The world’s first nuclear meltdown happened 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles, and released hundreds of times more radiation than Three Mile Island. And I’m betting you’ve never heard of it.
I was at the SMMTC board meeting on Thursday night, and two of the parks representatives were arguing about whether Runkle Canyon was owned by the National Park Service or another agency. I pulled out my iPhone to check it out on Google, but was surprised to see that most of the links mentioned a nuclear disaster. I’ve lived in Simi Valley for 5 years, Runkle Canyon is only a few miles from my house, and that was news to me.
Digging in deeper, I discovered that the world’s first commercial nuclear reactor was opened at Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Laboratory in 1957, powering 1100 homes in nearby Moorpark. As an experimental facility, it had no concrete containment shell, and it was using the highly reactive element sodium as a cooling agent, rather than water. In 1959, the cooling system failed, 13 out of 43 fuel rods melted, and a large amount of radioactive gas was leaked into the air. No measurements were taken at the time, but the Santa Susana Field Laboratory Advisory Panelreport estimates that the total radiation released could have been up to 500 times that of Three Mile Island.
For 20 years the accident was kept secret, with a small report stating that only one fuel rod had melted and no radiation was released. In 1979 a UCLA professor uncovered documents showing the true extent of the accident, and since then there’s been a struggle to reconstruct exactly how much contamination there was, and how to clean it up. Home developers have recently been pushing to buy the site from Boeing and build a …! Luckily there was a recent agreement to keep the area an open space as a new state park.
I’m still happy here in Simi Valley, but now I’ll be keeping a careful count to catch any newly sprouted fingers or toes. For more information on the accident itself, check out this History Channel excerpt:
This is either the first or the second worst atomic disaster in history. Maybe it is the first or second worst environmental disaster in history. This is not a small leak. So, we should be very cautious in allowing people to return to an area so close to these huge amounts of radiation.
Residents of a small district around 12 miles from the Fukushima plant are allowed to return home – for the first time since the nuclear disaster that took place more than three years ago. The decision, which took effect on Tuesday, applies to 357 people in 117 households from a district of Tamura city after the government determined that radiation levels are low enough for habitation. The Miyakoji area of the north-eastern city of Tamura has been a no-go zone for most residents since March 2011.
The government ordered evacuation after a devastating earthquake and tsunami caused a triple meltdown at the Fukushima plant. But many of the evacuees are still undecided about going back because of fears about radiation levels, and especially its effect on children. The Voice of Russia talked to Joseph Mangano, epidemiologist, and Executive Director of Radiation and Public Health Project research group.
From the point of view of an epidimiologist, how safe is the Miyakoji area?
It is not safe. First of all, any level of radiation has a health risk, has a safety risk to it but especially in an area that is only 20 km away from Fukushima, that is very close, we know that there are high levels of radiation in the air, in the water and in the food. And anybody who returns will be breathing and drinking and eating this radiation which creates a health hazard and a special hazard for certain groups such as unborn babies, young children and pregnant women.
I was talking to Ryugo Hayano, Professor of Physics at the University of Tokyo. He says that the level of radiation right now in this area is somewhere from 1.5 to 2.5 millisieverts. And he says that this is a safe level of radiation. You disagree with that.
I definitely disagree, and not only do I disagree but the blue-ribbon panel called the BEIR committee, on exposure of levels of ionizing radiation, disagrees. They have put out 7 reports in the last 40 years and everyone of them concludes based on hundreds of scientific studies that all levels of radiation are harmful. The higher the radiation, the higher the risk but there is no safe level. That is like saying if you smoked 4 or 5 cigarettes a day, that would be not harmful. It is only a few. First of all, you have to do the studies.
These people are not doing any health studies, and number two, these studies are going to show there is some risk because tobacco is not safe and radiation is not safe, and especially in a case like this. This is either the first or the second worst atomic disaster in history. Maybe it is the first or second worst environmental disaster in history. This is not a small leak. So, we should be very cautious in allowing people to return to an area so close to these huge amounts of radiation.
What do you suggest Tokyo should do?
The government should, especially the government health officials, should do much better job in monitoring the levels of radiation in air, in all the diets, and they should be extra-vigilant in making sure that nobody lives close to the plant like this, 20 km away. That is what a health department does, it protects people.
Why do you think they are doing the exact opposite right now providing incentives for people to actually come back to that zone?
