To the Editor:
Did you know that George Shultz is 96 years old? And that he is walking and talking climate change?
That old joke about not looking a day over 70 holds true for him. He proposes for the United States a carbon tax.
His carbon tax will be returned to the taxpayers, all of it. He estimates that refund will be between $2,000 and $3,000 a year.
Shultz’s proposed rate is $20 per ton. I read in the Edmonton Sun that our carbon tax rate is $20 per metric tonne. The difference between their ton and ours is about 200 pounds, ours being the larger of the two.
My refund cheque was $100. This to be paid three times a year. The difference between the refund we actually get and the one Shultz projects gives me nosebleeds.
Just to upset Olsen, I say that the carbon tax and the green energy he so detests could not only make us energy self-sufficient, it could shift the economy away from a sector that you admit is dying but cut down on pollution.
First, I would be very wary of going anywhere near a business deal with the Americans while they are sorting out the irregularities in the White House. President Donald Trump wanted to tweak NAFTA and they were already getting a deal. Who knows what foolishness will erupt from their seat of government next? Your tender feelings will have to find another outlet.
Going green has a lot of very positive options if it is played right. Manufacturing the equipment for the solar panels, installing them…the geothermal option.
Well, that just makes too much sense. There is a webpage by a company who drilled the bore holes for a bunch of condominiums in Calgary where it is primary source of heat. Did I say drilling?
Wind, biomass, and wood all have their place as well. Which combination of the above will change according to your location, but they can all work. They can also help Albertans work.If they use the carbon tax funds for that, it could be just the sweetest solution.
Yes, there is climate change. The geologists and paleontologists and a whole bunch of other geologists say so. Even the major oil companies did, years before all those deposits of oil and gas in the Arctic were discovered. Those companies you mentioned may be pulling out in part because of the low hanging fruit found elsewhere.
The natural cycle is in the mess but pollution is definitely accelerating it. It’s also polluting our air, ground, and water. The carbon tax may just be the tax to set us off down the right road.
The fossil fuel industry will likely never again be what it once was, but there are other ways, cleaner more self-sustainable ways and they are getting better all the time.
As for the fact that environmentalists aren’t denouncing Nigeria and Saudi Arabia for their human rights abuses, that’s not their job. They are environmentalists.
But human rights activists, they are another matter. They have a lot to say about these countries and others.
Did you know that the estimate was that in 2014 there were some 30 million people in some sort of slavery or indentured servitude?
Get over it, Olsen, the world isn’t what you though it was. It never was and it never will be.
But, it might be better.
Eva Sartorius,
High Prairie