Benefits for all, or so it seems. In reality, in the end, benefits flow mainly to a handful of people, the fossil fuel magnates, who prefer to be anonymous.
“I am an energy voter” commercials, in effect, ask us to place our offspring on a sacrificial alter. As we raise the knife, unlike Abraham, we hear no voice telling us to stop, to put down the knife. Young people do not cry out. Adults are fooled and compliant.
Yet the science is crystal clear. We have a climate and energy crisis, an emergency. Regional climate change is beginning. In the U.S. Southwest it means increasingly hot summers, stronger droughts, more extreme fires, and when rain occurs, heavier rain and floods.
As climate change grows, rapidly shifting climate zones will drive many species to extinction. As many as half of all species could be committed to extinction by the end of this century.
The largest economic effect will occur via rising sea level, as ice sheets begin to collapse by mid-century. More than half of the world’s largest cities could become dysfunctional this century.
Social and economic disruptions from such consequences would be devastating. It is not difficult to imagine that conflicts arising from forced migrations and economic collapse could make the planet ungovernable, threatening the fabric of civilization.
Halting climate change requires fossil fuel phase-out in a few decades, thus emission reductions of several percent per year. Informed politicians understand the situation, but are afraid to tell the public what is needed. They feel impotent in competition with “I am an Energy Voter.”
...
It is not rocket science. As long as fossil fuels are the cheapest fuel, they will be burned. Fossil fuels only seem cheap, because the price does not include their full cost to society. Human health costs of pollution are borne by the public, not fossil fuel companies. Growing costs of climate change are also borne directly by the public or by governments, which also means the public.
Fossil fuel prices can be made honest by collecting a rising carbon fee from fossil fuel companies at the domestic sources of oil, gas and coal, i.e., the domestic mines or ports of entry. If the money is distributed 100 percent to the public, an equal amount to each legal resident, it is revenue neutral. Thus it is not a tax and does not make the government bigger.
A carbon fee makes fossil fuels more expensive, allowing clean energies and energy efficiency to compete. Almost two-thirds of the public, people doing better than average in limiting their fossil fuel use, would receive more in their monthly dividend, transferred electronically to their bank account or debit card, than they pay in increased prices.
This carbon “fee & dividend” is progressive. Wealthy people, who travel more and have larger houses, have a large carbon footprint. Given today’s income disparities, this modest change seems beneficial, giving the little guy something to build on, if he uses the dividend wisely.
...
A rising carbon fee is the only practical way to phase down global emissions. If the U.S. and China agree to a carbon fee, it can become near global. Participating nations would place a border duty on products from non-participating nations and give fee rebates to domestic manufacturers exporting to the latter nations.
Read more at “I Am an Energy Voter”
No comments:
Post a Comment