Would They Carbon Tax Themselves?
Unless Janke skewed the numbers it looks like Dion’s selected mode of travel is far less environmentally friendly than his primary opponent — something that his primary opponent is sure to exploit
Fuel Flow Rate:
- A319-100 (Conservatives/NDP): 660 gallons/hour
- B737-200 (Liberals): 920 gallons/hour
Campaign Fund Burn Rate (335.3 cents per gallon):
- A319-100 (Conservatives/NDP): $2200/hour
- B737-200 (Liberals): $3100/hour
Greenhouse Gas Emissions (9.6 kilograms of carbon dioxide per gallon of jet fuel):
- A319-100 (Conservatives/NDP): 6,336 kg of CO2 per hour
- B737-200 (Liberals): 8,825 kg of CO2 per hour
Does the Dion campaign have no one tasked with thinking about this stuff?
ouch! Now that’s got to hurt!
Thanks for linking me up. As for the question of skewing the numbers, I recognized as soon as the story came out that the numbers would work out this way. As an engineer who used to work in aerospace, I remembered that Airbus used to kick Boeing around the room when it came to fuel efficiency. But it also matters which model, so I made an effort to figure out exactly what variant of the 737 and A319 was flown by Air Inuit and Air Canada respectively. The actual burn rate is tricky, because it all depends on flight profile. But the various numbers I found for each plane agreed with each other very well, so I felt confident the values I’m using are fair and representative. As for GHG content and cost, that’s easy to find, and the rest is just math.
I’ll have a follow-up tomorrow (I think) as soon as I can track down another number, so stay tuned.
Cheers!
Non-issue. The Liberals wanted a larger plane. And they are carbon offsetting the whole campaign.
It’s a 6% difference between the two. Wow.
Maybe we should take up a collection to carbon offset Harper’s campaign?
well as long as they’re “carbon offsetting” I guess it’s OK.
I asshole offset. I can be as big a jackass as i want, as long as I pay someone else to be extra nice. It completely absolves me of any wrong doing.
[...] Stageleft for pointing out the Janke [...]
I wonder if May will stick to trains? It’s pretty difficult after the Conservatives and Liberals allowed the national rail network to be ripped up in parts for passenger service.
I agree the straight up numbers look bad and they’ll probably take a pounding by the Conservatives for it, but the numbers don’t actually have any useful meaning, without knowing how much use each plane will be getting (and in addition, how much travel by other means each campaign will also be doing).
Oh goodie, carbon offsetting – or in other words they’re paying to pollute.
It’s b/s, they can pay all the extra they want but the cheque will not change the fact that their plane is putting more GHG into the environment than the other planes will it?
IMO you brought up political hypocricy that should see as much light of day as it can – and the bunker is all about exposing that sort of thing, regardless of which party HQ it comes out of.
How can Dion tell me with a straight face that I have to make changes to my behaviour to reduce my carbon footprint while he, since he can afford to buy carbon offsets (what a joke that is) to pay for his pollution, does not?
Dion can tell you that because if the Green Shift was implemented, he WOULD be implementing the Carbon Tax.
Nice case of missing the forest for the trees. Not the best optics, but using yer brain and thinking about Harper’s environmental “plan” will convince you this is about bigger things than what plane they’re using.
Not the best optics? It’s bloody miserable optics.
A carbon offset is, at best, carbon neutral. It does not result in the lowering of GHG emitted by the purchaser, it’s a “here’s some money for your wind farm project…. make enough clean electricity to balance out what I’m doing will ya” scheme.
Dion’s plane will put just as much pollution, and just as many GHG, into the environment whether he buys carbon offsets or not.
Do you think the wind farm ceases production if nobody buys an offset?
Do you think they crank them up a notch or two more if some one does?
Carbon offsets are something that the wealthy make use of so they can look more environmentally responsible – but regardless of how many offsets are bought they do not lower the emissions the polluter do they? Do they actually lower the total daily planetary GHG output?
Your right Throbbin, it is about bigger things than their plane – it’s about political hypocricy .
“It’s a 6% difference between the two. Wow”
Wow, Mark, where did you get your math education?. The difference is almost 40%. The Liberal plane is consuming nearly 40% more fuel per hour than the Con’s plane.
[...] are a few folks not so very enthusiastic about our post regarding Stephane Dion and his campaign plane — apparently it’s ok because Dion is “carbon [...]
I’m with you guys on this one. Carbon off-setting is just another way for people with money to do things we shouldn’t be doing and absolve their conscience in the process.
And guess how much the Green’s plane is consuming? OK, trick question that was.
@stageleft – No one said carbon offsets would lower the amount of GHG’s pumped into the atmosphere. One of the most popular forms of offsets is the planting of trees – the planted trees then (collectively) consume the same amount of CO2 that were emitted in the activity they were intended to offset (but you already knew that).
