We're freezing! Isn't it great? The carbon tax must be working!

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

Some amusement on a snowy winter day.  Got around 6 inches of snow last night.  The residual effects of Canada's Carbon (Dioxide) Tax must have drifted down here South of Canada's border.  Well done Canucks on taxing Global Warming into submission!

Rex Murphy: We're freezing! Isn't it great? The carbon tax must be working!

Recent news report: Thanks to the recent deep freeze in North America, Calgary Zoo had to take extreme measures to protect its animals from the weather — including even the most naturally cold-resistant (animals on earth), the zoo’s king penguins.

 

It’s good to see the carbon (dioxide) tax is working so effectually. Especially in areas out West, where it is most critically needed. The Prairie provinces in particular have for years, decades, even earlier been plagued by severely milquetoast weather during the winter season — weather described by more than one hardy farmer as “one parka, no mittens” days.

If you live in the tough northern regions of any of those provinces, a single parka is known as the Prairie swimsuit. “What’s the point of winter without icicles from your eyebrows and hoarfrost on the morning cornflakes?” asks more than one disappointed Westerner.

Fortunately, as the folks out West say more and more these days, “we have government in Ottawa that cares.” They are all onside with Ottawa’s great crusade against unseasonable warmth. In Alberta they are especially thankful. Ex-premier Rachel Notley and PM Justin Trudeau brought the carbon tax here early, and this year we get the benefits. We see now that jacking up the price of oil, gas and home fuel is the sure path to stronger, longer, colder and more bitter winters to our beloved province. No one now denies taxation has a direct link with temperature reduction. How could it ever have been doubted?

It’s at the heart of climate science — it is the E=mc2 of global warming physics — if you tax energy, people will get colder.  ...

Frozen noodles are seen outdoors in Calgary on Jan. 15, 2020. 

 

... Some were skeptical (your author may have been among them) when it was first mooted that putting a tax on fuel and gasoline would actually lower global temperatures. (Boy, are our faces red!) But there are no skeptics now in a winter wonderland when even the migrant polar bears show up in shawls and foot warmers, and every engine block has its own monogrammed electric blanket.  ...

 

... There have been traffic pileups on icy streets, side roads impassable, plows stuck, people not making it to work, buses stuck on Granville Hill, supercars — Maseratis and the like — hurtling helplessly into snow banks. “We finally know what a Canadian winter is. We’re real Canadians now. Thank you, Justin. Thank you, Greta.”

And there’s even more good news. The beloved carbon tax, by lowering temperatures to bare survival limits, has greatly aggravated the demand for electricity to heat homes and businesses. The demand in Alberta, for example is at “an all-time peak,” in obedience to the equation that the colder it gets, the harder it is to keep warm. So the power plants (and the windmills that alone keep them humming) are at an all-time record functioning. Maybe a few are burning oil or coal, but there is really no need to spoil this tale by mentioning that.  ...

 

... I see the day (skeptics be damned) when Vancouver in May will look like Bonavista in January, icebergs in the harbour, and seals clustered around a space heater (powered by bicycle generators) warming their little flippers. We’ll know then that the fight against global warming has been won.  ...

 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

Fourteen below where I am sitting in Northern Vermont, in the hills, at elevation1100 feet above mean sea level, and already I have five foot snowbanks around the parking lot.  Time for some global warming.  Plenty cold enough. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

9 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Fourteen below where I am sitting in Northern Vermont, in the hills, at elevation1100 feet above mean sea level, and already I have five foot snowbanks around the parking lot.  Time for some global warming.  Plenty cold enough. 

Amazing how well Carbon Taxes work in reducing Global Warming.

[Boat + 1,324]

Trumps own government department called NASA claims the world is warming. Because of the inability to google by our far right friends......drum roll...... the NASA web site.

 

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/world-of-change/DecadalTemp

[Boat + 1,324]

23 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Amazing how well Carbon Taxes work in reducing Global Warming.

While chump change political rivals bicker, nobody addresses or even talks about population. Kinda the root cause of consumption/pollution/ global warming/climate change/resource depletion/sea rise in temp and height. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

3 hours ago, Boat said:

While chump change political rivals bicker, nobody addresses or even talks about population. Kinda the root cause of consumption/pollution/ global warming/climate change/resource depletion/sea rise in temp and height. 

You're in Great company boat. Here's a hint though, the billionaires driving this bus don't want you on it. 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

Rex Murphy*... sigh. What's next garbage from Bob Layton*?

*To people who don't follow right-wing biased Canadian news outlets these two are literally the faces of crusty-old-white-guys-with-outdated-views. Tom and Jan probably look similar.

