EclecticLip

Marc at the CCPA notes the BC carbon tax’s first birthday was Feb 18, with a rather depressing fairy tale.  Hopefully her second birthday will find her better-appreciated than she currently is, in her stunted state. (Ten bucks a tonne won’t drive any consumer behaviour.  Nor will fifteen bucks a tonne.)

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I suppose the appropriate analogy would be that this is the first anniversary of the conception of the carbon tax, July 1st being its actual “date of birth”.

Well, here’s to hoping that she has a dino-sized growth spurt from turkey-sized compsognathus to titanic T-Rex (or should that be tyrannosaurus regina?) with appropriate redirection of funds towards emissions-offsetting projects and infrastructure, and tax cuts veering strongly progressive.

The Tory government’s TFSA (tax-free savings account) is an example of a stunningly regressive tax benefit — its benefits skew disproportionately to the wealthy.  And it’s projected to be expensive too - roughly $50 million in lost tax revenue in ‘09, $150 million in ‘10… pretty soon, you’re talking about real money!

This New York Times article summarizes why I believe peak oil’s imminence doesn’t mean the end of first-world living-standards as we know it.

It turns out, the US is ridiculously unproductive when it comes to GDP-per-unit-CO2: at 93rd (of 137) it ranks below even Thailand and Mexico!  [corrected from 167 as per comment below]
Ah, but there’s more to that than meets the eye…

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This story, that Venus looks a lot more interesting in infrared and ultraviolet — both outside the human visible spectrum — reminded me of the futility of anthropocentrism.
After all, flowers such as this, look different under ultraviolet light (invisible to us, visible to insects).

As another example, elephants can hear frequencies far lower than we can hear — in fact, that’s how they communicate over long distances!  I suppose that also means they can hear the workings of our digestive system.  It’s probably fortunate for us that our internal workings only rarely come into our own audible range…