Growing chorus sings: "Dion's carbon tax won't get it done."

It wasn't that long ago when it felt like only voice saying Dion carbon tax won't get the job done was Canada's number one equine-themed politics blog.

But now, after a closer look, a growing chorus is saying that the absence of any targets or emissions reductions numbers means the carbon tax is just window dressing if you actually care about meeting our post-Kyoto targets.

Some are saying it in the editorial pages:

"Nowhere in its nearly 50 pages do the Liberals actually explain how their proposed new taxes would stop global warming." - Editorial, National Post

And others are singing straight from the Liberal song book:

"Findlay said it's impossible to calculate the emission reduction numbers at this point, "because energy prices have gone up so much, we don't know how the shift will affect consumption," she said. " - Martha Hall Findlay, Cornwall Standard Freeholder

This weakness is precisely why our friends to the south of the border are busy putting the final nails in the carbon tax coffin.

In a piece in the Miami Herald this month, the head of the influential Pew Center on Global Climate Change endorsed cap and trade and flatly rejected carbon taxes as having "a snowball's chance" of helping stop climate change:

"In response to a carbon tax, many emitters will reduce their emissions rather than pay the tax, but that result is not guaranteed. With Alaska and Greenland melting, and with droughts and other weather extremes on the rise, environmental certainty would seem to be the more compelling imperative. Combine that with the fact that taxes are awfully hard to get through Congress, and the case for cap-and-trade is even stronger. Which just goes to show: We shouldn't let carbon-tax enthusiasts use false arguments to trash a politically feasible approach in favor of one with a snowball's chance in a warming world."

That's exactly why people who actually want lower emissions, not just higher prices are saying Jack Layton's is still the better plan for the environment.