corduroygt
Banned
Like taxing fossil fuels or fossil fuel energy when there really isn't a better alternative at the moment.
Global warming
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Taxing fossile energies would give additional funds to finance the building and research of alternatives.
Besides, since fossiles pollute, by penalizing their use would push people to minimize their use to a greater extent than they would otherwise. If you just let things go on business as usual then why would people take responsibility for their actions? Everybody on this planet and the planet itself would suffer from that.
If that gives you less spending money, well tough shit. Buy a bike and ride it to work instead of taking the car.
Besides, since fossiles pollute, by penalizing their use would push people to minimize their use to a greater extent than they would otherwise. If you just let things go on business as usual then why would people take responsibility for their actions? Everybody on this planet and the planet itself would suffer from that.
If that gives you less spending money, well tough shit. Buy a bike and ride it to work instead of taking the car.
ya most people could probably cut their fossil fuel use by 20-30% without any major changes in lifestyle. In fact it would probably make them healthier. And if people were willing to make those changes they really wouldn't pay any extra money, they'd just be giving less to oil companies and more to taxes.
Just look at China and adapt that system to the rest of the world.
The thing is if the world population is increasing and the carbon intensity of the developing nations is increasing alongside their populations. We can easily reduce the quantity of GHG emissions per person but may fail in the end to quell the increase in emissions. That is the side which concerns me alongside any potential water/food/fuel crisises we may face which may derail efforts. I don't care about the religion, however if we can go from 1.2% population growth to -1% that would mean a significant difference in 10 years in order to reduce GHG emissions because not only would there be fewer people but resources which would have otherwise been expended on raising the children could instead be spent on further reducing GHG emissions.
That is a really major concern, but again, it's mostly a humanitarian/religious issue. There is a clear way to combat that growth, and it is through better access to medical care and education. Furthermore, if the developed nations can pave the way to the use of renewable energy through a strong energy plan, we can actually make it much cheaper for the developing nations to switch as well, while at the same time increasing their incentives to do so through increased political capital by doing it ourselves.
But in reality, this is pretty much the opposite of what is happening. Brazil, for instance, has been using sugar cane ethanol fuel for 30 years, and now all vehicles in Brazil use at least some ethanol.
Pretty sure that that isn't going to make anything approaching a significant dent in your pocketbook.
But regardless, the legislation being talked about isn't taxes, but instead cap and trade, which doesn't impact your pocketbook.
Food is very easy to come by compared to clean water, enough space to live and other raw materials like metals and oil.
First of all, apartement doesn't have to be cramped. Yeah, you don't have much of a yard but the living space can easily be at least as roomy as a personal house. Secondly the whole "american dream" thingy simoply isn't viable in today's world. It's WAY too wasteful way of living.corduroygt said:
In EU diesel costs somewhere around 1.1€ per liter, that should be somewhere around 6.2 bucks ber gallon. Add as big taxes to fuel in US than there are in EU and you'll be sure that people notice. That money could be used to build up decent public transportation systems. Though obviously more expensive fuel will also mean price rises for pretty much everything due to higher transit costs.
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The time has come for all manner of drastic action(s) and thats many times plural.
Given the fact that half of all CO2 emissions have come in the last 40 years and the overall rate of release is encroaching on 10B tonnes a year I don't think we have any alternatives. 320B tonnes of carbon dioxide has already been released and we're threatening to add another 1/5th to 1/4th onto that total in the next 10 years alone.
Seriously, drastic action??!?
Even with the much higher cost of gasoline, fuel costs just are a tiny fraction of peoples' budgets. Similarly, fuel costs are only a small component of the prices people pay for goods and services. So no, the impact will be quite minimal, and would be easily offset by other initiatives that liberals would be in favor of but conservatives are blocking, such as an effective economic policy, a sustainable energy future, and a sustainable medical system.
corduroygt
Banned
How does it not affect my pocketbook? Won't it make pretty much everything I buy more expensive? How do you know how much gasoline I buy every month? I am not paying a cent to help someone in a different continent.
corduroygt
Banned
You may think it's wasteful, I just think it's comfortable. The people living in the most powerful country in the world are entitled to use most of its resources, and if you disagree, what are you going to do about it?
Due to people living in large, comfortable homes, distances are a lot greater here and that would be terrible. The best thing for US is just more fuel efficient cars, especially for large vehicles like trucks and suvs.
corduroygt
Banned
corduroygt
Banned
If I wanted to have less spending money or wanted to bike to work from my tiny apartment, I'd have stayed in Europe. Instead, I experienced the glory of V8 muscle cars and having the freedom to go wherever I want, whenever I want from my comfortable home without being squished by and bumped into by random people on a bus or train. It's a better kind of living, and if that effects someone else living in a poor part of the world in a bad way, I don't care, I only have one life to live and can't waste it on caring about people that are not around me.
Not by any amount that would make a significant difference. We're talking an average cost increase of all goods on the order of a percent or two. It's not significant.
corduroygt
Banned
So, If I spend about $40k/year, it'd be ~$41k/year. Why am I paying an extra grand a year again where it doesn't directly or indirectly benefit me?
So? What are you going to do about it?
There are inefficiencies in the systems in the first world ... but ultimately their sustainability is a problem of an increasing wealth equality combined with an increased regressiveness in taxation.
Demographic changes are just a weak argument IMO. Productivity is still increasing, automation is still increasing ... but somehow those forces are irrelevant, but a slight demographic shift is all important going forward. Bullshit. We can maintain our society with our current level of under/unemployment, clearly a few more old people isn't suddenly going to make things grind to a halt.
That might be true if US would get all it's oil from Canada and Mexico but it doesn't
Wouldn't it be even more comfortable to just get a bunch of slaves to do all the pointless jobs and have more people just sit at home doing nothing?
Also, US is by no means "most powerful country in the world". To be honest I'd be rather surprised if they manage to survive the next few years considering how stupid things the government has done. Pretty much the entire country is living on a loan it took from itself. How on earth is that in any way sustainable or even survivable?
As for what I'm going to do about it, I'll be back here in a few years saying "told you so". It's rather funny to see how people really took the economic crisis as a big surprise that happened very fast while in fact the signs of inevitable doom were there years before it actually arrived. Many people even talked about it coming but no one listened because they were living large and they couldn't imagine anything bad could happen. Exact same things is happening in US and most other countries right now and people still don't realize that the real crisis hasn't even started yet.
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