6137

Follow up to that poll, but where are the Yukon and Northwest Territories?

Do they not have representation, or is it so minimal as to be unimportant?

6138

They get one seat each, out of 338.

6139

Cool, makes sense. But as I hadn’t ever considered the composition of Canadian legislatures I wasn’t sure.

6140

And Nunavit. I wondered that too, then looked it up and their collective populations could just about fill up a San Diego ComicCon. Lots of land up there. Not many people.

6141

It would be insane for the conservatives to form a government when only 35% of the population are supporting right-wing parties. The only reason it is a possibility in the first place is due to first past the post voting, which Trudeau refused to touch when in power. It punishes the fracturing of the left vote into several parties. If the conservatives win next week the leftists and environmentalists in Canada have only themselves to blame.

6142

Uh, what?

Edit: oh, I assumed that was a typo because it’s so hard to parse. Just another name for winner take all. I don’t understand the resistance to first-second-third choice balloting by people who didn’t get elected due to a split vote to begin with. Seems like it’s in their interest to make sure the vote reflects the will of the people. Unlike current Republicans who definitely don’t want that.

6143

I’m not well versed on the liberal party in Canada, but I would imagine they are resistant because it allows people on the left to vote for a party that better reflects their views without any guilt. Yet it has happened anyway, and now might cost the liberal party government at a very important time in human history.

6144

Reform the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the same time and I’d be for it. Not that it matters, politics just ain’t gonna allow it.

6145

I think the Liberals would do well enough under a ranked-choice voting, though it is hard to say. That was the form of electoral reform they seemed to favor. Conservatives favored the current system. I think what scared the Liberals was that some type of proportional representation was overall more popular than ranked-choice.

Anyway, it looks like a Liberal minority government, so the carbon tax will stay, and other options might be on the table.

6146

It’s looking like Trudeau will win the Canadian election, and better yet may need support from further-left parties to form a majority.

Trudeau is not exactly a friend of the environment, but he’s not the outright enemy like the denier in the conservative party would have been.

6147

Yes. One of only a few core issues in this election was the carbon tax, and Scheer promised to repeal it on day 1. Glad he won’t get the chance.

The carbon tax is currently $20 a ton (4 cents per liter of gas), and is supposed to rise by $10 a ton each year.

6148

Decent article on the intersection of climate and Canadian politics:

“This should be the last election that any party in this country believes it can win without having a serious plan for climate change,” said Chantal Hébert, a well-known political columnist and a regular on The National 's At Issue panel.

“Don’t give an inch” may have seemed like a brilliant plan before losing the election. But surely some Conservative political strategists must now be having regrets, thinking that by going even partway to creating a convincing climate plan, they might have reassured voters — and thus could’ve prevented the undecided from switching to Trudeau as “less bad” alternative.

I agree that the Conservatives are in a bit of a vice here. They can’t win across the country while being anti-climate, but lose their Alberta base if they are anti-oilsands.

6149

Maybe. It’s true that the conservatives have positioned the issue as climate change vs the economy (of Alberta and Saskatchewan). It seems to have backfired and that’s their own fault.

In my mind if they had a brain they’d adopt a position of “the real cause of climate change and fossil fuel burning is the end-user, not the producer”. Because that’s actually true.

My position is that if Alberta can produce oil with equivalent GHG emissions as the rest of the world, and they’re closer than you might think, they should be allowed to ship it.

Then the world should focus on lowering end-user demand, through carbon tax, EV subsidies, renewable power subsidies etc.

6150

94 degrees outside in late October, Florida. I’m more or less resigned to expecting this geographic region to be underwater in 100 years, although I’m sure it will make for some interesting topography and economics with urban parts of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach sticking up out of the Atlantic Ocean (how long will that last, though?).

6151

I agree that carbon emissions are properly assigned to the consumer. At the same time, I don’t know how it makes sense as a planet to be further developing oil extraction at this time. Say the world follows your advice and demand for oil plummets. Doesn’t that leave oil sands development and pipeline construction as basically wasted effort?

6152

He said: "The Paris accord would have been shutting down American producers with excessive regulatory restrictions like you would not believe, while allowing foreign producers to pollute with impunity.

“What we won’t do is punish the American people while enriching foreign polluters,” he said, adding: “I’m proud to say it - it’s called America First.”

[insert shrug emoticon]

6153
6154

Yeah that could be true, but there may be more immediate payoffs with pipelines being better economically and safer than shipping by rail. The lack of pipelines has meant that the local price of Alberta oil plummeted to basically free last year. Some refineries in the US were getting Alberta oil for $10 a barrel (due to getting far more oil forced down their throat than they could accept). Free oil is also bad for climate change in the long run.

6155

The free oil is bad for the producers, but I think the limited pipelines is actually limiting the overall price drop for the consumers. If pipelines had been in place, that extra oil supply hits the broader market, making oil more attractive to the consumer AND the producers get a lot more money. Which is great for Alberta, but I think overall it’s just sending the economic signal: “hey, let’s dig up and burn more carbon”.

In the long term, I think there are three scenarios for Alberta:

  1. Alberta invests heavily in the oil sands, oil demand remains high, we hit 6C warming and start rolling the dice to see if we trigger runaway effects and all die.

  2. Alberta invests heavily in the oil sands, oil demand plummets due to global climate policy. Economic devastation for the province.

  3. Alberta gradually winds down oil sands production and invests heavily in something else to provide an economic foundation in the future.

6156

Trump admin kills 10,000 Americans. No one bats an eye.