You have been made dictator of the world. Your policies are going to be implemented without question. What new energy policies do you enact? Let’s restrict this to energy, as this could really get way off topic otherwise.
Here is what I do (with respect to the U.S.) I go on TV and just have a frank conversation with the public. I hit on both Global Warming and Peak Oil, explaining that we have to find other energy solutions because 1). Peak Oil is going to force us to; and 2). Global Warming is strongly suggesting that we do it ASAP. I go on to explain that there are no magic technological solutions waiting in the wings to save us. We aren’t going to go to the filling station and fill up on E85 or hydrogen. At least not any time soon. Sacrifice is required. I explain some of the possible scenarios if we don’t begin to sacrifice now. We either plan it now, or it hits us later without providing any parachutes for the fall.
The problem, I would explain, is that fossil fuels are simply too cheap. We use them too casually. We must stop doing this. We have to stop and really think about our fossil fuel usage. So, starting today, the tax on fossil fuels will be increased by $3/(barrel of oil equivalent) per month for at least the next 3 years, at which time this tax will be reviewed. The tax will apply to crude oil, natural gas, coal, tar sands, shale oil, etc. All fossil fuels. This tax increase is only $0.0714 per gallon per month, and a tax credit will be provided for those making less than $50,000 a year (because I am a benevolent dictator). The tax credit in each year will be high enough to offset the impact on the average consumer’s life. However, given that you know prices are going to be increasing, there is a tremendous incentive to begin conserving. Our ultimate objective is sustainability.
The money raised from this tax will be funneled into public transportation, alternative fuel research, conservation incentives, and the development of walkable communities. Proposals will be reviewed by a panel of scientists and engineers from the appropriate disciplines in academia and industry. Suggestions from the public are welcome, and will be considered based on technical merit. (No cars that run on water, though).
So, that’s the cornerstone of my energy policy. Do you have other suggestions? Alternatives to this? Or do you believe the market will provide, and such steps are unnecessary?
Encourage behavior you want more of and discourage what you don't want: public transportation becomes heavily subsidized, moving to no charge eventually; all non-emergency business close on Sundays (like the good ole days); increase air travel tax; turn yards into vegetable gardens; subsidize bicycles; remove the tax break for families who bear more than 2 kids and any family with more than 2 now who have more; tax meat...
It's almost as if you people think that peak oil is some kind of voluntary politically progressive phenomenon. Oil production will be 50% less globally in 17 years at a 4% annual decline rate.
The best thing that could happen right now, for the U.S at least, would be for most of the world to experience a re-birth in old-school maoism. China used so much less energy when they were true communists. Mugabe and Chavez are a good start.
So 4% is actually on the optimistic side.
Calculation is ln(.50)/ln(.96) =~ 17 for 6% ln(.50)/ln(.94) = 11.2 years. This is assuming we are past peak of course.
My, you are good, aren't you. Did somebody teach you about logarithms recently? Since quantities aren't logarithmic, the calculation you provided is nonsense.
I appreciate your point: "Oil production will be 50% less globally in 17 years at a 4% annual decline rate."
The rates are quite dramatic, no matter what they are, really (it seems to me). That said, I'd characterize the attempt here ("thought-experiment") as more like an effort to see what ideas and plans might be put forth, using "voluntary", and perhaps even "politically progressive" as part of the cultural components of dealing with the hard geologic facts.
In terms of China: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
"The plan is generally agreed to have failed in its intentions, leading to millions of deaths plus widespread economic dislocation, and is widely regarded both in and out of China as an unmitigated policy disaster."
more thoughts... remove all business tax breaks for vehicles that are not used for business (like doctors driving Lincoln Navigators); raise the CAFE standards on all vehicles; tax production of vehicles that do not meet CAFE standards and tax the buyer (if for a legit business -like construction- allow tax exemption); heavily subsidize residential solar panels; put a moratorium on higher education building construction and road constuction (not road repair)
I think the simplest solution is to remove the subsidies for roads.
If the full cost of road building was passed on to the driver it would have a impact.
Next the now private road maintainers could easily charge by weight for travel on the roads since heavier cars cause more damage. Note this would put a quick end to shipping via truck also which is a good thing.
Finally the only tax needed is a environmental carbon tax so you pay for the co2 you produce this can be easily applied as a heavy fuel tax. Of course this also means environment taxes on metal etc used to manufacture the car so the bigger the car the tax.
It could and should be progressive.
Thus the government is doing what it should which is protecting the commons i.e the environment while the auto industry is thrown to the free market.
This sort of taxing scheme could also be applied to all waste. A progressive tax on large private homes and a heavy environmental taxes on non-renewable energy generation.
So basically if governments make maintaining the commons of which the environment is a big part we can and will change. The approach is simply to ensure you pay your fair share for consumption.
As long as consumption and environmental degradation is subsidized we will never do the right thing.
As far as taxing multiple children goes realistic and effective methods of birth control are readily available male contraceptives are close. The answer here is being frank about
the need to curb unwanted pregnancies. And along side this raise the educational and economic level of the population. Almost all advanced economies move to negative growth rates over time naturally so draconian measure are probably not needed.
For example my parents had three children one died and one will probably never have children. I have three children but as you can see the chances are that we will remain below the replacement rate since my brother has no children.
