Just one-third of Albertans (34 per cent) support the carbon tax imposed on electricity, heating fuel and gasoline by the Notley government on January 1, while nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) oppose it. The results are contained in the second part of a Mainstreet/Postmedia poll released Thursday.

This split is almost certainly along party lines.

In the first part of the poll of nearly 2,600 provincial voters, released Tuesday, we learned that only 37 per cent of Albertans approve of the job Premier Rachel Notley is doing. These are, undoubtedly, nearly all the very same people who approve of her tax on everything that moves.

If anything, even some of Notley’s supporters on the left aren’t too crazy about her environmental tax on carbon-based energy.

I am sure, too, that it is no coincidence that in Tuesday’s part of the Mainstreet Research survey, 67 per cent of voters provincewide favoured either Wildrose or the Progressive Conservatives, almost exactly the same figure as the 64 per cent of Albertans who oppose the carbon tax.

In short: If you’re a Notley lover, you’re all giddy about her plan to collect $3 billion a year via her “green” tax to spend on tilting at windmills in the name of climate change.

Well, actually, much of the $3 billion will really be spent on windmills – and other alternate energy sources that have been tried elsewhere with devastating effects on employment and consumer energy prices.

Of course, the highest support for the NDP’s sales-tax-masquerading-as-an-eco-tax is right here in Edmonton. But even here in Biggovermenttopia, voters are split with 49 per cent supporting the tax and 50 per cent opposing.

In Calgary, just 36 per cent favour the tax, while in the rest of the province just 29 per cent do.

Interestingly (and perhaps surprisingly), young voters ages 18 to 34 are also two-to-one against the tax.

You might expect these idealistic voters, who are the first full generation to be raised in the schools and the media on an unrelenting diet of climate-change propaganda, would be more in favour of the Notley government’s scheme.

Thankfully, they are not.

Another ray of hope: Despite two decades of an almost unending drumbeat about manmade global warming and climate change in the media and in politics, nearly four in 10 Albertans can still think for themselves.

While 52 per cent have accepted the theory that carbon emissions from human activity are causing dangerous climate change, 39 per cent remain skeptical.

It’s not easy to resist climate alarmism. Few alternate theories get published.

Those who conduct research that questions global warming are slurred as “deniers.”

Most news outlets scoff at the suggestion that perhaps extreme weather events have been overstated. And people who wonder aloud about whether – maybe – climate change is natural are dismissed as uneducated, flat-earthers.

Year after year after year, we are assured all the really smart people share the same view of the environment as the Notley government. And yet nearly 40 per cent of Albertans remain (rightly) dubious.

On the carbon tax, Albertans are wise to oppose it.

The latest calculations on “investment” in green energy show that governments worldwide have spent half a trillion dollars or more subsidizing alternate energy sources including wind, solar and biomass (such as incinerating waste woodchips).

If you want to know why there are always businesspeople willing to stand up with “green” politicians and extol the virtues of alternate energy, that’s why. There are tens of billions in subsidies available for it.

But all that money has done nothing to halt climate change. And neither will Alberta’s carbon tax.

