Conservation
This entry was posted on 7/30/2008 11:11 PM and is filed under Tax Shifting,Energy Conservation,Economics.
To make conservation happen, give people a significant financial incentive - it's as simple as that. We live in a capitalistic society. There are financial advantages to many forms of conservation -- particularly lighting options, insulating homes, replacing inefficient furnaces, driving smaller vehicles and of course eliminating waste - "air doors" are my favorite. Based on results, the financial incentives are not large enough to spur action.
Here's a program that aired today on National Public Radio - Vermont's Unique Approach To Curbing Energy Use. The Efficiency Vermont program, which started in 2000, is better than nothing, but as stated in the program, "progress has not been easy, or cheap, and there is still a long way to go."
The program concludes with "Many [states] have much more ambitious energy-conservation goals, but no tool quite as sophisticated as the Efficiency Vermont program to meet them."
So, these other states are pissing in the wind..........but at least they've set conservation goals. The other states don't have tools as sophisticated as Vermont's - a program that's not meeting needed targets. Pissing in the wind.
The answer to making conservation really happen: follow the advice of thousands of economists (source:
Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute) and phase-in a federal tax shift from income to non-renewable energy.
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The way to get businesses to not use air doors (e.g., have you walked by a Las Vegas casino on a hot summer day?), is not legislation as is suggested in the N.Y. Times article; the answer is profit and loss.
