"[This is] exactly why we should have implemented a carbon tax (with offsetting income tax or payroll tax cuts) 10 years ago. Given that we have to raise revenue somehow, we ought to do it by taxing behaviors that we would prefer to discourage. An income tax discourages work; a carbon tax discourages pollution. Which one makes more sense to you?"
Here's the whole article.
Also, dad was wondering about exactly what ideas the presidential candidates had for encouraging a new energy economy. Here's a great rundown from CNN about where they stand. I really suggest you all read it. Like Brian said, good information is always useful.
My concern is that it's pretty much exactly what you'd expect. Obama is all about instituting policy (carbon tax, fuel emission standards) and McCain is all about dismantling it (revoking ethanol tax, suspending gas tax, removing tax breaks for oil companies). This is too bad. I read an article recently arguing that the debate over "more government/less government" is no longer interesting or even relevant. The new debate emerging is "what works/doesn't work for the problem we're trying to solve". This, to me, is a lot more honest.
My intuition on this problem (changing the energy infrastructure) is that we've got to go all out on this one (both institution and dismantling of certain policies) or it will just last longer and be more painful in the short run (next 10-20 yrs.) But that's just one man's opinion.
4 comments:
Thanks, Charlie - this is a good read and I like the user fee idea. Of course it's all got to be part of a bigger solution.
Really I haven't dug in with the kind of time necessary to get a good grasp on what the other parts might/should include. The ethanol thing was just getting started and has already had a huge effect on food prices.
In the long term, I think we may see a reverse of the urban sprawl we saw in the 50s as the proliferation of affordable cars and cheap gasoline made suburban life an attractive option for those who lived in the cities.
As prices rise, you can take a look at what has been the case in Europe for the last several years. Their gas prices have long been well ahead of ours, and the results have been that people tend to live closer to work and public transportation is in a different league to what it is over here. Sooner or later people will pay more attention to where they live relative to where they work, and if I had a bunch of cash I would invest it in technologies that allow people to work from home in a way that still includes all of the positives of working at the office. More people working from home may be one of the big short term things we see, but long term I think we'll see more and more urban renewal.
Yes - I've thought about a growing tendency towards urban renewal being an effect of higher energy prices. I think we're also going to see more people growing food at home (like me!) as commodity prices get more ridiculous. A lot of the things that make large-scale commercial farming viable (large machines, easy transportation) are going away.
Then again, energy company Coskata says they'll be making ethanol for $1.00 a gallon from garbage within a single-digit number of years. So we'll see.
I'm late commenting on this, but I figured why not? I think the trend toward urban living, mass transit and growing/manufacturing in a smaller context is inevitable. Entrepreneurs who set up shop closer to their customer will be winners in this new paradigm. Those who rely on long haul delivery (read: almost all manufacturers and farms) will have a real problem. As usual, the solution is obscure with the future hard to predict. We'll all be looking back with perfect 20-20 in about 10 years, wondering why we didn't see the obvious. Young people...Charlie/Betsy/Brian/Anna...watch for opportunity. It's there.
Dad - that's why I bought my house within the Rochester city limits!
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