You can of course extend this over larger groups the important point is that the overall population needs to trend negative for years to come. Simple improvements to the quality of life result in this overall trend.
Finally you can't crash a population with draconian laws as China will find out I'm sure.
A over abundance of retiree's is a major strain on and economy. Japans economy is basically dead now because of the demographics the US is going the same way. Balance is the key.
This mean we need to work out ways to deal with a large population for the foreseeable future. Generally this means reducing the environmental impact of each individual.
The first step I see is requiring all private land to be productive or it reverts back to public land. This means it must be farmed or leased to someone who farms it.
Farming itself should be environmentally sound and could consist of simply using the land as a renewable wood lot or renewable harvesting of a intrinsic resource of the land like say edible wild mushrooms. As long as you show good stewardship an that the land produces enough to pay its taxes you get to keep it. Buildings would be heavily taxed and considered part of the land.
Townships would get a fixed amount of land to build on based on the ability of the surrounding land to support the inhabitants and the quality of the land used to site the town. Next they also have and added burden of supporting larger towns this can be done by
taxing larger towns and sending the revenue out to the supporting villages.
The whole idea is to encourage correct demographics which is villages built on the poorest soils with reasonable sized towns scattered at a much lower density.
Finally these towns should be linked with electric rail powered by renewable energy sources. Internally electric trolleys can be used if needed. A solar/wind powered train is basically free after fixed costs. You can line the rail track with solar panels and gain far more energy than required to run the trains if the the population densities are
correct. And you can use mixed freight/commuter trains. So generally you will be running enough trains carrying goods that and additional car for the small number of passengers
is not prohibitive.
And last but not least we can eliminate the 9-5 job cycle for many and move to distributed robotic/expert factories for goods production. So technology can readily remove the need for the twice daily mass migration of people. Functional teleconferencing
and other communication methods can eliminate a lot of travel. We still have a need to meet people face to face just for human bonding if for nothing else but personal meetings can be called for the real reason we meet which is we need the physical interaction.
Finally the end goal is to determine how to maintain a productive renewable society. Every year the solar energy falling on the earth is enormous if we use a small part of this energy to increase the quality of life for everyone I think we will find that as we adopt this approach and the population decreases we will eventually reach a high standard of living for all. Its not a closed system but we have to become wise stewards of our photons. The reason I went through the whole scenario is I think its critical that society start working from where they want to be in 50-100 years and work backwards.
By getting a consensus on how we want and must live its trivial to accept changes we need to make to achieve those goals. Until we convert ourselves into such a long thinking culture I think you will find any measures designed to achieve this goal will be subverted. So I have little hope in band-aids unless I see a dramatic change in the way people think.
Don't ever forget the other stable culture is one where the king owns everything and the serfs live in misery. Its easy to go back to a king/slave culture. I question if we ever really escaped it. I think oil just allowed fat and happy slaves and a few more kings.
For example my parents had three children one died and one will probably never have children. I have three children but as you can see the chances are that we will remain below the replacement rate since my brother has no children.
I like how you've managed to justify indulging yourself in three children in you own mind. The population is way too large and draconian measures are needed to avert a die off. What would it have taken to persuade you to stop at zero or one?
My sincerest condolences, memmel. Don't feel like you have to justify your children. The guy who has one child isn't better than you because he made this decision. Children are a precious resource. And while population size is a problem, the children that we do have should be cherished, protected, and not criticized because they were born.
I have 3 children myself. The last two were both conceived while my wife was on birth control. Now that I have them, I can't imagine not having my two (birth control) boys.
I did not mean to be rude and maybe I should explain a bit.
Our first child died at a few months of age while I was living in Vietnam.
The hell I went throught trying to get her out of the country to treatment is unimaginable plus the experience of living for weeks in a rat infested third world hospital is something I think most people can't imagine.
I wash her feeding syringe so many times that the numbers wore off. And even though I could pay for more they simply did not have them.
Watching a baby die every night of a disease that is easily cured in the US is hard to live with.
I just want to say that I do understand deeply why people have so many children in the third world and I understand their pain when they lose them. I've lived with them through the experience.
Few people have and they truly have no idea which in one sense is good.
But on the other hand I feel that the entire world and our civilization is facing a crisis that requires us i.e. the entire human population to put aside our differences and opinions and work towards a better stable renewable civilization.
This means UNDERSTANDING why people have children and providing the safety net needed for people to feel comfortable with one or two children. And respecting the few that choose more for whatever reason.
I feel I do understand I have seen very few people put any effort into grappling the third worlds problems.
The will soon be ours or do you think a fence will stop millions of hungry Mexicans ?
I did not mean to be rude and maybe I should explain a bit.
No need to apologize for that.
Watching a baby die every night of a disease that is easily cured in the US is hard to live with.
I had two close calls with my own. My youngest nearly choked to death in my arms from congestion when he was 3 weeks old. I will never forget the feeling I had when I thought I was losing him. But we got him to the ER in time. Then, I saw my daughter run over (completely over) by a 750 pound snowmobile 2 years ago. Again, I thought I lost her and once again endured a feeling I don't wish on my worst enemy. Amazingly, the snowmobile just crushed her into the snow and she was bruised up.
These events have made me much, much more empathetic. I can't stand to see a child suffer, and my heart goes out to those who have lost children, or are suffering through a serious illness with a child.
