In the face of waning enthusiasm, global warming alarmists are turning up the heat. But what they are telling us should alert people who weren't aware of this already is that to reduce man-made carbon dioxide, we need to reduce economic growth and our standard of living.

Never mind we've had no global warming for the past 10 years while carbon dioxide levels continue to rise. This might indicate to some people that hey - maybe man-made carbon dioxide has nothing to do with climate change, but I digress.

TD Bank financed a study that showed how expensive it will be to 'do something' about global warming.

For some mysterious reason, TD Bank hired the David Suzuki Foundation, the Pembina Institute and Mark Jaccard to do the study.

Jaccard is Premier Campbell's very own carbon tax guru. In fact, Jaccard is on record suggesting carbon emissions should be taxed at a rate of $240 per tonne.  That’s – wait for it – a gas tax at the pumps of 57.6 per litre. Sorry, I'm digressing again.

TD has come under a huge amount of criticism for paying environmentalists with well-known biases to develop the emission reduction scenario. TD said they don't endorse the study. Good thing, as TD economist Don Drummond himself confesses that some industries and some people could suffer greatly if Canada goes ahead with a draconian carbon dioxide reduction initiative.

Maybe TD doesn't do any business with those industries or people.

The study shows we'll have to drastically reduce economic growth, productive jobs, and our standard of living to try to stop the climate from changing. But will transferring a huge amount of wealth from Western Canada to Central Canada and the developed world actually 'do something' about global warming?

Industry would have to pay a tax for every tonne of CO2 it emitted. In Europe, this has meant fewer industries. European governments have imposed a garden variety of emissions reduction measures since the early 1990's. Norway and Sweden, for example, saw manufacturing jobs fall by 5.6% and 18.5% respectively between 1991 and 2005. Meanwhile, emissions increased a whopping 62% in Norway and 11.3% in Sweden during that same period.

Homes would have to be 50% more energy efficient. This will make the housing affordability crisis even worse.

New cars would have new fuel-efficiency standard. In the UK, per capita CO2 emissions from transportation sources have gone up faster than Canada's; by 8.2% vs 6.1% between 1995 and 2005. Why? Because over 33% of vehicles on UK roads are over 10 years old, but fewer than 9% of vehicles on Canadian roads are over 10 years old. Perversely, introducing California-style vehicle emissions standards could increase emissions levels in B.C. if people start keeping their cars longer.

Western provinces would transfer a massive amount of wealth to Central Canada, just like Stephane Dion's green shift, or shaft more like it.

Then, we'd have to send between $2-6 billion each year to developing countries to purchase carbon credits. This is an aid program dressed up in green clothing.  

So, while punishing successful provinces and companies to give handouts to others might sound like a good idea to some, that theory assumes people won't change their behaviour. However, successful companies will become less successful, or leave, meaning less handout money. At the same time, more people will be drawn into subsidized activities, increasing the demand for handouts.

Talk about unsustainable.

So it is important for everyone who cares about having a better life in the future to call their MP and tell them you don't want to see billions of tax dollars flushed down the toilet for taxes that will do little if anything to change the course of global warming but could do a lot to hurt a family's bottom line.