Carbon pricing most cost-effective way to cut emissions

I’ve just read the tirade — via Letter to the Editor — from Cosmos Voutsinos regarding an earlier letter in support of carbon pricing by one Ms. Lavallee in Ontario. I don’t need to go to Ontario to find support for carbon taxes; I can listen to Ralph Klein’s former treasurer Jim Dinning, or economists Ron Kneebone or Jennifer Winter at the U of C School of Public Policy, or Preston Manning, founder of the Reform Party, or dozens of executives at oil companies here in downtown Calgary, or some of the dozens of citizens who joined my Facebook page called Albertans In Favour of Carbon Tax.

Pricing carbon, particularly by a predictable and transparent carbon tax, is the most costeffective means of reducing emissions, allowing consumers and businesses to do so in whatever way works best for them.

How odd it is that Cosmos never quite got around to mentioning his own preferred means of reducing emissions; command and control regulations, perhaps, which take an army of lawyers to create, and an army of bureaucrats to enforce? I’m sure that he has noticed this year’s heat wave which killed 20 in Quebec, the wildfires which not only drove thousands from their homes in B.C., but also kept many Albertans indoors this summer. And let’s not forget Hurricane Florence and Typhoon Mangkhut which are still hammering the Carolinas and the Far East with amped-up wind speeds and higher storm surges caused by global warming.

As Steve Williams, CEO of Suncor has said, “Climate change is happening; doing nothing is not an option we can choose.”