Energy

Californians are right to feel dismay in this situation. Basic services like electricity should be the norm, despite dry weather and upticks in wind speed. Their ire would be best directed not at PG&E, but at the regulated monopoly model that Californians themselves have maintained through their state government.

Competition and the profit motive will encourage competing utilities to criss-cross the country with a more robust transmission grid, providing safer and cheaper electricity to all.

What does the oil and gas industry have to do with peace and love?

If the oil companies want to take the moral high ground, they must first acknowledge, not just the negative effects of their product, but also its enormous benefits to humans.

Carbon taxes are nonobjective, they are coercive, and they are impediments to prosperity.

A carbon tax with a realistic possibility of being signed into law, would not be the revenue-neutral, regulation-busting efficient solution that libertarian and conservative tax advocates desire. The political forces on the left want no part of an even nominally market-based solution.

In performing cost-benefit analyses our government has a responsibility to present the fullest view to the public that is possible. In the context of climate change, that means exploring the social cost of carbon at a wide range of discount rates, on a diversity of time horizons, and showing both the domestic and the global consequences.

What is critical, however, in rebutting the proposals is to parse the disparate, inchoate elements from one another, drawing attention to the ever-shifting justifications carbon tax advocates offer.

Why are businesses not gearing up for the post-carbon economy?

“More solar penetration in places like California will lead to an outcome no one wants: a less reliable electricity grid.”

Donald Trump opened himself up to mockery with his “Pittsburgh, not Paris” remark, but the Paris Agreement’s supporters have very little to offer beyond the level of “gotcha” jabs.

A carbon tax—by design—will cause energy costs to soar.

By propagating the “100 percent renewable” myth, these companies—and politicians like President Obama—create a false public understanding of the viability of wind and solar energy.

Fonda’s attack on the oil sands is inconsequential; Trudeau’s is evil.

Government-caused uncertainty, such as not approving pipeline construction or imposing more taxes (such as the carbon tax), discourages investment and thus prevents employment recovery.

Telus doesn’t get that its role is the creation of material values (cell phone service), not encouraging more taxation. On the contrary, it should oppose the carbon tax and any other taxes as they destroy human welfare.