I would not suggest for a minute that children are in some way "at fault" for being born, or that they should not be loved and cherished by their parents. You have my sympathy for the death of your child.
That being said; Every day there are an additional 1/4 million humans being added to the global population, which has doubled in my lifetime.
About 1/3 of all the humans who have ever lived are alive and walking around on the Earth right now.
In my opinion this is madness if we hope to survive as anything like a coherent culture.
Every day there are an additional 1/4 million humans being added to the global population, which has doubled in my lifetime. About 1/3 of all the humans who have ever lived are alive and walking around on the Earth right now.
It is also true that the world population is no longer growing exponentially. The rate of population growth is slowing and has been for some time (growth peaked in percentage terms at +2.19% in 1963, and in absolute terms at +87.8 million in 1989, according to the U.S. Census Bureau). Some here have argued that this is what happens in the last few generations of a species in overshoot, and others have argued that this is part of the normal course of demographic transition. If the latter is the case, world population is projected to max out at 9-10 billion people, then start to decline, sometime in the second half of this century.
I like your "no new roads" as the first up. And, just skimming below, I'm so sorry about your daughter. I'm touched you'd share this with us.
First, just a quick Q:
"Finally the only tax needed is a environmental carbon tax so you pay for the co2 you produce this can be easily applied as a heavy fuel tax. Of course this also means environment taxes on metal etc used to manufacture the car so the bigger the car the tax."
Could you possibly fill this in a bit more for me? How does this work? Who is taxed (exactly)? What about overseas manufacturing? Does this also amount to a tax on imports?
Don't you understand that what you're suggesting would be considered evil socialism by many, many powerful and not-so-powerful people in the United States? You're not just suggesting a change in policy, but in effect mandating a change in culture and in Americans' basic identity as a people.
You might as well be King George trying to tax tea, because rebellion is what you'll get.
Change the culture and the politics and the policy will follow. Don't, and, well, it'll be more of the same.
You're not just suggesting a change in policy, but in effect mandating a change in culture and in Americans' basic identity as a people.
Which is the reason for the frank talk. I want to be sure that they understand that such changes are coming, like it or not. I am giving them warning and allowing them time to prepare themselves. The hurricane is building offshore, and I am enacting mandatory evacuation procedures.
You might as well be King George trying to tax tea, because rebellion is what you'll get.
Given that I am dictator, the rebellion will be crushed. Besides, I think most people can be reasonable once they fully understand the consequences. You will never have everyone on board, but then again when has any policy pleased everyone?
I guess my point is that I think you are greatly underestimating the power of culture to replicate itself and its preferences. 'Reason' of the type you propose is exactly the reason that was used to argue against things like slavery in the years before the Civil War. Clearly it is unreasonable for a liberal culture to buy and sell people like animals, yet, for centuries, that is exactly what Americans did.
I'm not suggesting a civil war is coming, but cultural identity, especially when tied up with material self-interest, are things people will fight for when push comes to shove. Our leaders have referred to the American Way of Life as 'Blessed' and 'Non-negotiable.' It would be foolish not to take those statements in any other way than very, very seriously.
You're asking for a revolution. Don't be surprised at the counter-revolutionary backlash when the status quo really starts to come under pressure.
This tax increase is only $0.0714 per gallon per month
By the way, just to be clear that tax would be incremented by this amount every month. In other words, at the end of 3 years, the total tax will have increased by $2.57/gallon. That will influence behaviors, in my opinion.
Robert, if you give a tax credit that offsets the impact, then people still have enough money to just pay the increased costs, and in addition you have nothing left to funnel into alternatives. So, how much of total fuel usage is by those making $50,000 or less ? In the US, and in the world. That percentage is key to understanding whether there would be a significant reduction in useage and whether you would have much left over for alternatives.
Robert, if you give a tax credit that offsets the impact, then people still have enough money to just pay the increased costs, and in addition you have nothing left to funnel into alternatives.
First, they might have enough to pay it, but now they incentives to conserve. So they aren't likely to just use their credit to pay the increased gas costs. Conserving will put money in their pockets. Second, by giving little or no incentive to those making more than $50,000/year, you are still generating a lot of money. Those are the people that use disproportionately the most energy. Finally, I wouldn't give the tax credit forever. Only long enough to ease the pain of increasing gas prices.
And taking this line of thought a little futher .... you are covering the costs to those making under $50k/yr, and I would bet that your plan would have little impact on the useage of those making over say $150k/yr. So your reduction needs to come from those making between $50k and $150k/yr .... how much of the total energy is used by those people ? And by what percentage do you think they would reduce ?
Thanks
I like the idea of doing an analysis according to income groups. It makes me wonder...
When you write:
"...how much of the total energy is used by those people ?
In a sense, it seems would could track percentage of energy use as a simple function of money spent. On the other hand, this may not be so straightforward
Cut the defense budget to about 10% of the current levels and take the extra money and start buying american made windmills, solar cells, hybrid cars, bicycles, and trolley systems. No purchases (of anthing) from foreign countries unless they implement wage, energy efficiency, environmental, human right and retirement/welfare programs that meet certain set levels.
Significantly increase foreign aid for birth control, education, sustainable farming and human rights.
