If you don’t know what the future will hold, it’s harder to make sound investment decisions. It seems obvious to me that many people are ignorant of the costs we will consider to be too great. How else could we explain the sale of more than a few thousand SUVs a year in the world?
Why are we directing investment of citizens into vehicles and even housing that we know is obsolete and excessively wasteful? We don’t sell 486 computers anymore because even though they get most jobs done, they waste resources (eg. time, energy). People buy dual-core CPUs now because they get the same job done that a 486 can do, but in less than half the time, and by using less power. Where’s the sense in buying an SUV (486) that gets 15 Miles Per Gallon (MPG) of gasoline, when you can transport 6 people in an efficient vehicle (dual-core) that gets 30 MPG? Using half the resource (gas) to accomplish the same goal (moving people/equipment) is what is known as efficiency, or SAVING MONEY!
I find it pretty surprising that John Baird ordered this report that determined the government isn’t educating people fast enough on what to do about major purchases/investments. Unfortunately, Baird’s shown himself to be completely useless when it comes to implementing sound environmental policy. His government has done nothing positive on the subject in their 18 months in office, which is completely pitiful. For a so-called mainstream party to not have a workable environment plan upon their election is a disgrace. They’ve been begged by the Green Party to steal the Green Party Green Plan, but still there’s no acting from the now vacationing House.
Unless Canada acts immediately to put a price tag on greenhouse gas emissions, the government risks causing “serious economic dislocation,” an Environment Canada-sponsored report warned Wednesday.
In order to avoid the economic fallout, the report by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy recommends that Ottawa begin clearly mapping out the costs of emissions.
If companies and consumers have enough advance notice about the financial incentives for reducing emissions, they can make appropriate environmental and investment decisions, the paper says.
“If the government neglects to clearly communicate the [greenhouse gas] price schedule well in advance, it risks causing serious economic dislocation…because society’s capital stocks will not be well prepared,” the report warns.
“In essence, inadequate and delayed communication by the government of a [greenhouse gas] ‘price’ could lead to substantial long-term economic costs.”
“Economic dislocation,” is simply a polite phrase for, “Canadians are being totally screwed by Conservative economic disorganization”.
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Paul | 28-Jun-07 at 12:15 am | Permalink
Pretty funny stuff…for a 6 year old.
Saskboy | 28-Jun-07 at 7:33 am | Permalink
Paul, please explain your sentence.
David Mackintosh | 28-Jun-07 at 9:07 am | Permalink
Your use of improvement in the areas of computer technology as an analogy is flawed. The reason why computer companies do not sell 486-based systems is because the cost of making them now exceeds the value that a consumer would be willing to pay. That is, even if a 486 could be built for less money than the current crop of CPUs, the several-order-of-magnitude increase in performance available for a microscopic increase in price makes the 486 a very poor value proposition.
That said, the only way we are going to discourage inefficient energy consumption is by making the cost of the energy high enough to limit people’s ability to consume it. Sticking even an extra $5000 on the cost of a SUV is not going to slow the sales of the vehicles; however, increasing the cost of the gas needed to move it around to $3 per liter will kill the consumer SUV market dead. Most greenies don’t like this idea, they seem to think that they shouldn’t bear costs proportionate to their consumption, as if the emissions coming from the back of their Toyota Prius’ is somehow less damaging.
Closet Liberal | 28-Jun-07 at 11:15 am | Permalink
Backing up David: the other flaw with the computer tech analogy is that most computer processors sit at 99% idle for 99% of the time. Also dual-cores don’t make applications run faster than single cores as most applications are not multi-core aware.
I agree we need to target consumption costs rather than vehicle costs. Its not the average fuel economy (which has been continuously improving over the years) that’s killing us, it’s the number of vehicles on the road and how far we drive them. If everyone drove a hybrid, we would still have a problem.
Closet Liberal | 28-Jun-07 at 11:20 am | Permalink
That being said, yeah, we can’t ignore the environmental cost impact. So I agree with the basis behind your argument.
Saskboy | 28-Jun-07 at 9:35 pm | Permalink
CL, we’d still have a problem, but it would be only about 60% as bad.
David, I think higher priced gas is fine, but the problem is that the fuel consuming devices being made, are not using the fuel in the efficient way they could be. It would cost a lot less to make an engine like they did in the 1960s, but no one wants something that ineffient or with the other drawbacks it came with. People are already demanding better mileage and engines, but the vehicle makers are not coming through with many mass produced models to make the pricing competitive with the more wasteful standard engines.