Dear Exalted Ruler, you have mail from the OECD and the IEA. They want you and other world leaders to cut out the billions of dollars you waste each year on fossil fuel subsidies. Yes, your Grace, that means the Tar Sands too.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Energy Agency Tuesday urged governments world-wide to cut billions of dollars in fossil-fuel subsidies, arguing the rollbacks would bolster sagging government budgets while cutting wasteful energy use and carbon emissions.
A group of 24 industrialized countries now spends $45 billion to $75 billion annually on more than 250 support measures to producers and consumers, according to a report released Tuesday by the OECD.The estimated price tag is even bigger for emerging countries: A group of 37 mostly developing countries studied by the IEA spent $409 billion in 2010 on fossil-fuel-consumption subsidies, according to IEA data.
And by subsidies, your Magesty, we must include all the free freshwater we let Big Oil take. As you may know, Canada is one of the few places around the world that continues to treat this sort of water as free. Put a realistic fair market value on that natural treasure and send Big Oil an invoice.
It's high time to stomp out this sort of socialist gladhanding, don't you think Steve?
5 comments:
The Occupy Wall Street movement has it right - the bottom 99% is paying dearly to make the top 1% rich. Very glad to hear the 350.org Keystone XL protesters are joining the movement.
Mound, how disrespectful of his Majesty. You must write on a proper stationary and proper letter-head suitable to royals only.
As far as 99% wealth owned by 1% is a perfect recipe for economic disaster. Pretty soon the 99% poor and middle-class will not be able to buy the goods and services produced by 1% rich.
MOS perhaps you could organize a movement such as the Occupy Wall Street movement so Canadians would actually know this is happening. I'd be there right with you. Is there anyone else so inclined?
Anyong I'm embarrassed to admit how ignorant I am of organized protest - organization, administration, funding, communications, general logistics, etc. I was never involved in that during my earlier years, even back when Viet Nam was fueling furious, sometimes violent protests on my campus in the states.
I would like to delve into how our new technologies can overcome the hurdles that inevitably stand in the way of protest in a nation so sparsely populated and vast as our own.
Hacker groups such as "Anonymous" have found ways to wage virtual protests with tangible impacts but their very anonymity makes me more than a bit uncomfortable with that sort of thing. Be that as it may I expect we will see in the very near future the spread of cyber-protest to hobble (or worse) governments that have already rendered themselves feeble and vulnerable.
Don't give up hope. As I have written repeatedly, I believe the Century of Revolution is upon us. It will go very hard for some countries and their peoples (it already is) but it may afford a wonderful means for advantaged societies such as our own to peacefully restructure ourselves.
Thankfully MoS, there are still an awful lot of people out there who haven't given up hope. I've read that protests are being organized through the social media for 15 October in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. What we really need is an Occupy Fort McMurray movement.
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