Once a Climate Leader, Canada Is Doubling Down on Oil - AOS for Lemmy.World - A generic Lemmy server for everyone to use.

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Once a Climate Leader, Canada Is Doubling Down on Oil

8d 2h ago by piefed.ca/u/Sunshine in canada@lemmy.ca from www.motherjones.com

Mark Carney is counting on Alberta’s oil sands to help him survive Trump’s trade agenda.

Canada was never a climate leader.

Sure, we had a tiny carbon tax, but any honest assessment of the facts would include the billions spent on fossil infrastructure at the same time.

Carney has merely done away with Trudeau's pretence of climate responsibility. If we wanted action on climate, we wouldn't elect Liberals.

It's an American website. Their standards are lower than the temperature in Nunavut in February.

I wonder who the climate leaders were, by the metric of countries with significant oil reserves, then.

Costa Rica is kind of famous for getting to carbon neutrality first, but they had the opposite helping hand from geography.

We're not grading on a curve, and simply having reserves doesn't obligate us to burn them.

You can't call yourself a "leader" on the climate when you're routinely winning "Fossil of the Day" awards during international climate talks. That's not a champion of the climate, it's a villain.

Being the best of a list of villains (and we're not even that) doesn't make you the good guy. We're burning the world. We're the bad guys. The only area we've been leaders is in obstruction of progress, though we often have to fight for this title with the US.

Villains belong in stories; real life is shades of gray.

There's no grey in the science. We're burning the world, and attempts to sound enlightened with platitudes doesn't change that.

Sure there is good and evil in all of us, but the point of living in a global society is to integrate the feedback received from others and hopefully become less evil in whatever we have done bad in.

Ignoring the feedback is at the very least behaving like the villain - if we want to shy away from ascribing such potentially reductive labels.

Who's feedback? Don't forget, most people (here and around the world) prefer wealth over conservation, and it's not close. The carbon tax had to be rolled back because it was massively unpopular and people wanted to burn gas for free. Other countries never put one in in the first place!

OP seems like the kind of person who likes to reduce the world to a binary, and is working backwards from that. Their "evidence", as a result, was basically just a collection of random stuff. If you actually look at our climate record vs. what our choices were in the first place, with no cherry-picking, we come out looking pretty green.

If you want to ask if we mostly do good or bad as a country in general, it's of course a much larger discussion. A good portion of Lemmy thinks North Korea is somehow great, after all (speaking of defying global feedback).

I see cake, i congratulate cake. Thank you for being on the fediverse!

(0 - 0)ゝ

Glad to be here!

The third anniversary of one of the big Reddit exiles.

I am seeing lots of cake these days.

Yup, the big Reddit exodus to this point, as far as I'm aware.

Lemmy is very slowly shrinking, so hopefully there's another coming. Maybe geopolitics could do it.

Thanks for sharing - this is an excellent overview of...gestures broadly to the state of things.

Carney is an old school money guy and that is in his wheelhouse. Hopefully the ridiculous gas prices will propel and support the EV's, causing them to be included faster.

Canada can be a climate leader.

Focus on responsible extraction and distribution of fossil fuels and insist on a commitment to move away from them from our main customers. Right now some of them need a bit of a break since a pivot like that doesn't happen overnight and they're dealing with insane prices from Donna's fake war.

Invest in and become a leader in what's next - don't listen to Marlaina "Melania" Danielle Smith - provide relief to the losses they will incur as we pivot and ban their aspirations for independence and focus on what's next for them as part of Canada - shut the other dialogue down right now.

Fundamentally we have been a country that digs shit out of the ground and still are - the pivot won't happen overnight and our service economy game is too weak to compete with the US so don't - do something else. This requires thinking outside of what currently profits our elites. So....offer them a new way to profit while divesting them of their current profit machine. They won't go silently and we aren't Socialism Now nor will we ever be unfortunately so let's be "responsible profits now"

he was a banker, and always acted like one.

The climate leading legislation was some of the most unpopular in recent memory and nearly put in a Conservative government with half as many guardrails as the current Liberal government.

It's a pluralistic society with many people who have differing opinions.

The question is why it's unpopular. Canadians are some of the most drastically affected people by current climate trends in the developed world, and yet, any action to mitigate it is seen as more dangerous than our homes burning down, our crops failing, and our elders and children dying from heat stroke. Why is the messaging not resonating with Canadian's lived experience? Differing opinions are all well and good, but believing something that is demonstrably false isn't an "opinion", it's a delusion. I find it hard to believe we're suffering from an epidemic of psychosis for no discernible reason, so where is it coming from and how do we mitigate it.