They are doing it for reasons other than health reasons, I can tell you that. Any good health official, any good health department is going to be cautious especially when you had such a massive meltdown with such high radiation which by the way is not over. Unlike even Chernobyl which was over in just a few weeks and months, 3 years later radiation is still being released from Fukushima, every single day, large amounts are going into the air and into the Pacific Ocean. So, it is not the time to be telling people to return to areas so close to this terrible disaster.
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — Los Alamos National Laboratory, under a tight deadline to get nuclear waste off its northern New Mexico campus before wildfire season peaks, has begun trucking containers to temporary storage in west Texas while the government’s only permanent nuclear dump remains shuttered by a radiation leak.
The first shipments arrived at a commercial nuclear waste dump in Andrews County on Tuesday, more than a month after the nation’s only permanent repository for the waste in southeastern New Mexico was closed by back-to-back accidents, Los Alamos and U.S. Department of Energy officials said.
Shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad were halted Feb. 5 after a truck hauling salt in the half-mile deep mine and repository caught fire. Nine days later, radiation leaked above ground at the facility, contaminating at least 21 workers and sending toxins into the air around the dump. Officials insist all the levels were way below those deemed unsafe.
A series of shortcomings were cited two weeks ago by a team that investigated the truck fire. Officials hope to get underground this week to begin investigating what caused the radiation release.
The dump’s closure left federal officials scrambling to find an alternative for the last of nearly 4,000 barrels of plutonium-contaminated tools and protective gear from decades of nuclear bomb-building at Los Alamos. The lab has promised to have all the waste, which is stored outside on a mesa, removed by the end of June.
The state of New Mexico pressured Los Alamos to speed up removal of the waste after a massive wildfire in 2011 that lapped at the edges of lab property. Los Alamos said about 100 shipments remain, and it hopes to send about 10 a week until the waste is cleared.
Published: April 2nd, 2014 at 6:32 pm ET
By ENENews
Metro News, Mar. 24, 2014: Alberta student’s science project finds high radiation levels in grocery-store seafood […] Bronwyn Delacruz […] said she was shocked to discover that, in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) stopped testing imported foods for radiation in 2012. […] Delacruz studied a variety of seafoods – particularly seaweeds – as part of an award-winning science project that she will take to a national fair next month. […] Her results caught the attention of judges at the Peace River Regional Science Fair, who moved her project along to the Canada-Wide Science Fair […]
Daily Herald Tribune, Mar. 25, 2014: Local science project finds high levels of radiation in seaweed — When Bronwyn Delacruz started testing seaweed in her living room last August, she made an incredible discovery: Something unexpected may be lurking in Canadian waters. [Delacruz] found disconcerting radiation levels in seaweed products from local grocery stores and is concerned for the health of families who may be consuming them. Her research on the subject recently earned gold at the regional Canada-Wide Science Fair […] Delacruz tested more than 300 individual seaweed samples, with 15 brands exported from New Brunswick, British Columbia, California, Washington, China and Japan. Each was purchased in an Alberta grocery […] 0.5 Bq per square centimetre is widely considered an actionable level of contamination […] many of her samples tested well over this amount. […] Delacruz believes the current has carried dangerous radiation from Japan’s east coast to Canada’s portion of the Pacific Ocean. […] and believes dangerous radiation may only have reached the Canadian coastline recently. […] Delacruz is a CWSF Physical Award of Excellence in Physical Earth and Chemical Sciences-winner […]
Bronwyn Delacruz, Mar. 24, 2014: “Some of the kelp that I found was higher than what the International Atomic Energy Agency sets as radioactive contamination, which is 1,450 counts over a 10-minute period […] Some of my samples came up as 1,700 or 1,800.”
Bronwyn Delacruz, Mar. 25, 2014: “I think any dose of radiation can be harmful […] Any dose can cause negative health effects […] I’m kind of concerned that this is landing in our grocery stores and that if you aren’t measuring it, you could just be eating this and bringing home to your family. […] Kelp was higher than what was considered dangerous […] Some of them came up to 1,700, 1,800 (counts). […] The way the currents and the radiation would arrive in Canada, it wouldn’t arrive until now […] My pre-Fukushima (nori) measured about 400 (counts) […] post-Fukushima measured around 500 to 600, which also not dangerous, but it’s considerably higher and statistically significantly higher too. […] I eat a lot of seaweed in almost everything […] I would like the government to test before they ‘OK’ imports from other countries […] they’re just relying on other countries to do it for us. […] I hope people will open their eyes to this.”
How You Can Help: Delacruz is fundraising to purchase a $15,000 germanium spectrometer for the High School science department that can detect radiation in fish and other complex foods. To donate, call Grande Prairie Public School District Education Foundation at 780-532-4491.
