Carbon tax

[login]

Yes, login, we could... and arguably should. As they say, "there's no free lunch".

Its good to hear there are sane minds around here other than myself

[August1991]

Its good to hear there are sane minds around here other than myself

Indeed, login, there is no free lunch.

50 litres of gasoline is 50 kgs of emissions. (Basic science.)

But where does it go? Can we just throw/spew/spray/bomb/junk wherever? (It goes somewhere.)

Edited November 3, 2012 by August1991

[TimG]

50 litres of gasoline is 50 kgs of emissions. (Basic science.)

So what? I posted several times on this thread about attempts by economists to quantify the cost of carbon. These attempts suggest that people are paying the cost of pollution from gasoline so I can't figure out what your rant is about.

[August1991]

So what? I posted several times on this thread about attempts by economists to quantify the cost of carbon. These attempts suggest that people are paying the cost of pollution from gasoline so I can't figure out what your rant is about.

My rant is not about carbon. It's about "stuff". If you buy 50 litres of gasoline, you put 50 kgs of stuff in the air.

When something seems to be free, it probably isn't. There's no free lunch.

[TimG]

My rant is not about carbon. It's about "stuff". If you buy 50 litres of gasoline, you put 50 kgs of stuff in the air.

So what? A tree growing puts 'stuff' in the air? Should be charging the trees?

[Mr.Canada]

if you want a carbon tax, vote for Liberals or NDP. if you want no tax vote for CPC.

[login]

My rant is not about carbon. It's about "stuff". If you buy 50 litres of gasoline, you put 50 kgs of stuff in the air.

When something seems to be free, it probably isn't. There's no free lunch.

They should tell americans crossing the borders in their cars that when they get levied the $2.50 or a tree tax.

You know, Joe, that when you fill up your tank and drive around in Canada you actually add 50kg of toxic gases to our air supply up here.

[Sleipnir]

So what? A tree growing puts 'stuff' in the air? Should be charging the trees?

No silly, trees can't pay $$$

[login]

No silly, trees can't pay $$$

never heard of a stump fee and something called the paper bill and/or cheque. Just because things switched over to plastic doesn't mean a special addition environmental series can't be run on paper.

They could be called the save the trees addition, running only on $100, $500 and $1000 bills.

[WIP]

I will quibble about your numbers but I'll agree with the intent. (From what I recall, the social cost of CO2 is about $20/tonne and that's roughly equivalent to 10 cents/litre. My recall may be wrong.)

Numbers aside here's the rub, TimG.

Whether carbon, CO2, toxic chemicals or mere rubbish, too often, it costs nothing to throw it out. We are living in our own cesspool because nobody owns this public toilet that we call earth.

Exactly! Externalizing carbon and other negative costs of hydrocarbons to the commons, has been a major reason why there has been no realistic competitive energy sources until now. If all of the costs of carbon fuel extraction and use had to be payed up front, we would not have such a badly degraded environment today.....of course we would also never have had the huge expansion in related resource extraction.....we use something like 100X the nonrenewable resources on a per capita basis compared to people living 150 years ago during early part of the Industrial Revolution.

Fortunately so far, the world is a big place but there are limits to how many people can throw garbage on a public beach.

Your wrong here! Either the world is just not big enough, or modern growth-dependent capitalist economics just drove the expansion of resource development too fast....because we are already staring into an abyss, with rising atmospheric carbon levels that most of us are well aware of; but there are other issues less well known, such as declining freshwater availability in the major food-growing regions and declining arable land because of erosion and topsoil loss. And then there is the least mentioned, but likely most crucial issue facing modern civilization -- it's not just oil, but most non-renewable natural resources are already past peak availability -

Global NNR Scarcity

By the year 2008, 63 of the 89 NNRs (71%) that enable our modern

industrial existence—including coal, chromium, cobalt, copper,

iron/steel, magnesium, manganese, natural gas, oil, phosphate rock,

potash, rare earth minerals, titanium, uranium, and zinc—were scarce

globally.

Note that global NNR scarcity does not involve “running out” of any NNR,

it involves “running short” of many. That is, for an increasing number

of NNRs, while there will always be plenty of resources in the ground,

there are*not enough economically viable* resources in the ground to

perpetuate our industrial lifestyle paradigm going forward.**

NNR Scarcity is a Permanent Phenomenon

With the seemingly continuous emergence of newly industrializing nations

in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, global NNR requirements have

increased meteorically since the beginning of the 21^st century. Whereas

approximately 1.5 billion people occupied industrialized and

industrializing nations in the late 20^th century, that number currently

exceeds 5 billion, most of whom have yet to even remotely approach their

full NNR utilization potential.

Unfortunately, humanity’s ever-increasing global NNR requirements are

manifesting themselves within the context of

increasingly-constrained—i.e., increasingly expensive, lower

quality—NNR supplies. That is, the cost reductions associated with our

ongoing improvements in NNR exploration, extraction, production, and

processing technologies are insufficient to offset the cost increases

associated with newly discovered NNR deposits, which are fewer, smaller,

less accessible, and of lower grade and purity.

The consequence associated with this “demand/supply imbalance” is that

the earth cannot physically support our current—much less continuously

increasing—NNR requirements. In fact, NNR scarcity had become

sufficiently pervasive by the onset of the Great Recession to

permanently depress future economic growth trajectories and societal

wellbeing trajectories at both the domestic and global levels.

