Vincent J. Curtis
2 Dec 2018
RE: Ontario’s new environmental plan falls woefully short (Hamilton Spectator editorial 1 Dec 2018)
It is absurd to say that the Ford government’s plan to fight
climate change is woefully short of “what is really needed.” It is absurd
to say that Canada or even Ontario needs a strategy to combat climate change.
Neither Canada nor Ontario can do anything that will alter the progress of
climate change. Our contribution to the problem is so trivial that
nothing we do will have any detectable impact on the climate.
Canada contributes 1.5 % of the world emissions of carbon
dioxide, and Ontario contributes about a third of that. If Ontario
disappeared, the reduction of expected global temperature increase by the year
2100 would be 0.015 of a degree – an amount too small to be measured reliably.
The most important things Ford can do for the future of
Ontario is to get the provincial budget right, and to encourage economic
expansion. The tax and spend plan that the Spectator criticizes works to
make Ontario’s large industries more energy efficient, and therefore more
competitive.
Financial incentives by government to promote certain things
are nothing new. That is the thought behind carbon taxes. Ford’s
plan is not exactly boilerplate conservativism, and it must grate on Liberals
that Ford is waving the climate change flag while helping big industry by
Liberal means.
To complain that it doesn’t do enough to combat climate
change is ridiculous.
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