Ontario's Climate Change Action Plan

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scomac
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Re: Ontario's Climate Change Action Plan

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I attended a family barbeque earlier today. One family member had an environmental consultancy business up until retirement. My relation has strong relationships with various levels of government and currently sits on environmental advisory committees for one large sized and one mid sized Ontario community.

We discussed the Climate Change Action Plan initiative as I was interested in this person's perspective. They found that the large sized community was more committed to taking action on this file than the mid sized community. The demographic of the mid sized community were described as older and contrarian versus the large sized community with many more climate change deniers. The mid sized community was very difficult to work with as a result.

Regarding the specifics of the proposed plan that was leaked my relative was very sympathetic indicating that the outlined strategies were sound based on required commitments to cut carbon load. The science is non negotiable and not meeting the targets is not an option was this individuals opinion. Having said that the opinion was that legislators had over estimated the public's appetite for change with Christy Clarke's BC model of tax and rebate likely to be more palatable option. Interestingly enough my relative indicated support for eliminating fossil fuel use completely by the target dates within the plan with the view being that technology would improve the efficiency of electric only and with the advent of wide spread use of autonomous vehicles completely changing transportation needs and efficiency predicting that in the future there will be many less cars and trucks on the road thus eliminating the demands on government to invest in road transportation networks.

Actually, it wasn't much of a discussion; more like a lecture, but then I suppose this person was used to that having been asked to speak on these sorts of issues many times. It seems like a very idealistic view of a future green utopia with tax policy being used to discipline behavior and spending. Sounded a lot like the sort of approach being espoused in the leaked document.
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Shakespeare
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Re: Ontario's Climate Change Action Plan

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I don't disagree that fossil fuel use has to be eliminated but don't think it can be done for a long time - perhaps 2050-60 time frame.

I don't think the latest targets will be met and that some kind of geoengineering will be necessary.

I certainly don't disagree that CO2 causes warming; that was established in the mid 1800's. The difficulty is in modeling the interactions and feedback mechanisms.
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Re: Ontario's Climate Change Action Plan

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Interesting. Pretty clear that your relative knows what side their bread is buttered on. And who pays for the butter.
I wonder if the older, contrarian members of the mid-sized community have just been around too long? Maybe they just lack faith in the government's ability to manage this file without serious damage to Ontario's economy, or in their ability to live affordably in retirement without becoming dependent on government programs. Or maybe they think that leading the charge to reduce Ontario's 0.3% contribution to global ghg emissions with no certainty that the rest of the world is in step with us is foolish.
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Re: Ontario's Climate Change Action Plan

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Shakespeare wrote:
I certainly don't disagree that CO2 causes warming; that was established in the mid 1800's. The difficulty is in modeling the interactions and feedback mechanisms.
This is the problem I have. So much of what we are being fed is based on modeling that may or may not be any more accurate than the predictions of equity analysts. There's a lot depending upon these models and we know that humans are so very fond of looking for patterns where many times none exist beyond random coincidence.
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Re: Ontario's Climate Change Action Plan

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Thermodyamics and molecular spectroscopy are both well understood and say that CO2 will cause the temperature to go up. I remember covering that in Grade 8 science in 1962.

[The modelling says that the feedback mechanisms will increase, not decrease, the CO2 effect - for example by producing more water vapor at the poles. Water vapor also causes a greenhouse effect because of its molecular absorption spectrum.]
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Re: Ontario's Climate Change Action Plan

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OnlyMyOpinion wrote:Interesting. Pretty clear that your relative knows what side their bread is buttered on. And who pays for the butter.
No I don't think that's it. This individual has been a strong advocate of environmental issues for many years before it became a popular cause often times at odds with the existing administrations. It's more like a matter of faith as others have suggested.
I wonder if the older, contrarian members of the mid-sized community have just been around too long? Maybe they just lack faith in the government's ability to manage this file without serious damage to Ontario's economy, or in their ability to live affordably in retirement without becoming dependent on government programs. Or maybe they think that leading the charge to reduce Ontario's 0.3% contribution to global ghg emissions with no certainty that the rest of the world is in step with us is foolish.
It's interesting that my relative has moved into said community, so I'm left wondering how long they will stay there with such a different world view than what is predominant. I think the frustration comes from the lack of vision if you will towards the problems that will affect us all instead focusing on their own individual needs and impacts. We might see the perspective as prudent were others will view it as blind.

