Carbon Tax

[Kenny Lewis]

The very multifaceted and controversial subject of Global Warming from the perspective of - Who does it benefit to introduce a Global Carbon Tax? - (prompted by Al Gores' film aired recently)

"A carbon tax is an environmental tax on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It is an example of a pollution tax." - Wikipedia

1. Surely the carbon tax should be levied on the corporate bodies that are pumping oil out of the ground and not on the end users? (Royal Dutch, Shell and Exxon Mobil emulated BP by revealing record quarterly profits.- guardian oct 2008)

2. Aren't the real issues preserving rain forrests, preserving of ecological diversity and managing the worlds abundant resources towards feeding the masses as opposed to the privileged few? Will a carbon tax help these issues?

3. The media is one of the main agents in forming public opinion on Global Warming but the science is far from conclusive, is it not?

4. Should there not be a Tree Tax, if you cut down a tree you are taxed?

5. Should there not be a recycle tax - if you manufacture a product that can not be recycled 100% you get taxed?

6. and so on......

[Kenny Lewis]

On the subject of Globalism and Global taxes I came to find this book - The First Global Revolution by Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider some interesting quotes:

"In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. . . . The real enemy, then, is humanity itself." (page115)

....further:

"It would seem that men and women need a common motivation, namely a common adversary to organize and act together; in the vacuum such motivations seem to have ceased to exist — or have yet to be found.
The need for enemies seem to be a common historical factor. States have striven to overcome domestic failure and internal contradictions by designating external enemies. The scapegoat practice is as old as mankind itself. When things become too difficult at home, divert attention by adventure abroad. Bring the divided nation together to face an outside enemy, either a real one or else one invented for the purpose. With the disappearance of the traditional enemy, the temptation is to designate as scapegoat religious or ethnic minorities whose differences are disturbing." (page 107)

[David Chapman]

We have been conditioned all our lives by the society we conditioned as such. Whether by our own choice, or by simply believing in the lack of a choice, we have been thus conditioned.
It is this conditioning of complacency, of total acceptance and inevitability that is the cause of our current plight, while the rich get richer and the poor are subject to mass murder the world over, whether it be slow and painful at the hands of capitolistic commercials feeding our heads with notions of buying things we don't need, things that are ultimately bad for us in the first place, or by the swift hand of masis genocide in some third world country.
Either way you look at it, it is all the same. What do people do about it? Debate over global warming and carbon taxes. A nice non-threatening alternative to the all-too-threatening reality of the present situation.

Why have taxes at all? Why have money at all? As long as there is money there will always be a majority oppressing a minority in the name of maintaining their monopoly.
That seems a bit simplistic, I know, there are many factors in the whole thing, or perhaps it is as simple as the idea of 'Power.'
I read a book called the 48 laws of power once, and it is never really about money or wealth, but the intoxicating feeling of power and the thrill of chasing it for those who don't have it while those who do will violently defend it to their last bloody breath.

You know why there are no tree taxes? Because both liberals and conservatives only play the issue lip-service. There is no real effort on either part and there never will be.
Not unless they can see into the reality of the situation and suddenly have a change of heart. I have faith that will one day be the case, but not without some prodding.

[Zee-Zee]

In theory a carbon tax could be a good idea, if the revenue raised was used to provide “carrots” to encourage people to change there behaviour. For example if petrol was taxed so people did not want to use their cars so much and the tax was used to improve public transport so they did not need to use their cars so much, or if gas and oil central heating became quite expensive but the money raised from the tax was used to insulate people’s houses for free so they did not need to use oil and gas any more, the whole thing could become a positive feed back loop.

However in practice there are problems. No Government is willing to make a carbon tax high enough to encourage a change in behaviour.
Price is not a main factor that motivates people to use more or less fossil fuels. So unless the tax is extremely high, research suggests people would adjust to paying more for fossil fuels and carry on as normal. A high tax would be disproportional punitive on the poor. If you start thinking of ways to exempt the poor the whole system starts getting very complicated.
You would need to work out a mechanism to stop vast amounts of agricultural land being turned over to growing biofuels for rich consumers instead of food for poor people.

I will respond to some of the specific questions you raised:
1. Surely the carbon tax should be levied on the corporate bodies that are pumping oil out of the ground and not on the end users? (Royal Dutch, Shell and Exxon Mobil emulated BP by revealing record quarterly profits.- guardian oct 2008)
Yes, it would work best if it was levied on the companies pumping it out of the ground, then it would spread through the economy in proportion to the oil content of goods. However oil companies have a very powerful influence on Governments and no Government seems willing to take them on.