It's a lack of education combined with willful ignorance. No one wants to accept that the Canadian way of life: monster trucks connecting suburbs masquerading as cities, massive energy waste combined with fossil fuel underpinning the economy -- is in direct contradiction to a habitable planet... so they pretend it's not a problem.

Source: my whole family lives in the Okanagan. They all think like this, regardless of their political spectrum.

I mean, the Canadian Way of Life^TM is a construct, not even a particularly old one at this point, and far from universal. I feel your frustration, I'm in deep blue Alberta, so I can relate to being surrounded by the deeply deluded, but there are ways to break the machine that's keeping them fed a steady diet of lies and fantasies. We can't have a real conversation until we're all living in the same reality.

This reminds me of an excellent video I saw about "AI" the other day: "We are so deeply steeped in bullshit that we have forgotten that there used to be such a thing as 'truth'". It's long, but maybe you'll like it too.

I'd suggest there a bunch of reasons:

Tragedy of the commons. Any one country opting for painful costs doesn't meaningfully change the global calculus. In the meantime, that country's businesses and people suffer in the name of the greater good. (If the last half dozen years have demonstrated anything, it's that people really dislike price increases.)
Meaningful action is painful. People like being able to drive around, eating meat, flying for vacations etc. A serious conversation about climate change by definition increases the cost associated with those.
Any actual gains from slowing climate change would take decades to feel. In the meantime, from talking to a lot of folks with whom I disagree on the subject, the sense seems to be some miracle solution is more likely to come along (fusion etc) first.
A lot of people work in the affected industries (not just oil and gas directly, jut think of the spinoffs and other dirty industries like making concrete etc.) There's that old Sinclair quote:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

Ok, glad to have some valid engagement. So here's the problems I see with this analysis.

There's lots of countries now that have made huge headway in the transition. The cost of the tech is almost negligible at this point and the returns are starting to mount for early adopters. If we don't move soon, we're going to be the third world backwater burning animal dung for fuel by comparison. Tragedy of the Commons was applicable 20 years ago. Anyone with an accurate understanding of the current situation should be well into the "Fear of Missing Out" stage.
See 1, the cost of not transitioning and throwing good money after bad to try and save the buggy whip makers is making us all poorer.
At this point in the conversation, even leaving out the impossibility of undoing the damage we've already done to our grandchildren, there's plenty of good reason to start making changes. We don't even need "Miracle Solutions" we just need to leverage our own strengths (see 4).
We already had a deep-bore geothermal prototype running near Kindersley Saskatchewan and a plan in place to try building a full scale power plant near Regina. Alberta has more experience drilling holes than almost any other place on earth, we have the tools, talent and training to build baseline green energy. With the new microwave-waveguide drilling techniques currently being explored we could bore deeper than we've ever gone in history too. We have some of the worlds largest uranium and thorium reserves in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and the expertise to make use of them. No one needs to lose their jobs. We don't need to send our rig pigs to coding bootcamp, we need to move the rig a bit and change what we're drilling for. This isn't magic. This is going to create jobs, good jobs with futures.

The Carbon Tax cost Albertans less than the taxes that keep the highways paved, and if Dani hadn't decided to snatch our rebates to help offset the cost, most of us would have been making money on it. My question is why am I the only one that seems to know any of that? Who is feeding people bad narratives and why, and how do we fix that.

This seems very optimistic and also missing the point in a few ways.

For any individual nation, the choice isn't a binary transition or not. While Canada is allowing more pipelines, plans referred to the major office include nuclear and multiple hydro plants, major electrification etc.

Yes, China has made great strides but among peers or the OECD, we're sitting pretty even. (There is a reason the extra cost of oil because of Iran has caused such significant problems elsewhere.)

To the original points:

You seem to misunderstand the tragedy. The climate is a global good but the profits/benefits are not. So, for pipelines etc, the true long term cost is borne by 8 jillion or so people but the profits spread to basically Canada.
No idea what bad money we're throwing at the problem having planes, meat etc.
I can't see the point you're making here. Again, any change takes decades to materialise while the costs are now. Sure, there are good reasons but for an average person you're asking current sacrifices for a possible future that might not end up being entirely necessary.
Yeah, but having the possibilities of other jobs doesn't mean the current jobs don't exist. Again, in an all of the above strategy with global costs and local profits, the rational strategy would instead be to pursue both. (No reason you can't have oil workers and uranium miners.)