Buy all coal and natural gas powered power plants from owners and replace with nuclear plants.
go back to a non-fiat monetary system.
eliminate income tax and fund the government entirely on estate taxes, heavily biased to large estates. Eliminate all methods of transfering wealth without taxes.
universal single payer health care with maximum overhead costs of 5%.
Set a national goal to completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels by the year 2057, with a 50 reduction in the next 20 years.
"Cut the defense budget to about 10% of the current levels and take the extra money and start buying american made windmills, solar cells, hybrid cars, bicycles, and trolley systems."
America makes none of these succesfully and with high quality. I tried to find alternative energy stocks in the US to invest in... not one company is worth it. The Europeans and Asians have the way better products.
yes, but if we stop making things to kill people, I think that we can start making things that are actually of use to the human race.
Plus if we get rid of the burden of wasting half our health care dollars, and eliminate the ability to import items made with slave labor, I bet american industry will have no problem making high quality cost competetive products.
eliminate income tax and fund the government entirely on estate taxes, heavily biased to large estates. Eliminate all methods of transfering wealth without taxes.
If you eliminate Income taxes you just pass your wealth to your children using this vehicle. I form my LLC, hire my children, and pay them very well.
As dictator I would establish an energy and efficiency production authority to coordinate the following.
I would have engineers design a standardized thorium-floride reactor along with creating an accelerator driven reactor to handle the waste generated by uranium reactors.
I would have engineers design a standardized F-T system for biomass to liquid fuels. Kudzu, native grasses, and algae would be the feedstocks according to location.
I would use Government owned land to create algae farms.
I would use idled auto factories for the manufacture of wind turbines and turn the Great Plains and other similar areas into huge wind farms.
I would put water turbines in the Gulf Stream and other ocean currents where practical.
I would build a 500kv dc grid over the entire world as envisioned by Bucky Fuller.
As renewable energy capacity grows I would first close the coal mines and then the oil fields and finally the nat gas fields.
I would halt the construction of skyscrapers and as much as possible move housing, businesses, and industry underground. The savings in energy for heating and cooling would be enormous.
I would ban the manufacture of incandiscent light bulbs and look for more energy efficient alternatives for TVs and computer monitors.
I would bring back the street cars lines in our cities and rebuild the intercity rail network. There would be separate rail lines for passengers with their electric cars and for heavy freight.
I would have engineers design a standardized thorium-floride reactor along with creating an accelerator driven reactor to handle the waste generated by uranium reactors.
Great, but accelerator driven systems suck in every possible way, and most obvious is cost. Do you have any idea how much the accelerator would cost alone? The cost for the marginal benifit of avoiding some criticality issues is much better addressed by simply having safety systems that manage criticality excursions in safe, cost effective ways such as excess cooling systems and freeze plugs for draining the liquid fuel into critically dampened dump tanks. This would almost never happen anyways.
See the problem with fast reactors really is lack of control of reactivity flux. Most of the reactivity flux in a thermal reactor is from delayed neutrons and so your reactivity changes on the order of minutes, so you can adjust the control rods easily in time. In a fast reactor reactivity changes on the order of milliseconds because most of the neutrons are 'prompt.' So in a fast reactor you can get a reactivity spike and go on a criticality excursion... what this means is you'll get a heat and neutron flash before doppler broadening and negative temperature coefficients slow down the reaction.
Its an engineering challenge. If a reactor isn't designed to manage such excursions you can have a fuel meltdown in a solid fuel reactor and damage to the reactor vessel. In a liquid chloride reactor you can just design the vessel to withstand neutron flashes and temperature spikes... and the fuel cant melt any more than it allready is. If everything goes really wrong and the reactor continues on its criticality excursion, a metal plug with a low melting point in the floor of the reactor vessel melts (because it was designed to) and the fuel drains into dump tanks until the tech can figure out what went wrong.
A critical liquid-chloride reactor can manage all the goals of actinide burning at a cost similar to liquid fluoride reactors.
I would halt the construction of skyscrapers and as much as possible move housing, businesses, and industry underground. The savings in energy for heating and cooling would be enormous.
I would ban the manufacture of incandiscent light bulbs and look for more energy efficient alternatives for TVs and computer monitors.
These social engineering ideas are far from being an obvious solution to real problems. We have enough nuclear fuel so that we might just as well build another power plant than worry about conserving every last erg.
The accellerator driven reactor concept may turn out to be relatively expensive but the world may only need a small number for the primary purpose of transmutation of plutonium, uranium, and other long half-life isotopes into stable and short half-life isotopes.
The history of high cost nukes is the result of each plant being a customised design. A standardised design of a pebble-bed or Thorium-floride reactor would be quite less costly if built in the hundreds. By co-locating industries that could use the turbine exhaust as process heat, such as ethanol plants, then the use of other fuels for those purposes is eliminated.
How about a mandatory 4 day work week? The goal would be to try to reduce energy usage by getting everyone to stay home and not drive anywhere. This would be a huge cultural challange. People would be tempted to drive to the mall or go somewhere by car. You would have to convince people that they should use that extra day to plan to make the 4 working days as productive as 5. Actually, i think being as productive in 4 days as 5 is a challange that Americans can handle and would want to take on.
You have been made dictator of the world. Your policies are going to be implemented without question. What new energy policies do you enact? Let’s restrict this to energy, as this could really get way off topic otherwise.
