[Review of] Howard Brotz, ed. African-American Social and Political Thought

African-American Sociol ond Political Thought, originally published in 1966, is back in print-testimony to the durability of the writings it collects. The editor provides a selection of primary works by great African-American thinkers whom he categorizes into four mainstreams: emigrationists, assimilationists, cultural nationalists, and revived political nationalists. The works of such men as Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, W. E.B. Dubois, and Marcus Garvey, stand alone for their brilliance, but brought together, they provide a panoramic view of the diversity of African-American philosophies for Black advancement

[Review of] Donald W. Jackson. Even the Children of Strangers: Equality under the U.S. Constitution

Can separate but equal really be equal? How do we achieve equality through remedial preferential treatment? Does America\u27s meritocracy dictate inequality? These compelling questions are addressed in Donald Jackson\u27s Even Children of Strangers: Equality Under the U.S. Constitution

[Review of] Ronald T. Takai . Violence in The Black Imagination: Essays and Documents. Expanded Editions

Originally published in 1972 and re-issued in 1993, Violence in the Black Imagination was an early attempt to overcome the pitfalls of what some academicians have termed disjunctive scholarship. Ronald Takaki reminds us that too often fiction is analyzed narrowly as an art rather than as social documents that might be useful not only to those studying literature but also to those examining history. Reviewing three fictional works, Takaki makes a case or their use as historical sources. He asserts that “black fiction not only adds to our already limited number of ante-bellum black written documents, but also represents a particularly important genre of evidence” (12). Nineteenth century fiction, according to Takaki, lends insight into the feelings and emotions African Americans harbored towards slavery -- insight often lost in traditional historical sources

[Review of] Kenneth Robert Janken. Rayford W. Logan and the Dilemma of the African-American Intellectual

Rayford W. Logan has been little more than an obscure shadow in African-American historicity leaving, as his biographer notes, a rich intellectual legacy without, it appears, having left a visible imprint on historic events (198). Earning a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1932, Logan proceeded to become a trailblazer in the field of African-American history, seeking to use his intellect in the fight against racism

The Case for a Carbon Tax in Alberta

In 2007, Alberta demonstrated that it could be a leader in the effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by becoming the first North American jurisdiction to put a price on carbon. Given that the province had long been criticized for its central role in the carbon-based economy, Alberta’s move was important for its symbolism. Unfortunately, the emissions policy itself has delivered more in symbolism than it has in actually achieving meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The Specified Gas Emitters Regulation (SGER), as the carbon-pricing system is formally called, has only helped Alberta achieve a three per cent reduction in total emissions, relative to what they would have been without the SGER. And emissions keep growing steadily, up by nearly 11 per cent between 2007 and 2014, with the SGER only slowing that growth by a marginal one percentage point. Alberta’s carbon-pricing policy simply fails to combat emissions growth; the province needs a new one. Lack of progress in reducing emissions appears to be partly attributable to the fact that many large emitters find it more economical to allow their emissions to rise beyond the provincially mandated threshold, and instead are purchasing amnesty at a lower cost through carbon offsets or by paying the levies that the SGER imposes on excess emissions. But it is also partly attributable to the fact that the SGER only applies to large emitters who annually produce 100,000 tonnes of CO2-equivalent all at one site: mainly oil sands operations and facilities that generate heat and electricity. This excludes operations that emit well over that threshold, but across diffuse locations. The transportation sector, which is typically spread out in just such a way, is the third-largest sector for emissions in Alberta. Its emissions are also growing faster than those of the mining and oil and gas sector, even as emissions in the electricity and heat generation sector are actually declining. And if we combine the emissions from the transportation sector with those of the manufacturing and industrial sector, which can also be characterized by scattered operations, they substantially exceed those of the electricity and heat generation sector. Indeed, over 58 per cent of Alberta emissions come from places other than oil and gas and mining. There will surely be those who prefer strengthening SGER to a carbon tax; this is not likely to make enough of a difference for Alberta to meet its carbon-reduction goal of 218 Mt by 2020. The government would make far more progress by implementing a broad carbon tax, similar to the one in British Columbia, which applies to all emitters and consumers. The cost to the economy would not be steep: For a $20 per tonne tax, the cost would be 0.9 per cent of gross output (or 1.7 per cent at$40 a tonne). And the cost to households would be less than $700 a year. As in B.C., the proceeds would be better recycled in the form of reduced corporate income taxes, personal taxes, and subsidies to lowincome households, to offset the extra burden and distortions a carbon tax would create. But unlike the current SGER, a carbon tax would succeed in being more than a symbolic, largely futile gesture

Assessing Policy Support for Emissions Intensive and Trade Exposed Industries

Jurisdictions implementing emissions pricing often face concerns arising from emissions-intensive and trade exposed (EITE) industries. These industries face higher costs than counterparts in other jurisdictions without emissions pricing. There is also risk of emissions leakage, where economic activity from EITE industries in a jurisdiction with emissions pricing leaves for jurisdictions without pricing, leading to lower economic activity and no net reduction in emissions. As a result of these two concerns, jurisdictions implementing carbon pricing often implement complementary policy to mitigate the cost impacts on EITE industries. In this paper we provide an overview of the EITE definitions and support policies in place in Canada and compare those to definitions and policies in Australia, California and the European Union. We evaluate both domestic and international EITE support policies using the metrics of administrative costs, economic efficiency, emissions reduction incentive, and equity across and within sectors

Who is Getting a Carbon-Tax Rebate?

