Editor, The Times:
Here is a preview of a science fiction novel I am working on.
It’s the aliens’ fault. They are causing global warming. They plan to destroy all Earth-life by heating the planet to above the boiling point of water to make it safe for colonization by the aliens. In other words, climate change is an illegitimate interstellar real estate development.
To do this, they have arranged the collaboration of the League of Quislings, a small group of human beings. The aliens have promised the Quislings eternal life in return for selling out the planet, but there’s a hitch.
One small town on Earth remains, a town I call Grizzly Mountain. It is sheltered inside a dome made of diamond crystal.
The aliens have given the Quislings a section of their star-ship. The section is also sheltered under a dome of diamond crystal. The aliens promised them eternal life but didn’t promise to protect them against greed and stupidity. The Quislings are busy heating sections of the dome, then throwing cold water on them to fracture off pieces they call “spalls.” Those spalls of diamonds are incredibly beautiful, and the Quislings measure each other’s status by the number of spalls each can accumulate and display. Outside the Quislings’ dome is the cold vacuum of outer space. The eternal life the aliens promised the Quislings will be short.
Why haven’t the people living in Grizzly Mountain also put holes in their dome by creating spalls?
Because they charge a tax (or fee) for the privilege of doing so, a tax high enough that even the wealthiest find alternatives.
What do they do with the revenue from the tax? They distribute it as equal rebates or dividends to all the town’s residents, which means everyone is interested in seeing the tax continue.
Canada’s carbon tax with rebates system is under threat. In part, this is a result of how it was implemented. Instead of being simple, transparent and uniform, it’s complex, opaque and a patchwork quilt across the nation. Above all, it was brought in without adequate national debate.
In 1942, Canada was in the middle of the Second World War. The conscription crisis was tearing the country apart. Prime Minister Mackenzie King held a referendum on the matter. The vote was 66 per cent in favour of compulsory overseas military service, with 72 per cent in Quebec against. The outcome was that the government conscripted soldiers but only sent them into combat near the end of the war.
With 90 per cent of the revenue being returned to households as rebates, Canada’s federal carbon tax with rebates system is very close to the carbon fee-and-dividend promoted by Dr. James Hansen, Citizens Climate Lobby and others. As such, it is an inspiration to responsible environmentalists around the world. No other method has the power to reduce our use of fossil fuels quickly enough to control the wildfires, floods, heat waves and other consequences of climate change that we are seeing.
Canadians deserve to have a say in the matter. We should have a nationwide referendum on Canada’s carbon tax.
Keith McNeill
Clearwater, B.C.
