CO2 and global warming

(George William Herbert) wrote in message ...
Alex Terrell wrote:
Thanks for your detailed input, which is appreciated, even if we
disagree on most things below.

(George William Herbert) wrote:
Turn it from a progressive tax into a regressive tax.

No - focus tax cuts on lower earnings, that's replacing a progressive
tax with a progressive tax.

Per-capita US gasoline consumption is around 460 gal/person/year.
An additional $3/gal tax as you propose is about another $1,400
per person. Gas usage is fairly constant across economic levels.
A poor family of 4 with typical usage is going to see an additional
tax of $5,600/year, which exceeds their total taxation right now by
large margins.

That surprises me - it means that the average poor person (man, woman,
child, baby) drives 100 km in a day! The poorest people don't have
cars, and don't drive that far. They also don't consume as much
produce from distant places.

- Reduced imports from Oil Exporting Countries (which will help to
drive down the price of Oil).

Or do nothing to the price of oil, because China and India's demand
increase will fill the gap.

In other words, it won't go up as fast as it would otherwise.

It will also slow down production some; the economics of oil
production rates and pricing are a particularly nasty knot given
the various political factors, technical factors, and how many
different nations and organizations (OPEC) are involved.

Which is why Exxon is opposed to CO2 controls - in effect that means
putting some constraint on oil production.

- Encouraged people to live closer to their place of work, thus
cutting congestion

This sort of change requires that there be housing closer to their
place of work, which requires that there be space to build housing
closer to their place of work, which is not physically present
in a lot of places. Or, it requires knocking down existing
structures close to places of work and replacing them with
high(er) density housing.

Or it requires improved public transport, which would be a benefit in
any case.

Public transport is only cheaper in one measu fuel consumption.
In all other measures it costs more.

That's not true. Only the marginal cost of public transport is higher
for most people. Certainly in the UK, Inland Revenue allowed mileage
expense for cars (40p per mile), based on average running costs, are
much more than than the price pf most public transport journeys.

If CO2 emissions were not at issue, the cheapest solution is to
build as many roads as we can so that as many people can drive
as want to.

Not where land has any value. In America, CO2 emissions are not an
issue, but there's still a need for public transport.

snip


Let me give you a real world example: the San Francisco Bay Area.

The poor can live wherever they can afford to. This is the US and
people are free to move around. And it's the SF Bay Area, which
is fairly egalitarian and progressive even by European standards.

The reality is that as the economy and job growth come to various
subareas around the bay, each time it happens the poor are displaced
by incoming higher paid workers, and in large part despite the
building of low income housing the poor end up having to move
further away from job centers... out to Contra Costa County,
or the Central Valley, where they face 2-3 hour commutes.

There are certainly things wrong with the planning in this
area, but the reality of the situation is that the economics
shift faster than social and government planning can keep up,
and the poor keep getting squeezed out.

Sounds worse than anywhere in (high petrol tax) Europe, with the
possible exception of London area, which I think has a larger
population than the Bay Area, and fewer opportunities to build new
rail lines, let alone roads.

snip

The tech edge diesel engines now are cleaning up. Those motors are
not in widespread production. They require the low sulphur diesel
as well, which is going to cost more to produce, which is going to
be a net drag on the economy.

Low Sulphur diesel has been gradually introduced into the UK. Modern
diesels don't seem to need it - else we'd need two sets of pumps; and
I haven't notices a price difference.

snip

The west will not economically be in a position to carry through
with reforms, and to help the rest of the world adopt lower
emission energy sources, if we damage our economy now.

There are plenty of people disagreeing with me - as I expected. But no
one has explained how gradually shifting the basis of taxation from
desirable things (income and profit) to undesirable things (pollution)
will damage the economy.

Economics would suggest that taxing income less will increase income.
For the US, this is especially the case since the production of
pollution largely involves huge transfers of money from the USA to the
Middle East.