Here is what I do (with respect to the U.S.) I go on TV and just have a frank conversation with the public. I hit on both Global Warming and Peak Oil, explaining that we have to find other energy solutions because 1). Peak Oil is going to force us to; and 2). Global Warming is strongly suggesting that we do it ASAP. I go on to explain that there are no magic technological solutions waiting in the wings to save us. We aren’t going to go to the filling station and fill up on E85 or hydrogen. At least not any time soon. Sacrifice is required. I explain some of the possible scenarios if we don’t begin to sacrifice now. We either plan it now, or it hits us later without providing any parachutes for the fall.
The problem, I would explain, is that fossil fuels are simply too cheap. We use them too casually. We must stop doing this. We have to stop and really think about our fossil fuel usage. So, starting today, the tax on fossil fuels will be increased by $3/(barrel of oil equivalent) per month for at least the next 3 years, at which time this tax will be reviewed. The tax will apply to crude oil, natural gas, coal, tar sands, shale oil, etc. All fossil fuels. This tax increase is only $0.0714 per gallon per month, and a tax credit will be provided for those making less than $50,000 a year (because I am a benevolent dictator). The tax credit in each year will be high enough to offset the impact on the average consumer’s life. However, given that you know prices are going to be increasing, there is a tremendous incentive to begin conserving. Our ultimate objective is sustainability.
The money raised from this tax will be funneled into public transportation, alternative fuel research, conservation incentives, and the development of walkable communities. Proposals will be reviewed by a panel of scientists and engineers from the appropriate disciplines in academia and industry. Suggestions from the public are welcome, and will be considered based on technical merit. (No cars that run on water, though).
So, that’s the cornerstone of my energy policy. Do you have other suggestions? Alternatives to this? Or do you believe the market will provide, and such steps are unnecessary?
Encourage behavior you want more of and discourage what you don't want: public transportation becomes heavily subsidized, moving to no charge eventually; all non-emergency business close on Sundays (like the good ole days); increase air travel tax; turn yards into vegetable gardens; subsidize bicycles; remove the tax break for families who bear more than 2 kids and any family with more than 2 now who have more; tax meat...
It's almost as if you people think that peak oil is some kind of voluntary politically progressive phenomenon. Oil production will be 50% less globally in 17 years at a 4% annual decline rate.
The best thing that could happen right now, for the U.S at least, would be for most of the world to experience a re-birth in old-school maoism. China used so much less energy when they were true communists. Mugabe and Chavez are a good start.
Where do you get the 4% decline figure? Out of the money tree?
http://www.aspo-usa.com/proceedings/powerpoint/The%20Peak%20Oil%20Contex...
So 4% is actually on the optimistic side.
Calculation is ln(.50)/ln(.96) =~ 17 for 6% ln(.50)/ln(.94) = 11.2 years. This is assuming we are past peak of course.
My, you are good, aren't you. Did somebody teach you about logarithms recently? Since quantities aren't logarithmic, the calculation you provided is nonsense.
Your objection makes no sense, a fact which is easy to see if you just plug his numbers back in:
4% decline for 17 years = (0.96)^17 = 0.499587 = 50% less
Tag him for basing the calculation on a wild-ass guess, sure, but the calculation itself is correct.
Hi abelard,
I appreciate your point: "Oil production will be 50% less globally in 17 years at a 4% annual decline rate."
The rates are quite dramatic, no matter what they are, really (it seems to me). That said, I'd characterize the attempt here ("thought-experiment") as more like an effort to see what ideas and plans might be put forth, using "voluntary", and perhaps even "politically progressive" as part of the cultural components of dealing with the hard geologic facts.
In terms of China:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
"The plan is generally agreed to have failed in its intentions, leading to millions of deaths plus widespread economic dislocation, and is widely regarded both in and out of China as an unmitigated policy disaster."
I like everything. I would add education in conserving. Teach people how to conserve. What helps and what does not help.
Question: Would the tax apply to electicity generated by fossil fuels?
Rick
Question: Would the tax apply to electicity generated by fossil fuels?
Yes. Coal-generated electricity is a major contributor to Global Warming, and coal mining isn't exactly environmentally benign.
Don't forget Natural Gas generated electricty.
Rick
more thoughts... remove all business tax breaks for vehicles that are not used for business (like doctors driving Lincoln Navigators); raise the CAFE standards on all vehicles; tax production of vehicles that do not meet CAFE standards and tax the buyer (if for a legit business -like construction- allow tax exemption); heavily subsidize residential solar panels; put a moratorium on higher education building construction and road constuction (not road repair)
I think the simplest solution is to remove the subsidies for roads.
If the full cost of road building was passed on to the driver it would have a impact.
Next the now private road maintainers could easily charge by weight for travel on the roads since heavier cars cause more damage. Note this would put a quick end to shipping via truck also which is a good thing.
Finally the only tax needed is a environmental carbon tax so you pay for the co2 you produce this can be easily applied as a heavy fuel tax. Of course this also means environment taxes on metal etc used to manufacture the car so the bigger the car the tax.
It could and should be progressive.
Thus the government is doing what it should which is protecting the commons i.e the environment while the auto industry is thrown to the free market.
This sort of taxing scheme could also be applied to all waste. A progressive tax on large private homes and a heavy environmental taxes on non-renewable energy generation.
