Last month's flash flooding in Alberta left a steep price-tag: up to $5 billion in damages for just Calgary alone. Taxing the province's carbon emissions, a former Calgary city councillor is arguing, would help cover those costs.

"It's appropriate that Premier Redford tax the source of the problem -- carbon pollution -- in order to help pay for the cleanup and reconstruction," Bob Hawkesworth told the Toronto Star.

The 23-year city council veteran, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2010, went on: "We need to deal with the causes of these disasters as well as the symptoms."

While scientists are hesitant to link a single disaster to rising global temperatures, many predict climate change will increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events.

"Could the wacky weather be part of what is predicted due to climate warming?" esteemed water ecologist David Schindler told The Tyee's Andrew Nikiforuk. "Very possibly, but of course it is impossible to say so with any certainty."

Alberta often touts the $15 per ton carbon price it charges on certain industrial polluters, but many of those same polluters argue the price is too low to make climate solutions affordable.

The popular conception is that Albertans will vigorously oppose any sort of policy that puts a more effective price on carbon. Yet the idea is gaining support from high profile conservatives, including former Reform Party leader Preston Manning.

A Tyee Solutions Society investigation last year revealed that leading oil sands companies also support a higher price on the carbon emissions they currently pay very little to release.

Geoff Dembicki reports for The Tyee.

Funding for this article was partially provided by the Climate Justice Project of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, with support from the Fossil Fuel Development Mitigation Fund of Tides Canada Foundation.