Coming Soon: A Respiration Tax!?"Take a deep breath; hold it," writes Terence Corcoran Terence Corcoran (born 1942) is editor and columnist for the Financial Post section of the Toronto-based National Post. His editorials tend to favour market-based solutions and a reduced role for government. in the August 4th issue of Canada's National Post. "Now let's see Let's See was a Canadian television series broadcast on CBC Television between September 6, 1952 to July 4, 1953. The segment, which had a running time of 15 minutes, was a puppet show with a character named Uncle Chichimus (voice of John Conway), which presented each : You hit 4.5 on Environment Canada's new Individual Carbon Polluter Exhaler, just a little above average. That means your Personal Carbon Pollution Tax for the year 2006 is $155.70. Your two children don't contribute much yet, but under the federal government's innovative Reverse Child Carbon Tax Credit, designed to capture the future carbon burden their breathing will impose on the atmosphere and the health of the planet, there's a flat $50 tax for each child." Although we haven't seen the imposition of such measures, continues Corcoran, "we might some day. One scientist estimated human respiration probably contributes as much as deforestation deforestation Process of clearing forests. Rates of deforestation are particularly high in the tropics, where the poor quality of the soil has led to the practice of routine clear-cutting to make new soil available for agricultural use. to the annual load of man-made carbon in the atmosphere. Throw in animals, and the carbon count rises considerably. Carbon dioxide carbon dioxide, chemical compound, CO2, a colorless, odorless, tasteless gas that is about one and one-half times as dense as air under ordinary conditions of temperature and pressure. is as natural and wholesome a gas as you can find -- plants exist on it and humans exhale exhale /ex·hale/ (eks´hal) to breathe out. ex·hale v. 1. To breathe out. 2. To emit a gas, vapor, or odor. it. But throughout the world today carbon dioxide is an 'emission.' George W. Bush came close to declaring carbon dioxide a pollutant, a move that would have given government agencies wide new power to regulate it." Back in December 1991, when the "Global Warming global warming, the gradual increase of the temperature of the earth's lower atmosphere as a result of the increase in greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution. " mythology was relatively new, Newsweek writer Jerry Adler stated: "It's a morbid observation, but if everyone on earth just stopped breathing for an hour, the greenhouse effect greenhouse effect: see global warming. greenhouse effect Warming of the Earth's surface and lower atmosphere caused by water vapour, carbon dioxide, and other trace gases in the atmosphere. Visible light from the Sun heats the Earth's surface. would no longer be a problem." Last year, after the U.S. proposed that a nation's use of so-called "carbon sinks" -- carbon dioxide-absorbing forests and grassland -- would be counted toward emission-reduction targets set by the UN, the eco-radical Climate Action Network sarcastically suggested that this should include "people who stop breathing" -- that is, the dead. So if we're serious about beating back the supposed scourge of [CO.sub.2] "emissions," our options must include either population reduction or respiration taxes. Just remember: Yesterday's satire of eco-lunacy may be tomorrow's federal (or UN) policy. |
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