Canadian Politics Today

I hope the Green party is not planning on building any more Solar powered wind turbines. There are a slew of them in Southern Alberta, and they are death traps for thousands of migrating birds.

Radio/cell towers are death traps for millions of them. And you know what kills even more...Felix the cat does even more. So no more cell phones or pets for you.

If a small group of natives own all the water in a country dying of thirst, there is no principle - a hypothetical example that is no less realistic than yours.

Or if they own the whole country and we take it then there is no principle, so agreed.

Corporations represent the interests of shareholders. If those shareholders want profit at all cost then that is what the corporation will do. If those shareholders want to balance profitability with social responsibility then that is what they get. IOW, if corporations are greedy and unethical that is because people are greedy and unethical. Corporations are a mirror that express the desires of a subset of voters. They are not entities that exist independently from the voters they represent.

And as I mentioned Corporate Social Responsibility is a different beast than personal conscience.  If Corporations misbehave, they can simply be nationalized.  Nothing Immoral there - it could easily happen.

More importantly, every corporation is different and going on about the "corporate agenda" is a nonsensical conspiracy theory.

Corporate Agenda seems valid to me - it's a reflection of the commonalities of all corporations, ie. they will make as much money as they can get away with.

No it isn't. Corporations simply mirror the desires of their shareholders. If the shareholders think social responsibility is important then so will the corporation. You can't separate the values of a corporation from the values of the shareholders. They are one in the same.

Right, but an individual doesn't exist to make money and a corporation does.  I don't have investors... it's just a stretch.  Maybe you're trying to make a wider point about corporations not being 'evil' and that might be an interesting discussion.  Corporations aren't people in any sense except legally.
 

Except "make as much money as possible" means nothing specific as is therefore meaningless..

Meaningless ?  I think that's the purpose of a capitalistic enterprise - to maximize the short/long term return to investors.  It may be general but it's not meaningless.

Each corporation will have different desired policies that often conflict with the desires of other corporations. i.e. one corporation may want regulation to keep out competition, another wants less regulation, one may want higher tariffs and yet another wants lower tariffs. There is simply no commonality that would result in a coherent set of policy objectives.

  Corporations have nothing in common ?  They have no common characteristics ?  What about 'generally' ?  You seem to be making a very pained argument here. 

Canada has a high GHG per capita.  But it only has 36 million people out of 8 billion.  Canada is responsible for only about 1.8% of the world's total CO2 output.  Anything Canada does or doesn't do in regards to CO2 or climate change will be almost negligible, and we have to factor that in if we're going to enact costly changes.  Trudeau and May want to save the world from CC, but they can't.  If we spent a ton of money on retrofitting buildings and tearing down old fossil fuel plants & built renewable energy & by miracle cut Canada's CO2 emissions by 40% it would feel great but would hardly make a dent.

So everybody waits for China to do it first? 
We made commitments.
I think addressing our biggest sources of emissions, industrial buildings emissions will have immediate benefits for us.

What is May's plan going to cost?  What's the cost/benefit analysis here?

It'll cost money reallocated from fossil fuel subsidies, I expect.
Full costing still to come, I think it said.

So everybody waits for China to do it first? 

No, but some combo of the US, China, and/or the EU needs to get on board for our efforts to make any sense and for the world to begin to curb AWG.

We made commitments.

So did everyone else.  If they're going to not follow through Canada shouldn't be the sucker that does at the expense of our economy to make efforts that will have little effect if the other big emitters keep emitting.

I think addressing our biggest sources of emissions, industrial buildings emissions will have immediate benefits for us. It'll cost money reallocated from fossil fuel subsidies, I expect.

Fossil fuel subsidies I don't generally support, but our economy is also very dependent on the fossil fuel industry so that makes it more complicated.

Let me put it this way: if anyone supports taking money out of the pockets of all Canadians which includes poor people, like aboriginals, by raising the cost of food and gas etc via things like carbon taxes and fuel taxes, they better have a damn good reason.  If anyone wants to harm the Canadian fossil fuel industry, make more people unemployed, and take money out of the pockets of ie: seniors who are invested in Canadian stocks/mutual funds to make a living, they better have a damn good reason, and understand all the economic consequences of their actions.

The fossil fuel subsidies in Canada are non-existent. There is no money to reallocate.

Link?

I think that's the purpose of a capitalistic enterprise - to maximize the short/long term return to investors.  It may be general but it's not meaningless.

Returns to investors are comparable for fossil fuels and renewable energy.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/feliciajackson/2018/05/15/renewables-investment-nudges-out-fossil-fuel-and-nuclear/
The global clean energy transition is gaining pace as it becomes a mainstream investment option. According to the latest research from CERES on progress to a ‘Clean Trillion’ it is also one that far outstripped fossil fuels and nuclear in 2017.
In 2017 the clean energy industry reached a critical turning point. Growth and cost reductions across the sector have far outperformed expectations based on policy frameworks alone.  Dramatic reductions in cost, increases in scale, and technology improvements have fundamentally changed the dynamics of the clean energy market. Energy market dynamics have shifted in favor of clean energy technologies such as wind and solar, which increasingly out-compete new fossil fuel and nuclear power sources.
...
Falling costs are one of the primary drivers. In an increasing number of markets this has enabled clean energy to be quite competitive, even on an unsubsidized basis, removing significant amounts of regulatory risk. For example, installed costs of utility-scale solar PV projects have fallen over 70% (approximately 14% each year) since 2010.

In 2017, global investment exceeded US$ 333 billion, compared to only US$ 144 billion invested in conventional fossil fuels and nuclear. As clean energy technology has matured and gained greater efficiencies, this investment has now increased its impact per dollar invested. There are now many regions where renewable energy is proving to be more competitive than nuclear power or fossil fuels.


We are over the fossil-fuel hump, globally.
Canada is still lagging behind due to strong, highly-funded and 'politically-connected' lobbying and public propaganda by the oil and fracked gas industries. (Have you seen CAPP's latest ads? Injecting steam and toxic fuels (diluents) into the earth to loosen the tar sand is "really good for the environment". Lol)

I think the political will to redirect government efforts to renewable energy companies does exist, and I hope it will be a major issue in the coming election. However, I also think that it's the issue that to two major parties, Conservatives and Liberals, are trying hard to avoid as neither has any solid policies for the change in direction: just false-mouth platitudes, imo.
Both intend to ride the fossil-fuel revenue wave to the bitter end, it appears to me.

We have voting alternatives now for people not satisfied with empty promises, and renewable energy companies ready and technologically able to produce both energy and returns on investments for shareholders.
(Note: We are all shareholders via CPP investments.)