*Continuously Less and Less—America’s New Reality*

http://peakoil.com/generalideas/peak-us-societal-wellbeing-there-can-be-no-recovery-this-time/

This is why I rarely bother in the food fights between conservatives and liberals on economic theories and policies! They're both wrong! And the theories of the supply siders and the Keynsians are both worthless today, because they depend on that cornucopia interpretation of history -- that the Earth is a giant candy factory that will just keep supplying us with more and more of what we want to meet our desires. And it boils down to hubris alone that virtually all economists and theorists from all political sides share an unwarranted optimism that human ingenuity will keep pulling rabbits out of the hat, and keep the expansion going indefinitely.

Now that governments and the corporations behind them are making a rush and intend to go to war if necessary over the last untapped resources in the newly melting Arctic, it's high time to develop a new mindset: that we can either share what's left, or risk nuclear annihilation in bloody genocides to control the available resources as they become increasingly scarce. So which future awaits us in the coming decades?

-----

Whether it's a carbon tax or cap-and-trade, both policies establish ownership of the environment and then charge for its use.

But both policies are only stopgap measures at best! Unless something is done to address the fact that capitalist economics spurs exponential energy demands to match its needs for continuous growth, carbon taxes, cap n' trades, windmills, solar panels etc. won't be enough to stop the increase in carbon output into the atmosphere and the world's oceans.

[CPCFTW]

Exactly! Externalizing carbon and other negative costs of hydrocarbons to the commons, has been a major reason why there has been no realistic competitive energy sources until now. If all of the costs of carbon fuel extraction and use had to be payed up front, we would not have such a badly degraded environment today.....of course we would also never have had the huge expansion in related resource extraction.....we use something like 100X the nonrenewable resources on a per capita basis compared to people living 150 years ago during early part of the Industrial Revolution.

Your wrong here! Either the world is just not big enough, or modern growth-dependent capitalist economics just drove the expansion of resource development too fast....because we are already staring into an abyss, with rising atmospheric carbon levels that most of us are well aware of; but there are other issues less well known, such as declining freshwater availability in the major food-growing regions and declining arable land because of erosion and topsoil loss. And then there is the least mentioned, but likely most crucial issue facing modern civilization -- it's not just oil, but most non-renewable natural resources are already past peak availability -

Global NNR Scarcity

By the year 2008, 63 of the 89 NNRs (71%) that enable our modern

industrial existence—including coal, chromium, cobalt, copper,

iron/steel, magnesium, manganese, natural gas, oil, phosphate rock,

potash, rare earth minerals, titanium, uranium, and zinc—were scarce

globally.

Note that global NNR scarcity does not involve “running out” of any NNR,

it involves “running short” of many. That is, for an increasing number

of NNRs, while there will always be plenty of resources in the ground,

there are*not enough economically viable* resources in the ground to

perpetuate our industrial lifestyle paradigm going forward.**

NNR Scarcity is a Permanent Phenomenon

With the seemingly continuous emergence of newly industrializing nations

in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, global NNR requirements have

increased meteorically since the beginning of the 21^st century. Whereas

approximately 1.5 billion people occupied industrialized and

industrializing nations in the late 20^th century, that number currently

exceeds 5 billion, most of whom have yet to even remotely approach their

full NNR utilization potential.

Unfortunately, humanity’s ever-increasing global NNR requirements are

manifesting themselves within the context of

increasingly-constrained—i.e., increasingly expensive, lower

quality—NNR supplies. That is, the cost reductions associated with our

ongoing improvements in NNR exploration, extraction, production, and

processing technologies are insufficient to offset the cost increases

associated with newly discovered NNR deposits, which are fewer, smaller,

less accessible, and of lower grade and purity.

The consequence associated with this “demand/supply imbalance” is that

the earth cannot physically support our current—much less continuously

increasing—NNR requirements. In fact, NNR scarcity had become

sufficiently pervasive by the onset of the Great Recession to

permanently depress future economic growth trajectories and societal

wellbeing trajectories at both the domestic and global levels.

*Continuously Less and Less—America’s New Reality*

http://peakoil.com/generalideas/peak-us-societal-wellbeing-there-can-be-no-recovery-this-time/

This is why I rarely bother in the food fights between conservatives and liberals on economic theories and policies! They're both wrong! And the theories of the supply siders and the Keynsians are both worthless today, because they depend on that cornucopia interpretation of history -- that the Earth is a giant candy factory that will just keep supplying us with more and more of what we want to meet our desires. And it boils down to hubris alone that virtually all economists and theorists from all political sides share an unwarranted optimism that human ingenuity will keep pulling rabbits out of the hat, and keep the expansion going indefinitely.

Now that governments and the corporations behind them are making a rush and intend to go to war if necessary over the last untapped resources in the newly melting Arctic, it's high time to develop a new mindset: that we can either share what's left, or risk nuclear annihilation in bloody genocides to control the available resources as they become increasingly scarce. So which future awaits us in the coming decades?

-----

But both policies are only stopgap measures at best! Unless something is done to address the fact that capitalist economics spurs exponential energy demands to match its needs for continuous growth, carbon taxes, cap n' trades, windmills, solar panels etc. won't be enough to stop the increase in carbon output into the atmosphere and the world's oceans.

Michael this is the type of post that you condone by not discouraging its discussion while arguing that a post about firing all teachers is unworthy of discussion.

So Michael, since you condone this discussion, do you want humanity to follow the path of apocalyptic war over arctic resources, or to cease pursuing growth and "share what's left"?

[WIP]

Michael this is the type of post that you condone by not discouraging its discussion while arguing that a post about firing all teachers is unworthy of discussion.

So Michael, since you condone this discussion, do you want humanity to follow the path of apocalyptic war over arctic resources, or to cease pursuing growth and "share what's left"?

I consider what you just wrote here about my post to be outright slander! If you have a brain in your head you should be able to figure out that I am warning that our economic system and nationalism will lead to bloody and possibly apocalyptic battles for what's left....not advocating them!