With hand-wringing over global warming becoming an Olympic event, we might as well do something about it.
Here's a solution -- not a new idea, but an idea whose time has come. A side benefit is that it will solve three other big problems:
-- U.S. dependence on foreign energy
-- U.S. trade deficit
-- pollution from non-renewable fuels.
Enact a phased-in federal tax shift from income to non-renewable energy.
This tax shift should be phased-in over 10 years. How much of a tax shift? (According to those scientists that just won the Nobel Peace Price with Al -- the IPCC).
Higher non-renewable energy prices will reduce our energy use and stimulate the U.S. alternative energy industry which will....
....become a mighty international economic engine. For example, what do China and India really need more of: huge centralized nuclear and/or fossil fuel power systems OR decentralized renewable power systems?
Learn why nuclear power and carbon-trading are not the answers, and why you’re not going to hear about federal tax shifting from any of our elected representatives -- www.solve4biggies.com -- an online public conversation. Its purpose: to have these four big problems solved.
Click on Shift Federal Taxes (left-hand side) for a solution overview. Bottom line: we're not paying the external costs of our energy use.....so of course we're pissing it all away. How to solve? A federal law. Google "Tragedy of the Commons."
Other entries:
Unacceptable, Chairman Greenspan You know what he said to Bush about the need to get rid of Saddam Hussein before we invaded Iraq; see how Greenspan's legacy was the result of.....huge increases in American consumption of inexpensive oil.
Sex, death, fines, drilling, walruses and doctors A $3.6 million fine for a "graphic depiction" of an orgy; a $550,000 fine for a breast (left, I believe); and, "The Sago Mine in West Virginia received 208 citations for violating the law in 2005, but paid a mere $24,374 for them." "....96 of these violations were considered serious and substantial...." "...'serious and substantial' violations - those that are reasonably likely to lead to injury or death." In January 2006, 12 miners died in the Sago mine.
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Selected quotes from Solve4Biggies:
- "Communism or capitalism?? Current federal proposals such as mandates, tax credits, and subsidies nibble at global warming in a communistic fashion. The tactics are inherently inefficient. How can any group of legislators (the state) know the best way to allocate resources to solve such a huge problem?"
- "Even if Yucca were a viable storage option---and there's a LOT of question about that---just the existing stockpile of US nuclear waste will take up 3/4 of Yucca's capacity. If we build more nuclear plants, we will need more Yuccas.
Trying to solve our energy and climate change problems by plunging into a new era of nuclear plants without having a technically feasible, affordable plan for dealing with the nuclear waste FOR MILLENNIA to come is completely irresponsible. It's saying, we're not adult enough to make the hard choices necessary to live within our energy budget. We'll take the energy now and hope a solution to the waste problem can be worked out later. This is the generational equivalent of child abuse." Mark J, www.Grinning Planet.com
- "We need market-based solutions to set the stage for our ingenuity, drive and marketplace to solve these problems. We need a solution similar in function and scope to our patent and antitrust laws - change the ‘rules’ for the long-term benefit of all."
- "We can be proactive now, or have major disruptions thrust upon us later."
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"Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts."
Edward R. Murrow
P.S. to the person that manages the dailykos blogroll - please consider adding solve4biggies.com and grinningplanet.com. Thanks.