Canadian Politics Today

Drilling for oil is an extremely high tech enterprise: especially something like fracking. Windmills are the truly ancient tech. They have been around for millennia and their deficiencies have not gone away even as the materials improve.

 Fracking is old tech: it's just directional drilling followed by explosives that tend to release pollutants in all directions rather than just into the pipe that was intended. And yes windmills have been used for some time, but the technology for capturing it's endless energy has advanced significantly. The sun has been around for quite awhile as well so I've heard. Do you ever fear it won't come up tomorrow?

The notion that carbon taxes are a primary motivator in the development of more efficient technologies is just nonsense. They may have an effect on public behaviour but how much is certainly open for debate.

Of course, carbon taxes are simply a way to reduce consumption in the interim. Development of new techs will flow from realization that they are the way of the future.

They may be a way of reducing consumption but it is far from proved. The fact is, per capita emissions have declined in almost all provinces, with or without carbon taxes.

That's perhaps a sign that people are getting educated on the topic.