Plastic pollution in our seas

[S/V Adeline]

a64pilot - """but people CAN'T AFFORD it, it doesn’t sell"""

I fixed that for you

[transmitterdan]

A carbon tax will only work if it is revenue neutral. One way to do that is reduce income or property tax by whatever $ the carbon tax brings in.

It’s silly to tax something we want people to do (work/own homes) and subsidize something we don’t want them to do (waste energy). A carbon tax would go a ways toward shifting that imbalance.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

As I said my problem with a tax is where does it go?

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

A carbon tax will only work if it is revenue neutral. One way to do that is reduce income or property tax by whatever $ the carbon tax brings in.

To be pedantic about it, a carbon tax would "work", would have the same effect whether it was 100% neutral, or was used to put ermine toilet seatcovers in all the washrooms of Capitol Hill.

But I could see where one option might be more palatable to you than the other.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

A carbon tax will only work if it is revenue neutral. One way to do that is reduce income or property tax by whatever $ the carbon tax brings in.

It’s silly to tax something we want people to do (work/own homes) and subsidize something we don’t want them to do (waste energy). A carbon tax would go a ways toward shifting that imbalance.

Canada has instituted a national carbon tax (or provincial equivalent). It is designed to be revenue neutral, and so far appears to be living up to the promise. In fact, I come out a net benefactor since I'm so poor .

Once again, we don't have to speculate about this stuff. Carbon taxes have been well studied. Most unbiased (not funded by oil or environmental interests) come to the conclusion that they are effective at shifting behaviour, and do so at the lowest economic cost.

[DeepFrz]

Originally Posted by S/V Adeline

I currently have to drive 68 miles each day for work, five days a week. Raising the price of fuel will only hurt my family and many like us. We live paycheck to paycheck, moving closer to the city would nearly double our living expenses so there is no other option but to drive.

You seem to be a perfect candidate for an EV.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Canada has instituted a national carbon tax (or provincial equivalent). It is designed to be revenue neutral, and so far appears to be living up to the promise. In fact, I come out a net benefactor since I'm so poor .

Once again, we don't have to speculate about this stuff. Carbon taxes have been well studied. Most unbiased (not funded by oil or environmental interests) come to the conclusion that they are effective at shifting behaviour, and do so at the lowest economic cost.

Actually many oil companies favor a carbon tax. Exxon and Suncor are examples. I think most EU oil companies also favor a carbon tax.

You should really blame some of the lower tier oil speculators and their so-called “research”. These guys are just engaged in legalized gambling. For them a carbon tax is not so good.

[S/V Adeline]

Originally Posted by DeepFrz

You seem to be a perfect candidate for an EV.

Except income doesn't support such luxuries

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by S/V Adeline

Except income doesn't support such luxuries

As per a64's numbers, you'd probably enjoy overall savings by getting a used hybrid (eg Prius) or a used Nissan Leaf EV, which apparently are affordable.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

We lived in a smallish town so for us it wasn’t so much a lack of fuel as much as what it cost. The cost went up, actually thankfully. I assume thankfully because if the high cost didn’t drive conservation then there really would have been big shortages in my opinion.
What I remember and I wasn’t old enough to drive but was close was that you could only buy fuel on odd numbered days if your license plate ended in an odd number and even numbered days if it was even.
Because of that and we were building a beach house and travelled every weekend my Father had saddle bag tanks installed on his truck.
Of course this was the time of 55 MPH speed limits etc.
I know this is a broken record but merely changing over to electric cars ain’t going to solve as much as some may think, it’s merely changing energy sources.
Just for grins look up how much “green house” gas emissions is due to automobiles, and then look up how much is due to electrical generation, electricity is not carbon neutral or all that green actually.

What we need to do and can do is conserve, not change lifestyles so much really, just become more efficient. I’m convinced the average person could if it became a priority cut their energy consumption in half, not overnight of course but over say a 5 yr period.

I thought it funny how some were thinking how good it was that hydrogen was made from wind farms so that it could be burned by generators to charge electric cars.
How inefficient do you think that is? Maybe use the hydrogen directly to run the car?

Some think I’m evil for saying that we should ration a set amount of fuel at a low cost, and any fuel that was bought above the ration amount is just at a much higher cost.
But if you suddenly made fuel cost $10 a gl, it’s going to put the poor under. The millions that work in food service etc just can’t afford $10 a gl fuel. So you make available at a low cost just enough for them to get by, only if they are frugal and efficient about it. Combining trips, car pooling etc.

Fuel rationing sounds like WWII. Maybe the no. of people being able to work at home will help. No commuting. Unfortunately rationing would hurt the guy swinging a wrench.

[Mike OReilly]

This clip just popped up in my youtubes. It tackles the ugly truth that very little of our plastic ever gets recycled, even when consumers do the right thing.

I like the bottom line message: "Start buying as if NOTHING gets recycled (because that's pretty much what is going on)."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVBkjMbF4Z4

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

This clip just popped up in my youtubes. It tackles the ugly truth that very little of our plastic ever gets recycled, even when consumers do the right thing.