So basically if governments make maintaining the commons of which the environment is a big part we can and will change. The approach is simply to ensure you pay your fair share for consumption.
As long as consumption and environmental degradation is subsidized we will never do the right thing.
As far as taxing multiple children goes realistic and effective methods of birth control are readily available male contraceptives are close. The answer here is being frank about
the need to curb unwanted pregnancies. And along side this raise the educational and economic level of the population. Almost all advanced economies move to negative growth rates over time naturally so draconian measure are probably not needed.
For example my parents had three children one died and one will probably never have children. I have three children but as you can see the chances are that we will remain below the replacement rate since my brother has no children.
You can of course extend this over larger groups the important point is that the overall population needs to trend negative for years to come. Simple improvements to the quality of life result in this overall trend.
Finally you can't crash a population with draconian laws as China will find out I'm sure.
A over abundance of retiree's is a major strain on and economy. Japans economy is basically dead now because of the demographics the US is going the same way. Balance is the key.
This mean we need to work out ways to deal with a large population for the foreseeable future. Generally this means reducing the environmental impact of each individual.
The first step I see is requiring all private land to be productive or it reverts back to public land. This means it must be farmed or leased to someone who farms it.
Farming itself should be environmentally sound and could consist of simply using the land as a renewable wood lot or renewable harvesting of a intrinsic resource of the land like say edible wild mushrooms. As long as you show good stewardship an that the land produces enough to pay its taxes you get to keep it. Buildings would be heavily taxed and considered part of the land.
Townships would get a fixed amount of land to build on based on the ability of the surrounding land to support the inhabitants and the quality of the land used to site the town. Next they also have and added burden of supporting larger towns this can be done by
taxing larger towns and sending the revenue out to the supporting villages.
The whole idea is to encourage correct demographics which is villages built on the poorest soils with reasonable sized towns scattered at a much lower density.
Finally these towns should be linked with electric rail powered by renewable energy sources. Internally electric trolleys can be used if needed. A solar/wind powered train is basically free after fixed costs. You can line the rail track with solar panels and gain far more energy than required to run the trains if the the population densities are
correct. And you can use mixed freight/commuter trains. So generally you will be running enough trains carrying goods that and additional car for the small number of passengers
is not prohibitive.
And last but not least we can eliminate the 9-5 job cycle for many and move to distributed robotic/expert factories for goods production. So technology can readily remove the need for the twice daily mass migration of people. Functional teleconferencing
and other communication methods can eliminate a lot of travel. We still have a need to meet people face to face just for human bonding if for nothing else but personal meetings can be called for the real reason we meet which is we need the physical interaction.
Finally the end goal is to determine how to maintain a productive renewable society. Every year the solar energy falling on the earth is enormous if we use a small part of this energy to increase the quality of life for everyone I think we will find that as we adopt this approach and the population decreases we will eventually reach a high standard of living for all. Its not a closed system but we have to become wise stewards of our photons. The reason I went through the whole scenario is I think its critical that society start working from where they want to be in 50-100 years and work backwards.
By getting a consensus on how we want and must live its trivial to accept changes we need to make to achieve those goals. Until we convert ourselves into such a long thinking culture I think you will find any measures designed to achieve this goal will be subverted. So I have little hope in band-aids unless I see a dramatic change in the way people think.
Don't ever forget the other stable culture is one where the king owns everything and the serfs live in misery. Its easy to go back to a king/slave culture. I question if we ever really escaped it. I think oil just allowed fat and happy slaves and a few more kings.
I like how you've managed to justify indulging yourself in three children in you own mind. The population is way too large and draconian measures are needed to avert a die off. What would it have taken to persuade you to stop at zero or one?
I did not mention that I also had a child die.
So fuck off.
My sincerest condolences, memmel. Don't feel like you have to justify your children. The guy who has one child isn't better than you because he made this decision. Children are a precious resource. And while population size is a problem, the children that we do have should be cherished, protected, and not criticized because they were born.
I have 3 children myself. The last two were both conceived while my wife was on birth control. Now that I have them, I can't imagine not having my two (birth control) boys.
Thanks Robert...
I did not mean to be rude and maybe I should explain a bit.
Our first child died at a few months of age while I was living in Vietnam.
The hell I went throught trying to get her out of the country to treatment is unimaginable plus the experience of living for weeks in a rat infested third world hospital is something I think most people can't imagine.
I wash her feeding syringe so many times that the numbers wore off. And even though I could pay for more they simply did not have them.
Watching a baby die every night of a disease that is easily cured in the US is hard to live with.
I just want to say that I do understand deeply why people have so many children in the third world and I understand their pain when they lose them. I've lived with them through the experience.
Few people have and they truly have no idea which in one sense is good.
But on the other hand I feel that the entire world and our civilization is facing a crisis that requires us i.e. the entire human population to put aside our differences and opinions and work towards a better stable renewable civilization.
This means UNDERSTANDING why people have children and providing the safety net needed for people to feel comfortable with one or two children. And respecting the few that choose more for whatever reason.
I feel I do understand I have seen very few people put any effort into grappling the third worlds problems.
The will soon be ours or do you think a fence will stop millions of hungry Mexicans ?
I did not mean to be rude and maybe I should explain a bit.
No need to apologize for that.