P.S. Weather is not climate.  Yes we had a cold snap, it happens, and we are going right back to above freezing. It's been a mild winter except the last week.

 

 

Edited January 19, 2020 by Enthalpic

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

They just need to spend more money On projects like this

With fine Researchers like him

 

[Jeff_Calgary + 68]

On 1/18/2020 at 1:46 PM, Tom Kirkman said:

The oil imported from Saudi gets processed and sold into Maine for a profit. Governments do not import or own oil in Canada. Private industry does. No one is proposing a pipeline out East since we already have Enbridge line 9 and it was reversed in 2015. This is just political pandering to the uninformed.

[PE Scott + 563]

3 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

They just need to spend more money On projects like this

With fine Researchers like him

 

I'm not sure, maybe he was just conducting research at those strip clubs. Perhaps he was reappropriating federal funds as a sort of scholarship to, no doubt, help some hard working young women through med school! (Some conditions may apply)

Edited January 20, 2020 by PE Scott

[Wombat + 1,028]

On 1/19/2020 at 6:41 AM, Tom Kirkman said:

Some amusement on a snowy winter day.  Got around 6 inches of snow last night.  The residual effects of Canada's Carbon (Dioxide) Tax must have drifted down here South of Canada's border.  Well done Canucks on taxing Global Warming into submission!

Rex Murphy: We're freezing! Isn't it great? The carbon tax must be working!

Recent news report: Thanks to the recent deep freeze in North America, Calgary Zoo had to take extreme measures to protect its animals from the weather — including even the most naturally cold-resistant (animals on earth), the zoo’s king penguins.

 

It’s good to see the carbon (dioxide) tax is working so effectually. Especially in areas out West, where it is most critically needed. The Prairie provinces in particular have for years, decades, even earlier been plagued by severely milquetoast weather during the winter season — weather described by more than one hardy farmer as “one parka, no mittens” days.

If you live in the tough northern regions of any of those provinces, a single parka is known as the Prairie swimsuit. “What’s the point of winter without icicles from your eyebrows and hoarfrost on the morning cornflakes?” asks more than one disappointed Westerner.

Fortunately, as the folks out West say more and more these days, “we have government in Ottawa that cares.” They are all onside with Ottawa’s great crusade against unseasonable warmth. In Alberta they are especially thankful. Ex-premier Rachel Notley and PM Justin Trudeau brought the carbon tax here early, and this year we get the benefits. We see now that jacking up the price of oil, gas and home fuel is the sure path to stronger, longer, colder and more bitter winters to our beloved province. No one now denies taxation has a direct link with temperature reduction. How could it ever have been doubted?

It’s at the heart of climate science — it is the E=mc2 of global warming physics — if you tax energy, people will get colder.  ...

Frozen noodles are seen outdoors in Calgary on Jan. 15, 2020. 

 

... Some were skeptical (your author may have been among them) when it was first mooted that putting a tax on fuel and gasoline would actually lower global temperatures. (Boy, are our faces red!) But there are no skeptics now in a winter wonderland when even the migrant polar bears show up in shawls and foot warmers, and every engine block has its own monogrammed electric blanket.  ...

 

... There have been traffic pileups on icy streets, side roads impassable, plows stuck, people not making it to work, buses stuck on Granville Hill, supercars — Maseratis and the like — hurtling helplessly into snow banks. “We finally know what a Canadian winter is. We’re real Canadians now. Thank you, Justin. Thank you, Greta.”

And there’s even more good news. The beloved carbon tax, by lowering temperatures to bare survival limits, has greatly aggravated the demand for electricity to heat homes and businesses. The demand in Alberta, for example is at “an all-time peak,” in obedience to the equation that the colder it gets, the harder it is to keep warm. So the power plants (and the windmills that alone keep them humming) are at an all-time record functioning. Maybe a few are burning oil or coal, but there is really no need to spoil this tale by mentioning that.  ...

 

... I see the day (skeptics be damned) when Vancouver in May will look like Bonavista in January, icebergs in the harbour, and seals clustered around a space heater (powered by bicycle generators) warming their little flippers. We’ll know then that the fight against global warming has been won.  ...

 

Meanwhile Japan is having worst ski season in 30 years so they don't want LNG from Australia or the US?

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 1/19/2020 at 11:49 AM, Ward Smith said:

You're in Great company boat. Here's a hint though, the billionaires driving this bus don't want you on it. 