To your larger question about narratives, I'd argue it's stuff like this. We've chosen a highly progressive alternative social media on which we only see stuff that fits our narrative. Most folks have chosen similar echo chambers and news sources and are convinced that the others are ignorant or naive.

Let me clarify a bit, I glossed over some bits in my reply.

I understand the principal of tragedy of the commons, and it was very relevant in the past, but the cost of moving to new energy paradigms hasn't stood still. There's still a cost involved but it's not the insurmountable obstacle it once was given the significant uptake , not only in China, but in Europe and even emerging markets. Furthermore, in terms of longer term success we are losing ground to other OECD peers who already have both near and long term plans to deploy new energy infrastructure. Plans that will only accelerate with the pressure of instability in the middle east.
By throwing good money after bad, I'm referring to the enormous amount of wasted subsidies we've spent on our foreign owned oil companies that could and should have gone to expanding other sectors. Canadian taxpayers are already deeply in the hole on at least one pipeline, and now it seems quite likely we'll be spending on several more in the coming years. Money that could be going to putting Canadians to work in other productive industries that would be just as effective as putting "meat on the table" and have better long term prospects. This isn't a question of short term pain or not, were going to hurt any way we move forward, the question is which industries are worth the cost.
I think you're overestimating just how big a transition we're talking about, this isn't multi-decade long timelines, this is maybe, a decade if we're estimating conservatively. We don't need to wait for far flung future tech or massive reskilling the tools are here, the skills are here, the opportunity is shovel-ready and could be generating revenue in time scales that aren't a significant burden. All we're missing is the investment capital, which would be easy to find if we took our thumb off the scales.
I'm not asking us to shut down the patch and outlaw gasoline. I'm talking about spending taxpayers on an industry that is making phenomenal levels of profit and is set to have an unfathomably good few years ahead, or taking advantage of a period where they will be more than capable of taking care of themselves, or investing in infrastructure that will keep us going indefinitely.

One final note, you seem to believe this is all a fantastical progressive pipe dream. You didn't say it, but it was subtly implied. I'm a 40 year old Albertan, a father in a nuclear family, who enjoys going shooting and taking the RV out on the weekends, and I work in the oil patch. These information silos aren't inevitable. They're engineered. Hope is not a socialist conspiracy. Wanting a country my son and daughter can live in and be proud to be part of in 50 years is not ivory tower nonsense, and this information ecosystem isn't the natural product of free choice. People are being manipulated, and I don't believe that it's inevitable that there is no other way it could be.

To your points... :

I understand the principal of tragedy of the commons

I think maybe I don't understand your point or you're thinking of something else?

The tragedy of the commons is when there is no cost (or too low a cost) associated with a public good, in this case the climate. Each individual actor (nations in this case) has an incentive to overuse the common good (aka, pollute) as it doesn't benefit any one actor to stop.

For the situation to not be a tragedy of the commons, the cost of polluting would have to fall below the price of alternatives. When we hit that point, pipelines are no longer profitable etc. Unfortunately, that's not where we are. You can say in the future we'll be there, and that's probably true but right now, which is when we are, it is not.

other OECD peers who already have both near and long term plans to deploy new energy infrastructure.

We are doing this as well. As I said earlier, it's an all of the above approach, which is much like what our peers are doing. Yes, there's looking at new gas/oil but there's also major electrification projects, nuclear and if memory serves, we're looking into windmills or some such in the East.

wasted subsidies we’ve spent on our foreign owned oil companies

Okay, those have happened but we can't just recover those. We'll see what partners step forward for a new pipeline but I'd be surprised to see much in the way of subsidies.

, this isn’t multi-decade long timelines, this is maybe, a decade if we’re estimating conservatively

That's wild and as far as I've seen, not supported by an major credible organization. You might look at how little COP30 was able to agree upon. Heck, even some of the best proposals, like the EU's CBAM (carbon border adjustment mechanism) would likely take a half decade just to negotiate! Or how long major energy projects actually take (look at the site C dam in my province of BC for a sobering reminder of the glacial pace of change.)

I’m not asking us to shut down the patch and outlaw gasoline. I’m talking about spending taxpayers on an industry that is

Okay, but A, that doesn't get us closer to net zero and B) it doesn't look like we're going to be expanding much in the way of taxpayer money on this. There might be a partnership on a pipeline but I'd be surprised if there weren't some hefty price sharing mechanisms.

