Carbon taxes

(Based on an email to my dad about the climate change debate)

Quoting Jeff Turcios

'We all want to live in safe and clean homes, in safe and clean neighborhoods and even in safe and clean cities. But the minute the conversation gets expanded to a global scope we suddenly don’t care. Maybe it’s because we don’t care. Maybe it’s because the minute it’s not our problem it’s not a problem. Maybe having a comfortable life at the expense of others and other things is okay by us. I hope for our sake we don’t find ourselves on the other end of that transaction.'

I agree that from an individual's, a town's or a city's perspective, 'environmentalism' is inefficient and annoying. But from the larger perspectives of those who make national and international policy - waste and it's effects can't be placed where it not in someone's backyard. They either try to address it or ignore it. The first environmental book ('Silent Spring') started a movement around the idea that there are unintended consequences of some of our actions that effect living beings on our planet other than ourselves (ourselves could be 'us' individually, or 'us' as a human species). So on one hand, I think environmentalism comes naturally out of empathy, out of the golden rule. If you can conceive that the planet's living beings are a family, things like DDT, ozone, acid rain, the london smog, leaded gasoline etc. and maybe even global warming has and/or will hurt or killed innocent living beings, then it might be 'right' to adjust some of our activities so that these exposures are prevented.

But on the other hand, this empathy can be ridiculous if taken to far. So, as an individual I like the idea of keeping as many animals around that live 'in the wild' as possible. Let's save the whales and all endangered species I say. Yet, I still go around killing roaches around my sink though they are surely living 'in their wild.' I think this obvious contradiction of mine is similar to the one you point out about global warming. That is, if it is true, which will not be proven until it happens I agree, global warming would be only a consequence of the way we live vis a vis the way we are. This is parallel to the fact that killing roaches is a necessity to have a home I can live in (even with my Buddhist tendencies.)

Anyway, I am skeptical about global warming being accurately predicted, and about its effects. It feels right to me that we should have some reverence for our world and its living things. But at the same time, I must keep my apartment clean of roaches, and I do not expect the lion to lay with the lamb. We will be who and what we are. But there are some things that make sense where almost everyone wins - i.e. using more solar power, wind power, water power (white water rafters don't like this one though) instead of burning fuel or avoiding leaving your car running, leaving your lights on, throwing away perfectly good food. Maybe even some disincentives to using carbon fuels to shift to 'renewable' resources so that oil rich countries do not have a monopoly .. I'd support carbon tax to help shift peoples' choices toward more sustainable practices, I don't think there needs to be global warming to think that.

I think what makes us humans different in the family of beings on earth, is we can recognize the effects we have on things and we can adjust ourselves slightly. I.E. an international carbon tax in the case of burning fuel, and for me a move to a new apartment without roaches.