But I wasn’t talking about the offset – I was talking about the bigger picture, as in the Environmental plans each party offers. Already knowing you aren’t a fan of the Green Shift, I don’t expect you to agree with it. However, the Green Shift, if implemented in the event of a Liberal victory, would presumably reduce the total GHG output of the country by several orders of magnitude more than the emissions emitted over the course of the campaign.
Using the Liberals aviation-related GHG emissions to criticize them for being environmentally unfriendly is roughly the equivalent of criticizing Greenpeace staff for the homes they live in. Those homes were built on land that was one home to wildlife – and are probably bigger than is absolutely necessary for a person to live in. But this criticism overlooks the work that they actually want to do.
It wasn’t the best idea to choose a plane that emits so much more GHG’s than the other guys, but it’s making a mountain out of a molehill for the sake of political commentary.
I disagree.
I think if SL wants to fly to the Artic a half dozen times a year because it’s important to him, he should be able to. However, if he is as concerned about climate change in the Artic as I think he is based on his postings here, it’s likely he’ll want to reduce or eliminate the impact of that travel. He could make an investment that reduces CO2 output somewhere else. Any investment is good but he could invest enough to completely offset the CO2 resulting from his travel.
Obviously, we can’t offset our way out of our current troubles but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a legitimate tool in the transition to a more carbon constrained lifestyle and economy. Aside from the obvious benfits of reducing the net amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, it helps makes developing technologies economically viable and accelerates the development of alternate technologies that we will need.
Who the fuck is planting trees to offset stageleft’s trips to the arctic? And who the fuck is trapping the tree farts at night? Now lets talk fucking reality.
Environmentally friendly is NOT putting millions and millions of mercury fucking filled light bulbs into landfills. Al fucking Gore could not get into the big oil club, so he started a big fucking carbon offset club of his own. It’s has nothing to do with being environmentally fucking friendly. It’s a way to make a shit load of fucking money for nothing.
You want to see someone who is doing something environmentally fucking friendly? Look no further than your current Prime Minister. He declared a fuck load of fucking bad fucking shit used in the fucking manufacturing industry as bad fucking shit. I’d bet my fucking years wage (not a fucking lot, but all I fucking have) that next year he fucking bans those bad fucking products, all of which have fucking GREEN alternatives. I’d also bet my fucking years fucking salary that any fucking one who gives a fucking shit, and has some fucking common sense would be fucking investing their god damn fucking money into these not so fucking new technologies.
That, my fucking bickering fucking friends and fellow fucking Canadians, is what’s called the fucking FREE market fucking working, with just a little smart fucking governance.
This post has been brought to you by the letter F. You know what y’all can do with it.
Ah, the cool voice of reason is such a salve in these partisan days.
Unless I’m mistaken, vonrock just used compulsory industry regulation as an argument to demonstrate the efficacy of the free market. Anyway, I’ve got a couple hundred bucks spare so I’ll take the wager.
wrong KevinG, read between the fucks
My point is that carbon credits do nothing to help the environment. What does help the environment is things that the current government is doing, such as telling manufacturers that some of the products that they use are harmful to the environment, and that there are Green alternatives that ALREADY EXIST.
Now, I also suggested is that at some point, long after industry has been told by government that these products that they are using are harmful to the environment, and that there are green alternative that ALREADY EXIST, regulation will be introduced in order to PROTECT the ENVIRONMENT.
If you want to see how the free market works, take your two hundred bucks, and invest in one of these companies (THAT ALREADY EXIST), and you will be making money and saving the environment. Or, you can give your two hundred and a bunch more or your spare money to a carbon trading scheme that does NOTHING to reduce carbon emissions.
You, KevinG, are the partisan one here by blindly jumping on the Carbon Tax band wagon, using sarcastic doublespeak to insinuate that an efficacy of the free market cannot exist with the confines of regulation.
Me being partisan would be pointing out that Dion did nothing of this sort when he was environment minister for how many years? Or pointing out that he doesn’t even know what car pooling is, or that his well thought out plan relies on the magical development of non existing technology. Or that instead of just calling it “a Tax on Everything Plan” he stole someone’s trademarked name to hide it, and that if you dug deep enough, he could be heavily invested in the carbon trading industry. That’s could be considered partisan. Or maybe it’s just pointing out that the guy and his plan is an idiot. Maybe it’s both.
Anthropogenic climate change is primarily driven by increasing concentrations of GHG in the atmosphere. Unless you take the position that climate change is good for the environment, it seems to me that reducing our net CO2 contribution is good for the environment. Perhaps you’re just trying to conflate two different issues.
Are you being deliberately dim?
Actually, I prefer a carbon tax to a cap and trade system ( the two major mechanisms available to government ) precisely because it does a better job, IMO, of utilizing market mechanisms and consumer choice to effect change.
Bingo.
Since you seem to be an expert on GHG, I would like to ask you some questions.