One final note, you seem to believe this is all a fantastical progressive pipe dream.

Sort of. I think moving to net zero is essential but I also think that doing so in a way that is realistic, achievable and won't be undone by the next government is essential. It's part of why I think Carney's actually doing a fairly good job. We had an industrial pricing scheme that was largely ignored in Alberta. We also have multiple provinces openly flirting with secession (even Wab Kinew wasn't "that's fucking dumb" it was "hey, let's give the Federal government a chance." For all the lovely words we had from Trudeau, few of his policies remain because they didn't have a broad political consensus. To go wildly ambitious means things will last as long as the Conservatives don't take power, which without Carney is pretty much until we're not scared of trump and the NDP and Liberals go back to splitting our votes as we did between 2006 and 2015. (Look how much trump has been able to roll back and how quickly, and that's in the American system which is designed to obstruct change, quite the opposite of ours.)

Right now, we have the groundwork being laid for a transition, electrification across the nation, multiple new green energy sources, mines to access the materials needed for the transition and most important of all, broad consensus across the country. Like I said in the beginning, we live in a pluralistic society and thus have to accommodate many views. If we want a change to be durable, there have to be compromises.

Personally, I'd be more proud of a country that actually made the transition, not one that said nice sounding things when the right people were in charge and then undid those when the other side took charge etc. In the end, I care about the results, not how they make me feel.

This, this is what I'm talking about. Ontario, Quebec, BC, they all have abundant hydro-power. We don't have that in the prairies. We do have this. We have unique plate tectonics that make deep bore geothermal safe, abundant and potentially limitless.

https://deepcorp.ca/

There was originally a plan to use this tech for the data centre in Grand Prairie Alberta before the powers that be insisted on making natural gas powered. It's cost effective, and it has enough capacity to completely substitute domestic fossil fuel baseline power. It doesn't need to entirely displace oil for export, it just needs to displace domestic consumption. Furthermore, if you pair it with the carbon capture tech from Carbon Engineering out of Squamish BC you could have massive carbon neutral liquid synthetic gas for export and domestic use.

https://carbonengineering.com/

Neither of these are "way out there" ideas. They're real, on the ground projects that we just don't fund because we're too obsessed with selling our fossil fuel reserves. Those deep bore power plants, they use the same tools, tech and skills we use right now for digging conventional oil wells, and a little bit of the hydro-fracking process our engineers invented. These aren't 50 year projects, they're maybe a decade to spool up. I'm not talking windmills or solar, although they would be nice too. I'm not looking at fusion plants or thorium molten salt reactors (MSRs), these are projects we've got right here right now, shovel ready. And I'm going to guess you've never heard of any of them.

And what is your point?

I mean that as politely as possible. But as I've said almost ad nauseum, there's an all of the above approach. Sure, these sound like great projects, so what's wrong with doing them in addition to the current mix?

One profitable enterprise does not mean another profitable enterprise can't exist. So, if these are destined to be profitable, why not have them alongside the other proposed projects?

Edit: It's not like the pipeline memo has stopped progress on the nuclear plants, the electrification project, the hydro ones etc...

My point is, you're still looking at it as Tragedy of the Commons and it's not. It hasn't been for a long time.

We're not going to find a private investor for those pipelines. How long before Carney announces tax payers are going to pick up the tab to shut up the Alberta separatists? We're sinking millions into tax breaks, subsidies, and remediation for existing oil companies that aren't pulling their weight economically and sticking Canadians with the bill. This isn't a "Canada only benefits" situation. We're spending billions and we're going to spend more billions to make rich foreign oil executives richer instead of demanding they pay their own way. The opportunity cost of these subsidies is tax dollars not going to projects like this that could future-proof our industries for the next century. That's what I mean by it no longer being a "Tragedy of the Commons" situation. We're suffering for the sake of foreign capital and we don't have to. We need to spend money somewhere to grow our economy. We can spend it on fossil fuel, or we can spend it on this, and both ways are going to create jobs.

We don't need to do anything to oil, we just need to stop throwing money at it and let the market handle it. Let it rise or fall on its own merit. A fraction of what we spend on propping up the industry would be enough to have these programs fielded and generating returns by the early 2030s. You're repeating the Tragedy of the Commons thing, but that's just reciting truths that haven't been valid for nearly a decade, because people keep repeating them. No one has updated their information on the subject since 2015. That's not normal.