Watching a baby die every night of a disease that is easily cured in the US is hard to live with.
I had two close calls with my own. My youngest nearly choked to death in my arms from congestion when he was 3 weeks old. I will never forget the feeling I had when I thought I was losing him. But we got him to the ER in time. Then, I saw my daughter run over (completely over) by a 750 pound snowmobile 2 years ago. Again, I thought I lost her and once again endured a feeling I don't wish on my worst enemy. Amazingly, the snowmobile just crushed her into the snow and she was bruised up.
These events have made me much, much more empathetic. I can't stand to see a child suffer, and my heart goes out to those who have lost children, or are suffering through a serious illness with a child.
I would not suggest for a minute that children are in some way "at fault" for being born, or that they should not be loved and cherished by their parents. You have my sympathy for the death of your child.
That being said; Every day there are an additional 1/4 million humans being added to the global population, which has doubled in my lifetime.
About 1/3 of all the humans who have ever lived are alive and walking around on the Earth right now.
In my opinion this is madness if we hope to survive as anything like a coherent culture.
Assign what value statements you wish to this.
It is also true that the world population is no longer growing exponentially. The rate of population growth is slowing and has been for some time (growth peaked in percentage terms at +2.19% in 1963, and in absolute terms at +87.8 million in 1989, according to the U.S. Census Bureau). Some here have argued that this is what happens in the last few generations of a species in overshoot, and others have argued that this is part of the normal course of demographic transition. If the latter is the case, world population is projected to max out at 9-10 billion people, then start to decline, sometime in the second half of this century.
Why is the population too large? We aren't short of crops now or even close.
Hi m,
I like your "no new roads" as the first up. And, just skimming below, I'm so sorry about your daughter. I'm touched you'd share this with us.
First, just a quick Q:
"Finally the only tax needed is a environmental carbon tax so you pay for the co2 you produce this can be easily applied as a heavy fuel tax. Of course this also means environment taxes on metal etc used to manufacture the car so the bigger the car the tax."
Could you possibly fill this in a bit more for me? How does this work? Who is taxed (exactly)? What about overseas manufacturing? Does this also amount to a tax on imports?
Don't you understand that what you're suggesting would be considered evil socialism by many, many powerful and not-so-powerful people in the United States? You're not just suggesting a change in policy, but in effect mandating a change in culture and in Americans' basic identity as a people.
You might as well be King George trying to tax tea, because rebellion is what you'll get.
Change the culture and the politics and the policy will follow. Don't, and, well, it'll be more of the same.
You're not just suggesting a change in policy, but in effect mandating a change in culture and in Americans' basic identity as a people.
Which is the reason for the frank talk. I want to be sure that they understand that such changes are coming, like it or not. I am giving them warning and allowing them time to prepare themselves. The hurricane is building offshore, and I am enacting mandatory evacuation procedures.
You might as well be King George trying to tax tea, because rebellion is what you'll get.
Given that I am dictator, the rebellion will be crushed. Besides, I think most people can be reasonable once they fully understand the consequences. You will never have everyone on board, but then again when has any policy pleased everyone?
I guess my point is that I think you are greatly underestimating the power of culture to replicate itself and its preferences. 'Reason' of the type you propose is exactly the reason that was used to argue against things like slavery in the years before the Civil War. Clearly it is unreasonable for a liberal culture to buy and sell people like animals, yet, for centuries, that is exactly what Americans did.
I'm not suggesting a civil war is coming, but cultural identity, especially when tied up with material self-interest, are things people will fight for when push comes to shove. Our leaders have referred to the American Way of Life as 'Blessed' and 'Non-negotiable.' It would be foolish not to take those statements in any other way than very, very seriously.
You're asking for a revolution. Don't be surprised at the counter-revolutionary backlash when the status quo really starts to come under pressure.
This tax increase is only $0.0714 per gallon per month
By the way, just to be clear that tax would be incremented by this amount every month. In other words, at the end of 3 years, the total tax will have increased by $2.57/gallon. That will influence behaviors, in my opinion.
Robert, if you give a tax credit that offsets the impact, then people still have enough money to just pay the increased costs, and in addition you have nothing left to funnel into alternatives. So, how much of total fuel usage is by those making $50,000 or less ? In the US, and in the world. That percentage is key to understanding whether there would be a significant reduction in useage and whether you would have much left over for alternatives.
Robert, if you give a tax credit that offsets the impact, then people still have enough money to just pay the increased costs, and in addition you have nothing left to funnel into alternatives.
First, they might have enough to pay it, but now they incentives to conserve. So they aren't likely to just use their credit to pay the increased gas costs. Conserving will put money in their pockets. Second, by giving little or no incentive to those making more than $50,000/year, you are still generating a lot of money. Those are the people that use disproportionately the most energy. Finally, I wouldn't give the tax credit forever. Only long enough to ease the pain of increasing gas prices.
And taking this line of thought a little futher .... you are covering the costs to those making under $50k/yr, and I would bet that your plan would have little impact on the useage of those making over say $150k/yr. So your reduction needs to come from those making between $50k and $150k/yr .... how much of the total energy is used by those people ? And by what percentage do you think they would reduce ?
Thanks
Hi R,
I like the idea of doing an analysis according to income groups. It makes me wonder...
When you write:
"...how much of the total energy is used by those people ?
