Hilhurst. They achieve quite high densities compared to existing communities. Again the sprawl problem is the boomers fault. Pre density increases neighbourhoods like the Bonnevistas and the loop of not quite innercity where NIMBYs continually oppose density increases like Brentwood.

Sprawl is caused my the amount of land you occupy not where that land is located. Also when people do property tax calculations that show that a suburb over its lifecycle will never pay for its costs they fail to account for the land value increases of every home closer to the inner city as population goes up the value of the most desirable land up.

Indeed - you could say that the issue has really been resolved. On the capital side, 100% is more or less covered. There are major Transportation projects where the City contributes 40% because they are considered to have a city-wide benefit - something like a Ring Road interchange. On the operating side, as you said, the nature of the newest of communities being more dense, more mixed, and better laid out to improve operational efficiencies, combined with some recent changes to how emergency services are handled, new suburbs at worst are a net-neutral on the tax base in terms of servicing them.

This is all good news as for a long time, there was certainly an imbalance. When those "tax increases" for new growth were talked about at budget - a small amount was for infrastructure of the 14 new (transportation as I mentioned), but the lion's share was for services (transit, fire etc) for communities already under development, largely planned and started between 5 and 20 years ago when things weren't as well planned or accounted for through levies and such. The lag times are long in development.