3/4's ready to pay - so, what are our Federal reps waiting for?
This entry was posted on 10/14/2007 9:18 PM and is filed under Action,Energy dependence,Global Warming,Economy,Leadership.
{Readership update: 500-700+ views/week during the last month; almost 200 comments. Thanks.}___________________________________
From a LiveScience article by Andrea Thompson (October 4, 2007) -
"Nearly three-quarters of Americans are willing to pay more taxes to support local government efforts aimed at mitigating global warming, according to the findings of two recent national surveys conducted by Yale University. Americans were willing to pay more money in property taxes, home costs and utility fees to support initiatives that would encourage people to use less energy and get that energy from alternative sources, the surveys showed."
So a large majority of Americans are willing to pay more in taxes and fees. This won't be necessary with a federal tax shift from income to energy. This tax shift to energy could increase inflationary pressure depending on how quickly it is phased-in and general economic conditions. Seems like a reasonable trade-off and possible risk given the current and future costs of our dependence on foreign sources of energy and global warming. Heard any other meaningful proposals to solve these problems?
Other excerpts from the article:
- "Another national Yale poll conducted in July found that a majority of Americans believe that society must take action to reduce the effects of global warming, partly by enacting a new national treaty that would require much more drastic reductions in carbon dioxide than those required by the Kyoto Protocol (which the United States never ratified). This earlier poll also showed that about 50 percent of Americans say they are personally worried about global warming. 'Nearly half of Americans now believe that global warming is either already having dangerous impacts on people around the world or will in the next 10 years--a 20 percentage-point increase since 2004. These results indicate a sea change in public opinion,' said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of Yale Project on Climate Change...."
- "74 percent of those surveyed would support local regulations requiring all newly constructed homes to be more energy efficient, even if it would increase the initial cost of the new home."
I have a problem with how this question was worded. Are local regulations on newly constructed homes an effective way to solve global warming? How long will it take for this to have a measurable effect? "More" energy efficient - how much more? Who's going to decide? Why not start to account for the external costs of non-renewable energy by phasing in a federal tax shift from income to energy and then let the market decide the answers to these questions.
Lastly:
- "The results of these latest surveys stand in stark contrast to some conducted just a year ago. A 2006 poll conducted by ABC News, Time, Stanford University and Ohio State University found that only 3 in 10 Americans thought that global warming is caused by humans and less than 40 percent thought it was an immediate threat."
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Additional terrific articles on LiveScience:
- Something to Sweat: Earth Gets Steamier (October 2007) - "Not only is the planet getting hotter, but it's also becoming more humid, as a result of human-induced global warming, a new study finds."
- Ethanol Crops Could Threaten Water Supply (October 2007) - Would we rather drive (in many cases) oversize vehicles, or have fresh water to drink? "'Both water quality and the availability of water could be threatened by sharply increasing crops such as corn', said Jerald L. Schnoor, professor of environmental engineering and co-director of the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research at the University of Iowa."
- Ethanol: Energy Panacea or False Promise? (April 2007) - "....there is heated debate among scientists as to whether or not ethanol really is good for the environment. Studies hint, for instance, that ethanol might guzzle more energy during its manufacture than it provides, and that it might strain valuable water resources. Recent findings also suggest fuels high in ethanol may pose an equal or greater risk to public health than regular gasoline."
