Some Carbon Tax Concerns
So predictably people have been complaining about Stephane Dion’s Liberal Carbon Tax plan. Proving once again that we love our environment, you know, as long as we don’t have to actually do anything to help it. What really disturbs me however is how people don’t seem to understand that if they make simple changes they can very easily offset the costs of any tax.
Here are some comments from griffen72 (apparently from Ottawa) that were posted on the CBC.ca site.
“A question for all you greenie, tree hugging, global warming types…
How is this tax going to change my environmental impact at all?”
The idea is that hopefully you will find ways to reduce your consumption in order to save money.
“I still have to heat my home, I just have to pay more to do it.”
Of course, we live in the frigid North, but what is your thermostat set at? I am still amazed at the amount of people who feel they should be setting their furnace to heat their home to 25 degrees Celsius. Or the reverse, a thermostat sitting at 22 when it’s 33 outside in the summer.
That said, changing your household temperature even by just a degree can make a huge difference in your energy bills. It might not seem like much but when you considered a small home of about 2,000 square feet can have over 16,000 cubic feet of space, we are talking about a lot of energy to heat or cool that space.
“I still have to get to work in the morning, I just have to pay more to do it.”
Now if you live out in the middle of nowhere I will agree there is not much you can do. Some people just do not have the luxury of walking or biking to their place of employment.
But what about public transportation? Even if it’s only part way of your route it can save you a large chunk of money. My father finally caved earlier this month after years of driving all the way to the downtown core of his city from the suburbs. He now parks his car at the city limits and grabs a light rail train to his job, cutting the amount of gas he’s putting in his car nearly in half.
What about carpooling? I think every place of employment should start a carpooling board or something similar. It doesn’t take a mathematician to realize that gas even split only two ways is going to save you money.
“I still have to buy groceries trucked it from who knows where, I just have to pay more to do it.”
You still have to buy groceries by why do they need to be from who knows where? I find this comment particularly interesting when we are just coming into the summer. Right now there is an explosion of local produce, cherries, strawberries, peaches; it’s fantastic. The truth is you can get local produce all year round, the main reason most people don’t is because it is currently cheaper for groceries to ship it from places like California and Florida. Once those prices start to rise however it will become more cost effective to grow in greenhouses here.
“I still have to work in a heated, powered building, they’ll just have to pay more to have those utilities.”
And companies can enact many of the same policies that individuals do at home to conserve energy.
How about actually turnings lights off in rooms that aren’t in use?
How about turning computers off at night?
How about putting the water heater temperature down?
The truth is most places of business are horribly inefficient. One only has to walk through a downtown area late at night to see all of the lights in offices still on in whole floors of buildings wasting all that energy.
Being energy efficient uses very little effort, if any at all, and most of us could be saving a lot more money, even if new taxes are implemented.
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