However you slice it, cars just aren’t that big a part of an ostensible CO2 problem. Personal cars sit idle 95% of the time. Planes, trains, ships, trucks, buses and other commercial vehicles account for well over half the emissions associated with the transport sector globally. And the transport sector itself accounts for only 14% of all emissions.
Now for the knee-jerk response from groups like Union of Concerned Scientists: Yes, but road-vehicle emissions are a significant share of total emissions in the U.S. and Europe.
This is a perfect example of the politics of the meaningless gesture, the dominant motif in climate policy. The planet doesn’t care where the emissions happen. The U.S. and Europe could ban driving altogether and it wouldn’t make a sizable difference.
That’s not why they want to ban driving.
Bicycling down the street in a snowstorm. Ya never see that in a Greenpeace ad.
Standing at a bus stop when it is -20C, or colder, with a howling wind, and the bus stops but it’s full and only one of eight people can get on. Ya never see Greenpeace talking about the joy of that.
After several such frustrating events I started driving to work.
In fact if global warming is real, I want more of it!
Make Canada Warm Again.
And Trudeau wants to tax it back to cold!
When discussing the “price on pollution” always refer to the “Trudeau Tax”. Make the little SOB (SOck Boy) wear it.
Robert of Ottawa: I like that idea I think we need the public to start using it. All Canadians start saying get rid of “Trudeau Tax…Trudeau Tax!!” VOTE OUT THE LIE-BRALS IN 2019…VOTE OUT THE LIE-BRALS IN 2019!!
The key flaw with buses and similar mass transit: people don’t take them because they want to; they take them because they have to.
The automobile represents freedom for the average person to go anywhere whenever they want and do as they please.
That’s why the despicable control-freak segment of the political class hates it so.
Um, that is the only segment of the political class.
Intresting article…
Living in Calgary, there is not a hope in hell that One could live-work here without a “personal mobile contrivance” …. Simply not happening. If one works in the Core…and lives within walking distance to Little Ralphs Train..?, then no problem. But 95% of this citys population does not and as such, you still need a personal mobile contrivance to get to the station.
LIke Charlton Heston said: You’ll have to pry my cold dead hands off the wheel….or something to that effect….(And should they start messing around with fuel allocations -rationing etc.?? at least with a diesel there is the possibility of making ones own fuel.)
Wish I could read that whole article without subscribing to WSJ.
Here you go…
https://www.thegwpf.com/germanys-diesel-disaster-the-lessons-of-dieselgate/
It’s the money, honey.
And government is just the means by which to get it out of people’s pockets.
It’s also panic by people who truly believe that no one is ultimately in control. There’s no one at the helm. (No “God”.) So THEY are going TAKE control, whether anyone wants them to or not.
First, it was high incomes that were the problem. What to do. What to do. Ah-ha! Tax income! That’ll do it.
Next, it was – or still is – high population. What to do. What to do. Ah-ha! It’s the high density matter (i.e. “carbon”) providing high energy that’s the problem! Tax high density matter (“carbon tax”)! That’ll do it. Using the power and influence of government, force on them low density matter like “wind” and “solar” instead and that population bomb that scaring the s..t out of us won’t explode! That hoary population won’t live and prosper!
Just tax ’em to death and take away their “fire” and they’ll be done.
So, we’ll be okay. Phew.
Has the average person ever been something other than a serf? Government controls all our lives these days. The only really free person lives on the street and even he/she is a slave to their own insanity. If you think I am wrong just try and stop paying the government their various forms of tribute.
In rural areas, when you are 16 you get your drivers licence, which means freedom. The number one threat, as a parent, is we will pull your keys. No keys = No more socializing, no more getting away from the parents supervision, no more doing what you want to do…. Once again, the government is putting itself in place of “parent”. We KNOW what is best for you. Note: anyone notice how poorly parents are parenting now a days?
(We encouraged our children to get their licence because we raised them responsibly. It gave us freedom to do what we needed to do)
It is much easier to shut down a railroad than a highway network. Particularly when the best selling type of vehicle is a 4×4 pickup truck.
The thing communists hate about cars the most is that their subjects can DRIVE AWAY. The Iron Curtain wasn’t there to keep us out, it was to keep them in.
The amount of misinformation on climate and CO2 emissions is staggering. People in the United States use statistics from the EU to make a point about Canada, for example. Here are a few Canadian facts:
1. Canada’s CO2 emissions have risen 18% since 1990 and for past 13 years have hovered between 700 – 750 Mt (rising in more recent years).
2. By sector, oil & gas and transportation account for over 50% of total emissions. Both sectors have increased emissions in almost every year since 1990.
3. Within the transportation sector “passenger travel” accounts for over 50% of emissions followed closely by “freight aviation, rail and marine”.
