Monday, July 7, 2008

Firm that helps the environment to sue Liberals over plan that doesn’t

The brilliant strategists in the Liberal Party are at it again.

Get this: Stephen Harper is actually doing harm to our environment, but Liberals won’t lift finger one to defeat him.

Meanwhile, there is a little consulting firm that helps people do good things for the environment -- and the Liberals are gearing up to give them the fight of their lives!

Ontario-based company Green Shift announced today that it is preparing to go to court to defend its name against the Liberal Party of Canada.

“Jennifer Wright, the head of Green Shift Inc., told the Star today that her lawyers are drawing up a lawsuit claiming that the Liberals have stolen her company’s trademarked name and damaged the firm’s reputation.”

Less than the prospect of losing at least $2 million in damages, what hurts the Liberals most is that a company so closely associated with doing good things for the environment is claiming that association with the Liberals’ carbon tax scheme has “damaged the firm’s reputation”.

In the case of the People v. Posturing Environment Plan with No Targets to Reduce Emissions Whatsoever, the jury finds the defendant guilty of 15.5 billion counts of vacuousness and playing political games with the environment, your honour.

6 comments:

Steve V said...

That title is real hoot. Somebody better tell the legions of environmentalists who are endorsing this plan that it does nothing for the environment. Man, won't they be surprised, considering many of them were advocating this direction for years. Who knew?

Blogging Horse said...

steve v wrote: Somebody better tell the legions of environmentalists who are endorsing this plan that it does nothing for the environment.

Yup someone should. So, let's: Carbon taxes aren't about reducing emissions, only increasing prices in hope of reducing emissions. That's why the Dion carbon tax has no emissions targets -- Liberals have no clue when we will reduce GHGs to our targets. None.

steve v wrote: Who knew?

Stephane Dion knew.
Bob Rae knew.
Gerrard Kennedy knew.
Every Liberal leadership contender except Ignatieff and Dryden knew and were dead set against a carbon tax for that reason.

Désirée M. McGraw also knew. In her Liberal Renewal Commission Environment and Sustainable Development Taskforce report she specifically calls for NDP-style cap and trade, NOT a carbon tax:

"Canada does not need both an emissions trading system and a carbon tax; either one would be sufficient, so long as the cap is low enough to ensure emission reductions or the carbon tax is high enough to do the same. Following extensive and intensive input from Taskforce contributors, this report opts for the former approach."

At $40 a tonne, Dion's carbon tax will not be high enough to make a difference.

So, a carbon tax won't get the job done. It won't get us to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.

If we are going to have a serious debate, Liberals owe Canadians and the "legions of environmentalists" some honesty about this.

James said...

Rather than simply measuring and taxing carbon output, in an NDP market scheme, the government will not only have to measure and, for all intents and purposes, "tax" the output, but it will also be required to create a bureau that will auction off the credits and then verify that companies have in fact used the credits appropriately.

This is a very government-heavy project and it likely won't reduce emissions nearly as enthusiastically as yon orange partisan blindfolders suggest.

How do we know this? Because it's been done before. The government-managed market has in the EU still has huge loopholes which have essentially enabled large companies to use the credits as subsidies, with no measurable gains for the environment.

On the other hand, Denmark, which brought in a carbon tax in the 1990s, reduced its greenhouse gas emissions dramatically, and its economy grew faster than Canada’s.

Blogging Horse said...

J, there's is reason Dion wants the Auditor General to oversee his carbon tax and not the Environment Commissioner -- Liberals are more concerned about increasing taxes than they are about reducing emissions.

And for every Denmark you can cite, there is a Norway where their carbon tax resulted in a paultry 2% cut in emissions. No country is moving towards carbon taxes anymore.

On the other hand Ireland, Japan, and New Zealand are moving towards an NDP-style cap-and-trade market, as are both Obama and McCain in the US.

Meanwhile, there is already a carbon exchange sitting idle in Montreal waiting to do exactly what the NDP plan is calling for. If we go with Dion's carbon tax it will continue to sit idle as emissions continue to grow.

Malcolm+ said...

What I find remarkable about this is that Dion's brain trust (should perhaps be brain rust) were caught flatfooted by this little problem.

Anyone who though adding "the" to "geen shift" would solve the registration problem politically is stone cold stupid.

But it gets wierder. One of the principals in the firm, describing the "oh by the way" call she got the night before, tells us how the Slimeball Party actually expected them to be grateful for the extra web traffic.

Quite apart from the fact that there is no such thing as a principled Liberal, Dion and his gang or buffoons don't deserve to be elected because they are too stupid to be trusted with an important job like governing the country.

Malcolm+ said...

So puir wee Stephane says it is "deplorable" that the owner of the REAL Green Shift would sue his sorry thieving ass.

It is clear that the overweanig sense of entitlement still defies the empty shell of the Liberal Party of Canada.

I hope Jennifer Wright tells the Libs to get stuffed no mater what settlement they offer. I hope she takes them for every penny they've got.

Nothing would serve Canadian democracy better than the destruction of the Liberal Party as a viable political force. A

Given their sorry fundraising over the last few years, given the pool of red ink the party is already swinning in, given that individual leadership candidates are still millions of dollars in debt, there is every possibility that this woman's courageous actions will finally sink a shiv into the undead corpse of the Liberal Party.