Global Warming...To Believe or Not to Believe
I have to admit, I have been a bad global citizen and have not paid that much attention to the whole Global Warming hoopla that has been gaining steam lately. However, that all changed last week when my wife and I decided to stay the night in (like we really have a choice with 3 year old triplets in the house) and thought it was a good idea to watch Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth". For the record, I did vote for the Clinton / Gore ticket in 1992 and 1996, however I countered that by voting for the Bush / Cheney ticket in 2000 and 2004. Needless to say, my political allegiances are all over the map.
After watching the movie, we both walked away with the feeling that Gore may be on to something here. There are some hard, cold facts that cannot be denied. I will not go into all of them here, I suggest you just watch the movie and decide for yourself. If the facts that he discussed in the documentary were not enough, the Mercury News has an article today stating that there is over a 90% certainty by the experts that humans are the cause of global warming. If you want to read the article, click on this title "Experts send strongest message yet on warming" to take you there.
I will close with this, there is definitely something strange going on and we all need to pull our own weight if we want a world to be left for our children.
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The Free Market Solution Part 1
This is about using the power of the free market to provide to solution to oil imports and global warming.
The next president should appoint a commission, of wise people, with no significant financial interests in energy, to come up with the most effective and least costly means to reduce greenhouse gases.
This is what they would come up with:
An assessment against fossil carbon release and then returned equally to all tax filers.
Here’s why:
1.It avoids a tax that to many people means wasteful spending.
A carbon tax would do many of the same things an assessment would do, but would not
be as efficient (motivate) and certainly would not be popular.
2. A carbon tax is regressive, since low income people spend a greater portion of their
income for energy.
A carbon tax would be especially unfair and unpopular with lower income people.
3. An assessment does not make reduction of energy use mandatory.
Free choice is always desirable and would motivate more people. Those who chose
not to participate can feel free not to as they will be paying others to reduce their
use and will pay for renewable fuel development.
4. As non-fossil energy comes on line, the assessment becomes less until it disappears.
An assessment is temporary and disappears as fossil carbon emissions drop.
5. It would be inexpensive to collect, since it would involve the few oil or coal companies
and they already collect the necessary information.
6. It would cost very little to pay back, since a tax filing system is already in place.
7. An assessment would be fair, if the assumption is made, that all people are born equal and
have an equal stake or equal rights to a clean environment.
8. Most important, an assessment would allow free market principles to work.
Why would anyone think congress would make the best decisions on what energies to
support with grants, subsidies, tax breaks or mandates. The reason an assessment
would work is the complete transparency and everyone can choose whether to be
involved and those risking their investment money will make more knowledgeable
decisions than congress.
Go to www.greengenes.info for parts 2 -6
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