I like the bottom line message: "Start buying as if NOTHING gets recycled (because that's pretty much what is going on)."

I'm afraid you are right.

[S/V Adeline]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

As per a64's numbers, you'd probably enjoy overall savings by getting a used hybrid (eg Prius) or a used Nissan Leaf EV, which apparently are affordable.

When they are 15-20 years old I will look into it. My 2003 gets 32mpg and has served me well for six years now. It only cost $1,700.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

As per a64's numbers, you'd probably enjoy overall savings by getting a used hybrid (eg Prius) or a used Nissan Leaf EV, which apparently are affordable.

If you have a way to charge it and no need of long trips, from a financial perspective you can’t beat a leaf, the resale value of EV’s in the US excepting the Tesla is extremely poor, you can pick up a couple of year old leaf for $12K or so. Some even less than $10K and that’s asking prices.
Look for yourself.

My prediction is very soon EV’s will become fashionable and prices will increase
https://www.carfax.com/Used-Nissan-Leaf_w536

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

... Once again, we don't have to speculate about this stuff. Carbon taxes have been well studied. Most unbiased (not funded by oil or environmental interests) come to the conclusion that they are effective at shifting behaviour, and do so at the lowest economic cost.

The world’s producers and consumers currently regard the air/environment as a free dumping ground for numerous pollutants, and carbon dioxide.
A CARBON TAX (a fee on the carbon content of fossil fuels) IS THE FAIREST, MOST EFFECTIVE, MOST EFFICIENT, SINGLE POLICY TOOL IN THE FIGHT FOR A HABITABLE ECOLOGY & CLIMATE.
It charges fossil fuel users for the damage (reflecting the true social, political, and environmental costs), that our fuel use causes. Carbon taxes will also deliver vast non-climate benefits, by discouraging use of fossil fuels. These will range from better air quality, and less strip-mining, to reduced entanglement in the unstable and dangerous Middle East, a less powerful fossil fuel industry, and more.
Pollution and carbon emissions, represent a negative externality. When an individual takes an economic action, with some fossil-fuel energy content (whether running a gas-powered lawnmower, turning on a light, or buying bunch of grapes), that person balances their personal benefits against the costs of the action. The cost to them, of the pollution and climate change resulting from the carbon content of those decisions, however, is, without a carbon fee, effectively zero, and is rationally ignored. The decision to ignore carbon content, when aggregated over the whole of humanity, generates toxic air pollution, huge carbon dioxide emissions, and rising global temperatures.
The economic solution is to tax the externality, so that the social cost of carbon is reflected in the individual consumer’s decision. The carbon tax is an elegant solution, to a complicated problem, which allows the everyday business of consumer decision making to do the work of emission reduction.
It’s by no means the only economically sensible policy response to the threats of pollution and climate change, but it is the one most economists embrace. A carbon tax, with offsets, would attach the national security and environmental costs to carbon-based fuels like oil, causing the market to recognize the price of these negative externalities, by imposing a cost on the things we want less of (pollutants & carbon dioxide), and potentially reducing taxes on the things we want more of (cleaner energy, income, and jobs).
The potential carbon tax burden, on low and moderate-income households, can be averted, by returning the tax proceeds to taxpayers (offsets). This can be done through periodic pro rata “dividends”, or by reducing the tax burden of regressive taxes, such as the federal payroll tax, or state sales taxes (depending upon whether the tax is imposed at the federal or state/provincial level).
Shifting the tax burden to pollution, and pollution-generating activities, will create powerful incentives to use less energy, and emit less pollution & CO2, while simultaneously promoting tax equity, and minimizing the impact of the carbon tax on those with lower incomes.
Economists, who have added up all the externalities associated with driving, conclude that a tax exceeding $2 a gallon makes sense. That would provide substantial revenue, that could be used to reduce other taxes. By taxing bad things more, we could tax good things less.
A carbon tax, that starts low today, and increases predictably, can be applied locally, nationally, or globally; but the ideal eventual goal is a global tax. Not only is the climate crisis global in both scope and solution, but a global carbon tax will avert potential leakage by carbon emitters attempting to move their combustion of carbon from countries that tax carbon, to those that don’t. National carbon tax legislation should include border tax adjustments, to help protect domestic industry from unfair competition, and to tax imports of other nations, until they enact their own taxes on carbon pollution.
Now, a carbon tax is not a panacea for all of our environmental challenges, but let’s not make perfection the enemy of the good; carbon (or any) pollution should be costed (taxed) wherever possible.

[S/V Adeline]

A carbon tax will make the wealthy more so, and make the poor poorer.
Carbon produced by mankind was not an issue in the last 15 significant climate shifts documented by scientific research and has little bearing on our current situation.

Removing plastics from all of our water supplies, fresh and salt based, is a priority but taxing the working class into deeper poverty is not an acceptable answer.