The NNSA is responsible for the management and security of the United States’ nuclear weapons, nuclear nonproliferation and naval reactor programs, and responds to nuclear and radiological emergencies around the world, but it has recently come under fire for failing to keep complete and accurate information on nuclear weapons in the U.S. stockpile.
aw360, Washington (April 02, 2014, 7:15 PM ET) — The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a $25 million grant to the University of Michigan to research and develop nuclear arms control verification technologies, the department said on Monday.
Under the terms of the National Nuclear Security Administration‘s five-year grant, the University of Michigan will lead a consortium to support and improve the federal government’s nuclear safeguards and improve its efforts to monitor countries who don’t follow the international nuclear nonproliferation treaty.
The University of Michigan will be joined by 13 other institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University and Columbia University, as well as eight national laboratories including Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos. In addition to their research and development efforts, the consortium will train new nonproliferation experts, the University of Michigan said.
“Developing the R&D expertise of tomorrow can take years to cultivate,” NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Anne Harrington said in a statement. “But we are linking national laboratories and academia by funding the next generation of researchers to perform complex research and gain an understanding of technical challenges in areas of major importance for the nuclear nonproliferation mission that can only be garnered first-hand at the national laboratories.”
The consortium will be divided into different groups working on monitoring, disarmament and other nuclear safeguard goals, and they hope they will be able to streamline nuclear monitoring processes, which can be costly and time-consuming. Rather than requiring inspectors to open and measure nuclear materials from individual storage containers and verify them against reactor and fuel processing facility records, the group will research neutron detectors and other solutions.
According to a DOE Office of Inspector General report issued last week, NNSA has incomplete product definitions and ineffective management of classified nuclear weapons drawings, which could lead to the unauthorized changes to the drawings.
The OIG audit also found that NNSA sites could not always locate “as-built” product definitions and drawings for nuclear weapons and components in their official records, according to the report. Friedman’s team also found the sites could not always confirm that parts not conforming to specifications were actually built for use in nuclear weapons.
The report issued several recommendations to the NNSA, including that it “prioritize, collect and digitize the original as-built nuclear weapons product definition information” and implement a system to match this information with weapons systems and components. The NNSA concurred with OIG’s recommendations.
–Additional reporting by Zachary Zagger. Editing by Philip Shea.
The report has received criticism from medical experts who are researching on health effects of radiation. In the interview with 3Sat, Dr. Alex Rosen, a German pediatrician and member of German IPPNW (International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War), harshly criticizes the playing down of radiation impact by UNSCEAR and the nuclear lobby. Professor Wolfgang Hoffmann, a German epidemiologist and radiobiologist, holds views similar to those of Dr. Alex Rosen. He assumes that those who criticize this report would be officially blamed for panic mongering and that any claims for damages and compensation could also be preempted on the basis of this report. https://nuclear-news.net/2013/12/26/medical-experts-criticise-unscear-report-for-playing-down-consequences-of-fukushima-nuclear-accident/
IPPNW press release dated 02.04.2014 International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Physicians for Social Responsibility Association (IPPNW), Section Germany
UMWELT/718: UNSCEAR report on Fukushima – cover-up of health effects of the nuclear disaster (IPPNW)
“are to be expected, no significant changes for future cancer rates that can be associated with radiation exposure from the accident.”
Doctors of the IPPNW, say their calculations estmate tens of thousands of additional cancer cases.
As the number of cancers in the Japanese population are already high, the majority of these cases will be claimed to not be related to the radiation.
The fact that a cancer bears no designation of origin, and never can be clearly attributed to a single cause, is used by the nuclear industry and also by UNSCEAR to deny any causality.
One tactic, was used by the tobacco industry or the asbestos industry for a long time.
“History repeats itself. Like the time after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the risks for the people living in the contaminated areas to be covered up, trivialized and secretive,” criticized the deputy chairman of the IPPNW, Dr. Alex Rosen.
The IPPNW also complained that the members of UNSCEAR support them in their report mainly on information from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the operating company TEPCO and the Japanese nuclear authorities.
Neutral, independent institutes and research institutions will be ignored. So based dose calculations of the affected population in the report
“to promote worldwide use of nuclear energy”The IAEA isn organization that was founded with that goal.
The radiation doses from the power plant workers were largely taken directly from the controversial operating company TEPCO. The large number of reports of manipulations and inconsistencies of these readings are overlooked by the the authors of the UNSCEAR report.