Alex Terrell wrote:
(George William Herbert) wrote in message ...
Per-capita US gasoline consumption is around 460 gal/person/year.
An additional $3/gal tax as you propose is about another $1,400
per person. Gas usage is fairly constant across economic levels.
A poor family of 4 with typical usage is going to see an additional
tax of $5,600/year, which exceeds their total taxation right now by
large margins.

That surprises me - it means that the average poor person (man, woman,
child, baby) drives 100 km in a day!

No, it does not. Notice George is talking about per
capita consumption, not individual use, which will
include indirect use. This includes the gas used
to ship their foods to the store where they buy
them, the gas used to shuttle their mail around,
the gas used to transport the coal used to generate
their electric power from the mine to the power
plant, etc, etc.


The poorest people don't have
cars, and don't drive that far. They also don't consume as much
produce from distant places.

This could be true depending on your definition of
"poorest", which could be taken to be a very small
slice. However, going by the generally regard
group of "poor", you would be completely wrong.
Many poor people have cars, ride buses, by products
shipped via automobile, etc.


There are plenty of people disagreeing with me - as I expected. But no
one has explained how gradually shifting the basis of taxation from
desirable things (income and profit) to undesirable things (pollution)
will damage the economy.

They already have said how. It will mean a massively
regressive tax.

(Alex Terrell) wrote:

(George William Herbert) wrote:

Per-capita US gasoline consumption is around 460 gal/person/year.
An additional $3/gal tax as you propose is about another $1,400
per person. Gas usage is fairly constant across economic levels.

That surprises me - it means that the average poor person (man, woman,
child, baby) drives 100 km in a day!

100 km per day would surprise me as well. Where do you get that number?
By my figures, it works out to be less than 25 km.

Starting with George's 460 gallons per year:

Assume a generous (I'll explain later) 20 miles per gallon. That's less
than 10000 miles per year, less than 30 miles (less than 45 km) per day.

The poorest people don't have cars, and don't drive that far.

The just slightly less poor drive cars which consume two to three times as
much fuel as my generous assumption above, lowering the expected driven
distance by the same factor.

Martin Frey wrote in message . ..
"Christopher M. Jones" wrote:

I think many of them hold my position as well (that
CO2 is a worthwhile concern but that Kyoto is junk
science and junk diplomacy) and their positions have
been similarly mistaken by the confusion of you and
others.

At the top of this (and related) threads the majority of contributors
hostile to Kyoto were hostile to the idea of human induced climate
change and hostile to the idea that change was necessary. If that
position has declined in significance progress has been made. I
apologise for lumping you in with them.

If the
goal is CO2 reduction then it ought not to matter which
other parties participate. If it's a worthy goal then
it's a worthy goal to achieve alone or partially. Both
the structure of Kyoto and the track record of actually
achieving CO2 goals indicates that the adherents do
not tend to think that CO2 emissions alone are a worthy
enough goal.

CO2 reduction is a political problem - it won't be achieved by
industry or by private citizens alone.

It may be a political problem, but the solution will be technological
- aren't they always?

That's the best thing about Kyoto - by itself, it'll have a barely
noticeable impact on climate change, partly because the worst
polluters are not included. But, for very little cost, it gives an
incentive to develop the technologies (and supporting processes) that
will make a real impact in the future.

An example might be the GW scale offshore wind farms being developed
in the UK.

Perhaps if Al Gore had been elected President and the USA had joined
Kyoto, there might be serious SSP research going on.

On 6 Oct 2004 02:05:41 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(Alex Terrell) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

It may be a political problem, but the solution will be technological
- aren't they always?

That's the best thing about Kyoto - by itself, it'll have a barely
noticeable impact on climate change, partly because the worst
polluters are not included. But, for very little cost,

For "very little cost"?

Perhaps if Al Gore had been elected President and the USA had joined
Kyoto, there might be serious SSP research going on.

That's a fantasy. The Senate rejected it unanimously, during the
Clinton-Gore administration. There's nothing about a Gore presidency
that would have changed that.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote:

That's a fantasy. The Senate rejected it unanimously, during the
Clinton-Gore administration. There's nothing about a Gore presidency
that would have changed that.

