SDA reader, David, provided a link to a very interesting article. Even though the Vancouver School Board has an $8.4-million funding shortfall, they have to buy $405,725 worth of carbon offsets as per provincial government legislation instituted by BC’s last premier, Gordon Campbell.
Lest anyone forget, the Greens among us have frequently said that “going green” won’t cost us anything. Well, in this case 5 teachers are going to lose their jobs in order to pay for these absolutely ridiculous carbon offsets.
The arrangement with the provincial government will see the money going to Encana, a billion dollar drilling company.
No Green evangelist can condemn this because it’s exactly what they’ve been pushing for all of these years! And Campbell bought into it hook, line, & sinker. He’s now gone but the powers at be will be scared to ever change things for fear of getting demonized by the Green Lobby. What would be beyond sweet would be to see both parents of school children and the BC Teacher’s Federation publicly condemning the Greenies!
Related: The founder of Encana is closely affiliated with BC’s current premier, Christy Clark. And make no mistake, if when the NDP ever gets back in power in this province, it’ll be the same or worse.
Update: BC Hospitals are not immune either. (h/t pkuster)
You eco-dodgers are looking at this the wrong way. Public schools are not *victims* of Big Green and Big Government, they are unfortunate casualties on the war to save Planet Earth. Those brave teachers deserve a Purple Heart (or at least a squishy, polite, slightly repressed Canadian version of the award) for their faithful service.
Remember, people, it should be considered a honor to be fleeced by our ethical and intellectual superiors. So just shaddup and pay you eco-tithes.
“Robert, ever read Tsakumis?
He’s got a boatload of damaging evidence against Clark, but appears that she has got the law hounds threatening him, as to what he can and cannot release regarding BCRail.”
Tsakumis is a fraud. He claimed all during the lib leadership debate that he had the “goods” on clark but as he released the “goods” it was obvious he had nothing. He was just pumping his own tires.
It seems obvious to me that the School Boards should simply deduct the Carbon Tax from the Teachers’ paychecks, after all they’re the ones that want the tax…
I can already hear the squealing.
John…may I kindly sugguest you pull your head out of your butt? The biggest industry in BC is druggie rent-seekers. And how come none of you whining about the greenies mention the small fact your capital still dumps raw sewage into the strait?
crickets
Can anyone here tell me WHY they PAY the carbon tax or just give the govt an IOU ? Why they dont just close the innefficient schools and lay off half the teachers?The dodo would hit the fan then.I could solve this problem in a minute.
Gwynn preconditioned himself for lalaland. he used to meditate and do yoga in his office.
Clarification for north of 60:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04352b.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06342b.htm
From the article:
“Adding insult to injury, the board is required to pay the province about $45,000 for a “smart tool” to assess its carbon footprint and to supply staff to make it work. Bacchus said the payments are particularly galling because many of the schools operated by the VSB are old, poorly insulated and inefficient, so they have high energy costs.
“These are schools that are cold in the winter because we’ve turned down the heat to save money and we have parents and children and staff shivering and complaining about that,” she said.
Rather than give the school board sufficient funds to bring them up to modern standards, the province penalizes them with its carbon neutrality requirements, Bacchus said.”
What schools/school boards would allow children to freeze?
“Carbon footprints” are a symptom of the insanity that has been prevalent in virtually every school in the country. Until parents en masse make these imbeciles accountable, expect to see more of this.
Most politicians seem to have trouble seeing more than one move down the chess board. Progressive politicians, however, seem utterly oblivious to the ramifications of their actions. They live in a fantasy world where good intentions always produce good results.
Just turned on CKNW here in Vancouver for a moment to catch the 3pm news. Then came on the Sean Leslie Show, though today hosted by the despicable Jill Bennett. This morning she was mocking Christians and Americans. Her top story this hour: “Rising Sea Levels and Why the Next 90 Years are Critical!”
This blabber is what constitutes serious public discussion in Canada. This woman, being a left-wing “journalist” probably did poorly at science & math in high school, which lead her onto her chosen career … to save the world … I mean, to be a journalist.
Imagine going to tour a BMW Factory, wanting to understand how the manufacturing process works, and instead getting a tour from a PR rep who knew not a thing about engineering. That, in a nutshell, is what the Canadian Media Party is equivalent to today. đ
Just E-mailed my MLA.. Said as a backlash from the Cons. side of the B.C. Liberals was expected against Christy Clark (Lib. federally),this was it No to Cap and Trade/ No More Carbon Tax, get rid of it.. No votes from us unless you do… Go to B.C. Liberal Party website, find your MLA, email, your concerns.
The Norse Vikings who settled Greenland for a few hundred years during the last great warming period [ca 900 – 1200] were from Iceland. Of course they ate fish and sea mammals just like the Inuit they traded with. They also farmed cattle, grain and vegetables for their use. The Inuit had migrated across the Arctic from Siberia during the warming and brought the mongol re-curve bow and plated body armor with them. They were warriors and easily displaced the Dorset culture that was there before. The Inuit and the Norse had a brisk trade – iron for walrus ivory, and as long as the warming kept Europe affluent, the demand for walrus ivory kept things going. When the warming started seriously cooling around 1200 and Europe started to slide into the Dark Ages the demand for ivory stopped and the Inuit raided the Greenland settlements, killed off most of the inhabitants and drove the rest back to Iceland. The Inuit thrived in the Little Ice Age and populated the Baffin land and Greenland on both sides of Davis straight. With the cooling climate the Norse never tried to re-settle Greenland till much later. The history of Greenland is well documented here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greenland
The earth has been gradually warming for the past 14,000 years since the last major Ice Age. During that time it’s experienced periods where it was warmer than now and colder than now, however the average has been gradually warming. Don’t confuse the natural global warming with anthropomorphic global warming [AGW], the religious belief of AlGore, JamesCameron, DavidSuzuki, and their evangelistic zealot followers. This is a very common mistake and only adds to the confusion.