4. Within the oil & gas sector over 50% of emissions come from natural gas and conventional oil.
5. Within the electricity sector the main source is coal at about 60 Mt of the 700-750 Mt total emissions.
What does this mean?
It means that passenger travel is a major source of CO2 emissions in Canada so watch for this sector to get hammered with carbon taxes.
It means that much of the oil & gas sector emissions have nothing to do with oil sands extraction so shutting down the entire oil sands wouldn’t do much to reduce Canada’s CO2 emissions.
It means that shutting down all our coal-fired generating stations (and replacing them with nat gas) would only reduce our CO2 emissions by 30 Mt or about 4% of our total emissions. Also note that switching from coal to natural gas is a one-time event. After that you actually have to reduce energy use (not just substitute it) and no country is currently doing that.
If you heat your home with fossil fuels, if you drive a vehicle that runs on fossil fuels, your life is about to get a lot more expensive.
http://www.ec.gc.ca/indicateurs-indicators/18F3BB9C-43A1-491E-9835-76C8DB9DDFA3/GHGEmissions_EN.pdf
Vancouver and Prince Rupert exported 43 million tonnes of coal in 2017. That represents 103 million tonnes of CO2, and I exclude all the methane released by mining the coal.
Perhaps it’s time for all Canadians to write to the mayors of these two cities asking them to pay for all the costs Canadians have incurred due to climate change. Vancouver you should pay out Carbon taxes!
“It means that shutting down all our coal-fired generating stations (and replacing them with nat gas) would only reduce our CO2 emissions by 30 Mt or about 4% of our total emissions. Also note that switching from coal to natural gas is a one-time event. After that you actually have to reduce energy use (not just substitute it) and no country is currently doing that.”
I think that you are only correct about the reduction of CO2 if the gas plants operate near capacity, which means they operate near maximum efficiency. If you combine natural gas generating capacity with wind and solar, the gas plants must be kept on standby to ensure the stability of the grid. I have it on good authority that operating gas plants on standby creates more CO2 than coal operating near capacity. Some of these warming clowns in government should actually talk to an engineer about their plans.
I was assuming the gas plant will operate at the same efficiency as the coal plant. You’re right though. Add a wind farm or solar array and the net savings drops below 50%. Swapping nat gas for coal directly is a best-case scenario. This is essentially what Ontario did in its electricity sector. It doesn’t reduce energy use. It just costs a lot of money. It makes less sense for a province like Alberta to eliminate coal because it mines the stuff directly. Funny how Alberta could mine the coal and ship it to China or India through the port in Vancouver and Alberta’s CO2 emissions would drop substantially. This is the idiocy of climate change.
Murray the Hun: It doesn’t matter what Canadians do…you have all the other Countries burning coal, wood and other causing CO2 at an astronomical rate. Where do you think it all goes we are all together in one atmospheric world into the bloody air that we all share. Canadians are NOT the cause!! AND WE DO NOT NEED A TRUDEAU TAX…WE NEED TO VOTE OUT TRUDEAU AND THE LIE-BRALS IN 2019!!
It’s all smoke and mirrors and completely irrelevant to what the greens want. CO2 and AGW is a smoke screen to what they really want to do to the human race. : https://pjmedia.com/trending/extreme-environmentalists-are-anti-human/
They want you and yours DEAD. Period. Oh sure the UN talks abut it in sweet terms, but frankly these MF’rs want you dead (at least in the western world), preferably by your own hands, with a little “help” from certain .gov policies. I wouldn’t trust a flu vac anytime forward from this date. And that is just a start.
The UN and it’s backers have been saying so publicly for years. Google it.
The irony is that ‘they’ talk about the ‘long term’ effects when they haven’t got a clue. If it is real and substantial, the human effect on climate has been very, very short term and technological advancements that can’t help but naturally occur (um duh fuel efficiency) would eventually produce the same result without the government cash grab/wealth redistribution.
I only looked at the site briefly, but in 1991 our population was only just over 27 million. Per person the amount has GONE DOWN since then as well as the amount per gross domestic product. Talk about your evidence-based policy making lies.
Two things Buddy. First is the contradiction of energy efficiency. As energy use becomes more efficient, we use more energy, not less. Second, energy use per GDP has gone down ONLY because we have exported our manufacturing industry and are transitioning to a service economy. If you add back the CO2 we use indirectly (importing steel from China, for example, and not counting the CO2 emitted there) CO2 emissions will not have fallen. CO2 emissions will only go down if we reduce our energy use. Nowhere on earth is this happening.
I certainly won’t argue but does more energy use translate to more “pollution”? (However more people certainly does.) If we use more nuclear energy to electrically heat our homes compared to the past of using wood or coal burning stoves, have we increased carbon dioxide emissions per capita? Even if we use 10X the energy have we increased the emission?
