Another Informed Star Reader

Christine Penner Polle of Red Lake offers some observations that I suspect few but the most ardent ideologues would dispute:

Re: Ottawa plans cuts to climate programs, March 12

Have we Canadians fallen down the rabbit hole? We are living in a Mad Hatter world where our federal government is slashing funding to Environment Canada’s climate change efforts at the same time scientists are raising the alarm about the threat of an unstable climate to our civilization, and where even staid, small “c” conservative institutions such as the IMF and the IEA are urging swift action to decrease emissions from fossil fuels.

This kind of cost-cutting is false economy, for the longer we delay in addressing climate change the more expensive – and dangerous – it becomes.

The federal government could address the climate crisis by putting a straightforward and transparent price on carbon through a carbon fee and dividend policy that (finally!) charges industry the true cost of carbon pollution, and rebates the money back to Canadian households, helping us all make the shift toward the clean energy economy of the 21st century.

At the same time, the market will be allowed to pick winners and losers in the energy race, rather than government through inefficient sector-by-sector regulation. Sounds like a solution that might get Canadians back to a saner, safer reality.