In 47% of the examined children in Fukushima Prefecture nodes and cysts were found. In 33 children, the doctors now firmly thyroid cancer and had to remove the thyroid surgery, a further 42 children with acute suspicion of cancer is such an operation before.
These figures correspond to an incidence of 13.0 per 100,000 children. Before Fukushima, the annual number of new cases was in Japan at only 0.35 per 100,000 children. The number of thyroid cancer cases in Fukushima are so alarmingly high.
Undisputed: every little dose of radioactivity is associated with an increased risk of cancer. Instead of the affected educate people openly about these risks, however, the report’s authors try based on questionable assumptions, selective samples and averaged doses of radiation that underlines the nuclear industries complacent messages of “no health effects”
Source: Press release of 2 April 2014 International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Physicians for Social Responsibility Association (IPPNW), Section Germany Körtestr. 10, 10967 Berlin Phone 030/69 80 74-0, Fax: 030/69 38 166 E-mail: ippnw@ippnw.de
This is the submission done by Global 2000 ,which they say you are welcome to copy and paste – Just add your name, email address and the date at the end. Send to stateaidgreffe@ec.europa.eu
You don’t have to send it all and if there are any other points you want to raise, the scruffily put together facts in my last blog might be useful. There are some good links there too.
I am very concerned about the current plans of the UK government to make a new nuclear power plant possible by granting enormous support for it. We would like to encourage the EU Commission to stick to its clear analysis, because we as CITIZENS/ NGOS/ BUSINESS in the UK do not want to be forced into paying a fixed high electricity price to EDF for several decades, with no chance of the possibly of making use of lower electricity prices……..
They’re not really measuring the worst of the radiation. What we’re finding are very, very small microscopic particles that are lodging in people’s lungs. The Japanese government is not taking that exposure into effect. The health consequences within 20km and 30km are really significant and will be for decades. […] They are really forcing them to move in, because they’re taking away the money that they have been receiving to live remotely. The only way they can continue to be on a stipend is to come back in to that radiation. So it’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation.
You run the risk of destroying the fabric of a country — it happened at Chernobyl and it’s happening right now in Japan. […] The nuclear plant on the Japanese side of the Pacific is bleeding radiation into the Pacific every day. About 400 tons of radioactive water every day for over 1,000 days now [105,668,000 gallons], has been pouring in to the Pacific. […] We are beginning to see low levels of radiation in the water […] Until our government, whether it’s states or national government, tell me what’s in the fish, I remain very concerned about eating the fish that are coming from the Pacific.Watch the broadcast here
The announcement brings to 21 the total number of Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, or “WIPP,” personnel who were exposed to small amounts of radiation following a February leak of some radioactive elements from the subterranean nuclear-materials dump, the Associated Pressreports.
The department intended to dispatch a team of eight specialists on Tuesday into the underground portion of the nuclear facility to start establishing outposts that would enable a probe into exactly what led to the leak.
The WIPP facility has not accepted any new atomic waste since the discovery of the radiation leak. This has caused some U.S. nuclear-weapons sites to turn to temporary options for storing their waste.
J-GOV WITHHOLDS RADIATION READINGS FROM 3 FUKUSHIMA SITES
Fukushima Update MARCH 28, 2014 via Mainichi.jp / March 25, 2014 /A Cabinet Office team has delayed the release of radiation measurements from three Fukushima Prefecture municipalities, and plans to release them later with lower, recalculated results, the Mainichi learned on March 24.
The three municipalities are currently covered by evacuation orders imposed after the March 2011 Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant meltdowns — evacuation orders the government plans to lift in the near future. According to one source, the original measurements were higher than expected, prompting the Cabinet Office team — set up to support victims of the nuclear disaster — to hold the results back over worries they would discourage residents from returning.
The Mainichi has acquired documents drawn up in November last year detailing the radiation measurements and intended for release. The documents, however, were never made public. According to this and other sources, the measurements were taken in September last year in the city of Tamura’s Miyakoji district, the village of Kawauchi and the village of Iitate by the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS), using new dosimeters………http://fukushimaupdate.com/j-gov-withholds-radiation-readings-from-3-fukushima-sites/
Nuclear waste ship in Tasman sea http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/9896660/Nuclear-waste-ship-in-Tasman-seaTIM DONOGHUE 2 April 14 The nuclear waste carrier Pacific Grebe is currently making its way through the northern mid-Tasman sea bound for Japan with canisters of high level reprocessed nuclear waste from Britain on board.
