The economy sucks, but... someone actually said I was perceptive

Lorrie Goldstein said recently that politicians “are talking out of both sides of their mouths” when they tell you “we can grow the economy while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

[Click here to read Mr. Goldstein’s full article.]

He went on to talk about the downside of carbon taxes, cap and trade, carbon credits and offsets.


[Cap and trade this? Prolong the recession? What?"]

“What they really do is allow emissions, at ever-escalating prices, the theory being that when the price gets too high, people will be forced to use less fossil fuel.”

Sounds punitive to me, I thought.

So I emailed Mr. Goldstein with a possible solution re GHG emissions.

“About three months ago, I think you wrote that the recession does more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than any government policy. The same is likely to be true as well in the future, unless someone gets a type of green shift or cap and trade policy fine-tuned to perfection.”

“After reading your article I also learned this morning that local new housing starts continue to fall because of the recession, so I thought I'd rather see governments develop a plan to incentivize the building of smaller homes [and cars, other products, etc.], one that doesn't require another large layer of bureaucracy, as would a cap and trade.”

“If major industries were positively encouraged to 'go small or go home' could we produce the same results as a punitive cap and trade?”

Though Mr. Goldstein is likely one of the busiest columnists in Canada, he promptly replied with the following:

Hi Gord:

“Very perceptive point. Controlled growth would be a much better answer than punitive economic contraction via carbon taxes and/or cap-and-trade.”

I’m trying to think of the last time I was called perceptive.

I got nothin’.

***

Cap and trade? Reduce consumption? Prolong the recession?

It may come to all three. Is that perceptive, or what?

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