I’ve got good news and bad news. Bad news first: switching from incancesdents to CFLs is not going to halt climate change. Although I agree that they help and encourage people to try them, CFLs, biodiesel, weatherstripping and similar tactics only distract from the underlying causes of inefficiency. The good news is, sound strategies for addressing energy issues aren’t just apparent, they’re entirely obvious if you think about it. Here are my top five ways of saving energy and stopping climate change.
5. Rework taxes and tariffs to punish wastefulness and pollution
This is pretty simple really: slap a tax on anything that emits pollution (especially the greenhouse gases) and a tariff on anything imported from an environmentally unfriendly factory or country. These taxes and tariffs should vary according to the severity of the pollution or waste. Then take all the money that’s collected, and give it right back to the public. This way, those who create the most pollution get punished, the average person breaks even, and that guy at the office who rides his bike to work makes out like a bandit. This has the added bonus of transferring wealth from the rich (who are a wasteful bunch on average) to the poor (who can’t afford to use as much energy).
4. Make extensive public transit free
This is a no brainer. Driving wastes energy. If we want people to stop driving, we should maximize the incentive of the alternative. Yes, this means public transit must be run by the government. What people don’t realize is that the massive savings from having fewer cars on the road, including less road maintenance and construction, can offset the cost of providing public transit. Free public transit also boosts tourism, gets people walking more, increases economic mobility, and decreases drunk driving and accidents.
3. Live in smaller homes
There’s no getting around it: big houses full of appliances waste energy. You don’t need three TVs, five computers, four sound systems and an electric can opener. You don’t need more rooms in your house than there are people living there. All that extra space wastes energy not only in its construction but also in heating, cooling, cleaning and maintenance.
2. Live closer together
With all this focus on more efficient transportation, people are forgetting that if you live within walking distance of work, hybrid cars are a moot point. The huge cost in energy and money associated with transportation is largely due to everything being way too spread out. Urban sprawl is a huge energy sink, not only in transportation costs, but also in road construction and maintenance, extra street lights, power transmission, utility provision, etc. There’s also the huge opportunity cost associated with the land use. And don’t even get me started about entire cities that shouldn’t exist. Los Vegas, Los Angeles, I’m looking at you. The energy required just to move water to these cities is unfathomable. Water-loving humans have no business living in the desert!
1. Scratch Capitalism
People have to start facing facts. Capitalism is antithetical to environmentalism. Capitalism is based on ever-growing consumption. Environmentalism is based on conservation. Our economic system is near perfectly designed to transform the Earth into an uninhabitable garbage dump. I’m not saying communism is any better, but capitalism, as it stands today, is untenable. It has to go. We cannot allow free market principles to freely destroy the natural world.
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economics consumerism energy list social issues |
I love the idea of introducing a pollution tax and scratching the income tax. The whole idea of income tax just seems wrong to me. My income is a measure of how much good I have done to other people in exchange for money. Why in the world whould you want to tax the good people do? Why not tax the damage people do to society? I’d be happy to pay double the gas price (it’s already about 8$/gal where I live) if the income tax would be gone.
Re #2, I agree that Las Vegas and Los Angeles are completely out of control. Few people seem to understand that Western desert ecology is completely different from Eastern temperate forest and coastal ecology. But, as the US was settled from East to West, people who live in the West expect lawns full of pretty green grass and deciduous landscaping like the people back East have. Lawns are a problem in themselves, but the problem is astronomically worse in Western states that rely on the Colorado River. Lawns are an insupportable luxury for these areas, and Las Vegas is full of them–not to mention, the scads of giant luxury hotel-casinos. These states are depleting their groundwater, sucking the life out of the Colorado River, and fluctuate through permanent drought conditions. And the rich cities pump water from hundreds of miles away, while the poorest areas have pretty much none. So guess what, if you’re living on a reservation, you have the worst land AND no water!
However, it is possible to live in the desert and not rape the local ecology. The answer isn’t “water-loving humans have no business living in the desert,” but a serious reexamination of the way people are live in the desert and the number of them these areas can legitimately support.
@Alex, I agree in principle, unfortunately, switching all income taxes to consumption taxes would probably cause an immediate recession (or worse, in the current climate). That’s why it would have to be coupled with a significant economic restructuring.
@DDog, great points. By “water-loving humans” I meant people who want to be surrounded by a green lawn, deciduous trees, fountains and a swimming pool. I maintain that such people do not belong in the desert, in any number.
Your article bashed capitalism.
Capitalism works great, if the preconditions for proper operation of market and prices are fulfilled.
In the case of pollution – the solution is to increase the price of every product and every service by a monetary value corresponding to the pollution incurred while making/using/delivering the product/service. Then the market forces will do their thing.
This is really another way to state your point (5).
The increase in price can be accomplished by taxing the products/services, which destroy the environment – or (better) by making the providers legally liable for any environmental damage they cause. They will then pass on the environment cleanup costs to their clients. And if they find a way to deliver the same product/service with less environmental damage – the more power to them.
@TDDPirate.
Capitalism does not ‘work great.’ You can’t fix capitalism by simple use of incentives. It’s a myth. Capitalism concentrates power. Capitalism exhibits positive network externalities – the more money you have, the easier it is to make money. The inescapable result is that corporations have all the power and the individual is screwed. Note that the countries that most closely followed pure capitalism are in south america, and it hasn’t worked well for them. In contrast, socialism has worked very well in Europe.
biodiesel should be the stuff that we should put on our engines because it is a renewable fuel ..
gas prices will always increase that is why we should focus on alternative energy sources `