A Three-Dollar Calculator Cuts Through Endless Bullshit. Louis Shalako.

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Louis Shalako

A three-dollar calculator will cut through endless amounts of bullshit.

How much is the ‘carbon tax’ per litre of gas in 2024?

As of April 2024, the federal minimum price is set at CA$80.00 per tonne of CO 2 equivalent. This roughly translates to 14.3 cents per litre of gasoline. Provinces and territories with their own carbon pricing systems can use the proceeds as they see fit.

(This is the result of a quick Google search on the internet.)

So, if I spent approximately $2,151.00 on fuel in 2023, and if the average price of a litre of fuel is roughly $1.50/per litre, then I bought 1,434 litres of fuel. Multiply that by 14.3 cents...that's a little over $205.00 in increased fuel costs. I get $134.00 four times a year in carbon tax rebate, (that's going up to $140.00 this April.) Four times $134.00 is $536.00 per year in carbon tax rebates, for a net gain of $536 - $205 = $331.00 in cash, in my pocket, that I did not have to work for.

Any money that I do not have to work for is good money, ladies and gentlemen.

The carbon tax rate was 23 % less in 2023, so the savings are actually 23 % greater. Much has been made of a ‘23 % raise in the carbon tax’, this roughly equates to the raise from $65.00 per tonne to $80.00 per tonne.

Yet it’s only an increase of three-point-three cents per litre at the pump. You could save 10 % in fuel costs simply by slowing down, or you could get similar savings by planning your trips and cutting out unnecessary cruising for entertainment. Interestingly, I haven’t heard the term ‘energy conservation’ in over thirty years. Not in this country. Not while we’re sixth overall in terms of global energy production…not while there’s piss-pots of money still to be made from it, and that is for sure.

No one wants to talk about that ‘conservation’ sort of thing anymore. Oh, and when the federal carbon tax goes up three-point-three cents, and the cost of fuel goes up by ten or fifteen cents, that tells you more about the refiners than it does the federal government.

Admittedly, fuel conservation will not be a popular option for younger people, who may be experiencing that first taste of freedom, (for the most part, without the onerous burden of additional responsibility), or possibly just out having fun with their first vehicle. It’s not like I haven’t done the same thing myself. In fact, my first vehicle was an Austin Mini, which had exactly 38 horsepower. They don’t make cars like that anymore, do they. On a paved side-road, cruising in fourth gear at 60 or 65 kph, you could easily get thirty or forty miles per gallon. 

Funny thing is, it is their future that we are talking about…the kids, I mean.

When I pull up to the gas pumps and the readout shows that the person before me has put in $150.00 worth of fuel, that is not my problem. That is your problem. Not mine—

I’m just here to put twenty bucks in the tank, and maybe, hopefully, make it through one more fucking day.

All pissed-off at the carbon tax. It's like they have a God-given right, somehow.

***

We could divide $80.00/tonne and find out just exactly how many litres of fuel it takes to generate one tonne of carbon dioxide and spew that out into the atmosphere. What is most disturbing about the carbon tax debate is the sheer sense of entitlement that some folks seem to feel about their right to poison an atmosphere, which is, after all a common good.

It’s not like it’s the end of the world or anything. The atmosphere was put here so that poor people wouldn’t starve to death, and that seems to bother some people more than it should. It is the tragedy of the commons. What once belonged to all is exploited, enclosed, and engrossed, and ultimately spoiled, all for the profit of the few. And to hell with the rest of us—

Somehow their rights come ahead of yours and mine—and your children, and your grandchildren. It’s like they haven’t spared a thought for all of those cute little unborn fetuses…that the very same folks profess to care so deeply about, and that goes for all them little black babies in Africa as well.

The math: 80 divided by 0.143 = 559.44. So, if I burn 559 litres of fuel, in six months or a year, I have generated one tonne of carbon dioxide and put it up into the atmosphere.

Please, feel free to check my math, as I dropped out of high school in Grade 10, and if the truth be told, journalism school is sort of lacking in math-related subjects. Why, I have often wondered. It’s like they don’t want you to know, sometimes. Maybe they’re just fooling themselves.

***

In a more perfect world, we would all have the right to propose one rule, only problem, is that we would also have to live by it; with no power of compulsion over the rest of the human race.

In a more perfect world, every student of journalism, on the first day of journalism school, would have to demonstrate, to the satisfaction of their future readers, (or maybe just the instructor), that they owned a three-dollar calculator and actually knew how to use it.

Poolever bought a doughnut or something...

At the time of this writing, Monsieur Pierre Poilievre, leader of the federal Conservative Party and head of the Official Opposition in Parliament is leading in the polls by twenty points. His first priority, day one, if he should become Prime Minister, would be to scrap the carbon tax. I don’t think he will do it—I think he will keep the tax, by any other name. All he has to do is to rename it, and simply stop paying out the rebates to low-income Canadians, and that, somehow, magically, will suddenly make everything all right again.

The bourgeoisie is all too predictable, sometimes. Hatred is blind and unreasoning, and it poisons every mind that it touches. Funny thing is, they’d be the first to tell you they hate the carbon tax, they hate Justin Trudeau and they hate Liberals. While claiming to love Canada, (and freedom), they don’t seem to have too much regard for their fellow Canadians, no matter who they are or where they came from. They have a long list of hates and a very short list of things they love.

Anyhow, that’s my opinion, and I see no reason to change it.

 

END

Images: Likely stolen from the internet. 

Here is Louis Shalako’s free audiobook, A Stranger In Paris, available from Google Play.

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Thank you for reading, ladies and gentlemen.