How long before Carney announces tax payers are going to pick up the tab to shut up the Alberta separatists?

You're imagining a scenario about what the government is planning and getting angry about it.

What Carney has said over and over again is that a private proponent needs to come forward. There might be some cost sharing but to expect Canada to not take it as an investment is, at best, a little silly.

If the projects you describe are going to be market profitable regardless (which is **required ** to make this not a tragedy of the commons scenario) then the markets can and will do their thing. That's literally how investment works.

It seems like you're angry that no one knows about your special projects rather than the actual climate change policy. Like, the same sort of investments that you're asking for are happening in nuclear, hydro and the requisite electrification. You can't seriously claim that because you can imagine the government eventually paying for a pipeline that we're not moving forward on other things.

It also sounds like you are confusing the subsidies cost with direct subsidies/tax breaks (including the ones most companies get for depreciation etc) my guess is that you're looking at totals which include the externalities (which is literally the exact thing that makes it a tragedy of the commons; the environmental externalities are huge and why the IMF has put our "subsidies" at a huge price tag but it's a price borne by the entire world, as are their pollutants by us.)

Edit: As we're a similar age, I imagine you'll know the Billy Maddison bus driver bit. "Me and Ms Veronica got it on!"

"No you didn't."

"Well, a friend of mine, he and her, they got it on!"

"Naw, they didn't."

"Well, you can imagine what it would be like."

"Okay, I'm gonna go now."

Feels very similar to this insistence that Carney will subsidize a non profitable pipeline.

I never said it wouldn't be profitable. I think if you managed to get started in the next year or so you'll break even by 2035 and be running it net profit for a long time after that. Declining profit, but profit. That wasn't true before the war in Iran, but the calculus has changed. I don't think there will be private investors for a number of reasons, only a fraction of with have anything to do with potential profit.

If the projects you describe are going to be market profitable regardless (which is **required ** to make this not a tragedy of the commons scenario) then the markets can and will do their thing. That’s literally how investment works.

No, that's a significant oversimplification of how markets and investments work. It's something like the oversimplified model of an atom we teach school children; good enough in general, but imprecise, and there's a lot of factors it leaves out. We are not in a conventional or free market at this time.

my guess is that you’re looking at totals which include the externalities (which is literally the exact thing that makes it a tragedy of the commons; the environmental externalities are huge and why the IMF has put our “subsidies” at a huge price tag but it’s a price borne by the entire world, as are their pollutants by us.)

No, those are concerning, but I'm talking about the direct subsidies including failure to enforce our own laws and letting serial criminals make a mockery of us. I'm talking about actual waivers of legal consequences, direct and indirect corruption, and straight up cash infusions, tax waivers, and bailouts during tight seasons.

I never said it wouldn’t be profitable. I think if you managed to get started in the next year or so you’ll break even by 2035 and be running it net profit for a long time after that.

How long before Carney announces tax payers are going to pick up the tab to shut up the Alberta separatists?

If the first set of statements is true, then Canada would be wiser to invest in the damn thing itself, which is a far cry from picking up the tab.

It’s something like the oversimplified model of an atom we teach school children; good enough in general, but imprecise, and there’s a lot of factors it leaves out.

Obviously it's a simplification. We aren't running numbers on a theoretical project here. Come on. And if it isn't good enough to attract private investment etc and oil and gas is... Well, I leave the conclusion as an exercise for the reader.

I’m talking about the direct subsidies including failure to enforce our own laws and letting serial criminals make a mockery of us. I’m talking about actual waivers of legal consequences, direct and indirect corruption, and straight up cash infusions, tax waivers, and bailouts during tight seasons.

You are welcome to share a trustworthy resource that comes to similar findings but I've never seen anything like that from a reputable source. IMF is pretty decent and calculates the vast majority of the costs as externalities.

If the first set of statements is true, then Canada would be wiser to invest in the damn thing itself, which is a far cry from picking up the tab.

See there's an issue with that. Remember I said it was going to create declining profits? It's bad enough when it's a private owner, do want to see what happens when a public crown corp loses 30% of its year-over-year revenue? Take a good hard look at Canada Post.

And if it isn’t good enough to attract private investment etc and oil and gas is… Well, I leave the conclusion as an exercise for the reader.