With its 2016 budget, the Government of Alberta laid out the basic details of the carbon tax rebate. The rebate is constructed to increase based on household size, and will decrease with income after a pre-set cutoff. The government has stated six in 10 households will be eligible for a full rebate, with an additional six per cent receiving a partial rebate. This paper examines the income distribution of Albertans, to determine how the rebate and income cutoffs affect different types of Alberta families. Using easily available data from Statistics Canada, we shed light on the question of who will receive a carbon-tax rebate. Based on 2013 data on median incomes, single-parent families, elderly families and single Albertans are all groups where a majority of households will receive rebates. In some cases, it appears well over 50 per cent of those groups will receive a full rebate. However, fewer than 50 per cent of Alberta families that are couples (with and without children) will receive a rebate. Still, even those that get a rebate will not necessarily exactly break even against the additional costs they incur from a carbon tax. Interestingly, the lowest-income households, which are most likely to qualify for a rebate, appear to be in a position where they will receive a larger refund than they will pay in carbon taxes. For households where incomes fall in the middle of the provincial distribution, the data suggest that the rebate will come close to compensating for additional costs of the carbon tax, although it may fall slightly short. The analysis presented below is a first pass at a very important question facing Albertans. When data from the 2016 census becomes available, we will be much better able to evaluate which Albertans will be eligible for the rebate. The census will enable a more precise evaluation of whether the rebate matches the government’s 66 per cent goal

The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Coverage of Carbon Pricing Instruments for Canadian Provinces

In this paper we provide a comparison of the coverage of Canadian carbon pricing systems. We define coverage as the proportion and types of emissions priced under the various systems, by emissions source. We compare provincially announced pricing systems to the federal benchmark (the minimum coverage provinces must meet) and the federal backstop, the pricing system that will be imposed on provinces with insufficient coverage or who opt to not develop their own policies. For those provinces that have not yet introduced a carbon price we look only at coverage under the federal benchmark and the federal backstop. We find the majority of provincial pricing systems meet or exceed the federal benchmark. Our results also point to the importance of additional complementary policies to address significant sources of unpriced emissions, primarily in agriculture and fugitive sources

Relationship of Personal and Contextual Differences to Grief Distress and Personal Growth

Educational Psychology; Specialization area: Counseling Psycholog

The Ground Rules for Effective OBAs: Principles for Addressing Carbon-Pricing Competitiveness Concerns through the Use of Output-Based Allocations

The federal government’s decision to impose a minimum national price on carbon emissions has the potential to make certain businesses in the country less competitive. Specifically, there are emissions-intensive and trade-exposed industries across Canada that compete against producers from other jurisdictions where governments do not put a price on carbon. For these industries, the obligation to pay a carbon price creates a competitive disadvantage. Specifically, these businesses will face higher costs and may encounter a loss of market share to international competitors from jurisdictions that lack the same emission-control measures. That not only hurts Canadian businesses, it could also negate any emissions reductions that carbon pricing in Canada achieves on a global scale. The federal government has opted to protect such emissions-intensive, tradeexposed businesses using subsidies called output-based allocations (OBAs). This is the same system that Alberta is introducing through its forthcoming Carbon Competiveness Regulation. It also shares certain similarities with cap-and-trade programs, such as those in Ontario and Quebec, which provide free allocations of emissions permits to certain firms. OBAs are a desirable complementary policy to a carbon price as they maintain the incentive for producers to invest in production methods and facilities that are less emissions intensive. So while producers are still, nevertheless, subsidized to offset the tax burden of the carbon price, they will, under an OBA system, see greater benefits the more they work to reduce their emissions intensity. Still, to function most effectively and most efficiently, an OBA policy should follow certain key principles. The most critical principle in the design of an OBA policy is ensuring that OBAs are allocated to facilities independent of their individual emission levels, and allocated equally (on a per unit basis) to facilities producing the same product. One of the major flaws with Alberta’s current Specified Gas Emitters Regulation (SGER) is that it does not follow this principle. Rather, subsidies under SGER are allocated based on a facility’s historical emissions intensity. As a result, more generous subsidies are given to those facilities that are “dirtier” (that is, those with higher emissions intensities) than to “cleaner” facilities with lower emission intensities. Secondly, it is important for a well-designed OBA policy to have transparent costs. Including a clear accounting of OBAs in government finance reports will ensure the public is fully aware of the revenues being directed to the subsidies. Thirdly, OBAs for different facilities are best allocated using a classification system based on the product being produced, and not using more conventional industry-classification codes. Commonly used conventional industry classifications—for example, conventional oil and natural gas extraction—group together facilities that produce distinct products and compete in different markets. Consequently, this classification will not recognize the various levels of emissions intensity and trade exposure within an industry. This will result in some facilities receiving more OBAs than they should and others receiving less than they should. Finally, a well-designed OBA system should seek to be as administratively efficient as possible with minimal implementation costs imposed on government and businesses. It is important to recognize that the federal carbon price and OBAs are a new policy and that many large emitting facilities have been making investment decisions based on a previous regulatory environment. Therefore, a compromise approach may be to initially provide an output subsidy based on a facility’s past emissions intensity (as Alberta has historically done under its SGER system) and then to transition gradually to the optimal OBA system over time