Vote on environmental issues, scientists urge

More support for strategic voting!

TheStar.com - Vote on environmental issues, scientists urge:

"More than 120 of Canada's top climate scientists have signed an open letter criticizing Conservative government policy and urging Canadians to vote 'strategically' for the environment in next week's federal election.

'Global warming is the defining issue of our time,' said Andrew Weaver, a lead author with last year's Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

Here is the link to the original letter, and some quotes (emphasis added):

We have been disturbed by what we perceive to be a lack of attention to the environment during this election campaign. While it’s clear the public accepts that global warming is a threat, it seems people have simply no idea how serious this issue is. Global warming is without a doubt the defining issue of our time, and we cannot let economic turmoil in the USA dissuade us from addressing the problem. Dealing with the environment means dealing with economics in a sustainable way.

Global warming is a problem that must be dealt with now, before it’s too late. Any further delay will only increase the risks of damage and costs of action. The world needs to start down a path of greenhouse gas reduction to avert the most serious consequences of global warming. Many may not realize that even if we immediately stabilized atmospheric greenhouse gases at current levels, the Arctic would still go ice free in the summer, between 10% and 25% of the world’s species would still be committed to extinction, and weather will continue to become more extreme.

Economists around the world agree. There is only one way to deal with global warming. And that is to put a price on emissions. This can be done through either a carbon tax, a cap and trade system, or both.

The carbon tax provides price certainty, is easier to implement, more transparent, easy to make revenue-neutral and less open to abuse. Cap and trade systems require self-regulation and reporting, cumbersome bureaucracy to administer and take a long time to implement while details, such as credit for early action, process of awarding emissions permits, and reporting requirements get worked out.

In both cases the price is passed on to the consumer through an increase in the price of carbon-intensive products. In the carbon tax case the consumer sees what price is added whereas it is obscured in the cap and trade system.

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