So, are carbon taxes actually working in Canada?

Here's an interesting article on the effectiveness of carbon taxes and cap-and-trade schemes. Some are arguing that the days of carbon taxes are over, mainly because people (read "Conservatives") don't like paying taxes (even if they receive a rebate to make it income-neutral). Even some progressives are seeing the writing on the wall and starting to look into alternatives. Even Mark Carney is saying that the carbon tax has "served a purpose up until now".

What the article shows is that, yes, carbon taxes and cap-and-trade are effective, but maybe not as effective as we once thought. Canada's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions HAVE fallen since 2005, but only by about 0.4% a year. We need them to fall by about 4.5% a year to achieve our targets by 2030, about ten times the current rate.

Drilling down, British Columbia was the first jurisdiction in Canada to establish a carbon tax (2008). As the graph below shows, its GHG emissions did indeed fall for a while, but then started to increase again (with a dip for the pandemic) and, by 2022, they were only about 1% lower than when the carbon tax was started 14 years earlier.

Quebec introduced its cap-and-trade program in 2013. It too saw a light reduction in GHG emissions for a few years (see graph below) before they started to climb again, dipping during the pandemic, to end 2022 just 1.25% lower than in 2013.

Ontario only had a cap-and-trade system for a year or so in 2017 before Doug Ford closed it down, and the federal carbon tax only took effect in 2019, just before the pandemic. What the graph below shows, though, is that Ontario's GHG emissions have been steadily decreasing since 2005 (shutting down its coal plants helped with that), and the cap-and-trade and carbon tax have made little to no difference. Between 2005 and 2019, Ontario's GHG emissions fell by 19%, but since 2019 they have gone up slightly (except for a slight dip during the pandemic).

All in all, this is not particularly impressive, it has to be said. So, what does the article suggest to up our game? Given that  the rich contribute much more to our GHGs than the poor, the author proposes a much more progressive income-tested carbon tax, along with regulatory changes and increased incentives to switch to renewable energy. 

Hmm. I guess I'm on board with that, in principke at least. Just how do we push such a scheme through, though, during the current backlash against all things environmental, and when we are staring down the barrel of four years of "axe-the-tax" Conservative rule in Canada? That's not so clear.

Meta cancels fact-checking because truth is no longer a cultural norm

Meta (i.e. Facebook) has just announced that it will stop any fact-checking it used to do on Facebook posts. 

Well, that's convenient. CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes no secret of the fact that this move is precipitated by the election of one, Donald Trump, to the US presidency. He referred to Trump's election as "a cultural tipping point towards prioritizing, once again, speech". 

Well, speech has always been a priority, as far as I know, as has free speech (which is presumably what he means). The tipping pointing in question is accurate free speech, true speech. Trump, of course, does not like fact-checking because his approach to politics relies on lies, and lots of them. 

And Zuckerberg, it seems, is quite content to sway whichever way the political winds blow, truth be damned. He says that the current Meta system of fact-checking moderators (brought in in 2016 to try to stem the tsuanami of untruths let loose after Trump's last election) is prone to too many mistakes and biases. So, his solution is not to improve it, but to get rid of it completely, replacing it with an X-style system of "community notes", where individuals can point out factual errors (in their opinion) but the original post stays, however erroneous. Because that's free speech, don't you know? And look how well it's working on X...

Zuckerberg was never the most upstanding or ethical of individuals - his pursuit of money was always top of mind - but this move shows his true colours, currently red. It's just one more alarming portent of just how bad a second Trump administration can get, for the USA and for the world.

Justin Trudeau's legacy

As Justin Trudeau hands in his resignation letter, what will he be mostly remembered for? I'm sure there will be many such analyses of Trudeau's legacy in the press in the days to come, but CityNews offers one early list:

• Legalizing cannabis - a promise kept, but probably not a defining moment.
• Reneging on election reform - he expressed his sadness for not having pushed through the proportional representation reforms he promised us (although he had plenty of opportunity while the Liberals had a majority government).
• Indigenous reconciliation - much more remains to be done, but Trudeau has "done more to improve the quality of life for First Nations than any other prime minister" according to AFN National Chief Cindy Woodhouse.
• Canada Child Benefit - the new non-taxable income-dependent benefit went a long way toward reducing poverty in the country.
• Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act - a much-needed revenue-neutral carbon tax, and the first time a leader put their money where their environmental mouth is (although, paradoxically, it is now probably the main single reason for the Liberals' current unpopularity, even if it was a popular move at the time).
• COVID pandemic measures - not a bad job of handling an unhandlable situation (even if some Western truckers didn't like the vaccine mandates, they saved countless lives).
• NAFTA re-negotiation - he and his team made the best of a bad deal, as he did in more general terms in handling the unhandlable Donald Trump.

