There are better ways to improve affordability, such as policies to reduce housing, child care and other major costs of living

Whenever I hear politicians propose to cut the carbon price, I can’t help but think back to my childhood growing up with divorced parents.

On the rare occasions my dad took me for weekends, he would offer me candy and let me stay up late.

“Why can’t you be more like him?” I’d yell after returning home as my mom made me do my homework, eat vegetables and go to bed on time.

So it is with proponents of Axe the Tax. They offer us candy, when the federal government, like my mom, expects us to live responsibly.

…

But a politician’s promise that pollution can be free is no more realistic than my childish fantasy that I could live on candy alone.

We are all entangled in an energy system that helps and harms our children. While it enables us to taxi our kids around, and keep them warm, it also poisons the air they breathe, evaporates the water they need to drink and burns the forests in which they play.

…

To preserve summers without smoke, winters when our kids can ski, water they can drink and forests and wildlife with which they can live in awe.

That’s why we pay for our pollution.

This dude gets it. We need to do so much more, but walking back the carbon tax is a terrible idea.

https://archive.is/kpZQu

  • tunetardis
    20·
    8 months ago

    There is also the ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure aspect to all this. The anti-carbon tax camp loves to blame rising costs on essentials like groceries on the tax (conveniently forgetting to mention that aside from it being a minor contributor, the rebates are specifically put in to address this).

    But you know what else will raise the price of food? Climate change. I think it’s fair to say that it has already contributed to shortages of certain items and you can bet it’s only going to get worse to the point that we will be looking back on the prices today nostalgically before long.

    • BCsven
      6·
      8 months ago

      There was a study on how pollution stops pollinators smelling the plants, which will lead to a feedback loop of less yield and less pollinators