Comments pecan tower has made
leading? not really, more like 30 years behind...
oregon has had state level land use planning since the mid-1970's with the goal of keeping cities compact (through urban growth boundaries) to save farmland and forest land. the goal may not have been to reduce global warming emissions, originally, but it has evolved towards that, especially since the early '90s. public transit was added to the equation in the early 80s.On California takes the lead posted 2 years, 5 months ago 1 Response
on the origin of oil
on the origin of oil... i've read thomas gold's "deep hot biosphere"; i thought the matter was unsettled? not that this makes cockburn sane, or anything.On A Nation columnist goes contrarian; GM goes the other way posted 2 years, 6 months ago 7 Responses
romm rules
romm rules.
his book "the hype about hydrogen" was way ahead of the curve. way to go! i like how the fox news guys keeps spoon feeding the line "since we know global warming is real".On Yeah, you heard me posted 2 years, 8 months ago 12 Responses
i have to second what jnelblack said
not saying you shouldn't get a car, but...
santa barbara has a semi-arid mediterranean climate, meaning if you had a bike, you could extend your 30 minute trip distance to 5-7 miles, and you could ride in comfort year round.On Tips on being a green driver posted 2 years, 9 months ago 7 Responses
actualy, bungling government bureaucracy
had something to do with the prius.
in the 90's California passed a policy requiring a small percentage of vehicles to be zero emmissions by the next decade. GM was the first on the scene with the EV1, but other automakers--fearing being left behind--came forward with their own models. Toyota's work on electric engines during this period of time is what lead them to develop their hybrid-electric vehicles.
just saying... one could also note that :
Distortion of markets by endless government subsidization of road building, monetary policy, and military oil supply protection, has created and sustained an automobile industry that has no intention of giving up past gains, all on the backs of taxpayers. The government cannot pick economic winners for us. To date the government has picked for us automobile based road transit (unsustainable, ecologically destructive), mortgage interest subsidized mcmansions (ditto, taking many acres of farmland), and coal power (expanding rapidly by lack of consumer concerns).
and so on...
not that i'm a big fan of ethanol subsidies.On The ethanol game posted 2 years, 11 months ago 6 Responses
not my objection
it's not really my objection, it was just a note that things aren't necessarily so rosy on the other side of the fence. like i said, domestically, i prefer a carbon tax, ideally with a citizens dividend, but a payroll tax reduction would suffice. it's really an accident of history that Alaska wound up with the Permanent Fund, and while I wouldn't completely rule out a Sky Trust CD, I just don't know how well that kind of politics will play.
my personally favorite idea is Stirling Newberry's (over at TPM), which combines a Tobin Tax on currency transactions based on CO2 production per PPP/GDP, basically--the more a country emits/sells/produces CO2, the more expensive it is to exchange that country's currency--with a global market of carbon credits.
here's most of the excerpt, or read the whole thing:
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The sane solution is going to require that America bite the bullet and tax, both its own rich, and the dollar holders of other nations. This will not be accomplished by a single policy, because no one taxing step is large enough. This isn't really a new idea - after all, the internet boom was a kind of tax on those who held older assets - buy Amazon.com, or be left behind. A new economy boom in sustainable energy and social technology is one part, but so too, among other policies, will be a Pigou-Tobin tax....
However, the real power of this idea is to combine them - in effect, to tax a country for its externalization, by making it more expensive to do business in that currency. The tax could be structured through the IMF and WorldBank and the WTO, with tariffs being levied, or charges imposed, on transactions on the global forex markets based on the CO2 produced per unit of Purchasing Power Parity GDP.
The object to be taxed would be carbon. In effect, make emitted carbon dioxide a "reverse gold standard" - the more you put out, either directly or indirectly in the form of selling carbon based energy - the higher the tax is paid to enter or leave the currency. Countries could be given the option to spend a tranche of their tax charges on reducing carbon in their own country. In effect, "you fix it, or we will". Combined with a global market in carbon credits - countries still in a protected phase could buy carbon from those trying to trade and grow, and then attract investment to reduce carbon - it would mean that the global monetary system would be based on reducing Carbon Dioxide per unit of PPP.
Poor nations could opt out against each other - which since poor nations don't generate much - and nations would have an incentive to generate internal GDP, since this would "dilute" the cost of the tax. China and Saudi Arabia would feel the burn immediately. So would the United States and Canada. However, all four would have options. The Saudis could spend more at home, the Chinese could retire polluting technology and grow their economy, and the United States and Canada could invest in non-carbon energy.
----------------------treaties are even harder to get out of than property rights.On Carbon trading it too easily gamed posted 2 years, 12 months ago 12 Responses
problems with carbon tax too
i prefer a carbon tax to an trading system, however, the carbon tax does offer its own set of problems, and weaknesses not present in a trading system.
primarly, a carbon tax is easily repealable. sure, you will have industries that benefit greatly from a carbon tax, and won't want to see it repealed, but you will have many more who suffer from it. you will winners and losers in a trading scheme as well, but what you won't have is such a wide distribution of stakeholders. carbon trading permits represents property in carbon emission, and these permits could be bought and sold by anyone. this is america--"property rights" are sacred. furthermore, if the trading scheme is set-up to return dividends to the general populace, you have about 300 million stakeholders who have property rights in the carbon sink (ie:our atmosphere), who might object to a repeal of the system.
you could approximate the latter example with a payroll tax refund, but taxes are manipulated much easier than private--or even commonly held--property.
just some thoughts...On Carbon trading it too easily gamed posted 2 years, 12 months ago 12 Responses