All in all, not a bad resumé, really. To this one might add: the establishment of a gender-balanced cabinet, "because it's 2015" (although it wouldn't last); the welcoming of tens of thousands of Syrian and Afghan refugees; enacting access to medical assistance in dying (MAID); unflagging support and aid to Ukraine in its existential war against Russia; $10-a-day subsidized childcare; the important first steps on comprehensive dental and pharmacare. Yes, he lost his way towards the end, but this is nevertheless an impressive list of achievements

Other, less generous, commentators might try to pin inflation on him, as Pierre Poilievre does, but they know in their hearts that it was not due to specific policies (the rest of the world also experienced the same thing). Necessary pandemic stimulus, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, global supply chain problems - there are many elements to the spike in inflation (now largely under control after central bank interventions), but Justin Trudeau is not personally responsible for the fact that things cost more now than they did a few years ago.

Nor is the country "broken" after 9 years of Trudeau, as Poilievre has managed to persuade many Canadians. Canada actually came through a particularly challenging time in pretty good shape, all things considered, and better than many other countries. I don't think Poilievre could have done much better, however much he blusters.

Immigration? Trudeau has always been gung-ho on immigration, and indeed it has been our saving grace in the face of a naturally-shrinking population, whatever the Conservatives might tell you. Maybe the temporary foreign workers program and the international student population has been mismanaged and ballooned out of control, but large cuts to immigration to pacify Conservative xenophobes is not the solution.

And all those scandals? They don't really amount to a hill of beans in the scheme of things. If youthful blackface, the SNC Lavalin/Jody Wilson-Raybould and WE charity pseudo-scandals, and holidaying with the Aga Khan is as bad as it gets, things could be much worse.

Yes, Trudeau should have resigned much earlier, for the good of the country he claims to love so much. Like so many leaders, he overstayed his welcome. But his administration has been far from disastrous, and he has achieved much that he - and the country - can be proud of. Just watch Pierre Poilievre try his damnedest to undo as much of it as possible.

Trudeau finally announces resignation - much too late to be helpful

So, finally, Justin Trudeau has announced that he will resign his position as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, and therefore as Prime Minster of the country.

After months of pressure from his own caucus, who see his unpopularity as a millstone around the party's neck (and a hindrance to their own re-election chances), he has done with his "reflecting on his future", and concluded that he has none. 

Supposedly, he wanted to make the announcement before the Liberal caucus meeting later this week so that it would look like he resigned on his own terms, not pushed out by disgruntled members of his own party. Except that everyone already knows - his caucus has made no secret of their feelings for many months now.

Unfortunately, it comes much too late. Everyone else except Trudeau knew that he should have gone a year ago. The Liberals are now 25% behind the Conservatives in the polls and, although a replacement for Trudeau might help that a bit, there is no way they can make up much ground before an election is called, which will come just as soon as the Conservatives (and the NDP for that matter) get another chance to engineer a confidence vote.

However, that won't happen until the end of March at the earliest, because Trudeau also prorogued Parliament until March 24th. All parliamentary activity, from the progress of existing bills to committeee work to in-house debate, will therefore cease for the next two-and-a-half months. And, of course, no confidence votes either.

This will buy the Liberals some time to elect a new leader (maybe - that would be a record short period for choosing a new party leader). But it will also mean that the country is rudderless and unprepared for the accession of Donald Trump in the USA on January 20th, and any wacko politics he introduces in his first few weeks. And there will be many, not least the potential imposition of a 25% tariff on all Canadian imports, as Trump has threatened.

How will we deal with that? Do we have to wait until April for a Canadian response? If Trudeau had resigned a year ago, when the writing was already on the wall, a new leader could be already in place and ready to deal with anything that America throws at us. Instead, we are going to end up with Poilievre here (eventually) and Trump there, a perfect storm of populist craziness.

And, in the meantime, as Trump assumes almost unlimited power in America, with Canada apparently firmly in his sights, we have ... nothing. No Prime Minister, no functioning government, and a bunch of cabinet ministers squabbling among themselves over who should replace Trudeau, with the added wildcard of potential replacements possibly having to resign their cabinet positions in order to even stand. 

Trudeau, in his hubris, has thrown his party, the country, and all those "hard-working Canadians" he professes to love so much, under the bus. If only he could have taken a leaf out of New Zealand's Jacinta Ardern's book. Oh, Canada!

An unremarkable champion

The "sport" of darts has always been popular in Britain, partly because, historically, it's something that Brits have been able to win at. It's never been a "cool" sport though, and newly-crowned (British) world champion Luke Littler is the epitome of uncool.

He may look about 30 but, at 17 years old, Littler is not even old enough to drink in a pub. While littler [sic] than some past champions, he is still a big guy with that pallid, unhealthy, overweight look that darts champions have always rocked. And he is painfully awkward in interviews.

