A little bit of math and science knowledge that I picked up on the internet.
Did you know that there is an estimated three trillion trees in the world?
Canada has about 318 billion of the world’s trees. These trees each can absorb up to 48 pounds of that nasty pollutant, carbon dioxide. That’s the greenhouse gas that we here in B.C. have been paying a tax on and the federal government will be adding an additional carbon tax this April 2019.
Canada pollutes approximately 573 metric tonnes of C02 yearly. That’s 1,263,248 pounds! That’s a lot of pollution. But wait, trees absorb about 48 pounds of C02 each. Now 48 pounds of absorption multiplied by 318 billion trees is 15,264,000,000,000 pounds. Wow, that is a lot of C02 being captured by trees. Makes the amount of carbon pollution we as Canadians produce seem small. Well, it is small and makes Canada a carbon neutral country.
There are also other ways that naturally capture carbon and these include: all the rest of the plant life, water, dirt and even melting snow. These haven’t even been factored into the total amount of C02 that gets captured yearly in Canada.
So, with all these facts I asked the federal Liberal party what they based their new carbon tax on and they replied by telling me to go to the government of Canada site. I checked this site and was sent to Environment Canada site. No answers here about why the taxing of carbon.
Next, I checked with Stephen Fuhr’s office and they responded quickly with an answer of ‘because basically, we cause most of the carbon pollution.’ Fair enough, but nature takes care of the pollution Canadians make. Not an excuse for us to keep on making this pollution. I had also asked the B.C. Premier John Horgan’s office the same question. It has been three weeks and with no response.
With all those big carbon numbers it should be pointed out that in the group of greenhouse gasses (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and hydro-fluorocarbons) this man-made portion makes up only 20 to 40 per cent of the gasses. Water vapour makes up the majority 60 to 80 per cent of the greenhouse gasses and there is no tax that will eliminate that.
So do we tax, or should we maybe pay incentives through less taxes for environmentally-safer products?
Len Luke
Okanagan Falls