If we stuck by that logic Canada would still be using whale oil and relying on carrier pigeons for communication. The rules of economics work funny here, because we are living next to the economic equivalent of a black hole. That means Canadian startups have a problem. Canadians don't invest domestically unless it's a guaranteed dividend. We don't do angel investors and our banks are deeply risk averse. Meanwhile foreign investment tends to go south every time, because it's a much bigger market with a gravitational pull that breaks the economic system of its neighbours. Historically, that means every time an emerging industry needs seed capital, they have to turn to the state. Everything from electricity, to telephone, to radio, and even our oil. Our oil sector started out as public, until we sold it off for some quick short-term gains. We do crown corps and public-private-partnerships for all kinds of things for a reason. Those markets couldn't emerge naturally in this environment. So yes, we aren't running theoretical numbers, but we do live at the extreme edge of the universe where the rules work funny.

Apologies, I meant to edit out the silly bits because I knew we'd get distracted.

Meant to just respond:

I’m talking about the direct subsidies including failure to enforce our own laws and letting serial criminals make a mockery of us. I’m talking about actual waivers of legal consequences, direct and indirect corruption, and straight up cash infusions, tax waivers, and bailouts during tight seasons.

You are welcome to share a trustworthy resource that comes to similar findings but I’ve never seen anything like that from a reputable source. IMF is pretty decent and calculates the vast majority of the costs as climate externalities. (ie, the tragedy of the commons.)

And right now, your entire claim seems to rest on this shadowy secret costs that are separate from the often cited climate externalities.

No, that’s a significant oversimplification of how markets and investments work.

You are similarly welcome to share why you believe you have a project that is a viable, long term profitable green energy approach that is simultaneously uninvestable. But so far, your only given reason is this nonsense that “we’re too obsessed with selling our fossil fuel reserves. " That’s not at all how markets work, not even in a simplified child’s model.

But to your points:

Take a good hard look at Canada Post.

Canada Post loses billions a year, that's not making a profit by any model.

Canadians don’t invest domestically unless it’s a guaranteed dividend.

By your logic, almost no Canadian company should exist. Believe it or not, they do.

Canada Post loses billions a year, that’s not making a profit by any model.

Didn't always. See what happens when legacy crown corps slip away into irrelevance?

By your logic, almost no Canadian company should exist. Believe it or not, they do.

I am also simplifying, there's a complex web of motives, completely unrelated to profit, that influence how Canadians invest, but as a general trend we absolutely do not invest in emerging domestic industry. It's got to be a proven market or it won't get a second glance. There's also a threshold above which domestic investment just wouldn't cut it and relying on international cash means trying to land big backers to projects in a market 1/10th the size of our nearest neighbour. This is part of why no one is going to fund the pipelines. They'll be profitable. They won't get built unless we do it ourselves, and we won't be able to sell it off to private markets before it becomes a boat anchor on our economy for a century.

Again... To the actual questions...

I’m talking about the direct subsidies including failure to enforce our own laws and letting serial criminals make a mockery of us. I’m talking about actual waivers of legal consequences, direct and indirect corruption, and straight up cash infusions, tax waivers, and bailouts during tight seasons.

And right now, your entire claim seems to rest on this shadowy secret costs that are separate from the often cited climate externalities.

No, that’s a significant oversimplification of how markets and investments work.

Oh, and as for the findings on direct subsidies, you can get a more nuanced breakdown here: https://environmentaldefence.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Canadas-Fossil-Fuel-Subsidies.pdf

And i the vast majority is counting loan guarantees and preferential rates as subsidies. And instead of calculating the subsidy as say, the difference between the standard and preferential rate, they've taken the entire loan value, which is some nonsense accounting, good for rabble rousing I guess but not applicable for even a child's understanding of investment and subsidies.

Edit: Also, wildly, choosing to count funding green tech like carbon capture as a subsidy.

Carbon capture is dubiously green, there's little evidence it's more than kicking the can down the road, but hey so are tailing ponds and current "remediation" standards. We're very good at overvaluing short term band-aids and not looking the bigger picture.

Okay, and the drastically overcounted billions as noted before?

And the vast majority is counting loan guarantees and preferential rates as subsidies. And instead of calculating the subsidy as say, the difference between the standard and preferential rate, they’ve taken the entire loan value, which is some nonsense accounting, good for rabble rousing I guess but not applicable for even a child’s understanding of investment and subsidies.