The 6,840 tonne British registered ship, owned by Warrington, UK based Pacific Nuclear Transport, sailed from Barrow-in-Furness, north of Liverpool, bound for Japan on 14 February 2014
The Japan Times reported in January, 2014 that 28 canisters of high-level radioactive waste, produced through the reprocessing of spent Japanese nuclear fuel in Britain, would be transported to the Aomori Prefecture on board Pacific Grebe.
The 28 canisters of vitrified radioactive waste included 14 for Kansai Electric Power Co and seven each for Chubu Electric Power Co. and Chugoku Electric Power Co.
The paper also reported in January that the shipment was the third involving vitrified radioactive waste to be brought to Japan from Britain.
Japan has received 104 canisters of such waste from Britain and plans to receive around 800 more. The 104 canisters have been stored at a facility in the village of Rokkasho, The Japan Times reported.
Another Japan nuclear operator turns to government for aidBY TAIGA URANAKA AND JAMES TOPHAM TOKYO Wed Apr 2, 2014 (Reuters) – Japan’s Kyushu Electric Power Co (9508.T) has become the second nuclear generator to seek state support this week as reactors across the country remain idled and industry losses mount three years after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.
Kyushu Electric, a regional monopoly that supplies power in southern Japan, said on Wednesday it was in talks with state-owned Development Bank of Japan for financial backing. On Tuesday, a source said Hokkaido Electric Power Co (9509.T), which supplies Japan’s northernmost island, had asked the same bank for financial assistance…….
We are in consultations with the Development Bank of Japan about receiving capital support, but since nothing has been decided I am unable to comment further,” said Kyushu spokesman Yuki Hirano.
Kyushu Electric is asking the bank to buy 100 billion yen of preferred stock in the company, a source said. The lender is considering the request, which was reported earlier by the Nikkei business newspaper.
If both Kyushu Electric and Hokkaido Electric get the aid, they would join the stricken Fukushima plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) (9501.T), in receiving government bailouts. Other nuclear operators may be forced to turn to the government, the Nikkei said on Tuesday.
In 2012, the government took a controlling stake in Tepco. The company still relies on constant taxpayer handouts to pay compensation to those affected by the nuclear disaster, which forced 160,000 people from their homes……..
Shares in Kyushu Electric were down 4.6 percent in mid-morning trade, after falling as much as 6.5 percent, versus a 1.1 percent rise in the benchmark Nikkei 225 .N225.
Kyushu Electric has estimated a net loss of 125 billion yen for the year ended March 31……
Fukushima residents cleared to return home(CNN) By Euan McKirdy, CNN April 1, 2014 — Hundreds of residents of an area contaminated by a catastrophic reactor meltdown at a nuclear plant in northeastern Japan have been allowed to return home three years after the disaster.
An evacuation order, declared in the aftermath of a devastating tsunami that crippled the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant in March, 2011, was lifted at midnight on Monday from the Miyakoji district of Tamura city in Fukushima Prefecture.
Residents of the town, who have been in limbo ever since, are now free to re-inhabit their homes following decontamination work in the area……..
Radiation worries
However, concerns remain about background radiation levels and uncertainty surrounding the safety of the area, especially given past concerns about the reporting of radiation levels in the area by Fukushima’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). Last month, Miyakoji residents were told at a community meeting that radiation contamination levels had lowered sufficiently to enable their return to the area — though some voiced concern over existing radiation levels despite decontamination efforts around some communities…….
Areas are declared suitable for habitation if residents are exposed to a maximum of 20 millisieverts of radiation per year. Officials have said they would like to get radiation exposure down to one millisievert a year……http://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/01/world/asia/fukushima-miyakoji-return/
The journal that gave in to climate deniers’ intimidation The Conversation, Elaine McKewon, Research Associate, Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at University of Technology, Sydney 1 April 14,
In February 2013, the journal Frontiers in Psychology published a peer-reviewed paper which found that people who reject climate science are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. Predictably enough, those people didn’t like it.The paper, which I helped to peer-review, is called “Recursive fury: Conspiracist ideation in the blogosphere in response to research on conspiracist ideation”. In it, cognitive scientist Stephan Lewandowsky and his colleagues survey and analyse the outcry generated on climate skeptic blogs to their earlier work on climate denial.
The earlier study had also linked climate denial with conspiracist thinking. And so by reacting with yet more conspiracy theorising, the bloggers rather proved the researchers’ point.
Yet soon after Recursive Fury was published, threats of litigation started to roll in, and the journal took the paper down (it survives on the website of the University of Western Australia, where Lewandowsky carried out the study).
