Carbon Tax

[Mr. North]

Well it's finally on the horizon. A Carbon Tax is potentially just around the corner. Harbour Air is already a step ahead being the first carbon neutral airline in North America. While I'm all for it, I doubt it will be so easy for other operators/airlines whose profits aren't nearly as comfortable.

http://www.harbour-air.com/home/index.p ... ca50d18347

[Phaedrus]

Well I hope it's voluntary, cause I expel CO2 with every breath and I don't plan on paying for the privilege.

[viccoastdog]

Harbour Air did it because their single biggest customer is the provincial government, and as you may remember the provincial government made an announcement recently about reducing their 'carbon footprint'. The story in the papers and on HA's website about the 'younger employees' requesting the carbon offsets because they're concerned about the environment is just that...a story. Instead it is a brilliant marketing ploy to keep provincial employees form going to WCA or HJ as a first choice.

The whole carbon offset stratergy is a spurious, feel-good idea with hard to decipher benefits. I've read of some carbon offsets being purchased (not HA ones) that paid a poor family in Asia NOT to get piece of mechanized equipment, but instead to keep using their children to hand pump water from a well. All so we can feel good about burning 100 or 200 litres of 100LL or Jet A an hour.

[cessnafloatflyer]

Not to mention the oil that comes out of the Beaver!

[2milefinal]

Carbon Offsets.
I can plant my own trees. Thanks

[MichaelP]

Carbon Tax

The words "Get Real" come to mind.
Is there not enough taxes in Canada?

I spent most of the year before last in the most polluted country in the World, China.
One of the carbon offset projects I saw on the goggle box was wind turbines for China...
So we put more money into China?
I understand China is one of the richest countries in the World, they have more US dollars than the Americans do, and they are not interested in saving the environment.

I was told that many of the newer factories in China have the technology that cleaned the air up in England in the 1960s when the London smog finally brought in the Clean Air Act.
But the Chinese are so intent on making money for the few that they don't turn it on.
The many people who were the whole reason for Communism are kept poor and unhealthy... The old die young.
In China there are few pilots healthy enough to fly at my age.

A Clean Air Act should be enacted in Toronto where the air is often reported to be unhealthy.

There are many things Canada can do to do it's part towards Carbon Offset and a good chunk of money for it could come from so many "Waste Of Time and Money Projects" involved in Political Correctness and the biggest one of them all "Bilingualism".

The best way to offset carbon pollution is to not create the stuff in the first place...
Canada, and BC specifically, has been developing Hydrogen technologies... But it appears the car manufacturers are so tied into the oil companies that this technology is not being adopted quickly.
It's for the government to make the policies that make the use of hydrogen and other technologies acceptable...
Of course Canada is the biggest exporter of oil to the USA and so its high price is good for the economy... If everyone began to go environmental the oil price would drop, not so good for the economy...
My simplistic view, what do I know, I fly aeroplanes!

[North Shore]

So why not use the take from the carbon tax to subsidise the development of alternative fuels/vehicles/electricity/public transit etc..? Except they won't...it'll go into general revenue, and get pissed away on some vote-buying scheme.