North_of_60 – The AGWers refuse to accept reality and have no problems revising history to suit their agenda.
Notice what is implied by the AGwers to support their assertion that the Vikings did not eat fish and their demise was a mystery. Gotta love this hypothesis, it fits with the left’s ideology like a glove: “especially due to the Viking’s disdain for other peoples and ways of living.” The Vikings obviously died because they were racist bigots – serves them right, and they were liars too. Eric wasn’t Red and Greenland wasn’t green. AGWers claim to know what Eric was thinking, yet everything else is a mystery. Apparently he had some keen marketing skills, yet was as dumb as a sack. Eric the Red is characterized in this bit as the first redneck; his failure to relinquish the old European ways killed him and others. The message is – if you fail to adapt and let go of you old ways, you will be just like Eric; a dumb racist redneck. Note that the writer of this dribble was careful not to stereotype all Europeans in with Eric the Red; progressive’s consider stereotyping an unforgivable sin and is an automatic indicator of an unenlightened, uneducated human being.
What I find particularly insidious is how these religious fanatics take a natural phenomenon like the planet’s warming since the last ice age and then cherry pick data to support their contention that the warming is getting worse and of course humans are causing it. Then when we expose their fudging the data by mostly using temperature data from urban heat islands and almost no data from small airports in the boreal forest which didn’t support their contention, then they move on to imply that another natural phenomenon like the changing climate is getting ‘worse’ and of course any climate anomalies have to be caused by humans and their CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels. Their distorting terms like global warming and climate change is so much like how the homosexuals have bent the terms ‘gay’ and ‘marriage’ to apply to whatever it is they do. These are of course the same leftards who criminalized law abiding Canadians with their insidious social engineering gun control laws.
I wouldn’t mind it so much if they just kept their beliefs to themselves, but I find their evangelistic zealotry that seeks to foist their beliefs on the rest of society to be particularly offensive. It’s ‘for our own good’ of course because we’re all knuckle dragging idiots and they are the elites who know what’s best for us. I recently got into a discussion with a couple of these leftards who say the Inuit must stop using fossil fuels because it’s causing irreparable harm to the planet, and of course small scale nuclear isn’t an option because terrorists will use them to make bombs, so the communities in the North are supposed to use wind and solar. When it’s brought to their attention that it’s dark for about half the year and the wind doesn’t always blow they can only counter with the argument that some yet undiscovered ‘green’ technology is going to solve the problem when we stop giving tax breaks to the oil companies, and give the money to the greenies instead. In the meantime the Inuit should adopt the Amish lifestyle and stop using so much fossil fuel energy. I almost always reach the point where I realize it’s like trying to teach pigs to sing.
“Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.” Robert Heinlein.
The “if’ “when” question about the NDP will be answered Wednesday when Clark wins her seat and “NDP light” takes over – the BC Liberals were named to avoid being branded “Conservative” – with Clark and her metrosexual cabinet in place, the left is truly in power in BC – and it doesn’t much matter now whether its Dix or Clark – the net effect will be the same.
Fred seens afraid of vote splitting by the BC Conservatives – a legitimate fear, but one must remember the situation when it was Socred vs. NDP and a nascent BC Liberal party was predicted to be the ‘vote splitter’ allowing another NDP gov’t.
The BC Conservative Party is getting its’ act together with former federal Conservative MP’s John Cummins at the helm, supported by Randy White, Reed Elley and former Conservative Premier Brian Peckford involved.
Consider getting involved if you’re one of those ‘none of the above’ voters – as I was in the last election.
Robert, thank you very much for this excellent post.
Please do more of the same. The BC Liberals need to have as many bright lights shone on them as possible. Odd as it may sound, that’s the only way to avoid an NDP government come the next election.
Will have to look at BC Conservative party site again to see if they have a saner platform now. One primary driver of the BC economy is cannabis cultivation and revenues from cannabis dwarf forestry income. Also, lots of “Albertans” live in the interior where they’re buying houses in a warmer climate but work in camps in N. Alberta. I’ve been told there are lots of tax advantages in being an “Alberta” resident.
All the BC Conservatives have to do to is eliminate their idiotic statist drug policy proposals and reject the junk science behind CAGW. (Well, this would get me to vote for them). This will set them apart from the two communist parties in BC and will likely get them a lot of support. Who cares about the watermelon vote as most of these moonbats are probably too scrambled to figure out how to vote or they’ll vote for a watermelon candidate which helps split the vote in favor of a real Conservative party.
I know what AGW is. What is the “CAGW” you keep referring to?
North_of_60, CAGW = catastrophic AGW. It’s because people can’t get too excited about UHI effects so the watermelons came up with CAGW.