In a sense, it seems would could track percentage of energy use as a simple function of money spent. On the other hand, this may not be so straightforward
Cut the defense budget to about 10% of the current levels and take the extra money and start buying american made windmills, solar cells, hybrid cars, bicycles, and trolley systems. No purchases (of anthing) from foreign countries unless they implement wage, energy efficiency, environmental, human right and retirement/welfare programs that meet certain set levels.
Significantly increase foreign aid for birth control, education, sustainable farming and human rights.
Buy all coal and natural gas powered power plants from owners and replace with nuclear plants.
go back to a non-fiat monetary system.
eliminate income tax and fund the government entirely on estate taxes, heavily biased to large estates. Eliminate all methods of transfering wealth without taxes.
universal single payer health care with maximum overhead costs of 5%.
Set a national goal to completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels by the year 2057, with a 50 reduction in the next 20 years.
"Cut the defense budget to about 10% of the current levels and take the extra money and start buying american made windmills, solar cells, hybrid cars, bicycles, and trolley systems."
America makes none of these succesfully and with high quality. I tried to find alternative energy stocks in the US to invest in... not one company is worth it. The Europeans and Asians have the way better products.
:-(
yes, but if we stop making things to kill people, I think that we can start making things that are actually of use to the human race.
Plus if we get rid of the burden of wasting half our health care dollars, and eliminate the ability to import items made with slave labor, I bet american industry will have no problem making high quality cost competetive products.
If you eliminate Income taxes you just pass your wealth to your children using this vehicle. I form my LLC, hire my children, and pay them very well.
As dictator I would establish an energy and efficiency production authority to coordinate the following.
I would have engineers design a standardized thorium-floride reactor along with creating an accelerator driven reactor to handle the waste generated by uranium reactors.
I would have engineers design a standardized F-T system for biomass to liquid fuels. Kudzu, native grasses, and algae would be the feedstocks according to location.
I would use Government owned land to create algae farms.
I would use idled auto factories for the manufacture of wind turbines and turn the Great Plains and other similar areas into huge wind farms.
I would put water turbines in the Gulf Stream and other ocean currents where practical.
I would build a 500kv dc grid over the entire world as envisioned by Bucky Fuller.
As renewable energy capacity grows I would first close the coal mines and then the oil fields and finally the nat gas fields.
I would halt the construction of skyscrapers and as much as possible move housing, businesses, and industry underground. The savings in energy for heating and cooling would be enormous.
I would ban the manufacture of incandiscent light bulbs and look for more energy efficient alternatives for TVs and computer monitors.
I would bring back the street cars lines in our cities and rebuild the intercity rail network. There would be separate rail lines for passengers with their electric cars and for heavy freight.
Great, but accelerator driven systems suck in every possible way, and most obvious is cost. Do you have any idea how much the accelerator would cost alone? The cost for the marginal benifit of avoiding some criticality issues is much better addressed by simply having safety systems that manage criticality excursions in safe, cost effective ways such as excess cooling systems and freeze plugs for draining the liquid fuel into critically dampened dump tanks. This would almost never happen anyways.
See the problem with fast reactors really is lack of control of reactivity flux. Most of the reactivity flux in a thermal reactor is from delayed neutrons and so your reactivity changes on the order of minutes, so you can adjust the control rods easily in time. In a fast reactor reactivity changes on the order of milliseconds because most of the neutrons are 'prompt.' So in a fast reactor you can get a reactivity spike and go on a criticality excursion... what this means is you'll get a heat and neutron flash before doppler broadening and negative temperature coefficients slow down the reaction.
Its an engineering challenge. If a reactor isn't designed to manage such excursions you can have a fuel meltdown in a solid fuel reactor and damage to the reactor vessel. In a liquid chloride reactor you can just design the vessel to withstand neutron flashes and temperature spikes... and the fuel cant melt any more than it allready is. If everything goes really wrong and the reactor continues on its criticality excursion, a metal plug with a low melting point in the floor of the reactor vessel melts (because it was designed to) and the fuel drains into dump tanks until the tech can figure out what went wrong.
A critical liquid-chloride reactor can manage all the goals of actinide burning at a cost similar to liquid fluoride reactors.
http://www.energyfromthorium.com/pdf/MCFR_BATR.pdf
These social engineering ideas are far from being an obvious solution to real problems. We have enough nuclear fuel so that we might just as well build another power plant than worry about conserving every last erg.
The accellerator driven reactor concept may turn out to be relatively expensive but the world may only need a small number for the primary purpose of transmutation of plutonium, uranium, and other long half-life isotopes into stable and short half-life isotopes.
The history of high cost nukes is the result of each plant being a customised design. A standardised design of a pebble-bed or Thorium-floride reactor would be quite less costly if built in the hundreds. By co-locating industries that could use the turbine exhaust as process heat, such as ethanol plants, then the use of other fuels for those purposes is eliminated.
How about a mandatory 4 day work week? The goal would be to try to reduce energy usage by getting everyone to stay home and not drive anywhere. This would be a huge cultural challange. People would be tempted to drive to the mall or go somewhere by car. You would have to convince people that they should use that extra day to plan to make the 4 working days as productive as 5. Actually, i think being as productive in 4 days as 5 is a challange that Americans can handle and would want to take on.