In China, Europe, Japan, and others the populations are contracting. Africa could absorb its population if they were more economically advanced but many of their citizens are more interested in migrating out to better their lives. 

Population Problems https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P5E7KXffXhi_nqMJETLjtoVfYdVHr-pVrYWzVg36ykk/edit

India has the biggest problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_India

 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

23 hours ago, Enthalpic said:

*To people who don't follow right-wing biased Canadian news outlets these two are literally the faces of crusty-old-white-guys-with-outdated-views. Tom and Jan probably look similar.

I do want you to know that I really object to your crass descriptive of me.  The one thing that I am Not is a "crusty old guy with outdated views."   I consider your comment a personal slander. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

18 hours ago, PE Scott said:

Perhaps he was reappropriating federal funds as a sort of scholarship to, no doubt, help some hard working young women through med school! (Some conditions may apply)

At one time in Canada, a wag filed for a grant application to set up what he labelled as "Courtesans Canada," to provide "entertainment and other personal services" to man-camps in the Canadian mining country.   The Application was carefully written and received serious attention as Canada at that time (many years ago, during the prime-ministership of Pierre Trudeau) going through an unemployment crunch.  Finally someone inside Ottawa caught on that it was all a hilarious spoof.  The bureaucrats were not amused. 

[Rob Kramer + 696]

19 hours ago, Jeff_Calgary said:

The oil imported from Saudi gets processed and sold into Maine for a profit. Governments do not import or own oil in Canada. Private industry does. No one is proposing a pipeline out East since we already have Enbridge line 9 and it was reversed in 2015. This is just political pandering to the uninformed.

Theres offshore and fracking ban in those areas so the meme is true. Look up corridor resources... if there still called that. Quebec bought their next production lands off them to cancel their drilling and their "old harry" project got placed on permanent hold and their other lands are currently not legal to frac. Who would build a pipeline to those areas knowing this?

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

39 minutes ago, Rob Kramer said:

Who would build a pipeline to those areas knowing this?

The pipeline is not to take oil or gas away.  It is to bring Western oil and gas from Alberta to the urban markets in the East, specifically Toronto and Montreal. 

There are two oil refineries in Quebec: one, the Suncor refinery in Montreal, is currently fed by pipeline from Portland, Maine, using oils from Saudi, Angola, and Norway.  the other refinery is in the town of Levis, Quebec, which is smack across the St. Lawrence River from Quebec City.  Quebec is a deepwater port, water well over 50 feet, so it can handle large tankers and containerships.  I don't know where the Levis refinery sources its crude, but it is a Valero refinery now, and I think Valero is Russian-owned.  Thus it would not surprise me to learn that the crude is actually sourced from Russia itself. 

Both those refineries, and the smaller ones in the Maritime Provinces, could run on Alberta crude.  But because of the loathing of Alberta by the Quebeckers (and even the Torontonians), they would rather buy their crude abroad than pipe it in from Alberta. It is a stupid attitude, but you get that.  Alberta is historically the richest Province in Canada and has been the source of hundreds of billions in transfer equalization payments monies to the poorer provinces, of which Quebec has historically been the greatest recipient.   I had an interesting discussion with a psychiatrist on this, and he made the observation that "dependency fosters rage."   I think that is a very astute observation.  You see the same rage phenomenon in other places, such as in the Middle East.  And you see it in Quebec.  

The upshot is that no pipe is being laid from Alberta to Montreal.   Now, Canada currently has some 16 refineries, most of them quite small operations, some nothing more than bitumen upgraders and asphalt refinery plants.  The biggest is the Irving plant in the port city of St. John, New Brunswick, at about 300,000 bbl/day. Some of the small ones are as little as 12,000 bbl/day.  The players are Husky, Suncor, Imperial Oil, Valero, Irving,  of which Imperial Oil has historically been the biggest player, Imperial being the Canada offshoot of ExxonMobil.  I don't see a solution other than the construction of new refineries in Alberta and the rail shipment of distilled product to markets in Eastern Canada.   The bulk of Canada's 36 million live in the Eastern cities of "Greater Metro Toronto," and Montreal Metro.   Lots of gasoline consumed there.  And there is a thriving aviation market for kero, not to forget.   Cheers. 

PS:  If I had the coin, I would build a big bitumen upgrader in Alberta or Saskatchewan and a set of product refineries next door.  Lots and lots of money to be made given the depressed price of the feedstock, the oilsands oil. 

 

[SERWIN + 749]

Well then, we must be in need of more climate taxes down here in Texas. It has been one of those warm years with  bouts of 70+ degrees interrupted rudely by cold fronts that take the chill down to the 40's on us for a week or so at a time. By golly, we must endeavor to increase the taxes so that the warmth will just go away!!