What are all the other Green House Gasses? What percentage of total GHG do each of those gasses make up? What percentage of the total GHG’s is carbon? What percent of the Carbon in the atmosphere is anthropogenic?
Now for some tougher ones; What is the life cycle of carbon in the atmosphere? How much carbon is absorbed by oceans and orgainic life? How much carbon is produced by oceans and organic life? Is there a consensus amongst scientists about these carbon life cycle questions?
Here’s a real easy one;
How many times have apparent scientific consensus throughout history proven to be wrong?
I agree that humanity needs to wean ourselves from fossil fuels. Pollution is not a good thing. In the big picture, fossil fuels are (hopefully) but a stepping stone in mankind’s saga. I just don’t think that putting a tax on everything to increase social program spending is going to change the amount of carbon that we put into the atmosphere. It’s just going to make it more expensive. Carbon credits are just going to become the cost of doing business. Magic technology is not going to appear because of higher prices or tax breaks. Technology will benefit from direct spending on pure science, not somebody trading credits. Go and look at Carbonzero’s website and tell me what impact other than skimming a bunch of money off the top for funding an existing windmill farm that should be generating income in order to work, not requiring handouts from people who drive their cars or take vacations in jets. If you want to seriously do something about it, then do something serious about it, not some scheme fueled by the sky is falling doomsday scenarios.
[quote]Unless you take the position that climate change is good for the environment, [/quote]
Climate change IS the environment. It’s been changing since the planet started spinning.
You loose the farmers dog again?
Vonrock – still holding out that man-made Climate Change isn’t a reality?
Even Stephen Harper has come around. Where have you been?
Since I’m sure you know the answers to all the questions you put forth, I assume you claim to know better than the (huge) majority of scientists who study these things?
Actually, I might be a little bit “dim”. I’ve heard a lot about how the globe is warming up. I understand that we produce carbon, and carbon is a green house gas. Green house gasses warm up the atmosphere. I agree.
Maybe Stephan Dion can answer my perfectly legitimate questions. You see, I would like to make an educated vote. I don’t make partisan votes. If a little bit of hardship now results in alternate clean energy for generations to come, then I’m all for it.
I keep hearing about the science is settled, and that everyone agrees, and that global warming is happening and that we need to do something drastic now to save the planet. But then I see news articles and reports that say global warming has been put on hold for a decade, and that actual temperatures are not agreeing with this whole warming thing. And then the term Global Warming becomes Climate Change and when I try to question anyone that I know about this or don’t even know, I get ridiculed and called names, instead of a discussion that leads to answers. So I look around the net some more, and dig, and read and dig and read and notice things like the Kyoto Accord, and read all of that shit, especially the things about the consensus involved with 90% of Nobel Prize winning scientists agree and why phase one scientific peer review comments were not made available until just recently and see things like Al Gore’s movie/slideshow made him over 300 million dollars, and that he owns a carbon trading company and it makes me want to find out more. But I keep coming up against insults or blank stares when I ask legitimate questions about the science involved.
I’ve educated myself as much as a layman can, and realize that when I try to discuss the issue, nobody seems to know shit about the simple questions that I asked in my previous comment. So, I thought since you are so very sold on the idea of carbon credits over cap and trade, that you might also have some insight as to the climate science involved in determining why we are thinking of doing this in the first place. Instead, I get partisan (insulting?) answers to legitimate questions.
How is such a thing as a climate change tax going to be sold to the average person if these are the responses given to the average person?
But since you don’t know, maybe you can put me in touch with the “huge majority of scientist that study these things” and perhaps some official scientific papers subject to peer review as opposed to newspaper and television reports?
And since you seem to like partisan politics, maybe you can tell me after signing the Kyoto accord, what our government did to start preparing to meet it’s deadlines.
Well said.
You can start here…http://www.nasa.gov/
Then maybe drop by here…http://www.ipcc.ch/
Shoot through here for a little taste of home…http://www.ec.gc.ca/default.asp?lang=En&n=FD9B0E51-1
Even BUSH couldn’t fully stop these guys..http://www.epa.gov/
For an economic breakdown, these guys do pretty good…http://www.oecd.org/home/0,2987,en_2649_201185_1_1_1_1_1,00.html
Maybe you want to know about Climate Change and health?…http://www.who.int/en/
For a nice little rundown, check this out…http://search.cbc.ca/search?ie=UTF-8&site=CBC&output=xml_no_dtd&client=CBC&lr=&getfields=description&proxystylesheet=CBC&oe=UTF-8&searchWeb=cbc&q=Climate+Change
As for yer 2nd question, you know as well as I do they didn’t do much. That can’t be an excuse to continue doing nothing.
Weird, I wrote up a whole long comment in the “Question from the Bunker” thread, and it ended up here.
Think ya got a broken link SL.
PS – this is the same comment, I just clicked “edit” and replaced it with this. Above comment from me was intended for this thread.