In the late 1990's, a town in Nebraska was accumulating so much smoke from wood-burning stoves that residents were becoming sick. Asthma sufferers had to be hospitalized. Children couldn't play outside after school. A local bylaw was finally enacted to restrict wood burning to Monday, Wedensday, and Friday afternoons. The majority of the townspeople were outraged. How dare someone tell me what to do in my own home! they howled. What's next? You're going to tell me I can't drive my car? Can't own a gun? Can't have a second child, like in China?
Apparently, then as now, any restriction on unfettered freedom to consume, to do "just as I dang well please," just doesn't square with the American dream, even if people and culture and the planet are dying. Pity.
ukyfootball Wrote:Time for a carbon tax.
Carbon has nothing to do with particulate air pollution and our air is cleaner today than it has been in many decades. So is our water.
Thats why you would put the carbon tax on wood-burning stoves.
ukyfootball Wrote:Thats why you would put the carbon tax on wood-burning stoves.
Because our air is cleaner than ever? That makes no sense. Densely populated communities, where fireplaces and wood burning stoves can cause health problems, can restrict such pollution without taxing it.
If wood stoves are a serious health issue, then affluent people who can afford to pay a "carbon tax" should have no more right to pollute than a poor person who might only be able to afford to burn coal or wood.
Just as is the case with sin taxes on cigarettes and tobacco, the taxes really have nothing to do with politicians' concern for our health. It is all about the Benjamins.
Hoot Gibson Wrote:Because our air is cleaner than ever? That makes no sense. Densely populated communities, where fireplaces and wood burning stoves can cause health problems, can restrict such pollution without taxing it.
If wood stoves are a serious health issue, then affluent people who can afford to pay a "carbon tax" should have no more right to pollute than a poor person who might only be able to afford to burn coal or wood.
Just as is the case with sin taxes on cigarettes and tobacco, the taxes really have nothing to do with politicians' concern for our health. It is all about the Benjamins.
I meant at that point in time (1990's) in Nebraska, the carbon tax should have been placed on wood-burning stoves. However, it is time for a carbon tax, especially for corporations and factories that have no regard for the pollutants they put out. I find it hard to believe that our air is "cleaner than ever," compared to say the 1940's when cars werent as common.
ukyfootball Wrote:I meant at that point in time (1990's) in Nebraska, the carbon tax should have been placed on wood-burning stoves. However, it is time for a carbon tax, especially for corporations and factories that have no regard for the pollutants they put out. I find it hard to believe that our air is "cleaner than ever," compared to say the 1940's when cars werent as common.
You obviously were not around to breathe the air a few decades ago. There is no question that environmental regulations, beginning with Nixon's establishment of the EPA in the early 1970s, has resulted in much cleaner air. The Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught fire in the 1970s. Today, parks line the Cuyahoga and IMO, the Cleveland area has one of the best municipal park systems and network of bike paths in the country. The country is full of similar examples. I can still remember the smell of Gary, Indiana, in 1981, when my wife and I spent a night there on our way to Canada.
Any honest adult who did any traveling in this country 30 or 40 years ago will tell you the same thing. I believe that environmental regulations have gone way too far in many areas but nobody can deny that EPA regulations have made this a much cleaner country.
Let's start weaning the United States off fossil fuels by providing tax breaks to those companies developing and using alternative fuels rather than punishing everyone who lives the only way they have known.
This will create jobs, stimulate the economy, and allow all of us to gradually transition to a lifestyle independent from foreign oil and fossil fuels.
Stardust Wrote:Let's start weaning the United States off fossil fuels by providing tax breaks to those companies developing and using alternative fuels rather than punishing everyone who lives the only way they have known.
This will create jobs, stimulate the economy, and allow all of us to gradually transition to a lifestyle independent from foreign oil and fossil fuels.
:thumpsup: I agree but how will people like 0bama, Reid, and Pelosi get elected without promising to punish big, greedy, nasty, un-Amerian fossil fuel companies? Waging class warfare requires an steady supply of scapegoats.
This country will make the transition to other fuels when it becomes necessary and economically feasible. I favor removing taxes on all fuels. Oil companies pay roughly three times as much in taxes as they make in profits. That cost just ends up being included in the cost of goods and services offered by American companies.
Hoot Gibson Wrote::thumpsup: I agree but how will people like 0bama, Reid, and Pelosi get elected without promising to punish big, greedy, nasty, un-Amerian fossil fuel companies? Waging class warfare requires an steady supply of scapegoats.
This country will make the transition to other fuels when it becomes necessary and economically feasible. I favor removing taxes on all fuels. Oil companies pay roughly three times as much in taxes as they make in profits. That cost just ends up being included in the cost of goods and services offered by American companies.
Thats what the other side does not see. It would be easy increase taxes on the consumable, but does the consumable go away? No! So, who pays for the additional tax, or this falacy of a "Carbon Tax"? The poor and needy who will have to pay the mark-up that will be placed on the product. Yes, increase the tax on fuel 5% and put that single mother working 3 jobs quit them all and collect welfare because she can no longer afford transportation!