You can cut down the calculation to the difference between standard and preferential rate and still have enough to build half a dozen geothermal/syngas plants along the Trans-Canada corridor, which will in turn provide a foundation for more industrial expansion and transport infrastructure the west so desperately needs, create tens of thousands of new, high productivity jobs, and future-proof us for generations as a global energy hub. Once they have made back the initial investment+interest, privatize them and let the market do its job, we just need that initial surge to reach escape velocity. You want a Western Canadian moon-shot that can bring the country together, there it is.

What on Earth are you ball parking the preferential rate, the commercial rate and the difference to come to that conclusion?

My back of the envelope math puts the cost of a half dozen projects at a less than ten million apiece. If you can't find 10 million in funding for a profitable green tech in this day and age, that says there's something sketchy about the projects.

Edit: Jesus, closer to 5 million. If you can't find backers for a project that costs a little more than a year of goaltending from Tristan Jarry, that says a LOT about those projects.

Because every time someone says "Hey lets try geothermal" the UCP screams "NO MUST BE NATURAL GAS!!!" Why? Because their donor base doesn't want to spend a decade waiting for returns to break even on a bunch of new infrastructure, they want returns next quarter. The idea of a long-term investment in anything but AI is a non-starter in the current market so something that takes a decade to break even on is completely out of the question. Do you want me to go line by line explaining this to you, or do you even care? We're in the middle of internet nowhere and no one here has the power to make any of this happen. We're at what, 20 replies deep on an obscure forum no of consequence uses? You're not saving the world by casting doubt on a solution no one can see, so why do you care?

There's a delightful irony considering you started the exchange with:

but believing something that is demonstrably false isn’t an “opinion”, it’s a delusion. I find it hard to believe we’re suffering from an epidemic of psychosis for no discernible reason, so where is it coming from and how do we mitigate it.

And then, when we dove into your claims about billions of subsidies, we're down to a handful of millions (in other words, you were arguing for a demonstrably false claim, which according to you is delusional.)

I'm not sure how we mitigate this silliness. Financial literacy? People willing to point out that "hey, those billions aren't quite what you think they are?"

I mean, wild claims like

The idea of a long-term investment in anything but AI is a non-starter in the current market

are just lunacy.

And now, when confronted with the reality of your position its "why do you even care, we're on an obscure forum."

But, why do I care? I'm always curious, you seemed fairly rational at first and I believe we learn best when challenging or examining our ideas, I wondered if you knew something I didn't. It turns out, you just haven't really looked into the things you claim. Maybe you'll examine them a bit more carefully in future? Maybe not. But I believe the only way to mitigate folks believing things that are demonstrably false is rational discourse.

Then prove me wrong, because all you've done thus far is prove you don't want to hear answers.

Pardon? I've already shown the billions you claim are being spent in non climate externalities are nonsense.

You're now at the point where you're claiming the entire market doesn't plan long term (unless bizzarely, for oil and gas because, I dunno, bad guys.)

So far, the sum total of evidence on your side is "random dude who has no idea how finance and investment work claims none of it works for mysterious reasons."

I’m talking about the direct subsidies including failure to enforce our own laws and letting serial criminals make a mockery of us. I’m talking about actual waivers of legal consequences, direct and indirect corruption, and straight up cash infusions, tax waivers, and bailouts during tight seasons.

And right now, your entire claim seems to rest on this shadowy secret costs that are separate from the often cited climate externalities.

No, that’s a significant oversimplification of how markets and investments work.

You are similarly welcome to share why you believe you have a project that is a viable, long term profitable green energy approach that is simultaneously uninvestable. But so far, your only given reason is this nonsense that "we’re too obsessed with selling our fossil fuel reserves. " That's not at all how markets work, not even in a simplified child's model.

Edit: Clarity.

People seem to miss this point but it is valid. If the Liberals had tried to continue the Trudeau climate policies they would have basically ceded government to the Conservatives who are pretty much Maple flavoured MAGA these days. I have no doubts that that would've been a worse outcome for all.

Except the carbon tax was proposed by the Conservatives initially because actually guard rails were being proposed.

Poilievre has repeatedly railed against the industrial carbon tax as well as the consumer one.

Yeah, he was doing that during his leadership bid as well against the other Con candidates.

So what on Earth are you trying to say?

The idea came from the Cons. The party existed before PP was leader if you didn't know.

And this matters because?

Clearly he almost won for something else other than him saying how much he hates conservative legislation.

I have no idea what you are trying to say. Like Poilievre is lying when he says he'd repeal the industrial carbon tax because it was actually a Conservative idea?

Clearly he almost won for something else

So you feel Poilievre is lying when he says he’d repeal the industrial carbon tax?