For a time I lived in the maritimes and had electric heat. During power outages, mainly due to ice and or snow storms in winter, or strong gale force winds in the rest of the year, the house would get cold. Of course everyone fired up their woodstove. The smoky haze was quite noticeable.
I much prefer natural gas.
Now I wonder how much electricity wind and solar would generate during an ice storm, or a snow storm, or during an Atlantic gale?
Switching to nuclear would decrease CO2 emissions. I don’t understand why the people who claim we are killing the planet with CO2 don’t like nuclear. However, once you switch from coal to natural gas you are at the lowest CO2 emissions for fossil fuels. It’s an immediate savings. Then you either have to reduce energy use or switch to a non-CO2-emitting form of energy.
Cheap power means you can’t control people on where they live and work and travel. Same as with the automobile. In this country, what’s the best way to control people on where they live, and work?
Make power expensive with “carbon taxes” and restrict access to certain fuels, then increase the amount charged once people are “warehoused” in cities. Easier to “handle” and control population once concentrated. It’s already in the works and discussed years ago. Our .gov have no plans to continue to allow unfettered access to parts of this country they feel you shouldn’t have access to and you can kiss cheap anything with their plans for you, now. You and yours are expendable.
Only favored corporate interests do. Our Fust Nashuns are finding that out today with the new gas pipeline wars in BC. Some big players (British, Chinese and Mayasian) stand to gain.
John Horgan et al are granting the RCMP what they denied Alberta oil interests on Trans Mountain. Oh, wait I thought it was Federal jurisdiction on pipelines….where’s Groper on this? I hope the Fust Nashions wreck the whole plot for them. The whole lot are azzwholes, together.
This country needs to collapse inward, including the Fust Nashuns.
People have to quit feeling guilty (or pretending to feel guilty) and tell off the guilt mongers. Such as:
-No, I don’t feel guilty driving just for fun. You should mind your own business.
-No, I don’t feel guilty driving a truck. You should mind your own business.
-No, I don’t feel guilty eating factory farmed meat. You should mind your own business.
-No, I don’t feel guilty not voting for a progressive. You should mind your own business.
-No, I don’t feel guilty for having more than 2 kids. You should mind your own business.
-No,I don’t feel guilty about trying to heat my home and provide electricity using the most affordable and reliable energy source instead of with expensive, unreliable “green” energy. You should mind your own business.
-No, I don’t feel guilty about….
A critical mass of regular people constantly telling the finger-wagging control freaks to mind their own business and then completely ignoring their nagging would make for a much more peaceful society.
#mindyourownbusiness
that would be ideal. However the problem the finger-wagging control freaks (fwcf’s) vote in other finger-waging control freaks.
So when I/we say mind your own business, they say state backed violence has been approved to force you to do as the fwcf’s say..
LC you are right and most leftists will repeat exactly what you said, but with them being the ‘I’ in your statements. What they want is for everyone else to stop doing those things. Justine Turdeau is a prime example.
Exactly! People should mind their own business. If I want to aimlessly drive around in my pickup hauling a load of air, that is my business alone.
They don’t want to ban driving outright, they just want everyone to feel guilty about it enough to accept high taxes to do it. Just like smoking and alcohol, they’re a ‘sin’ so therefore people accept taxation. The trick is to determine that sweet spot where taxes aren’t so high that they’d be taxed out of existence but just high enough to get some good income from them.
In Europe, for example, that sweet spot for fuel is damn high because people simply accept it.
Same here for cars (politicians hope), same for carbon taxes.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
C.S. Lewis
There is NO co2 problem
we are at about 400 ppm of co2 in the atmosphere and that is not even a high number
if we go below 200 ppm plants start to die then animals die as well
core samples show that co2 on earth has gone over 2000 ppm in the past and there was still life on earth, thus 400 ppm co2 is not a problem.
there is no co2 problem
it is a complete MYTH
Canadian Friend: AMEN!!
one volcano can put more CO2 in the air that all of peoplekind combined. And CO2 traps only 3 frequencies that radiate up from the earth, of which 15MM is the only one in the IR portion of the spectrum. And since H2O also traps 15MM, we are basically at saturation point, because the last 5% that has not been capture, and capturing it is an exercise in logarithmic math. goreBULLwarming is just that, BULL$HIT
Kinda makes me chuckle a bit. Now everyone is getting a taste of what we smokers were put through. Shunned by society, refused access to public places, even spit upon by some, etc. etc. etc.
nobody cared. Enjoy.
Smokers were the test run.
Stripped of their civil rights and stomped by the righteous.
And it worked.
Yes the Trudeau tax on breathing is a follow on.
I cannot wait for my local weenies to permit their first marijuana smoking lounge.
The idiots pushing for this are the very same who damned smokers and hounded them out of every public space, I am looking forward to rubbing their noses in their hipocracy.
We already have a tax on breathing, if you want to actually support yourself. It is called income tax.