If you're one of the 65,000-odd supporters of The Canadian Taxpayer Federation, your dollars are fighting government waste and improving public accountability. Good for you!

But you're also underwriting climate denial.

DeSmogBlog obtained a recent letter sent by Maureen Bader, the group's B.C. director (shown here), to a former member who was concerned about the Federation's position on climate change.  In the letter, she characterizes the so-far limited government efforts to address global warming as a "tax grab." She also calls the U.S. effort to develop a cap-and-trade system "a blatant effort to erect non-tariff barriers to trade."

Governments, both provincially and federally use conventional wisdom, so-called consensus and even stoop to fear as an excuse to raise taxes.  They are using people’s legitimate concern about the environment as an excuse for a tax grab.

Finally, some good news: The global economic slowdown might curb runaway carbon emissions in Northern Alberta's oil sands—at least temporarily.

Oil dipped below $50 a barrel this week for the first time since May 2005, and according to a report in Thursday's New York Times,

"some analysts predict oil could fall to $30 to 40 a barrel as the world economy worsens."

That $30 is a magic number for many energy economists, who for years have argued that Alberta's oil sands projects are only viable when petroleum is trading above it.

Taken together, the mining and processing megaprojects represent Canada's leading source of the heat-trapping carbon emissions that cause global warming. According to Pembina Institute estimates, by year end the operations will have released around 46 million metric tonnes of equivalent carbon-dioxide into the atmosphere.

But there are already signs that the machinery may be slowing.

The Vancouver Sun notes that the ongoing market slide has placed a de facto "moratorium" on development in the oil sands.

Wind is a bit like Adam Sandler's career. Sometimes it blows, and sometimes it doesn't.

That's just fine if all you want to do is fly a kite, but if you're an electrical utility seeking a steady supply of carbon-free juice for millions of homes and businesses, the resource needs a Plan B.

For one Canadian company, that plan B is "battery." And it's gearing up to install a big 'un over in Ireland.

As we now all know, COP-13 did not set the hard emissions-reductions targets that humankind so desperately needs. But there was a silver lining in the South Pacific, argues the legendary journalist who is perhaps best known for his 1980s TV miniseries War.

Dyer's new column pulls back the scope, and places COP-13's non-outcome in the wider context of human evolution. We're getting there, folks, he says, and everything's going to be alright.

Economists no longer debate the realities of anthropomorphic climate change--that's so 1993!

Instead, they squabble over how much we should be spending today to lessen the sting of the much bigger invoices that will inevitably come due tomorrow, should we insist on carrying on with all this fossil-fuel nonsense.

Note: see our welcome to DeSmog's latest writer James Glave - this is his first post so be gentle!