I'm saying people voted him for his other policies.

But he's still saying government should repeal the industrial carbon tax... So why wouldn't he?

I never said he wouldn't.

Then I have no idea what the point of your original comment was, nor do I care.

To slightly paraphrase Billy Maddison:

What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having _read _ it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

He has a tight twink body, I wouldn't blame people for voting for him.

It was a minority of Canadians who supported the conservatives but thanks to first-past-the-post they could’ve had more than half of the seats.

And under a PR system, being the party with the most support would allow the Conservatives to partner with an even more radical party (consider Israel, or the Czech's far right Motorist's party) while avoiding accountability.

Under fptp, we might dislike the government but blame generally apportions to a party, enabling accountability and meaningful political change.

even more radical party (consider Israel, or the Czech's far right Motorist's party) while avoiding accountability.

A mainstream party can get hijacked by extremists and govern with a minority vote share under first-past-the-post. The threshold for far-right politics under our electoral system is much lower.

And under an fptp system, that party is entirely responsible for their actions under said extremist hijacking and can thus be punished at the ballot booth accordingly.

Again, there is not really an equivalent mechanism under PR. Who is to blame for any particular decision in a 4 way coalition?

thus be punished at the ballot booth accordingly.

Not when FPTP has unpredictable results and could actually end up rewarding the questionable party with more seats even if the public reduced their ballot support.

Governments should be elected on the will of the majority not minority.

Again, there is not really an equivalent mechanism under PR. Who is to blame for any particular decision in a 4 way coalition?

People can see who pushed for certain parts of an agreement then not vote for them again extinguishing their political power. That’s why we have journalists investigating the inner-workings of parliament.

A proportional system reflects the views of the people much sooner than first-past-the-post.

People can see who pushed for certain parts of an agreement then not vote for them again extinguishing their political power. That’s why we have journalists investigating the inner-workings of parliament.

That's not at all how politics or investigative journalism work? Those would be closed door negotiations. If you read news from PR systems (DW, any reporting from Israel) you'll learn that while parties broadcast their broad positions, the specific horse trading is quite secretive.

actually end up rewarding the questionable party with more seats even if the public reduced their ballot support

As also happens in PR. Say last election happened under a PR system with the Conservatives and Bloc being thr party with thr most seats and a partner to push them into majority territory. You'd then have what I presume you'd categorize as an extremist party combined with a purely regional party making decisions for everyone.

This is why Netanyahu, despite being wildly unpopular, still has a pretty good chance of winning elections; small dogmatic parties can combine with several moderately popular ones to control a country. It's a horrifying situation with zero accountability, whereas we know exactly whom to blame and punish accordingly.

Edit: I suppose Sunshine blocked me as I can't respond. For what it's worth, you can't just change the meaning of accountability and democracy to suit your preferences. It's weird.

You do not have any accountability with a political party who has a minority of vote winning most of the seats. Stop being anti-democratic.

The article delves into the government's motives, and in my opinion is at least somewhat sympathetic to them.

I agree that jettisoning the consumer carbon tax may have been a necessary move to kneecap the Conservatives...but that doesn't mean there won't also be negative consequences to doing so.

On a similar note, the Liberals are getting loads of justified criticism for the Alberta pipeline "deal"...but few people are talking about the whole thing requiring a private company that's willing to step up and build the thing, which...I don't think I'd bet money on that.

All of which is to say...it's a mess, at best. I have a bunch of conflicting thoughts and feelings about it.

Honestly, my big hope is that Carney is playing a fairly simple game with Alberta. Alberta etc generally blames the Federal government as the one stopping them from more pipelines etc.

I kind of love Carney saying "hey, the Feds will back off. Good luck." While knowing full well that BC Indigenous groups will never allow it. (And frankly, if the bands do say yes, I'm not sure I have the moral standing to disagree.) But Carney has taken away the biggest and best attack lines the Conservatives have. If the BC bands reject the pipelines, the Conservatives will have to defend the significantly less popular position of "over ride the Indigenous rights for oil!"

I think that's the most generous interpretation of it, not that I think it will help tamp down the crazies.

Oh for sure, crazies gonna crazy on all sides.

Crazy Conservatives gonna still blame the Feds for not pipelining, crazy Progressives gonna blame Carney for not forbidding any and all resource development.

But, I do have faith in that moderate middle. I've met more than a few Conservatives who are becoming fans, especially those who've felt their party bending to the crazies.