I think faith is a very interesting descriptive term here particularly faith in what will come to pass. 50 years from now what is going on in terms of green energy investment and carbon reduction may seem very prescient or it could end up being a fools errand. Only time will be the judge. The only thing I'm sure of with this issue is that whenever you are absolutely certain something will come to pass, invariably you get a curveball and an outcome that you hadn't really counted on for better or worse. What strikes me is the absolute certainty that the believers have, a certainty that is unknowable and that's the scary part.
"On what principle is it, that when we see nothing but improvement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us?"
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Re: Ontario's Climate Change Action Plan

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Well said. Clearly stewardship of the environment just makes common sense. But tackling it is such a gnarly and multi-headed beast.
I despair seeing what prolific consumers we see to have become as a society, whether it is energy or goods we are consuming.
And as recent personal events have shown us in moving parents from house, to small apt, to LTCH room - less and less and finally none of it is coming with us. How much do we really need?
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Re: Ontario's Climate Change Action Plan

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OnlyMyOpinion wrote:Or maybe they think that leading the charge to reduce Ontario's 0.3% contribution to global ghg emissions with no certainty that the rest of the world is in step with us is foolish.
I think it is pretty certain the rest of the world outside northern Europe is not. China is on record as having no plans to do jack squat until 2030. At which time they have committed to nothing more than taking another look. I'm pretty sure India's position is similar. Obama likes to talk the talk but I haven't seen much action out of the US either. So all Canada's efforts won't make any difference even if I prove to be wrong with my pessimistic expectations of the outcome of government meddling and mismanagement and Canada somehow manages to cut emissions by a noticeable measure. The globe is still up sh*t creek without a paddle if atmospheric carbon level danger is all it's cracked up to be.

I fully expect carbon levels to be up where the doomsayers are afraid of by 2030. So maybe we can see who is right (doomsayers vs deniers). Although, much like emission targets, the doomsday can may just get kicked down the road to 2050. Alas, I might not be around at that point even if the planet proves to still be habitable at the time.
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Re: Ontario's Climate Change Action Plan

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Why my hydro bill was $750 this quarter :roll:

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Re: Ontario's Climate Change Action Plan

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An indictment of the Ontario Government's electricity policies. Long in the making Margaret Wente tells it like it is i.e that the Wynne government's policies have been (and are) an unmitigated disaster
Wynne’s way: Rob the poor, help the rich
Apparently the liberal government canvassers in the recent by election got an earful about the cost of electricity from the voters at the door.
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Re: Ontario's Climate Change Action Plan

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And it ain't just at home:
Among the bills collected by French was a $151,000 hydro bill from the City of Oshawa dropped off by Mayor John Henry.
The June 2015 bill was for the City’s 12,639 streetlights which used 66,000 kilo watt hours of electricity. The cost of power was listed as just $3,678.89, representing a fraction of the bill.
Meanwhile the global adjustment on the bill was a whopping $62,325.42. According to the Ontario Energy Board, the global adjustment “reflects the differences between the market price of electricity and the regulated or contract prices that are paid to generators for the electricity they produce”.
Delivery charges added $59,663.31 to the bill while HST totalled $17,404.81, which means tax alone on the bill was more than four times the cost of power.... that streetlight bill means the City is spending about $700,000 a year in global adjustment fees for streetlights alone. He has a similar bill on file for the Legends Centre where the community centre used $8,600 in power and paid a $48,000 global adjustment.

http://www.durhamregion.com/news-story/ ... ne-speech/

Hmm, maybe we should expect to see a move to less detail/transparency in the future to try to stifle the controversy? In other words, "here is your electrical bill, it is $151,000" period.
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