And the Senate, of course, is never wrong...

--
Martin

On Wed, 06 Oct 2004 18:23:49 +0100, in a place far, far away, Martin
Frey made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

(Rand Simberg) wrote:

That's a fantasy. The Senate rejected it unanimously, during the
Clinton-Gore administration. There's nothing about a Gore presidency
that would have changed that.

And the Senate, of course, is never wrong...

That's a separate issue. Right or wrong, it wasn't going to happen.
And it's still not going to happen, even if Jacques Kerry wins.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..
On 6 Oct 2004 02:05:41 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(Alex Terrell) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

It may be a political problem, but the solution will be technological
- aren't they always?

That's the best thing about Kyoto - by itself, it'll have a barely
noticeable impact on climate change, partly because the worst
polluters are not included. But, for very little cost,

For "very little cost"?

Most of the estimates seem to take the current beenfit from CO2
production and eliminate that, without looking for alternatives. Even
without changing the tax regime (as I've proposed elsewhere),
improving energy efficiency can save money.

Perhaps if Al Gore had been elected President and the USA had joined
Kyoto, there might be serious SSP research going on.

That's a fantasy. The Senate rejected it unanimously, during the
Clinton-Gore administration. There's nothing about a Gore presidency
that would have changed that.

I didn't know that. Though with NASA doing it, it would cost a few
times more than needed.

"Christopher M. Jones" wrote in message ...


There are plenty of people disagreeing with me - as I expected. But no
one has explained how gradually shifting the basis of taxation from
desirable things (income and profit) to undesirable things (pollution)
will damage the economy.

They already have said how. It will mean a massively
regressive tax.

Regressive taxes don't harm the economy. Actually, progressive taxes
do more to harm the economy, but we generally except them in order to
reduce inequality.

But I say, tax Petrol (gasoline) more, and reduce other taxes on the
poor. For this to be regressive, petrol taxes must be the most
progressive taxes in existence. I don't believe that they are.

There would also be a switch away from buying imported oil to buying
other goods and services. The amount of money leaving the US economy
to Gulf states would fall significantly. That must be a big benefit to
the US economy.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..
On 6 Oct 2004 02:05:41 -0700, in a place far, far away,
(Alex Terrell) made the phosphor on my monitor
glow in such a way as to indicate that:

It may be a political problem, but the solution will be technological
- aren't they always?

That's the best thing about Kyoto - by itself, it'll have a barely
noticeable impact on climate change, partly because the worst
polluters are not included. But, for very little cost,

For "very little cost"?

Yes.

Up till now, my conclusion of "very little cost" has been based on the
energy waste that I see in offices and factories and transportation,
and a look at some of the emerging technologies.

Now I found good supporting evidence in this weeks economist.

(http://www.economist.com/business/di...ory_id=3271647 -
I think it's public access). The best bit is about BP:

If any industry should be hostile to Kyoto, then it should be energy.
Yet in 1997, Lord Browne, the boss of BP, the world's second-largest
oil company, broke ranks and called for action on global warming.
Hoping to encourage a market-friendly approach by the EU, he vowed
that his company would reduce its emissions to 10% below 1990 levels
by 2010. He turned to Environmental Defence, a market-minded green
group that helped design America's successful sulphur-dioxide trading
system. Together, they implemented a cap-and-trade carbon scheme for
BP's various divisions worldwide.

The result? The firm met its targets eight years ahead of schedule
through a combination of higher efficiency, new technology and better
management of energy. Most impressive, Lord Browne explains, is the
price tag: "We've met it at no net economic cost—because the savings
from reduced energy inputs and increased efficiency have outweighed
all the expenditure involved." The costs of tackling climate change,
he concludes, "are clearly lower than many feared. This is a
manageable problem." By embracing Kyoto, the EU might just have given
its businesses an edge in the race towards clean energy.