Dear Ms Bader,

(B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation)

I recently read your column titled “Say No to Gas Tax Hike” published by Westcoaster.ca

http://www.westcoaster.ca/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=2668

Your views are shared by many, but as with many major societal changes, change comes slowly, and reluctantly. My purpose is not to argue about man-made climate change, scientific proof will be many years in the future.

CO2 emissions are simply a symptom of a much greater and fundamental problem. The Human Race transitioned to fossil fuels in the 18th century…. the reason why oil prices are so high and we are building giant Natural Gas import plants is because we are nearing the end of our fossil fuel endowment which we started using 200 years ago.

According to Natural Resources Canada, take away the Oil Sands, and Canadas conventional oil supply is already past its “peak” production and Natural Gas will peak within 4 years. After being some of the largest exporters in the world, Mexico, the UK, Indonesia are also declining in their production, and exports… Russia is set to decline within 5-10 years, and Saudi Arabia, the largest of all… may have peaked this year. Now if you say ‘we have oilsands’, you’re right… but it takes millions of cubic feet of NG… in fact the energy from a barrel of tarsand synthcrude is only 2:1 compared to the energy used to produce it. Conventional crude is about 16:1. And our 3 million barrels a day by 2020 will only satisfy 3% of projected world demand by then.

The bottomline is that $80 oil is only the beginning… crude oil is 70% of the price of gas at the pump. So when oil hits $100, $125 (equal to the ’70s high), or $150… in the next 5, 10, 15 years, how much will gas be then? The Loonie will rise right along with it… hitting our exporters even harder. 1% more in gas taxes will be nothing in comparison, even raised more overtime. Our economy, if it is still completely dependant on fossil fuels for its energy needs, will suffer every step of the way…

If on the other hand we gradually raise gas taxes, yes there will be economic hardship… but
IF INVESTED PRUDENTLY, those taxes and other incentives can be used to wean our economy off of fossil fuels and increase our efficiency drastically…. while at the same time leaving that much more for us to export to other needy oil importers (mainly the US).

It is my hope that the Canadian Taxpayer federation will be one of the champions of this strategy because in the end… the less fuel we use, the less tax we pay, both to the gov. and to our Environment.

The basis of my argument is not scientific consensus, it is mathematical certainly. For more on this phenomenon, and specifically how it affects oil exports from the worlds largest supporters, please go here:

http://graphoilogy.blogspot.com/2007/09/declining-net-oil-exports-temporary.html

Sincerely,

Chris Alemany

http://www.alberniweather.ca

http://www.murkyview.com

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Because clearly… given past actions… if he has, then it really seems inevitable. (either by the US or it’s effective proxy, Israel which just practiced the first 1/4 of the run across northern Syria towards Iran when it was shot at by Syrian Air Defenses.).

What past actions? Well Iraq obviously, but not for the reasons we thought we know… but for the reasons we now know for sure.

Both the French intelligence service and the CIA paid [Naji] Sabri [-- Saddam's foreign minister --] hundreds of thousands of dollars (at least $200,000 in the case of the CIA) to give them documents on Saddam’s WMD programs. “The information detailed that Saddam may have wished to have a program, that his engineers had told him they could build a nuclear weapon within two years if they had fissile material, which they didn’t, and that they had no chemical or biological weapons,” one of the former CIA officers told me.

The next day, Sept. 18, Tenet briefed Bush on Sabri. “Tenet told me he briefed the president personally,” said one of the former CIA officers. According to Tenet, Bush’s response was to call the information “the same old thing.” Bush insisted it was simply what Saddam wanted him to think. “The president had no interest in the intelligence,” said the CIA officer. The other officer said, “Bush didn’t give a fuck about the intelligence. He had his mind made up.”

I wonder if that is the simple explanation why there was such a sudden about-face by France in late-summer of ’03 when Chirac was at one point rallying his own troops for war… and then a few weeks later the largest obstacle to Bush and Blair.

Perhaps it’s as simple as… Chirac trusted his own Intelligence Agency… Bush, chose not to listen… who is Bush listening to now?

The Presidential Elections simply can’t come fast enough.

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