BradfordToday and InnisfilToday welcome letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following is from a reader who expresses concerns about the carbon tax:
I'm listening to a lot of rhetoric about the cost of the carbon tax ... do we actually get it all back, or, is the indirect carbon tax buried in our non-fossil fuel purchases actually increasing our costs? What happened to looking at the effectiveness of the carbon tax? How much has the carbon tax actually decreased our carbon footprint? Isn't this what the carbon tax was intended to do? Supporters of the carbon tax seem very reluctant to talk about this. Forest fires in 2023 produced three times the carbon footprint that resulted from the burning of all fossil fuels in Canada. The burning of all fossil fuels represented 25 per cent of Canada's carbon footprint in 2023, and, at best, after five years of carbon taxes, our carbon footprint from burning fossil fuels has decreased by less than 10 per cent, which amounts to 2.5 per cent of Canada's total carbon footprint in 2023.
Without knowing how effective the carbon tax has been, it is impossible to have a reasonable discussion on whether or not the carbon tax has any merit. Personally, I think a concerted effort to improve early forest fire detection along with improved response times and capabilities would result in significantly better results. Thermal imaging from satellites, coupled with AI, along with properly outfitted quick response teams offer a real opportunity to reduce the size and number of forest fires and significantly reduce our carbon footprint.
Let's try to stay on point ... should our discussions not be all about how best to reduce our carbon footprint? We've had five years of the carbon tax, and how is it doing?
Bradford