Going Green.

A conservative confesses.

Over the last 2 years or so I have slowly but surely been heading towards a greener lifestyle, and although it was not something that had I really set out to do initially; lo and behold this "neocon" has greatly lowered his footprint on mother earth.

So far:

I have replaced my old furnace with a new one which is at least 40% more efficient.


All light bulbs are being changed out as they die with CFL type bulbs.


Edmonton has one of the best recycling programs around, and while I have been using the program since the blue box days, I have become much more aware about what I am throwing away and what I am recycling recently.


New and much more efficient windows have been installed in my home.


As my appliances all seemed to die about the same time, all of them have now been replaced with more energy efficient units.

OK, the new washing machine might eat up a bit more power than the old one, but having a house full of kids with the huge volume of laundry easily justified the much larger capacity machine. I think it may work out in the end though as just by cutting down on the number of total washes with the new machine should make up that difference, and if not, the savings from the new refrigerator and range will easily make the difference.


The car I recently bought is supposed to get 50 miles to the gallon, or use just over 8 litres per 100 kilometers on the highway.

It is too early to tell if the above mileage will be accurate, but compared to the truck I was driving and just using basic 'in my head math', it appears that I have decreased my fuel consumption by over 66%. This is easily an under estimate as I did not include the fact that I am not driving the kilometers that I did even a couple of years ago to come up with the 66% decrease.


There are probably a few more little things that I could list but I think my point has been made.

I have gone greener.




But why you ask?

It sure wasn't any Liberal tax, newly proposed or otherwise, or even some grand vision style lefty policy initiative that did turned this so called"neocon" green. In fact it was the thing that many lefties detest that actually made the difference. It was the free market that did it. Well, as free as it gets in Canada anyways.

Imagine that. The market has seemed to do on it's own, and without any 'help' or manipulation from government, something controlling lefty governments have all failed to do in the past. It has made myself and countless others go greener.

I expect someone to pipe in and say that this is how a carbon tax is supposed to work and why one is still needed. This might be true if nothing was progressing, but the reality is that that we are already seeing positive results* of what is happening because of the market. And all without the help or manipulation of government. I would also add that judging from the long history of government manipulation in the markets, or even looking to just about anything else the government has ever done/planned/or touched as examples; Dion's carbon tax would not only follow along with most other big government visions/plans and not work as intended, it would cost us all way too much in the attempt. Trust me, it's a long list of expensive failures and I doubt that this time it would turn out any different.

Now the political stuff. Take heed Liberals. In my opinion to pile on ANY type of carbon tax now would be political suicide. I feel it would be looked at as another tax grab by your average Canadian; one that would not only hurt Canadians financially but also one that punishes the poor unfairly and will end up creating even more poverty along the way. Like it or not, most Canadians still have to heat their homes in the winter, wash their clothes, buy and cook their food, commute, or even be able to see in the dark in our northern part of the world. These are the facts and adding additional costs to these necessities of life are not going to be looked at kindly by an already cash poor and overtaxed electorate. You will be paying a price at the ballot box if you propose to raise those costs even more for Canadians with a carbon tax.






* This occurred in 2006 under a Harper government. Something that the Liberals cannot claim even though they signed on to Kyoto and had Dion as the "greenest environment minister ever" running the show. Not that you heard much about this reduction in the MSM, but that is another topic.