When I think back to the great (British) darts champions from when I was growing up in England - men like Erik Bristow ("The Craft Cockney"), John Lowe, John Wilson ("Jockey"), Leighton Rees, Phil Taylor ("The Power") - they were larger-than-life characters, oozing not exactly charm but rather a kind of sleazy, world-weary notoriety. (They were all Brits back then; it was only in the 1990s that the Dutch, Australians and Canadians began to compete at the top levels.)

Littler, though, just comes across as the guy next door, a totally unremarkable Mr. Average, so uncool he's cool again. His nickname "Luke the Nuke" seems more like sarcasm than a reflection of his personality. But he sure throws a mean darts game. And, at 17, he has decades ahead in which to establish himself as the GOAT.

The world's loudest bird

You might get annoyed by noisy crows of seagulls at times, but think yourself lucky you don't live in the Amazon rainforest where you might wake to the dulcet tones of the white bellbird.

This bird has been recorded at 125 dB - about the equivalent of a pneumatic drill - and not much more euphonious either!

How bad is Toronto's traffic really?

I keep hearing that Toroonto has some of the worst traffic congestion in the world, certainly in North America. This seems to be due to a traffic survey by navigation company Tom Tom, which shows Toronto at third worst after only London and Dublin, and much worse than American cities like New York, which only ranks 20th in Tom Tom's analysis.

Well, I can believe it, from my own personal experience of driving around in recent years.

However, Inrix's Global Traffic Scorecard seems to tell a very different story. According to Inrix, a traffic data analysis and management company, Toronto's traffic ranks 17th worst, which is still not great, but significantly better than American cities like New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Miami and Philadelphia. It also shows Toronto's traffic on a gradual improvement curve over the last few years, which seems kind of hard to believe.

So, what are we to believe? Maybe it doesn't really matter. Ther point is, we shouldn't even be in the bottom 50!

Two very different reactions to the New Orleans terrorist attack

It comes as no surprise, but Doanld Trump failed badly once again, this time in his reaction to the horrendous mass murder on the crowded streets of New Orleans on New Year's Eve.

While Joe Biden - senile or not - gave a compassionate, measured and factual statement on national TV about the incident, Trump made a tweet (or whatever you want to call it) on his tame mouthpiece Truth Social, saying among other nonsense, "This what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS, with weak, ineffective, and virtually non-existent leadership".

Unfortunately, the perpetrator of the attack, one Shamsud-Din Jabbar, is an American citizen, born in Texas, and even served in the US military for years. Immigration, then, didn't come into it.

Trump obviously did exactly what Joe Biden warned against, and jumped to conclusions. He probably saw a foreign-sounding name, or saw a picture of a swarthy, bearded guy, and didn't bother listening further. He was more interested in scoring cheap political points, regardless of accuracy or decency.

And this is the guy that a majority of US adults voted into power. Shame on them.

Does drinking more water actually bring health benefits?

We're always being told to drink more water, that its health benefits are myriad and self-evident. But there's a surprising dearth of hard scientific evidence to support that.

One recent meta-study tried to summarize and quantify the health benefits of drinking more water. The results are inconclusive at best.

It seems like drinking more water before meals (i.e. filling up stomach before food) can help with weight loss, which makes sense, although not very much. Also, increased water intake helps reduce the incidence of kidney stones, which also make sense. 

However, other purported benefits, like reducing blood sugar and headaches and UTIs do not seem to have any evidence behind them. For example, those blood sugar studies that do show improvements may just reflect blood hemodilution (literally, a watering down of the blood), or come as a result of lower food intake, and some studies actually show an increase in blood sugar. Any improvement in headaches and urinary tract infections as a result of higher water intake turn out to be not statistically significant. Overactive bladders, obviously enough, worsened after increased water consumption.

All in all, it seems like the health benefits of increasing your daily water intake have been somewhat overstated. It's not going to do you any harm, generally speaking, but don't expect any life-changing improvements.

Thailand's sustainable fireworks display

Happy New Year!

I see that Thailand is ringing in the new year with a big fireworks display in Bangkok which it is touting as "sustainable" and "eco-friendly". Sustainable fireworks? Really?

Apparently, these fireworks are produced, in partnership with Japanese pyrotechnics master Okushi Yashimasa, using Thai sticky rice (I kid you not!), which they say reduces the carbon dioxide emissions and creates less smoke. It all sound a bit improbable to me, I have to say. 2025's first act of greenwashing?

Furthermore, the fireworks display is presented in "six acts", with titles like "Vibrant spectrum of Thai wisdom", "Luminous jewel of Thai heritage", etc. Talk about pretentious!

It all looks very pretty (you can see highlights on YouTube). But it does just look like every other fireworks display you've ever seen.