Metsfanmax wrote:
The problem here is that if we don't start from the agreement that everyone is generally trying to improve our situation, and not harm it, then we get nowhere. I give you enough basic respect to assume that your motivation is that you also want a better future. As it stands, we may just disagree on how to get there. But to impugn my motives without justification is what makes you an asshole. What reason do you have to think that my ulterior motive is to f*ck over the human race? Why would I even want to?
Ok let's start with an agreement.
In Canada, the we have provincial tax, national tax and HST. I pay nearly 50% of my income as tax. So do the people who work at the gas station, the people who deliver the gas, the purifiers, the pipeline folks, the extractors. The oil companies pay profit tax.
Different provinces have different tax rates, as do different incomes, so let's say off the top that the government is getting 40% of the base price of oil before it hits market. At market, the government then takes another 100%. To break it down, a litre of oil costs about $1.20. $0.60 of that goes straight to the government at sale, and they received another $0.24 pre-sale. Obviously since that is far greater than half the price, the government is taking more per litre than the oil company.
Now, I'm not a lawyer, but there may be a conflict of interest when the same government starts complaining about fossil fuel emissions and states they want to levy a further tax because of them.
But my community supports agenda 21, sustainable development, and within its guidelines produces policy at the municipal, county, provincial and national levels.
My community has supported agenda 21 for more than 2 decades. So I have a friend who went off grid, he's got a battery bank and two solar panels. Uses very few appliances. He received no help from the government in any way. When he tried to disconnect his house from the grid, he called the utility company. After more than a year of being ignored by them, he cut his cable line and called them telling them that there was an immediate danger. Two cops showed up with the utility guy. They told him that if he had touched the power line he would have been arrested. I live in the sticks, this guy lives in the woods. Leaving the power connected to his place is a waste of resources. For preventing a waste of resources, he is threatened with arrest.
Great, so what does it mean? It means we should start with an agreement. What should we agree upon?
I work in small building controls. We measure waste and if there is a decent ROI from our services, we implement measures to realize this ROI and get paid based on the ROI. We get paid from the savings that we produce as they are produced. The government is not involved in any way. No incentives, subsidies, nothing.
We are limited in what we are allowed to implement by regulation. Any power generation must be approved by the utility company, cannot provide a profit and must be approved by local research and local institutions and then approved by the regulators. After it gets approved, insurers and banks need to approve it.
Due to Agenda 21 and global warming, we have new regulations in our province stating that any new construction or renovation be done with R20 material. Hempcrete has been shown to have an R value of 3 per inch. My province was the first site in North America to produce hemp. So, we could easily grow hemp, put in 7 inches and meet regulation, if: under agricultural legislation hemp cannot be a dual use product. Hemp is grown in two varieties: for seeds and for fibre. Fibre plants are planted close together, encouraging vertical growth and eliminating its use for hempcrete. Seed plants are planted further apart, encouraging a chunky core suitable for hempcrete. But a farmer must decide whether he is growing the seed plant for hempcrete or for oil. If growing for oil, he must abandon the stalk, ie no hempcrete.
The seed value is about $1600 per acre, while the stalk value is about $800 per acre.
So I say, alright, I'll give you $1600 per acre for the stalk. Great now I have a locally produced insulating material. That I can't legally use. I have a zero carbon footprint resource that I now need local research on. I have pages of European, Australian, Asian research which is all useless. Though Agenda 21 was able to control my municipality based on research produced by the same institutions, I can't address it with their research.
So I pay for material research, which is going to cost approximately $1m. Yeah, now I have research! Which then needs to be approved by the the association of engineers. They have their own conflicts of interest. But they approve it, let's say. Now I go to the provincial level. The province protects existing businesses. But let's say they approve it. Now I go to insurers, since not everyone has to worry about the banks. They have their own conflicts of interest.
To make a long story short, if hempcrete is a cost effective measure, then some of the approving bodies are going to lose money. The approving bodies are not in the business of losing money.
Next, I have done nothing proprietorial. Any guy who knows a farmer or can buy or lease a few acres has as much access to the use of hempcrete as me who has spent years getting approval after spending a million doing the research.
So like most things that the government does, creating regulation has only furthered the population from meeting it. The same material suppliers are now just guaranteed sales of more expensive products. Products which are now less affordable and less likely to be implemented.
The government has protected the association of engineers, the suppliers, the banks, insurers, the approved contractors. And told me that I can only build or renovate with their approved products, from their approved suppliers at their set rates.
So let's agree on something, otherwise you are like PS and Tzor saying there should be no welfare and not caring about the ramifications. If the government demands lower CO2 emissions, then such activities as going off grid, use of materials that have sufficient international research, use of mechanisms which have sufficient international research, and regulators including banks and insurers should be required to allow them.
And this will hurt GDP. The whole point as a consumer of implementing these materials and technologies is to save money, money that will no longer be taxed, negating the need for a myriad of services. If I as a business person designing and providing these services can't show a worthwhile cost-benefit analysis, then I am merely relying on guilt money. I'm just extorting my customers based on "we all going to die because of you!" which doesn't go over as well as you might think.
When the government starts requiring high mpg cars on the road and cuts its own tax revenue by more than half passing the savings on to consumers and finding more effective means of servicing transport infrastructure to reflect their lower revenues, then I will start to listen when they talk about climate change. But they won't, the government is trying to get more revenue because of climate change, not less. More effective use of materials results in less waste and less cost and less government revenue and less need for government. This is both anti-capitalism and anti-government.
When the we stop exporting our resources for nothing, then I will start believing that they believe in climate change. When the government encourages local food production instead of insisting that meat be certified 3500 km away and then re-imported from a company that has proven it uses unsafe practices, then I will start to believe that they believe in climate change.
But we have to judge based on actions. And their actions all state they are trying to increase their power and income. They are limiting the options of their population. And yes, you are encouraging this, so you are trying to f*ck over humanity. Embrace it.