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

1 hour ago, Jan van Eck said:

The pipeline is not to take oil or gas away.  It is to bring Western oil and gas from Alberta to the urban markets in the East, specifically Toronto and Montreal. 

There are two oil refineries in Quebec: one, the Suncor refinery in Montreal, is currently fed by pipeline from Portland, Maine, using oils from Saudi, Angola, and Norway.  the other refinery is in the town of Levis, Quebec, which is smack across the St. Lawrence River from Quebec City.  Quebec is a deepwater port, water well over 50 feet, so it can handle large tankers and containerships.  I don't know where the Levis refinery sources its crude, but it is a Valero refinery now, and I think Valero is Russian-owned.  Thus it would not surprise me to learn that the crude is actually sourced from Russia itself. 

Both those refineries, and the smaller ones in the Maritime Provinces, could run on Alberta crude.  But because of the loathing of Alberta by the Quebeckers (and even the Torontonians), they would rather buy their crude abroad than pipe it in from Alberta. It is a stupid attitude, but you get that.  Alberta is historically the richest Province in Canada and has been the source of hundreds of billions in transfer equalization payments monies to the poorer provinces, of which Quebec has historically been the greatest recipient.   I had an interesting discussion with a psychiatrist on this, and he made the observation that "dependency fosters rage."   I think that is a very astute observation.  You see the same rage phenomenon in other places, such as in the Middle East.  And you see it in Quebec.  

The upshot is that no pipe is being laid from Alberta to Montreal.   Now, Canada currently has some 16 refineries, most of them quite small operations, some nothing more than bitumen upgraders and asphalt refinery plants.  The biggest is the Irving plant in the port city of St. John, New Brunswick, at about 300,000 bbl/day. Some of the small ones are as little as 12,000 bbl/day.  The players are Husky, Suncor, Imperial Oil, Valero, Irving,  of which Imperial Oil has historically been the biggest player, Imperial being the Canada offshoot of ExxonMobil.  I don't see a solution other than the construction of new refineries in Alberta and the rail shipment of distilled product to markets in Eastern Canada.   The bulk of Canada's 36 million live in the Eastern cities of "Greater Metro Toronto," and Montreal Metro.   Lots of gasoline consumed there.  And there is a thriving aviation market for kero, not to forget.   Cheers. 

PS:  If I had the coin, I would build a big bitumen upgrader in Alberta or Saskatchewan and a set of product refineries next door.  Lots and lots of money to be made given the depressed price of the feedstock, the oilsands oil. 

Sadly Irving doesn't have delayed coking nor any other infrastructure (such as fluidized bed) to upgrade bitumen. Therefore they have zero interest in a pipeline. BTW, last time I checked delayed coking cost about $1 billion for every 25k bbls of flowing capacity. The UOP process about 40% more. 

There is a new refinery in Alberta called Sturgeon but given what a fustercluck that turned into, I'm not sure it gets repeated. If you want to waste a ton of money, get the government involved. And as the linked article points out, the transport problem didn't get eliminated, only changed. Trains full of bitumen are potential environmental messes, but it's virtually impossible to make it burn. Trains full of gasoline? Bombs on sparky tracks. Remember what one train did, full of super light Bakken oil? Lak Magentic hasn't recovered yet. 

[Rob Kramer + 696]

@Jan + Ward agree with you both. I'd still prefer #1 source to be from local grounds and I dont know much about refining but if possible #2 source from closest and/or USA. Make the trade balance better. Is Saudi oil not both far away and pricey? 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

30 minutes ago, Rob Kramer said:

. Is Saudi oil not both far away and pricey? 

Sure is.  Plus, you have to pay somebody to tanker the stuff to you!

[George8944 + 128]

I live on the shores of Lake Erie.  (For my Canadian friends I'm about 178 km southwest of London, ON.) My home is nice and toasty because I use a rapid oxidation system from a renewable wood source.  

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

6 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

I do want you to know that I really object to your crass descriptive of me.  The one thing that I am Not is a "crusty old guy with outdated views."   I consider your comment a personal slander. 

My apologies, you certainly sound much more like a delicate millennial snowflake.  

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

2 minutes ago, Enthalpic said:

My apologies, you certainly sound much more like a delicate millennial snowflake.  

You continue to slander me.  I am not amused.  Since you insist on being so offensive, you are now placed on my Blocked list.  You are henceforth a non-person. 

 

 

 

 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

It's a rough time for the trump disciples.