How does buying ‘offsets’ save the environment?

The press is complaining that the Conservatives are the only national party that didn’t buy any offsets for the flying around they are going to do during this election campaign. That makes them an environmentally unfriendly party.

I am concerned that ‘buying offsets’ is now seen as being “environmentally friendly”, and if you don’t buy them, you’re some sort of bastard who doesn’t care this planet is going to waste. Nobody has of yet been able to explain to me how buying offsets is cleaning up the environment. You’re still flying around the country. You’re still driving that car. You just feel better about it. I have written before in my blog, the majority of these carbon credit offset selling companies will plant a vague number of trees for this money. And that is only found out after prying: go visit any number of Carbon Credit companies, and you’ll be hard pressed to find what they are actually going to do with the money. They use vague terms like “We need to put back the trees that have been cut down” and “Change human behaviour” or “Offset: what you can’t reduce today with certified offsets “. After prying, for some companies it comes out to be about 20,000 trees per $1,000,000 worth of credits. It may sound like a large number of trees, but 20,000 trees is what one good tree planter can plant in about 10 days. And those trees would have been planted anyway (there are about 600,000,000 trees planted in Canada every year by the logging industry), but these 20,000 have found a sponsor other than the logging business: you. read more…

Still No Sun Spots: The Ice Age Cometh.

Jackie today was big on platitudes, small on substance. That seems to be the NDP’s matra. He’s going to “take on” big oil, and “watch your backs”. He’s also going to “oversee” gas prices. As usual, no talk on exactly HOW he’s going to bring down gas prices, HOW he’s going to stop big oil. Oh, but he’s going to MONITOR them. Thanks. That’ll save us. You know, Jackie, just wishing something doesn’t make it so. You gotta have a plan.

Dion, in the mean time, wants to reverse the new immigration rules he so readily abstained from defeating just this spring. It seems he now disagrees with the fact we’re fast tracking more skilled immigrants that can actually do some good work in this country. I guess he would rather see doctors drive taxi cabs than perform operations. He also said he would apologize in the House of Commons for some other thing our government did over a century ago. Don’t you think we’ve apologized enough already? We weren’t even alive when those things happened. We’re not responsible for them, so why must we apologize? Let’s just say this: we appologize for anything and everything we did up until now. Now, let’s go on with running the country.

As usual, Danny Williams of Newfoundland has to tell his constituents how to vote, as if they they don’t have a mind of their own. For some reason, he doesn’t like the Conservatives, even though the Conservatives plan is clearly the best for his province. How does he think a Liberal Carbon tax would work in his oil rich economy? The Green carbon tax is even worse, and Layton’s Cap and Trade scheme can’t be good news for oil money either. The Conservatives are the only national party that wouldn’t tax his oil income. Sure, you miss out on some equalization payments, but you get to keep all that big fat oil money! Maybe it’s time Newfoundland starts to give something back to this country.

Gilles was, once again, in Quebec, so who cares.

Where is Elizabeth May? Has anyone seen her? Elizabeth May has not been seen or heard from for two days. This is her big thank you to the people who voiced their opinions so loudly that two party leaders and a consortium of old men changed their minds. “Thanks for getting me in, folks! Now I’m going to disappear. See ya later!”

You know, I went to the CBC.ca website to pick up on some election news bits. I couldn’t find any. I wondered why that mouthpiece of the Liberal party has NOTHING on the election on its front page. Then it dawned on me: there is nothing good to report about the Liberal campaign. They’re way down in the polls. They are not coming out with new policies, although the Green Shaft plan is changing so much every day, you may call it a new plan every time it is mentioned. In order to get to the ‘election subsite’ you have to click on “Federal Election” in the “Recent Searches” box! I thought the election is the biggest story in this country, but the CBC website lists “Blue Jay Baseball” as its main headliner, followed closely by “Saturday Afternoon at the Opera”. Nice to see our tax dollars at work over there.