A lengthy investigation ensued, which eventually found the paper to be scientifically and ethically sound. Yet on March 21 this year, Frontiers retracted the paper because of the legal threats.
The episode offers some of the clearest evidence yet that threats of libel lawsuits have a chilling effect on scientific research………
the journal’s management and editors were clearly intimidated by climate deniers who threatened to sue. So Frontiers bowed to their demands, retracted the paper, damaged its own reputation, and ultimately gave a free kick to aggressive climate deniers.
How British Columbia Enacted the Most Effective Carbon Tax in North America, the Atlantic Cities,CHRIS MOONEY, 26 MARCH 14, Suppose that you live in Vancouver and you drive a car to work. Naturally, you have to get gas regularly. When you stop at the pump, you may see a notice like the one below, explaining that part of the price you’re paying
is, in effect, due to the cost of carbon. That’s because in 2008, the government of British Columbia decided to impose a tax on greenhouse gas emissionsfrom fossil fuels, enacting what has been called ”the most significant carbon tax in the Western Hemisphere by far.”
If the goal was to reduce global warming pollution, then the BC carbon tax totally works. Since its passage, gasoline use in British Columbia has plummeted, declining seven times as much as might be expected from an equivalent rise in the market price of gas, according to arecent study by two researchers at the University of Ottawa. That’s apparently because the tax hasn’t just had an economic effect: It has also helped change the culture of energy use in BC. “I think it really increased the awareness about climate change and the need for carbon reduction, just because it was a daily, weekly thing that you saw,” says Merran Smith, the head of Clean Energy Canada. “It made climate action real to people.”
It also saved many of them a lot of money. Sure, the tax may cost you if you drive your car a great deal, or if you have high home gas heating costs. But it also gives you the opportunity to save a lot of money if you change your habits, for instance by driving less or buying a more fuel-efficient vehicle. That’s because the tax is designed to be “revenue neutral”—the money it raises goes right back to citizens in the form of tax breaks. Overall, the tax has brought in some $5 billion in revenue so far, and more than $3 billion has then been returned in the form of business tax cuts, along with over $1 billion in personal tax breaks, and nearly $1 billion inlow-income tax credits (to protect those for whom rising fuel costs could mean the greatest economic hardship). According to the BC Ministry of Finance, for individuals who earn up to $122,000, income tax rates in the province are now Canada’s lowest.
So what’s the downside? Well, there really isn’t one for most British Columbians, unless they drive their gas-guzzling cars a lot. (But then, the whole point of taxing carbon is to use market forces to discourage such behavior.) The far bigger downside is for Canadians in other provinces who lack such a sensible policy—and especially for Americans. In the United States, the idea of doing anything about global warming is currently anathema, even though addressing the problem in the way that British Columbia has done would help the environment and could also put money back in many people’s pockets. Such is the depth of our dysfunction; but by looking closely at British Columbia, at least we can see that it doesn’t have to be that way……….
The tax has actually become quite popular. “Polls have shown anywhere from 55 to 65 percent support for the tax,” says Stewart Elgie, director of the University of Ottawa’s Institute of the Environment. “And it would be hard to find any tax that the majority of people say they like, but the majority of people say they like this tax.”It certainly doesn’t hurt that the tax, well, worked. That’s clear on at least three fronts: Major reductions in fuel usage in BC, a corresponding decline in greenhouse gas emissions, and the lack of a negative impact on the BC economy……..
The bottom line, then, is that BC’s experience provides an exclamation point at the end of the long list of reasons to like a carbon tax. Perhaps the leading one, in the end, is that it’s a far simpler policy option than a cap and trade scheme, and is, as Harvard economist and Bush administration Council of Economic Advisers chair N. Gregory Mankiw has put it, “more effective and less invasive” than the sort of regulatory approaches that the government tends to implement.Indeed, economists tend to adore carbon taxes. When the IGM forum asked a group of 51 prominent economists whether a carbon tax would be “a less expensive way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions than would be a collection of policies such as ‘corporate average fuel economy’ requirements for automobiles,” assent was extremely high: 90 percent either agreed or strongly agreed. Yale economist Christopher Udry commented, “This is as clear as economics gets; provides incentives to find minimally costly ways to reduce emissions.”
“Totally basic economics!” added Stanford’s Robert Hall.
Since 2012, British Columbia has not raised the carbon tax further. Instead, the government agreed to freeze the rate as it is for five years. And no wonder: BC is now far ahead of most of its neighbors, and most of North America, in taking action to curtail global warming………
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