2. Aren't the real issues preserving rain forests, preserving of ecological diversity and managing the worlds abundant resources towards feeding the masses as opposed to the privileged few? Will a carbon tax help these issues?
These are also important issues. Some of them are connected to how much fossil fuel we use, for example ecological diversity. If humans wait until the oil runs out before we stop burning it, we could cause such catastrophic climate change that most of the ecological diversity currently on this planet may become extinct. I don’t see them as alternatives. We need to tackle climate change and have better stewardship of the world resources. So a carbon tax will not directly help these other issues, but would it help us prevent climate change? Is it the best way to try and prevent climate change? I am not sure it is.

3. The media is one of the main agents in forming public opinion on Global Warming but the science is far from conclusive, is it not?
Here I have to disagree with the second part of your statement. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) produced its fourth Assessment report in 2007. The IPCC looked at 1,000 papers and reports that had been peer reviewed. All of them were saying that climate change is being caused by human activity, so the IPCC concluded, in the cautious way of scientists, that it is now 99% certain that climate change is being caused by human activity.
You can get “experts” saying climate change is just a natural phenomena, but look more carefully and you will find that their research is not peer reviewed and/or they are not meteorologists and/or they are being paid by oil companies or others with an interest in keeping things as they are. However the media has (in my opinion) a very strange idea of “balanced” reporting. So if you review the articles in the mainstream media about Global climate change you will find half of them saying the science is far from conclusive.

4. Should there not be a Tree Tax, if you cut down a tree you are taxed?
It would depend how it worked in practice. Many of the countries suffering the fastest rates of deforestation are heavily indebted nations. If these countries were forced to stop cutting down their forests with out providing them with an alternative way of servicing their debt, it could make the IFM’s structural adjustment programmes fall even more harshly on the poor, which could translate in to higher infant motality, lower children going to school etc. If however a mechanism was found so Western consumers paid a realistic price for wood and wood products such as paper, and the revenue raised enabled the heavily indebted nations to service their debt while cutting less trees down and it was linked to a scheme to require replanting then it would be very beneficial.

5. Should there not be a recycle tax - if you manufacture a product that can not be recycled 100% you get taxed?
Again this is a good idea in principal. However since Local Councils have started recycling there are growing stock piles of collected waste waiting to be used. The problem is that manufactures prefer to use new raw materials rather than recycled materials. If a mechanism could be found to get manufactures to use collected and sorted material then it would be worth looking at ways to expand the amount of recycling we do, which in Britain is fairly pitiful compared to some of the other European countries.

I suppose my overall answer to your questions is that things that seem like a good idea are often more complicated when you look at implementing them in practice. I hope these comments are helpful.

[Kenny Lewis]

Very helpful, thank you Zee, for sharing your feelings and thoughts.

[Kenny Lewis]

Hi Zee,

You are well I trust, here are some further thoughts and feelings...

1. I agree that governments and companies appear to weild all the power, but suggest that the appearance is superficial and self fulfilling in nature, as the real power as always lies in the 'consumer'. What we find it easy to do (is this our bombu nature?) is give the power of change away to parties we do not control therefore we render ourselves helpless.

2. Agreed.

3. I agree that one can 'get' reports that say climate change is a Human created event. I also agree that there are just as many 'unfinanced' reports saying that the world is in excess of 10 billion years old and in that time has suffered multiple severe 'climate' changes. Focusing on CO2 and over emphasizing it is without question profitable move.

Focusing primarily on Human Sovereinty (the sanctity of human life) and the sanctity of the 'enviroment in general' appears non-profitable to the corporate 'intellect'. It has to be shown to be profitable by the people.

4. In practice, we all know that we should be subsidising the 'others' by that I mean those who have been duped in to conditions that make it nessesary for them to sell themselves and their local habitat cheaply. The buyers (us) are profiting greatly. These are factual reflections on present day econimics.

5. It is presented to us that it is not profitable to recyyle, this relates to above, it is still cheaper to cut down a tree than to recycle some paper. Until for instance: we all choose recycled paper and none other, thereby adjusting the economic conditions. The tree pays.

........

In general - I/we feel and we tend to affirm that these matters are out of our ( personal) direct control. We in general lack the intent to take deep economic look at ourselves and how our daily actions affirm and support the economic conditions.

Namo Amida Bu.

Kenny-lee: Lewis