I like a carbon tax too. But I don't think these two ideas should be seen as opposites. Legal change and cultural change go hand-in-hand. While we're waiting for a carbon tax to be passed, it makes sense to try to change the culture, both for the immediate impact, but also to make the passage of a carbon tax more likely. See: movements against legal discrimination, etc.
On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 11:51 AM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > Robert Naiman wrote: > > I like the spirit of this, but I'm afraid I'm not personally willing to > take > > this pledge. > > > > I would be willing to take a more modest pledge, however, something > like: no > > flying between two cities that are connected by a train line and less > than X > > hours apart. > > Call be weird, but I must admit that I like the idea of a carbon tax. > The more jet fuel burned, the more damage there is to the environment > (all else constant). With a carbon tax, the price of jet fuel would be > higher. All else constant, people would have to pay more to fly, so > that they'd be less willing to fly. That would encourage video > conferencing. > > One thing about a carbon tax is that it's a collective solution. In > this individualistic age, it's hard (if not impossible) to rely on the > public spirit of individuals making no-flight pledges and the like to > deal with a societal problem. Absent large and active environmentalist > organizations that can count on their members to cooperate to abstain > _en masse_ from polluting activities on a large scale (rather than > simply sending checks to the organizations), the only way to have a > collective solution is for people to pressure the state to install > something like a carbon tax. Of course, that's pretty hard, too. > -- > Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your > own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected]
_______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
